Russia - USA Relations

What does anyone reasonably expect? For the U.S to unilaterally roll back all their strategic gains in Europe after the collapse of the USSR?... please....

The most the Americans will do is give Russians crumbs to calm the bear to sleep (while asking for stuff in return as well lmao), as they've done, successfully, in the past. You don't fold your real gains in the chessboard cause the other side started barking. Only when the bites are felt, and felt harshly after serious tussles... ONLY then will you see real strategic concessions and retreat from the empire and its lackies.

It's what it's.

That Russia has to negotiate whether its foreign policy becomes proactive or stays reactive..... with your own enemy of all people.... is by itself a massive sign of weakness. But whatever... that's how they handle themselves on the world stage under dear leader. At least he's not completely loony and unilaterally dissolving an empire... progress

The Russians wont be surprised by this response... if they had agreed to everything I doubt they would have believed they were being honest either.

Up until now Russia has been passive and reacting to US and EU moves against them and their few remaining allies.

Now I suspect they have had enough, which does not mean they will start WWIII... but it might mean they may start pushing back in a lot of areas and asserting their own position is situations where they just let the west win.

I rather suspect they wont try to force the EU to take their cheap energy any more and likely wont get upset at the bullshit the west throws their way.

Russias core problem is that the west is rich and right there and easy to trade with, but they now realise they are controlling bastards that will never be anything other than a problem for Russia and Russian future interests.

The west claims the right to expand its military anti Russian organisation as it pleases but complains that Russia is moving military forces with Russians own borders as being a threat to HATO.

It seems it is going to require Russia to start making provocative moves so they have things they can step back from in return for concessions... nukes in Iran would be a good step... and education centres in the west teaching native populations about their history and how bad white europeans have been to the world...

The big deal is that it is worthless that Russia can deploy counter systems in Europe when the opponent is the US.
Europe is just a bunch of vassal puppets. This means the only credible deterrent will be systems which can either survive a first strike or which can strike the US regardless like Poseidon and Burevestnik.

Poseidon can travel close to the US, hide, and be remotely instructed to strike. Burevestnik can be put into flight much like you would put a bomber on rotation except it can't be easily intercepted. Also unlike a bomber it will stay on station for extended periods of time.

Aegis Ashore was put by the US into Poland and Romania before the Russian "Iskander" cruise missile system the US claims goes against the INF Treaty was developed. Well if you actually bothered to read the INF Treaty it has a clause where it states it is forbidden to have land based missiles or launchers in service which can carry a nuclear warhead in a certain range. Which is precisely what the Mk41 VLS cells of Aegis Ashore can do if you put a Tomahawk missile in them. How long do you think it will take to switch missiles on a Mk41 VLS? Minutes? The system the US claims Russia was developing that was supposedly against the INF Treaty was not in service. The treaty specifically allows the testing of such systems. You just can't deploy them.

Then there is the whole fact Aegis Ashore could only be deployed in the first place because the US unilaterally reneged on the ABM Treaty to begin with. Back then the US claimed the system was to protect Europe against "rogue states" like North Korea and Iran remember? Back then North Korea had no effective missile with enough range and a ballistic missile on a trajectory from Iran to Europe wouldn't fly over Poland. The Russians aren't that dumb. They knew what the US was up to. Also, what would be the point in North Korea to strike Europe, or even Iran to strike Europe for that matter? This is just a smokescreen.

The US could simply replace Aegis Ashore with THAAD batteries and it would not be breaking the INF Treaty anymore. It would still be an arms race but it would be in terms of ABM systems and anti-ABM nuclear strike systems. This was the scenario Russia originally expected once the US pulled out of the ABM Treaty and is why they developed systems like Avangard, and Poseidon.

