Russia

[Nuclear Raunch]

The current disagreement between Russia and the US seems, like virtually everything of it's kind, to be a case of neither side bothering to look at things from the other side's perspective. If anyone has any links to a version of the story written by a Russian sympathizer I'll add it in.

Russia: In 2002 Bush notified Putin that he intended to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that the Us and the USSR signed in 1972. The treaty had been a well received treaty that seemed like a positive step in the right direction. When Bush notified Putin that he intended to abolish the treaty he assured him that it was to prevent a rogue state from aquiring nukes and successfully using them, and in no way directed at Russia. Russia seemed surprisingly understanding about the move and nothing major (that I can recall) happened in retaliation for abolishing the treaty.

The US announced plans to install anti-ballistic missile defenses in Poland, the Czech Republic, the UK, Greenland, and the US to protect our interests from states like Iran and North Korea. Trouble is, anyone with a map can see that if the US was actually trying to protect from Iran and NK they would have opted for Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria or maybe even Romania. But Poland? Are you serious? Geographically speaking Poland makes about as much sense as Portugal. Unless of course you are using it to prevent Russian missiles, in which case Poland is in a damn near perfect location.

It looks an awful lot like the US is restarting the Cold War arms race and Russia can't afford to let Bush get the idea that he can nuke Russia without fear of reprisal. With all the concessions Russia has made recently the West repays them by trying to restart the Cold War.

US: link

9-11 made defense a higher priority than it was in the past, and the possibility of a nation getting nukes and ICBMs is too risky to not prepare for it. Putin's stance is particularly vexing because he seems to be turning Russia into the USSR, which is the last thing anyone wants. Russia has recently been involved in an assassination on Litveninko (sp?) they have recently started a cyber war on Estonia, and have increased their threatening rhetoric.

All we want is to have peace and security, is that too much to ask? Besides, it's not like 10 missiles will stop Russia's arsenal.

Nuke: I think the locations couldn't have given any other indication other than that it was directed at Russia. The fact that we want them in immediately after the latest tension even though neither NK nor Iran have a missile capable of shooting that far and won't for some time is only going to exarcarbate Russian fears.

Putin has been capitalizing on Russian perception that they have ceded too much to the West already, so by being the proverbial thorn in the West's side he can increase his popularity with nationalistic Russians. The best solution, as always, is to get what we want while allowing them to say that they won. There's a large number of ways that makes this possible, the preferred method would be to "concede" and A: move it to a better spot and B: allow the Russians some sort of control over the Eastern European station. It's too late for a brilliant idea but having a Russian and an American with a launch key seems like an obvious fix off the top of my head. We get our bases, he gets his political status reaffirmed, we all win.

*That's the method I would use to achieve their goal but that does not mean I would have a similiar goal if I was them. I'm perfectly fine with the EU protecting the EU or hiring us for protection*

[Yoman82]

...I just read this article yesterday. Lucky you. On most sites I visit, I'm a communist. Member of the FESSR. Yeah. If the Cold War restarts, Russia reunites the USSR. And Putin in command is as bad as Stalin in command. The US better get rid of those missile bases.

[The Beatles]

Some points that make this less obvious:

1. Poland is a stupid location to stop any sort of missiles directed at the US by Russia. Those would go over the pole, which is why NORAD focussed on Canada during the Cold War.

2. Some indication that the U.S. is really worried about rogue states like NK (whether justified or not) is in their efforts in Japan, like sending AEGIS cruisers there.

3. Russia was offered full intelligence of operation on all the Eastern European sites. I can't recall if they actually accepted that, but they were, nevertheless, given the offer. Not that the KGB probably doesn't have it already...


Now, as to why the posturing? Well, any effort at concentrating power needs the population to be scared of something. In the case of Bush et al there is a really handy focus, the terrorists, because they have actually been up to stuff. For Putin et al, Chechnya just won't do for some reason, so it has to be the US. That is my guess atm.


