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Vice Admiral: Obama was outmaneuvered by Russians on START

tryreading said:
You one of those guys that thinks missile defense works?



Its fun to argue that way, but here are the facts:

1. Abortions will be funded by national health care, unless there are legislative changes.
2. Missile defense does not work.


(The former will be discussed truthfully on AM talk radio, the latter will certainly not)
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there's no evidence that missile defense systems don't work...LOL
 
zimmer said:
Weak and inexperienced is as weak and inexperienced does.

.
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This proves my point on conservatives. They spend 90% of their time complaining and 5% reading the data / information they base their complaints about and 5% trying to make America a better place.

This treaty does NOT dissallow missle defense systems. Talk about weak and inexperienced. :2razz:

I would go further indepth but alas I have to go to the washroom and then hit the sack. :2wave:
 
Actually - I don't care about the anti-missile system. I think it's flawed and unlikely to actually work if we're under an attack - nor would it be sufficient or even likely to be called upon quickly enough.

A Test is one thing

In reality - it's another.

But this does bother me here:
7. Each Party shall have the right to conduct inspections in connection with the elimination of heavy ICBMs and their launch canisters, as well as inspections in connection with the conversion of silo launchers of heavy ICBMS. Except as otherwise provided for in the Elimination and Conversion Protocol, such inspections shall be conducted subject to the applicable provisions of the START Treaty.
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We had a similar provision with Iraq - and when that provision was violated it built on itself and culminated into a war which no one supported.

Some of the treaty is just stupid - like requiring the number of housed onboard warheads be equal to it's number of housed onboard nuclear warhead. :shrug:

And there are several outs and options for modifying and altering - including this, the last provision:

4. Each Party shall, in exercising its national sovereignty, have the right to withdraw from this Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests. It shall give notice of its decision to the other Party six months prior to withdrawal from this Treaty. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events the notifying Party regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests.
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So the following Republican President can and likely will alter certain parts of this Treaty to revert to it's original stage.
 
The Giant Noodle said:
This proves my point on conservatives. They spend 90% of their time complaining and 5% reading the data / information they base their complaints about and 5% trying to make America a better place.

This treaty does NOT dissallow missle defense systems. Talk about weak and inexperienced. :2razz:

I would go further indepth but alas I have to go to the washroom and then hit the sack. :2wave:
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The Russians say that it does. I guess they got it wrong, too?
 
4. Each Party shall, in exercising its national sovereignty, have the right to withdraw from this Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests. It shall give notice of its decision to the other Party six months prior to withdrawal from this Treaty. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events the notifying Party regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests.
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Well, that purdy much makes this treaty nothing but a peace of paper.
 
The Giant Noodle said:
Hey Apdst "Stop pointing fingers and take some blame, Pull your future away from the flame Open up your mind and start to live, man. :)
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That's fine, but where is the evidence that I'm wrong? I haven't seen it on this thread. Alls I've seen are insults and threats.
 
I am guessing this Vice Admiral will be retiring very soon.. should be charged with treason!
 
Kev316 said:
WLS, am890, is Chicago's 50,000 watt blowtorch. Here's the lineup: Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin.
WIND am560 is Chicago's #2 blowtorch. Here's the lineup: Beck, Dennis Miller, Michael Medved, Michael Savage, Hue Hewitt, Mike Ghallagher, Dennis Prager.

Pretty sweet, huh? Yup, am radio. Don't even need Fox.
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ah, yes, that old liberal media bias.....
 
The man is a real irresponsible idiot but some people here say he is brilliant. This is another proof that I was right. This idiot wants us all killed.
 
Deuce said:
I know it's not what you asked. It is, however, what the conversation was about. As for why offensive and defensive weapons are tied together, I'll have to explain Mutually Assured Destruction to you.

