Russia Vs. America; Here we go again kids!

[johnny]

A few years ago Robert McNamara, in Foreign Policy magazine/journal, claimed that the Cold War wasn't over and that it was just in hiatus and the US needs to be cautious not to piss the old bear off again. Seems he may have been correct correct.

He claimed that the US, after winning the cold war has not paid Russia enough respect. The biggest issues were two fold; 1. That NATO was encroaching on Russia's doorstep by incorporating the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This is significant keeping in mind that NATO was originally formed to counterbalance the USSR's expansion into Europe. The second Issue was that the US was attempting to formulate complete nuclear dominance, for no valid reason, thus decreasing Russia’s relative security.



Goodbye To Old Friends

Since the end of the Cold War the West (being the US and Western Europe) has been vastly expanding it's influence across Eastern Europe and “forcing” itself upon the Middle East. This is significantly in the form of the military/NATO action against Serbia in the late 90's, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine (which was largely a US sponsored action), the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan where the US is largely expected to base troops for decades to come. You can now add the recent independence of Kosovo to the list.

The West was able to successfully wrest Ukraine and Georgia from Moscow with their bloodless coups, of sort by training the grass roots movements in peaceful means if insurrection and political strategy. Viktor Yushchenko took power in Ukraine and immediately looked to gaining EU membership. Mikheil Saakashvili took power and instantly became vocally friendly with the US…, namely because their were instrumental in coming to power. Both leaders have since publicly spoken of an interest in joining NATO.

Along with Eastern Europe you have Central Asia. Once upon a time also part of Moscow’s exclusive sphere of influence, countries like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and so on have also been pulling away from Russia. As can be seen in the below attached picture, the US has used bases in Uzbekistan for logistics and troop staging areas for Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan has been used to base attack fighters and large bomber fleets along with combat troops and Tajikistan has been used by the French for military logistics for Afghanistan. It is the fear of Russia that The US/West will forge strong ties to these nations, most importantly military ties that will encourage the hosting countries to look to the US for political and military protection, thus excluding Moscow form the region.

Russia still has a few points of leverage against the West. Those being the amount of energy it supplies to Western and Eastern Europe in the form of natural gas and oil and the residual benefits resulting from Kosovo’s independence.

However, the majority of these levers are interconnected and quickly eroding. Of the 5 'Stan's major rail systems, only 2 of them do not link directly to Russia (Iran and China). However, China is now beginning work on two rail lines, one to Tashkent, Uzbekistan and one to Almaty, Kazakhstan. This then opens up these two states to Chinese trade on a much larger scale than previously. This will also undermine Russian influence in the region being that China's domestic market is richer and developing quicker than Russia and Chinese exports are of a superior quality than their Russian counterpart's.

China has also recently converted old Soviet built pipelines to transport oil from Kazakhstan to China (pictured blow). This oil has previously been sent exclusively to Russia keeping Astana firmly within the Kremlin’s grasp and Russia’s client states under Moscow’s thumb. In Turkmenistan the situation for Moscow is even worse, not only has China been awarded the first post-Soviet Greenfield license but it has also secured a good deal of Turkmenistan’s gas exports that have previously been bought by Russia. Russia supplies 25% of Western Europe's natural gas at a yearly income or US$9B and all of the Ukraine's gas imports. It has been this energy supply that the Kremlin has used to blackmail Europe and the new pro-Western government of Yushchenko that is now slipping away.

Due to this “double whammy” not only is Russia losing influence in Central Asia but it is also losing its levers that allow it to retain a certain amount of influence in Ukraine and Europe.



One Word: Nuclear Farking Weapons

As previously referred to, Russia holds the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Yet, this also is being undermined by the actions of the West. As I'm sure we're all aware, the US is in the preliminary stages of placing a ballistic missile defence system (BMDS) throughout Eastern Europe..., once again in countries previously inside Russia's sphere of exclusive influence.

