And it just keeps getting better and better

[Spider]

after you read this story , I ask all of you that voted for Bush ....... what in the **** were you thinking ?
this **** is starting the cold war all over again
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6898690.stm
Last Updated: Saturday, 14 July 2007, 11:21 GMT 12:21 UK
E-mail this to a friend Printable version
Russia suspends arms control pact
A Russian tank. File photo
Russia says that the CFE treaty has become "meaningless"
Russian President Vladimir Putin has suspended the application of a key Cold War arms control treaty.

Mr Putin signed a decree citing "exceptional circumstances" affecting security as the reason for the move.

Russia has been angered by US plans to base parts of a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) limits the number of heavy weapons deployed between the Atlantic Ocean and the Urals mountains.

'Cornerstone'

The Russian suspension will become effective 150 days after other parties to the treaty have been notified, President Putin's decree says.

The suspension is not a full-scale withdrawal - but it means that Russia will no longer permit inspections or exchange data on its deployments.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak said Moscow was not "shutting the door to dialogue".


THE CFE TREATY
Cornerstone of European security
Limits amount of key military equipment in designated area
Negotiated by Nato and ex-Warsaw Pact member states
Signed in 1990
Came into force in 1992
Revised 1999 version never ratified by Nato

Russia sends warning

"We have submitted to our partners proposals on ways out of the situation. And we continue to wait for a constructive reaction," Mr Kislyak said.

But a Nato spokesman said the alliance "regretted" Russia's decision.

"The allies consider this treaty to be an important cornerstone of European security," James Appathurai said.

He added that the move was "a disappointing step in the wrong direction".

Russia's suspension of its application of the treaty is yet another sign of a worsening relationship between the US and Russia, says the BBC's diplomatic correspondent, Jonathan Marcus.

An informal meeting earlier in July at the Bush family's Maine home seems to have done very little to improve ties between the two leaders, he says.

It is also yet one more sign of a more assertive Russian foreign policy, our diplomatic correspondent says.

The CFE agreement of 1990 was one of the most significant arms control agreements of the Cold War years.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (l) and US President George W Bush (file image from 02/07/2007)
Talks at President Bush's family home did little to defuse tensions

It set strict limits on the number of offensive weapons - battle tanks, combat aircraft, heavy artillery - that the members of the Warsaw Pact and Nato could deploy in Europe, stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals.

In the wake of the collapse of communism, the treaty was revised in 1999, in part to address Russian concerns.

But this revised treaty has never been ratified by the Nato countries who want Russia to withdraw all of its forces from two breakaway regions with Russian-speaking majorities - Abkhazia in Georgia and Trans-Dniester in Moldova.

"The CFE treaty and missile defence are the two major irritants between Russia and the West. It would have been easy, it still is easy, I think Nato allies feel, to move closer to ratifying the CFE treaty," the Nato spokesman added.

[Spider]

oops wrong forum .......... please move

[ant1999e]

I'm not making any excuses for bush, but it seems russia is on it's way back to the old days. Putin is already started the wheels of communism back in russia. Knocking off his competition, some old spies and a few reporters who oppose his new changes. The countries 89 regional governors are no longer elected. Now Putin appoints them. Fixing elections in former soviet republics for candadates who vow to reunite with russia. The thing that bothers me the most is putin alligning himself with iran. A country publically vowing to whipe the US and israel off the face of the earth. Russia is helping them with their nuclear program.

[ant1999e]

oops wrong forum .......... please move

We're still in off-season mode.:thumbs:

[Broncojef]

We're still in off-season mode.:thumbs:

Any country putting their alliances with Iran needs to be seriously scrutinized. Russia has never been and never will be a friend to the US and I would have serious issues with any president that thinks they are. I hate political correctness and hope future men who lead our country have enough balls to call our enemies that to their face and the media. If you make threats to our country or side with those who do you don't deserve friendship you deserve a kick in the a$$.

[Spider]

Any country putting their alliances with Iran needs to be seriously scrutinized. Russia has never been and never will be a friend to the US and I would have serious issues with any president that thinks they are. I hate political correctness and hope future men who lead our country have enough balls to call our enemies that to their face and the media. If you make threats to our country or side with those who do you don't deserve friendship you deserve a kick in the a$$.
Friend ? no but in a arms treaty , good enough for me , now we dont have that any more .......

