Weapons |
Weapons Policies And Relations
Weapons, weapons, weapons. If we could only take the money that is spent on weapons by the world every year and apply it to the betterment of mankind, what a world it would be. Unfortunately it looks like that will never happen. Why are things that way? It all boils down to these things:
Indian Advanced Anti-Missile Missile Scare tactics play into the purchase of weapons. One country is scared that another is going to get a better weapon than the other, or one country is going to get a weapon that the other can not defend against. An example of this is the new Russian, Indian project. Russia and India are in a deal to build a missile that will not be able to be destroyed. Supposedly it will fly three times faster than a cruise missile. I have to admit that I am a little puzzled as to why Russia would join with India in this, even though they have been allies more or less for years. The Russians must know that we are also on friendly terms with India and that we will no doubt find out about how this missile is constructed. Could this be a political move to let us know that they are not going to stand for us putting anti-missiles in Europe, or worse, near their border? Another consideration is the fact that the Russians already have missiles that can not be stopped, they are ICBMs, or Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. We have not been able to accurately destroy more than one or two even when we knew where they were launched from and if Russia ever fired their fleet of missiles at us, most if not all would surely reach their targets. That is another reason that I believe the Russian, Indian deal is really just eye wash, in other words a warning to us about installing those anti-missile missiles.
Russian Anti-Missile Missiles Russia believes that there is a plot in Washington to render the Russian missile system impotent. One has only to read the Russian newspaper Pravda to see how the Russians feel about this matter. They seem to feel that we have no regard for them and that we should be, at the most, maintaining some sort of balance in weapons with them and this balance will be upset if we deploy anti-missile missiles anywhere in Europe. This was never said to them when they deployed anti-missile missiles around the city of Moscow, of course this is in their own territory, but Moscow is the only city in the world that had and may still have an anti-missile screen around it. I am not saying that it works and I am almost sure that it wouldn't work if we decided to send ICBMs against it, still it was there and if we were Russians and the shield was around an American city, perhaps Washington D.C., would we feel that this upsets the balance? I think the answer would be yes.
US Navy Anti-Missile Missile I like the Russian people and I have always felt that if we were partners with them, we could get a lot accomplished and this would benefit both countries. Not the least of the benefit would be the reduction of weapons to be used against each other. There is one thing though that can not be denied, the Russian government is paranoid and the top echelons of our government probably are too. If you read some of the famous Russian novels you will see so much intrigue that it will boggle the mind. The Russian military still remembers what the Germans did to them in World War II and in a way is still trying to defend from this happening again, only this time with us. Some of our military has felt that Russians are too great a threat and that threat must be eliminated, hence creating and installing anti-missile missiles. When the cold war ended, many thought that this might be the end between the conflict with Russia and the U.S. Indeed things happened that did make it seem this way. One thing was that the U.S. was helping Russia destroy some of its nuclear missiles and get rid of the nuclear material. Another thing that made some feel that the cold war was over, was the fact that the Russians were letting their military fall into disrepair. Russian war ships sat at docks rusting, while Russian army groups were losing a lot of their weapons. The shortage of funds in Russia had a deleterious effect on the Russian military. Today Russia is getting back on its feet. Russian billionaires are everywhere. Oil and gas money is pouring into Russia. As this happens, Russia once again is beginning to flex its military muscle. No it is not as powerful as the old Soviet Union yet, but there is a chance that it could be. Russia and the U.S. do not agree on a lot of things and many of our partners are different. Russia is close to China, a country that we have been at odds with since World War II. This is strange when you think about it, since Mao Zedong was an ally of ours during that war. The question that I always had in the back of my head was why did we decide to protect Taiwan? Was it really because we were against communism, or was the military industrial complex behind this so that they could keep the tension up and sell many more arms? If one looks at Taiwan with a rational eye they will find that many important things are manufactured by that country, but ironically they are made in factories that are on the Chinese mainland. If this type of relationship exists, then what are we protecting and why? Is it too late for us to finally establish better relations with Russia? I do not know the answer to this question, but I suspect that when president Obama finishes with some of the domestic items that he has promised the American people, such as health care, he will then pay more attention to world relations, which he has already tried to improve. The Russians were very upset when president Bush announced the new moon landing initiative and they were told that they could not be part of it. This seems like a small thing to us, but to them it was a terrible slap in the face since they had been working with us in matters of space for some time. Then there were the anti-missile missiles I spoke of and their denial into NATO. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with these moves, I am only telling you about them to illustrate why Russia has such a bad taste in its mouth, when it comes to the U.S. Maybe it is time for us to begin a joint space program with the Russians and why not? It would save us a lot of money and the Russians have a lot of experience in space flight and rockets. It would certainly be a good start. The second thing is that if we feel the need to put up missile defenses, why put them so close to Russia? The problem is that right now we already have them and they are on ships and this doesn't sit well with the Russians either. Diplomacy is needed here. I do not know how this will be accomplished, but I am not a diplomat. It will be hard to convince Russia that we are not out to destroy it, because of the very nature of the Russians, but we have to try. If we could ever get to trust one another and be able to rely on the Russians then the answer might be simple, let the Russians deploy medium range anti-missile missiles and guard the area. One has to remember that president Bush promised the Russians that he would share anti-missile technology with them and never did, which again angered them. The time is long overdue when the countries of this planet stop fighting each other. If we can get the stronger ones to be on the same page, then the smaller ones like Korea and Iran might just fall in line and we would have a much more peaceful planet. |
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