It seems President Bush has decided to jumpstart the Cold War

[Moridin187]

In case any of you haven't read or heard this yet..


Taken from Yahoo! News:


Bush to Back Out of '72 Nuclear Pact
Photos

AP Photo



By RON FOURNIER, AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush (news - web sites), anxious to deploy a missile shield long sought by Republicans, will soon give Russia notice that the United States is withdrawing from a landmark 1972 nuclear treaty, U.S. government officials said Tuesday. The pact bans missile defense systems.

He will announce the decision in the next several days, effectively invoking a clause in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that requires the United States and Russia to give six months' notice before abandoning the pact.

Initial White House plans called for announcing the decision Thursday, but officials cautioned that date could change. The four government officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

With the decision, Bush takes a huge step toward fulfilling a campaign pledge to develop and deploy an anti-missile system that he says will protect the United States and its allies, including Russia, from missiles fired by rogue nations.

Bush has said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks heightened the need for such a system.

Russia and many U.S. allies have warned Bush that withdrawing from the pact might trigger a nuclear arms race. Critics of the plan also question whether an effective system can be developed without enormous expense.

Conservative Republicans have urged Bush to scuttle the ABM, rejecting proposals to amend the pact or find loopholes allowing for tests.

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Bob Stump, R-Ariz., said he has received no advance tip from the administration, but he backs the plan.

``There's all these questions about Russia upholding their end of the treaty anyway, and I just don't think we should penalize ourselves,'' Stump said. ``We shouldn't delay our ballistic missile defense. If it takes withdrawing from the ABM treaty, that's fine.''

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., told CNN he was opposed to pulling out of the pact. ``It is not a good idea. It would be a real setback for defense and foreign policy to violate the ABM treaty.'' He added: ``It's a slap in the face for many people who have committed years if not decades'' to arms control.

The president defended his push for a missile shield during a national security speech Tuesday at the Citadel in South Carolina.

``For the good of peace, we're moving forward with an active program to determine what works and what does not work,'' Bush said. ``In order to do so, we must move beyond the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a treaty that was written in a different era, for a different enemy.''

``America and our allies must not be bound to the past. We must be able to build the defenses we need against the enemies of the 21st century,'' he said.

According to Bush administration officials, Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) had assured Bush during their October talks in Washington and Crawford, Texas, that U.S.-Russian relations would not suffer even if Bush pulled out of the treaty.

They said Bush's decision reflects a desire by the Pentagon (news - web sites) to conduct tests in the next six months or so that would violate the ABM.

Tests may be conducted on sea-based radars and missile interceptors, which could be fielded in combination with the land-based systems that the Pentagon has been testing for years and which are permitted under the treaty.

The Pentagon later might test space-based missile defense technologies.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said that even after the administration gave notice of its intent to withdraw, the administration would be interested in continuing discussions with the Russians on an arrangement to replace the ABM treaty. If that produced agreement within six months, there would be no need for a formal withdrawal.

The decision came as Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites), in Moscow, said Russia and the United States are near agreement on drastic cuts in long-range nuclear arsenals.

But the U.S.-Russian disagreement over missile defense is so deep that Russia is bracing for the possibility of a U.S. withdrawal from the landmark ABM treaty, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told a joint news conference with Powell on Monday.

Another major nuclear treaty, the 1993 START II treaty to reduce stockpiles of long-range nuclear warheads to 3,000 to 3,500 by 2003, appeared to be in jeopardy.

The Cold War-era ABM treaty is based on the proposition that stripping a nuclear power of a tough defense against missile attack would inhibit launching an attack because the retaliation would be deadly.

Past supporters of the treaty, such as former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, support Bush in his view the world has changed over the past three decades.

Russia is no longer an enemy, and the United States needs to mount a defense against potential attack from North Korea (news - web sites), Iran or other states with nuclear ambitions, they say.

But Jack Mendelsohn, a former U.S. negotiator, sharply criticized Bush's decision.

At a time when the United States seeks allied support in coalition operations against terrorism, Mendelsohn said Tuesday ``to unilaterally abrogate part of a formal treaty structure makes no bloody sense.''

 

[Azwed]

Grr damn research papers that are due tomorrow that you have not started.

I am in the middle of something right now, but if i get a chance i can pull some stuff out that shows how we could get a bare bones missile defense sysetm really cheap.