A nuclear bomb is not an offensive weapon, it is defensive in nature. The theory of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) dictates that if you fire a nuke at another nuke or nuke-aligned nation, you'll cop them back and you'll both be destroyed. That means you cannot use them to attack, only to deter attack hence, a nuclear capability is a defensive capability. The key to turning your nuke capability into an offensive weapon is to neutralize your opponents nuke options. One way is a first strike capacity (the ability to take out your opponents weapons before he can retaliate with them) which is pretty much impossible because most nations have a second strike capability through nuclear survivability (the ability to keep your nuke sites defended, secret or underwater on constant patrol), or you can successfully defend against their strike.

That's what the BMDS is, a neutralisation of Russia's nuclear deterrence. This is added to the fact that Russia's nuclear arsenal is quickly exceeding its shelf life and replacement is slow and inefficient. The real main remaining reason to regard Russia as a major global player is just about to be removed, to a certain extent.

With Russia's influence being undermined in Europe, the switching of Central Asia's commercial and energy interests from Russia to China and Russia's nuclear capacity being further neutralised, what are they doing about it?

 

[johnny]

Russia Pushes Back

The most obvious reaction to the treatment it has received since the break up of the USSR is Russia’s military response. Reminiscent of Cold War tactics is the resumption of strategic bomber patrols. They are named strategic bombers for their nuclear capabilities. Not only have these patrols been reinstated but they also are pushing the limits of regional friendliness. Over the last 18 months, Russian bombers have encroached upon the airspace of Norway, Iceland, Alaska, Great Briton, Guam and most recently, Japan. Not only does this allow the Kremlin to gauge response times and procedures, make the opponents lock on radar systems to read their processes and to intercept any electronic communications for intelligence purposes.

Russia has tried to reclaim the role of protecter in the Central Asian states by holding a number of joint exercises throughout the region with the hosting nations (documented below). Whilst not tipping the balance completely in Russia's favour it has given some positive results for Moscow. Tajikistan has voiced its impatience with US usage of bases in the region and Uzbekistan violently crushed the initial stages of its own coloured revolution without a care for American complaints of human rights violations. Not only have these military actions throughout Europe, Central Asia and the Pacific reasserted some Russian influence, most importantly it has conveyed the message that Russia is not willing to accept a loss in terms of regional and national security.

On the domestic front, Russia has launched the National Information Center. This is a rehashing of old Cold War practices where the Center has three particular roles; the coordination of foreign media agencies (Surveillance and restriction of access), publishing international and domestic news with a Russian perspective (propaganda) and reporting from around the world (information gathering). Secondly, Putin recently publicly advocated stronger roles for the FSB in military and foreign relations showing that they take their international relations as strategic imperatives rather than just business as usual.

Russia has also withdrawn from the Conventional Forces Europe Treaty (CNE). This treaty was designed to cap the limit of conventional forces (man power, artillery and tanks) on the European plains acting to lower the tension in the region and avoid the pitfalls of brinkmanship. This issue goes hand in hand with Moscow’s response to the proposed BMDS the US is planning for Europe.

Russia recently, “theoretically” suggested deploying missiles in Belarus if the US should implement its BMD. However, some may argue that the BMD doesn’t really matter to Russia as it still posses the quantitive capability to saturate the shield and also is working on a number of decoy and evasion technologies that could defeat the system. The real issue is that if Poland and the Czech republic do take on the BMD, the US will have a much greater commitment to defend these countries which gives them pretty much complete reliance and loyalty to Washington…., which is more than NATO membership ever can. Therefore the deployment of missiles to Belarus is a move in the same direction. Where missiles are based, so are troops.

This military planning accompanies the recent moves Moscow has made in the Middle East and Mediterranean. Russia has been stymieing US attempts to deter Iran from building the capacity to enrich weapons grade uranium and has reportedly sold them missile technology. There are also recent talks about aiding Syria in upgrading its air defence system, although both parties have publicly denied this. In late 2007, Russia deployed a battle carrier group (the only one it has) to the Mediterranean for naval exercises. Whilst the Russian navy is no match for US naval and air power it does display Moscow’s interest in the region and allows the navy to hone its skills and monitor the US reaction



You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

Russia’s military and strategic leverage is not its only lever in the post-Cold War era. Russia still holds at least one significant diplomatic lever useful in influencing post-Soviet states.

