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Posted: **Thu Dec 13, 2007 10:50 pm**

US 'deeply regrets' Russia's 'wrong' decision on CFE

Washington (AFP) Dec 12, 2007
The United States said Wednesday it "deeply regrets" that Russia has suspended a key Soviet-era arms pact and urges Moscow to reverse course.
The United States "deeply regrets the Russian Federation's decision to 'suspend' implementation of its obligations under the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE)," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

"Russia's conventional forces are the largest on the European continent, and its unilateral action damages this successful arms control regime," McCormack said in a written statement.

Russia's foreign ministry announced that participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty was suspended from midnight in Moscow (2100 GMT Tuesday).

Signed in 1990 and modified in 1999, the CFE places precise limits on the stationing of troops and heavy weapons from the Atlantic coast to Russia's Ural mountains -- a mammoth agreement that helped resolve the Cold War standoff.

"This 'suspension,' which is not provided for under the terms of the CFE Treaty, is the wrong decision," according to McCormack's statement.

Officials in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), where the United States is the leading member, have said the CFE treaty has no mechanism for suspension, only a method for parties to withdraw from the pact altogether.

"The CFE Treaty has demonstrated its importance through unprecedented reductions in levels of military hardware in Europe and a transformation of the political context of our security dialogue from suspicion to mutual confidence," McCormack said.

The move "is particularly disappointing" because the United States and its NATO allies have for months engaged in "intensive" talks with Russia to balance its concerns against those of the other parties, he added.

"We have offered constructive, generous proposals for parallel actions on ratification of the Adapted CFE Treaty and fulfillment of remaining commitments that were made at the OSCE's Istanbul Summit in 1999," he said.

Russia attributes its freeze to the failure of 26 NATO members to ratify a revised 1999 version of the treaty.

Moscow has also been riled by US plans to deploy an anti-missile shield in two former Soviet satellite states.

NATO countries have said they will only ratify the CFE treaty once Moscow lives up to a pledge made in 1999 to pull its troops out of former Soviet republics Georgia and Moldova.

"Together with our NATO Allies and Treaty partners, we will carefully monitor Russia's actions with regard to its CFE Treaty obligations," McCormack said.

"We encourage Russia to reverse its decision and to work with us to resolve all outstanding concerns of all states parties," which includes the 26 NATO members, he added.

Anyone else feel a little nervous about a revitalized Russia building up forces near Europe?

Source: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_deep ... E_999.html

Posted: **Fri Dec 14, 2007 12:19 am**

Lovely. Is there a Gary Powers Jr.?

Posted: **Fri Dec 14, 2007 4:59 am**

I honestly feel safer with two super powers rather than the one we have now.

Posted: **Fri Dec 14, 2007 7:48 am**

Teaos wrote:I honestly feel safer with two super powers rather than the one we have now.

I sure don't.
And neither should you since you probably live in a country that is treaty bound to enter a war against Russia but is not treaty bound to enter war against the United States.

Posted: **Fri Dec 14, 2007 3:16 pm**

Russia has been rattling the sabre hard lately. Anglo Russian relations have not been this bad for decades. On top of the Livenko murder, which the Russians accused MI5 of, (Why don't they go the whole hog and accuse us of the murders of a number of other anti Putin dissidents who seem to have a habit of getting murdered?) London is filling up with Russian exiles, from shady billionaires to journalists, like in the days of the Tsar. Only this morning Moscow announced they are suspending certain cultural links, and yesterday ordered the British council to cease operations in Moscow. The BBC world service is getting jammed, and its employees, along with consular officials and workers from British NGOs are getting beaten up and harassed by Putin's Youth Groups. About two months back they resumed probing our (and Norway's) airspace with long range bombers and naval patrol aircraft. I hope BaE sent the Russian embassy a huge bouquet of flowers, as many were questioning if the UK needed a multi-billion new interceptor fighter in the War On Terror, and just as the Typhoon enters service, they get the chance to issue photos of them escorting Bears out of our airspace, just like the ones of Phantoms, Lightnings, and Tornados doing the same in the plane magazines I used to read as a kid in the dying days of the Cold War.
Then the is the turning off of gas supplies to Eastern and Central Europe, ("technical difficulties") the massive "E attack" on Estonia's Internet by persons unknown following a major diplomatic row with Russia, the fairly bald threats to the Czech Republic over the US missile shield and no doubt many other incidents I've forgotten or not seen about.
Russia is getting ever closer to becoming a fascist state. Democracy, not deeply rooted, seems to withering. There seem to be erie parallels with the rise of Nazism in prewar Germany.