Let's say you and I are holding guns, pointed at each other. We don't like or trust each other, but we still aren't inclined to pull the trigger because if we do that, the other will pull his trigger and we both die. So we stand there, guns in hand, but everyone stays alive. However, one day you see me start to put on a kevlar vest. Once the vest is on, I am well-protected from your gun. (let's ignore "shoot the head." for this scenario, your odds of penetrating the vest are very low) What would you do? Let me gain that advantage over you, or pull the trigger before I get the vest on?

That's what we have going here. Nuclear arsenals that are guaranteed to destroy each other. He who pushes the proverbial button to destroy the other will himself be destroyed, and the human race may fall as a result. Right now, defensive interceptors just aren't up to the task of stopping ICBMs. They're just too freaking fast, the intercept success rate is abysmally low, and that's not even counting the effects of decoys and MIRVs. If some defensive system did come up that truly threatened the capabilities of ICBMs, do you think the Russians would:
A) Allow us to finish building the defensive shield and gain a potentially decisive advantage over them
B) Blow us all to hell before being forced to their knees before us

Developing systems capable of stopping these strategic weapons actually makes us less safe.
Developing systems to protect us from smaller-scale weapons like Iran or North Korea might come up with is not in violation of the treaty, as long as it doesn't seriously threaten the existing strategic stockpiles.
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First of all I would like to commend you for a very well written post. You are a gifted writer and thoughtful opponent. You are also like a cat.

Cats see the world in black and white. They do not perceive the rich and textured hues and bright colors of reality. But their inability to perceive this element of reality does not mean that bright colors and rich hues don't exist.

I understand Cold War Era MAD Theory. But thanks for the refresher course. MAD doesn't work against Iran, but I'll get to that in a moment.

Russia isn't going to preemptively attack the US under any set of circumstances. Similarly, the US will not launch a first strike against Russia. That isn't the issue.

Missile defenses cannot be tied to any treaty or limited in any way. The reason is I say that is we have now moved in to what some people call the Third Nuclear Age. There is going to be an explosion of nuclear know how to many states and nonstate groups in the world.

America tried to prevent nuclear proliferation, but the genie is out of the bottle. North Korea and Iran have shown the nations of the world how to use the auspices of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to become nuclear weapons states.

In the next twenty five years or so there will be an expansion in the number of nuclear weapons states. MAD breaks down as the number of nuclear weapons states expands. During the First Nuclear Age only America, Russia, the UK and France possessed nuclear weapons. MAD Doctrine worked well because the men with their fingers on the triggers knew what total destruction meant. They had seen it during WWII.

During the Second Nuclear Age China and India developed the ability to master the nuclear fuel cycle. MAD Doctrine still worked because these states were under the control of sober minded people not on a mission from gawd.

We are now in the Third Nuclear Age. North Korea has plutonium weapons and is working on uranium based bombs. They already sold the technology to Syria at the probable behest of Iran. Israel destroyed the Syrian project.

Iran is going to become a nuclear weapons state, and there is nothing effective that can be done to stop in at this late date other than a nuclear first strike, and that's not going to happen, nor should it.

Venezuela, Myanmar and other states will ultimately acquire nuclear weapons. It's inevitable.

America developed nuclear weapons. But Russia was afraid of America. So Russia developed nuclear weapons using some technology passed to them by one or more American scientists who had worked on the Manhatten Project. Then the UK and France got the bomb so they could be in the club.

Russia helped China develop civilian nuclear technology. But the Chinese were afraid of the Russians, so the Chinese used civilian Russian tech to develop their own nuclear program. They got the bomb in 1964.

China and India fought a border war in the Himalayas in 1962. So the Indians were afraid of the Chinese. They started their own nuclear program and exploded a bomb in 1974.

American intelligence believes that the Chinese passed info in 1984 to the Pakistanis on the engineering and physics required to develop nuclear weapons. In the nineties Pakistan became a nuclear weapons state and now has at least one hundred bombs.

Russia also helped North Korea with a civilian nuclear reactor, and Pakistan has admitted to having sold nuclear weapons technology to the North Koreans in exchange for ballistic missile technology. There is no way to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology.