Both Ukraine and Georgia represent a physical and strategic geographic buffer for Moscow. Both border Russia and have significant geographic characteristics. Georgia has the natural barrier of the Caucus mountains to the north near the Russian border which can restrict troop movement into the country, Ukraine over 1000 kilometers that help to separate Russia from Western Europe and both have coastline access to the Black Sea. Ukraine is even more important to the Kremlin in that it is the birthplace of Russian ethnicity, is the center of the a large amount of Russia’s defence industries and has over 50% arable land within its borders…, something that Russia does not possess in abundance.

Both of these nations ceded their Russian influence to the West in US manufactured colour revolutions. Since Yushchenko took control of Ukraine in the Orange Revolution and Saakashvili with the Rose Revolution in Georgia, both have moved closer to the West and spoken publicly of an interest in attaining NATO membership. This is unacceptable to Russia for obvious reasons.

In the Case of Ukraine, Russia possesses a lever of debt and energy supply. Recently Moscow and Kiev held an emergency meeting regarding this debt (for supply of natural gas) of which the outcome was that US$1B was to be transferred through a Ukrainian national energy company to that of a another that is also half owned by Russia. This is quite a generous result for Ukraine but also carries the strings of at least acceptance that they still operate within Russia’s sphere of influence. This specifically translates to no NATO membership. It is arguable to say that Kiev is willing to pay this price in the knowledge that Russia’s energy levers are beginning to wane due to the weakening of Russian sway over the Central Asian states that supply Russia with a large amount of this energy and in time the situation will once again favour greater autonomy for Ukraine.

Unfortunately for Georgia the issue is so not simple. In the north west of Georgia lies Abkhazia. Bagapsh, the president of the already de facto breakaway republic is staunchly aligned with Moscow and is pushing with great determination for official independence from Georgia. Serbia, which was vehemently opposed to independence for Kosovo, is also aligned with Russia and enjoyed loud and strong support on the issue. Since Serbia/Russia lost the tug of war over the ethnically Albanian province to Western interests Russia has hinted to Tbilisi that if it intends to move towards NATO membership and Western alignment the Kremlin will then do to Georgia what the West did to Serbia and the West will be in no position to argue if it wishes Kosovo to remain independent. Since Moscow made these two diplomatic moves with Ukraine and Georgia neither state has since mentioned NATO, displaying the influence Russia yet retains over the Eastern region.

If these tactics of military and diplomatic maneuvering prove successful it will communicate to the other former Soviet states that Russia still remains a strong regional power and has a willingness to act and deny Western encroachment into its perceived sphere of exclusive influence.

It is important to note that the US is not in a totally dominant position at the current time. The US land forces are spread throughout the world pre-occupied with combat and manning strategically important bases thus denying their deployment elsewhere en masse. American naval and air forces are not totally pre-occupied in the Middle East and Afghanistan. However, if they are further deployed to active involvement in Eastern Europe and the Western Pacific, the home base will be left with minimal defences leaving a window of opportunity to any force that is willing to try its luck, namely Russia.

So, the question is posed; was Robert McNamara correct in suggesting that the Cold War never ended and that the West needs to treat Russia with greater respect to avoid another arms race, cold war and the conflicts it potentially brings?

Where to from here?

 

[BM Epic]

I think it's hard to say where to now?,i think the u.s election's are being looked at around the world with great anticipation.
Mcnamara might be right,it probably depends on what happens when putin goes and again what happens in the u.s.
As far as nuclear capability goes,russia has aging nuclear fuel,i think it lost a lot of there capabilities during the breakup of the soviet union(i might be wrong here).
I think australia becomes important as far as uranium export is concerned,since we have approx:40% of the worlds uranium locked up underground,also far more pure than anywhere in the world(including the belgian cogo).
I am no expert,but it sounds like the waiting game has started!
Great post!

 

[Sethius]

god damn johnny... i always enjoying reading these. I was rather curious as to your position on the independence of kosovo and to what extent it would play out to. how long have those converted lines been going on for? Do you have any externals links where would one could read more about the conflict and other outsteming issues?

