why an end to NATO is a good thing

An interesting proposal was put forward by the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

A future Trans-Atlantic security pact, RT gave an interesting analysis suggesting that this will in turn end NATO once and for all:



If this came through this would mean a new peace of our time breakthrough, one we haven't seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago, however since then Russia and the west haven't exactly had the best chances of being best friends or allies against each other, and the existence of NATO in a post Warsaw Pact world is a sad reminder that the west hasn't taken off it's cold war parachute pants!



From recent times close incidents that could have brought the NATO countries and the Russian Federation close to a war, two notable incidents would be:

* An incident in 1995 where Norwegian scientists in cooperation with NASA launched a two-stage rocket. This caused a Russian nuclear alert since the rocket was launched from an area where Americans subs operated and the missile had the same launch profile as the launch of a Trident SLBM.

Boris Yeltsin had ten minutes to make the decision of whether or not to authorize a nuclear launch, this was a major screw up considering lack of communications and understanding between both parties involved

* There was also the Pristina airfield incident in Kosovo in 1999, where Russian troops occupied the airfield in the wake of the war, NATO-Saceur general Clark ordered British troops to confront them and kick them out. The British commander in charge refused and stated "I am not going to start World War III for you".



The war in South Ossetia in August of 2008 which saw Russia launching an offensive against Georgia cost 2,000 people their lives (mostly Ossetian civilians murdered by the Georgian Army), the background to Georgia's war planning are much more serious considering it was planning to join NATO (Georgia is not near the North Atlantic, neither is Afghanistan but I guess that doesn't matter), it had been supplied with military hardware by 15 countries just before that war!

From NATO countries the Georgian Army received about:

* 300 APC's from the NATO countries
* 100 tanks
* 67 artillery pieces
* 99 mortars
* 150 anti tank systems
* 200 portable anti aircraft units

* The French Air Force had been prepared to deliver four Mirage fighters
* The Americans were to supply 15 Black Hawk helicopters

The Ukraine supplied a further 90 APC's, their extremist leader Yushchenko has been opting to join NATO but has since been vetoed (from more responsible European countries), so has Georgia which is good since NATO isn't aligning itself with fascists!



That being said NATO has gone too far, the arms business does make strange bed partners and the donor countries of these arms can't be blamed for the damage caused, but with extremists in power from former Soviet countries in eastern Europe could lead Russia and Europe into a dangerous hostile situation.

Russia shouldn't be viewed by Europe as a potential threat any more than any European country should be considered a potential threat, the damage caused by the South Ossetian was a failure for the international community and envisioned some horrible hypocrisy on behalf of the west.

The Russian Federation is a country that has had a lot of history in it's short life and was run into the ground after the USSR collapsed, today it matters, not only for military reasons but for it's size and influence in other parts of the world, a Trans-Atlantic security pact stretching from North America, through Europe to the Russian Far East would more than likely be a more positive change* in the long term for the future rather than trying to decide whether or not to let old Soviet republics with bitter extremists align themselves with most of the great military powers of the west, that would certainly be a disaster waiting to happen!

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev seldom gets credit for promoting real change!

Russia's deadly air defence

I wrote before about how Russian fighter jets are still more advanced than American ones already, but the truth is the Americans have twice as much jets in all categories than the Russians do, in my last post about how tanks aren't as important in today's battlefield as air power, I also mentioned how the MiG-23 was an aircraft mass produced in an attempt to help ground forces (which would be in even larger numbers) and how that concept didn't work.

SAM's (Surface to Air missiles) were built widely by the Soviets but never seemed to be very effective when put into combat, evidence of this is the Yom Kippur War in 1973 with Israel against Egypt and Syria, having learned from the Six Day War in 1967 Egypt put literally a wall of SAM's on the border, this did take down several Israeli planes but wasn't half as effective as it should have been.



With only a brief analysis it is clear that Russian radar and missiles have improved to the point that American F-15's, F-16's, F-18's and even the new F-35 aren't capable of surviving against them, the radar signatures of the F-35 are strong enough to be tracked and killed by these deadly systems!

The S-300 is old but still well capable of downing the 25 year old US F-15 Eagles;
many people dispute SAM's since they seem to have a bad record, most of them cite the Yom Kippur and the Iran Iraq War, I already explained the former and the latter would be because the operators on both sides didn't have adequate training.

Now as if shamming the USAF teen series fighters and the new JSF I'm going to put the nail in the coffin of what many believe can counter and/or destroy SAM sites;

Stealth aircraft:



Okay, let me show you exactly how much of a threat Russian SAM's can be to a stealth aircraft.

In 1999 during the NATO bombing of Kosovo Col. Dani Zoltan commander of the 250th missile brigade downed an F-117 Nighthawk with an SA-3.

The SA-3 entered service in 1961 and, while it had undergone some upgrades, was considered a minor threat to NATO aircraft!

NATO didn't even get a chance to bomb the wreckage and the Russians got a look at the wreckage thus compromising the then 19 year old stealth technology.

I hope America keeps this in mind considering the Russians more than likely considered all of these facts when building the S-400 system meaning that the Russian IAD's (Integrated Air Defences) will be twice as deadly.

I'm sure Iran and Venezuela will be thumbing it to the Americans when they receive (both have ordered) their brand new air defense systems in which a lot of work and experience has gone into and knowing the fact that in any American attack several fighter jets and pilots would be lost in the case of war.

are stealth aircraft proven?

In 1980 during the end of the Cold War the hi-tech f-117 stealth bomber was first revealed to the public, it was supposed to be undetectable to radar and able to penetrate deep behind enemy lines to destroy strategic targets.

It was 1991 it was shown to be top gun in Operation Desert Storm flying raids against Baghdad, not one was lost during the war but the British and French frigates in the gulf could easily detect the "undetectable".

In 1999 during the NATO bombing of Kosovo an F-117 was downed after being detected by an old Soviet radar system, the Russians even got a look compromising the then 25 year old stealth technology, another F-117 was damaged before the end of the war but still made it back to its base.

The F-117 was recently decommissioned a few months ago and also last July a 0.9 billion dollar B-2 crashed in Guam because of water in the sensors skewed the air-pressure readings too high causing it to crash and burn.



The F-22 is supposed to fill the void as an air superiority fighter over aircraft such as the Su-27, and also be a stealth fighter but because of its weight, size, speed and maneuverability it fails at these, already 127 F-22's are in service with the USAF and will soon prove to be another expensive unproven failure.