In my opinion the original point of the US in withdrawing from the ABM Treaty and putting ABM systems in Poland, Romania, South Korea, and Japan was to cause an arms race with Russia and China. They think this will push those nations into bankrupcty and they can outlast them in a spending match because they control the world financial system. You have to remember it was George W Bush which pulled out of the ABM Treaty. The Republicans have to this day the myth where Ronald Reagan caused the Soviet Union to collapse financially because of the US SDI Program. Originally they claimed they would use GDI missiles in Europe but when they figured out the cost, the later Obama government switched it to Aegis Ashore which would use an existing naval missile and be a cheaper system. But Aegis Ashore can be used in a dual role. So that and the existence of the Chinese DF-21/26 fleet made the US leave the INF Treaty. The US is in a hole and they keep digging in.

Too much koolaid in this thread....

Wunderwaffe that has yet to be deployed and become operational on a limited number of platforms won't make up for the lost strategic depth of the last 40 years, won't make up for lost allegiances, it won't make up for slow industrial production of heavy military hardware relative to the competition's output, and it won't make up for the disparity in both manpower, land and resources.

"Quantity has a quality of its own"...

Getting drunk in propaganda is an alternative nonetheless.

Where it matters the most, the strategic deterrent, Russia isn't having a big issue producing weapons.
Their nuclear arsenal is also more modern than the US one. As are the delivery platforms.

GarryB wrote:

MOSCOW, January 9-RIA Novosti. Moscow does not rule out that the dialogue with the United States inThe agreement on security guarantees may be limited to one meeting, the Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation told RIA Novosti.Sergey Ryabkov.

This is good... this is saying we have told you what our red lines are and what we need you to do... you can of course say no to all of it but that just means we have nothing more to discuss... goodbye... talk again when you are ready to talk.

Why should the USA remove missiles from countries where it has permission to station them?

Yes, of course... US missiles secretly stationed in Turkey led to Soviet missiles being sent to Cuba... in both cases the missiles were there with the approval of the country in question... why should any country ask that such highly destabilising weapons be removed?

Perhaps to make WWIII less likely?

To give each side more time to contact the other in case there is a problem... having ABM missiles in Poland would give a very short flight time for a working hypersonic missile... whether it is an attack missile or an interceptor.

The problem with very short flight times is that the opposition have less time to make pretty damn important decisions... having the right to place missiles on the border of your enemy will be little solace if it makes them super paranoid and they accidentally launch a full scale nuclear strike on your countries because their over the horizon radar detected the moon coming up over the horizon and the decimal point was put in the wrong place... which has actually happened BTW.

Of course considering the economic and moral shit the west is in perhaps WWIII is starting to look attractive.

Yes we all know the rational reasons, but with submarine based missiles it kinda becomes a mute point. As I said before, a couple of Yassens with nuclear tipped Tsirkon missiles can lay waste to the USA with a 10-15 min flight time. Perhaps the Russians can send their nuclear cruise missiles to circle outside US airspace spewing slightly radioactive air on a 1m rotation until the USA agrees LMAO.

The Russians can also build a series of visible cruise missile ships that are nuclear powered and carry a SHITLOAD of missiles and patrol at the same distance US missiles are based in Europe. These ships will be painted brightly in the flag of the Russia and there will be NO MISTAKING THEM. It will not be that expensive either.

One on the Atlantic coast, one on the Pacific coast with about 200 nuclear Tsirkons. They can even be container ships so they are still useful when the point is made. They will have AA and 10 conventional Tsirkons for self defence.
They should invite CNN and Fox to tour the ship and make it 100% clear why the ship is there and how it can lay waste to the USA. And they should tell the US public why they feel the ship is necessary.

Nuclear weapons near Russia / Ukraine border , will in effect freeze any conventional conflict or cross border raids , by both sides . If Ukraine then makes a move against Russian populated areas or mistreated them , then tensions would escalate to the point of ( just below ) Nuclear war . And then everyone will sit in their pants and choose a constructive way forward . Including full rights for ethnic Russians . Russians can easily float a few subs , off the coast of America also . So I don't see cause for concern . Similar to India / Pakistan frozen conflict over Kashmir .

