Russia warns of 'new military confrontation' in Europe

[2tallbill]

Russia warns of 'new military confrontation' in Europe

Russia-West relations took a downturn this week when Moscow warned that any stationing of military equipment along its border with Europe could have "dangerous consequences" and President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would add more than 40 ballistic missiles to its nuclear arsenal this year.

At a military and arms fair on Tuesday, Putin announced the addition of the intercontinental ballistic missiles which, he said, were able to overcome "even the most technically advanced anti-missile defense systems," Reuters reported.

read all about it here
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102761893

[2tallbill]

RUSSIA TO GET 40 NEW INTERCONTINENTAL MISSILES THIS YEAR
The Dumbest Secretary of State in US History John Kerry comments

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, briefing reporters via teleconference from Boston, where he is recovering from surgery on a broken leg, called Putin's announcement concerning.

"We're trying to move in the opposite direction," Kerry said. "We have had enormous cooperation from the 1990s forward with respect to the structure of nuclear weapons in the former territories of the Soviet Union. And no one wants to see us step backwards."

"It's really hard to tell," Kerry said. "But nobody should hear that kind of an announcement from the leader of a powerful country and not be concerned about the implications."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_RUSSIA_MILITARY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-06-16-07-28-22

[2tallbill]

Putin’s Nuclear Plan Is Working
Washington musters only an intermittently credible response as
the Kremlin tries to undermine NATO.

The Russian nuclear boast was not new. But the timing—two days after the U.S.
repeated its unheeded complaint that Russia has tested a cruise-type missile banned
by a joint arms-control agreement—gave an in-your-face sense to Moscow’s contention
that it now has the nukes to neuter the superiority the U.S. and NATO still enjoy in
conventional forces. This fits a portrayal of Mr. Putin by Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as someone looking “for opportunities to discredit and undermine
the Alliance.”

Next week, NATO defense ministers will meet to discuss what a Brussels diplomat called
“the Russian nuclear posture.” That means the U.S. and its allies are searching for a riposte
to an aggrandizing Russia whose strategy provides for regional conflicts using nuclear
weapons alongside “little green men”—Russian troops that Moscow claims aren’t really
Russian soldiers—and conventional forces.

For the nostalgic Mr. Putin, disabling NATO is a priority with promising precedents.
In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union nearly succeeded in turning allies’ fears of basing
U.S. atomic weapons into an Allied fold on countering existing Soviet SS-20 missiles
with U.S. cruises and Pershings. German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s Social Democratic
coalition fell in 1982 over his party’s resistance to their deployment. Soviet money and
influence coursed through the antimissile movement.

Now Allied debate about possible U.S. nuclear updates offers the Russians a new
occasion for rage and subversion. The updates, according to European sources, could
involve the U.S. modernizing existing nukes, increasing its defensive capacities or even
stationing new nuclear weapons in Europe. The Russians have every reason to relish
recurrent indications of Europe’s indecision and dissention.

A poll released last week reports public opinion in Germany, France and Italy opposes
defending NATO border-states coming under Russian attack. German was the least-
eager ally. These attitudes project a NATO whose foundations—shared risk and the
Article 5 guarantee of defense to any member by all members—are wobbling.

There is a lot more read all about it here
http://www.wsj.com/articles/putins-nuclear-plan-is-working-1434392929