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Putin's Hypersonic Weapon Appears to Be a Modified Iskander Ballistic Missile

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Re: Putin's Hypersonic Weapon Appears to Be a Modified Iskander Ballistic Missile

#71
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If any of those articles have inaccuracies, please say so. I never visited the Ukraine and I am not claiming to be an expert. Do you live near Kiev?

I'm from Ukraine. I have 360°FOV realtime true color view at Ukraine. You asked me to say about inaccuracies, so here is answer. In short: There is no Nazi in Ukraine. There are some attempts to create nationalistic ultra-right organizations by Russian agents, but they are monitored and destroyed as usual. (I destroyed one of them and deflect attempt to create another by myself when I was in operation).

Are there any US agents in the Ukraine? For example, the US funding of the "Azov Battalion":

"Yet some have expressed concern that some of this aid has made its way into the hands of neo-Nazi groups, such as the Azov Battalion. Last summer the Daily Beast published an interview by the journalists Will Cathcart and Joseph Epstein in which a member of the Azov battalion spoke about “his battalion’s experience with U.S. trainers and U.S. volunteers quite fondly, even mentioning U.S. volunteers engineers and medics that are still currently assisting them.”"

There is also this: "In the course of a little over four minutes, the two American diplomats exchange ideas about who ought to be promoted, and who ought to be demoted, by the United States inside Ukraine, which is suffering through a difficult and even violent political dispute over whether Ukraine will tilt east, toward Russia, or west, toward the United States and Europe. Let it first be noted that it shouldn’t be surprising that Nuland would come off as a would-be imperialist or game player. If anything, she’s long been the neoconservative inside the Obama administration." (https://www.thenation.com/article/not-so-secret-ukraine-phon...)

Re: Putin's Hypersonic Weapon Appears to Be a Modified Iskander Ballistic Missile

#72
post #14

How would the US react if Russia build a missile defense site in Cuba? Cuba is closer to the US border than the site in Poland to the Russian border, on the other hand Washington is further away from Cuba than Moscow from the site in Poland. Both capitals would be in range of the interceptors. I do not really know enough to judge whether Putin's statement that one could easily replace interceptors with offensive weap…

You're absolutely right. Russia should be absolutely terrified by the US abm sites because the US is planning on launching a massive nuclear missile attack that would totally destroy Russia.

They should be as worried as the US that Russia is planning on launching a massive nuclear missile attack. Or Iran or North Korea.

Re: Putin's Hypersonic Weapon Appears to Be a Modified Iskander Ballistic Missile

#73
I have a number of comments for this article. I thought it would be helpful to explain where I am coming from.

A good place to start is what happened after WWII ended. The world was divided between two great powers, and what you would expect to have happened, given the past history of the world, is for this to lead in a decade or two to a massive war between them.

So why didn't that happen? Basically because of some extraordinary economic, technological and governmental changes that had happened over the preceding several centuries.

For thousands of years tribes and states had engaged in regular warfare. This was because they were based largely on agriculture. Even in empires, most of the people still were peasant farmers. This lead to warfare in two ways. One is that populations would often grow too large for agricultural output, the other was that the wealth was in the land and so the way to gain more wealth was through conquest.

The industrial revolution, based on modern science and technology, and operating under free market economics, lead to some radical changes. Radical increases in agricultural productivity, and in addition health advances lead to lower population growth. In addition, the main source of wealth was now industry, rather than land. And one consequence was the rise of democracy.

Nonetheless, warfare persisted. But nuclear weapons radically changed the logic of warfare, and made it suicidal, rather than an often-rational choice. And so we have had a remarkable 70 years of peace.

The problem is that Russia has never really adopted to the new era. Politically, it is authoritarian, rather than democratic. Economically it practices crony capitalism, and one consequence is it is very poor at technological advancement, and depends far too much on natural resources for wealth. And with respect to international affairs it thinks we are still back in the old era where great powers continually try to conquer each other, both for wealth and to eliminate military threats. And so it is pursing a policy of trying to gain back every part of the empire it lost when the Soviet Union collapsed.

I feel sorry for the Russians. Putin is taking them down a path that will lead to stagnation and maybe violent conflict. And, alas, Trump doesn't see this at all. That's because he is himself very out of touch with the realities of the modern, post-war era, and mistakenly thinks Putin is an excellent leader.

Re: Putin's Hypersonic Weapon Appears to Be a Modified Iskander Ballistic Missile

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right. Russia should be absolutely terrified by the US abm sites because the US is planning on launching a massive nuclear missile attack that would totally destroy Russia.

missing sarcasm tags

You're right, I should have included them. Poe's Law and all.

