Withdrawal 1972 ABM treaty.

[easymo]

I got to go with rip on this one.

  It might surprise you to learn that in the 60's most soldiers I talked too were anti-nuke.  We wanted a crack at the Russians in a conventional war. The nuke's were ruining the game.

  We didn't consider the Chinese, in a nuclear sense, at the time. (no delivery system).  That could change dramatically.  Frankly we would probably be launching first, if it came down to it with the Chinese.  There are just to damn many of them.

[Tumor]

Originally posted by J_A_B:
I know perfectly well that the proposed system would not shield against a massive attack.  That's not the point.  MAD is still an effective deterrant to a large nation, be it Russia or China.  They won't attack us because in doing so they'd be killing themselves.

MAD is utterly no deterrant to a small rogue state or terrorist organization.  They don't CARE if they get "martyred" if it means killing a lot of Americans.  We need something that can stop a missle or two, which is what the proposed system will do.

Of course, after Las Angeles gets nuked I'm sure you'll agree with me.  It isn't possible quite yet, but in 5 or 10 years it could happen.

J_A_B

....don't be so sure bout that.

Tumor

[Tumor]

Originally posted by Boroda:
Well, I already told you that the first ICBM interception was performed in 1963. Guess where?

In 1972 USSR had a complete functional ABM system ready for deployment. Now we have a second-generation ABM system around Moscow, built in mid-80s. All according to the treaty.

USSR was far behind the West in "consumer goods" technologies. But, until the "destroyka" in late-80s Soviet weapon systems were at the same level or more advanced then American competitors.

As for the "space race" - tell it to your grandma and don't waste time nessesary to read it on this board.

All my pro-Soviet rhethorics are a result of a frustration and disappointment about the "free world" in the last 10 years. And the picture of Russians that I get from Hangtime and others (don't mean to offend Hangtime, a person that I really respect). Unfortunately, the propaganda slogans picked up from dr. Goebbels helped US to win the cold war. I don't care about what you are told there, but I hate this crap spread here in Russia.

This days I can be extremely cynic. I am reading "Goebbels: the Devil's Advocate" by Curt Riess. A great book. In the current context I can call it a "Requiem for the pro-Western idealism".

I want to ask you to refrain from further  discussing propaganda in this thread. If you wish to flame about it (and I don't see any other way of discussing that topic) - please start another thread.

blah blah bla..<hic>h b<hic>lah blah.

Tumor

[Professor Fate]

FYI if you want to learn a little bit more about who did what try this site out pretty good stuff almost everything you always wanted to know about bombs that make people glow in the dark but were afraid to ask.
 http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/index.html

[ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: Professor Fate ]

[Sundog]

Hey,
When I posted my question, I wasn't saying it wasn't a good idea or wouldn't work EVENTUALLY. I just hate the fact that the government sells it with a line of BS.

I haven't any doubt the ABL will kick butt, and I would much rather see defensive weapons then nukes. I just wanted to be clear on that.

As for you guys dissing the Soviet weapons, they do have the most advanced ejection seats   ! Actually, they did a kick butt job designing those. Plus they have the most advanced A2A missles in the world. We are still trying to catch up to them. As for Fly-By-Wire technology, we may have had it first, but any Viper pilot that enters into an angles fight with a Fulcrum or Flanker deserves to have his tail waxed, and neither of those are FBW. Besides, it isn't the fact that are FBW that is the advance. It's that FBW allowed the aircraft to employ Relaxed Static Stability (I.E.- It's get to be unstable at subsonic speeds (The F-16 that is)).

Of course, the U.S. designed the coolest fighter of the modern age, but decided to fly something boring instead (Coolest being the YF-23A, boring being the F-22). Don't get me wrong, the F-22 will kick butt. However, considering the YF-23A's performance is still classified and the fact that the YF-22 was chosen over the YF-23 because the YF-22 would be easier to navalize 'wreaks' of politics. Of course everyone knew the NATF was a joke and was in fact, cancelled one month after the ATF down select.