[Spider]

We're still in off-season mode.:thumbs:

;D soon preseason starts up ......... pisser I dont get preseason games ...... though i am closer to Denver then Grand Junction is to Denver ........

[Broncojef]

Friend ? no but in a arms treaty , good enough for me , now we dont have that any more .......

Limited weapons are of no real consequence in most treaties...can you destroy your enemy 5 times over or 25? Does it really matter? I wouldn't trust the Russians to any treaty they sign anyway...most of this is posturing for the media, the real deals and most agreements are classified and never put out for the normal everyday Joe to ever see. They tell us what they want us to hear in world situations and its business as usual behind the scenes.

[cutthemdown]

I thought this would be about the stock market. I hope everyone else is making lots of money in the market as well.

[baja]

Any country putting their alliances with Iran needs to be seriously scrutinized. Russia has never been and never will be a friend to the US and I would have serious issues with any president that thinks they are. I hate political correctness and hope future men who lead our country have enough balls to call our enemies that to their face and the media. If you make threats to our country or side with those who do you don't deserve friendship you deserve a kick in the a$$.

Relax will ya our leader George W. Bush saw into the soul of Putin and beheld a kindly, almost saintly old soul that loves us because we are special.

[Spider]

Limited weapons are of no real consequence in most treaties...can you destroy your enemy 5 times over or 25? Does it really matter? I wouldn't trust the Russians to any treaty they sign anyway...most of this is posturing for the media, the real deals and most agreements are classified and never put out for the normal everyday Joe to ever see. They tell us what they want us to hear in world situations and its business as usual behind the scenes.

well it was us that broke the treaty ..............

[TailgateNut]

Limited weapons are of no real consequence in most treaties...can you destroy your enemy 5 times over or 25? Does it really matter? I wouldn't trust the Russians to any treaty they sign anyway...most of this is posturing for the media, the real deals and most agreements are classified and never put out for the normal everyday Joe to ever see. They tell us what they want us to hear in world situations and its business as usual behind the scenes.


....and at this point in time you'ld trust our goverment? I lost the limited amount of trust I had quite some time ago. I'd trust my dog with a fresh piece of steak more than Bush and Co to do anything whatsoever right if it doesn't involve profit for themselves or their political contributors.

[Rock Chalk]

well it was us that broke the treaty ..............

Really? How so? Is putting those missle batteries in Poland breaking the treaty? Or is it that the communist wannabe Putin doesnt like the fact that we are on to his sneaky ass?

Do I think the missle shield is necessary? Not right now. Do I think it will be useful in teh future? Odds are good. No matter how hard we try, eventually ****hole countries are going to get nuclear weapons and eventually they are going to be able to build ballistic missiles. We just cant hold them back indefinately. It would be nice to be able to do so, but then Im sure they are thinking "It would be nice if the big countries didnt have weapons capable of destroying the whole world".

So, in the end, we may well need that missile shield and given Russia's history, we may need it to defend against those peckerwoods.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Really? How so? Is putting those missle batteries in Poland breaking the treaty? Or is it that the communist wannabe Putin doesnt like the fact that we are on to his sneaky ass?

Do I think the missle shield is necessary? Not right now. Do I think it will be useful in teh future? Odds are good. No matter how hard we try, eventually ****hole countries are going to get nuclear weapons and eventually they are going to be able to build ballistic missiles. We just cant hold them back indefinately. It would be nice to be able to do so, but then Im sure they are thinking "It would be nice if the big countries didnt have weapons capable of destroying the whole world".
So, in the end, we may well need that missile shield and given Russia's history, we may need it to defend against those peckerwoods.Bunch of baloney. There is no such thing as a "Missile Shield" that can't protect countries from ICBMs. Trying to shoot down ICBMs with ICBMs is nothing more than a cash cow for several Bush/Cheney aligned companies and has no other value than that.

[baja]

Spider this is a terrible title for this thread.

What's better and better about more nukes?

[Spider]

Really? How so? Is putting those missle batteries in Poland breaking the treaty? Or is it that the communist wannabe Putin doesnt like the fact that we are on to his sneaky ass?

Do I think the missle shield is necessary? Not right now. Do I think it will be useful in teh future? Odds are good. No matter how hard we try, eventually ****hole countries are going to get nuclear weapons and eventually they are going to be able to build ballistic missiles. We just cant hold them back indefinately. It would be nice to be able to do so, but then Im sure they are thinking "It would be nice if the big countries didnt have weapons capable of destroying the whole world".

