Exclusive: Official Washington’s anti-Russian hysteria has distorted U.S. politics while also escalating risks of a nuclear war as U.S. war planners dream of “winning” a first-strike attack on Russia, reports Jonathan Marshall.
By Jonathan Marshall
In 1961, senior Pentagon consultants drafted a 33-page blueprint for initiating — and winning — a nuclear war against the Soviet Union. It was based on top-secret intelligence that Soviet nuclear forces were few in number and poorly defended — making them an easy target for a U.S. preemptive strike.
A U.S. government photograph of Operation Redwing’s Apache nuclear explosion on July 9, 1956.
Convinced of U.S. superiority, the Joint Chiefs of Staff began advising President John F. Kennedy to risk nuclear war over Cuba and Vietnam — even though their own analysis conceded that if something went wrong, 75 percent of Americans might die. If JFK hadn’t rejected their advice, we might not be here today.
President Trump may soon face a similar test. With almost no public awareness, the Pentagon’s nuclear program has achieved unprecedented capabilities that once again raise the possibility that a U.S. first strike could cripple Russia’s nuclear arsenal and “decapitate” its leadership. Such capabilities all but ensure that hawks will begin lobbying for more aggressive measures toward Russia, based its growing vulnerability to U.S. nuclear weapons.
A frightening new analysis for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists — by three eminent strategic arms experts at the Federation of American Scientists, Natural Resources Defense Council, and MIT — provides evidence that U.S. nuclear planners have “implemented revolutionary new technologies that will vastly increase the targeting capability of the US ballistic missile arsenal,” giving it for the first time in decades “the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike.”
U.S. Navy’s ‘Super-Fuse’
The concept of nuclear superiority seemed to lose its relevance in the mid-1960s, when Moscow finally built a large enough nuclear arsenal to withstand attack. Subsequent arms control treaties, starting in the Nixon years, maintained reasonable parity between U.S. and Russian nuclear forces, discouraging either side from contemplating the use of atomic weapons for anything but deterring a nuclear attack.
President John F. Kennedy addressing the nation regarding the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
With absolutely no fanfare, however, U.S. technology advances have once again called mutual deterrence into question. The secret is a “super-fuse” first implemented by the U.S. Navy in 2009 as part of its “life-extension” program for submarine-based nuclear missiles. By permitting more accurate timing of nuclear blasts, this flexible trigger gives America’s sub-launched missiles three times their former killing power — enough to take out even “hardened” Russian missile silos and command centers with a high probability of success.
The authors calculate that a mere 272 warheads could wipe out all of Russia’s intercontinental ballistic missiles housed in hardened silos — leaving in reserve more than 600 lethal warheads deployed on U.S. submarines, as well as hundreds more on U.S. land-based missiles.
Although U.S. war planners would still be challenged to target warheads on Russia’s submarines and mobile land-based missiles, the authors support claims by other scholars that “for the first time in almost 50 years, the United States stands on the verge of attaining nuclear primacy.” Russia’s vulnerability will likely increase over time, as the Pentagon’s implements its planned trillion-dollar nuclear “modernization” program over the next 30 years.
From the standpoint of many Pentagon planners, greater war-fighting capabilities are always better because they increase U.S. military options. But there are good reasons to be worried by this stealthy advance in U.S. missile technology.
Beware the ‘Clever Briefer’
The first is the risk that a “clever briefer” — a convincing salesman for “limited” nuclear war — will persuade a president that fighting and winning such a conflict is possible. The president might then behave more rashly in a conventional conflict, triggering a series of military escalations that unintentionally lead to mass annihilation. (Imagine, for example, if President Kennedy had followed the advice of his generals and bombed Russian forces in Cuba during the 1962 Missile Crisis.)
President Donald Trump announces the selection of Gen. H.R. McMaster as his new National Security Adviser on Feb. 20, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)
The idea that some adviser might try to talk President Trump into a nuclear showdown would have seemed absurd until very recently. But escalating military tension between NATO and Russia has prompted some experts, like former Defense Secretary William Perry, to warn that the world is closer to a “nuclear catastrophe” than at any time during the Cold War. And Trump himself, who once called for greater cooperation with Russia, now declares that the United States needs to build up its nuclear arsenal to make it “top of the pack.”
Reflecting this harsh new environment, the Pentagon’s influential Defense Science Board in December advised the new administration to begin acquiring low-yielding nuclear weapons to give the United States more options for waging “limited” wars against other nuclear powers. The assumption behind such hotly contested advice is that enemies will back down, knowing the United States could fight and win an unlimited nuclear war with “acceptable” casualties.