[edit] Oh yes -- why Poland? No idea, unless the Poles want security. But why they would want that is difficult to understand, as the defensive system isn't proven to be effective and can't stop more than a few warheads anyway. Against Russia it's a joke. Only a nuclear deterrent wouldn't be a joke, and that's not something you can pursue without political suicide there.

[Yoman82]

...Wait. Poland would be stupid. Couldn't they go under Alaska?

[Nuclear Raunch]

Some points that make this less obvious:

1. Poland is a stupid location to stop any sort of missiles directed at the US by Russia. Those would go over the pole, which is why NORAD focussed on Canada during the Cold War.

2. Some indication that the U.S. is really worried about rogue states like NK (whether justified or not) is in their efforts in Japan, like sending AEGIS cruisers there.

3. Russia was offered full intelligence of operation on all the Eastern European sites. I can't recall if they actually accepted that, but they were, nevertheless, given the offer. Not that the KGB probably doesn't have it already...


Now, as to why the posturing? Well, any effort at concentrating power needs the population to be scared of something. In the case of Bush et al there is a really handy focus, the terrorists, because they have actually been up to stuff. For Putin et al, Chechnya just won't do for some reason, so it has to be the US. That is my guess atm.


[edit] Oh yes -- why Poland? No idea, unless the Poles want security. But why they would want that is difficult to understand, as the defensive system isn't proven to be effective and can't stop more than a few warheads anyway. Against Russia it's a joke. Only a nuclear deterrent wouldn't be a joke, and that's not something you can pursue without political suicide there.

I'm talking about perspective, not necessarily reality. I have no doubt that each side can come up with a dozen valid reasons for each decision made, but does it matter? We probably won't hear much about their reasons and they won't hear much about ours so IMO they're irrelevant except to reinforce each sides belief that they are right.

As far as reality is concerned you're probably right.

[Gen. Volkov]

Poland and the Czech Republic are the perfect spots if you are looking to protect the rest of Europe from Russian missiles. Greenland and the UK actually do provide some cover from missiles launched from Russia at the US, though nowhere near as much as the bases in Alaska and other northern states.

Of course realistically, against the Russian nuclear arsenal, the proposed bases wouldn't stand a chance. But that's not the point, the point is to strengthen ties with the EU and recover some of NATO's strength by providing the semblance of protection against an increasingly scary Russia.

At least in my opinion.

[Yoman82]

...We should just surrender to Russia. They're awesome.

[Gen. Volkov]

You have issues dude, Soviet Russia was the worst idea in a long sad history of bad ideas. It ranks right up there with not starting land wars in Asia and not going up against a Sicilian when death is on the line. They bankrupted themselves trying to keep up with the US in an arms race, and never led us, they barely even ever managed parity. If not for them discovering oil in Siberia in the late 60's, the Soviet Union would have collapsed much sooner. And beside all that, living conditions inside the Soviet Union were atrocious. They often had to stand in line for hours for basic necessities like bread. That's not awesome by any standard. And they still don't have a standard of living even approaching that of western countries, not to mention that the Russian life expectancy has taken a serious nosedive.

[Freenhult]

You have issues dude, Soviet Russia was the worst idea in a long sad history of bad ideas. It ranks right up there with not starting land wars in Asia and not going up against a Sicilian when death is on the line. They bankrupted themselves trying to keep up with the US in an arms race, and never led us, they barely even ever managed parity. If not for them discovering oil in Siberia in the late 60's, the Soviet Union would have collapsed much sooner. And beside all that, living conditions inside the Soviet Union were atrocious. They often had to stand in line for hours for basic necessities like bread. That's not awesome by any standard. And they still don't have a standard of living even approaching that of western countries, not to mention that the Russian life expectancy has taken a serious nosedive.

... xD Shot down just like a MiG over Korea.

