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Russia on Combat Alert over NATO Missile Defense

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Volitzer
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« on: December 03, 2011, 03:21:00 pm »

Russia on Combat Alert over NATO Missile Defense

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/russia-on-combat-alert-over-nato-missile-defense/

James Joyner · Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Russian President Dimitry Medvedev announced today that he would “immediately put the missile attack early warning radar station in Kaliningrad on combat alert” and take other aggressive steps to counter NATO’s missile defense system.

In an official statement reprinted on NATOSource, Medvedev claims this step was taken after NATO and the United States rebuffed repeated gestures from Moscow to cooperate. He asserts, “Rather than showing themselves willing to hear and understand our concerns over the European missile defence system at this stage, they simply repeat that these plans are not directed against Russia and that there is no point for us to be concerned. That is the position of the executive authorities, but legislators in some countries openly state, the whole system is against Russia.”

Seeing that NATO was going forward regardless of Russia’s concerns, Medvedev announced several steps:

First, I am instructing the Defence Ministry to immediately put the missile attack early warning radar station in Kaliningrad on combat alert.

Second, protective cover of Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons will be reinforced as a priority measure under the programme to develop our air and space defences.

Third, the new strategic ballistic missiles commissioned by the Strategic Missile Forces and the Navy will be equipped with advanced missile defence penetration systems and new highly-effective warheads.

Fourth, I have instructed the Armed Forces to draw up measures for disabling missile defence system data and guidance systems if need be. These measures will be adequate, effective, and low-cost.

Fifth, if the above measures prove insufficient, the Russian Federation will deploy modern offensive weapon systems in the west and south of the country, ensuring our ability to take out any part of the US missile defence system in Europe. One step in this process will be to deploy Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad Region.

Other measures to counter the European missile defence system will be drawn up and implemented as necessary.

Furthermore,

If the situation continues to develop not to Russia’s favour, we reserve the right to discontinue further disarmament and arms control measures.

Medvedev’s statement repeatedly expressed that this process is reversible but that “if we are asked to ‘cooperate’ or in fact act against our own interests it will be difficult to establish common ground. In such a case we would be forced to take a different response. We will decide our actions in accordance with the actual developments in events at each stage of the missile defence programme’s implementation.”

Barry Pavel, Director-Designate of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council and former Senior Director for Defense Policy and Strategy on the National Security Council staff, declared on Twitter upon seeing the announcement that “NATO should ignore this.” Later, he added, “This is about Russian domestic politics.”

Tomas Valasek of the Centre for European Reform tells Financial Times that , “Mr. Medvedev seems to be taking the debate on missile defence into the strategic realm of US-Russia arms control,” adding, “Here, the prize is to get a follow-on deal to the Obama-Medvedev agreement of 2008. The chances of success here are already low and these comments may push them lower.”

Thus far, Pavel’s analysis seems to be shared by the White House and NATO. Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen says that he has “taken note” of Medvedev’s statement and termed his actions “very disappointing.” National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor declared, “We continue to believe that cooperation with Russia on missile defense can enhance the security of the United States, our allies in Europe and Russia, and we will continue to work with Russia to define the parameters of possible cooperation. However, in pursuing this cooperation, we will not in any way limit or change our deployment plans in Europe.”

I share my colleague’s sense that Medvedev is playing to a domestic audience and that the United States and its NATO allies should not make policy decisions based on temper tantrums from Moscow. But that doesn’t mean that the Russians aren’t genuinely concerned about the changing balance of power represented by this missile plan. Indeed, our constant dismissal of their concerns only rubs their noses in the fact that we now view them more as a nuisance than a serious power.

Medvedev’s statement comes on the heels of Tuesday’s announcement that the United States was ending cooperation with Russia under the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, after Moscow had long since fallen out of compliance. Asked directly yesterday whether this would impact ongoing efforts to work with Russia on missile defense, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland declared, “we don’t see a direct connection between the two: missile defense is missile defense, conventional arms control is conventional arms control.”

But this is rather an obtuse position. Indeed, linkage—the explicit tying together of various bilateral concerns to encourage cooperation on issues the United States cared about—was a cornerstone of American policy during the period of détente with the Soviets. Surely, the Russians see all matters of the security relationship with the United States and its NATO allies as intermingled.

NATO can talk until it’s blue in the face about how its missile defense program is aimed at unspecified rogue states (a not-so-secret code for “Iran”) but the Russians naturally see a missile defense system based in countries within what they consider their sphere of interest a threat. After all, missiles are about all Moscow has to cling to as evidence that they’re still a great power. For that matter, as FT notes, the fourth phase of NATO’s Phased Adaptive Approach goes beyond the short- and medium-range missiles that would ostensibly be acquired by Iran to “deploy an interceptor capable of shooting down ICBMs, which form the bulk of Russia’s nuclear deterrent.”

So, I think we should take Medvedev seriously when he declares, “We will not agree to take part in a program that in a short while, in some 6 to 8 years’ time could weaken our nuclear deterrent capability. The European missile defense program is already underway and work on it is, regrettably, moving rapidly in Poland, Turkey, Romania, and Spain. We find ourselves facing a fait accompli.” Those sound very much like the howls of a wounded bear.
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Volitzer
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« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2011, 03:30:30 pm »

Lyndon LaRouche: The British Empire's WW3 Plan Must Be Stopped This Weekend!

http://www.larouchepac.com/node/20479

American statesman and economist Lyndon LaRouche issued the following emergency statement on Thanksgiving evening, Nov. 24.

