Thread: A new cold war

With the recent development of the US plans for a missile defense system did not go too well with Russia.
In response they said they would in affect have to aim some of their war heads at England.
I think prior to this Putin has been taking Russia down a slippery slope.
I am dubious to where our relation ship is heading with Russia.

Some fear a new cold war. I don't know if I would go that far but what are your thoughts........................?

death

Originally Posted by TripleX223

death

Could you be a bit more specific? Elaborate?

I totally missed that. Is there some news article you could link me to?

Yes, could you please post a link to an article? I think something somewhere is way exaggerated...

Originally Posted by FinnMacCool

I totally missed that. Is there some news article you could link me to?

Sure.
http://english.people.com.cn/200706/...607_381628.htm

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...dwarredux.html

I think its just a case of Putin showboating and trying to draw attention away from how poorly his country is doing.

A) Don't rocket shields brake some laws? Like no weapons-in-space-law thingy. If one country couldn't be retaliated against, that majorly upsets the balance in the world.

B)Besides that, Putin is a retard. He is just provoking, acting all cool. He is doing shit about it of course.

C) But not like Bush (or his people) were anything NEAR smart for building a rocket shield right there. Why build it as far into Russia as humanly possible, why not instead build it slightly more in the middle. Heck, why not build it on their own ground.

D) Both countries should just majorly stfu.

Originally Posted by Neruo

A) Don't rocket shields brake some laws?

I think there was a treaty that specifically prohibited it.

Originally Posted by Neruo

Like no weapons-in-space-law thingy.

I don't think that ones actually been broken. But the system's ground launched anyway, so its actually no different to the nuke itself from that point of view. That one would probably only apply if the business end of the system was in orbit. No-ones likely to fault them for just using satellites for initial detection and coarse tracking.

Originally Posted by Neruo

If one country couldn't be retaliated against, that majorly upsets the balance in the world.

Possibly. There isn't a "balance" in the old sense. Nukes *may* have helped keep the Cold War relatively cold, but nowadays I reckon we'd be better off without the threat of world annihilation. But the current system is capable of destroying about ten missiles, in the hope that Iran won't be able to do any better than that. It certainly doesn't challenge the Russian nuclear behemoth and I doubt it would be significant against *any* country with nukes and missiles that could reach the US.

You're right though, the thought of the US of today having that level of superiority is rather disturbing. Rather comforting hearing about all the failed tests of the system :-). But what the current system prevents is a threat from a less well developed system, which is more likely to be acquired by a "rogue nation" or terrorist force, so what it actually does is *preserve* the old balance of powers by excluding new ones from the nuclear game.

Originally Posted by Neruo

C) But not like Bush (or his people) were anything NEAR smart for building a rocket shield right there. Why build it as far into Russia as humanly possible, why not instead build it slightly more in the middle. Heck, why not build it on their own ground.

They need to be near the expected launch site. I.e. Iran :-). So they can't be on US soil. I suspect that the number of countries willing to support the operation is limited, and some of the more enthusiastic countries are East European states that want to maintain good relationships with America, partly for economic reasons and partly because they help avoiding being done over by Russia again :-).

Originally Posted by Neruo

B)Besides that, Putin is a retard. He is just provoking, acting all cool. He is doing shit about it of course.

D) Both countries should just majorly stfu.

Yars.

I do love the phrase "anti missile shield". It conjures up wonderful SFnal images. Much nicer than plain "ABM" and much to be preferred to anything that might make you worry about the difficulties involved in getting one missile to hit another.

I heard debates on the topic on TV yesterday. They were saying that these anti-missle defences mean nothing to Russia since, if they were to decide to fire missles at the US, they would send them over the North Pole so the defences placed west of them wouldn't be of any use.

But, all in all, it's the 21st century, there won't be a war. They'll argue, and they'll gripe, but in the end all will settle down to the typical state of things.

Reminds me of a Megadeth song

Originally Posted by Howie

With the recent development of the US plans for a missile defense system did not go too well with Russia.
In response they said they would in affect have to aim some of their war heads at England.
I think prior to this Putin has been taking Russia down a slippery slope.
I am dubious to where our relation ship is heading with Russia.

Some fear a new cold war. I don't know if I would go that far but what are your thoughts........................?

I am dubious that the USSR ever REALLY went away. Putin is making his intentions pretty clear. China has demonstrated how Communism mixed with some level of capitalistic freedom can actually work in producing enough wealth to be sustained. With Russia's flat tax, their economy is booming right now while ours continues to carry the hideous burden of Marx's graduated tax. Russia sees an opportunity to do to us in cold war what we did to them in the 80's - collapse their economy. And unless something changes, they are probably right.

