fhrugby the Wise wrote:
If it were USA/Europe vs Russia then a missile defense system would be useless ...
Let's stop right there. If it's useless against the Russians, then why is Putin upset? Either they are useless, or they aren't. If they are, then they're no threat to Russia. If they aren't, then the whole "It'll do no good" argument falls apart.
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I think there is a solution to the problem with the Russians. They see the missile defense system as reducing their nuclear deterrent and therefore making their overall military position weaker. What if we amend our mutual nuclear missile reduction treaties to allow the Russians to increase their total missiles by a number equal to the number of missile interceptors on their border. So if we place 12 missile interceptors on their border, they get to build 12 extra missiles. We still get the defense against lunatic nations and they still have the same deterrent capacity.
They can do that already. It comes back to what I already said. It forces the other guy to upgrade his missile systems, which costs time and money. The hoped for is that Iran doesn't have the tech to do so, and Russia wont want to spend the money. More significantly, by paying attention to what Russia does in response, it gives us a clearer picture of their intentions.
Look. The point here is that this really isn't about the missile defense systems. That's just the tip of the iceberg. The real issue is the movement to allow some of the former Soviet States to join NATO. Missile defenses or not, that's the real issue at hand. The missile things are goading points. We want to see how Russia really feels about these nations, so we talk about putting missile defense systems in place. It doesn't really matter if they work or not. What matters is that Russia will react to them in some way, and that reaction tells us something about Russia's plans.
That's what's going on right now. Russia just tipped their hand. Big time. Had we not pushed the missile defense thing, and the NATO thing, it's quite possible that Russia would have simply planned and prepared for some revival of the old Soviet State system in secret only to be revealed the moment they invaded a half dozen nations all at once with overwhelming force and just kinda glared at us daring us to do something about it.
And if we hadn't put any systems in those countries, and we hadn't worked to form treaties with them, we'd have little to no recourse when that happened. By pushing Russia into a response, we now have options and time to implement them.
