-Caveat Lector- Cold War Over? As US unilaterally disarms. --------------------
Moscow Will Refurbish And Update 144 'Satan' MIRVed ICBMs By Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow The Guardian - London 8-19-2 Russia has announced a radical plan to overhaul more than 100 of its most powerful intercontinental nuclear missiles, which had been destined for the scrapheap under the arms reduction treaties with the United States. A total of 144 of the missiles, which weigh 200 tonnes and can each carry 10 warheads to the US from silos behind the Ural mountains, were due to be dismantled by 2007 under the Start 2 weapons treaty signed by George Bush Sr and Boris Yeltsin nine years ago. But the commander in chief of Russia's strategic nuclear forces, Colonel-General Nikolai Solovtsov, has declared that the missiles - nicknamed Satan by the west during the cold war - are to be refurbished and upgraded to keep them fully operational until 2014. The decision has been seen as an indication of Russia's desire to maintain a functioning nuclear arsenal, despite its warmer relations with the west, and to aggressively pursue a strong negotiating position with the White House. The missiles are considered particularly effective, since they send 50 warheads over their target area, 40 of which are decoys designed to outwit sophisticated missile defence systems of the kind planned by the Bush administration. Ten warheads are left to deliver one-megaton payloads. Satan missiles are land-based, allowing several to be launched simultaneously from the same place, thus increasing their chance of evading a defence system. Their prolonged existence is a significant issue in Washington, which is at pains to justify and expedite the creation of a missile defence shield. General Solovtsov announced that three divisions of the silo-based SS 18 "Satan" missiles would be saved, as would one division of the train-based SS 24 "Scalpel" heavy missiles. It is Russia's first practical step towards renovating its nuclear arsenal since the US declared in December that it considered the anti-ballistic-missile treaty obsolete. President Bush said the treaty prevented the US defending itself against terrorism and claimed that a new era of entente with Russia meant it was no longer needed. "We're moving to replace mutually assured destruction with mutual cooperation," Mr Bush said at the time. President Vladimir Putin replied that the decision was a "mistake", but not a threat to Russia. Six months later Russia pulled out of the Start 2 treaty, which compelled it to destroy its Satan missiles. Defence experts said the decision to renovate the Satan was also motivated by the cash crisis in the Russian armed forces. "It is cheaper to keep maintaining the missiles than to dismantle them," Yevgeny Miasnikov of the Centre for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies in Moscow said. "The missiles are not very old. The general purpose [of the Russian military] is still the downsizing [of the nuclear arsenal], but this will not happen as quickly as we thought two years ago." http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,777379,00.html -end article- -------------------- -iNFoWaRZ "First we will take Russia, next we will capture the nations of eastern Europe, then we will take the masses of Asia. Finally, we will surround the United States and that last bastion of freedom will fall into our hands like over- ripe fruit." -Lenin, Communist, Soviet Dictator "War to the hilt between communism and capitalism is inevitable. Today, of course, we are not strong enough to attack. Our time will come in thirty or forty years. To win, we shall need the element of surprise. The Western world will need to be put to sleep. So we shall begin by launching the most spectacular peace movement on record. There shall be electrifying overtures and unheard of concessions. The capitalist countries, stupid and decadent, will rejoice to cooperate to their own destruction. They will leap at another chance to be friends. As soon as their guard is down, we shall smash them with our clenched fist." -Dmitrii Z. Manuilskii, Lenin School of Political Warfare, 1931 <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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