We all know how the Bush insistence on deploying anti-missile batteries to Poland and the Czech Republic has stoked tensions with Russia. Next up, India and China.
India, concerned about a possible missile attack from Pakistan is stepping up negotiations with the U.S. to get its own anti-missile batteries in place. From Asia Times:
A missile shield would provide cover against inter-continental ballistic missiles. The system features radar and anti-missile missiles, or interceptors, which are able to destroy incoming and possibly nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, both of which Pakistan and China possess.
New Delhi feels that given the large number of such missiles in production, some could easily be acquired by rogue elements, especially in Pakistan, who could launch an unexpected attack.
Last year, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited India and made it clear that, given India's status as the US's strategic partner in the Asian region, Washington was looking to expand military-to-military relationships, including the joint development of a missile shield.
Tinkering with the nuclear balance of power/terror in South Asia and the Far East is jam packed with repercussions and the potential for blowback.
It holds the prospect for bolstering the SCO, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the modern Sino-Russian counterpart to NATO. It would give both Russia and China a greater stake in the development and deployment of the latest Russian missile technology specifically designed to defeat America's anti-missile systems. China and Russia could also respond by expanding their influence in Pakistan and Iran. Russia may respond to this provocation by accelerating the supply of its unrivalled S-300 surface to air missile batteries to Iran. Pakistan will certainly consider its nuclear security directly challenged by the move which will do nothing to endear it to the West and everything to draw it ever closer to China and SCO protection.
Meanwhile the geopolitical jousting between China and the United States has spread to the Horn of Africa. The Chinese navy has recently deployed there ostensibly to assist in the international, anti-piracy mission but, according to Asia Times, China's strategic interests in the region go far beyond concerns about piracy:
Observers may call this "expansionism by a thousand strides" (in obvious reference to the more macabre phrase, "death by a thousand cuts") without too much loss of accuracy. Rear Admiral Jingchen's Lushan navy will hunt a few pirates for sure, but only because prudence requires that they not draw too much attention to their greater and broader focus well beyond the rugged Somali coast.
One wonders though whether Washington is braced for this latest escalation of the strategic stakes.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KA15Ad01.html
India, concerned about a possible missile attack from Pakistan is stepping up negotiations with the U.S. to get its own anti-missile batteries in place. From Asia Times:
A missile shield would provide cover against inter-continental ballistic missiles. The system features radar and anti-missile missiles, or interceptors, which are able to destroy incoming and possibly nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, both of which Pakistan and China possess.
New Delhi feels that given the large number of such missiles in production, some could easily be acquired by rogue elements, especially in Pakistan, who could launch an unexpected attack.
Last year, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited India and made it clear that, given India's status as the US's strategic partner in the Asian region, Washington was looking to expand military-to-military relationships, including the joint development of a missile shield.
Tinkering with the nuclear balance of power/terror in South Asia and the Far East is jam packed with repercussions and the potential for blowback.
It holds the prospect for bolstering the SCO, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the modern Sino-Russian counterpart to NATO. It would give both Russia and China a greater stake in the development and deployment of the latest Russian missile technology specifically designed to defeat America's anti-missile systems. China and Russia could also respond by expanding their influence in Pakistan and Iran. Russia may respond to this provocation by accelerating the supply of its unrivalled S-300 surface to air missile batteries to Iran. Pakistan will certainly consider its nuclear security directly challenged by the move which will do nothing to endear it to the West and everything to draw it ever closer to China and SCO protection.
Meanwhile the geopolitical jousting between China and the United States has spread to the Horn of Africa. The Chinese navy has recently deployed there ostensibly to assist in the international, anti-piracy mission but, according to Asia Times, China's strategic interests in the region go far beyond concerns about piracy:
Observers may call this "expansionism by a thousand strides" (in obvious reference to the more macabre phrase, "death by a thousand cuts") without too much loss of accuracy. Rear Admiral Jingchen's Lushan navy will hunt a few pirates for sure, but only because prudence requires that they not draw too much attention to their greater and broader focus well beyond the rugged Somali coast.
One wonders though whether Washington is braced for this latest escalation of the strategic stakes.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KA15Ad01.html
1 comment:
What amazes me the most with this whole "missile shield" thing is that 1) it has been proven time and again to be nothing more than a genuinely ineffective and useless "placebo"; and B) countries such as Russia and China actually feel threatened by such worthless junk.
If India, Poland and other nations want to waste monies to buy into this obvious scam/bill of goods, that is their perogative (and their loss).
But I would hope that other countries like Russia and China would wise up and realize that they feel threatened by *nothing* whatsoever.
Unless they are quite aware of this and are simply using the fact that the US keeps pushing for this illusion as an excuse to justify another arms race and place missiles near strategic borders?
In this is the case, then the perennial incompetent Bush administration will have been playing into the hands of China and Russia all along by stubbornly and stupidly pushing (and selling) their "Grand Illusion" of a missile shield.
Are we having fun, yet?
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