Again, idiotic. These interceptors are not nukes. They conatin no explosive warhead whatsoever. The “kill vehicles” are kinetic and destroy the target with simple physics. Bullet with a bullet.

Cuffy Meigs on March 19, 2008 at 11:22am

This is one of the reasons I say PLEASE.
Cause you misunderstood what he was saying, possibly, and you didn’t ask….you assumed. Next time try not to take people out of context. In the beginning of Pax’s post he said “European”. Excuse me…. we never had “bigboy’s” in Europe?

President Obama would scrap the whole thing.

RobCon on March 19, 2008 at 10:30 AM

True, it would upset Iran and it`s time to build bridges, extend olive branches and all that holy-joly mush. A good togetherness chat will do. :)

Two related stories that we’ll just have to watch, both by way of Hot Air:
The new, independent Kosovo was recognized by Hungary, Croatia, and Bulgaria.
Vladimir Putin received the US favorably at the beginning of missile defense talks.
Putin is …

I beg to differ, but more that likely we will argue semantics and definitions. Putin did say the United States unilateral withdrawal was a mistake, but added that the growing ties between Russia and the US would continue and hoped a new and stronger strategic relationship could be realized. The Bush administration had placed its ABM cards on the table in plain sight via many meetings with Russian officials prior to the withdrawal from the treaty and by doing so clearly demonstrated its reasoned position. Other than perfunctory Russian political rhetoric, nothing substantive has changed. If you have other sources/information that alters these facts, please enlighten me. I can only formulate an opinion based on observed phenomena, historical record and critical analysis.

If you’re out somewhere and guy takes a swing at dude, you shouldn’t get upset if dude tries to work on blocking punches . . . unless you’re helping guy throw the punches.

In otherwords there’s more to Russia/Iran then a little selling of technology.

- The Cat

The amazing thing is, for all the jingoist American bad-a** posturing,

Better to posture and protect than to prostrate and provoke. Your ideas are the epitome of Osama’s weak horse foreign policy. Please stay away from my country’s safety; you’ll get us all killed.

Admission to the G8?

Russia has already been admitted to the G8.

Putin understood this and as such offered little to no argument when the United States withdrew from the treaty.

This is simply a lie.

I hope they come to terms. Russia and the USA need one another, much as they hate admitting it.

dhimwit on March 19, 2008 at 12:18 PM

They will come to terms, so long as the US keeps the neocons out of the way. Go ahead now and call me a lefty, etc. But it’s the truth.

Today’s system was not developed too nor will it be deployed in sufficient numbers to cope with the numbers and capability of Russian strategic missiles. Putin understood this and as such offered little to no argument when the United States withdrew from the treaty.

Cuffy Meigs on March 19, 2008 at 11:56 AM

Thanks for your comments. Appreciate what you say. We all get caught up in talking to trolls, but hey, shit happens. Good luck.

I hope they come to terms. Russia and the USA need one another, much as they hate admitting it.

The current system is designed to defend against insane mullahs and lunatic generals with their finger on the trigger of a mobile nuke or something.

You know it was, why do you ask?

Putin and the Russians were well aware of our intent and reasons to withdraw from the ABM treaty long before we actually did. A limited ballistic missle intercepter program in no way contributes to the offensive capability of the United States Strategic missle force.

Why was it prohibited by the ABM treaty then?

In which target city do you live, Drum. We’ll be sure to switch off coverage that day…

Cuffy Meigs on March 19, 2008 at 11:52 AM

One of the biggest, Cuff. Very funny. You guys are a hoot.

The amazing thing is, for all the jingoist American bad-a** posturing, there is an awful lot of time worrying about enemies lurking in every corner of the world. If it’s not jihadist, it’s the Russians; if it’s not the Russians, it’s the Chinese; ad nauseum. Don’t get me wrong — our enemies are lurking all round the world. But are we really so vulnerable? I don’t think so. Our country’s been hit once on its mainland. That’s a pretty good track record.

The truly strong usually don’t spend so much time posturing and threatening — especially threatening the use of nukes (we already played that hand and it wasn’t fun; or was it?).

On the other hand, maybe the US is weak. God forbid, for we’ve made us a whole hell of a lot of enemies.

Speaking of pathetic….so predictable.