Russia's Military Threatens Preemptive Strike If NATO Goes Ahead With Missile Plan

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

By MANSUR MIROVALEV | Associated Press | 41 minutes ago in

Russia's top military officer has threatened to carry out a pre-emptive strike on U.S.-led NATO missile defense facilities in Eastern Europe if Washington goes ahead with its controversial plan to build a missile shield.

President Dmitry Medvedev said last year that Russia will retaliate militarily if it does not reach an agreement with the United States and NATO on the missile defense system.

Chief of General Staff Nikolai Makarov went even further Thursday. "A decision to use destructive force pre-emptively will be taken if the situation worsens," he said at an international conference attended by senior U.S. and NATO officials.


Read more: http://www.newser.com/article/d9uha22o0/russias-military-threatens-preemptive-strike-if-nato-goes-ahead-with-missile-plan.html

[Scuba]

1. They'll be condemned internationally, as there's no precedent for a ... oh, wait. Never mind.

[WilliamPitt]

2. Great.

[Poll_Blind]

3. Russia knows that the missile defense shield is not about Iranian missiles. nt

PB

[bemildred]

4. That ought to wake somebody up.

Dumb asses.

[happerbolic]

5. Rmoney the Visonary...?

...who woulda' ever thunk.

any thought of anything (R) causes such systemic nauseousness in me anymore...

[lsewpershad]

6. So now we know

US and Israel are not the only two powers that can take pre-emptive strikes if they feel threatened.

[mysuzuki2]

7. That would be bad.

[Hugabear]

8. The MIC would love nothing more than good old fashioned conventional war with Russia

If it could somehow turn into a world war involving Iran and China, they'd be absolutely orgasmic.

[patrice]

9. Is that "Pre-emptive" - or "Preventative" as in the most recent e.g. of same, Shock and Awe ...

[HereSince1628]

12. Preventatif in Russion = condom, I don't think their gonna send Trojans

I'm thinking there has been something lost in translation, as a Russian strike on any American ally would bring about the apocalypse.

My experience with Russian people in the late 90's and early 00's was the apocalypse seemed more possible and more frightening than we did at that time.

[patrice]

13. I was just wondering about a distinction that was being made back in 2001-2 about

the differences in the intensity of the potential for First Strike: the "pre-emptive" status quo vs. new levels of escalation that Bush was bringing, which at that time were labeled "preventative" strike.

The point being that the historic acceptability of going to war to stop a specific high-probability instance of violence, a pre-emptive strike, was changing, under Cheney, into a new acceptability of going to war to prevent a wider range of undefined, more-OR-LESS probable, so-called possibilities of violence, with a preventative strike, which we established the acceptability of that in Shock and Awe.

Though any kind of First Strike policy poses intrinsic aggravations to any situation, I was just wondering where we are at in this situation.

[Purveyor]

14. Here is an excerpt from Ria Novosti that mentions 'preemptive strikes'.

Rest of the article is interesting also. http://en.rian.ru/world/20120503/173200447.html

Russia needs binding legal guarantees that the missile shield will not harm the strategic nuclear parity it has with the United States, and reserves the right to retaliate if its concerns are not addressed, said Nikolai Makarov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian military.

Russia does not even rule out delivering preemptive strikes against missile defense objects in Poland and Romania and shooting down U.S. satellites utilized as part of the shield, Makarov said.

[patrice]

10. Wondering what all of that American money in FOREIGN banks might have to do with this decision,

especially in light of our history of economic-bait-and-switch with Russia when the Iron Curtain came down.

[Solly Mack]

11. Pre-empting pre-emption with pre-empt pre-emption through pre-emptive pre-emption pre-empts other

pre-emptive pre-emption.

I'd laugh, yet...

[YOHABLO]

15. MIC are having an orgasm

What dangerous games they play ... It's all about the Pentagon isn't it.

[bemildred]

16. NATO: Russia talk of pre-emptive strike unjustified

BERLIN (Reuters) - A Kremlin threat to launch pre-emptive strikes on a planned NATO missile defense system in Europe is unjustified as the system poses no threat to Russia's security, the head of the Atlantic alliance said on Friday.

NATO has long insisted that the anti-missile shield it is developing is aimed at protecting member states from a possible Iranian attack, but Russia fears the system could undermine the effectiveness of its own nuclear arsenal.

In a stark escalation of rhetoric ahead of Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency next week, Russia's military chief-of-staff said on Thursday that Moscow might be forced to carry out pre-emptive strikes on NATO missile defense installations.

"These statements are unjustified," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Berlin after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/04/us-nato-russia-shield-idUSTRE8430Z020120504

[may3rd]

17. They should team up with the Chinese have have them build their own shield

They can sell the technology to 3rd world oil rich countries to balance the trade

[bemildred]

18. NATO won't get far treating the Russians like a bunch of chumps.

They know us too well.

[bemildred]

19. Russia threatens to take aim at NATO's missile defense shield

A 50-nation conference aimed at airing differences between Russia and the US over missile defense ended today in Moscow, apparently having accomplished its purpose all too well: Russia's top general threatened to attack NATO missile defense positions.

Yesterday Russian officials declared that talks aimed at finding a compromise have all but reached a dead end, and Russia's military chief of staff Gen. Nikolai Makarov threatened a preemptive rocket strike against NATO missile defense emplacements if current deployment plans go ahead.

"A decision to use destructive force preemptively will be taken if the situation worsens," Gen. Makarov told the stunned gathering of delegations from almost 50 countries, including NATO, the US, former Soviet republics, China, South Korea, and Japan.

Russian military experts used computer simulations and other graphic aids to make their case that current plans to deploy a European missile defense shield will undermine Russia's strategic nuclear deterrent in its later stages, and by 2025 may render Russia's nuclear forces obsolete.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2012/0504/Russia-threatens-to-take-aim-at-NATO-s-missile-defense-shield

[Purveyor]

20. I thought perhaps Russia would walk-back this rhetoric a bit but I guess not. eom