Military Strength of Russia (and compared to other nations)

Originally posted by ShooterSix
Hello,

I've been watching this thread develop for quite some time, great posts and great debates.

a Reserved 'thanks' then...

I read something not too far above me that I'd like to argue.

You should not really 'like' arguing as much as feel compelled to. If you only 'like' it your unlikely to persist in your efforts....

First of all, I'm not sure what kind of Russian military clearance you have, but this type of revolutionary military breakthrough would be classified.

Well it surely is classified by as with all secrets there is no way to maintain total secrecy indefinitely and especially not so when it involves humans or operational deployment that kills people.. There was quote a specific reason why i used the quotation marks btw...

"Q: Let me ask you specifically about last week's scare here in Washington, and what we might have learned from how prepared we are to deal with that (inaudible), at B'nai Brith.

A: Well, it points out the nature of the threat. It turned out to be a false threat under the circumstances. But as we've learned in the intelligence community, we had something called -- and we have James Woolsey here to perhaps even address this question about phantom moles. The mere fear that there is a mole within an agency can set off a chain reaction and a hunt for that particular mole which can paralyze the agency for weeks and months and years even, in a search. The same thing is true about just the false scare of a threat of using some kind of a chemical weapon or a biological one. There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus, and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least. Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves."

So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations. It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our efforts, and that's why this is so important.

DoD News Briefing
Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen

I don't see how 'terrorist' could build weapons of such size or have the facilities to generate the energy required. Clearly this is not 'people' but nations and which nations have the conventional and strategic weaponry to discourage retaliation by more mundane means?

Posting related links is not relevant, because they are guessing and discussing,

All guess work is not empty minded and devoid of logic and all discussions are not between ignorant fools and while i do understand that that is in fact the standard on the Internet it's not mine and i do feel somewhat insulted when people assume their own low standards for me.

such as posters on here discuss HAARP (supposed related American geo-weapon).

Well HAARP is most certainly that but it's not the largest and the power requirements ( for persistent operation that actually can serve a geophysical weapon function) can be quite massive if it's to be used in focused way as the Russians are.

Don't argue a military victory with an empty gun.

I don't think they need such weapons to win the proposed conflicts but they do have them and i think it will turn any given superiority into a relatively absolute one.

In all honestly, I think you're overestimating the morale and training of Russian pilots

If you think the Russian air defense system has anything to do with morale ( meaning such factors are not considered in their strategic plans) or require the same number of training as in American air force i think you may be well served by some additional reading...

and tankcrews, which plays quite a role.

Sure it does but can you really 'prove' that the training standards are inferior enough to result in tanks becoming obsolete in their primary strategic function? Tanks are NOT meant to engage other tanks and assuming that the USSR built them in such numbers to engage in such type of warfare is quite unsupported by history. Enemy tank concentrations are attacked by artillery and air power or slowly destroyed by mechanized infantry anti tank weaponry; it's not directly engaged by your own armor as your armor is supposed to be fighting where there isn't with your strategic reserves being where theirs are attempting to engage you.

Sure, Russian can send quite a few out of date, poor conditioned armored vehicles at their chosen flashpoint, but don't expect them to get much farther.

They are being constantly updated and their too numerous in even 1980 condition to be stopped by a few hundred European tanks. I think you are forming opinions long before you have investigated this issue for yourself. Please do not rely on the opinions of those

Their newer T-90 variants are too low in the numbers to be of much relevance. This simply is not 1985.

This is 1985 and nothing of significance has happened with either conventional weapons or strategic weapons.Non of the weapon developments in the last two decades have in my knowledge changed any of the realities of ground combat as it was expected to happen in 1985. Feel free to name the changes that you think have changed things in favour of NATO since 1985. .

Russia needs to, and they are to quite an extent shrink their armed forces so they can actually modernize their equipment and improve the training of their servicemen.

They have modernized the equipment that is of strategic significance ( air defenses and nuclear weaponry) in the sense that not doing so could seriously undermine their position. I have given good source material on all these issues in other threads...

[quote[Otherwise, good posts

I am not sure how can agree with much of what i have said if you disagree about these issues... Very strange but i will leave it at that..

Stellar

Originally posted by paraphi
This discussion is bonkers.

And , with your 'contribution' getting worse...

Russia could not defeat Europe in a non-nuclear war if waged today. Any contrary thinking is fantasy. You just need to look at the statistics…

Then lets look at the so called 'statistics' before i call you 'bonkers' for disagreeing with the reality i happen to believe in.

Where do we start?

At sea… How much of Russia’s navy could actually get to sea – considering much of it has been rusting in port since the end of the Cold War due to a serious lack of cash.

14 Operational SSBN's according to defense&intelligence specialist. How much rusting could they have done if they can still deploy as many SSBN's as the US do? The US have finally decided to start converting some OHIO's to SSGN's status and yet the RF still operates three times ( 11) as many as the US meaning no task force or Atlantic convoy will be safe while any of them are still around. Anyone who believes that submarines will regularly be found in the vast Atlantic before they have fired have read too many Tom Clancy books.