The killing of the INF treaty was great for Russia. Before the treaty Russia had enough medium/intermediate range missiles to annihilate all british, french and american nuclear weapons in Europe + all NATO installations. After the treaty was sigend and these weapons destroyed Russia had to use strategic weapons against this threats, now they can again deploy medium range weapons and free those strategic weapons to hit the Conus.

nomadski wrote:


Nuclear weapons near Russia / Ukraine border , will in effect freeze any conventional conflict or cross border raids , by both sides . If Ukraine then makes a move against Russian populated areas or mistreated them , then tensions would escalate to the point of ( just below )  Nuclear war . And then everyone will sit in their pants and choose a constructive way forward . Including full rights for ethnic Russians . Russians can easily float a few subs , off the coast of America also . So I don't see cause for concern . Similar to India / Pakistan frozen conflict over Kashmir .

No these close weapons may actually trigger a nuclear war. The problem is, there is no time for decision making. The first thing Russia would do today if it felt a nuclear strike was imminent is to hit Romania and Poland with tactical nuclear weapons to disable the ABM systems. This would be just to buy time and they know nuclear strikes in Poland and Romania will not cause a US launch. They will be on the phone and say, yes, we felt we had to guarantee our ability to retaliate so we took out your ABM sites. Yes, Poland will despise us even more for 10 generations but there you have it. Yeah who gives a shit about Romania...or even Poland for that matter.

ALAMO wrote:But you have to admit, that at least some of Russian demands are taken out of arse.
The thing that they are trying to do, is leverage the disparity in new weapon systems, to push some political goals, and that is quite obvious I would say.

Who are they, to determine if a sovereign country is supposed to join any alliance or not?
Pretending to be wolds police? Hardly...

The Ryabkov-Putin Christmas ultimatum wishlist is of course more a political maneuver, than a realistic set of demands

But, I think Russia is in its right to demand security guarantees. NATO is directed against it, not anyone else. Anyone else can avoid being a Russian target if they forgo joining NATO. Russia has no such option to avoid becoming a NATO target.

I'm not one for Russian imperialism or Russia telling other countries what to do or whatever. It's not our business how people in Europe live their lives or what economic union they have. But if the security architecture in Europe provides security for everyone except Russia and the pawns that have been coup'ed like the Ukraine now used as cannon fodder against Russia, then something is wrong.

What is all the story behind missile bases in both Poland and Romania?
Having Kaliningrad and now Crimea, both are easily compromised.
It is Russia that covers the whole of Europe with its strike assets.

Yet it doesn't cover the US, and it is US bases in Europe that threaten Russia, not Russian ones next to the US that threaten their territory

That Russia covers the whole of Europe is irrelevant, no-one asked Europe's opinion. They're not the ones who own those missiles. And them joining NATO and become staging points for American missiles is a decision that's on them and them alone. They can always reverse it, since they scream about being sovereign countries.

The distance from Ukrainian borders to Moscow is about the same, as from Latvian.
NATO can strike Peter from Estonia, using HIMARS, any moment - in theory.
There is no fundamental change from the last NATO expansion round.
So what is the big deal here?

That it's getting bigger, and that this process comes accompanied with now not just Latvian Nazis, but Ukrainian Nazis too.

And again, NATO can strike Piter from Estonia, but Russia can't strike an equivalent US city. In Moscow they don't care if Russia can strike Berlin, or Warsaw, or Bucharest or whatever - these aren't the decision makers.

The decision maker, Washington, can quite soon be targeted with Zirkons from a Russian sub 600-700km away from the US Eastern Coast within the same 5-6 mins after launch, and I suspect this is what Russia's accusations about the US putting missiles on Ukrainian soil are about. Russian intelligence perhaps knows something we don't.

The Russian stand was perfectly understandable 15 years ago, but now ...?
They are getting stronger and stronger, while NATO/US is getting weaker and weaker.
It is shaking under political pressure inside, EU is chasing its own tail, so why they bother so much?

Well, because ... they can. It has no objective sense, only emotional.

Nothing to do with emotions. The US pushed too far on the Ukraine and Taiwan. Even got to the point when the Ukraine was about to invade the Donbass early last year. And then again some shuffling around late last year.
On Taiwan meanwhile the US has been providing support to a pro-independence party, and even got Lithuania to go half-way in recognizing Taiwan as an independent state.
So now Russia and China have decided to link these issues, and are going to apply some pressure of their own. Perhaps, if the US's negotiations with Russia don't fare well, the Chinese would ask for their own negotiations too. The US knows all this, hence why it's been extra careful in regards to what's going on.

