Posted on 09/12/2008 11:25:02 PM PDT by Schnucki
“a rail gun capable of shooting frozen seagulls at high speed from an underwater platform.”
LMAOo...wait a second,...scratching head,...more coffee.
We should've done it a few years ago now. Venezuela and Chavez' big fat mouth would no longer be a problem now.
Here's my foreign policy: Kick their ass and take their gas.
Period. Next.
Be careful. The TU-160 is an extremely capable aircraft. The Russians are good about stealing our tech and improving upon it. The "Blackjack" is what the B1A was before the Carter administration got a hold of it.
I read somewhere a few years back that the Russians ceased manufacturing this aircraft after the collapse of the old Soviet Union. So I'm curious if they have fired up the production lines again or just flying the old remainders. If so, how many do they have?
Rather difficult to deploy an aircraft that was converted to the F-111G in 1990 and retired from service in 1993.
But again, I want to urge that the military capability of the TU-160 or that of the F-22 is not the significant factor in this episode.
That may sound paradoxical, but allow me to explain that it is the symbolism of their presences in this hemisphere that is of concern because it indicates that Russia has assumed the same virulence as the old Soviet Union and that we must guard against their adventurism as well the possibility that they may execute a preemptive general (nuclear) strike against the United States.
On a military basis this means that we must rapidly build and deploy an anti-missile defense system that can protect us not only against a terrorist state nuclear strike (e.g. Iran), but also protect our major nuclear deterrent assets such as missile basis, bomber air fields, nuclear submarine bases, and of course Washington, D.C.
On a foreign policy basis we must extend our NATO and unilateral treaty obligations between the U.S. and former Soviet states which surround Russia.
In particular we should sponsor and insist on NATO membership for Georgia and the Ukraine as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Kurdistan.
We need to re-project the Central Treaty Organization concept of John Foster Dulles to the Middle East.
In essence the "Cold War" has returned in which we must diplomatically isolate Russia from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Additionally, we must again bring about an competitive relationship between China and Russia which did, but does not now exist. However, if we are unable to bring about contention between Russia and China (as we were unable to accomplish between 1950 and 1970), we must continue our efforts on building a strong treaty relationship and military assistance program aided at thwarting external and terrorist threats.
However, we have to always remember how rickety these regimes (Russia, China, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, etc, etc) are, and that their ability to handle internal opposition outside of imposition of a complete police state is exceptionally poor.
Bottom line you can't have economic productivity without higher levels of political freedom which is a limiting factor to centralized autocratic governmental entities.
However, none of this will occur unless John McCain is elected President so lets get back to the campaign!
The U.S. deploys heavy strategic bombers to several nations. No different for the Russians to deploy them to their allies and friends. No strategic systems will be deployed to Georgia. You’re a bit behind the times. At the moment the B-1s carry no air-launched cruise missiles as per the Tu-160. The only ALCM carrier in the USAF is the B-52. All F-111s have been retired from the USAF for over ten years now. The only country that operate F-111s today is Australia.
That is why the Tu-160s are stand-off cruise missile carriers. What part of stand-off don’t you get? Think B-52H standing off with ALCMs. The Russians currently have the longest ranged ALCMs. Think how far they can stand-off in order to launch those missiles?
Not a chance of getting the Hummers back. Video of the Hummers etc, back in Russia being driven around.
http://www.vesti.ru/videos?cid=&vid=149225
Even the Serbs still have the Hummer they captured from the U.S. Army back in 1999. They eventually put it in a museum.
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