Another Arms Race?

[MisterMike]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...p/20041117/ap_on_re_eu/russia_nuclear_weapons

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) said Wednesday that Russia is developing a new form of nuclear missile unlike those held by other countries, news agencies reported.



Speaking at a meeting of the Armed Forces' leadership, Putin reportedly said that Russia is researching and successfully testing new nuclear missile systems.


"I am sure that ... they will be put in service within the next few years and, what is more, they will be developments of the kind that other nuclear powers do not and will not have," Putin was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency.

I thought we were done with this stuff???

:idunno:

 

[someguy]

My solution would end any arms races.
Nuke'em all.
To hell with the whole having a world to live on.

 

[shesulsa]

"I don't know how we're going to fight World War III, but I know how we're going to fight World War IV - with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein

 

[Adept]

They are, IMHO, moving in the wrong direction. Throughout history, the race between offensive and defensive power has swung first one way, then the other. In terms of nuclear weapons, both strategic and tactical, the future is swinging in favour of defense. No matter how good the new nukes are, hopefully there will be (by then) a missile 'shield' good enough to stop them.

 

[Flatlander]

No matter how good the new nukes are, hopefully there will be (by then) a missile 'shield' good enough to stop them.

According to the article MisterMike posted,

Earlier this year, a senior Defense Ministry official was quoted as telling news agencies that Russia had developed a weapon that could make the United States' proposed missile-defense system useless. Details were not given, but military analysts said the claimed new weapon could be a hypersonic cruise missile or maneuverable ballistic missile warheads

Freaky.

 

[OUMoose]

Hmmm... Wonder if they'll combine this technology with the company that flew a plane with brain cells grown on a silicon chip.

Odd... Cyberdyne doesn't SOUND like a Russian name.

 

[Adept]

Odd... Cyberdyne doesn't SOUND like a Russian name.

Skynet does, kinda...

@Flatlander: That's their plan. I doubt it will advance as quickly as the US counterpart will. The Russians simply dont have the money to keep the best brains in the business.

 

[MisterMike]

HEre's what else Putin said:

Putin reportedly said: "International terrorism is one of the major threats for Russia. We understand as soon as we ignore such components of our defense as a nuclear and missile shield, other threats may occur."

So nukes will be thier response to terrorism? RIGHT ON.

 

[Cruentus]

HEre's what else Putin said:



So nukes will be thier response to terrorism? RIGHT ON.

Not to fear monger, but we should be concerned with this. Many parts of the rest of the world sees us as terrorists, even if that isn't the right way to look at us.

 

[PeachMonkey]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...p/20041117/ap_on_re_eu/russia_nuclear_weaponsI thought we were done with this stuff???

Given the quote Flatlander pointed out, this appears to be a natural response to the United States' choice to pull out of the ABM Treaty.

Given that the US appears to demonstrate the intent to develop anti-ballistic-missile technology that could attrit Russia's ability to deliver a devastating nuclear strike, it would make a certain (depraved) sense that Russia would feel the need to advance their missile technology to defeat our ABM devices.

 

[MisterMike]

With countries like N. Korea capable (or soon) to strike the US on the West coast, I should think we would want a good defense system.

 

[OULobo]

Bush, being a neo-con Reaganite, should love the opportunity to plunge us deeper in debt with a second cold war.

 

[michaeledward]

The United States is still pursuing development of nuclear weapons. Why on earth would we think that other countries do not do the same?

Specifically, for several years now, there has been a push for a 'low yield, earth penetrating' nuclear weapon.

http://www.fas.org/main/content.jsp?formAction=297&contentId=151

Concerning Defense / Offense: all tests indicate that the defensive missile shield would not function to any acceptable measure of safety. The remnents of the Strategic Defense Initiative is just a taxpayer charity for those companies working on this foolish project. To think that a ballistic missile is the only way to deliver a nuclear weapon in the 21st century is naive in the extreme.

Mike

 

[Cruentus]

Plus...

Keep in mind, friends, an arms race or a "building up of our (already giant) defense system" has more to do with making money for a small few (again) at the expense of the masses (again).

It creates what is called an Iron triangle: Money Goes from the government (budget) to research and developement of new weapons, which goes into the pockets of private entities who are the ones who do the research and developement. Then these entities take some of their wealth an allocate back into the pockets of politicians (campaign finance, PAC, lobbiests, etc., etc.) which in turn pressures these politicians to keep our defense budget high, and to keep dumping money into research and developement.

Government >> Companies >> Politicians

That is the triangle.