Perhaps we will see a new generation of leadership arise with the tenacity, savvy and strength of Reagan and Thatcher.

I'm not holding my breath.

Originally Posted by pj

Perhaps we will see a new generation of leadership arise with the tenacity, savvy and strength of Reagan and Thatcher.

I'm not holding my breath.

Your kidding right?

I don't think he is kidding. from what I have seen developing I myself would not hold my breather either.

I think similar to what sourcejedi said, I don't believe that the missiles in question are a form of star wars. Just a defense system to shoot down missiles in the atmosphere.
I think to state that in response that Putin will aim his missiles at England is pretty bold.
Everyone is now so concerned with rogue nations and are turning their back on super powers. That in my opinion is not to smart, ever.
Since the advent of the nuclear weapon any "super" power would likely not use it, however that does not mean that some type of conflict can't arise.

Mes tarrant, Does dual citizenship provide you with inside info, if you will, of Russia's activity? Like do you have family there and such?

Look on the bright side. Maybe another cold war would curb global warming... Ok that was lame~

As I see things... the cold war never really went away... it merely took on a different form. Why? Because it's never that simple... you still see old tensions arise over certain things, and the same struggle still continues... its not a new cold war, its the same one, since it is still between the same adversaries. If anything, not much has progressed since then... so will we see another arm's race? Doubtful, but the possibility is there... all in all... it's just the US and Russia getting in a hissy about territorial pissings... something I just couldn't care less about....

Originally Posted by Howie

Mes tarrant, Does dual citizenship provide you with inside info, if you will, of Russia's activity? Like do you have family there and such?

Most likely even less "inside Info" than we have of what our government is doing. No citizen knows what its government is doing anymore.

I dont know if you guys have followed the G8 talks last week, but Bush told Putin that the shield is for countries like Iran or whatever so that they cannot threaten Europe, so Putin told him that he can arrange for NATO to put the shield in Azerbaijan. Bush said that it may be technically difficult and I guess the missiles are still going in Poland and Bulgaria (maybe we will get some here in Greece too )

The cold war never finished... hmm I am not sure about that. For me the situation now in Europe seems more like the time before WW1 maybe more near Napoleon. Colonialism and Imperialism of Britain and France, big autocratic Russia, quite open borders in the west, nothing much in the east...

Russia is not happy because the EU and the US are trying to take all their allies away from them... The US is even telling Albania they can join the NATO (Albania was isolationist hardcore communists for 50 years or so). Bulgaria and Romania just joined the EU. Poland the same. Ukraine had an EU backed "revolution". They will join the EU soon. The Baltic states are tearing down their "red army liberation" monuments. Georgia is angry, the *stans are not happy at all. And now NATO wants to install missiles in POLAND and BULGARIA. Just think about that in cold war distances. Nobody would feel safe. (Would you americans feel safe if Russia (capitalist russia of putin) installed a "missile shield" in Cuba?)

My take on all of this is (I am not a fun of conspiracy theories, all of this makes sense to me economically): Missiles and Star Wars make more money for gun companies than wars against guerillas in some dessert or other. Cold wars make tons of money and in the end nobody gets hurt. So the US would like its people to fear Russia and so is pushing Putin to respond in anger so they can fuel their military production machine. EU is another story that has to do more with expansion and markets. Russia is more of a cornered beast that everyone is poking at. You never know when the bear is going to attack...

I am dubious that the USSR ever REALLY went away. Putin is making his intentions pretty clear. China has demonstrated how Communism mixed with some level of capitalistic freedom can actually work in producing enough wealth to be sustained.

This has always been true for the USSR. They were never really communist in the first place. It was more like State Capitalism.

Actually what you describe as communism is what a lot of countries are right now. Even the US has some of it.

Russia sees an opportunity to do to us in cold war what we did to them in the 80's - collapse their economy. And unless something changes, they are probably right.

I am very skeptical of that.

Perhaps we will see a new generation of leadership arise with the tenacity, savvy and strength of Reagan and Thatcher.

With that kind of leadership, we might as well put a bullet in our head.

Look on the bright side. Maybe another cold war would curb global warming... Ok that was lame~

Yeah, seriously lame.

However in futurama cartoon it said nuclear winter stopped global warming.

Hmm, well i think russia at the moment are just bluffing about it and using it as a threat to get their point across, if this continues and america do nothing i can see Russia getting quite pissed off and doing something stupid like firing at the UK. I think this problem should be resolved now in the early stages instead of letting it escalate into another Cold War like some people say.