As a war in Europe would not involve naval forces very much that’s probably good news for Russia.

A war in Europe could only go well for Europe with American aid and considering what the RF can still deploy that's unlikely to happen in time.

In the air… Not a fancy air-show this! According to Flight International Nov 2006 “Effectiveness is sapped by aging aircraft – only 20% of the inventory is described by the air force as ‘modern’.

By which air force? Even by those hopelessly conservative ( if not plainly deceptive) 'measurements' it means the RF operates 250 modern fighters/interceptors and coupled with the air defenses they are deploying ( that have been consistently upgraded ) that's still not a force the USAF have any means of dealing with effectively as they proved when attempting to fight the Serbians.
Frankly i consider that number nonsense but if you want to state the actual sources ( links please) so i can investigate the records of the 'reporters' i don't have much use for it.

Due to lack of maintenance, around a third of the inventory is permanently unserviceable and flying hours are low – around 200,000h a year compared with 2 million in 1990…

Compared to the numbers of planes that were being flown then and now it's not surprising. For interest sake they operated 5000 aircraft around the time of the breakup (and nearly 15 000 pilots ) and if the numbers you cited are correct that means about 120-130 hours per pilot ( as is the accepted norm as i recall it) but given they deploy , as most western air forces do, one 1.1.-1.2 pilot for every deployed plane that means that means there must still be around 10 000 or so pilots to get that often quoted figure of 20 hours per pilot per year? Why would the RF choose to still have 5 times more pilots than deployed/operational planes? If they operate on western hours those flight hours should be more than sufficient to give 2000 pilots a hundred hours each?

If you want to dig up more reliable numbers feel free but based on what you supplied the RF are CHOOSING to let their pilots fly relatively few hours per pilot ( each regiment gets a certain number and they may choose how to allocate the hours to the pilots that most need them) when they could make alternative choices. Are this then a question of money or just a strategic choice? My investigation so far have almost always revealed that what the western media reports as money shortages turns out to be strategic choices.

The service remains plagued by a loss of experienced manpower”.

As do all services that supplies skills which are so sought after in the commercial markets...

So, if the Russian non-naval air force is circa 2,000 combat jets, then around 600 are airworthy.

Airworthy on any given specific day but as you might or might not know almost all of that 2000 will be put to use in a war by one means or another. If one returns with battle damage another can be fixed and normally one plane taken apart can put quite a number in the air. Frankly the type's of planes being operated are in my opinion superior and how the EU could concentrate their planes to affect the balance of power against such masses of air defenses is obviously any one's fantasy.

That is an air force outnumbered quite significantly by Western Europe. Germany, France and the UK could field just shy of 1,000 modern combat aircraft with trained crew. Add to this Spain, Italy, the Nordic countries, Turkey, Greece, the Low Counties etc…

And they would all just line up to get nuked when the battle turns ( lets just say) against the RF due to their combined effort? This makes little sense but i guess some really believes the next world war will remain conventional for long if at all. The European air forces are experiencing much the same troubles as in the RF ( if not as severe) and massive numbers of planes are regularly found to be inoperable on inspections.

On the ground… Various web sources seem to agree that the Russian army is circa 400,000 half of which are conscripts.

The German army were allowed to have only 100 000 in the regular armed forces and that did not apparently stop them. Conscripts or non conscripts are not really important as long as the leadership structure is always retained.

Vast amounts of hardware, with not much modern kit and we all know what happens when older Russian hardware meets the opposition.

Comparing the equipment used by ME countries , Vietnam or Korea with what the world will see the RF deploy is quite stupid and frankly indicates that you have not researched how and what the USSR/Rf exports to others.

Long and the short of it… Russia could never win a fight with Europe.

They already did in my opinion as the formation of the EU itself is slowly destroying their opposition.

They would never try. They have neither the military capability nor the economic muscle. It would never happen.

Regards

Never is a very long time and since i believe they have both the conventional and the strategic power to win any given war against Germany before the rest of Europe could change much about it i am quite confident that my opinion is defensible. In fact I would argue Germany is the only continental power that really needs to be reckoned with as a alliance of the rest (which is a entirely fanciful idea anyways) could not in my opinion coordinate their efforts in any significant way even if they attempted to do so.

In summary it seems that you have bought into almost every media illusion created for your consumption and while you might consider yourself informed for believing what almost everyone else do you are not the one working from primary sources or for that matter the one attempting to be discover anything other than what you want to believe about the RF.

Stellar

Oh man. You guys are still going on about this?!

Oh man. You guys are still going on about this?!

And the last response for this 'series'

Originally posted by donwhite
I recall the ABM Treaty. It provided each nation - US and USSR could choose one of two sites to defend. The USSR choose Moscow and the US choose our main ICBM base in North Dakota, over Washington, DC. There were two reasons for the US decision discussed in public. 1) That no existing ABM system was effective.

First off the ABM treaty were only signed after the USSR already tested and succeeded in shooting down IRBM's so they had no problem signing it thus preventing the US from doing any serious further research. That being said the US also had decent technology that could with nuclear warheads easily serve to destroy large number of incoming warheads.