 

[Drop_Bear]

I like McNamara but I disagree with him here. To say the Cold War isn't over is a gross overstatement of one country's desire to remain a global power. It's clear that Russia have come off second best in the cold war by a big margin but for them to completely withdraw from the world stage is unrealistic. The Cold War seemed to largely be a war of idealogies. In the West it was about crushing communism and the USSR is was about spreading communism and overcoming the pitfalls of capitalism.

The West won, of that I have no doubt. Russia did not surrender, they signed no treaties, they bowed down to no one. They simply acknowledged that the political model they used had become outdated and had failed.. Their system of government was simply unsustainable and imploded. They failed to embrace a global economy and relied heavily of their resilliance to pressure to change. It was inevitable for communism to fail. We see no real working models of it left in the modern world except for Cuba which is experiencing a drawn out demise that will soon come to a head with the death of any remaining true revolutionaries.

Russia still has a large spehere of influence and now that they are seemingly back on their feet with leaders that are not weighed down by the huge blow dealt to them by the fall of communism they are seeking to reclaim some of their former standing in the world. Unfortunately for them the West has laid a large stake of power in Russia's previous bastions of power. We are seeing the expansion of the EU and the economic opportunities afforded to countries within. Previously untapped energy reserves are becoming prized possessions and the new empire building is done through military protection and politcal threat rather than all out war and conquering.

China is no longer considered to be closely alligned with Russia instead it is emerging as a third superpower with the US keeping a very close key on their economic and military buildup and as such Russia has had to share the spotlight and has veyr little to offer the rest of the world in comparison. Once again they are becoming isolated within their own borders and are merely reasserting their power and might that has never gone away but had just been ignored in the post cold-war releif. Russia has always been defiant but it is only down with the Wests expanion into formerly neutral, contested and friendly territories that Russia has to remind the world of where is actually stands in the world game.

The threat of mutually assured destruction has become a benign concept in a world of contained warefare and Russia is only trying to find a new way of asserting itself. The say the Cold War never ended is to imply that super powers would not recognise each other as potential threats. The tensions, threats and very real danger of the Cold War has retreated to levels of that seen between any two super powers of vastly different cultures and in reality all origins of the Cold War have no more real standing today than if they had never existed, only the events resulting from it.

 

[Drizz]

I agree with Drop Bear. Russia is merely trying to "jockey" itself back to the position its once occupied. I doubt the Iron curtain will be back up anytime, I think Russia is doing what China doing for the last 10 years: maneuvering its pieces in the game of international diplomacy. The "bad old days" can seriously tunnel vision old hands like Mcnamara and not seeing that things have changed. I was talking to my German friend today, his father was a soldier in the East German army up till the breakup of the Soviet Union but he himself was only a child when ther Berlin wall came down and I doubt he share the same mindset as his dad.

Also lets not forget that by absorbing more Eastern Bloc states makes the EU more powerful but not necessary the US. Can't argue about NATO as its a military alliance and I am not as clued up on it to make a comment. I believe with the US almost certainly going in another recession we will see both the EU states, Russia and even China getting ahead in the economic stake. (Unfortunately not UK, maybe they should have signed up to the EURO but that will never happen....)

I think in the next 10 years we will see a divergence of policies of EU and the US, a parrallel to that of China and Russia. So instead of having a world dominated by 2 super-powers we might see the world occupied by 5-6 nations/blocs competing with each other and maintaining a different sort of "equilibrium".

 

[alexb618]

We see no real working models of it left in the modern world except for Cuba which is experiencing a drawn out demise that will soon come to a head with the death of any remaining true revolutionaries.

dont forget that the north korean 'final victory' is to become a fully functioning communist state (though not likely to ever happen as their current socialist state is falling to pieces)

 

[johnny]

I like McNamara but I disagree with him here. To say the Cold War isn't over is a gross overstatement of one country's desire to remain a global power. It's clear that Russia have come off second best in the cold war by a big margin but for them to completely withdraw from the world stage is unrealistic. The Cold War seemed to largely be a war of idealogies. In the West it was about crushing communism and the USSR is was about spreading communism and overcoming the pitfalls of capitalism.

