Opinions?

I trust what I read from the RIA Novosti just slightly more than what I read from Pravda. Notice how they source a "Russian Daily." Chances are it WAS Pravda....

Gatyr wrote: tallen702 wrote: I trust what I read from the RIA Novosti just slightly more than what I read from Pravda. Notice how they source a "Russian Daily." Chances are it WAS Pravda.... Come one now. Don't pretend like you don't have 19 paragraphs worth of information for us to read. Spill it, already.

Alright, the NYT has picked up the story, and while they are far from being correct or truthful all the time (just look at their retractions page every issue) they're still more reliable than the RIA Novosti or Pravda. This means you now get your paragraphs of relative smack-down.

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) has always been a touchy subject between ourselves and the Russians. The very thought of a counter to the issue of Mutually Assured Destruction has always had the Russians on edge, and that isn't likely to go away anytime soon. The Soviets lagged behind us in systems development in the 1970's and 1980's and the current Russian military-industrial complex is in the same position. Gorbachev was so scared of the idea of the "Star Wars" project that it literally cowled him into signing the various strategic arms limitations treaties which were supposed to keep either of our countries from attempting to develop more nuclear weapons. He felt that the only hope for Russia at that time was to limit the volume of nuclear weapons available in the US arsenal given the fact that a SDI program would put their arsenal at a serious disadvantage. That very same theory is what worries Medvedev and Putin concerning the new program which uses a much more sound system of land based interceptor missiles. I can't really blame the Russians for not liking the system even though it isn't really designed with them in mind. Their fear is that the unbalancing of the MAD policy would put them at a disadvantage should they ever decide to get into it with the big-guns with either ourselves or one of our allies. What the Russians fail to recognize however, is that the missile shield is of such limited scope that it would only be useful against countries with much smaller stockpiles of weapons. Our purported payload to be delivered to a site in Poland was to be 10 interceptor missiles. 10 missiles is hardly something to contend with given the vast bulk of the leftover Soviet arsenal and the newer Topol type vehicles. Russia has already disclosed that they have around 2,000 warheads (which keeps within the SORT treaty limitations) and it is believed that the newer Topol ICBMs are capable of being fitted with between 5 and 10 MIRVs each. At the high end, that would mean that we would have at least 200 ICBMs to counter. There simply aren't enough vehicles in the Missile Shield program to counter that many ICBMs. The system placement also shows that it is being set to counter long-range attacks from mid-east countries and Pakistan rather than the trans-polar attack which would be carried out by the Russians.

With that out of the way, let me talk about what I think is going on here. Obama is a confidence man, and that isn't said in a nice way. He's great at wiggling his way around difficult issues without having to visibly compromise on what he wishes to achieve. The so-called "olive branch" that he is reaching out to the Russians with on this issue isn't much. He's saying that he'd only cut back on the missile shield program if there was success on the part of the Russians in stopping the Iranian nuclear projects. He didn't promise anything if they "tried," and he certainly wouldn't be willing to cut back on the project if the Russians failed to get the Iranians to abandon their projects. He's only said he would scale back the program if the Russians succeeded in convincing Tehran in abandoning their nuclear program completely. The Russians are never going to go for this. First and foremost, it would be counter productive to their current economic situation. The only things keeping the Russian economy from collapsing into a depression the likes of the post-Soviet era are their energy and weapons sales. Some of their biggest buyers right now are Iran, Syria, and Pakistan, all countries which are vehemently anti-west in their governmental positions. If Russia were to fall in line with the US on the matter of disarming these countries, they would lose extremely valuable weapons and energy sales which are propping up the whole country at this moment.

Secondly, Putin and Medvedev have built their political persona in the fashion of the old-school anti-western nationalist vein. While the majority of their machinations are simply paying lip-service to the nationalist hardliners in Russia, they do find gains in being the only non-NATO power with any capability to stand up against the US. Mind you, they haven't earned that power, they just inherited a large nuclear arsenal from the failed Communist regime and are now holding it to our heads like a nervous crack addict who just found some mob hit man's Glock in an abandoned house. They're essentially harmless in the conventional sense, but they've got a twitchy trigger finger and an addiction to power that they can't satiate. Any sense of cooperating with the US or NATO would be a sign of weakness in the eyes of the hardliners who have made large gains in the governing bodies of the Russian Federation over the past decade. Russian politics being what they are, any sign of weakness is attacked at once for personal gain. These guys are so rabid that they make our political pundits look like amateurs.

My final point is this. Obama MUST make overtures like these to keep from looking like a two-faced liar in the eyes of our allies who wish to see a United States with a much more open door policy towards our enemies. However, he must make sure his overtures are not as open as they seem to keep from compromising the security of ourselves and our allies. We catch a lot of flak for being hard-nosed in our foreign policy, especially from our allies in NATO. But what they seem to forget is that the only reason they have the chance to think along softer lines is our ever present vigilance and protection. I guarantee you that if our European allies had to go it alone, they'd be far less apt to want to talk everything out like they do right now.