So, in the end, we may well need that missile shield and given Russia's history, we may need it to defend against those peckerwoods.
Missile defense .....ROFL!
yeah ok ......

[Bronco Bob]

Really? How so? Is putting those missle batteries in Poland breaking the treaty?

In a word: Yes. The ABM treaty.

[mosca]

Bunch of baloney. There is no such thing as a "Missile Shield" that can't protect countries from ICBMs. Trying to shoot down ICBMs with ICBMs is nothing more than a cash cow for several Bush/Cheney aligned companies and has no other value than that.
Would you be opposed to the idea of a "missile shield" that had a higher success rate, was promoted by the Democrats, and/or didn't have ties to BushCo defense contracters?

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Would you be opposed to the idea of a "missile shield" that had a higher success rate, was promoted by the Democrats, and/or didn't have ties to BushCo defense contracters?I've posted on this subject many times here. It's nothing more than lining the pockets of Bechtel and a few other companies. Shooting down ICBMs with ICBMs is basically impossible with use of the simplest of contermeasures. 10s of billions of dollars is being thrown at these companies "developing" this "technology" (see attacking and occupying Iraq for a similar exercise in futility).

A laser based defense may be possible someday but that would send the planet into an arms race that would turn everyone into enemies of each other.

I haven't ever heard of Democrats, Independents, Socialists, Commies, Wackos or any other group endorsing this fallacious and failed technology.

The other part of the program that is developing anti-missile technology for use against non-orbital defense (short range missiles) is working to some degree and viable.

[Spider]

Would you be opposed to the idea of a "missile shield" that had a higher success rate, was promoted by the Democrats, and/or didn't have ties to BushCo defense contracters?
LOL , if it doesnt work , it doesnt work no matter who proposes it .........

[cutthemdown]

I'm no expert but I thought I have read they had tested some of this and some worked and some didn't? Don't underestimate science I bet they can build a missile defense but I doubt it would be a foolproof system.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

I'm no expert but I thought I have read they had tested some of this and some worked and some didn't? Don't underestimate science I bet they can build a missile defense but I doubt it would be a foolproof system.Completely bogus tests (the ones that were "successful"), none of which employed the simple countermeasures I spoke of.

The war game scenario also ruled out the use by Midland of countermeasures or decoys in the ICBM attack. As it is, shooting down an enemy missile traveling 15,000 miles per hour in space is like trying to hit a hole-in-one in golf when the hole is traveling 15,000 mph. If an enemy uses decoys and countermeasures, missile defense is like trying to shoot a hole-in-one in golf when the hole is speeding at 15,000 mph and the green is covered with black circles the same size as the hole. The golfer cannot determine which target to aim for.

In other words, the premises and the results of the MDA war game were seriously flawed at best. At worst, the game was little more than an exercise in public relations spin aimed at shoring up congressional support for further funding of the program.

The Limits and Liabilities of Missile Defense (http://www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=3725)

This analysis first appeared in the November 2006 issue of Current History.

“The most effective route in dealing with nuclear and missile proliferation threats may be through creative diplomacy, not military technology.”

After nearly six years of Bush administration efforts to develop a missile defense network, a troubling lack of clarity colors public discourse regarding both the rationale for and the technical progress toward this kind of defense.

The reason for the confusion is clear when one examines the historical record. Quite simply, public statements by Pentagon officials and military contractors are often at variance with the facts.

Amid the administration’s ongoing advocacy to ensure continuing support for a missile defense program that is expected to cost hundreds of billions of dollars, it has become difficult to separate programmatic spin from genuine developmental progress and claimed value from substantial liabilities.

The United States is researching a variety of missile defense systems—land-, sea-, air-, and space-based—but the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system (GMD), formerly called National Missile Defense, attracts the most attention from lawmakers and the media. It is the largest and most complex of the systems, and will be the most costly.

It is also the centerpiece of the current Defense Department’s plan for defending America against long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) fired by a hostile state.