2) That the US relied on the MAD theory as a deterrent.

They did not at first ( as the deployment of the US ABM system proved) but it was dismantled due to political pressures so as to expose the American people and force them to accept their vulnerability and egg them into slowly getting used to that idea that America must fight elsewhere to protect their security at home. a American public that had a shield they thought could protect them would not in my opinion have been anywhere as easily 'fooled' into foreign adventures.

Software people said it would take 1-2 million lines of code to make an impenetrable ABM system, provided we had the hardware capability.

Who requires a 'impenetrable' shield? What enemy would risk attacking you when he suddenly must prepare to have a given number of his warheads destroyed? Where would the enemy deploy his mobile defense systems and what effect would it have on your ability to destroy certain strategic targets? The hardware proved itself early on as as the source material i have posted so clearly shows!

It was generally agreed it is impossible to write 2 million lines of code error free.

Why again do you need 2 million lines of code? Why did they manage to intercept warheads in both the USA and the USSR?

The general consensus was an effective ABM system was highly improbable and a mission unworthy of much investment.

Defense against nuclear annihilation was not worth the investment? I'm not sure why any sane person will accept the word of their leaders when they claim self defense is not worthy of any expense.

For political reasons the funds for research work continued despite the public decision to abandon the project. CYA it is called.

What do you mean public decision to abandon the project? Where did you get the impression that either the public or the military did not believe in the system? As far as my research indicates the only people who did not believe where some political advisers who had the presidents ear.

Our side - ABM advocates - have been caught lying to us taxpayers several times, claiming ABM success when in reality there was no success.

They had success back in the 60's so if anyone is lying these days it's clearly those who pretend that it can not and has not been done with 60's technologies.

I suspect we are planning to use nuclear tips on our ABM missiles and don’t want to say so to the public. In part because we may not be sure what the EMP can do to ourselves.

With the technology at the time nuclear tips were required but the management radars and weapon system where proof against the EMP and other air burst effects so it could keep functioning after multiple interceptions and atmospheric explosions. The EMP effects may cause issues to the civilian infrastructure but nothing compared to what the actual weapon effects would have resulted in.

Without using nuclear bombs on the ABM tip, I have grave doubts as to the claimed success rate of shooting down an incoming missile. 10,000 km/hr is 2,700 m/sec. If a small nuke air burst has a 1 km kill radius you would have but 0.37 seconds in which to detonate the warhead. I am a techno freak, but I do not have that much confidence in anybody’s technology to do that.

Even the backwards ( relatively speaking anyways) where able to manage HTK back in 1961 so if the US failed ( i just believe it was hidden or the efforts were seriously hampered by political intervention) it had in my opinion little to do with technological barriers.

As for the USSR and now the RF, I do not mean to demean those people but I cannot help but remember (1970s) the USSR was still using vacuum tube electronics when our equipment was moving into the 3 generation of solid state.

Have you ever stopped to ask WHY they would keep working with vacuum technologies while they were decades ahead on particle beam and general DEW technologies? Have you considered the possibility that they simply did not think they could harden their military and civilian infrastructure to the extent they felt needed if solid state technologies were introduced anywhere but in the most critical areas? With such centralized power don't you think these sort of choices could be made or that they lacked the means to deploy solid state electronics where required?

The shoot-down of KAL007 revealed the inadequacies of the Soviet’s electronics despite Kamchatka being its Most Secure Area in the far east of the USSR.

It was a spying mission after the USSR started destroying or blinding any American satellites that could tell them much anything about what was happening in the USSR.

In conclusion, I think the ABM yes and ABM no is much to do about nothing. (Except for the billions of wasted tax dollars we could use better in other areas, like feeding the people in Darfur.) I have never lost one nights sleep over the Ruskies and their ICBMs.

I think those billions have been wasted by building three generations of nuclear strategic and attack submarines instead of just building a massive national ABM system that would make any enemy strike largely futile. When i once again start posting the evidence i have gathered ,in such large volumes, i believe you will be forced to change your mind and consider why the US still lacks such defenses while the RF deploys them in massive numbers and in sufficient quantity to largely blunt a full scale US nuclear strike.

Stellar

i just wanted everyone to no, that when the us went to war with iraq, iraq defences(air defence) was the second rated air defence in the world. and still our stealth aircrft managed to take it all out without any losses, im not sure, but they had so many aa systems in that war, that at night, the ski would look on fire with bullets and aa fire, i no that russian use mainly sam missle sites and more advanced missles, but the usaf aint stupid, right now, we are makin a scramjet, which goes mach 10+ with fire and forget missels to take out any threat in the world, aa,naval,tank,ect, so everyone sayin that all usaf stealth will fail and get shot down, think again, cuz the us isnt that stupid, i mean why else would they be a super power, heh look it up, p.s. the us has weapons in space right now, more powerfull than the nuclear bomb, its a metal rod with no exsplosives and it just falls to the earth at 18000 mph and hits and blows up with about 2 to 5 times bigger than the nuke. and rly i doubt russia and the us will go at it, i belive most of the wars now, will be the smaller countries like iran and others, right now, they r the main countrys the US, China, Russia, and England need to worry about, cuz rly the islamic people want to controll the world, and that means doin anythin possible for that to happen..

