Russia Threatens Military Response if US, Poland Follow Through With Missile Defense Deal?

Question

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,407262,00.html.

Should it be taken seriously?

Answer 1

They'll back down.....trust me, no matter the division in this country, if we're threatened by the Soviet Union, there are enough of us, Republican or Democrat still alive and very much KICKING, who still remember the "Cold War" and a time when the Soviet Union played "Chicken" with us.

America is still, for now at least, America.  I'm discouraged by our response in Georgia, but we have troops in Poland, substantially, and we're now obligated to defend that country because anytime we have a "pact" with a foreign country to place defenses there, part of that is a clause that says we will defend it in return.

And yes, "Russia" is still the Soviet Union.  Change the name, but you can't change the mindset.

Edit:  I can't help but be amused at the prospect that the United States LOVES it when another country plays "Chicken" with us......we've got the resources, troops or not, to do as we please wherever we want but a good game of "Chicken" just triggers something in our national psyche we can't resist......

Answer 2

No.

Russia is militarily inferior to the US, and any military incursion into a EEC country would result in a massive response. And Russia would be routed

Just blustering

Answer 3

Of course it should be taken seriously.  But that doesn't mean we should change our course of action because of it.

Make no mistake, the next wave of Russian aggression has already begun.  And I think Poland, having lived through a half century of it already, understand what that would mean.

Answer 4

Darn right it should be.  

Answer 5

They should be taken seriously.  

Answer 6

They say: we will target these facilities, as missile defense is first on the list of targets. Thats obvious, in case of nuclear exchange any counter-missiles should be taken out first. This means people of Poland would die several minutes before all other humans on the planet.

Probably swift death is better then slow dying in a bomb shelter without water (as it is radiated), food, central heating, electricity and hence without TV with McCains flamboyant speeches about facing evil empires.



The real response they possibly can go for is placing their own 'missile shield' in some place. Like Cuba. For defense from terrorists off course.

Answer 7

Russia had some kind of missile launcher in Georgia that is capable of firing nukes, along with conventional weapons.  Part of their military strategy has been to respond with nukes - because they know they cannot equal us in conventional weapons.  Should we be serious about a nation that is seemingly capable and willing to defend itself against American hegemony along it's borders?  Yes.

We should be discussing matters, not building American run missile defense systems in foreign countries.  It's not the job of the United States Military to be protecting Poland anyways.

Answer 8

Who Started Cold War II

by Patrick J. Buchanan

The American people should be eternally grateful to Old Europe for having spiked the Bush-McCain plan to bring Georgia into NATO.

Had Georgia been in NATO when Mikheil Saakashvili invaded South Ossetia, we would be eyeball to eyeball with Russia, facing war in the Caucasus, where Moscow's superiority is as great as U.S. superiority in the Caribbean during the Cuban missile crisis.

If the Russia-Georgia war proves nothing else, it is the insanity of giving erratic hotheads in volatile nations the power to drag the United States into war.

From Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, U.S. presidents have sought to avoid shooting wars with Russia, even when the Bear was at its most beastly.

Truman refused to use force to break Stalin's Berlin blockade. Ike refused to intervene when the Butcher of Budapest drowned the Hungarian Revolution in blood. LBJ sat impotent as Leonid Brezhnev's tanks crushed the Prague Spring. Jimmy Carter's response to Brezhnev's invasion of Afghanistan was to boycott the Moscow Olympics. When Brezhnev ordered his Warsaw satraps to crush Solidarity and shot down a South Korean airliner killing scores of U.S. citizens, including a congressman, Reagan did -- nothing.

These presidents were not cowards. They simply would not go to war when no vital U.S. interest was at risk to justify a war. Yet, had George W. Bush prevailed and were Georgia in NATO, U.S. Marines could be fighting Russian troops over whose flag should fly over a province of 70,000 South Ossetians who prefer Russians to Georgians.

The arrogant folly of the architects of U.S. post-Cold War policy is today on display. By bringing three ex-Soviet republics into NATO, we have moved the U.S. red line for war from the Elbe almost to within artillery range of the old Leningrad.

Should America admit Ukraine into NATO, Yalta, vacation resort of the czars, will be a NATO port and Sevastopol, traditional home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, will become a naval base for the U.S. Sixth Fleet. This is altogether a bridge too far.

And can we not understand how a Russian patriot like Vladimir Putin would be incensed by this U.S. encirclement after Russia shed its empire and sought our friendship? How would Andy Jackson have reacted to such crowding by the British Empire?

As of 1991, the oil of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan belonged to Moscow. Can we not understand why Putin would smolder as avaricious Yankees built pipelines to siphon the oil and gas of the Caspian Basin through breakaway Georgia to the West?

For a dozen years, Putin & Co. watched as U.S. agents helped to dump over regimes in Ukraine and Georgia that were friendly to Moscow.

If Cold War II is coming, who started it, if not us?

The swift and decisive action of Putin's army in running the Georgian forces out of South Ossetia in 24 hours after Saakashvili began his barrage and invasion suggests Putin knew exactly what Saakashvili was up to and dropped the hammer on him.

What did we know? Did we know Georgia was about to walk into Putin's trap? Did we not see the Russians lying in wait north of the border? Did we give Saakashvili a green light?

Joe Biden ought to be conducting public hearings on who caused this U.S. humiliation.

The war in Georgia has exposed the dangerous overextension of U.S. power. There is no way America can fight a war with Russia in the Caucasus with our army tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nor should we. Hence, it is demented to be offering, as John McCain and Barack Obama are, NATO membership to Tbilisi.

The United States must decide whether it wants a partner in a flawed Russia or a second Cold War. For if we want another Cold War, we are, by cutting Russia out of the oil of the Caspian and pushing NATO into her face, going about it exactly the right way.

Vladimir Putin is no Stalin. He is a nationalist determined, as ruler of a proud and powerful country, to assert his nation's primacy in its own sphere, just as U.S. presidents from James Monroe to Bush have done on our side of the Atlantic.

A resurgent Russia is no threat to any vital interests of the United States. It is a threat to an American Empire that presumes some God-given right to plant U.S. military power in the backyard or on the front porch of Mother Russia.

Who rules Abkhazia and South Ossetia is none of our business. And after this madcap adventure of Saakashvili, why not let the people of these provinces decide their own future in plebiscites conducted by the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe?

As for Saakashvili, he's probably toast in Tbilisi after this stunt. Let the neocons find him an endowed chair at the American Enterprise Institute.

Answer 9

totaly seriously.

they are not joking, they will aim their nuclear rockets on Poland

Answer 10

Russia has said no such thing. What thy have said is that Poland will now be a target in the event of military conflict between Russia and a NATO country.Although the system will comprise a missile defence shield rather than offensive weaponry, I think there is a good deal of hypocrisy on the American side. I feel sure that the US would "take out" any such system were it installed in Cuba or Venezuela.

I can't rate yet, but let me say that Kalistra's post is one of the best I have yet seen on any subject. Knowledgeable and balanced.

Answer 11

Russia is saying if we get our missle defence system operational in poland they will destroy it with an airstrike.  No threat of nukes like some say.  The nuclear pact scares everyone from using nukes.  Poland wants assurance from the U.S. that we will protect them from russian aggression.  Problem is, there is no way to really protect them. If russia isnt scared of the U.S. then nothing can be done.  Russia isnt willing to battle the U.S. and the U.S. isnt willing to battle russia.