Russia has thrown down a new gauntlet to Barack Obama with an announcement that it will sharply increase production of strategic nuclear missiles.

In the latest of a series of combative moves by the Kremlin, a senior government official in Moscow said the Russian military would commission 70 strategic missiles over the next three years, as part of a massive rearmament programme which will also include short-range missiles, 300 tanks, 14 warships and 50 planes.

Military experts said the planned new arsenal was presumed to consist of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) rather than submarine-launched missiles. If this is the case, the plans represent a fourfold increase in the rate of ICBM deployment. The arsenal will include a new-generation, multiple-warhead ICBM called the RS-24. It was first test-fired in 2007, with first deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov boasting it was "capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defence systems".

Wanna bet? It's just a matter of developing the systems, promoting the research and opening the manufacturing..ALONG WITH IED SUPPRESSION, DRONES AND ANY OTHER GODDAMN THING WE NEED IN THIS DANGEROUS WORLD.

The new missiles will be part of a £95bn defence procurement package for 2009-2011, a 28% increase in arms spending, according to Vladislav Putilin of the cabinet's military-industrial commission. There will be further increases in spending in the following two years.

Since we did away with the MX we now depend on the Minuteman III developed in the early 70's as a land based deterrent. Russia's land based missiles are HIGHLY accurate and were since the SS-18 in the early 80's regarded as being accurate enough to be first strike weapons which could take out the entire land based US missile force, and hit our airfields potentially well before we could clear .

Now these are all theoretical ideas about force and counterforce, and one could argue that by taking an aggressive posture against the USA the real target is once again Euro nuclear blackmail (which is what the Guardian argues).

I say it doesn't make a damn bit of difference. It's all for keeps. Until the next go round. Too bad, Francis Fukuyama.

Oh and BTW, Bob

Beijing Considers Upgrades to Navy

BEIJING -- China's top military spokesman said it is seriously considering adding a first aircraft carrier to its navy fleet, a fresh indication of the country's growing military profile as it prepares for its first major naval deployment abroad.

At a rare news conference Tuesday, Chinese defense-ministry officials played down the importance of Beijing's decision to send warships to the Gulf of Aden to curb piracy -- China's first such deployment in modern history -- saying it doesn't represent a shift in defense policy. The two destroyers and supply ship are to depart Friday for the Middle East.But officials also made clear that China's navy, which has been investing heavily in ships and aircraft, now has the capability to conduct complex operations far from its coastal waters -- and that Beijing is continuing to expand its reach and capability, perhaps with a carrier.