"This empire is determined to set the nations of the world into a war with one another, which is intended that civilization as we've now known it, will no longer exist. This is not only a general prospect; this is the immediate situation this weekend. This is not a weekend like other weekends. We're now on the verge—and it's set in place right now—of a chain reaction, which could mean the extermination of civilization as we've known it.

"Now this is being set up by the British Empire, and nobody else. And nobody else. If you don't think the British Empire is the enemy, you don't understand the ABCs of the situation.

"A war now, do you know what it means? Do you know what thermonuclear weapons mean? Do you realize that what's going on in the Middle East, so-called, cannot be waged by anything other than nuclear weapons? This also means thermonuclear weapons?

"So don't talk about this interest, or that interest. Don't try to take sides in the silly quarrels which people are indulging in in the Middle East and elsewhere today. Pay no attention to this. They don't have any reality except stupidity. If you try to win these wars, you lose everything. You have to prevent these wars from occurring, or you lose everything.

"And the best example is to look at the study of the Seven Years War, from 1756 to 1763. And that war is the war that established the British Empire as the dominant imperial force on this planet. Because they induced the leading nations of continental Europe, and others, to make fools of themselves by fighting wars against one another, where the trick was, to get them to bleed themselves into weakness by fighting one another, and thus opening the gates for a British takeover, British imperial takeover, of the whole system. And that is exactly what happened.

"The only thing that saved civilization in that period, was the struggle of the United States, to create the United States. This struggle began, formally, in about 1620. It came with the settlement—and tonight, this is Thanksgiving. What's Thanksgiving represent? A party, a feast, that was being held in what became Massachusetts, including one of my ancestors. I'm one of those people who has a ancestor when that occurred... but, on the Mayflower.

"But out of that came the struggle which came out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was ofthe same kind of character, and this established in the United States, the concept which actually was attributable to Nicholas of Cusa. And this concept being created, despite the crushing of Massachusetts, in the latter part of the century, despite that, it set into motion something that stayed in motion, effectively from 1620 through the establishment of our Federal Republic.

"This is the only thing on this planet which has so far been able to cripple the attempts of the British Empire to realize the intention of becoming a new Roman Empire.

"We're now at the point where the corruption of the United States, has reached the point, that if we don't beat the Empire now, in what it's trying to do, and what it's trying to do with nuclear threats right now, we're lost. Civilization is lost. "So the solemnity of our cause, the devotion to that cause, an understanding that it lies in our hands to think clearly about how we do avoid falling into the traps the enemy sets for us... And that's what should be on our minds. Because this is not something for the distant future. This is this weekend, this weekend. The plan is in place! It will set into motion World War III, right now.

"I think we can beat that. But we have to be determined to do so.

"So I think the element of solemnity at this occasion, ought to be taken into account.

"What does our life mean after all? We're born, we die. What's important about our life is what we leave to the future of humanity."
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Volitzer
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« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2011, 03:31:41 pm »

Once again, I hope all you Obamanoids out there -- particularly those of you who claimed to be "anti-war" while Bush was in office -- are proud of yourselves.

And don't say you "didn't know," because people like Webster Tarpley spent nearly all of 2008 going out of their way to warn you about whose interests Obama truly served, and you arrogantly refused to listen:

     http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2330153707536467269 (The Men Behind Obama by Webster Griffin Tarpley)

And don't say Obama was the "only" alternative to McCain, either, because he wasn't:

      (Third Party Presidential Debate)
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« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2011, 03:38:18 pm »

U.S.: Russia won't stop arms shield

WASHINGTON – The U.S. ambassador to NATO on Friday dismissed recent expressions of outrage from Moscow over proposed missile defenses in Europe, saying the NATO deployment will proceed "whether Russia likes it or not."

The ambassador, Ivo Daalder, said the United States was well aware that "there are significant forces within Russia" that believe that the alliance's system of radars and interceptors could blunt Moscow's own arsenal of missiles and thus undermine Russia's strategic deterrent.

Daalder said he would meet officials from Moscow at NATO headquarters in Brussels next week to explain – once again – that the alliance shield is designed solely to defend against a potential missile attack from Iran.

But Daalder also noted that recent complaints, especially from President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia, might be motivated by the demands of domestic politics ahead of national elections there. The American commitment to work with NATO allies and deploy the missile shield is founded on a belief that Iran is accelerating its program to field missiles capable of reaching across NATO territory in Europe, Daalder said.

Since President Barack Obama announced new plans for the shield two years ago, Daalder said, "our estimate of the threat has gone up, not down. It is accelerating – this is the Iranian ballistic missile threat – and becoming more severe than even we thought two years ago."

Thus, he said, the United States and its allies remain wholly committed to the program.

"Whether Russia likes it or not, we are about defending NATO-European territory against a growing ballistic missile threat," Daalder said. "We will adapt the timing and the details to that threat, which is why the focus of our joint effort ought to be about how to figure out how to reduce that threat rather than trying to threaten and retaliate for a deployment that has nothing to do with Russia."

Last week, Medvedev threatened that Russia would deploy its own missiles and that it could withdraw from the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty if the United States proceeds with its plans for a missile-defense system in Europe.

Returning to that theme this week, Medvedev dismissed the idea that he was kicking around a political football.

Steven Pifer, an arms control expert who has managed Russia policy from top positions at the State Department and National Security Council, said that some of the tougher language out of Moscow seemed intended less for Washington and more for Russian voters, who head to the polls for parliamentary elections on Sunday. And with presidential elections in both Russia and the United States next year, the volume could grow louder, even though the basic positions in the missile-defense debate have not changed.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/03/4096642/us-russia​-wont-stop-arms-shield.html#ixzz1fT5EXFjR
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