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US willing to share Aegis missile tech with Russia - good idea?

Is sharing the Aegis (SM-3) missile systems with Russia a good idea?

  • Yes - it's fine

    Votes: 2 13.3%

  • No - it's crazy

    Votes: 13 86.7%

  • Other (explain)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    15
  • Poll closed .
Harshaw said:
No. It's about giving away things we don't need to give away with no reason to think we'll get anything meaningful in return.
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But you're just making up the part about not getting anything in return... Apparently the folks who actually do this professionally think we're getting more in return than we're giving. You on the other hand, have no idea whatsoever what we're getting in return.. So why would we assume you're right and they're wrong?
 
Dpetty said:
Why is it silly? Do you think back in the 1940's people thought that our alli would threaten us with nuclear strike after WWII was over?
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Yes... You're not exactly a history buff eh? Many people say the main reason we dropped atomic bombs on Japan was to warn off the USSR. Some of our generals wanted to continue WWII by attacking the USSR.

Dpetty said:
Would they have given them nuclear technology if they did? Its niave to think that just because things arent openly hostile right now, that they couldnt become that way. I hope you never get a position of authority over anyone dependant on you...
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So even in your anti-Russian mentality, you would rather they have NUKES than DEFENSIVE missiles? Uh....
 
I think that we should seek better relations with Russia, but at this point it would be unwise to share military tech with them.
 
digsbe said:
I think that we should seek better relations with Russia, but at this point it would be unwise to share military tech with them.
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Well, that's not really the question though. I mean, all things being equal, should we give Russia military tech? No of course not. We shouldn't give anybody military tech for no reason. The question is whether we are safer with Russia having less nukes, but also this mediocre missile defense system from the 90s? Or are we safer with them having more nukes?

IMO reducing the number of Russian nukes has to be our absolute top priority. Given the questionable security they seem to have for them, and given that only one stolen nuke getting into Al Qaeda's hands means bye-bye Manhattan, I don't even see this as a close call at all.
 
teamosil said:
But you're just making up the part about not getting anything in return...
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No, I'm not. Last year (well, 2010), we scrubbed our missile defense commitments in eastern Europe and got diddly squat in return (the aforementioned treaty where we gave up our strategic primacy and Russia gave up . . . nothing). There is no reason to think the same wouldn't happen again, as the same people are still in charge in Russia.


Apparently the folks who actually do this professionally think we're getting more in return than we're giving.
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If so, they're as idiotic as the people who keep giving North Korea whatever it wants every time it launches a couple of missiles over Japan. What was Einstein's definition of "insanity"?


You on the other hand, have no idea whatsoever what we're getting in return.. So why would we assume you're right and they're wrong?
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See above.
 
Harshaw said:
No, I'm not. Last year (well, 2010), we scrubbed our missile defense commitments in eastern Europe and got diddly squat in return (the aforementioned treaty where we gave up our strategic primacy and Russia gave up . . .
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Lets get a link so I know what you're referring to.
 
I'm referring to the "New START" treaty.
 
Harshaw said:
I'm referring to the "New START" treaty.
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Well that doesn't make sense... Neither the US nor Russia is required to comply with the goals in that treaty until 2018, some I'm not sure why you think Russia breached it. Post a link. From a legit source though please.
 
teamosil said:
Well, that's not really the question though. I mean, all things being equal, should we give Russia military tech? No of course not. We shouldn't give anybody military tech for no reason. The question is whether we are safer with Russia having less nukes, but also this mediocre missile defense system from the 90s? Or are we safer with them having more nukes?

IMO reducing the number of Russian nukes has to be our absolute top priority. Given the questionable security they seem to have for them, and given that only one stolen nuke getting into Al Qaeda's hands means bye-bye Manhattan, I don't even see this as a close call at all.
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I agree that we should do our best to denuclearize Russia. However, can we expect them to honor their agreements to do so? I highly doubt that they will ever get rid of their nuclear arsenal, and them only have 1 nuclear weapon is enough to put the world at jeopardy or for a terrorist group to target that nuke for theft (or if Russia ever wanted to they could sell it to them).
 
teamosil said:
Well that doesn't make sense... Neither the US nor Russia is required to comply with the goals in that treaty until 2018, some I'm not sure why you think Russia breached it. Post a link. From a legit source though please.
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Where did I say they "breached" it? And what difference does it make when it takes effect?
 
digsbe said:
I agree that we should do our best to denuclearize Russia. However, can we expect them to honor their agreements to do so? I highly doubt that they will ever get rid of their nuclear arsenal, and them only have 1 nuclear weapon is enough to put the world at jeopardy or for a terrorist group to target that nuke for theft (or if Russia ever wanted to they could sell it to them).
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They've reduced their arsenal by almost 97% so far, so yeah, I don't see any reason they won't continue. They won't go to zero I assume, but the risk is proportional to the number of nukes they have. 2,000 means many more facilities, personnel, transportation operations, etc, that could lead to a weapon being leaked than if they have a smaller number.

