Garry

Iran and USA are not in war => US soldiers has nothing to do on Iranian territory. If the war starts this may change….

Then sure, on enemy’s territory/port any transporter is subject to attack. However it is look again at the map. You can not attack it in Caspian Sea….. Another point is that there is no evidence that this particular transporter was carrying grain or S-300 PMU. It is not possible to check it in Caspian Sea.

Anyway Russian seems to be not really afraid of US military fighting them directly. They are sure that this will not happen. Hence they will deliver whatever they want if they are sure that this meets their interests. So far it does for some non-critical weapons, which enhance Iran marginally but keep it dependent on Russia over short-term.

This might be smart. In fact I forgot to mention that Russia has added one more nation to have more hostile feelings to them – Uzbeks. In November when I was in Samarkand, Uzbeks were very disappointed with Russian support of Uzbek president Karimov, who is widely hated there. In this particular case a short-term benefit of being friend of Karimov hurts long-term. If Russia continues this stupid policy it will yield another hostile nation…..

Still most of those puppets are not controlled by Moscow nor USA…. They play their own games, and obey only to those who pay in cash…. Russia has almost not control over them. But they will never go against Russia as it may make their life harder.

There is only one guy who is COMPLETELLY independent from Russia – Turkmenistan leader. But he is completely mad ….

Yes your point is correct here. In rural areas of Central Asia Russians have much less support than in cities. With few years of brainwashing from mullahs people may turn hostile to Russia…. some marginals already fight in Chechnya…. Poverty only helps to this process. However this still takes much time to bolster, and I doubt that USA will play with Islamic factor ever again. As Afghanistan proved, for those to whom Russia is target number one the USA is target number two….. while for Middle Eastern terrorists/fighters it is otherwise….


There were never incursions to Russian from any of them. Russia is separated from them, having Kazakhstan as a buffer. Look at the map. May be I did not understood your point. I don’t really see how supply of weapons to Central Asian regimes would endanger Russia if they are still dependent on selling their fruits, vegetables and cotton in Russian cities. Russian economic power is too large.

US have ability to shut down Pacific sea only. But this is really not that important for Russian economy. Most important are railroads to China….. to Europe…. Significant problem would be north sea deliveries to Kamchatka. But it is really not that meaningful.

Europe has significant leverage on Russia…. they do trade a lot with Russia. But this is a double edge sward…. I mean they are both too dependable on each other. Can not forecast how they would act if such confrontation starts.

However you are right.…. This will never happen. US will never risk a major confrontation with a country which may destroy it. Russia will not risk to this point without a direct reason.

What ever number of soldiers will die from Russian SAMs/wepons this counts nothing to millions of lives put on bet to see if Russia goes retaliating or not, and at what scale. Once a retaliation hits start they only escalate…. and finally lead to nuclear strikes.

If Iran would lose an air war…. Russia will not risk a major war with US to protect them from air strikes…. It would be too stupid…


Sure a direct clash would be dangerious for both. Even if presidents understand that they are better to back up it would be too late for them to back up due to pressure from people and their emotions. If you attack Russian ships, it may end up into a large conflict at which mutual destruction would be one of the options. After, last 12 years of humiliation, most of Russians have such a feelings that they would undoubtfully support a major retaliation to US, which they think lost awareness of their importance. From what I see they would certainly strike just to make you understand that you went too far from your borders. So president Putin would try to resolve this issue before it resulted to a direct clash. Then it will be too late…. He would not be able to avoid following stupid wishes of electorate.

Same if Russians manage to sink anything in the attack on battle carrier group it would be invitation for nuclear strike.


If fact Cuba conflict was not really about rationale but about politic…. Russians new that they do not need missiles in Cuba to destroy USA…. Having missiles there did not change much. If you can destroy you enemy 100 times then moving it to 120 times is not that important. Same applied to US and their missiles in Europe.

My point was that in Persian Gulf attack is much easier - look at the map. Persian Gulf is just 3.000 km away from Backfire major base in Engels (Samara region in Southern Russia on Caspian Sea coast). If they can fly over Iran they can easily reach anything in Persian Gulf. In Pacific finding groups and attacking may lead to spreading of aircraft over thousand of kilometers. Here everything is so narrow that attacking here would be easier. Backfires are in place.