Re: Putin's Hypersonic Weapon Appears to Be a Modified Iskander Ballistic Missile

#75
post #7
post #2

Is there seriously some new cold war going on? I read in other media how some new American weapons can fight certain Russian tanks etc, and now I read about Putin bragging about his new weapons. My prediction for the post-Sovjet area was that the US and Russia would just leave each other in peace.

I've always considered the idea that the Cold War was "over" to be nothing but propaganda designed to prevent people from wondering why their nation is spending $Trillion on their military. Of course the Cold War is still happening: America has been exporting war wholesale for decades. Just because Russia hasn't been doing it at the same scale as well, doesn't mean squat. The US and Russia have had plenty of opportun…

> The trouble is, they're not the only parties to this farce. Incredibly powerful, massively entrenched super-power-like military industrial multinational corporations are involved as well, and there is no way in HELL they are going to let their number one revenue source dry up just because we all want peace.

But Russia is the number two arms exporter, and it spends a higher percentage of its gdp on defense.

But you're right, everything bad that happens between the two countries is entirely the fault of the US

Re: Putin's Hypersonic Weapon Appears to Be a Modified Iskander Ballistic Missile

#76
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as Russia has territory it doesn't control inside what it views to be its natural geological boundaries, there will always be Russian aggression. Russia very much wants to "never get involved in a land war in Asia." To that end, it wants a solid mountain boundary from the Carpathians to the Tien Shan, and the Gobi desert from there to the Pacific. Until then, you can expect continued encroachments on Ukraine,…

How does Ukraine ensure there will not be a war in asia? Ukraine is firmly the border between Russia and Europe. Due to the black sea, Ukraine means nothing for the border between Asia and Russia. Similarly the Russian border already runs through the Caucuses. That border is already secured by that mountain range. Meanwhile, to get decent natural borders around Kazakhstan you need to either see that expanse as a natu…

Part of the problem is that Russia's total territory is way too large for its population and economic strength to adequately defend militarily. That didn't matter so much during the two centuries when China was flat on its back, but now it is back to its normal superpower status.

Re: Putin's Hypersonic Weapon Appears to Be a Modified Iskander Ballistic Missile

#77

It doesn't matter what it is or does. As soon as anyone fires off a nuclear missile/device civilization ends. Some tiny remnant of people will start over, in a mostly destroyed planet. Some day their descendants will wonder what kind of complete idiot(s) would start a nuclear war.

Fermi's great filters

Re: Putin's Hypersonic Weapon Appears to Be a Modified Iskander Ballistic Missile

#78
post #33
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there seriously some new cold war going on? Yes. Russia wants their empire back. They've already taken back a piece of Georgia, Crimea, and a piece of Ukraine.

What a tidy explanation. It might surprise you to learn the US destabilized Ukraine in the first place, when the Ukrainian president put the brakes on their joining NATO and it looked as though they might instead join CSTO, the Russian version. This is all documented. Also Crimea IS the piece of Ukraine.

Crimea was the first piece. Much more than that now. See [1].

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_war_in_Do...

Re: Putin's Hypersonic Weapon Appears to Be a Modified Iskander Ballistic Missile

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I find the American propensity to blame Russia for its actions in Crimea to be of the most blatant hypocrisy one can imagine. Russia has better arguments for defending its naval bases in Crimea from Ukraine hostility, than America has for .. Iraq .. Afghanistan .. Libya .. and so on. Do Americans just not see their own hypocrisy on this issue? Russia didn't invade and destroy entire nation(s) (PLURAL) in or…

> Tell me again: when was the last time Russia established full operational, offensive bases within 30 km's of the borders of the USA with any of its clients and their military? When was the last time the USA threatened Canada and Mexico with annihilation? Did terrorists based in the Ukraine fly hijacked airplanes into Moscow's skyscrapers? Because that's why the USA invaded Afghanistan. Iraq however was unjustified.…

>USA threatened Canada and Mexico

I dunno. When was the last time Canada and Mexico threatened to impound a US naval base? When was the last time Canada tried to ally with the US' principle military opponent and have its military assets installed on its territory?

>Did terrorists based in the Ukraine fly hijacked airplanes into Moscow's skyscrapers? Because that's why the USA invaded Afghanistan.

This is laughable. Those were Saudi terrorists, funded by the Saudi kingdom. By your (admittedly dubious American) logic, Russia should have invaded Hungary and destroyed its infrastructure entirely, just because Georgia sent some terrorists to Russian territory.

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