MAD won't work against Iran because the logic of the doctrine is superceded by the messianism of the Twelver Sect of Shiism as practiced among some of the ruling factions in Iran. The Return of The Mahdi requires a cataclysm. Even if MAD Doctrine could work with Iran it is impractical for America. America is no longer willing to fight a serie of proxy wars against a fellow nuclear state. America's problems are at home.

The better and smarter and cheaper course of action is for America to simply withdraw from political and military relations with countries in the eastern hemisphere. If America does that neither China nor North Korea will be a threat. The Chinese and North Koreans will be preoccupied with the nuclear weapons programs that arise in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Iran would complete its nuclear program, but would face the danger of Saudi, Egyptian, and Turkish nuclear weapons programs that arise in response.

America doesn't need to provide missile defenses for Europe or any one but itself. But America must have absolute and complete freedom to develop a multi layered system of missile defenses without any constraint by the Russians. And the Russians will constrain America. A future president may be deterred in doing what is necessary to complete the defense the country needs against other nations, and nonstate groups.

Finally, I apologize for the rambling nature of this post.
 
Kev316 said:
It is true and no president of the United States can ratify a treaty on his own. Sorry, doesn't work that way. That whole 2/3 of the Senate thing, ya know?
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The clause in the Preamble will establishes a connection that the Russians will use to shape world wide opinion against future American missile defense development and deployment as destabilizing the global strategic balance.

I don't think Richard Luger is able to see that. He is a prisoner of Cold War Arms Reduction Think. It's outmoded.
 
Kev316 said:
"Any fool can knock down a barn, but it takes time, skill, and patience to build one." -Harry Truman

Perhaps if you stopped tearing apart the nation and worked to build it?
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Tell this to Obama, but I don't think that it will do you any good.
 
apdst said:
Yes, it does. Otherwise, there wouldn't be anything in the treaty about defensive ballistic missiles.

Even the Russians admit that the part about outlawing defensive missile systems is legally binding.

Russian media: The missile defense provision in the new START treaty is legally binding « Hot Air
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You are absolutely right. The Russians and Americans have different legal interpretations of the effect of the clause in question in the Preamble of the Treaty. The Russians say it is mandatory and the Americans say it is precatory.

These different interpretations give the Russians a public relations club with which to shape the actions of future American presidents.
 
apdst said:
there's no evidence that missile defense systems don't work...LOL
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Who cares?
It can work well all it wants to - shooting down a missle in every test. But if we're under an attack just HOW effective is such a system going to be?

If The Russians are lobbing missiles at us the last thing I'm going to be thinking is "good thing we've got that anti-missile defense silos in place!"

It's a false comfort - and an unnecessary expense.
 
apdst said:
It sounds like that's what Miller is complaining about.
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Because he's being dishonest.

The US is barred from using existing silos and launch pads formerly used in ICBM systems for missile defense.

That would appear to be a problem for the ignorant but not for the educated. Especially considering the US was never planning on using those sites in the first place for missile defense. A sizable portion of the US missile defense is based off ships. Furthermore, it would be cheaper just to build specific launch sites for interceptors rather then completely renovate old systems and silos.

Basically, you're bitching about a cost savings measure.
 
Deuce said:
The treaty does not outlaw missile defense systems.
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Indeed. It's not even binding. Furthermore, we simply agreed not to use facilities we never intended to use for missile defense in the first place.

You should see the total idiot morons on Yahoo forums. They apparently think not being able to use facilities that were never going to be used anyways means we just dismantled missile defense. Idiots.
 
Albert Di Salvo said:
Why does the Preamble of the Treaty connect offensive and defensive missiles?
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Because missile defense is also an offensive weapon if it can effectively shut down a secondary strike. Nuclear strikes are suicidal in the presence of MAD. Missile Defense shuts down MAD. Therefore, it has become part of the offensive capabilities of nuclear weapons.
 
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