Growing Risk of Accidental War
Second, perhaps even more worrisome, is the impact of U.S. first-strike capabilities on Russia’s nuclear planning. Faced with the possibility of only a few minutes’ warning of a devastating U.S. attack, Moscow will continue to keep its nuclear forces on hair-trigger alert, and even give local commanders the right to launch if communications with the Kremlin are lost. That policy gives rise to the chilling possibility of nuclear war triggered by an accidental alert — of which there have been several.
Russian President Vladimir Putin during a state visit to Austria on June 24, 2014. (Official Russian government photo)
“The new kill capability created by super-fuzing increases the tension and the risk that US or Russian nuclear forces will be used in response to early warning of an attack — even when an attack has not occurred,” the arms experts write. “The combination of . . . dangerously short warning times, high-readiness alert postures, and the increasing US strike capacity has created a deeply destabilizing and dangerous strategic nuclear situation.”
Indeed, as U.S. nuclear capabilities have quietly grown, Russia has shortened its time from warning to launch to just four minutes. “Today, top military command posts in the Moscow area can bypass the entire human chain of command and directly fire by remote control rockets in silos and on trucks as far away as Siberia in only 20 seconds,” reports Princeton University expert Bruce Blair. “This situation is a mistaken launch waiting to happen.”
Blair recently warned that President Trump’s apparent support for a new arms race “would be an alarming reversal of decades of nuclear weapons reductions that should scare everyone.”
And Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., was alarmed enough by growing talk in Washington of nuclear warfighting to publish an op-ed in the Washington Post last week, reminding readers, “There is no such thing as ‘limited use’ nuclear weapons, and for a Pentagon advisory board to promote their development is absolutely unacceptable.”
As she wisely noted, “When it comes to nuclear weapons, victory is not measured by who has the most warheads, but by how long we last before someone uses one.”
Jonathan Marshall is author of many recent articles on arms issues, including “Obama’s Unkept Promise on Nuclear War,” “Summing Up Russia’s Real Nuclear Fears,” “How World War III Could Start,” “NATO’s ProvocativeAnti-Russian Moves,” “Escalations in a New Cold War,” and “Ticking Closer to Midnight.”
It might finish us off quicker than global warming. :-(
What does .. “winning a first strike attack” .. on Russia mean ?
The U.S.A. sends a nuclear bomb over there & wipes Russia off the face of the earth.
And it’s over ?
No contest U.S.A. is the winner ?
The Pentagon had better aim the nuclear bomb correctly & directly so it hit’s it’s target .. & it’s gunna haveta be a woppa man ..straight into the middle of Russia.
Because, if only one of those Russian suckers is left with enough energy to wiggle one finger .. the U.S.A. will receive “in coming fire” & by golly .. both Russia & U.S.A. will be gonners.
To make a blaze comment like ..”winning first strike attack” .. one has not considered the safety of HOME SOIL.
nice ready we are for olympics and freight . from angela.
Military planning does not and cannot take account of all the contingencies, variables, muddles and unknowns in any given war situation. Even the most meticulously planned strategem will come adrift as it has generally been 1. untested, and 2. Did not have perfect information. Going back to my previous post. The fall of Singapore in 1941, was not expected to occur since the shore batteries would destroy and seaborne landing by the Japanese forces. What the planners didn’t cater for was the fact that the Japanese simply came down the Malay peninsula over the causeway to Singapore and the British had to surrender. Their big guns were pointed out to sea and so could not have any decisive impact on the battle. Another stroke of genius was the planning for the battle of the Somme 1916. British and French artillery pounded the German lines for a week before the British infantry advanced into no-man’s land. The were preceded by a creeping barrage so that anything or anyone in their path would be obliterated. Unfortunately, there was a timing muddle and the creeping barrage got too far ahead of the British infantry. The barrage ceased at about 300 yards from the German trenches. This gave the Germans time to emerge from their deep shelters, line up their machine guns, and whoosh a turkey shoot. British casualties on the first day were 60,000 with 20,000 dead.