Yes we all know the rational reasons, but with submarine based missiles it kinda becomes a mute point. As I said before, a couple of Yassens with nuclear tipped Tsirkon missiles can lay waste to the USA with a 10-15 min flight time. Perhaps the Russians can send their nuclear cruise missiles to circle outside US airspace spewing slightly radioactive air on a 1m rotation until the USA agrees LMAO.

You are missing the point.

The expansion of HATO and the potential movement of missiles to Eastern Europe is as destabilising now as US missiles in Turkey and Soviet missiles in Cuba were.

Both sides recognised having high speed missiles within a few minutes impact of the other side greatly limited the available time to work out if this was a mistake or a real attack... having 3 minutes to decide whether that Standard-6 ABM missile launched from a new HATO base in the Ukraine that seems to be heading towards Moscow at mach 8 means the Russians have to decide very quickly whether it is a mistake or it is time to retaliate with a full nuclear response... imagine 3am you have less than 3 minutes to decide what to do... what if you had been at a party and had a few drinks...

Having countries on Russias border does not make the US more safe... it changes the trigger to a hair trigger and makes everyone much less safe.

Russia wont invade the Ukraine if it joins HATO, but I rather suspect they will line up a range of weapons on a hair trigger to vapourise the Ukraine and likely most of Europe if they see something they don't like.... wanna play Russian roulette?

The real Russian Roulette... not that made up British bullshit.... you take a Udav pistol but you only put 10 rounds in the magazine rather than 18 rounds... rack the slide and point it at your enemies head and ask if they feel lucky.... safety off ... finger on the trigger...

The Russians can also build a series of visible cruise missile ships that are nuclear powered and carry a SHITLOAD of missiles and patrol at the same distance US missiles are based in Europe. These ships will be painted brightly in the flag of the Russia and there will be NO MISTAKING THEM. It will not be that expensive either.

Waste of money and time.

One on the Atlantic coast, one on the Pacific coast with about 200 nuclear Tsirkons. They can even be container ships so they are still useful when the point is made. They will have AA and 10 conventional Tsirkons for self defence.
They should invite CNN and Fox to tour the ship and make it 100% clear why the ship is there and how it can lay waste to the USA. And they should tell the US public why they feel the ship is necessary.

Would make more sense to develop a super doomsday bomb... a few Gigatons... they should be able to calculate a suitable threshold... make a smaller one for above Europe and a nice big one for above the US...

No these close weapons may actually trigger a nuclear war. The problem is, there is no time for decision making. The first thing Russia would do today if it felt a nuclear strike was imminent is to hit Romania and Poland with tactical nuclear weapons to disable the ABM systems. This would be just to buy time and they know nuclear strikes in Poland and Romania will not cause a US launch. They will be on the phone and say, yes, we felt we had to guarantee our ability to retaliate so we took out your ABM sites. Yes, Poland will despise us even more for 10 generations but there you have it. Yeah who gives a shit about Romania...or even Poland for that matter.

I suspect they will withdraw from those agreements they made about not targeting each other with nuclear weapons and openly state publicly that any US forces bases in all of Europe will be targeted by Russian Intermediate range nuclear weapons... including ballistic and cruise weapons that will all be nuclear armed. The government centres of those countries that have US forces on their territory will also be targeted 24/7.

I'm not one for Russian imperialism or Russia telling other countries what to do or whatever. It's not our business how people in Europe live their lives or what economic union they have.

I don't think Putin will be telling anyone anything. He will be telling them Russias red lines and the consequences of ignoring Russias interests in that regard.

That Russia covers the whole of Europe is irrelevant, no-one asked Europe's opinion. They're not the ones who own those missiles. And them joining NATO and become staging points for American missiles is a decision that's on them and them alone. They can always reverse it, since they scream about being sovereign countries.

