New Russian weapon outdates missle defense

[diamond geezer]

link (http://www.canada.com/news/world/story.html?id=c486c971-1b1f-4fbf-affb-1cc41cb8f7c3)

March 30, 2004

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia has designed a "revolutionary" weapon that would make the prospective American missile defence useless, Russian news agencies reported Monday, quoting a senior Defence Ministry official.

The official, who was not identified by name, said tests conducted during last month's military manoeuvres would dramatically change the philosophy behind development of Russia's nuclear forces, the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies reported. If deployed, the new weapon would take the value of any U.S. missile shield to "zero," the news agencies quoted the official as saying.

The official said the new weapon would be inexpensive, providing an "asymmetric answer" to U.S. missile defences, which are proving extremely costly to develope.

Russia, meanwhile, also has continued research in prospective missile defences and has an edge in some areas compared to other countries, the official said.

The statement reported Monday was in line with claims by President Vladimir Putin's that experiments performed during last month's manoeuvres proved that Russia could soon build strategic weapons that could puncture any missile-defence system.

At the time, Col-Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, explained that the military tested a "hypersonic flying vehicle" that was able to manoeuvre between space and the earth's atmosphere.

Military analysts said that the mysterious new weapons could be a manoeuvrable ballistic missile warhead or a hypersonic cruise missile.

While Putin said the development of such new weapons wasn't aimed against the United States, most observers viewed the move as Moscow's retaliation to the U.S. missile defence plans.

After years of vociferous protests, Russia reacted calmly when Washington withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 in order to develop of a countrywide missile shield. But U.S.-Russian relations have soured again lately, and Moscow has complained about Washington's plans to build new low-yield nuclear weapons.

I don't like Putin, but if this is true I think it is good news.

The world needs another super-power to counter-balance US arrogance and Imperialism.

[miloblithe]

Article?

Link?

Story?

[mactastic]

I heard this a month or so ago. The counter-arguement of course is that the missle defense system isn't meant (anymore) to counter a nuclear strike from Russia or China, both of whom possess enough warheads to overwhelm our defense measures, rather to counter the threat from someone like North Korea or another rogue state or terrorist group that manages to acquire a missle.

The problem is that this scenario is much more far-fetched than a terrorist stashing said nuclear device in a shipping container and detonating it in New York harbo,r bypassing the need for a highly sophisticated missle entirely. Yet billions of dollars are going to 'star wars' defense system research that could be spent on more likely threats. But too many campaign donors to both parties are sucking on the government teat on this project for it to be canceled.

[beefcake]

I've talked to an engineer currently working on the missile shield, and she seemed to think it was a fantastic idea, even though she freely admitted the systems weren't close to ready. Although I see the missile shield as something that should always be in development, what's the rush? Plenty of better things to throw money at, like homeland security.

[yamabushi]

Scientific American had an article a while back that detailed numerous ways to defeat any missile defense system that uses antimissile missiles. It's basically at least a hundred times more expensive and more difficult to develop antimissile technology than to develop technology to defeat antimissile systems.

[Opteron]

The world needs another super-power to counter-balance US arrogance and Imperialism.

God the Russians are great. Poor as all hell but still with the best gear in the business.

Take a look at the Su-47, and Mig-1.44 alson known as the Mig-35 or MFI.
These planes are far ahead of the F-22Raptor or F-23 Black widow.

Or the Ka-50 dual rotor helicopter.

[wwworry]

Bush will always advocate systems and programs that enrich his corporate supporters. Then he will change his story about the reasons for such a system or claim that he was ignorant of any problems. It's typical CEO storytelling and "fuzzy" logic.

[IJ Reilly]

The counter-arguement of course is that the missle defense system isn't meant (anymore) to counter a nuclear strike from Russia or China,

Actually, this system isn't designed to shoot down missiles. The entire project was exempted from the normal weapons testing oversight process so it could be deployed by September of this year, working or not.