Their biggest concern is that they don't want to give up the deterrence that nukes give them, same reason we don't want to give ours up. Giving them defensive technology that meets the same need in exchange for agreements to give up more nukes makes a lot of sense both for them and for us IMO.
 
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teamosil said:
So what is your issue then?
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I already told you. It's a ****ty treaty which requires us to give up our primacy (as well as the missile defense commitments in eastern Europe) while the Russians give up squat.

So, I have no reason to think the Russians are going to give us anything meaningful for our Aegis tech. It's a really dumb thing to do.
 
Harshaw said:
I already told you. It's a ****ty treaty which requires us to give up our primacy (as well as the missile defense commitments in eastern Europe) while the Russians give up squat.

So, I have no reason to think the Russians are going to give us anything meaningful for our Aegis tech. It's a really dumb thing to do.
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Uh... So in your opinion we gave up more than we got out of that treaty, so somehow you think they won't honor future agreements, even though they are honoring that one? That doesn't make sense.

Anyways, it isn't really true that we gave more than we got out of that treaty. That's just the usual banter of right wing pundits. We got a ton of out of it. Huge expansion of inspection rights and whatnot, which is really what we're most interested in with regards to Russia. But they also are having to cut their number of warheads by half and lots of other stuff.
 
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No, we absolutely should not be sharing military technology with Russia while they are sponsoring rogue states and enemies of the American people. I've got no problem sharing tech in general-- progress for everyone is progress for us-- but not with people who conspire with our enemies.
 
teamosil said:
Uh... So in your opinion we gave up more than we got out of that treaty, so somehow you think they won't honor future agreements, even though they are honoring that one? That doesn't make sense.
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What doesn't make sense is why you keep saying this is my issue. I'm having problems with your honesty here.


Anyways, it isn't really true that we gave more than we got out of that treaty. That's just the usual banter of right wing pundits. We got a ton of out of it. Huge expansion of inspection rights and whatnot, which is really what we're most interested in with regards to Russia.
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Why, because you say so?


But they also are having to cut their number of warheads by half and lots of other stuff.
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No, they don't. Their warhead counts are negligibly above the limits set by the treaty, whereas ours are significantly above. All this does is negate, as I said, our strategic advantage. And give up our missile defense commitments, which was the prerequisite for negotiating the treaty.

We got squat. We gave up a lot. It'll happen again.
 
Harshaw said:
What doesn't make sense is why you keep saying this is my issue. I'm having problems with your honesty here.
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Maybe you should just lay out your argument.

Harshaw said:
Why, because you say so?
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No, because that's a fact. Our primary concern, by far, is that none of the Russian nukes slip into the hands of terrorists. So being able to inspect them and count them and check out the security and hold them accountable for all of them and make sure they're complying with all the agreements and whatnot is crucial.

Harshaw said:
No, they don't. Their warhead counts are negligibly above the limits set by the treaty, whereas ours are significantly above. All this does is negate, as I said, our strategic advantage. And give up our missile defense commitments, which was the prerequisite for negotiating the treaty.

We got squat. We gave up a lot. It'll happen again.
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lol. Ok, so your stance is that in your opinion the last treaty wasn't a good deal, so we shouldn't make any more treaties... Uh...

I think your problem is that you're envisioning it like it's still the cold war or something and Russia is our enemy. Our goal here isn't to increase our power relative to Russia. Our primary goal is to prevent Russian nukes from ending up in the hands of terrorists or Iran or whatever. Maybe that's why you're glossing over the biggest things we're getting out of these treaties- because you aren't understanding our goals?
 
teamosil said:
Maybe you should just lay out your argument.
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I did, in plain language. I wouldn't have thought it was hard to follow.


No, because that's a fact. Our primary concern, by far, is that none of the Russian nukes slip into the hands of terrorists.
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According to whom? It's not a fact because you declare it such.



lol. Ok, so your stance is that in your opinion the last treaty wasn't a good deal, so we shouldn't make any more treaties... Uh...
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OK, you're doing it again. I didn't say that. What I did say was quite plain, and if you're not going to deal with it honestly, I don't see why I should bother with you any further.
 
Harshaw said:
I did, in plain language. I wouldn't have thought it was hard to follow.

According to whom? It's not a fact because you declare it such.

OK, you're doing it again. I didn't say that. What I did say was quite plain, and if you're not going to deal with it honestly, I don't see why I should bother with you any further.
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Look, if you think you have an argument here, you should explain it because as far as I can tell you're just lobbing out vague statements about how you think Russia will screw us and then retreating from any more specific position.
 
teamosil said:
They've reduced their arsenal by almost 97% so far, so yeah, I don't see any reason they won't continue. They won't go to zero I assume, but the risk is proportional to the number of nukes they have. 2,000 means many more facilities, personnel, transportation operations, etc, that could lead to a weapon being leaked than if they have a smaller number.