So, in short. Obama is making an overture that has no chance of succeeding. He knows that, they know that, we know that, but he has to do it to save face and look like he's opening the door for talk. The way he's done it give the Russians no chance of accepting it which makes them look like the bad guys. This will mean that everything stays the same as it did under the Bush Administration in regards to Russia, the missile shield, and Iran, but it'll look like he's trying to find a separate peace even though he isn't.


Edited by tallen702 - 03 March 2009 at 1:13pm

jmac3 wrote: Gatyr wrote: tallen702 wrote: I trust what I read from the RIA Novosti just slightly more than what I read from Pravda. Notice how they source a "Russian Daily." Chances are it WAS Pravda.... Come one now. Don't pretend like you don't have 19 paragraphs worth of information for us to read. Spill it, already. I read this. I scrolled down. I laughed

Lightningbolt wrote: briefcase nukes makes all of this a waste of time

Except for the fact that they don't really exist in the sense that popular culture has portrayed them. The smallest nuclear weapon developed by the US was the warhead for the "Davey Crockett" shoulder fired rocket. The warhead was able to fit in an object the size of a standard US Army footlocker which, while smaller than a conventional warhead, isn't easily concealed. Even the MK-54 SADM which is no longer in our arsenal (essentially a Davey Crockett warhead stripped to it's most simple components) was of considerable size and weight and was never considered to be feasible enough to continue production past the initial run of 300 units.

The claims of Russian General Alexander Lebed and the Washington DC based firm CDI are considered by most experts to be far reaching extrapolations at best. Lebed claimed that the KGB had over 200 "briefcase" nukes in its possession prior to the fall of the CCCP and that the majority could no longer be accounted for. Being a regular army general however, he wouldn't have been privy to the workings of the KGB or its weapons and stockpiles. His only possible insight into the matter would have been as Yeltsin's Security Advisor which was a post he held for approximately six months. It is understood that Lebed's "revelation" to the US News program "Sixty Minutes" of the existence of said KGB controlled portable nukes was an attempt to sensationalize the known corruption and selling off of Soviet weapons systems during the Yeltsin years. Putin and Medvedev have both stated that no such systems ever existed in the USSR or in the Russian Federation and have stated that Lebed's firing by Yeltsin just six months after his appointment to Secretary of the Security Council of Russia prompted Lebed to lash out in an attempt to defame the popular president in revenge.

Furthermore, CDI's claims of briefcase nukes are based solely on conjectures involving the SADM program and CIA/DIA ventures in the 1980's which involved testing various high-yield explosive systems in briefcase-sized packages for sabotage in Soviet-controlled territories.

It should also be noted that the payload of an atomic weapon of such size (thermonuclear weapons would be almost impossible to miniaturize to this small of a package) would be of such a low yield as to be useful only in single target (read: single structure) destruction applications. In addition, the knowledge and equipment necessary to produce such small atomic weapons does not, at this time, exist outside of the US or Russian nuclear programs.

Edited by tallen702 - 03 March 2009 at 4:05pm

On a slightly related noted, I think you will see a lot of change in Iranian foreign policy after the upcoming elections.

The likelihood that Ahmadinejad wins again is low. The left-moderate Khatami, who is much more liked by the west, should pick up the win.

Your sources filling you in on that one while feeding you awesome food there Whale?

I completely agree with you though. Unless Ahmadinejad dicks around with the election results (which I don't think he's above by any means) he'll be out on his keister if the previous local election results are anything to go by. Khatami is one that has always impressed me. He seems to be a man that is capable of balancing church and state with a greater modicum of tolerance for progressive thought and action. I think that many Iranians have come to terms with the idea that the revolution, while successful in ousting a corrupt shah , ultimately failed by allowing another type of corruption to take hold. Furthermore, the national identity of the Iranian people is beginning to come to the surface and overcome the current "Arab/Muslim" image that they have allowed to overtake them in the past three decades. National Geographic had an excellent story on the Iranian people and their continued existence and independence from their conquerors over the past few millenniums. It pointed to the recent elections as a sign that the heirs to Persia were tiring of the meddling of outside influences in their religion and politics and would take back control of their country this coming presidential election.

agentwhale007 wrote: The largest cultural movement now is people identifying themselves as Iranians first, and everything else, including religion, secondary.

And this is where they've finally gotten the revolution right! Iran is a country that has enough natural and economic resources available to it to really come full circle and show the world that a "middle eastern" country has the ability to shed the stereotypes while continuing to embrace its cultural identity. From what I've read and seen, the individuals that make up the people of Iran are far better educated and far more free thinking than most of their geographical contemporaries. If they get it right, Iran will be the "mecca" of progressive Islamic states for decades to come, essentially picking up the torch where Turkey has left off.

I think the most telling view of Iran I've ever seen is the segment in Warren Miller's "Cold Fusion" where they visit Dizin for a weekend of skiing in a place that most westerners don't even know exist. As the following video shows, the youth of Iran are no different than all of us when we get a pair of skis or snowboard beneath us:


I've great hope for Iran's transformation from within. Far more hope than I would for any exterior influence.