The West won, of that I have no doubt. Russia did not surrender, they signed no treaties, they bowed down to no one. They simply acknowledged that the political model they used had become outdated and had failed.. Their system of government was simply unsustainable and imploded. They failed to embrace a global economy and relied heavily of their resilliance to pressure to change. It was inevitable for communism to fail. We see no real working models of it left in the modern world except for Cuba which is experiencing a drawn out demise that will soon come to a head with the death of any remaining true revolutionaries.

Whilst I see your point and agree, I don't think McNamara was essentially talking about a competition of ideologies. He was more simply referring to security issues and the dangers an arms race brings.

Russia still has a large spehere of influence

do you think so? Which countries are within the sphere in your perspective?

and now that they are seemingly back on their feet with leaders that are not weighed down by the huge blow dealt to them by the fall of communism they are seeking to reclaim some of their former standing in the world. Unfortunately for them the West has laid a large stake of power in Russia's previous bastions of power. We are seeing the expansion of the EU and the economic opportunities afforded to countries within. Previously untapped energy reserves are becoming prized possessions and the new empire building is done through military protection and politcal threat rather than all out war and conquering.

TBH though, there wasn't a huge amount of all out war and conquering during the Cold War. The only country that I'm aware of that Russia invaded for conquest was Afghanistan. This war was also a reaction to stop the US from controlling the politics of the region. I'd argue that the Cold War was more about proxy wars. DPRK invaded ROK as a proxy of China and Russia, Nth Viet. tried to take Sth once again as a proxy of Russia (as the Russian's thought anyway) and the US defended..., or attempted to. The wars in Sth America were all proxies or to install governments, not necessarily invade and conquer and the Soviets never really had wars in Eastern Europe either. I'd say that is the danger in what might be again.

The threat of mutually assured destruction has become a benign concept in a world of contained warefare and Russia is only trying to find a new way of asserting itself.

Sorry, completely disagree with that. While two opponents hold nukes, it's still MAD. You cannot implicitly threaten a nation with the outcome of annihilation if they too have nukes. If MAD was dead, you would not see the UK, France, China, the US, Russia, PAkistan, India, Israel and Iran spending the billions they do on nukes.

 

[johnny]

Also lets not forget that by absorbing more Eastern Bloc states makes the EU more powerful but not necessary the US.

Yes, but with Western European powers such as GB and lesser nations such as Poland, Czech, Spain and so on supporting US both politically and militarily, a success for them is also a success for the US by extension. Secondly, being that they support a system that the US dominates by such a large degree, any support of this system is also support for the US's position by extension.

I think in the next 10 years we will see a divergence of policies of EU and the US, a parrallel to that of China and Russia. So instead of having a world dominated by 2 super-powers we might see the world occupied by 5-6 nations/blocs competing with each other and maintaining a different sort of "equilibrium".

Yep, multi polarity with EU, USA and China as superpowers and India, Russia and possibly Japan as great powers and EU, ASEAN and NAFTA as trading bloc powers.

 

[johnny]

god damn johnny... i always enjoying reading these. I was rather curious as to your position on the independence of kosovo and to what extent it would play out to. how long have those converted lines been going on for? Do you have any externals links where would one could read more about the conflict and other outsteming issues?

http://www.defensenews.com/
http://www.fas.org/main/home.jsp
http://www.jstor.org/journals/01622889.html
http://www.stratfor.com/
http://www.cdi.org/index.cfm
http://www.sinodaily.com/
http://www.worldsecurityinstitute.org/
http://www.heritage.org/
http://www.atimes.com/
http://www.rand.org/
http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/

Foreign Policy magazine, Foreign Affairs journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, etc. All these mags/journals can be found in the larger newsagencies and a pretty damn good..., especially the first two. Also, watch movies/docos such as The Fog Of War, Charlie Wilson's War, Anal Babes 3, etc. They all have decent backgrounding in them and give you big picture ideas.

Basically mate, you've just got to read like a mofo. Everyone is going to have differing opinions and sometimes different "facts" as well. You just have to read and read and read and after a while you will start making up your own mind. Put it this way. I was pretty well already aware of all the things I wrote about here but had to research it all to get dates, people, countries and facts correct and that took me almost 10 hours to gather, read and write. I would have read at least half a decent sized book last night to make it work properly and still, my writing and structure is quite week. It's not even up to early years undergrad standard.

