Comments on: Putin offers to work on joint missile shield

By: Michael Averko

Michael Averko — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 05:21:02 +0000

They’re long term strategic planners. Whether their view is right is open to question. Meantime, we all know what that system can be used against besides rogue states.

Nebojsa Malic got it right at:

http://www.antiwar.com

What happened to the Serbs in ’99, could’ve easily happened to Russia were it not for Russia’s nuclear capability. Now, Russia is on the rise, with some not liking that.

By: Vegetius Renatus

Vegetius Renatus — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 04:22:18 +0000

@ Andy & Tim:

What “rogue state” (not to speak about terrorist groups) has the ability to send missiles to Western Europe or the U.S.? Get real, guys!

By: Tim Newman

Tim Newman — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 02:39:52 +0000

Lets face it, Russia is at much at risk of missile attack from �rogue� nations or terrorist groups as Western Europe and the United States – if not more so – and a joint missile shield does seem the logical way forward.

Exactly, and I’ll be interested to see where this leaves the argument that the threat envisaged by the US does not exist. I expect it to continue regardless.

By: Michael Averko

Michael Averko — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 23:42:46 +0000

As per what I communicated on the subject at Sean’s blog:

For the past year, Aliev has been following what can be termed as a post Cold War Titoist foreign policy. In this situation, he wins if Moscow and Washington are in agreement.

Added to this are the not always great relations between Tehran and Baku. Some Azeris see a slice of Iran’s territory as their own. The involved land mass includes an Azeri population. In the Azeri-Armenian conflict over Nagorno Karabakh – Iran hasn’t sided with Azerbaijan. The Armenian community in Iran has been on relatively good terms with Iran at large (government included). Azerbaijan’s relative good ties with Iran’s historic rival (of sorts) Turkey is another somewhat sticking point.

Pre 1917 Russia contributed a good deal to Azerbaijan’s development. The continuity of Russo-Azeri togetherness lasted during the Soviet period. Aliev is the son of a Politburo leader. Russia has a degree of perfectly understandable influence in Iraq.

This proposed deal makes perfect sense.

*****

As an add on to the above reposted:

This whole shield business is arguably more political than anything else. I’m sure many of the Brzezinskiites and neocons might see this Azeri option as a cave in to Russia. On the other hand, the initial plan was pleasing to the not so Russia/Putin friendly forces.

By: JTapp

JTapp — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 19:16:42 +0000

I don’t see how this would divide the U.S. and Azerbaijan. Is it because of the Russian interference?

Azerbaijan is no fundamentalist state or real friend to Iran, Shiia Islam is hard to find in the country as most of the mosques are Turkish and Saudi-built and staffed by Sunni. Most of the northern part of Iran is inhabited by ethnic Azeris that Tehran is wary of anyway.

The arguments I was hearing from analysts on the news yesterday was that a missile being fired from Iran would be over the radar site too quickly to be detected in time to be shot down.

My guess is Russia wants it there because it’s still not out of the question that Russia could easily invade Azerbaijan (as it did under Lenin) sometime in the future.