Are we really expecting that a nuclear war is going to be any different? Only a complete and utter fool (or a neocon) would gainsay this. Starting from an underestimation of the enemies (Russian) capabilities and belief in the infallibility of the plan, which on paper may look foolproof, a stream of non-sequiturs is rolled out confirming the strategic conclusions already reached, and which are known a priori. Then empirical reality raises its ugly head – unexpected issues arise which had not been planned for – and hey-ho, the wheels fall of the whole enterprise. Winning a nuclear war is a preposterous pipe-dream and the senior war planners must know this. Unfortunately, the hotheads are now in the driving seat and believe that somehow that can pull-off this impossible project. It really is frightening that someone like John McCain and the rest of the war party has a considerable input into this lunacy
What we can predict with some certainty is massive collateral damage in the northern hemisphere, with tens if not hundreds of millions dead immediately and more to come as the effects of burns, starvation and radiation poisoning take their toll. Then the nuclear winter will set in and finish off the southern hemisphere. I hope Ms Maddow enjoys life in her fall-out shelter. I wonder when it will be safe to come out. Think of it this way. Pity the poor soul(s) trapped with this ignorant, arrogant, self-righteous individual for the remainder of their natural lives.
Note that earlier in 1916, before the the battle of the Somme, the German government had been trying to negotiate (through the Vatican) a ceasefire and further negotiations to end the war. Britain and France refused to negotiate.
It’s curious that when talking about the possibility of a US pre-emptive nuclear strike on Russia no one ever mentions the fact that the Russians have had a system in place for just such a possibility. Code named Perimeter, it’s unofficial name would become “Mertvaya Ruka”, or “dead hand” in English, simply because that’s exactly what it was. It was a major elextronic defense system that was designed to be able to launch a nuclear retaliatory attack in the event that Moscow and the Russian leadership were wiped out by a pre-emptive nuclear strike. The system is not a hoax and there is every indication that the Russians still have it or something like it in place. Follow the link below and see for yourself.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=/amp/s/www.wired.com/2009/09/mf-deadhand/amp/&ved=0ahUKEwje26eO2tTSAhVHNSYKHX1zAj4QFghTMBE&usg=AFQjCNEMXWqUVCRfzWWpy4m6TYweuAYtjQ&sig2=VB7LoSfFUMkRaWf3tn9Vvw
And what happens if some of those 272-odd first-strike US missiles get knocked out by Russia’s S-500 anti-missile system which is now being deployed throughout Russia? That means those Russian nukes that were targeted DON’T get destroyed – they get launched at the US which has no effective anti-missile system. Which means several tens, scores or hundreds of millions of US citizens reach 10,000 degrees in under a minute.
Not to mention Russia’s nuclear sub second-strike capability.
And does Kaliningrad’s citizens welcome the idea of the US nuking their country to prevent Russian nuclear cruise missiles being fired from there? Does Germany like the idea of Berlin being destroyed in such a case if one or more of the Russian cruise missiles manages to get off the ground first?
“Super-fuzes” don’t win wars. Relying on some fancy new technology doesn’t change the basic fact that Russia would counterattack in some way or form that would devastate much of the US homeland.
We need to put these Dr. Strangelove idiots back in their box.
I read once JFK ordered a study of Allied casualties, neighboring countries to USSR, and was shocked by it. Joint Chief’s were for strike, JFK remarked afterward, “How can these people be a part of the human race.”
Nobody was talking about nuclear war, whether deliberate or accidental, before Putin openly flouted international law by attacking Ukraine. Putin cannot justify his actions. The lawful president of Ukraine was alive and well and was under Russian protection. Nothing was stopping Putin from marching into Ukraine and re-establishing Yanukovych in his office. If he had done that, he would have been hailed as a hero of European democracy. By not doing so, he turned himself into a wildcard in the international system and will never again be trusted. There is no “hysteria” in that. It’s just the lesson of history. The Nazi archives show that if Hitler had been stood up to right from the start, he was prepared to back down. Every time he got away with something, it encouraged him to grab something else. I can’t imagine any circumstances in which a US nuclear first strike would be of assistance to Ukraine but would Russian soldiers obey an order to launch a first strike on the US, knowing full well that they might be bringing nuclear retalaition down on the heads of their own families? Don’t forget that this year we are marking the 100th anniversary of a mutiny of Russian soldiers who were unwilling to die for a corrupt and repressive regime. Would young Russians fight for Putin and, more importantly, the oligarchs/gangster bosses he fronts for? Would young Americans fight for a similar regime?
… before Putin openly flouted international law by attacking Ukraine.
A Quick History of United States political manipulation of foreign affairs by means of Color Revolutions
http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/03/18/why-the-color-revolutions-failed/
Partisan nitwit. Repeater of propaganda.
gov’t contracts and contractors
aren’t Federal Employees
but are paid By the federal gov’t. –
– there’s a Hole Lotta Subsidizing/
offthebooks subterfuge going on
the Last Empire Stakes Ground.
