Do You Feel Safer?

I sure as Hell don't:

From CNN:


Russia: Missile can pierce shields


POSTED: 12:06 p.m. EDT, May 29, 2007

MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- Russia on Tuesday test-launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile, apparently developed secretly, that a top government official said could penetrate any defense system, Russian news agencies reported.

The missile would modernize Russia's stockpile at a time of rising tensions with the West.
"As of today Russia has new (missiles) that are capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defense systems," ITAR-Tass quoted First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov as saying. "So in terms of defense and security Russian can look calmly to the country's future."

President Vladimir Putin and Ivanov, a former defense minister seen as a potential candidate to succeed the Russian leader in elections next year, have repeatedly said their country would continue to improve its nuclear weapons systems and respond to U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Europe.

The missile capable of carrying multiple independent warheads was fired from a mobile launcher at the Plesetsk launch in northwestern Russia, and its test warhead landed on target about 3,400 miles away on the Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, according to a statement from Russian Strategic Missile Forces.

Ivanov said Russia also successfully tested a tactical cruise missile.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

***

An NPR news update earlier today gave the missile's designation as the RS-24, probably a mobile evolutionary development of their older mainstay SS-24 ICBM. NPR added that it was capable of carrying up to ten devices in its warhead bus.

Russia has grown increasingly pissed off at us over our deals with former Warsaw Pact countries to house parts of our new missile defense system - a radar in the Czech Republic, ten interceptor missiles in Poland, etc. Now, we say that it's to protect Europe from missiles fired by rogue states such as North Korea and Iran.

Who the hell are the Bushies trying to kid? Iran's best missile can only reach Tel Aviv (and that's a stretch) while the best system the DPRK can field (the Taepodong-3) has serious design flaws that keep destroying it.

So, based on this, who do the Russians think this "Star Wars Lite" system is aimed at?

You got it in one. Those of you who didn't, write out 100 times, "I will not be so easily fooled again."

The neocons (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, et. al.) have missed the halcyon days of the Cold War when the world was divided into two neat blocs. It suited their black-and-white worldview, not like this multipolar world that they can't control. So they're trying to bring it back.

Russia's a proud nation, and the blows it's taken since the fall of the Communist state have rankled deeply. It doesn't like having the US trying to dictate to it, and with its oil and natural gas wealth it can quite literally hold Europe hostage.

And what good will the US missile shield be at that point?