What people don't like to think about is where the money is coming from? It comes from our tax dollars, of course. So instead of keeping health care costs down or nationalizing some sort of plan, instead of making sure our troops are equipted with what they need (including equipted with high enough salaries to take care of their families back home), instead of making sure schools have what they need, etc., etc., and ridiculesly etc., this is one of those things that millions of our dollars gets to be spent on instead.

Now, I know what some Yay-hoo is going to say next. "But we need to keep researching and developing new weapons so we can make sure we can defend ourselves." Well, this is wrong.

All countries need (I hate to use the word "need" here) to keep things neutral in terms of nuclear war is what is called "mutually ensured destruction." Mutually ensured destruction is where both you and I have enough nukes to mutually destroy ourselves. If anyone launches Nukes on the U.S., we have enough nukes to tag them and hard before we are hit. And since we are talking about the U.S. here, we have enough nukes to tag EVERYONE about 10 times over before we are hit.

So, countries who care about their own well being will NEVER hit us with a Nuke, because we can mutually ensure their destruction. And that's all there is, folks. No hypathetical missle shield system will change the fact that we have enough to mutually ensure destruction not only on the entire world, but certianly on any country who wants to try us.

So, there is no need to spend money on research for cooler nukes; we can allocate the money to actually support our troops who are fighting, then reduce the rest of the budget. Yea, thats right...reduce.

However, there are some "loopholes" that people will try to use to justify not reducing our military budget, and not reducing the amount that we spend on reseach and developement.

#1. Now, there is the trump card of groups who don't care about their well being at all, ie. terrorists. Our resources need to be focused on making sure groups like that aren't going to get their hands on something that could really hurt us, instead of focusing our resources on research for cool new weapons that we won't be able to use for another 15 years, or on taking over countries for oil.

#2. Because of groups like in #1, political figures use this to justify for developing anti-nuke programs such as "star wars programs." The problem with these programs is that if they ever work, they violate other countries abilities to mutually ensure destruction of us. So, we can nuke them, and they can't nuke us. This may seem great for us, but it is not. All this does is cause other countries to research and develop their weapons programs to beat our anti-missle programs, thus creating another arms race.

So don't look at countries like Russia all pissed for developing more weapons, when we caused it.

Now, if it was true that these lobbiests and political figures were truly concerned with being nuked and that is why they think we should develop anti-nuke programs, then they wouldn't want to do it through large quantities of our tax dollars. They would go to the U.N. (yes, the evil U.N.), start a collition were many countries with nukes put in money and research anti missle programs, and we all get to share the technology. Then, in 50 or 100 years, if an anti-missle shield were to ever work, we'd all be able to mutually defend ourselves.

It's just an idea, although I don't really think it will prevent an arms race, so the details would have to be worked out. Regardless, the reason why you don't see politicians trying to work ideals like this out is because they care more about making money for a small few off the project rather then really protecting our country.

So, yes, once again, it's all about the money.

Paul

 

[michaeledward]

This is available in the news today. Almost gives me hope.

Congress cuts funds for atomic bomb research
Bush administration's nuclear initiative dropped from spending bill

By Walter Pincus

Congress has eliminated the financing of research supported by President Bush into a new generation of nuclear weapons, including investigations into low-yield atomic bombs and an earth-penetrating warhead that could destroy weapons bunkers deep underground.

The Bush administration called in 2002 for exploring new nuclear weapons that could deter a wide range of threats, including possible development of a warhead that could go after hardened, deeply buried targets, or lower-power bombs that could be used to destroy chemical or biological stockpiles without contaminating a wide area.

There's more here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6565402/?displaymode=1006

 

[Tgace]

Whats wrong with those? Very specific target list. Not designed to wipe out populations, but to get to underground bunkers. If N.Korea is going to be a threat, how are we supposed to get their nukes?

 

[Fumanchu]

Tgace,

Probably an assessment was made that the threat of large scale underground missile silos is not that great. Those things are expensive to build and mantain. North Korea is not exactly swimming with money. Maybe existing bombs are enough to damage the facilities to prevent the missiles from launching.

From US experence with the Soviet Union and scud missiles in Iraq, it is the mobile launchers you have to be worried about.

 

[michaeledward]

. . . or maybe there is just something wrong with demanding that Libya and Iran can not have nuclear weapon technology when continue to design and manufacture them. The threat of retaliation certainly served the Soviet Union well for the second half of the 20th century.

To be a leader in non-poliferation, perhaps it could be expected that the United States lead with actions.