Anyway. You are right. This will not happen. Russian president, would be stupid to retaliate in such a scale. Such strike if successful would lead to death of thousands of seaman….. it would be open calling for a nuclear retaliation. He would retaliate but in a proportional manner – ship more sophisticated weapons through Caspian Sea…. With this they will retaliate a lot but not risk any war.


Yes you are right. My fantasy went too far. There would be no conventional clash. Any such clash would lead to nuclear war with no winners. So Russian president would not go this way.

Yes. They are legitimate targets in Iranian ports, if there is a war between Iran and USA.

Yes. SU would not start over the war with US for Vietnam. They would love to see China involved in major clash with US. However we know it only now. Your politics then could not know about this. SU was making a lot of false statements indicating that they would fight over if their ships would be hit. No president would risk a nuclear war for a lousy ship, even if it was full of weapons to Vietnam. Would he risk today?

I think that Vietnam was lost not because of number of Russian weapons. North Vietnamese did not win a single major battle against US troops. US lost the battle for hearts and minds there and home.

Russia will support Iran if you invade them. Your troops on its border (Iran borders Russia over Caspian Sea) are against Russian interests. They will risk whatever to prevent your occupation of Iran. Supplying weapons would be sure first mean to help them withstand your army.

However I doubt that it will happen. You can not attack Iran….. simply not enough resources nor political support inside US. A limited air strike is more possible reaction….. but it will really not stop Iran, while giving them all reasons to continue.

Russian plan is to – see how US and Europe continue playing bad buys to Iran. They press on Iran and Russia offers enrichment on its territory. It makes Iran dependable on Russian help. And at the end of yields

1) US and Europe having nothing in Iran
2) Iran having no nuclear bomb
3) Iran dependent on Russia

I don’t know if current policy will really lead to all of this three goals

Garry

Sure. Russian president will not risk a major conflict with US over Iran until you try to occupy it. But if you try to invade it, then he will give all support to stop you. Iran is bordering with Russia, and he does not need your troops on its border...

He will try to play a game - bad policement and good policement. To make sure that you force Iran to move enrichment to Russia.... be bad guys.... while Russia gets the fruits - a neigbour without a bomb + dependent on Russian support.

However they don't want you to invade them. They alredy made it clear with this marginal enhancement.... Air strick they will tollerate but it does not stop Iran.

Probably they will hint to Iran that they will give up protecting them in UN.... to make Iran more flexible and take alternative - enrichment on Russian territory + removal of used fuel to Russia.

lwarmonger

Ok, I think this removes a substantial amount of the disagreement between us right here. I was never suggesting that the United States would attack Russian ships in the Caspian Sea while they are still at sea. I was referring to Russian ships in (or entering) Iranian harbors, and how they would be legitimate targets in a time of war.

Well, you did have a very good point when you said that there is a limit to how independent these nations can become from Russia (after all, their economies are quite integrated), however if you see a large number of Islamic Republics or liberal democracies springing up on Russia's southern border, having overthrown governments loyal to Moscow, it significantly weakens Russia's influence in the area and can also have long term economic ramifications.


Which is exactly my point. The United States and Russia can hurt one another quite badly by supplying weapons to their respective enemies. Better that both nations adopt a "I won't arm your enemies if you don't arm mine" approach then try to get into a bleeding match. I've always felt that since Russia and the United States have so few areas where their interests clash (Iran being one of the few permanant areas, Central Asia is merely a passing area of American interest that will fade with the Afghani intervention), that the two make natural diplomatic (if not economic) partners. It was only a freak coincidence of ideology and post WWII devistation that caused us to become enemies to begin with.

I'm not just talking about Central Asia here, but also the Caucasian states as well (where such an event has occured). I will agree, that Kazakhstan is a useful, stable buffer between Russia and the other Central Asian republics. However, chaos in the neighboring states could easily destabilize Kazakhstan's government (which is not particularly broad based), and in turn spill over into Russia.

Palestine is largely dependent upon Israel for their entire economic existence. That does not stop daily suicide bombings. The Mullahs in the countryside are demagogues, and not particularly rational.

The US would not initiate a nuclear strike on Russia, because we have no need to. Our conventional air and naval forces can hit a large number of retaliatory targets on Russia's coastline. That being said, I don't think Russia would go nuclear for the sake of national pride (the Soviets certainly weren't willing to, and they had ideology partly driving them). The electorate cannot give the orders for a nuclear strike, and Putin, whatever else people may think of his domestic policies, is a rational man.