Even so, while the government has deployed 12 GMD interceptors in Alaska and California, the capabilities and limitations of these interceptors—and those of the overarching network of tracking systems and command and control systems—continue to be poorly understood. And there is even less understanding of the threats the system could face and the strategic circumstances under which it might be employed by a future U.S. president. If potential adversaries believe America’s rhetoric about the effectiveness of its missile defenses, how might they respond? Equally disturbingly, there has been a lack of substantive discussion about the ways in which missile defenses might erode, rather than enhance, security by undermining arms control and nuclear nonproliferation efforts.

War Games

The role of advocacy in manipulating public perceptions of missile defense was on display in late January 2006, when the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) conducted a missile defense war game on Capitol Hill just as the president’s new defense budget was headed for Congress. The purpose was to provide members of Congress and the press a convincing display of the need for and the benefits of the missile defense program.

In this war game, “Midland,” a fictional island nation located in the Sea of Japan, attacks its neighbors, South Korea and Japan. It does so because “tensions between Midland and Japan and South Korea have increased over oil reserves and fishing rights.” Midland in this scenario is obviously an alias for North Korea.

The MDA game also included an attack by Midland on the United States. The briefing explained that the launch of seven long-range missiles against America was designed to “preclude U.S. involvement” in Midland’s war against South Korea and Japan.

Preclude U.S. involvement? If, as in this war game, a nation were to fire seven ICBMs at the United States, and dozens more missiles at American friends and allies, it would be inconceivable for the United States to remain uninvolved. It would also be astonishing if Midland, or any other country real or imaginary, did not realize that taking such action would guarantee a severe U.S. response. Yet the MDA postulated that, without a working U.S. missile defense network, such an action by North Korea—that is, Midland—would “constrain U.S. engagement.”

As the game progressed, the American GMD system shot down all but one of the ICBMs launched at the United States. This result was postulated even though the currently deployed GMD system has no demonstrated capability to defend the United States from enemy attack under realistic operational conditions.

The war game scenario also ruled out the use by Midland of countermeasures or decoys in the ICBM attack. As it is, shooting down an enemy missile traveling 15,000 miles per hour in space is like trying to hit a hole-in-one in golf when the hole is traveling 15,000 mph. If an enemy uses decoys and countermeasures, missile defense is like trying to shoot a hole-in-one in golf when the hole is speeding at 15,000 mph and the green is covered with black circles the same size as the hole. The golfer cannot determine which target to aim for.

In other words, the premises and the results of the MDA war game were seriously flawed at best. At worst, the game was little more than an exercise in public relations spin aimed at shoring up congressional support for further funding of the program.

And entirely lost in the exercise was a significant implication for weapons proliferation. If Midland believed that the GMD system could shoot down its missiles, would it not double its efforts to obtain many more long-range missiles so that it could overwhelm the GMD defenses?

CONT.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Originally Posted by §Pide®
well it was us that broke the treaty ..............

Really? How so?


Missile Shield or Holy Grail? (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020128/uhler/3)
SNIP
In December 2001 Bush formally notified Russia that the United States was withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty in order to "develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks."


By Walter C. Uhler

As a "Working Paper" issued recently under the auspices of the Union of Concerned Scientists noted, America's ground-based midcourse program has not been subjected to real-world tests. Five hit-to-kill tests have resulted in three hits. But each test: (1) used identical test geometrics (the location of launches, trajectories of target and interceptor missiles); (2) released the same objects (payload bus, warhead and decoy); (3) occurred at the same time of day; (4) made the lone decoy obviously and consistently different from the warhead; (5) told the defense system what to look for in advance; (6) attempted intercept at an unrealistically low closing speed; (7) kept the target cluster sufficiently compact to aid the kill vehicle's field of view; and (8) provided the kill vehicle with unduly accurate artificial tracking data.

Any ground-based midcourse missile defense system has to contend with virtually insurmountable countermeasures, especially the decoys that, in space, are quite indistinguishable from the warheads. Yet the three successful hits did not have to contend with even the countermeasures that a missile from a "rogue" regime would probably employ.

A National Intelligence Estimate in 1999 determined that "countermeasures would be available to emerging missile states." In April 2000 a "Countermeasures" study group from the Union of Concerned Scientists and the MIT Security Studies Program concluded: "Even the full [National Missile Defense] system would not be effective against an attacker using countermeasures, and an attacker could deploy such countermeasures before even the first phase of the NMD system was operational." Consequently, "it makes no sense to begin deployment."