Right now I'm reading a book on how the Chinese political system works..., seriously complicated when looking at ministerial responsibility, formation of policy, tiered offices and jurisdictions, varying scopes of interest and limits of power and a seriously ambiguous constitution. When I'm finished, I'll be doing another write up like this just to make sure I can understand it. If you can efficiently relate the info on paper, you don't understand it well enough.

I spend more time on my computer than I do with my girlfriend.

STAY AWAY FROM CONSPIRACY SITES such as infowars and so on. They are useless and will just steer you in the wrong direction. Search out government websites, read white papers, official statements, transcripts, UN papers, etc. etc. A lot of the time you have to pay for info, sites like stratfor and Int. Sec. are a good example. But, they are worth it because they are the authorities on matters. Int. Sec. for extreme in depth research and theoretical discussion and stratfor for fast, instant info, situation reports, analysis and prediction. These guys (stratfor) are the intel pros and Int. Sec. are top of the pops when it comes to academic/theoretical perspectives. Both have their place in understanding seriously complex issues. You also get sites like the Heritage Foundation. They are as conservative and pro-US as it gets, but you have to read. Atimes is a newspaper yet it's all pretty much analysis and has some decent info leads to chase up. Also follow links provided on sites, sometimes you go down paths that lead forever and you come across seriously interesting and important sites and info. You can also go to defense type forums like that I've listed, but they are not for facts and stuff, more things you may not yet have considered and sometimes you can come across good links.

Get into it!

The pipelines are only just being converted now. It was only about midway through last year that China started winning the contracts for these projects. So these elements of the issue are only just being now set in motion so the effects are still yet to be felt.

 

[Hopper]

What has happened with the British Foreign office in Moscow (some major Russian country) that got a diplomat arrested and the whole office shut down? I was away with little access to outside world and extremely unrelaible internet access when that happened.

As for documentries, I find Anal Babes 3 to be way to conservative, the footage in Anal babes 4 has amazing new ideas that really make you think.

 

[johnny]

Well it was basically the whole tit for tat thing over the killing of Litvinenko if I remember correctly. Russian security services spotted Foreign office employees transmitting information to a receiver camouflaged as a rock and proceeded to arrest and expel him etc. They were probably already well aware of the issue but were monitoring it. When the diplomatic issue of Litvinenko came up they used it as a reason to react to British pressure.

This may not be gospel, best to look it up and check for yourself. Everything else I ever say is and should be taken as gospel unless otherwise advised.

 

[Mojo]

great read. i wanna know more. so your due date for the next installment will be wed of next week. it will count for 50% of your final mark towards becoming an imortal johny. keep up the good work! gold star for you!

seriously but. theres so much going on in this world that no-one really knows about. its scary

 

[johnny]

Ukraine has officially pulled its intentions for membership in NATO...., what a surprise.

 

[Drizz]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/10/eu.climatechange

Thought this article might interest a few people.

This highlight the essence of wars: fighting over rights to exploit resources.

 

[johnny]

Matters afoot:

Russia has publicly stated that Abkhazia will secede if Georgia joins NATO. This is a line drawn in the sand to the West and is the two powers stating their positions.

Secondly, Moldova has attempted to declare their neutrality. They are caught between the West hungrily eyeing Eastern Europe and the spoils of the Cold War victory, Romanian hardliners that believe that Moldova is a break-away province and Russia that is looking to reconsolidate its regional power base.

Russia and Belarus are in discussion concerning joint defences. This is Russia securing one of their allies with a security dependency. This takes away any chance or motivation to look towards NATO membership and also solidifies a strong Russian allies on the northern border of the recalcitrant Ukraine. If Russia can secure Moldova, which they probably will, this will create "hostile" Russian army hosting countries on three sides of Ukraine. That is significant pressure on a vital strategic interest of Russia.

Things are moving relatively quickly now and I'd assume all the old Cold War warriors that had been mothballed after the new Islamo-fascist threat showed its face have all been dusted off and are starting to reasert themselves in Washington and Europe. This may result in changes or strengthening of strategic assets such as ICBM's, SSBM's, LR bomber fleets and old school intel operatives and their styles of practice.