Posted: **Fri Dec 14, 2007 7:27 pm**

Thier economy wouldn't last 6 months in a war. This whole matter is a scare tactic.

Posted: **Fri Dec 14, 2007 10:20 pm**

Deepcrush wrote:Thier economy wouldn't last 6 months in a war. This whole matter is a scare tactic.

So? Any war wouldn't last six hours - the Russian economy may not be able to match the US one, but without your (treaty banned) ABM system up and running yet do you honestly think you (or anyone else) can win?

Posted: **Sat Dec 15, 2007 12:10 am**

I sure don't.
And neither should you since you probably live in a country that is treaty bound to enter a war against Russia but is not treaty bound to enter war against the United States.

Nope. We dont have any offical ones and only honor ones with Britain and Australia.

So long as there is someone out there capable of standing up to America maybe they will stop doing stupid shit like invading countries that should be left alone.

Posted: **Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:36 pm**

Our forces would walk over them. They have no tanks to match ours. The British airforce is years ahead of them. The US wouldn't take to long to arrive. Between the US and UK forces the Russians would be ground beef. Putin is just looking to make a show of power. As much at home as anywhere else. The Big Money of Russia doesn't want a war and its people aren't the much more happy about the thought. The US navy is in constant pains over our ship captains and thier well known (to us at least) toying with vessels of the former USSR. Knowning British smug and pride I would be shocked to think that your skippers are running the same taunts on them. They have only one advantage and that is numbers and those don't really count for much anymore.

Posted: **Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:53 pm**

Teaos wrote:
I sure don't.
And neither should you since you probably live in a country that is treaty bound to enter a war against Russia but is not treaty bound to enter war against the United States.
Nope. We dont have any offical ones and only honor ones with Britain and Australia.

So long as there is someone out there capable of standing up to America maybe they will stop doing stupid **** like invading countries that should be left alone.

You're not in a NATO nation? Where are you from Teaos?

Posted: **Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:57 pm**

You're right that they're tech is a bit lower than the US and it's allies, but it definitely wouldn't be a walk in the park. The sheer numbers, and the sheer size of the country itself would make any ground war there very costly. The Russians would, in all likelyhood, lose in the end, but it'd be one hell of a costly war. And that's assuming Russia's large stockpile of nukes don't start getting fired at the US when it becomes clear they've lost. And, with the current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, such a war would be a complete disaster for the US government in terms of popularity.
The US'd win, but not easily, in my opinion.

Posted: **Mon Dec 17, 2007 5:13 pm**

Why would we invade? That would just be foolish! If the Russians roll to war you jsut ram them out of which ever country they try to move into. The best thing would be to box them up inside of their border and just pound on them. As to the nukes, they know full well about the M.A.D. program run by the US. If they fire, ours fire. Nukes are a deterrant against someone else who has nukes. They aren't useful against an enemy that also has them.

As to a walk in the park. It would be for the US and UK. Just not everyother country that happens to get stuck between our forces and the Russians. We all know how the Russians are in war time, we all know what they do.

Posted: **Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:38 pm**

Why would we invade?

Well, that's sorta what I thought you meant.

If the Russians roll to war you jsut ram them out of which ever country they try to move into. The best thing would be to box them up inside of their border and just pound on them. As to the nukes, they know full well about the M.A.D. program run by the US. If they fire, ours fire. Nukes are a deterrant against someone else who has nukes. They aren't useful against an enemy that also has them.

Truman Doctrine, Mark 2?

Posted: **Mon Dec 17, 2007 9:26 pm**

Patton

Posted: **Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:03 pm**

Deepcrush wrote:Nukes are a deterrant against someone else who has nukes. They aren't useful against an enemy that also has them.

So nukes are useful again people who have nukes, but nukes aren't useful against people who have nukes? Is that a typo or have I misunderstood you?

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