Russia is our ride to space, are you crazy?

a reply to: dashen

"Russian space scientist Roald Z. Sagdeev spent a large part of his career viewing NASA from the Soviet Union’s side of the Cold War divide. Sagdeev, the former head of the Russian Space Research Institute, now is the director of the University of Maryland’s East-West Space Science Center. He wrote this essay with his wife, Susan Eisenhower (President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s granddaughter) that traces the long, hard path to space cooperation until the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991."

This is the opening to the article I'm linking, which may help you gain a better understanding of the "space cooperation" between the two countries. I'm not claiming it's good or bad, nor am I saying your opinion is right or wrong. I do believe sometimes we have opinions which are contrary to our own beliefs when we don't have enough information or a comprehensive understanding of that information.

www.nasa.gov...

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

As far as I'm aware the US has no ICBMs in Europe. Why would they need to? There is NATO's Missile Defense System. But this doesn't use ICBMs or any kind of nuclear capable missiles. In fact it doesn't even really provide any kind of threat to Russia's offensive capability. A fact that Russia has even admitted to in the past.

And can you really not see why moving nuclear capable missiles into range of the Baltic states is an aggressive move? Russia has already made moves to destabilize the governments of these countries and Putin has been pretty quick to throw out the threat of nukes recently. Plus, Russia has now annexed land from two former SSRs and has taken land from a third and turned it into two puppet states. Even if Putin doesn't actually want to take land from the Baltic states he at least wants them to think that's his plan.

a reply to: dashen

It is all a big charade. We, obviously, didn't plan on a real second-generation type of shuttle to put people into space. That mini-space plane in orbit for over a year is probably simply stuck up there and can't get down. We, obviously, also didn't develop better people-carrying rockets because we didn't need them. We have developed the oft-reported black triangles. To carry forward the charade, we graciously helped the broke Russian government by utilizing their rockets that were better than our existing ones.

Most of what we witness between countries is posturing. That is the game that was sincere at one time, but no long can be with the UFO folks looking over our shoulders. What goes on equates to the bickering between a long-time married couple (man and woman with their differences) but yet based on a common understanding that keeps them from divorce or murdering one another.

There are three major players in this dance, US, Russia and China. However, there are "wild cards" interfering in this relationship that the UFO folk can't directly control as with the more civilized big three. Some of these fanatics care little about what any higher intelligence dictates. So it is up to the contentious relationships of the three big three to keep the others in line, sort of. It is quite a balancing act that sometimes will tip to seemingly dangerous degrees. But nuclear war between the big three will never be allowed to happen.

a reply to: Xcalibur254

Us warheads on german missles

originally posted by: dashen
a reply to: Xcalibur254

Us warheads on german missles

As I said posturing.

Do you actually believe that a few missiles in Poland is going to ever be fired...if so, you are buying the game played on you.

a reply to: dollukka

No such agreement was ever made. Unless of course you can point out where it says that in the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act. That is the agreement you are referring to but no such provision exists. Furthermore, NATO is not an aggressive organization. It does not force members to join. States petition and they are accepted as long as they meet NATO's criteria. Russia was even close to joining at one point. The only thing that stopped them is the fact that they demanded special treatment that no other member nation got. Even then Russia was a member of NATO's Partnership for Peace program and had no problem with the new member states. At least that was the case until Putin went completely rogue in 2014. Still, Russia was able to get away with a lot between then and now.

a reply to: Aliensun

Do you really think the ussr was going to fire missiles from cuba?
It got people rather freaked out in any case

a reply to: dashen

That's not a thing. The only nuclear weapons Germany possesses are B-61 nuclear bombs. In fact that's all any of the nuclear sharing countries have. From what I can find the US hasn't provided nuclear missiles to any country since 1992.

originally posted by: paraphi

originally posted by: dashen
Peace and trade with Russia is vastly superior to sanctions and cooling of relations.

Russia really should not have invaded and annexed Crimea and interfered in Ukraine. US sanctions against Russia are fairly modest, the killers are the EU sanctions.

you mean like how the U.S. shouldn`t have annexed the territory of mexico that is now named texas, just because a lot of americans lived there and wanted to be a part of the U.S.?
Maybe Russia was just following the U.S. example?
How far back in history should we go to point fingers?
How can the world move forward if we are always looking backwards?

originally posted by: Xcalibur254
a reply to: dashen

As I've said elsewhere, I have no problem renewing relations with Russia. However, the way Trump is going about it is all wrong. Russia is the one that illegally annexed Crimea. Russia is the one that broke ties with NATO. Russia is the one that provided the weapon that shot down MH17.