Actually the Cuban Missile Crisis was a few years before Mutually Assured Destruction came into play. In 1962, Russia had around 300 nuclear warheads (not 300 mounted on ICBM's, 300 total). Now, given that around half of those were prepared for use in the assault into Germany, with a few more for use in depth in the European theater (France, England, ect), that doesn't leave too many for the continental US. With our 5100 nuclear weapons, the United States clearly had the edge in any nuclear conflict. What those nuclear weapons in Cuba gave the Soviets the ability to do, was launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on America's Strategic Air Command before it could respond. This would have severely disrupted our ability to coordinate our nuclear counteroffensive in the event of a Soviet first strike, and went quite a ways towards compensating for Russia's nuclear inferiority vis a vis the United States.

Probably. The United States did not take a very sober look at foriegn policy in the 1960's, while the Soviet Union did. If we had an objective method of analyzing foriegn policy (instead of the State Department), then we probably could have seen the Soviet's real position, regardless of their rhetoric. It was not until the 1970's that we began to take an opproach based on pragmitism instead of ideology.

But the reason we lost that battle was because we had to keep fighting over in Vietnam. And the reason the NVA was able to keep fighting, was because the Soviets and Chinese were supplying them. The USAF turned North Vietnam into the surface of the moon, but it didn't matter because they weren't producing their own weapons. They had no industry to bomb, and so we couldn't really make a dent in their warfighting capability.


I agree that we will most likely not be invading Iran in the near future. It would be both costly, and unwise. The scenario I have been making reference to the most, is extensive air strikes against Iranian infrastructure, nuclear facilities, and military factories. But if Russia suddenly starts upping it's shipments of SAM missiles into Iran because of this, the United States would respond.

lwarmonger

I don't think NK would use nukes on China. However, if a regional nuclear war were to erupt, the danger of China being sucked in is fairly significant.

Afraid I must disagree with you here. I think that NK's first target would be South Korea. 25% of your nearest (and most numerous) enemies population in one city... simply too good an opportunity to pass up. Japan would most likely be hit (or threatened) to deny the US of a staging area for reinforcements. Attacks on the US would most likely be threatened as retaliation for American nuclear attack, but not actually enacted unless NK is glassed (and even then, odds are we'd get their nukes in our strike anyways.

Well, if they had just developed them or acquired them from Russia, that is all they would have. The only nation that retains a truly credible second strike capability against the United States is Russia.

Regardless of any of this, there is simply no way to prevent massive US retaliation with our nuclear deterrent. Even assuming that Russian nukes catch every one of our missiles still in their silos (highly unlikely, but let's just assume), our submarine based nuclear deterrent is still sufficient to wipe out every urban area in Russia. It would still be suicide to attack usin this manner.

I'm not so sure about this. However, something I do know is that if necessary, the country in question can simply remove the nuclear materials, and use it to create their own nuclear weapon (even if much more primitive).

From what I've read, most of the "uneducated poor" (who still form a large majority in these nations) like neither their current government (for the reasons you outlined above), nor the Russians (for oppression and Russianization). This means that destabilization in the regimes in these countries is unlikely to work to Russia's benifit.

It would bleed the Russians, and if the Russians are already bleeding us, what would be our incentive not to do so? My main argument here, is that it is in both country's best interests not to get involved in this kind of low level bleeding contest.

But we are also far stronger than Russia, and much further away from our enemies. Personally, I think it evens out.

You can pass off nearly anything as being acceptable. Here we are merely endorsing "self-determination" of the long suppressed people of Central Asia. Remember how the world shrugged off Iraqi use of chemical weapons on the Iranians by blaming both sides equally? That kind of spin control happens all the time.

How many would we have lost if the Soviets had charged into West Germany?

I'm not arguing about the government, or even the urban population. It's the rural poor that would carry this fight into Russia.


Which is why the United States is having absolutely no problem in Iraq?

I'm not questioning anyone's ability to take land full of Muslims, I am questioning their ability to hold it indefinately.

I concur that the Kurds are a very special case. However, from a perspective of American self-interest, it should be an easy decision to arrive at.

Most of the oil coming out of that region right now comes from the Gulf, which wouldn't be particularly disturbed by a seperate Kurdistan, even if Turkey did come apart (highly unlikely that they would, however).

LOL. Good point, and I must admit you have me there. The only response I really have to that, is that it is better to reward our staunchest friends than it is to reward those who have been lukewarm supporters at best. Just because a nation is a democracy, doesn't mean that it can't work against our best interests.