With the Obama administration coming into office many people are excited about change coming to Washington in the form of a younger generation, but just as the cold war dinosaurs are being put out to pasture the United States and Russia have developed differences in opinion over the placement of United States interceptor missile base in Poland and a radar array in the Czech Republic. The United States placed the missile systems in the European countries to defend against the threat of missiles from Iran. Russia felt threatened by the placement of U.S. Missile systems on their boarder and expresses their distaste to Washington, but also began testing new missile systems and preparing ways of defeating the new U.S. missile bases.
On November 5, President Dmitry Medvedev stated that Russia intended on placing Iskander short-range missiles near the Polish boarder, and attempting to jam the missile system electronically. Colonel-General Nikolai Solovtsov declared the nation’s intention to have a new, fully functional missile system 2020.
There have also been multiple tests on missile systems that Russia has been developing recently. The Dmitry Donsky nuclear submarine launched a Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile Shorty after Colonel-General Solovtsov made his announcement conserving the new missile system for Russia. Russia has also been testing the RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile a new missile, which, according to the Russian military cannot be stopped by any anti-missile system. In 2009 the Russian military intends on performing 13 missile tests nearly twice as many as were done in 2008.
The combined arms build up on the Russian border, missile development, and conflict in Georgia earlier this year are more than slightly reminiscent of the cold war. Because experience of events in the past are helpful for confronting current events that are almost impressively similar I hope that the regime change in Washington doesn’t lead to retirement party for the generation that lived thought the cold war. Who else will be able teach us to duck and cover?
Sources:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE4AR3S120081128
4 comments:
Can we please stop with trying to beat each other with weapons? Our counrty is doing so horrible and on top of that we are still trying to be on top of the rest. Have we not learn our lesson? Yes, it is scray to think that other counrties are developing weapons but we need to step back for a moment.
I believe that if the U.S says that it is not going to be working with nuclear weapons, other countries such as Iran and Russia will stop working on developing new nuclear weapons. I believe that it is all a way for countries to compete for power and position. Why cant people just deal with their problems verbally instead of killing and endangering the lives of millions of innocent people? I hope that the Millenials will make a difference in this world. Hopefully, we are the generation who is going to peace to the world.
What's so bad about a missile defense system? Now we won't have to worry about MAD. Russia should try to make their own defense system, rather than make bigger missiles.
In fact we offered to station missile defense stations in Russia to defend against launches from Rouge nations in the Middle East but the Russians said No. You have to wonder how much of this is really a ramping up of the Cold War and how much of it is for home consumption. There is no way that as currently designed our missile defense system could stop a nuclear attack from russia. Our system is designed to stop one, maybe two, missiles when the Russians could put hundreds into the air. Its just like those cold war area bomber flights the Russians have put back into commission. It sounds quite intimidating until one realizes that the planes are turbo prop driven. To earlier commenters that think that if the US gave up nuclear weapons, other nations would as well, the United States has already unilaterally reduced the number of warheads it has to a level significantly below the number held by Russia with no real benign effect. For historical precedent of such a policy one could consider the defense procurement of Britain and France before World War II.
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