Russia reportedly planning large-scale nuclear exercise

Who do they think they need to impress?

 

Maybe the current adminstration is freaking them out.

 

Well the Russians have the perfect right to do so.

It is a collosal waste of their money; just like it is when our country does crap like that.

Who are the US and Russia trying to impress is a good question.

 

woah, i think they have WMDs! we must invade!

 

It's never a colossal waste when our forces are excercising to improve their skills so they can keep defendingyou and your right to make assinine statements like that. And no, it is not because of our "provocation" with the Russians, who continue to oppose us along with the French. At least GWB didn't try to start WWIII with the Russkies in Kosovo! It's funny how you liberals become fiscal conservatives when it comes to spending money to defend our nation, but when it comes to your vote-buying entitlement schemes, you don't have a problem with blowing the taxpayers money.

 

So, bamaslammer, do the Russians have a right to do it or not?

 

yes

 

I apologize for being tangential to this topic but I'm just curious what you think about the current Admin's spending proposals?

 

Nuclear weapons are not defensive weapons, nor do our forces need excercises to polish their attack launch skills which involve nuclear tests. The only purpose of nuclear arsm is offensive, and the only defensive benefit they provide is by their threat, not their usage. This is not akin to running infantry drills...

 

A lot right in what you said... large-scale nuclear exercises are a waste and have nothing to do w/ prepraredness.

But nuclear arms most certainly have a defensive nature to them.

 

When one country is invading countries around the world, thumbing its nose to international treaties, setting up huge "anti-missile" defense systems, and showing contempt for anyone not supplicating to its wishes, it's only natural other countries are gonna want to prepare for war.

 

No...quite simply, they don;t. In military verbiage, arms are classified according to their defensive and offensive capabilities, and nuclear arms are exclusively classified as first-strike offensive weapons.

As I said, the threat of nuclear arms can and does constitute a preventative defensive capability, but not the arms themselves. As such, there is no need to perform excercises to improve your defensive capabilities. What they accomplish they accomplish by existing, period.

 

This is slightly off-topic, but I just wanted to say that Russian basic training is freaking hardcore, man; much, much tougher than anything offered by Canada or the US. The recruit injury rate is astronomical compared to western boot camps, and fatalities occur regularly. I'm not talking about infantry or other combat arms qualifications, either. Just regular basic training. While their military don't have the modern equipment or raw size they had during the USSR days, the Russian soliders themselves are badass beyond belief.

 

Your posts confuse me because on the one hand, they seem to promote so-called "economic imperialism", but on the other hand, they seem to be very much opposed to so-called "military imperialism". I am not commenting on either one being right or wrong, it is just a pretty rare combination.

 

You are playing with semantics. It doesn't matter how they are classified in military verbiage. Having nuclear weapons and **demonstrating that you are able to use them** serves as a significant deterrent to war and therefore, PRACTICALLY, nuclear weapons in the hands of moderately responsible governments are defensive weapons.

 

I think the admin's spending proposals, especially that godawful prescription drug benefit, are dreadful. Nukes are the ultimate defensive weapon, because they were the very reason the Russkies knew that if they invaded Western Europe, the Warsaw Pact would glow in the dark for a very, very, very long time even though they outnumbered our troops 10 to 1. They had something like 10 thousand tanks total against NATO's 1 or 2 thousand. But yet they were DETERRED by our theater nukes.

 

The country we invaded was an active venue for terrorists. The treaties you speak of (the ABM treaty) were rendered null and void by the end of the Cold War and the fact the Soviet Union, which we signed those treaties, no longer exists. If you don't bow to our wishes, you should be flattened like a cockroach, especially if you are a state-supporter of terrorism like the Iranians or Syrians. We have no peer competitor and preparing for war is like me getting ready to fight Mike Tyson- I can spend months working out and getting ready- but he is still going to beat me to a bloody pulp. Why is it that you blame America first for everything that happens in the world that it is negative?

 

No, it's not semantics. A defensive weapon is one whose inherant purpose is to defend. Nuclear weapons are not so designed. As I said, the threat of nuclear arms serves as a deterrent, but that's only when both parties have them. When the US was the only nation to possess them, we used them. In that regard, what constitutes moderately responsible, only using them when other people can't respond?

 

There are so many problems with this post I don;t know where to begin...asking you to define 'active venue for terrorists', asking where in the treaties we signed was the contingency on the undeclared Cold War being in place for them to be applicable, a request as to whether you understand the policially acknowledged concept of inherant treaty recognition ( ie, treaties are nullified with every political turnover), etc.

But I think I will just be satisfied with this gem of non-Imperialist, non-might-is-right, non-arrogant, non-fullfilling all steroetypes of an Americans view of our place in the world wisdom:

It's funny how many people deny that this is a common American attitude...