Cuban Nuclear Crisis II

The shared Cold War mentality of both Bush and McCain to support the building of a tiny $3.5 billion dollar antimissile defense shield program in Poland and the Czech Republic could result in Russia staging strategic nuclear bombers in Cuba, only 90 miles from the American East Coast. There is absolutely no parity between the placing of just 10 interceptor rockets in Poland or an antimissile radar system in the Czech Republic, neither of which would have any offensive threat capability against a combined Russian nuclear force of 1136 launchers and 5518 nuclear warheads, yet feelings in Russia are running so strongly against this small U.S. military program, with the claimed intent of preventing rogue states like Iran or North Korea from missile launches, that the U.S. could only invite a new nuclear crisis with Russia using Cuba if they proceed with this small antimissile military project.

Any staging of Russian nuclear bombers in Cuba would send a dangerous New Cold War signal and could certainly lead to a dangerous new military escalation by the U.S. against Russia by the placement of new nuclear offensive weapons near their borders. Such a climate could only feed on itself and create a very dangerous environment by the world's two main nuclear powers.

Russia is already involved in a dangerous campaign of deploying strategic nuclear bombers in the arctic to "defend" what it views as oil interests that it believes belong to it. As late as June 24, a high ranking Russian military official used these ominous words,"Russia must be ready to fight wars in the arctic to protect it's national interests in a region that contains large and untapped deposits of natural resources". So oil is already providing a dangerous friction point between the U.S. and Russia, yet the U.S. may up the ante by the deployment of the small antimissile shield which isn't anywhere near enough adequate to provide any military cover from any massive Russian nuclear force threat, and is not aimed at countering any existing rogue state threat either. The program only provides more dangerous friction between Russia and the U.S.

The U.S. certainly has enough space based satellites as well as submarines to detect any launches of missiles from rogue states such as Iran or North Korea, so any U.S. efforts to build this small program can only be seen as a boondoggle effort by a few Republican members of Congress who are looking to bring some war contract money to their home states, although they are causing great harm to U.S.-Russian relations with this small antimissile project.

Another main problem is that Iran doesn't even have any nuclear missiles, and their own version of the North Korean designed No Dong 1 missile, named the Shahab-3 has a range no better than 900 miles, enough to hit Israel, but certainly not Poland or the Czech Republic. The U.S. would be far better off to rely on submarine or satellite based defenses to stop any such Iranian threat if it even existed in the first place. And North Korea is currently getting rid of their nuclear threat as a result of the six party talks in the region, and their missiles certainly have no range to strike at either Poland or the Czech Republic, all of which begs the question why both Bush and McCain support this foreign policy doctrine that only drives Russia with a huge developing oil based economy to threaten to place offensive nuclear forces only a few miles from the American East Coast.

This is yet another dangerous area where the Cold War mentality of both Bush and McCain present a grave threat to world peace and security. Russia may often be a difficult state to deal with, and the new president of this Russia has only proven that he might be willing to step things up a notch and place nuclear bombers in Cuba as a sign of how much Russia opposes any placement of weapons, although merely defensive in Eastern Europe. The relationship with Russia is too important to splinter them off over such a small issue as this, as Russian cooperation on many matters such as preventing Iran from actually acquiring nuclear weapons should be a more important goal.

Mr. McCain keeps telling the American voting public that he has great "experience". Well, it's certainly time for Mr. McCain to prove that he has some depth of knowledge of international relations and realize how dangerous this small weapons shield program in Eastern Europe is to relations between the U.S. and Russia. Unfortunately both Mr. Bush and McCain seem only too willing to push both the U.S. and Russia closer to the brink of a nuclear war with their support for such foolish things as this. If anything is a sign that Mr. McCain is too militaristic and arrogant to understand the larger importance of international cooperation it is an issue such as this. You only know that Mr. Obama would view this situation with far more logic and reason by comparison and work to preserve the important cooperative relations with Russia that are vital to solving many world situations and challenges.

Unless there is a change from the leadership of Bush and McCain, by 2009 construction could start on the Polish and Czech systems, and the Russians could counter with stronger military relations with Communist Cuba, using the small island as a base to launch nuclear attacks on the U.S. This all makes no sense at all.