 

[Moridin187]

Uhh.. That wasn't exactlly my point in posting this.. But it sounds interesting, considering the program they've been testing so far is only 60% effective.

 

[Azwed]

:disclaimer:

This is post is going to be long, so deal with it.





Ok i have a few minutes now, so I will try and outline what I was talking about.

Let me set up a scenario for you.

There is some kind of a power strugle in the middle east. Iraq or Iran you know the usual suspects. The problems is that we always have a carrier task force in the Persian gulf and another one near by either in the Arabian sea or the Indian ocean. Before the leaders can make their move they are going to have to keep the Americans out of the equation.

Carrier task forces are our primary way of projecting power around the world. They are completly self-suficient and are not a something you want to engage in a fight with. A two carrier task force could give just about any other countries entire navy a run for its money. How do you eliminate a problem like this when you don't have a combined navy/airforce sufficient to challenge a taskforce?

A carrier taskforce has a multilayered defense which is very difficult to penetrate. On the outer edge of the group are anti-submarine and anti-air destroyers. The smaller Agies equipped destroyers can engage airborne targets from hundres of miles away and track thousands of radar images at once. The anti-submarine destroyers have their own active and passive sonar to detect submarines. They also carry helicopters to aid in the tracking and destruction of enemy subs.

After that there will be Ticcondergoa(sp?) class Agies equipped cruisers that are even more deadly then their destroyer sized counterparts. Even more anti-submarine ships and helicopters. The carriers own anti-submarine choppers and planes are then added to the mix. Some taskforces also include and attack submarine for hunting other subs.

A task force, that considered itself in harms way, would have fighters aloft constantly on CAP(Combat Air Patrol) with AWACS support. The carriers have pinpoint defense with CIWIS(Close In Warhead Interception System). There are probably even more defenses that I either have forgoten or don't know about.

This is a very prickly, nasty, deadly thing to attack and if you don't take out the carriers right away the counterattack will be a bitch.

The one thing the taskforce can't defend against are ballistic Missiles. A single shortrange ballistic missile with a low yeild nuclear warhead would eliminate a taskforce. A group in the Persian Gulf would have little warning of the attack and would have no way to stop it anyway. A group in the Arabian Sea or the Indian Ocean would have more warning, but would most likely still catch most of the blast.

Destroying the taskforce would buy the offending country/countries several weeks or months in which to act.


I don't think we would respond with a nuclear retaliation strike. They did not strike our country they struck at our military. A nuclear strike on the attacking country would punish the people of that country and not the leadership. It would do us no good to wipe out a few million civillians who had no choice in the government that runs their country and in many cases would wish for a better one.


How do you defend agianst a nuclear tipped ballistic missile? Enter the Agies system. It was designed in the 70's as the ultimate air defense system. Capable of tracking and engaging dozens of airborne targets at ranges of hundres of miles its only real limt is firing missiles fast enough and running out of ammunition.

The SPY-1 radar dome can track targets from thousands of miles away in space. Tracking inbound ballistic targets would not be a problem. Engaging them will be. A ballistic inbound travels faster then an explosive shockwave. This means that the intercepting missile must detonate in a cone shapped area ahead of the inbound.


Try and picture a traffic cone with the tip being the ballistic inbound and the wide front being the point at which the explosion would still have enough power to destory the warhead.

Normaly the area that a intercepting missile can kill an attacker is a deformed sphere. This is because the inbound is traveling slower then the explosion and the interceptor can explode behind the inbound and still kill it.

The Agies system can track the inbounds and calculate where they will be easily. The only problem is getting the intercepting missiles to explode at the right point. A larger warhead would of course help, but the easiest way to do it is to change the software the missile uses to engage the target.

I don't know if anyone has done tests on this, but it seems that it would be a good stop gap solution to me. The protection would be splotchy, but it would be better then nothing at all. Right now we have nothing at all, this would provide some protection for our people and cost billions less then any other system. This system could be enacted overnight, at least in government time when simple projects take years, compared to any other system which might take decades to complete.


Ok i am done. Please feel free to correct anything I may have screwed up. I am switching gears from working on an AIDS in southeast asia research paper to this, so cut me some slack.

 

[registered "^^"]

Good God

The purpose is to make trillions for defense contractors not save it!

