Russian preemprive strike against US missile defense systems in Eastern Europe?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17937795

"Russia says it is prepared to use "destructive force pre-emptively" if the US goes ahead with controversial plans for a missile defence system based in Central Europe."
(...)
"A decision to use destructive force pre-emptively will be taken if the situation worsens," chief of the Russian defence staff Gen Nikolai Makarov said."

A declaration of new cold war? Discuss.

Seems a tad excessive

And unlikely.

sabre rattling.
Just ignore.

Like the last 20 times. They sure are bored there.

Very easy for them to do technically, would never do it politically.

Perhaps Mr. Makarov studied communication in Best Korea.

They will of course not do it, but they are quite serious about it. ABM was banned in the '60es for a reason. It is fundamentally destabilizing. And is as useful for a "safe" first strike as for actual defense.

The proposed ABM systems that would be placed in eastern Europe would be useless against a large scale nuclear attack by Russia. They could only be effective against a limited amount of missiles, numbering in the dozens at best.

This.

This shit again? Is there some memo saying Russia/US have to go over this at least once a decade? IIRC last time it was the Patriot system in the mid 90's and before that Mid range Missiles potentially based in Germany.

We're not even in a cold war so we don't have a need to have 15,000 warheads pointing at all points between Moscow and LA.

Seconded.

You just described "what is left of Russian strategic force after USA's disarming first strike".
Also. Once R&D is complete, and interceptor bases and search and FC radars are built, adding in more interceptors isn't that expensive in the long run.

Well they just increased standing army near baltic borders... that newsline actually spooked me.

The ABM boasting on the other hand does not bother me.

Pre emptive strike is one thing. But if a Russian bomb falls on a US base on Polish soil...

Let just say that Poland will be rebuilding again.

There will be no pre-emptive strike. Russia can´t afford war.

Nikolai is probably getting told to shut up by the Kremlin and knock off the old hardline cold war bs

No but they might do so before any war with the USA, which is I imagine what they mean.

Most of you must be pretty young. The last time Russia got it's back up over this was the end of 83, beginning of 84. They put their forces, both nuclear and conventional on a heightened state of alert because of SDI. It was scary as fuck. The USA totally underestimated just how serious the USSR was in it's objections to missile defence.
When you develop and deploy ABM of any sort it disarms Russia - they'll never agree to that, no matter who you say it's targeted against.
Europe should refuse the USA permission to base anything to do with ABM in Europe. It doesn't benefit Europe or NATO at all, it's solely to protect the USA. That the USA think Europe and Russia should just roll over and accept it is just blind arrogance.

It's funny because you're British and Longtom, from Eastern Europe, is worried about Russia for different reasons than their saber rattling over the ABM.

No, what's funny is you actually think proximity to a thing = overriding knowledge of a thing.
That's naivety mate.

Except it isn't unless you're someone from the middle east with ballistic missiles. The ABM systems in Europe are too close to be useful against Russian missiles, they'd be on a tail-chase over the Arctic from the get go and even if they were effective against them we'd never have enough interceptors to blunt a Russian attack, that being the entire reason the ABM system aimed at Russia that we were building up in Alaska was cancelled.

What they're pissed at is NATO and by extension America are setting up long-term real-estate in what has been traditionally considered the Russian sphere-of-influence.

Makarov. Guys, have you not played Modern Warfare 2? By preemptive strike he means 'Russia will wreck the entire United States'.

If it was true then they would have made threats against Poland, the Czech rep, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania about joining NATO or allowing NATO forces in their country.
Why wait until now to get pissy?

Isn´tRussia with problems over Putin´s re-election or something? Might explain this sudden saber rattling.