Absolute Global Rulers
effect Change of Affect
Conservatism of the Elect.
Foreign Policy in the Trump Administration
The product of interviews with more than 60 foreign policy experts, including former cabinet secretaries and nominees and advisors of the incoming administration, Foreign Policy in the Trump Administration assesses the outlook for a range of critical issues and relationships that will immediately challenge the US national security and foreign policy apparatus. Released just two weeks into the Trump presidency, the report looks at the personalities and policies that will shape the future role of the US in the world, as well as the biggest risks and opportunities in what is certain to be the greatest departure from traditional US foreign policy in recent history.
https://fpgroup.foreignpolicy.com/fpanalytics/
The US has 4018 nuclear warheads in underground bases all across America.
Our Federal Gov’t nuclear arsenal maintenance force pays good ‘middle class’ wages to do the job of transporting Nukes and nuclear cargo to and fro from military base to military base criss crossing the USA in a 24/7 continuum/cycle of MILITARY PREPAREDNESS.
Why?
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-nuclear-couriers-20170310-story.html
Obviously the ” elites” in Washington. London, Berlin, Paris, Tel Aviv,Turkey, and the rest think their underground bases and nukes are far superior to the Russian nukes and that they can be saved from any fallout – like the Aliens will come down and cleanse the world automatically. or because the Polar shift will leave most of us dead but the Elite will come out victorious and be the NWO – regardless that that will be – No one to govern or use as slaves.
Funny how Feinstein all of a sudden is concerned about the Pentagon’s nuclear war fighting plans. It was Trump who talked of normalizing relations with Russia, remember? It was Obama who approved of a trillion dollar nuclear weapons upgrade, remember? It was Hillary overthrowing democratically elected governments in Ukraine, remember? And calling Putin “the new Hitler”? And warning Russia we were ready to go to war with them? And the Left all over the place warning about Russia’s “evil intentions”? And condemning the Russians for attacking ISIS terrorists in Syria? And bringing back McCarthyism? And claiming Trump was in cahoots with those pesky Russkies to betray America? And it was Trump who claimed it was better to get along with Russia rather than fight a world war? And the war in Iraq was a mistake? The Left sets up a world war & wants to blame Trump! And why is Trump now going along with it?
FTI
http://thehill.com/homenews/media/323643-cnn-to-air-putin-documentary-the-most-powerful-man-in-the-world
CNN to air Putin documentary: ‘The Most Powerful Man in the World’
BY JOE CONCHA – 03/13/17
CNN will air a documentary Monday night about Russian President Vladimir Putin titled “The Most Powerful Man in the World.”
“What is the true nature of the relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin — and, what are the implications of their relationship for America and the world?” asks a CNN press release promoting the Fareed Zakaria special, which will air at 9 p.m.
Zakaria also “gets answers to the many questions that surround the extraordinary conclusion reached by American intelligence: that Putin likely approved the hacking of the U.S. election,” according to the release.
Zakaria has been one of Trump’s most outspoken critics on CNN, once calling the president a “bulls–t” artist” on live television.
“It’s sort of amusing to watch — how’s he going to pull it off this time? What is he going to argue? Usually he adds that the press hates him. But there’s a term for this kind of thing. This is the mode of a bullshit artist,” Zakaria said in August.
The special will also feature Julia Ioffe of the Atlantic, David Remnick of The New Yorker, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
LOAD COMMENTS (93)
Don’t allow stupid partisan politics to color your views. If some military commander goes off his nut, or the current president, whoever it is at any point in time, gets talked into using nukes on any scale, it doesn’t matter if he or she has a D or an R next to their name.
The difference between “Left” and “Right” in US politics is miniscule. “Not a dime’s worth of difference”, to quote George Wallace. Partisanship is like support for a sports team — a waste of time.
A politician should never listen to advice from a general.
There is a dearth of people in Washington whose advice should be listened to.
LBJ asked the advice of many people (even Macarthur) before his Viet Nam buildup/invasion/whatever. They all told “Don’t do it; you can’t win a land war in Asia!” He did it anyway, with well-known results. Maybe he thought positive thinking would make him lucky!
I have a advice for NATO and USA.Oh I forget that USA is a member of NATO.Don’t fight with Russia.If you will try to fight with Russia so if you will be completely destroy by RS-28 Sarmat(Satan-2).It’s ready to join the Russian military.This missile is made by Russia at 1000 of numbers.
Mathematical solution:-
1 SATAN-2=Completely destroyed France or US state Texas.
So,
10 SATAN-2=Completely destroyed NATO including USA.
So don’t fight with Russia,just follow the orders of Russia,it will be good for the world.