reply to post by StellarX

I believe they [RF] have both the conventional and the strategic power to win any given war against Germany before the rest of Europe could change much about it I am quite confident that my opinion is defensible. In fact I would argue Germany is the only continental power that really needs to be reckoned with as a alliance of the rest [the EU] (which is a entirely fanciful idea anyways) could not in my opinion coordinate their efforts in any significant way even if they attempted to do so. When I once again start posting the evidence I have gathered ,in such large volumes, I believe you will be forced to change your mind and consider why the US still lacks such defenses while the RF deploys them in massive numbers and in sufficient quantity to largely blunt a full scale US nuclear strike.

Hello Mr StellarX

I thought this thread was a wrap! Then today it pops up on my favorite list with a post by Anonymous. For reasons best known to others I cannot locate the Anonymous post but that’s not new for me. Perhaps my ATS dues are in arrears?

Without meaning to puff your head I’ll concede you are the best informed and are best at laying out your position of any poster to this thread. Whereas once upon a time I also read reliable publications not in wide circulation over here - the various volumes of Janes and Interavia primarily - and some US publications such as Air Power, a monthly magazine and a few of the Navy oriented magazines of similar ilk. The American magazines gained authority with me because the authors were mostly former field grade officers of our services. But all this I’m talking about was in the 1950s to 1970s.

By the late ‘70s I was distracted by my work and frequent romantic involvements. Then came the 1989-1991 reduction of the USSR and VIOLA! the Cold War was over. Western intelligence agencies were as surprised as the general public which ought to tell us something. Whether it was Pope JP2 or President Reagan who won the Cold War singlehandedly, I’ll leave to their more faithful (and fanatical if not fanciful) followers to decide. Like the current Pope I'm suspicious how the two of them survived the Nazi era in such good health.

Me being a peacenik by birth and by the late 1970s, the notion of another war involving the US was gone from our national debate. Which is why I hold to the views I express here today.

Background. We have witnessed the rise and fall of the RF experiment in democracy. Like most countries including my own, the general populace would trade stability, security and a level playing field for democracy any day. I have come to see America suffers from TOO MUCH democracy. So much so that it allows the R&Fs - Rich and Famous - to dominate if not rule the country. I am now holding the Democratic Party primary ballot in my hand now. I must choose 5 out of 14 people to represent my party in the November 4 general election. The top post is prosecutor of crimes alleged. A nearly all powerful post having almost total discretion who is and is not prosecuted and for what crimes. The title alone reminds me of the oddly similar title “Roman Procurator” so that both words must have the same origin? Prosecutors should never be elected. That merely puts them at the front of a mob.

I must also choose 2 judges for courts of record. Then I pick a city councilman. 1 of 17. And finally a school board member. 1 of 7. If I weren’t so old, I’d weep that I know NONE of the candidates nor their records, nor their philosophy of governance. And I'm about to vote?

As a college educated person, who reads the local newspaper, watches the 11 PM nightly newscast and who does NOT watch a FOX channel or anything remotely connected to Rupert Murdoch, I am uninformed about these candidates. I have read more than 100 books since moving to Florida in 2003. Aside: I assure you I have read none of the “Left Behind” series by Tim LeHaye with more than 41 million copies sold. End. There is no single place I can go to read about these people.

I’ve about decided to vote for the school board candidate with the name Jack Daniels for that reason alone. I drink a bit of Jack Daniels Black Label - 100 proof whereas Green Label is 80 proof - and I’ve been to Lynchburg, TN. How’s that for casting an intelligent ballot? End.

Resume. The RF. My biggest regret is the Western Powers post 1991 policies allowed the “Russian Mafia” to gain control of 20% of the wealth of the RF. As we have learned - or should have learned - from our Columbian experiment, you cannot make a bargain with the Devil. We are making one today as I write in Afghanistan over heroin. Americas 2 most constant places of interest produce coc aine and heroin. Can this be a coincidence? Hey, is this not a conspiracy board?

Let me conclude this diatribe by offering this. It requires much preparation to run-up a large country and put it into a great war. Much credit is given to William Randolph Hearst owner of a great newspaper chain for “starting” the Spanish American War. It took 3 years for Americans to get “ready” to enter WW 1 and a lot of help from the German submarines! Many historians date the beginning of World War 2 with Japan's invasion of China in 1937.

History. I offer it took Hitler from the November, 1938 Kristallnacht to whip up German people into a war fever before attacking Poland in 1939. It took another 2 years to get the German people ready for the launch of Hitler’s grand scheme - lebensraum - by attacking the Soviet Union in 1941. It took Bush43 from 2001 to 2003 to whip up Americans for the Iraq War which I have labeled the Second Punitive Expedition to Iraq.

Conclusion. If the EU cannot adopt a constitution it cannot wage war as a single entity. Germany is the most powerful nation in the EU. France is a close second but the French still remember Algiers not to mention 1940, as we should have remembered Vietnam but did not. And that thanks in large part to a playboy president and agenda driven subordinates.