 

[Ryan]

A second cold-war / arms race over the spoils of Eastern Europe fought out between Russia and NATO can only end in one, mutually awesome outcome. The weaponisation of space.

No amount of nuclear deterrent stands up to the fear that your strategic enemy could silently drop spears of tungsten from the skies like some kind of vengeful deity. Oh yeah!

Orbital defences such as this will also stand us in good stead when attacked by world-consuming-hive-mind-alien-species-from-beyond-the-galaxy.

 

[PINT of Stella. mate!]

A second cold-war / arms race over the spoils of Eastern Europe fought out between Russia and NATO can only end in one, mutually awesome outcome. The weaponisation of space.

There is a second even greater Mutually Awesome Outcome on the horizon

A long awaited re-match between Rocky Balboa and Ivan Drago

 

[johnny]

Can some one copy and send me the guts of that wiki page please? The local head shed won't let me read it. PMing is good.

 

[PINT of Stella. mate!]

Kinetic bombardment
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

For the generic concept of attacking a planetary surface from orbit, please see Orbital bombardment

A kinetic bombardment is the act of attacking a planetary surface with an inert projectile, where the destructive force comes from the kinetic energy of the projectile impacting at very high velocities. The resulting extreme force can be explained by the formula EK = 0.5mv2, where Ek is the kinetic energy, m the mass of the object and v its velocity. The concept is encountered in science fiction and is thought to have originated during the Cold War.

Other non-orbital bombardment with kinetic projectiles such as lobbing stones with siege engines such as catapults or trebuchets are considered siege warfare, not kinetic bombardment.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Real life concepts and theories
o 1.1 Project Thor
o 1.2 Rods from God
* 2 In science fiction
* 3 External links

[edit] Real life concepts and theories

[edit] Project Thor

Project Thor is an idea for a weapons system that launches kinetic projectiles from Earth orbit to damage targets on the ground. It is said that the concept originated in a classified study for the United States Air Force in the 1950s.[citation needed]

The most described system is 'an orbiting tungsten telephone pole with small fins and a computer in the back for guidance.' The weapon can be down-scaled as small as several meters long, an orbiting "crowbar" rather than a pole.

The time between deorbiting and impact would only be a few minutes, and depending on the orbits and positions in the orbits, the system would have a world-wide range. There is no requirement to deploy missiles, aircraft or other vehicles. Although the SALT II (1979) prohibited the deployment of orbital weapons of mass destruction, it did not prohibit the deployment of conventional weapons.

The weapon inflicts damage because it moves at orbital velocities, at least 9 kilometers per second. The amount of energy released by the largest version when it hits the ground is roughly comparable to a small nuclear weapon or very large conventional bomb. Smaller weapons can deliver measured amounts of energy as small as a 500 lb conventional bomb.

The "pole" shape is optimal because it enhances reentry and maximizes the device's ability to penetrate hard or buried targets. The larger device is expected to be quite good at penetrating deeply buried bunkers and other command and control targets. The smaller "crowbar" size might be employed for anti-armor, anti-aircraft, anti-satellite and possibly anti-personnel use.

The weapon would be very hard to defend against. It has a very high closing velocity and a small radar cross-section. Launch is difficult to detect. Any infra-red launch signature occurs in orbit, at no fixed position. The infra-red launch signature also has a small magnitude compared to a ballistic missile launch. One drawback of the system is that the weapon's sensors would almost certainly be blind during reentry due to the plasma sheath that would develop ahead of it, so a mobile target could be difficult to hit if it performed any unexpected maneuvering.

While the larger version might be individually launched, the smaller versions would be launched from "pods" or "carriers" that contained several missiles.

It was most recently popularized by Jerry Pournelle, on his website, under the title "Project Thor."

[edit] Rods from God

"Rods from God" is a space-based kinetic energy weapon that has been discussed since the early 1980s.

They would conceivably be particularly well adapted to penetrate hardened targets, such as underground nuclear facilities.

There are major difficulties involved. One of them is where to position the rods. They need to be high enough to deliver enough energy upon impact, but not so high that they vaporize in Earth's atmosphere. The other difficulty is the number of satellites that would be required to cover a material portion of the Earth.