Posted on 02/02/2019 5:39:36 PM PST by Kaslin
An often cited claim for which evidence is never provided.
Not a reason to scrap a cornerstone treaty either.
Sure it is if your enemy is developing weapons you need to match or simply let them dominate.
Russia made public announcements about weapons that violated former agreements.
Russia provided the evidence.
Well theres pretty much gonna be one sooner or later.
Many of us are in spots that wont survive it. And for me its fine by me. Not gonna have to resort to warfare against others for mere survival in a radioactive craphole.
“when another country (actually, now, other COUNTRIES) can blow us off the map”
Nobody with knowledge agrees with that.
Nobody.
“Treaty violations are an indication of seeking to destroy us.”
Complete nonsense.
They were minor, technical violations at most.
And they present no threat whatsoever to the US. They made the “fuel tank” to big on a class of short range missiles...none of which has a nuke mounted on it...and thus made them capable of around 600km rather than the treaty limit of 500km.
“...Nobody with knowledge agrees with that.”
So how do we stop their weapons, our good looks?
“Do you advocate staying in a treaty when one side openly violates it?”
The US wants out of this treaty so we can position IR nukes in east Asia.
IR nukes in Europe are passe. Neither Russia nor the US has any use for it.
I agree.
Completely.
last Arms race we had was with the USSR. They lost bad, broke up into smaller countries and Berlin Wall fell. Socialist countries can never beat Capitalist countries in economics.
“So how do we stop their weapons, our good looks?”
We have never been able to, and we’ll never be able to.
There are too many of them.
But do not misunderstand this fact: The US deterrent works at a 90+% rate. All our weapons systems in the triad are absolutely accurate and reliable, as are our command and control systems.
We never have less than two Trident boats in position with 288 - 100kt warheads deliverable to a CEP of <50 meters. We have 500+ Minuteman III missiles ready to fly with a few minutes notice.
And we have no less than 50 B-52s ready to clean up with ALCMs and gravity bombs.
All of our systems work, and all those warheads will arrive.
I agree with most of what you said, although I wouldn’t sit too comfortable thinking that our now-ancient weapons that you mention will always be unstoppable. After all, our enemies have had MANY DECADES to figure out how they work, and what their weaknesses are.
In any case, I don’t see you denying my claim that other countries can blow us off the map - you’re only saying that they won’t choose to, because, I guess, they fear our weapons will get through.
Better than nothing, I guess.
This actually good for the U.S. The Russians were cheating anyway and it gives us the best weapon and stealth fighter match up. There is a huge amount of land mass that is bomber exclusive (or ballistic missiles). This would allow us to significant cut down that territory with more numerous and survivable fighters.
I bet you’ll say the same thing about the JCPOA too. One of Vladimir’s chief allies to boot.
Did you get lost on the way to DU?
Who is really the biggest problem for Russia? That would be China. China could overwhelm them with shear numbers. And the Chinese call nuclear war population control. China would really like to have Russia’s oil/gas supply.
The fundamental objectionable principle is being part of a treaty that unilaterally handcuffs ourselves.
How or why we get out of it is less important to me.
Russia and China have been very close allies for the better part of two decades now, including militarily. So that’s not a case of being a problem for them, unless of course Trump can turn China.
Without a mad man president, that means the impact of the INF treaty falling apart is negligible. It only means several American and Russian companies getting between a couple hundred million (Russia, since they already have intermediate missiles and just need to enhance them for nuclear delivery) and a couple billion (US since things are more expensive and the US did actually honor the INF treaty) to develop weapons that are not needed and will never be used. Thus, a wash. Only money gets sloshed around.
The only real danger from this is that more weapons are placed under the control of people lower down the decision making tree, meaning there is a mathematically low-but-still-greater chance of a ‘mistake’ happening. A very interesting book called ‘The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nucear War Planner’ shows how this came close to happening several times during the Cold War. Sure, the President still has to authorize a nuclear strike, so a sane president is still essential and this takes away the minusculy higher risk of more weapons scattered around. And anyways, there are already very powerful weapons in boomers prowling the oceans as we speak.
All in all, not that big of a deal.
The problem with IRBMs and fast cruise missiles is they are shortening the time for the opposite side to consider counter attack. Currently it is around 15 minutes and there is a history of close calls with false identification which didn’t end in WWII only by miracle. With a response time shortened to five minutes and less conscious officers in charge the bets are off.
Gee, why would he do that?
Perhaps he has stock in Raytheon. Bolton has never seen a Sabre he did not want to rattle.
Because the hypersonic weapons are not nukes. I guess you can put one on them...but they are so fast that traditional anti missile systems cannot respond. So...the chance of one flying up Broadway is higher.
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