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The Military Government Politics

No New S-300 Air-Defense System To Syria Says Russia — But Maybe Old Ones 188

An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday, Russia's Foreign Minister declared that Moscow would not sell any new surface-to-air missiles to Syria, although there is a catch. He said old contracts are being honored. Could old contracts just be code for an already signed, but undisclosed deal for the S-300? Lavarov certainly left the door open: '...when questioned in particular about the S-300, his reply was not clear if the "earlier contracts" were for the S-300 or something else.' With Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu going to the Black Sea town of Sochi early next week for talks with President Vladimir Putin, it seems they may have something to talk about."
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No New S-300 Air-Defense System To Syria Says Russia — But Maybe Old Ones

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  • Netanyahu to Visit Putin, Discuss S-300 Sale
    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/167922#.UY7gcnDlN0M

  • by Anonymous Coward

    He is meeting with Putin because Putin has told him that any more Israeli strikes will have him land S 300PMs, I believe that's the one, the next day in Syria.

      Since he said that there have been no more strikes.

    • by Xest ( 935314 )

      Does Israel care about S-300s? They seemed pretty ineffective against Israel's strike on Syria's covert nuclear programme a few years ago.

      It seems Israel already knows perfectly well how to render them ineffective anyway.

  • by couchslug ( 175151 ) on Saturday May 11, 2013 @07:26PM (#43698709)

    They make MILITARY news sites for this sort of thing.

    Hey, much love on my part for modern weapons tech, but on Slashdot this is clutter.

    Any techies who are interested know how to keep track of such events.

    Anyone interested also knows any missile systems sold to Syria can be countered by standoff weapons launched from outside Syrian airspace in most cases. Extended range JDAMs and Spice kits mean expensive anti-aircraft missiles would have to be used against small, relatively inexpensive, "smart bombs".

    Those can also be used to destroy Syrian aircraft in their shelters as well as SAM sites.

    http://defense-update.com/20130505_israeli-standoff-attack-capability-against-terrorists.html [defense-update.com]

    • This is on Slashdot because it is profitable for them to post troll stories. You might notice that the stories that get the most replies have either a political, religious, or the current all-time favorite: the patent-related slant to whip the unsuspecting into a reading/posting frenzy generating ad revenue.

      Contrast the FUD stories with the few articles posted about hard science, and sadly they typically get about 5% of the replies as say an Apple/MS/Samsung/Google patent troll-the-readership type story.
      • It is on Slashdot because it falls under the 'stuff that matters' category.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 )

      This is news for nerds. You specifically add to the conversation by adding useful knowledge in the matter for non military nerds, and provide a source for additional information.

      And get off my lawn.

    • by poity ( 465672 )

      Tinder for 900+ reply flame thread

    • According to The Wiki depending on the model S-300 missiles have up to 120 mile range. I don't think glide bombs go that far.
    • Maybe there's a smartphone involved - S-300 Missile Defense on a smartphone. Patents could be involved, you know.

  • by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Saturday May 11, 2013 @07:46PM (#43698845) Homepage
    I may have read to much H.P. Lovecraft and Charlie Stross, but when I first read the headline, my initial reading was that Russia would be given shoggoths to Syria. That would have been interesting. It will be interesting to see if any deal does go through, and the fact that Syria wants these is interesting given that the rebels have had little access to aircraft. Syria probably wants it to help prevent intervention in the ongoing civil war.
  • by some old guy ( 674482 ) on Saturday May 11, 2013 @09:44PM (#43699475)

    Might this not be an opportune time for the US to stop living up to its image overseas as a big, blundering, international bully and just let the locals fend for themselves?

    With a millions of Islamic loonies on their doorstep, and their own disasters in Afghanistan and Chechnya to remind them, one would think that the Russians would have better sense than to keep exacerbating and encouraging Middle-Eastern instability.

    No, I suppose both powers' energy and defense industries are more important than anybody else's self-determination.

    Economic and political pragmatism trumps idealism every time.

    • The problem is that if we don't get involved people will complain about how we're standing by while people are slaughtered. Of course if we DO get involved people (many of them the SAME people) will flip out if a single civilian dies by the hands of our soldiers and start screaming about how our soldiers are murderers. It's a no-win situation, but on the whole the balance clearly favors letting them kill each other.

      I for one would like to see us completely avoid getting involved except for working (both
    • Russia doesn't have a problems with Shia Islamic loonies on their doorstep. It has a good relationship with Iran, trade and otherwise. It has an okay relationship with Azerbaijan, the other Shiite country in the region (though that one is firmly in the Turkish sphere of influence). Its problems with militant Islam are mainly with Wahhabi/Salafi extremist forms of it, and those are coming from countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Coincidentally, they happen to be exactly the countries which Iran is heav

    • Might this not be an opportune time for the US to stop living up to its image overseas as a big, blundering, international bully and just let the locals fend for themselves?

      Won't work. Look at history, in 1914 the US stayed neutral in World War I until someone came out and sank on of their ships. The World didn;t seek war with Hitler, but it came to them. In World War II the US was officially neutral (although did a lot of business in arms) until the Japanese came and pounded Pearl Harbour. The US didn't seek the war in Korea, the North Koreans did. The US didn't seek war in Vietnam, the Communist Vietnamese did. Th World didn't seek war with the Warsaw Pact, but the conflict

  • Syria must be seriously broke by now. In comparison to Syria, Israel's economy is doing fantastically well. I think the only payment Syria could make would be to let the Russians have military bases on Syrian soil, and expand Russian naval presence on the Mediterranean.

    On Deep Background:

    A Russian ship is currently visiting Israel, which has many ex-Russian citizens.

    Russia has also received title to a large tract of land in downtown Jerusalem, purchased in previous centuries by the Russian Orthodox Church

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