There is no evidence reported in the public press that the RF is in any way getting its people ready for a war. Of any description or level. Memories of the ruinous Afghan adventure 1978-1989 are too strong. OTOH, the RF is still playing hard ball politics with its former unwilling partners in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. The RF has its hands full in Georgia and Chetsnya; there may have been a mutually suitable modus operandi reached there.

The RF was publicly embarrassed over its amateurish attempt to blackmail its natural gas customers located to its west. I don’t think RF will repeat that politico-economic blunder again soon. As to the relative strength of the US and RF (as successor to the USSR) armed forces, I cannot give much credence to claims that the RF is formidable in the big league. There we stand alone. Well, if you don’t count China as our source of financing.

Post Script. We do not have sufficient manpower to run 2 wars at the same time. That is because we miscalculated in Iraq. If the May 1 declaration by Bush43 on board the carrier Abraham Lincoln had proved to be correct, and not bare braggadocio then we could more easily attack Afghan today. But I am reminded of this: Afghanistan has been invaded 100s of times but never conquered ONE time.

By and large the -stans have proved to be unmanageable by the West. Baluchistan and Kurdistan excepted. American foreign policy in the Middle East and near ME has failed miserably under the Neo Cons. We cannot impose our hand picked regime in Baghdad. Following Bush43's loss at the polls here in 2006, Iraq’s PM Nouri al-Maliki got a much needed shot of testosterone. And it suits him well in his second incarnation. He is now asking us OUT of Iraq. Only Bush43 and John McCain want to stay on indefinitely.

Our hand picked man in Pakistan on who we bestowed the honorary title of president, Pervez Musharraf, is being replaced. Our hand picked man in Afghan, also labeled president, Hamid Karzai teeters from day to day, unable to establish his rule outside of Kabul. There we see 68,000 soldiers, of which half will go home in January, 2009. The US Army Manual for Occupation indicates 350-400,000 men would be desirable to pacify a country like Afghanistan. Our whole Army is about 400,000 men (and women).

Israel - our own cause celebre and self imposed weight to bear - lost its PM Ariel Sharon to physical calamity just before the prosecutors got him and his son for theft, and now it looks like Ehud Olmert may have cut a deal to get out if they don’t put him in jail for stealing. It’s too bad Bush43 did not “look them in the eye” as he once did with Vladimir Putin to perceive internal contradictions in them. I noted with some humor Bush43 spared Dmitry Medvedev from his “evil eye” gaze and evaluation.

Last Words. I look forward to seeing our $550 b. annual defense - say war - budget cut in half! That would be too much too much to hope for but even that would probably require the personal intervention of Jesus Christ.

[edit on 8/1/2008 by donwhite]

Originally posted by Stratrf_Rus
The claims made that the Russian military tech is on par in any way with the US military tech I think is unimportant.

Russian military doctrine is more important as the two wars in Iraq proved the Soviet military doctrine to be a load of crap. Immediately after the Gulf War before the fall of the Soviet Union, Soviet policy makers and Generals were re-working the Soviet Military Doctrine to meet the concerns of growing US Military supremacy in doctrine (not in technology).

The war in Chechnya first proved the Russian doctrine to be ineffective, in 2000 Putin sent the army back in with a new doctrine, but still archaic comparitively.

If Russia will learn from these wars the technology they have will not matter as much...skill on the battlefield is always more important than tools.

The American doctrine in Iraq isn't proving to be any better than Russia's

But in the final analysis Russian 400 Mega ton nuclear bombs are by far more than enough to obliterate any country.

Likewise with American 400 mega ton nuclear bombs if they have them that big.
are like wise more than enough.

the rest of the military is redundant or at least most are when the big boys come out.
in the end it is a frightening prospect to contemplate any circumstance
where the button is pushed

Did you know that the cost of just 3 days of the war in Iraq could pay for a new levee system in NEW Orleans and pay for the Negro people down in New Orleans get back in their houses

Or are the Americans in New Orleans your enemies too?







[edit on 1-8-2008 by solo1]

reply to post by StellarX

When I once again start posting the evidence I have gathered ,in such large volumes, I believe you will be forced to change your mind and consider why the US still lacks such defenses while the RF deploys them in massive numbers and in sufficient quantity to largely blunt a full scale US nuclear strike.

Bush43 and Iran aside, I cannot conceive of a nuclear war. I am ready to accept a nuclear attack on the US by terrorists, but that is due almost entirely to the willful negligence and irresponsible leadership of the United States. See External Source below.

We unleashed a monster in 1948 and lost all control over it in 1967. When Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995, the good guys there lost their last best chance for a peaceful accommodation with the native Arabs. Israel has now embarked enthusiastically on an ethnic cleansing pogrom of the old Palestine Mandate. Shame!

Because the American public is bewildered by the intricacies of Middle Eastern politics, there is no possibility that a consensus for reason will ever obtain here. That is too bad. I attribute most of the causation of $4 gasoline here to Israel there. Our gas is back below $4 so it may not be the decisive factor in the November 4 election. 90% of Americans care only about the price of gasoline.

