{"id":246552,"date":"2016-05-28T21:19:14","date_gmt":"2016-05-28T21:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=246552"},"modified":"2016-05-31T13:39:51","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T13:39:51","slug":"putin-warns-romania-poland-installing-abm-missiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/putin-warns-romania-poland-installing-abm-missiles\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin Warns Romania and Poland Against Installing ABM Missiles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

On Friday, May 27th, Russia\u2019s President Vladimir Putin again asserted that American President Barack Obama lies when saying that the reason America\u2019s anti-ballistic missile (\u201cABM\u201d) or Ballistic Missile Defense (\u201cBMD\u201d) system is being installed in Romania, and will soon be installed in Poland, is to protect Europe from Iranian missiles that don\u2019t even exist and that Obama himself says won\u2019t exist because of Obama\u2019s deal with Iran. Putin is saying: I know that you are lying there, not being honest. You\u2019re aiming to disable our retaliatory capacity here, not Iran\u2019s. I\u2019m not so dumb as to believe so transparent a lie as your assurances that this is about Iran, not about Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Putin says that ABMs such as America is installing<\/span><\/a>, disable a country\u2019s (in this case, Russia\u2019s) ability to retaliate against a blitz invasion \u2014 something increasingly likely from NATO now as NATO has extended right up to Russia\u2019s very borders \u2014 and that Russia will not allow this disabling of Russia\u2019s retaliatory forces.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said<\/a><\/span>\u00a0that \u201cNATO fend us off with vague statements that this is no threat to Russia \u2026 that the whole project began as a preventive measure against\u00a0Iran\u2019s nuclear program. Where is that program now? It doesn\u2019t exist. \u2026\u00a0We have been saying since the early 2000s that we will have to react somehow to your\u00a0moves to undermine international security. No one is listening to us.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, he is saying that the West is ignoring Russia\u2019s words, and that therefore Russia will, if this continues, respond by eliminating the ABM sites before they become fully operational. To do otherwise than to eliminate any fully operational ABM system on or near Russia\u2019s borders would be to leave the Russian people vulnerable to a blitz attack by NATO, and this will not be permitted.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said: “At the moment the interceptor missiles installed have a range of 500 kilometers, soon this will go up to 1000 kilometers, and\u00a0worse than that, they can be rearmed with 2400km-range offensive missiles even today, and it can be done by simply switching\u00a0the software, so that even the Romanians themselves won\u2019t know.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words: Only the Americans, who have designed and control the ABM system, will be able to know if and when Russia is left totally vulnerable. Not even the Romanians will know; and Putin says, \u201cRussia has \u2018no choice\u2019 but to target Romania” \u2014 and later Poland, if they follow through with their plans to do the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

By implication, Putin is saying that, whereas he doesn\u2019t need to strike Romania\u2019s site immediately, he\u2019ll need to do it soon enough to block the ABM system\u2019s upgrade that will leave Russia vulnerable to attack and (because of the fully functional ABM) with no ability on Russia\u2019s part to counter-strike.<\/span><\/p>\n

He is saying: Remove the ABM system, or else we\u2019ll have to do it by knocking it out ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

Putin knows that according to the Article Five, \u201cMutual Defense,\u201d provision of the NATO Treaty, any attack against a NATO member, such as Romania, is supposed to elicit an attack by all NATO members against the nation that is attacking. However, Putin is saying that, if NATO is going to be attacking Russia, then it will be without<\/i> any fully operational ABM system, and (by implication) that Russia\u2019s response to any such attack will be a full-scale nuclear attack against all NATO nations, and a nuclear war resulting which will destroy the planet by unleashing all the nuclear weaponry of both sides, NATO and Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Putin is saying that either Romania \u2014 and subsequently Poland \u2014 will cancel and nullify their cooperation with U.S. President Obama\u2019s ABM installation, or else there will be a surgical strike by Russia against such installation(s), even though that would likely produce a nuclear attack against Russia by NATO, and a counter-strike nuclear attack by Russia against NATO.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Putin said \u201cNo one is listening to us\u201d on the other side, the NATO side, Putin meant: I don\u2019t want to have to speak by means of a surgical strike to eliminate a NATO ABM system, but that\u2019s the way I\u2019ll \u2018speak\u2019 if you are deaf to words and to reason and to common decency.<\/span><\/p>\n

He will not allow the Russian people to become totally vulnerable to a nuclear attack by the United States and its military allies. He is determined that, if NATO attacks Russia, then it will be game-over for the entire world, not only<\/i> for Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

He is saying to Obama and to all of NATO: Please hear and understand my words, and be reasonable, because the results otherwise will be far worse for everyone if you persist in continuing to ignore my words.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse On Friday, May 27th, Russia\u2019s President Vladimir Putin again asserted that American President Barack Obama lies when saying that the reason America\u2019s anti-ballistic missile (\u201cABM\u201d) or Ballistic Missile Defense (\u201cBMD\u201d) system is being installed in Romania, and will soon be installed in Poland, is to protect Europe from Iranian missiles that don\u2019t even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":246557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,461,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-246552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-editorials","9":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}