Russia reveals new missile threat

[maddezmom]

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia revealed it was fitting its strategic bombers with cruise missiles capable of delivering a massive precision strike thousands of miles away -- giving away the first clear hint of its post-Cold War military strategy.


"Russia's long-range air force finally has a new weapon," the government's Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily announced in a headline. "We now have a strategic cruise missile with a non-nuclear warhead," the paper wrote


"We have broken the US monopoly on the use long-range conventional cruise missiles," an unnamed senior air force commander told ITAR-TASS.


The technology appears to be similar to cruise missiles that the United States has long attached to its own intercontinental bombers like the B-2 Stealth bomber.

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1512&ncid=732&e=8&u=/afp/20041206/wl_afp/russia_military

[skypilot]

1. Those couple of months...

...when the Cold War was over were nice while they lasted.:nuke:

[LoZoccolo]

2. Tell me about it.

Remember all the optimism in the early nineties? I didn't even know the economy was really doing all that bad. But I remember songs like "Winds of Change" and "Right Here, Right Now" being played on the radio.

[skypilot]

4. Ahhh, the Nineties.

Clinton, grunge, Seattle, Clinton...

[LoZoccolo]

5. "What if this is as good as it gets?"

So said that Jack Nicholson character in that movie.

How were we to know?

[McKenzie]

3. co-incidence that they announce this so soon

after Iran gets warned about its nuclear development programme? I doubt it...announcements of that sort always have a political rationale. It's not a case of the Russians saying "Hey everyone look! We just got some neat new weaponry, isn't it nice and shiny?". It's more likely to be code for "it would not be a good idea to try attacking us...for whatever reason..."

[neweurope]

6. Putin has studied the PNAC too.

*shivers*

[maddezmom]

7. yes, coupled with this threat of preventive strikes

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and other top officials have said that preventive strikes against terrorists could involve all means except nuclear, but they never went into such specifics as suggesting the use of strategic bombers.


ITAR-Tass commented that Russia had initiated discussion of preventive strikes over a year ago "due to Washington's regular employment of this method in international affairs." ng on its territory.


Following terrorist attacks in August and September, Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites), and other top military officials have been more pointed in their threats of pre-emptive strikes against terrorists abroad.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1042805

[nickshepDEM]

8. Is Russia that upset with the US?

That it would indirectly threaten us to "Chill Out"?

[maddezmom]

14. time will tell, I suppose

[Alpharetta]

9. I don't think the Russians were worried about the Iranian nukes

when they made the announcement.

I view it as the Russians warning us that
- they are business partners with the Iranians. They build shopping malls and oil refineries and oil pipelines in Iran.

- if the freaks in the Pentagon keep escalating with Iran, Russia could become ensnared in the conflict and is capable of defending their interests in Iran

[McKenzie]

11. yup, that seems a reasonable inference to draw

It's about economic interest mainly. I suspect that the recent European accord with Iran was intended to remove the major excuse for the US invading - whether the Europeans did it for geopolitical gain or to try to avert another bloody war, who knows?

[Tempest]

12. Russia is helping Iran's nuclear program

Russia is supplying Iran with equipment and fuel for its nuclear program.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L22262609.htm

[whistle]

10. Bush just keeps rattling his saber and banging his shield....

...and sooner or later the U.S. will get a big nuclear missile right up our over-sized neo-conservative ass! Unfortunately, it will be U.S. civilians who will be hit. BushCo will be safe in their deep hardened underground bunkers. Geezus, the people who actually voted for Bush have to be incredibly stupid.

[UL_Approved]

13. Give that old time aggression

The shrub just can't live unless he has the cold war. The funny thing is that we now have Russia and China standing against a tyrant. These nations will have to save the world (oh the irony). It sure does stand that truth is stranger than fiction.

[slowroll]

15. Yawn.

This was Putin's big announcement? I thought they'd come up with manueverable MIRVs.

Cruise missiles, huh? How '80s of them.