Craig Eisendrath, Melvin Goodman and Gerald Marsh (Eisendrath and Goodman are senior fellows with the Center for International Policy in Washington; Marsh is a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory) state the problem even more starkly in their recent book The Phantom Defense: America's Pursuit of the Star Wars Illusion: "This is the bottom line: the problem isn't technology, it's physics. Decoys and warheads can always be made to emit almost identical signals in the visible, infrared, and radar bands; their signatures can be made virtually the same."

If such information troubles Defense Department officials responsible for missile defense, they seldom admit it publicly. However, they're not nearly as irresponsible as the political and "scholarly" cheerleaders who remain unmoved by a half-century of failure and the physics of countermeasures. I encountered one of them last June at a missile defense conference in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.

Representative Weldon delivered the conference's keynote address to more than 220 participants from the Defense Department, the military industry, think tanks, various universities and the press. Weldon is the author of HR 4, legislation that made it "the policy of the United States to deploy a national missile defense." (Senator Carl Levin was able to add amendments to the Senate bill on missile defense that made the program dependent upon the annual budget process and tied it to retention of the ABM treaty; Weldon referred to the amendments as cowardice. Nevertheless, they remained in the Missile Defense Act that President Clinton signed on July 22, 1999.)

Weldon told the audience that the United States requires a missile-defense system to protect its citizens from an intentional missile attack by a "rogue" regime presumably undeterred by the prospect of an overwhelming American nuclear retaliation. He even displayed an accelerometer and a gyroscope, Russian missile components allegedly bound for a "rogue." He then displayed an enlarged, poster-size photograph of Russia's SS-25 ICBM. Russia possesses more than 400 such missiles, he asserted, and any one of them might be launched accidentally against the United States, given Russia's deteriorating command and control capabilities.
CONT.

[Spider]

LOL Alec is a little young to remember The S.A.L.T. 1 and 2 talks and treaty ......perhaps this isnt covered in School , it should be , it was very historic and unstable time in our history

[mosca]

LOL , if it doesnt work , it doesnt work no matter who proposes it .........
The (admittedly hypothetical) question I posed was in regards to a system that -did- work. If someone proposed a system that had been tested, at a rate of say 90%, would you endorse it?

Beerslug says that a laser system would send the planet into an arms race that would turn everyone into enemies of each other. Well... what do you think we're seeing now? The arms race never really "ended". As long as technology continues to evolve, humans will continue inventing new and superior ways to kill each other. This is not going away.

[Spider]

The (admittedly hypothetical) question I posed was in regards to a system that -did- work. If someone proposed a system that had been tested, at a rate of say 90%, would you endorse it?

Beerslug says that a laser system would send the planet into an arms race that would turn everyone into enemies of each other. Well... what do you think we're seeing now? The arms race never really "ended". As long as technology continues to evolve, humans will continue inventing new and superior ways to kill each other. This is not going away.

90% would I endorse it ? or would I endorse where it is put ?
do you really think these countries are going to allow us to put these missiles there free of charge ?
and when you are talking nukes 10% can do a hellva lot of damage ........
But lets play your hypothetical game here ..... it is 90% success , what is going to stop countries from launching more warheads to get more through ?
right now we have terrorist strapping bombs to themselfs , how will missile defense stop that ?

[mosca]

90% would I endorse it ? or would I endorse where it is put ?
do you really think these countries are going to allow us to put these missiles there free of charge ?
and when you are talking nukes 10% can do a hellva lot of damage ........
But lets play your hypothetical game here ..... it is 90% success , what is going to stop countries from launching more warheads to get more through ?
right now we have terrorist strapping bombs to themselfs , how will missile defense stop that ?
I was simply asking whether or not you would support such a system. I was curious as to the viewpoints of some of the posters who seem, for one reason or another, strongly against a missile defense system.

Where this type of system is based is very important, as you note. And yes, even if just a few nukes get through, they would inflict massive damage. But there is a huge difference between 10 cities getting nuked and just 1 or 2, in terms of human casualties as well as infrastructure.

In regards to suicide bombers, as of yet none of those are nukes, and the existence of suitcase nukes is still up in the air. Missile defense of course will not stop terrorist suicide bombers. I'd suggest securing the borders as a good means of deterrence against that.

