Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a statement on Monday warning that Russia would be prepared to develop its own intermediate-range nuclear missiles if the US starts doing so, following the collapse of the INF treaty last week.
Though some Russian officials were saying they don’t want a new arms
race, it’s clear this is going to be an issue, as the Pentagon is openly
talking about developing new missiles formally banned by the INF, and
was faulting Congress for not giving them even more money to do so.
Russian Deputy FM Serey Ryabkov says that Russia also intends to respond defensively to the deployment of US missiles in Asia, something Defense Secretary Mark Esper was calling on the US to do over the weekend.
Though Esper made clear he envisions the deployments in Asia to involve
INF-range missiles, it’s not clear he envisions them all being nuclear
weapons. Clearly, a major influx of US nukes into Asia would provoke
both Russia and China, and it’s not at all clear who would even allow
the US to position such arms in their country.
Yet Russia says they will respond to every threat . How does Russia keep up while cutting their defense budget to only 50 billion . And the United States increases their defense budget 50 billion to over 750 billion . Yet Russian planes can fly right along side of our planes. Russia might even be able to put more nuclear bombs into orbit than we can .
Spending and wasting are two different things.
Mmm, how much is a gallon of gas for US tanks in Afghanistan? A bottle of water ? How much does a US trained seal (heh) get as a mercenary there ?
I would think the money we spend on combat pay alone exceeds some of those tiny country’s entire defense budgets. Everyone we have stationed outside our soil, and not just those in combat zones, gets extra compensation also.
Pretty sure the money we spend on veterans alone exceeds most countries’ defense budgets.
I’m sure we could make quite a lengthy list. How about our “intelligence” agencies? Maybe 80 billion?
Or, simply, we pay more in interest on money borrowed to fund militarism, than rivals spend on actual weapons.
Hey, the thousands of middle-men all taking a cut and a piece and a percentage really adds up. Plus all the money to be spent on “lobbying” and outright graft and theft from an organization which can’t be audited.
There was a headline on Yahoo “news” yesterday that said “Putin threatens the US with nuclear weapons”. Sure, ok.
I think the nations of the world had best put their dick measuring aside and join forces to come to grips with the real potential threat to all nations, the “Tick Tack” UFO’s as filmed and confronted by U.S. fighter pilots on an almost regular basis that can accelerate to 8000 mph in a matter of seconds and have been recorded in fleets of as many as 50. These crafts may have the ability to take out a carrier battle group in minutes at any time they desire too.
I must ask, are our “leaders” blind, stupid, or WTF?????
What do you think the ” nations of the world ” should do Jay ? I ask this as a person who has observed 2 UFOs….
Dave, First, all of the Nations should call a special meeting at the U.N. and tell ALL that they know about the UFO, UAP, situation, then based on what is revealed, and again ALL must be revealed, (yes, many people will, may, have a very hard time accepting and then dealing with that truth.), then all Nations on Earth should cease all war making and work together to confront this astounding revelation in a way that is best for all mankind. It is imperative, IMHO, that all must be done to have direct communication with the operators and builders of these foreign crafts, and the first step in that may be the dismantling of all nuclear weapons on the Earth and that includes no use of Space for military reasons. I do believe that it is possible that there has been very secretive coordination taking place between advanced nations to deal with this situation already, but I have no solid proof of that.
Interesting, however, aren’t you actually just describing the common sense response to climate change ? Difference, the peer reviewed science which verifies a real, known phenomenon vs an unexplained phenomenon of unknown intent. Why invent boogiemen, we are the boogiemen.
Dave, I have been alarmed by air pollution and water pollution and deforestation for 60 years, before it was a “religion”, as it is today. I have also been alarmed by the real problem, that is a great contributor to most other problems, over population, for the last 52 years. The UFO, UAP, situation, if handled correctly, can lead to clean, plentiful energy, something I would love to see, also peace on this Earth.
Religion? Is aerodynamics a religion, or science ?
This is the reaction that former Raytheon lobbyist Esper expected. He’ll make a ton of money (again) once this SecDef gig is over.
Exactly – deranged individuals who are willing even to put the world in peril to increase their own excessive material comforts.
This was never about what the Russians had done. Whatever it was, it was quite awhile ago and did us no real harm.
This is about China, which is pushing many varied uses for short to medium range, guided ballistic missiles, like their “carrier killer” and the mass of missiles threatening to use conventional warheads to disable the defenses of Taiwan.
It is also about a lot of new defense spending, for elaborate new guided ballistic missiles of our own, like the Chinese, but of course more expensive and “better.”
Too bad nobody in range of the intended targets is willing to host such missiles, but after the money is spent we can spend more money to manipulate such local politics. If that blows up local international relations, well that’s good too, another war to fight.
The Iskander mobile launchers can already launch intermediate nuclear capable cruise missiles, and some of their ballistic missiles look artificially limited to 500km. A few tweaks and they could probably fly significantly further.
This treaty has always been sort of a joke IMO. Never applied to sea and air launched missiles, so the US could just fire them from their bombers, or from ships at sea. Ditto for Russia. They currently have a bunch of Corvettes sailing in the Caspian and up and down the Volga armed with these missiles. Now they can just load them on their Iskanders.
I think this move was always more about targeting the Chinese than the Russians anyways.
I think in terms of the castle. The lord sells the castle idea for the serfs to build against the foreigners, yet, the castle actually protects the lord from his own serfs. As long as global denizens believe the folly of their wmds are about some “other”, we continue to serve our masters. Nuclear weapons in the US is about prolonging the militant state security system
The difference between this arms race is that Russia won’t be wasting precious resource. They’ll just build one really good advance weapon system while U.S. will built 10 average but expensive weapons systems.