Why is Russia so afraid of the Czechs and Polish having a missle shield? Where does the terror come from? It's not as if Russia can't destroy them (pls. see Georgia) with a small ground army yet they are still afraid. Why little ruskies do you live in fear of the shield?
Because those were offensive weapons. The missiles we are putting in Poland are Patriot missles which are designed to intercept other missles. They are not offensive weapons and we are only talking about 10 locations. Since Russia has 10 times as many nukes as the US it's a little hard to understand their fear until you realize its really not about the missles but the cooperation we have with a former Soviet block country.
Then Syria getting russian defensive missiles will probably go down well now. As long as they are defensive missiles and weapons - everything is cool, right?
Hmm, as if Russia is not doing it already. Iraq had a ton of russian weapons (and hundreds of military advisers) when we invaded it, the Syrian nuclear site that Israel bombed less then a year ago was protected by a russian-made air defense system, of course Israel easily disabled it but still... Russia keeps selling weapons to Iran too, some of these arms have made it to Hezbollah and Hamas. Russia accounted for a quarter of global arms sales in 2003-2007 and they are not selling to good guys. Let alone the fact that Syria and Israel are in a de-jure state of war, so are Iran and Israel. Last I checked Russia and Poland were at peace with each other, so were Russia and Georgia which renders those comparisons invalid and meaningless. And btw the original question was why Russia was afraid. The US was affraid of russian offensive weapons in Cuba during the Cold war, Russia is affraid of defensive weapons in Poland today, when you people are desperately trying to convince us that the cold war is over and Russia are the good guys now. Offensive weapons during the cold war and defensive weapons in a post-cold war era are not the same things, are they? Any comparison between these two completely different situations is plain silly. And your assurances about Russia being different country full of good intentions somehow ring hollow in light of their recent actions.
They are offensive missles...........no comparison to the Patriot. The Iskander missile (NATO reporting name SS-26 Stone) is a short range, solid fuel propelled, theater quasi-ballistic missile system. The system is intended to use conventional warheads for the engagement of small and area targets, such as hostile fire weapons (missile systems, multiple launch rocket systems, long-range artillery pieces), air and antimissile defence weapons, especially those located in relatively fixed sites, command posts and communications nodes, critical civilian infrastructure facilities and other vital small and area targets. Patriot is a long-range, all-altitude, all-weather air defence system to counter tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and advanced aircraft. Patriot (MIM-104) is produced by Raytheon in Massachusetts and Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Florida.
Nations generally don't have good or bad intentions. They look to their interests. And when the US/NATO gets in Russia's face in eastern Europe, Russia looks to reassert itself. Simple realpolitik, no moral judgements. It's all about the arms industry and the US and Russia are both intent on arming anyone and everyone that will pay, nothing personal, just business.
True. Too bad quite a lot of posters conveniently "forget" about it when it comes to the policies and interests of the Western World. They are perpetually enraged, hysterical, self-righteous and moralistic when discussing the policies and interests of the US, Israel and the West, they take the high road, they would not get off their high horse if their life depended on it. The same people suddenly turn into pragmatists, realists and supporters of realpolitik the moment they desperately try to explain and justify disgusting actions of disgusting anti-american, anti-western regimes like Russia, Iran etc. That tells you more than enough about the state of mind of those morons - they could not care less about international law, innocent victims and other crap they are whining about all day long, their only real motivation is their anti-Americanism and the hatred of the West. I am not saying that you are one of these people but quite a number of ultra-liberal anti-western, anti-american and anti-israel lunatics on this and many other sites are.