"The Russian Black Bear Is MAD"

Poland strikes a deal on a U.S. missile defense base. Ukraine tries to limit the Russian navy's movement in its waters. The Czech Republic's leader warns his nation is in danger of being sucked back into Moscow's orbit.

Russia's attack on Georgia has sparked fears across the young democracies of Eastern Europe that Moscow is once again hungry for conquest — and they are scrambling to protect themselves by tightening security alliances with Western powers.

On Friday, Moscow sent a new jolt through the region when a top Russian general was quoted as saying that the missile defense deal signed the previous day by Washington and Warsaw exposes Poland to an attack.

"Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent," Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn said, according to Interfax News Agency.

Since fighting broke out more than a week ago between Russia and Georgia, the crisis has dominated headlines and sparked pro-Georgia rallies across Eastern Europe.

Poland's President Lech Kaczynski and the leaders of four ex-Soviet republics journeyed together to Tbilisi last week to show solidarity with Georgia. At a demonstration there, Kaczynski declared that the Russians had again "shown the face that we have known for centuries."

Poland was carved in two by Germany and the Soviet Union when they were allies at the beginning of World War II. After the war, Poland and the other east European countries became Soviet satellites for some 40 years.

Fears have grown in recent years as Russia has used its vast energy reserves to exert control over its neighbors, as when it cut off gas to Ukraine the winter after the pro-democracy Orange Revolution of 2004 put the country on a pro-Western course.

Of all the Eastern democracies, the most vulnerable is probably Ukraine, a nation wedged between Russia and NATO states — and which itself is seeking to join the Western security alliance.

Eugeniusz Smolar, director of the Center for International Relations in Warsaw, said that countries like Poland and the Czech Republic are safer because they already belong to NATO and the EU.

"But not so with Ukraine; with Ukraine there is fear," Smolar said. "It's very unstable politically, there is a strong pro-Russian political element, plus there's strong activity of Russian intelligence."

Ukraine is strategically important to Russia because its pipelines carry Russian oil and gas westward, and its port of Sevastopol is home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

The port is leased to Russia through 2017, after which Ukraine wants the navy out. And in a strong show of support to Georgia on Wednesday, Ukraine ordered limits on the movement of the Russian ships since they were deployed to Georgia's Black Sea coast as part of Russia's military onslaught.

Above all, Ukraine, with its huge Russian-speaking population in its east and south, has immense emotional resonance for Russians — and Moscow has been humiliated by Ukraine's push to join NATO.

Mutual assured destruction (MAD; sometimes written as mutually assured destruction) is a doctrine of military strategy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender. It is based on the theory of deterrence according to which the deployment of strong weapons is essential to threaten the enemy in order to prevent the use of the very same weapons. The strategy is effectively a form of Nash equilibrium, in which both sides are attempting to avoid their worst possible outcome—nuclear annihilation.

The doctrine assumes that each side has enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the other side and that either side, if attacked for any reason by the other, would retaliate with equal or greater force. The expected result is an immediate escalation resulting in both combatants' total and assured destruction. It is now generally assumed that the nuclear fallout or nuclear winter resulting from a large scale nuclear war would bring about worldwide devastation, though this was not a critical assumption to the theory of MAD.

The doctrine further assumes that neither side will dare to launch a first strike because the other side will launch on warning (also called fail-deadly) or with secondary forces (second strike) resulting in the destruction of both parties. The payoff of this doctrine is expected to be a tense but stable peace.

The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty or ABMT) was a treaty between the United States of America and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against missile-delivered nuclear weapons. On May 26, 1972, the President of the United States, Richard Nixon and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The treaty was in force for thirty years, from 1972 until 2002. On June 13, 2002, six months after giving the required notice of intent, the US unilaterally withdrew from the treaty.

On December 13, 2001, George W. Bush gave Russia notice of the United States' withdrawal from the treaty, in accordance with the clause that requires six months notice before terminating the pact. This was the first time in recent history the United States has withdrawn from a major international arms treaty. This led to the eventual creation of the Missile Defense Agency.

    Anti-ballistic missiles and "missile defense shields" are not really defensive weapons. The greatest deterrent to a nuclear attack by one nation is the capability of the attacked nation to retaliate, which is the doctrine of "mutually assured destruction" or "MAD". However if one nation has a "missile defense system" or anti-ballistic missiles, that nation can attack without fear of retaliation. Our war mongering President Bush withdrew from the ABM (anti-ballistic missile) Treaty in his first term, so as to develop anti-ballistic systems that can now be sold and placed in Poland and Ukraine, right in Russia's face. In my opinion, Russia has the right to defend itself by destroying any such missile defense system in Eastern Europe. The only sure way to peace is not to put any missile defense systems in Eastern Europe and to renew the ABM Treaty. Mutually assured destruction is the best deterrent to nuclear attack, as I see it.

tags: russia  missile defense systems  nato  poland  us  bush  war on terror  war  warpeace  abm treaty  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit