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Originally Posted by RN7
Putin is a calculating and ruthless individual, and I think you have to be to become Russian president and stay there. He is not going to go nuclear and the Americans know it, but he is not going to allow America/NATO push Russia around on its own door step. The world is looking at what Putin is doing, but Putin is more interested in what the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Serbs, Iranians and all the other dictatorships and Russian arms buyers think rather than what the Western and democratic parts of the world are thinking, and he wants to put on a good show for them. China would just love to have the military capabilities that Russia has at its disposal to rub America's nose in it in the Far East and Pacific.
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True, and, in addition to what you've pointed out here, western Europe is dependent on Russian oil and natural gas exports and so, in all likelihood, will not join in on the stringent economic sanctions which will be necessary to prompt a Russian withdrawal from the Crimea. Putin is a canny fellow, to be sure and he's probably going to get away with annexing the Crimea.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RN7
The Russians still have 200 active OTR-21 Tochka (SS-21) and an unknown number of the newer 9K720 Iskander-M (SS-26) mobile SRBM with conventional HE and fragmentation payloads (and nuclear). Their designed for tactical precision strike against hostile artillery and air defence launchers, air fields, command and communications centers and troops concentrations and critical civilian infrastructure facilities, and the SS-26 was specifically designed to neutralize NATO missile defence systems. The SS-26 can be launched within 4 minutes to an altitude of 50km at a speed of Mach 6-7. But it only has a range of 500 km which means if it is launched from western regions of Russia it will barely reach the German-Polish border. They could easily use them on NATO bases and military installations in the Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic states and maybe parts of Turkey to the south, but to hit Western Europe they would need bombers and ICBM's with conventional warheads. The Soviets/Russians developed a series of conventional fragmentation HE and submunition warheads for the FROG, Scud, SS-21, SS-23 and SS-26 SRBM's.
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Exactly, so why use a strategic asset like ICBMs to do job for which capable operational-level platforms already exist?
As soon as U.S./NATO member spy satellites detect the launch signature of a Russian ICBM, it's game over. We know where nearly all of their fixed launch sites are and we're still watching. We'll be compelled to launch a nuclear counterstrike. It would take an incredible- some would say, suicidal- degree of self restraint not to. "There may or may not be a nuclear weapon or three on the way towards us and/or our allies but let's wait and see before responding." AFAIK, that would go against Cold War nuclear warfare protocols.
Yes, conventional-armed ICBMs are an asset that Putin has at his disposal, but he'd have to be daft to use it in the capacity that you are describing, especially, as you just pointed out, since he has alternative platforms which can serve the same purpose (i.e. deliver conventional warheads on targets in East & Central Europe.)
Also, can an ICBM designed and built to hit targets a continent away even be reconfigured to hit much closer targets? I would think not- that's why SRBMs and MRBMs exist, right?