 

[Azwed]

They will make a ton of money. They will have to build more Agies cruisers and destroyers or modify the system to be land based. Hell even might work as an airbased system. Mount the SPY-1 radar on a 747 or old B-52's perhaps. The B-52's would be better since they already have the ability to carry the kind of missiles needed to take out a ballistic inbound.

 

[WriterDom]

missile defense system Put it to the PP test. If he's against it, it's probably a good idea. It's time to get past "cold war" thinking.

 

[Azwed]

I don't think Bush's plan is a good idea. I think it is the typical bloated government project that will earn his friends in defense and oil industries billions. It will take years if not decades to implement and I have always perfered simplier solutions over complex ones.

 

[Azwed]

Ok well it is back to analyzing Thai and Japanese policy towards AIDS, but I expect some opinions on my big ass long post when I check back later.

 

[Moridin187]

*bump for trolls*

 

[p_p_man]

Oh good...

They've finally let mad Bush out of his padded cell where they've been keeping since his "Dead or Alive" speech.

Now at least we can have some fun over Christmas.

As registered "^^" said it's a money thing not a defence thing. In a few years time when it's re-discovered the task is too complex and after defence contracts have been awarded worth trillions of dollars and a few more terrorist attacks have proved the whole scheme worthless anyway, Bush will probably announce he's got this great idea to combat global warming.

An idea incidentally which he promised to announce this past Fall...

I've always said he's more of a threat to world peace than anyone else around.

 

[Moridin187]

There you are p_p!

I've been keeping this thread warm because I wanted to see what you had to say on the subject.. Yeah, that's sort of my problem. If this defense system is really to protect America from nukes, then there's one major problem with it.

Terrorists, Iran, Sudan and all the rest.. If they're going to nuke us, they're not going to do it with a ballistic missile, they're going to do it with a TV repair van.

 

[Guest]

There you are p_p!



Terrorists, Iran, Sudan and all the rest.. If they're going to nuke us, they're not going to do it with a ballistic missile, they're going to do it with a TV repair van.

someone should tell them. I hate to see all the rouge nations spending money on systems for nothing.

 

[Calamity Jane]

isn't this old news? i could have sworn i heard about this treaty thing months ago... no?

 

[Marxist]

Everyone please keep in mind that Iran has never ever been our true enemy or a monumental threat to national security. I know this might come as a shock to those under 50 but believe it because it's true. Iran and Iraq may sound alike and be near each other but they bear little political or social or historical similarity to one another.

And don't be shocked when your children and grandchildren regard Iran as we now regard Egypt. It will happen.

Now back to the thread at hand-------------------

 

[CelestialBody]

Rouge Nations?

 

[p_p_man]

If they're going to nuke us, they're not going to do it with a ballistic missile, they're going to do it with a TV repair van.

Or via UPS as someone here once mentioned!

Bush is running out of steam on the bin Laden thing.

He hasn't done a lot of positive things for America since he's been in office.

He's concerned that his ratings will drop.

Aha! says he, why not start a renewed "cold war" story, and keep myself on the front pages...

I think he's a bit like me...stirs the shit a lot!

 

[Problem Child]

Okay, blah, blah, blah, I hate Bush, he's a Dick, good, fine pp, I agree.

Let's talk about missile defense. First, I think right now is not a good time to be pushing it, if it's going to irritate Putin. Not that I'm sweet on vladimir, but it seems as though 9/11 has been an opportunity to find some common ground with the russians, and Putin seems to be a semi-reasonable guy. At least he's not half in the bag all the time, like old "9-fingers" Yeltsin. I was hald surprised that drunk didn't set his Stoli bottle down on the launch button sometime during his term in office.

Anyway...I think this is the time to lay low on missile defense, but I think Putin is going to cut a deal with Bush...you get your missile defense Comrade, as long as you quit belly-aching about Chechnya. Something like that. On top of that, my man Don "that's a stupid fucking question, are you from CNN?" Rumsfeld is pretty high on missile defense and is pushing Bush hard to implement it.

Having said that...while I think right now is not the best time to push missile defense, I think we need to do it. The U.S. has a long and ignominious history of always being unprepared for the next war. We weren't ready for just about all the wars we've ever fought, except the Gulf War (and we could have been readier for that one). After every conflict, we always demobilize, and have to build back up again.

And now we have a saber-rattling threat to the east, called China, whom, with the help of some very nice friends from Loral and other companies with the blessing of our last President now have the plans to our most sophisticated nuclear warheads.