Evidence of that shift in popular priority is reinforced even in California where the Union Oil Company’s off-shore drilling rig sustained a blow out in January, 1969, causing an oil spill that took decades to clean up. Note: Union Oil merged with TexacoChevron in 2006. As in the mortgage meltdown, it looks as if America must repeat itself every 30-40 years. We neither know nor respect our own history and are quite content to repeat it.

I was alive and well in 1972 when Pres. Nixon sighed the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty and got it approved by the US Senate. In 1974, the USSR designated Moscow as the site for its allowed ABM system. The US designated the Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota, as its ABM site. Grand Forks AFB is unique among AFBs. Its raison d’etre is the 6 missile sites arranged about equidistant around the compass, and out about 30 miles.

The 6 sites are spread over about 3,000 square miles. Double the size of Rhode Island and 20% larger than Delaware. Each site contained several - four I recall - launch tubes which were fully manned 24/7 and 365. With the advent of the Minuteman II, each of the 24 missiles could be MIRV’d with up to 10 re-entry vehicles or decoys or any combination of the two. 24 X 10 = 240 nukes aimed anywhere on earth! The Neo Con Prayer: "Please GOD, give us an adversary worthy of our weapons!"

The best the US could install at Grand Forks was a Nike-Zeus combination of 2 missiles. This was never really an ABM system. It was offered to calm Americans disdain for making a deal with the Evil Empire. You cannot turn public sentiment off and on like a light bulb.

As for the current SDI - Strategic Defense Initiative - it is no better than Reagan’s love of Star Wars, but 10 X as costly. An ABM system aside from being equal to the Seven Wonders of the World if attainable - which I doubt - is a gross waste of money and talent. Such a program - SDI - would be the boondoggle of all boondoggles. Sort of like Cheney’s promise the War on Terror will last for generations. That trimmed down from his earlier "perpetual war" declaration. NOT either if I can help it! Let's declare the WoT WON and get on with our lives. We and the world have had 7 years of madness inflicted on us by a Texas bumpkin with his limited knowledge and vision. He did far "better" as an inside trader than as president. Which I think he ran for just to pee off his father.

To answer Solo1, I think the US favored 200 KT nuke warheads for its missiles. I also think I recall the USSR favored the 5-10 megaton nuke warheads for its missiles. While the USSR might be able to hit one of the Dakotas, it was not accurate enough for them to know which. North Dakota, 71,000 sq mi. South Dakota, 77,000 sq mi.

Note: Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - NPT - is a treaty to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, opened for signature on July 1, 1968. There are currently 189 countries party to the treaty, five of which have nuclear weapons: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and the People's Republic of China. Only four recognized sovereign states are not parties to the treaty: India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea. India and Pakistan both possess and have openly tested nuclear bombs. Israel has had a policy of opacity regarding its own nuclear weapons program. North Korea acceded to the treaty, violated it, and later withdrew.

According to leaked intelligence, Israel has been developing nuclear weapons at its Dimona site in the Negev since 1958, and many nonproliferation analysts like David Albright estimate that Israel may have stockpiled between 100 to 200 warheads using the plutonium reprocessed from Dimona. The Israeli government refuses to confirm or deny possession of nuclear weapons, although this is now regarded as an open secret after Israeli low level nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu - later abducted and jailed by Israel - revealed the program to the British Sunday Times in 1986. [And he is still in prison in Israel, the only “democracy” in the Middle East.]

The former Soviet states of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, which inherited nuclear weapons from the former USSR, which also acceded to the NPT.
en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 8/1/2008 by donwhite]

Good to see you back Don. Since you have touched on so many points , and must by now be familiar with my 'method' ( i don't like it any more than you do but it's 'efficient'), it's hard for me to do so much personal information justice in they way i normally respond.... It's a bit of a quandary but since we are clearly reading from the same book we can just as well discuss what we should discuss before we discuss anything.

Stellar

reply to post by StellarX

it's hard for me to do so much personal information justice in they way i normally respond.... It's a bit of a quandary but since we are clearly reading from the same book we can just as well discuss what we should discuss before we discuss anything.

Well put Mr S/X. And succinct! I see our only disagreement to be on the technical efficacy and fiscal desirability of a first rate high probability anti-ballistic missile defense system.

I also connect the War on Terror to Israel and the Palestinian question. To a very considerable degree I assign the Arab antipathy towards the US because of our “blind” support of Israel. Due to US support of Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War the OPEC was created as a response. The following oil embargo that helped mightily to bring on stag-flation which killed Jimmy Carter which was due to our pro Israel stance.

Current game-playing by Saudi and Kuwait over how much they can, will, should produce every day is running up prices. Same root cause. This may or may not be an appropriate topic for this thread.

Let me hear back.

[edit on 8/1/2008 by donwhite]

Even if they fail in all at least they have a cool and inspiring National Anthem

When comparing and contrasting Russian and Nato/US forces one must keep in mind the appropriate context which in this case would be the military DOCTRINE of each specific country or force.

