humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Feb 24, 6:38 pm, Agent Cooper wrote:
> On Feb 23, 11:41 pm, Potroast wrote:
>
> > Putin wasn't always like that. Bush Republicans unilateral decision
> > to....
>
> > - start a "preemptive" war
> > - abandon decades old ABM and space treaties
> > - dramatical increase military spending
> > - not consider Russian interests
>
> > .....only encouraged Putin
>
> Wars come and go. What remains are only the values of culture.

Permanent ABM bases are being put up near Russian borders soon. Some
of the eastern European countries are playing ball because they are
wary of Russia (after being occupied so long by the Soviet Union).
Since Bush decided to unilaterally withdraw from the ABM treaty
(signed by Nixon and Brezhnev in 1972) he's opened a huge can of
atomic worms. If the Iranians tried the whole first strike nuke
America thing....they would likely go with smuggled in nuke. (and I
imagine high profile ABM systems will only encourage the idea).

Russia and China won't have decent ABM technology for awhile so
their only "rational" strategic response is to just start parking nuke
subs right off the US coastline to put MAD back into equilibrium.
(again with next gen stealth cruise missiles that US ABM systems won't
be able to knock down in time)

It makes no difference to my pocket book but it seems kind of silly
to start another arms race when their is no Soviet Union to justify it
and the US already spends so much money. More importantly though it is
very bad idea to provoke China. Compared to their population their
military is quite small but if the Americans encourage the thought
they should get in the habit of increasing their military now..... in
about 3-4 decades (when their economy is bigger than the US) they'll
be able to outspend anyone and will never look back.

.