Their biggest concern is that they don't want to give up the deterrence that nukes give them, same reason we don't want to give ours up. Giving them defensive technology that meets the same need in exchange for agreements to give up more nukes makes a lot of sense both for them and for us IMO.
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You think the reason we are trying to convince Russia to disarm their nuke stockpile is to lesson the chance of one getting stolen? If that were the case we would just ask really nice like if they would let us build a big fence around their storage facility. America is in a position of strength right now, and yet we are still bargaining with them like they are in charge. Of course they will keep working with us as long as we keep giving over billions of dollars worth of R&D in exchange for them letting us pay for disarming their antiquated nukes. They are never going to let them all go, so whats the point, if they can still destroy the world 3 times over, instead of 500 times over?
 
Dpetty said:
You think the reason we are trying to convince Russia to disarm their nuke stockpile is to lesson the chance of one getting stolen?
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Most definitely it is. That's been our primary goal ever since the USSR disbanded. Every president we've had since then has explicitly stated that many times, the primary goals we've pushed for in our relationship with them have all been related to that.

Dpetty said:
They are never going to let them all go, so whats the point, if they can still destroy the world 3 times over, instead of 500 times over?
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Again, you're missing the point. Nobody is concerned about a nuclear war between the US and Russia... That's kind of silly. The concern at present is that a guard captain that has the midnight shift at some remote silo has his family kidnapped and is told that if he doesn't look the other way when somebody steals one of the nukes, they'll kill his family. Or a scientist somewhere is offered $5 million. Or that a region of Russia will be taken over by a rebel faction that will seize the nukes. That kind of thing.

As for why Russia won't let us just "build a wall around the nukes", it is because they want to retain control of their own arsenal. They wouldn't just want to turn control over to the US of course. So we have certainly been helping finance efforts to improve security and we've gotten concessions to allow us to inspect and to move certain missiles to locations we believe will be more secure and so on. That's the main focus on our side in all these negotiations- trying to get the Russians to reduce the numbers of warheads, trying to get them to centralize them and upgrade security, trying to get them to let us help secure them, inspections, etc.
 
Hell no, it's a horrible idea! It's more than crazy, it's bat**** insane. Why doesn't he just send them a map of our missle silos, a spare key to the nuke box, and invite them to build a few Russian military bases around the country so they can keep an eye on our newest military technology?

I can't believe this. It's nuts. :(
 
I doubt that the Russians didn't have anti-nuke capabilities, but the Aegis will surely enhance it dramatically, as well as their naval capabilities.
The Aegis is the one big argument that nukes are invulnerable
 
teamosil said:
Again, you're missing the point. Nobody is concerned about a nuclear war between the US and Russia... That's kind of silly.
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How old are you? Do you even remember the cuban missile crisis? The Cold War? It almost got really hot! To ignore the lessons we learned, or in your case, should have learned, is just plain stupid!


As for why Russia won't let us just "build a wall around the nukes", it is because they want to retain control of their own arsenal. They wouldn't just want to turn control over to the US of course. So we have certainly been helping finance efforts to improve security and we've gotten concessions to allow us to inspect and to move certain missiles to locations we believe will be more secure and so on. That's the main focus on our side in all these negotiations- trying to get the Russians to reduce the numbers of warheads, trying to get them to centralize them and upgrade security, trying to get them to let us help secure them, inspections, etc.
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You really are niave arent you? You really think there is no possible scenario where things COULD change in the future to the point that America and Russia return to the relationship we had only 40 years ago?? If that possibility exists, which it does, why give a potential enemy the blueprints to our house? Do you think after WWI anyone thought that Germany could be capable of launching a second world war within only few decades?? Would we have allowed it to happen if we hadnt found out to late? Should we have shared the atomic bomb with Hitler as a sign of friendship between our two countries? You wanna talk about silly, YOUR silly.

And if we are already pulling guard duty for a country incapable of keeping their own weapons from being sold to terrorists, why give them another piece of technology they cant keep their hands on?
 
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Dpetty said:
How old are you? Do you even remember the cuban missile crisis? The Cold War? It almost got really hot! To ignore the lessons we learned, or in your case, should have learned, is just plain stupid!
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You think it is "stupid" to be aware that the cold war ended almost 30 years ago now? Uh...

Dpetty said:
You really are niave arent you? You really think there is no possible scenario where things COULD change in the future to the point that America and Russia return to the relationship we had only 40 years ago?? If that possibility exists, which it does, why give a potential enemy the blueprints to our house? Do you think after WWI anyone thought that Germany could be capable of launching a second world war within only few decades?? Would we have allowed it to happen if we hadnt found out to late? Should we have shared the atomic bomb with Hitler as a sign of friendship between our two countries? You wanna talk about silly, YOUR silly.

And if we are already pulling guard duty for a country incapable of keeping their own weapons from being sold to terrorists, why give them another piece of technology they cant keep their hands on?
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Shared the atomic bomb with Hitler! lol. Be serious. We're talking about REDUCING their number of nuclear weapons in exchange for 10 year old DEFENSIVE technology... The nukes are clearly the larger threat. Sure, theoretically it is possible that some day we'll be launching ICBMs at Russia, although that is pretty far fetched, and they'll be able to block them because they have this defense system... It's 10,000 more likely that we'll face a threat from a soviet era nuclear bomb that was smuggled out of Russia. That's the real threat.
 
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