The missiles do not lie; this war is not about terrorism. Terrorism is but one component of this war, albeit a graphic one.
The following excerpts from #msg-4588839 define the difference between terrorism and the nuclear threat.
Mr Putin said yesterday that Russia still viewed terrorism as the greatest threat to its national security but should also not forget about the nuclear threat.
"We understand that the moment we turn our attention from such elements of our defences as a nuclear missile shield, then we will be facing new threats," he said.
"That is why we will continue to persistently develop our armed forces on the whole, including its nuclear arsenal potential."
The shift in attention to nuclear deterrence came unexpectedly because Mr Putin has for months said that terrorism posed the major threat to Russia's national security amid a wave of deadly suicide attacks from guerillas in rebel Chechnya.
If the major threat to the United States was terrorism why is Bush also lining up missiles?
US plans to accelerate deployment of Aegis warships for missile defense
The world will not take these missiles lightly.
According to a Chinese white paper, Beijing sees “new negative developments” in the Asia-Pacific region. These include a strengthening US military presence and bilateral military alliances in China’s neighbourhood, and US development of a theatre missile defence system and plans to deploy it in Asia. “The Taiwan Straits situation is complicated and grim,” the white paper states. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_18-10-2002_pg3_8 #msg-4383869 #msg-4395071
In the first step toward erecting a multibillion-dollar shield to protect the United States from foreign missiles, the U.S. Navy will begin deploying state-of-the-art destroyers to patrol the waters off North Korea as early as next week.
The mission, to be conducted in the Sea of Japan by ships assigned to the Navy's 7th Fleet, will help lay the foundation for a system to detect and intercept ballistic missiles launched by "rogue nations." - Sep. 25, 2004 #msg-4129889
In addition to North Korea the Sea of Japan also frames China and Russia.
Japan has indicated that it might allow the US to establish its Middle East command headquarters strangely enough not in the Middle East but in Japan next to North Korea, Russia and China. #msg-4357274
Bush also intends to place missiles in Iraq, Afghanistan and some of the former Soviet republics this would surround Russia, China, North Korea, Myanmar and others.
A key component of national missile defense, whose development is receiving priority this year, is likely to strategically tie the United States to Iraq, Afghanistan and some of the authoritarian former Soviet republics, requiring permanent US military bases there, according to officials and scientists involved in the project. - Sept 5, 2004 #msg-3972175
Furthermore we have Russia saying a United States deal with Denmark to upgrade a radar in north-western Greenland has raised fresh security concerns over Washington's planned missile defence shield, known as 'son of star wars'.
The deal signed on Friday allows Washington to upgrade the Thule radar to use it in a chain of similar US installations stretching from Alaska to Australia designed to avert potential missile attacks against North America. - August 10, 2004 #msg-3767753
This much bigger global war this administration is setting up is not about terrorism.
WHAT NEW NUCLEAR MISSILE SYSTEMS DOES RUSSIA HAVE?
2004-11-19 13:34
MOSCOW, Nov 19 (RIA Novosti) - President Vladimir Putin mentioned the successful tests of new nuclear missile systems at a conference with the top leaders of the Russian Armed Forces on November 17. "...They will be supplied to the armed forces in the next few years," he said. "...The other nuclear powers do not have and will not have comparable systems in the near future." Nezavisimaya Gazeta decided to find out what the president meant.
Experts believe that he probably meant the Bulava system for Project 995 submarines, which are under construction. The Bulava SS-N-30 ballistic missile with ten warheads has a range of 8,000km. Work on it began in 1986 (project Bark, renamed Project Bulava in 1998), but no apparent results have been achieved. The 2004 tests entailed the launching of a practice round, the goal being to test the launcher that fires the missile from the submarine's silo. So far, Russia does not have a single live Bulava missile or control systems for it.
There is only one new missile in Russia, the ground-based Iskander-M, which has been recently put on combat duty in the armed forces. This unique missile is almost invisible to radars, can maneuver in flight and has a cruising speed of Mach 3, which allows it to avoid any of the modern ballistic defense systems. The missile is also a precision weapon. However, it is not a strategic but a tactical frontline missile with a range of 280km. In other words, it does not threaten "the other nuclear powers."
Besides, the creation of new nuclear weapons is impossible without tests, and nuclear explosions have not been held in Russia since 1990. "It is impossible to know the physics of a nuclear explosion without tests," said Academician Boris Litvinov, chief designer of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons at the Research Institute of Technical Physics. "The general belief that a perfect nuclear charge can be created only with the help of calculations is not true. The more sophisticated a physical device, the more experiments should be conducted with it."
Russia Plans Test of Sea-Based Version of Topol-M June 3, 2004 :: BBC Worldwide Monitoring :: News Moscow plans to conduct the first test launch of the Bulava solid fuel ICBM this year, reported the Interfax Russian news agency yesterday. The Bulava (SS-NX-30) is the submarine-launched version of Russia’s most advanced missile, the Topol-M (SS-27).
The Bulava is set to be installed on strategic submarines of Project 995 later this year: “I can say that in the next five years the missile will definitely enter the inventory of the sea-based strategic nuclear forces,” said Yuriy Solomonov, director of the Moscow heating equipment institute, adding that the Buluva missile outperforms domestic and foreign equivalents in efficiency.
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