"Russian strategic bombers could use Cuba airfields&

[BrendaQG]

I said Wholy Shit when I read this.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe...ers/index.html

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Russia expressed interest in using Cuban airfields during patrol missions of its strategic bombers, Russia's Interfax news agency reported

"There are four or five airfields in Cuba with 4,000-meter-long runways, which absolutely suit us," Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev told Interfax.

Zhikharev, who is the chief of staff of the Russian Air Force's long-range aviation, said, "If the two chiefs of state display such a political will, we are ready to fly there."

Zhikharev also told Interfax that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has offered a military airfield on La Orchila island as a temporary base for Russian strategic bombers.

"If a relevant political decision is made, this is possible," he said, according to Interfax. Zhikharev said he visited La Orchila in 2008 and can confirm that with minor reconstruction, the airfield owned by a local naval base can accept fully-loaded Russian strategic bombers.

If you know your history the last time anything like this happened we were soon at defcon 2 and moments away from thermonuclear war. Back in the Cuban Missile crisis.

The only bright spot is that if Obama get's us through this with no nuclear arms on Cuba, and no nuclear war he will have earned his comparison to JFK completely.

This goes beyond politics and religion IMO. We are down on our luck economically. Russia is getting aggressive, China is getting aggressive, our alies are flaky. Bad baaadd omens indeed.

[Chuck]

Brenda, I don't know if you know this but Russia is no longer our enemy. Matter of act we are linked to our former enemies (including China) by a world economy. The fact that China is holding the markers on so much American debt has me way more concerned than some airfields in Cuba.

This is also very different from the Cuban Missile Crises. Back then neither country had the missile capablity to destroy their enemies across vast continents. We also did not have the capability of nuclear powered subs armed with nuclear missiles. So the real reason no one cares or should care about this is because we already have the capablity the destroy one another from any location on earth.

[phobun]

I said Wholy Shit when I read this.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe...ers/index.html

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Russia expressed interest in using Cuban airfields during patrol missions of its strategic bombers, Russia's Interfax news agency reported

"There are four or five airfields in Cuba with 4,000-meter-long runways, which absolutely suit us," Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev told Interfax.

Zhikharev, who is the chief of staff of the Russian Air Force's long-range aviation, said, "If the two chiefs of state display such a political will, we are ready to fly there."

Zhikharev also told Interfax that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has offered a military airfield on La Orchila island as a temporary base for Russian strategic bombers.

"If a relevant political decision is made, this is possible," he said, according to Interfax. Zhikharev said he visited La Orchila in 2008 and can confirm that with minor reconstruction, the airfield owned by a local naval base can accept fully-loaded Russian strategic bombers.

If you know your history the last time anything like this happened we were soon at defcon 2 and moments away from thermonuclear war. Back in the Cuban Missile crisis.

The only bright spot is that if Obama get's us through this with no nuclear arms on Cuba, and no nuclear war he will have earned his comparison to JFK completely.

This goes beyond politics and religion IMO. We are down on our luck economically. Russia is getting aggressive, China is getting aggressive, our alies are flaky. Bad baaadd omens indeed.

Stop hyperventilating. Russia is in demographic decline... it's population is shrinking, dying of AIDS, alcoholism, and just not having babies. Besides, the only group the US has named as an enemy are militants from YOUR religion.

[stewmeat]

Brenda, I don't know if you know this but Russia is no longer our enemy. Matter of act we are linked to our former enemies (including China) by a world economy. The fact that China is holding the markers on so much American debt has me way more concerned than some airfields in Cuba.

This is also very different from the Cuban Missile Crises. Back then neither country had the missile capablity to destroy their enemies across vast continents. We also did not have the capability of nuclear powered subs armed with nuclear missiles. So the real reason no one cares or should care about this is because we already have the capablity the destroy one another from any location on earth.

No they are notthe US enemy, but we are their enemy. That is why they want to use the airfields in Cuba.

If you remember, the missile interceptors that we were to place in Poland, Ukraine, etc. made the US the Russian's enemy.

However, the Russians came to their right mind when they realized that the bombers would be too close to the US to be safe, infact for the same reasons you mentioned:missiles.

Apparently the Russians realized that since Cuba is only 90 miles away from Florida, missiles could take them out before they had a chance to take off.

[BrendaQG]

I have seen a few pieces of bad information here.

1. "we did not have missiles that could hit someone on the other side of the world back then".
Fact Russia orbited Sputnik in 1957. If you can orbit a satelite it you can/have the ability to make a ICBM. It's eaiser to send a payload on a suborbital flight than an orbital flight.

2.) "we could destroy their bombers on Cuba on the ground with our missiles".
There is so much wrong with this. The most obvious one would be what do you think would happen to Kansas city if we nuked cuba even a little bit? 15-30 mintues latter.

Whats more is due to the intermediate nuclear forces treaty we have no short or intermediate range nuclear ballistic missiles. Our enduring stockpile only has JDAM capeable B61 gravity bombs, Nuclear capeable Tomahawk Cruise missiles, and as far as short range strike capability is concerned that's it. They could detect any such attack with enough warning time to get the bombers off the ground... at least the ones that are on engines on alert.

Then there is the idea that the bombers being on the ground is the threat. The threat is that with basing in Cuba the Russian bombers could loiter off the coast for a longer time than they can now. A mission passing the eastern seabord from russia can continue to cuba, or refuel in the air and stay aloft ready to fire it's super sonic short range ballistic missiles at sensitive targets on the east coast as part of a decapitation strike. Or penetrate our airspace and target our minute man silo's and nuclear munition dumps.

3.) We did not have nuclear submarines.

False, both we and the russians had nuclear submarines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris_missile

Those were not even the first one's and the Russians had a less capeable but leathal platform for misslies as well. During the actual crisis in the 60's their was a russian sub armed with Nuclear torpedo's on station around cuba. They had observed strict radio silence and were instructed to attack if attacked.

That's not even the closest we came to nuclear war. It is widely agree'd that the closest we came was a event where the Rusian early warning system detected flashes over Russia that indicated thermonuclear detonations. But the low level officer who's job it was to spread the warning, and they have a launch on warning policy, decided not too. This was about the time of the Kosovo war, in which Boris Yeltsin, and Bill Clinton exchanged nuclear threats.

Instead of dismissing this, I pray unlikely event, think about what the hell you would do with yourself if this happend. It is not at all guarnatteed you would die right away. Suppose you are traveling between cities and not near any target? Suppose you are on vacation in an out of the way place. Realize that even if you are in a big city, they may not necessarily target them for destruction, instead targeting the larger airfields with minimally descructive warheads. (the lowest dial a yield weapon we have is 0.3 megatons. The russians have a non-nuclear bomb in stock witch packs more punch.) What would you do in the possible chaos that would occur?

This could be serious people, and Prez Obama has talked about this in a way that makes me think he will not just back down.