On Russia and missiles...

I guess I’m confused about why anyone would question Russia’s hesitance to accept this missile defense deployment by the US (and ONLY the US) into Eastern Europe, especially after mentioning the START treaties.

START II was a treaty that reduced and-or eliminated MIRV warheads on ICBM missiles, because of their propensity to encourage a “first strike” strategy on both sides. The math is complicated (as is everything involved in “rocket science”), but the gist is simply that if you have 10 missiles, each with 10 MIRVs, you can triple your chances of eliminating enemy silos by targeting two warheads at each silo. If your enemy has the same number of missiles with the same number of MIRVs, then it behooves you to launch 2 missiles FIRST (with two MIRVs aimed at each of the enemy silos), thus eliminating 99% of all enemy missiles AND MIRVs while retaining 80% of your own arsenal of weapons and launch vehicles.

The figures grow in favor of a “first strike” if the enemy has MORE missiles with MORE MIRVs than you do, because it is then that much more likely that he can viably eliminate the threat you pose to his silos if he gets his launched first.

It is this reasoning that is causing all the sleepless nights in the Kremlin… because a functional missile defense negates the mutual threat objectively balanced arsenals provide against one another in the same way MIRVs did before START II. This is the ONLY reason that “Star Wars” drove the Soviets into bankruptcy back in the late ‘80s… they HAD to counter superior US missile targeting capabilities and numbers, and when the USSR fell apart, Yeltsin was nearly sober with the need to get Bush Sr. to sign the START II treaties so that he could eliminate the threat that MIRVs posed to his fledgling military.

Now, I’m not saying the missiles shouldn’t be deployed… far from. I’m just trying to explain in clear and certain terms WHY the Russians are unhappy, and that the reason is real and measurable in many ways, not the least of which is the effect American supremacy in missile capabilities (real or perceived) has had in the past on Soviet/Russian politics. The first time the Soviets began to realize how good our missiles and targeting computers were compared to theirs, the USSR spent itself into the grave. The second time brought the newly formed Russian Federation to the treaty table so fast Boris Yeltsin missed happy hour.

Putin knows his strategic missile forces are aging and haven’t been maintained as they should have been due to a lack of funds over the last 25 years. Now that he is pumping pure black crude and natural gas into Europe faster than Rev. Wright pumps pure black hate and hot air into his congregation, he can afford to dabble in new technology and better delivery systems for his warheads… perhaps he can even update his warheads themselves. What he can’t afford is to do that AND develop a counter to the missile defense on his own front stoop. Not in time for it to make a difference.

We will fail diplomatically and strategically if we forget to take into account the defense paranoia that Russians as a people maintain. They are only one generation removed from an invasion that cost them more than 20 million lives, and untold years of playing catch-up with the West (even if they hadn’t been Commies… they had the same devastation and destruction to deal with that Germany and Japan had), and they are culturally surrounded by reminders of WWI, the Napoleonic Wars, and the wars fought in the Crimea and Northern Europe at the end of the 18th Century. Russia has a history of long and very bloody attacks to the “Rodinya”, and they take their national defense as seriously as any nation on earth. To this day, the single most popular tourist sights in Russia FOR Russians are memorials and monuments to fallen heroes that died defending Mother Russia from invaders.

I couldn’t find anything “meaty” about this SFA you wrote about, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t out there. I just hope it keeps US interests FIRST without alienating Russian concerns about defense of Russia. If we are doing this to protect Europe first, and US interests second, then I question the rational of the whole thing. Since when is the US responsible for the defense of our European allies from rogue (Iranian) missile attacks… especially in light of the “partnerships” our nation has seen evaporate since 2001? If our concern is primarily to stop an Iranian missile from killing hundreds in Prague or Paris or Plymouth and NOT from stopping a missile from doing the same in Peoria or Philadelphia or Penobscot… then let the Russians do it, or let them do it themselves.