They have said they can hit the West coast with nukes, and have said they are not afraid to do it. They are constantly threatening our ally Taiwan. they are not afraid to challenge our aircraft in international airpspace. They have designs on the Panama canal, and are definitely our number one military threat.

I'm not saying China is going to nuke us tomorrow, or next year. We have more pressing threats right now from terrorists. The difference is, if China ever got ballsy, a lot more folks would die than died in the trade centers. Thousands of times more.

We are more than capable of designing and implementing a ballistic missile shield. I believe we should work on it steadily...not try and do it all in the next five years, but keep perfecting it until it's workable. And not spend ourselves into the poor house doing it.

If we don't, we may end up wondering why the hell we didn't, and wish Los Angeles and San Antonio weren't all radioactive like they are now.

 

[Azwed]

Agreed PC.

It does us no good to throw a lot of good money at a problem at all the wrong places. It needs to be targed at the right areas and be developed steadily. Kind of like the way we got stealth going. Slowly and steadily we evolved it to the point that it now works on supersonic and manuverable aircraft and not just slow ass 1950's performing ones.

I don't know if that whole idea I layed out would work, but it would be nice to test it since it would cost virtually nothing.

 

[Moridin187]

isn't this old news? i could have sworn i heard about this treaty thing months ago... no?

PCG, they've been talking about it for months, this is the official decision now.

And as to the others, I'm glad people are responding to this now... I was getting worried that no one seemed to care earlier..

You do raise a very good point I hadn't considered PC, thanks for bringing that to my attention.

Also, I hear a lot of righties around here talking about how Bush is such a great president for being in a war...

If anyone thinks back, they'll remember that at the beginning of his term Bush was all for stopping the "Two Front War" preparedness, and he wanted to cut military budgets by billions of dollars. *sigh* Also what I dislike is when people say "I bet if Gore was president right now.." Oh please, you may disagree with the democratic policies, you may even dislike Gore, but Gore is an American, and he would've been just as quick to get Osama.. In fact, my guess would be he would've agreed to the idea of getting him through a third party nation, and then going to work on Afghanistan. Hey, if everyone else can make baseless conjectures, so can I.

 

[p_p_man]

Azwed...

you asked for some comments on your Post and I've written mine in the context of this thread.

Carriers used to be considered the ultimate weapon and that is still true for any conflict that does not involve nuclear weapons. Otherwise I think submarines have taken over the mantle.

A task force probably could be taken out by ballistic missiles as you say, which would instantly destroy their capabilities as a war machine. So I think the only useful purpose they have at the moment is as a flag-waving, muscle flexing national image.

You say that you don't think the US would respond with a miltary, presumably nuclear, strike. I would say it would depend on who your Commander-in-Chief is at the time. JFK and Khreshev both knew the terrible danger they were putting the world in during the Missile Crisis in the 60's, but both men played the nuclear card as far as they could.

It takes extreme level-headed caution, not hot headed bravado, to play that sort of game. In certain circumstances I can see the US retalliating with nuclear force.

You have written as though systems, such as the Agies system, could be made to be infallible. But as someone posted on another thread about the Afghanistan conflict, all it takes is for a slightly myopic programmer to punch in the wrong co-ordinates and who knows where the weapon will go or when it will explode?

Protection of the people as September 11 has shown is impossible. All defence experts from any country you care to mention that I have ever heard, all come to that same conclusion. No matter what type of weaponry you have or delivered by what kind of system, all it will ever be is retalliatory.

Protection, especially for America, is one of a complete re-assessment of your foreign policy and relations with other countries. A complete overhaul. You will more than likely offend some countries you have called allies in the past but as it is a matter of protecting you and your own, they, quite frankly can go and find another ally somewhere else.

By bringing up cold war arguments all over again shows that America, under Bush, isn't prepared to do this.

More's the pity...

 

[p_p_man]

PC

If Putin is going to cut a deal with Bush over missile defence, what sort of deals are the rest of us hoping to get out of it?

It's not a question of US vs Russia anymore. It's not a re-run of a Tyson fight. There are more countries involved nowadays. And it may have escaped your notice that most of the old Eastern Bloc are slowly becoming members of NATO in the first place as a forerunner to becoming members of the European Union. So what are you actually forecasting?