[Yoman82]

^^Russia as a country, I mean was the hugeness of power in the 50s-60s. They still have enough to destroy the world several times over. So does the USA, but hey, we're overrated.
I wasn't talking about living, just economics.

[Freenhult]

^^Russia as a country, I mean was the hugeness of power in the 50s-60s. They still have enough to destroy the world several times over. So does the USA, but hey, we're overrated.
I wasn't talking about living, just economics.

Russia as a country blows chunks. And Economy does = living. If the economy is poor, you think they're gonna be living in the big bucks? Nope.

The idea is good on paper, but so much planning and work is needed to maintain the system. People are too lazy and stupid for such a system to exist. Not to mention the urge to abuse such power.

>_> And Russia didn't have that much power. They had nukes. Woopie. They also had starvation, disease, lack of employment... Not much to cheer about.

[Gen. Volkov]

They never ever matched us economically, they never even came close. To match what we did with 10% of our budget on military, they had to spend 60 and 70% of their budget to even come close to matching it.

In the conventional military arena, there were points where they led, like tank design, but they designed their tanks for different things than we did. Their biggest advantage was just sheer numbers. Our tanks and theres were roughly equal, but they had a lot more tanks. They also gained a brief advantage in the mid-60's in plane design. Then we built our next generation of airplanes. And in the 80's, we built our next generation of tanks, and we once again led in all areas.

At the times when it mattered most, they didn't have anything close to the strategic nuclear capability that we did. If the Cold War had gone hot in the 60's and early 70's, the Soviet Union would have been a big smoking crater, and the US would have lost some important cities, but we would still exist. It wasn't until the late 70's that MAD truly existed. By the end of the cold war, they had more strategic nukes than we did, but by that point we both had so many, it just didn't matter. At the end of the cold war, between the US and USSR, we had enough nukes to remove the entire crust of the planet 10 times over. However, it would take quite a bit more than that to actually destroy the world.

The US once again has more strategic nukes these days, but it still doesn't matter. Either country could remove the crust several times over. Heck, either of us could kill every living thing on the planet, without even launching the nukes anywhere. If we just detonated the nukes in our country, the radiation and nuclear winter would still kill all life.

[Ruddertail]

Show me a communist country with a good economy and I'll show you the new home of Enron's accountants...

[Gen. Volkov]

*laughs*. Right on Rudder.

[Devari]

I used to think Communism was a decent idea, in theory. I suppose I still do, to some extent, but I don't think it works practically. A lot of proponents of Communism (that aren't Stalinists/Maoists) will say that no "true" communist country has existed. It's true to some extent; most of the more "friendly" branches of communism haven't had large-scale practical application. Still, Communism encompasses a fairly wide range of ideologies, many of which are quite hardline (like what we saw in the USSR and "Friends").

There are derivatives such as Council and Anarchist Communism that certainly have appealing elements, at least to me. However, I doubt the practicalness of them. Every time that Communism has sprung up, it's been a hardline form. Is the inability of the libertarian communist ideologies to take hold in any real nationstate up until now indicative of the fact that they could never take hold, due to natural or culturally developed human greed/obsession with power? I lean towards yes, which is why I simply don't think Communism can work. The hardline approaches that dominated the twentieth century are atrocious for true freedom, whereas the libertarian ("nice") approaches don't seem to be able to take hold in any real world case.

Thus, while I'm quite far over on the "left" of the economic spectrum, I simply can't support Communism. I honestly don't think the libertarian forms of it can properly take hold any time in the near future of humanity, so it seems to me to be a pointless pursuit.

[edit]

I should point out, if I didn't make it clear above, that I favor libertarian (not in the common US political sense, mind you) approaches to social issues. Thus, I can't accept totalitarian or authoritarian methods of governance, which the "non-friendly" forms of communism prescribe to. As I'm sure I've mentioned a few times around here, I'm essentially a democratic socialist. Perhaps in the style of Tommy Douglas or Tony Benn, but I haven't really thought of any direct comparison.