Needless to say, I think we need, should have, and are entitled to the best equipment money can buy. Unfortunately, Politics usually say otherwise, which is why I will always remain a skeptic of the 'motivations' offered behind the decisions.

It's too bad the Soviets can't afford to build the S-37 Berkut (Not the Su-37). It is definitely the 'new' coolest plane flying, IMHO. Of course, if I had to fight, I would rather be in a F-22 , but if I could get an S-37 in a macross paint scheme and...er, sorry. What was the point?

Damn, rambling again.
Hangtime, one to beam up.  

[ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: Sundog ]

[Durr]

If the Russians are so far ahead of us in ABMs why do they care if we pull out of the treaty? hmmm
 Seriously though, I agree with Boroda that the Soviets were at least equal to the US up through a certain period.  I would say that period ended in about 1982 however.  At that point, they were nearly equal in terms of quality and way ahead in terms of quantity. During the Reagan era however the US made great strides ahead, deploying the F-18, M-1 Abrams, BFV, Patriot, B-1, and many other advanced wpns systems.  Today, the US is obviously light years ahead of the Russians in military technology due to the underfunded state of Russian military tech development.  The US has made enormous advances in existing weapons systems just in the last few years.  A classic example is the F-16.  When it was first developed it was slightly less than equal to the Mig-29 and far behind the Su-27.  The original F-16 had no BVR missiles except for one variant and it was slightly less manouverable than the Russian fighters.  Even the Mig-23 had longer ranged missiles and radar.  Today, however the Viper is almost a different airplane.  The avionics suite that it carries now is almost as good as the one that the F-15 carried back then and the F-15 now is even further ahead.  I will say that the Russians do have SAMs now that are equal and in the opinion of many superior to the Patriot.  There was an excellent article on the state of Russian SAMs in Air Force magazine recently.  This concerns me somewhat because although we drawing closer to Russian daily, who knows who they may sell these SAMs to.  I think the ABM treaty was outdated and it was time for it to go.  The Russians realize this too I think, and are just milking this for political advantage just as we would if the shoe were on the other foot. I predict in coming years that Russia will become a close ally of the US.  I saw one recent analysis that suggested that the US is subtly replacing Saudi Arabia with Russia as a petroleum supplier.  I suspect that to some extent this is probably true.  Russia wouldnt be the first ex-enemy that became close friends with us.  Germany and Japan, our foes from WW2 are among our closest allies today.  The anti-missile defense system is just a first step.  It currently doesnt protect agaisnt massive ICBM strikes or anything like that but eventually using this technology as a stepping stone, we will be able to have a protective blanket that will prevent any type of ICBM strike.  This is necessary because at some point, maybe 20 years from now, maybe 100 years from now there will be an awful lot of countries with nuclear missile capabilities and not all of those will be friendly.  Everything is unlikely until it happens.  Imagine the uproar if security measures like we have now had been implemented before 11 Sept. People would have been absolutely livid.  People are even complaining about the inconvenience now much less if the terrorrist attack had never happened.  People would have said that such an attack was unlikely and would never happen.  The sad thing is that if we had current measures in place then, perhaps we could have prevented those attacks and 4000+ people would still be alive.  Hopefully we will not let the same thing happen with ballistic missile defense.  Hopefully we will get a good system out of this program which will prevent any future enemy of the US from causing millions of casualties with an unforeseen missile attack.  The problem with people is that they are shortsighted.  Very few people look 10, 20 even 30 years down the road and try to see what might be coming.  Obviously nobody can predict the future but if we dont even try to head off potential threats we are just asking for it.

[Hangtime]

Energize, Scotty.

[mrfish]

you've made a stunning case for the use of paragraphs durr.

[Durr]

rofl Sorry about that.  I didnt even realize that it was going to be a long post, I just banged it out and hit "post" without proofreading or anything.  I guess it was kinda hard to read at that. lol