USA and Russia in conflict with the European Union? Because if you are many people would agree with you.

Likewise your comments on China. Last week they joined the World Trade Organisation after years of negotiation. Their economy is definitely on an upturn. They have excellent modern buildings, housing excellent modern facilities. Their "sabre rattling" is going to be on the economic front not the military.

Take a look around you. Read foreign news reports (not headlines) and then come back and say you're still worried about them in an old "cold war" sense...

 

[InnesLane]

The big debate in American politics should be the cowardly abdication of Constitutional powers by the Congress of the United States. I'm not sure exactly when our esteemed Congressmen and Senators decided to become a collection of wimps (though I suspect it was the result of nearly sixteen years of rubber-stamp politics under FDR) but Congress has failed to declare an act of war since WWII (though has courageously passed resolutions to support our servicemen in a half dozen or so conflicts since then) and now allows a president to withdraw from a treaty that required ratification by the Senate nearly thirty years ago without raising more than a wimper.

What the fuck is going on? There used to be three branches of government, or at least that's what they taught me back in grade school, but now we have a president who's elected by a majority vote of nine judges after losing a majority of votes in a nationwide election, bypasses Congress and declares repeatedly that we are at war though war has never been rightfully declared, and now tosses aside long-standing treaties as if they're his personal property to discard.

This trend toward Presidential autocracy worries me more than the substance of the treaty itself. Of course baby Bush didn't start the trend (his predecessor, his daddy and his daddy's boss all took their turns, as did every president from Truman to Nixon) but he's the first to package it all so neatly, and be so blatantly open about it.

Personally, I doubt it's malicious on his part. I think he's too stupid to understand the historical significance of what he's participating in, but that doesn't make it any less scary.

 

[Azwed]

Response to PP.

The US would respond with military force, but I don't think they would let it go nuclear. The problem is that without a carrier group in the area they have not way of responding quickly. It takes weeks and sometimes months to move a carrier group in. Yes we have land based fighters and troops on the ground in many places but not everywhere. Carriers and Marine Expedineary units give us the ability to slam the heavy end of the hammer down anywhere in the world within hours or days at the most.


You are right that technology is not always foolproof. As far as I know no one has ever pushed the agies system to the limit to see if it really could take out 40 plus inbounds. They have done it in computer simulation but never for real. A single cruiser could be overwhelmed by missiles just by firing enough regular cruise missiles to deplete its ammo. Just time the launching so that the ballistic inbounds make it in. Like I said this is a stop gap measure that would be cheap to look into and implement.


No one has ever launched an ICBM over the north pole either. For all we know crossing that boundry could cause some incredible fuck up in their navigation system. I can just see it now on the verge of nuclear war and saved because some magnetic anomoly caused all the ICBMS to crash.

 

[Problem Child]

Re: PC

If Putin is going to cut a deal with Bush over missile defence, what sort of deals are the rest of us hoping to get out of it?

I dunno. The best ones you can hope for I suppose. Everyone is looking out for their own agenda.

It's not a question of US vs Russia anymore. It's not a re-run of a Tyson fight. There are more countries involved nowadays. And it may have escaped your notice that most of the old Eastern Bloc are slowly becoming members of NATO in the first place as a forerunner to becoming members of the European Union. So what are you actually forecasting?

I never said it was a primarily a question of Russia vs. U.S. but we do have treaties with them. That's the whole point of the thread, or did you forget? If you read my post, you would see I focused on China.

USA and Russia in conflict with the European Union? Because if you are many people would agree with you.

I never said that, you did. You seem to be bent on having your EU view the U.S. as the enemy. Fine with me.

Likewise your comments on China. Last week they joined the World Trade Organisation after years of negotiation. Their economy is definitely on an upturn. They have excellent modern buildings, housing excellent modern facilities. Their "sabre rattling" is going to be on the economic front not the military.

I know they joined th WTO. I know they're economy is on the upturn. You think I don't notice that every friggin thing I buy is made in China? Stop acting like you're the only person on this board that reads a newspaper.

Do you really think we ought to ignore the largest military in the world? I don't.

Take a look around you. Read foreign news reports (not headlines) and then come back and say you're still worried about them in an old "cold war" sense...

I do and I am. Cold war is your term, not mine. Is that a challenge? What do I win?

PS, what makes foreign journalism so much better than U.S. ? You wouldn't be biased would you? Didn't think so.