[Bronco Bob]

The (admittedly hypothetical) question I posed was in regards to a system that -did- work. If someone proposed a system that had been tested, at a rate of say 90%, would you endorse it?


But that's precisely the reason so many are opposed to it. You are never
going to get to 90%. Even 90% isn't that great when it comes to nukes.
That means if 100 missiles are fired at the USA, 10 missiles get through.
Which 10 cities are you willing to sacrifice? I'm sure a lot more people
would be for it if it could be 100%, but the people opposed to it know that
is never going to happen, and all building one does is encourage the other
side to build more to circumvent it. Cutthemdown commented "Don't
underestimate science I bet they can build a missile defense"
But what is failed to take into account in that statement is that their
scientists are working equally as hard to build countermeasures to defeat
any missile denfense system. Russia is already boasting they have a
missile system that can never be defeated by any ABM.

[ant1999e]

So you'd rather all 100 missles hit then just 10?

[Bronco Bob]

So you'd rather all 100 missles hit then just 10?

Would you want to be living in the city where one of the ten got through?
After a certain point it doesn't really matter anymore. 10 would pretty much
devastate the country. Imagine 10 new Orleans. Japan gave up after
only 2 bombs. Besides 100 was just a nice round number. Russia has
thousands of warheads. What's 10% of 8,000?

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Would you want to be living in the city where one of the ten got through?
After a certain point it doesn't really matter anymore. 10 would pretty much
devastate the country. Imagine 10 new Orleans. Japan gave up after
only 2 bombs. Besides 100 was just a nice round number. Russia has
thousands of warheads. What's 10% of 8,000?If 10 major U.S. cities are destroyed by nuclear weapons it's over for everyone. No more economy, no more food production, etc..., etc...

In fact, one major city being destroyed by a nuclear weapon may be enough to throw the country into complete chaos.

[mosca]

If 10 major U.S. cities are destroyed by nuclear weapons it's over for everyone. No more economy, no more food production, etc..., etc...

In fact, one major city being destroyed by a nuclear weapon may be enough to throw the country into complete chaos.
Yes, the damage inflicted by just a few nukes would be massive, and affect those not living in the actual cities bombed. But I don't see how you can totally write off the all the people who survive the initial attack. If a missile defense system can save some peoples' lives from the initial nuclear explosions, I think that's a good thing. It at least gives some people a chance to survive the aftermath, even though with all the challenges I'm sure a good deal would not.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Yes, the damage inflicted by just a few nukes would be massive, and affect those not living in the actual cities bombed. But I don't see how you can totally write off the all the people who survive the initial attack. If a missile defense system can save some peoples' lives from the initial nuclear explosions, I think that's a good thing. It at least gives some people a chance to survive the aftermath, even though with all the challenges I'm sure a good deal would not.Well, like I said, the system (ICBMs shooting down ICBMs) is defenseless against the simplest of counter measures so right now it's a moot point as far as protecting anyone.

Our focus should be on stopping someone from bringing in a nuclear weapon into the country or someone here assembling one.

Just imagine for a moment what the result of a large American city being destroyed by just one weapon. How many people would flee other cities for rural areas? Who would go to work in the rest of the cities? The nation would probably start collapsing.

[ant1999e]

Would you want to be living in the city where one of the ten got through?
After a certain point it doesn't really matter anymore. 10 would pretty much
devastate the country. Imagine 10 new Orleans. Japan gave up after
only 2 bombs. Besides 100 was just a nice round number. Russia has
thousands of warheads. What's 10% of 8,000?

I guess we just think differently. I would use all means necessary to defend myself but I see the point you and slug make that if the **** hits the fan, we're all screwed.
We better attack russia before the do us.:wiggle:

[Bronco Bob]

Yes, the damage inflicted by just a few nukes would be massive, and affect those not living in the actual cities bombed. But I don't see how you can totally write off the all the people who survive the initial attack. If a missile defense system can save some peoples' lives from the initial nuclear explosions, I think that's a good thing. It at least gives some people a chance to survive the aftermath, even though with all the challenges I'm sure a good deal would not.

Keep in mind this was with a hypothetical way optimistic 90% rate.
In the real world they have yet to achieve anything near this good.
With what we have now we might get 1 or 2%, if any at all.
Russia claims that have a missile that can evade any concievable
missile defense so if they sent 100 over, the only ones that would
miss would likely be the ones that failed all on their own.