Russia's military doctrine has always differed greatly from that of the US.

Ever since the times of the Soviet Union Russia was known for its numerical superiority and thus its doctrines reflected that in quantity over quality whereas US was far more invested in quality over quantity.

This is reflected in every facet of their military forces and this is why a comparison of ONE particular Russian piece of equipment against ONE particular piece from American forces is not suitable as an argument over who would win in a war.

Take for example the russian MBT (main battle tank) like the T90. It weighs around 45 tons compared to the US Abrams that weighs about 70 tons.

While the technology is comparable, sure the Abrams with its crew of 4 compared to crew of 3 in a T90 can beat a T90 1 on 1. But please note: US Abrams costs almost 5 million US dollars, while the T90 costs 1.3 million. For each one Abrams built Russia can massproduce 4 or 5 T90s, so while ONE Abrams can defeat ONE T90, you would never see that in a real life situation. But who would argue that a swarm of 10,000 T90's wouldn't easily obliterate 2 or 3,000 Abrams?

Thus is the Russian military doctrine, cheap and effective for mass production. It serves 2 purposes, the other being that they can mass produce these weapons to sell to other nations like India and China though please note that they sell only downgraded versions, no country gets a full version upgraded package that is why the T72's blown up in Iraq by US Abrams can't really be compared to what would happen in a US/Russian conflict as they were downgraded AND had Iraqi crews (not as trained as Russians by a long shot).

This doctrine partly stems from WW2 when Russia had to mass produce their tanks in theatres like Stalingrad where the tanks were being driven off the production line without paint BY the factory workers right onto the battlefield front a few hundred yards away, they didn't have the luxury of long calculations and building complicated machines like the U.S.
And now the doctrine has trickled down to every facet of their engineering.
That is why Russian nukes are less accurate than US but far more powerful(and mrv'd at that) - to make up for what they lack in accuracy.

However it cannot be argued that even in the 'quality' department alot of Russia's equipment matches and surpasses that of the US. Though I won't get into specifics now unless someone wants to debate it in a friendly manner but one favorite of mine is the Ka-50 which is by far the best combat helicopter on earth beyond anything U.S. has.

Probably has been mentioned in here but they are increasing their military budget 50%!!! for next 5 years

Originally posted by rufusdrak
Russia's military doctrine has always differed greatly from that of the US.

Ever since the times of the Soviet Union Russia was known for its numerical superiority and thus its doctrines reflected that in quantity over quality whereas US was far more invested in quality over quantity.

Neither the SU or the USSR had a numerical superiority over the western allies as the combined populations of Germans, France,Poland, Britain and Spain would have revealed. If one brings in the US the SU, USSR were always horribly outnumbered hence their doctrinal focus on mass mobilization and conscription as well as massive mechanization of their entire armed forces. They could never depend on numerical superiority in soldiers as they NEVER HAD IT so they logically concentrated on building more and 'better' fighting systems.

This is reflected in every facet of their military forces and this is why a comparison of ONE particular Russian piece of equipment against ONE particular piece from American forces is not suitable as an argument over who would win in a war.

It is suitable in that it's not obvious that a modern T-90 will not destroy a modern M1a2 SEP in either long range or short range combat given the aid of it's barrel launched Refleks ATGM enabling engagement at 5-8 Km ranges. At the normal European combat ranges both are likely to soon shred each others reactive/passive armor with the advantage probably going to the Abrams if it can get the first shot in and thus not losing too much sensors.

Take for example the russian MBT (main battle tank) like the T90. It weighs around 45 tons compared to the US Abrams that weighs about 70 tons.

With 70 tons being far too heavy for anything but road combat in European conditions. The T-90's will be able to leave paved areas and operate in fields thus bringing them into combat with Leopard two's and other mechanized forces it is nominally able to deal with without obvious disadvantages.

While the technology is comparable, sure the Abrams with its crew of 4 compared to crew of 3 in a T90 can beat a T90 1 on 1.

Not for obvious technological reasons. If US crews are better trained and their small formation tactics better they will defeat T-90's as they defeated T-70's in Iraq. If Russian and US crews are similarly well trained or one side employs better combined arms tactics that side will overcome any slight superiority one of these two tanks might have.

But please note: US Abrams costs almost 5 million US dollars, while the T90 costs 1.3 million. For each one Abrams built Russia can massproduce 4 or 5 T90s, so while ONE Abrams can defeat ONE T90, you would never see that in a real life situation. But who would argue that a swarm of 10,000 T90's wouldn't easily obliterate 2 or 3,000 Abrams?

The M1A2 SEP costs around that newly built so you might get 2-3 T-90's for the price of M1A2. Having said that T-90's will probably not be the basis for mass production as that role would have and probably still will fall to late model T72's.

Thus is the Russian military doctrine, cheap and effective for mass production. It serves 2 purposes, the other being that they can mass produce these weapons to sell to other nations like India and China though please note that they sell only downgraded versions,

They sell downgraded versions to countries that can't pay or may compromise their weapon systems. These days they are selling you the technology you can afford to pay for and many of their export planes are in fact superior to the models they themselves operate....