And yet Trump acts as if these things have no bearing on current tensions. Instead he acts like it's all the US' fault. That at best makes him look weak and at worst makes it look like he's in Russia's pocket.

Perhaps you should focus on whether the goal is right or wrong, and leave people who actually have the information to hand and whose job it is to achieve that goal to worry about tactics. Just a thought.

a reply to: UKTruth

Did you think Obama was weak when he allowed Russia to annex part of Georgia in 2008 and then sought closer relations with them in 2009? If so, then why do you not think the same applies for Trump? At least in Obama's case the US and Russia were still more or less allies. Plus, he didn't approach the table acting like the US had to apologize for something.

Shame people don't read history, 'Russia' likes its western borders as far west as possible, Russia has mostly been invaded from the west, Norsemen, Sweden, Poland, France, Germany, (twice) so the more distance between 'the west' and Moscow, the better in Russia's eyes.
Britain and the USA have also invaded Russia, just after WW 1, at Archangel, big business was worried about the Bolsheviks.

a reply to: Xcalibur254

So you somehow see NATO expanding and squeezing Russia from all directions acceptable ? I wonder how you feel if your neighbourhood would be full of Cuban´s and Russian soldiers.
NATO is business, it is very dangerous business and also exploit those new member countries dead dry with their "membership" which is expensive.. pyramid scam all around.

a reply to: Tardacus

To compare the annexation of Texas to the annexation of Crimea is ridiculous. First off, you have to realize that international law was different then. Still, it took the US almost 10 years to annex Texas after they declared their independence. In fact the US wanted nothing to do with Texas after the Texas Revolution. Primarily because they didn't want to look like they were questioning Mexico's sovereignty and thus starting a war.

a reply to: dollukka

So you think that certain nations should not be allowed self-determination simply because they are former SSRs? Like I said, every country in NATO joined willingly.

a reply to: Xcalibur254

They were courted by US which started immediately after USSR went down. Former countries were in state of surprice, confusion and misbelief what has happened and US was right after them. I think it is exploitation and abuse.

originally posted by: Tardacus
you mean like how the U.S. shouldn`t have annexed the territory of mexico that is now named texas,

How far back in time do you want to go? In the here and now, and in context to the current issues and the OP, the sanctions agaist Russia are based on their annexation of Crimea and meddling in Ukraine.

Russia may whine and play the victim game, but it's their belligerence that started all of this.

a reply to: dollukka

They are free to leave at any time. Just ask France. But they won't. Do you know why? Because they are terrified of Russia. NATO isn't sending extra troops to Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania because they felt like intimidating Russia. They're being sent there because these countries feel like Russia is making aggressive moves toward them and they requested extra support from their NATO allies.

If NATO was such a scam you would think that more than one nation would have left in its entire existence. Except that's not the case and that one nation that left later rejoined.

a reply to: Xcalibur254

I think you missed my key word "etc".

America's Nuclear Weapons in Europe Are the Nuclear Elephant in the Room
Conventional wisdom is that the nuclear weapons in Belgium, as well as the other four European countries — the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Turkey — where they are stored today (there are two storage sites in Italy) tie together the Atlantic alliance in unique ways. The nuclear weapons are the ultimate American guarantee to Europe, and they're also a kind of US-European bargain: Only the US president can approve their use, but the host nations have to approve the bombs leaving the country. Thus the weapons can serve as a deterrent while also being virtually unusable.

The figure of 150 nuclear weapons in Europe today is dwarfed by the number that were stored on European soil at their peak — 7,300 in 1971. Then, there were artillery and missile warheads of a staggering variety, a nuclear bazooka, and even backpack nuclear weapons. Ships and submarines routinely carried nukes into the Baltic and Black seas to the Soviet Union's doorstep. Policy was driven by perceptions of overwhelming conventional military threat and the doctrines of deterrence, with arsenals growing ever more capable.

Would you dare assert that they aren't there specifically to intimidate Russia?

Note that history lesson they also summarized. Can you tell us what happened the one single time they tried setting up a nuke launch pad over here in our neck of the world?

PS:
"United States Secretly Deployed Nuclear Bombs In 27 Countries and Territories During Cold War
Newly declassified history reveals that the United States stationed nukes in "non-nuclear" Japan, Greenland and Iceland. Other countries unknowingly hosted U.S. nukes."
nsarchive.gwu.edu...

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Considering the only weapons left in Europe are B61s I think it's pretty safe to say they're more intended as a deterrent. Unless of course you think the Russian military is in such a sad state that they wouldn't be able to detect and stop a bomber. On the other hand, the Baltic states are essentially helpless towards those Iskanders in Kaliningrad.