Which is why I suggest openly targeting European countries with US forces and US weapons on their territory... let the people realise the presence of US forces makes them a nuclear target... oooh... I hope no body makes a mistake and launches anything in error...

The decision maker, Washington, can quite soon be targeted with Zirkons from a Russian sub 600-700km away from the US Eastern Coast, and I suspect this is what Russia's accusations about the US putting missiles on Ukrainian soil are about. Russian intelligence perhaps knows something we don't.

The Mk-41 AEGIS ASHORE missile tubes in Poland and Romania are designed to launch Standard-6 ABM missiles... which are two stage SAMs essentially similar to the S-500, though not as capable. Fit a nuke warhead on it and it can reach Russian territory pretty fast.

The Russian stand was perfectly understandable 15 years ago, but now ...?
They are getting stronger and stronger, while NATO/US is getting weaker and weaker.
It is shaking under political pressure inside, EU is chasing its own tail, so why they bother so much?

The only things that have changed is that now Russia is able to stand up to the bully and actually assert her own position and interests on the US and HATO... two groups of selfish narcissistic aholes who don't care about anyone but the USs interests... HATO members know if their interests go against US interests they will be dropped in the shit right away... Ask Turkey.

Russia is not becoming a bully, but it wont remain silent any more and is going to push back.... all the western talk of Russia constantly undermining the west and working against them have no idea how accommodating Russia has been... change is good.

I'm not one for Russian imperialism or Russia telling other countries what to do or whatever. It's not our business how people in Europe live their lives or what economic union they have. But if the security architecture in Europe provides security for everyone except Russia and the pawns that have been coup'ed like the Ukraine now used as cannon fodder against Russia, then something is wrong.

Hahahaha... love how you are suggesting that Europe has any say in HATO and the so called European security architecture... these demands were directed at the Farmer (US) not the sheep or working dogs (EU).

Or put some USKM onshore in Venezuela or Kuba. Why not? "Those are interceptors aimed at evil Costa Rica regime that threaten us with nuclear weapons".
That would be fun to watch!

Don't you understand... that is the point of these demands, or really just laying out Russias interests... if they decide to put missiles close to the US and the US has a shitfit like they did last time, then Russia can point to these demands and say... this is why we did this... if you want us to undo this then you need to undo what you did to make us do this in the first place.

GarryB : Both sides recognised having high speed missiles within a few minutes impact of the other side greatly limited the available time to work out if this was a mistake or a real attack... having 3 minutes to decide whether that Standard-6 ABM missile launched from a new HATO base in the Ukraine that seems to be heading towards Moscow at mach 8 means the Russians have to decide very quickly whether it is a mistake or it is time to retaliate with a full nuclear response... imagine 3am you have less than 3 minutes to decide what to do... what if you had been at a party and had a few drinks...

If an automated system could be built , that took the human element out of the equation . Then I think it makes no difference , what kind of advance warning is needed . Since a machine can decide if Nuke explosion occurred , and then automatically launched counter strike .

I think the following choices exist :

( 1 )  A negotiated settlement , allowing for a neutral free trade Zone in East Ukraine . An autonomous federated region with Ukraine . Full linguistic rights . Local
        parliament .NOW .

( 2 )  Russia military takes East Ukraine . The Ukraine joins NATO for sure and even stations Nukes on soil . Blood feud lasting a hundred years . Skirmishes . NOW .

( 3 )  Russia militarily takes all of Ukraine . Internal civil war  and conflict long term . NATO helps them . Direct conflict with NATO possible . NOW .

( 4 )  Russia does nothing . Ukraine joins NATO with Nukes on soil . Border skirmishes . Nuke threats from both sides . Slow improvements in East Ukraine . NOW .

Choices.......choices.........? 1423 .

( 5 )  Russia will not attack Ukraine . Future . NATO will  not station in Ukraine . Future ?

Edit : Proposition 5 , like any other statement about the future , can not be stated as a matter of fact or be true . It has no truth value . Iranians or Russians asking for guarantees about the future ;  or that such and such is true in the future , ( Ukraine will not join NATO in the future , is true ) are simply wrong . True decisions can only be based on present facts .