This is something you really have to do unless you want your factories to shut down for lack of foreign demand or local procurement. Either way in a global war many US fighting systems are going to become very cheap as well so it will come down to who can best protect their factories from strategic attack rather than who's tanks are 'cheapest' to produce. According to that logic you tend to settle on far less complex/advanced designs that require as few specialized/difficult to assemble parts as possible.

no country gets a full version upgraded package that is why the T72's blown up in Iraq by US Abrams can't really be compared to what would happen in a US/Russian conflict as they were downgraded AND had Iraqi crews (not as trained as Russians by a long shot).

The Iraqi's would have lost that war with Abrams tanks as well in the same way that Israel managed to defeat armor and aircraft time and time again. There are far too many factors and sadly superior weapons doesn't and have not thus far given victory often enough. I agree with your analysis about Iraqi T-72's as summed up here:

4A recent study pointed out that the T-72 export
models, of which eight different ones were produced,
were to be made using alternative materials,
and not the first-rate materials in the Soviet
domestic models. Reports in Russian press articles
seem to indicate that the tanks used in
Chechnya, T-72A models, were far more survivable
than once thought.

www.knox.army.mil...

This doctrine partly stems from WW2 when Russia had to mass produce their tanks in theatres like Stalingrad where the tanks were being driven off the production line without paint BY the factory workers right onto the battlefield front a few hundred yards away, they didn't have the luxury of long calculations and building complicated machines like the U.S.

And yet their primary tanks were for the duration of the war by no means inferior and they certainly started the war with tanks that had both better armor and guns.

And now the doctrine has trickled down to every facet of their engineering.
That is why Russian nukes are less accurate than US but far more powerful(and mrv'd at that) - to make up for what they lack in accuracy.

Few really know how accurate/ inaccurate their ICBM's really are as the Russians generally claim that they are more inaccurate while western sources credit them with much more accuracy for not having any technical reason to suspect otherwise. If it turns out that Russian weapons are both as accurate and twice as large that would certainly have contributed to their strategic advantages.

However it cannot be argued that even in the 'quality' department alot of Russia's equipment matches and surpasses that of the US. Though I won't get into specifics now unless someone wants to debate it in a friendly manner but one favorite of mine is the Ka-50 which is by far the best combat helicopter on earth beyond anything U.S. has.

I share the view that the majority of combat systems were by no means inferior and that any disparity would have been small in comparison to all the other factors that makes combined arms warfare either successful or dismal failures.

Stellar

I just don't understand why the USA is looking for conflict with the Russians.
We were wrong about Kosovo and getting involved with Yugo Civil war and we were on the wrong side with the Muslium Terrorist. The Clintons and Blair lied about there being Ethnic cleansing the number of dead before we got there was circa 3000 mostly young men of military age. Russia was right and we were wrong our thank you from Muslium world was 911. Wake up the Russians know this side of the world better than we do. Russia is Eastern Europe. There releated to us in Blood and Religion. Like us there are heir to Roman Empire
and start seeing the world with their eyes there no longer communist so why not give them the benifit of the doubt. Russia has been America Ally since Revolutionary War till late 40s. Cold war is over. After the Soviet Union broke apart George senior should have embraced the Russians instead he missed an oppurtunity George II missed his chance after 911 when the Russians aided us
and all Russia got was talk and the US expanding into its territory after the USA said it had no interest in Expanding into former Soviet states. The Russians have been lied to ignored and unappreciated and threaten so you wonder why their pist at USA and George II. Hope McCain will make things better I can see Obama wont.

reply to post by torresm1

I just don't understand why the USA is looking for conflict with the Russians.

American HARD LINERS want to make the old master of the USSR suffer. We have surrounded Russia. We have the Baltic states, Moldova, Belarus and Ukraine to the west, and Kazakstan and Uzbekistan to the east. We HAD Georgia and may still have Armenia to the south.

Cold war is over. After the Soviet Union broke apart George senior should have embraced the Russians instead he missed an opportunity George II missed his chance after 911 when the Russians aided us and all Russia got was talk and the US expanding into its territory after the USA said it had no interest in Expanding into former Soviet states. The Russians have been lied to ignored and unappreciated and threaten so you wonder why they’re peed at USA and King George II.

You’re dead on here. You’ve got it exactly. We are following the Neo Con philosophy or agenda, which is Big John McCain's too.

Hope McCain will make things better I can see Obama wont.

You’ve got that wrong. Just the opposite. McCain has nothing on his mind but POWER and military FORCE as a foreign policy. McCain may well start War 3. Obama OTOH will be your original PEACE-NIK in office.

reply to post by StellarX


Good post I agree with most of it

reply to post by Shamanator


no one put down the red manace..Gorbacheav did.

Russia. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA.

No seriously. The Russian military has had almost 2 decades to decay and what was there BEFORE the decay was substantially lesser than anything Nato can field. Putin gets on TV and makes some harsh words and now ya'll think they have a military? Iraq in 2002 pre-U.S. invasion could have kicked the # out of Russia. Grow up.