Also Russia’s have many secret weapons,which are more powerful than SATAN-2 or TSAR BOMBA.
So be careful.
Do you channel Rasputin???
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Rasputin
If military history has one lesson, it’s don’t fight with Russia.
Assuming these claims of superiority are true, they are still only about winning a battle, not a war. For a few weeks in the summer of 1941 it looked like Germany would defeat the USSR but it didn’t turn out that way in the end. The invasion of Iraq went according to plan the not what came after.
Who will sign the instrument of surrender in the devastated Russia? Who will take control of the largest country on earth? Who will find all the loose nukes?
This war might start well but won’t end well.
The 3/1/17 print issue of the Washington Spectator published an article by Scott Ritter; “The Russians Have Won the Arms Race,” which reports on Russia’s test of a “ballistic missile carrying a payload known as “Object 4202.”
Ritter describes Object 4202 as “a new kind of weapon, a hypersonic warhead capable of speeds 15 times the speed of sound and capable of evading any anti-missile system the United States has today, or may develop and deploy for decades to come.”
“You people do not feel the impending danger.”
This is well worth listening to: Putin’s frustrations expressed to a group of journalists at the St. Petersburg International Forum in 2016:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqD8lIdIMRo
Insane dreams are what the military intelligence complex is building on….truly, the group that runs the US is crazed with the power and money they would derive from leveling Russia AND the US…Just look at what Congress (on behalf of billionaires) is doing to cut social, education and infrastructure spending…bringing the US down to a 3rd world country made up of dumbed down people. A nuclear war coupled with ignorance and incapabilities will take out (at least what is predicted) 75% of the population, a de-population plan that is being planned and carried out on a daily basis….who remains will be the slaves and the billionaires..what a magnificent plan they have for themselves!
On Russia protecting their own: they do have the capabilities to bring down the US as well as any other country who joins it in a war against their country. The power blinded, war crazed people in the US who are controling this war plan will easily get the president to their side…they are very very convincing….just remember what happened to JFK when he didn’t go along with them!
War that so stupid for what to find out who has the most balls and who is going to started it and the only ones who really are going to fill everything humanity while 2 country battle it out others will what have start the end of everything we need to settle this in peace not war only our sons and daughters will be faced with nuclear holocaust a dead winter that never ends we need to put aside all this tension and make peace !
I am glad Lee Francis pointed out about nuclear winter. When this was first proposed, the exchange of only a few warheads would wipe out most of the human species because the debris would block out the sun and huge numbers of people would starve as the crops die. Even if it “won” America would be destroyed. Wouldn’t the radiation circle the globe and fall on everywhere, including the USA?
Only utter madmen think a nuclear war would be won.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists scenario wouldn’t have caused as much Nuclear Winter as was described in the 1983 Science article, for the majority of the targets are the the deep missile silos and dust would be the main issue. It’s when cities and forests are set afire that you get a lot of carbon particles as well.
www*atmos.washington.edu/~ackerman/Articles/Turco_Nuclear_Winter_83.pdf
Of course these things are relative, and to the many millions around the world who starved to death from crop failure it would probably be a very fine distinction. Though the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora probably threw less dust into the atmosphere than would a US sneak attack, the world-wide suffering was still immense.
In my early posts I didn’t mention the destruction of Electrical Systems in Europe and the US. The Authorities keep a very tight lid on public knowledge of the effects of modern ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) weapons, so speaking of them is guesswork. My guess is that there would be no electricity in the US or Europe for many years. No water except for what you scoop out of the creek with a bucket, no refrigeration, and at least in the early days, no transport of food from the warehouses to the grocery stores. That latter aspect would -by itself – probably kill tens of millions of people here.
Finally there is biowar. I’m fairly sure that nobody in the US younger than 45 years of age has had a smallpox vaccination. What reluctance would a backstabbed nation have to releasing this on the country which had just destroyed it? Recall during the ebola episode how the Russians spoke of allowing the use of their vaccine. IMO that was more of a reminder they had extensively studied this disease than anything else.
The main problem with developing all of these offensive weapons is that a genuine nut might get control of them. Say, somebody who decides to force God to get off the pot and start the Second Coming. IMO these are the same types trying to arrange matters in the Mideast to start Armageddon. Their slavish devotion to Israel is for other reasons than any love of Israel or Jews. They want those End Times, and they want them NOW.
One final concern: the US Air Force seems to be the service most infested with devout Christianists. Putting together both motives and means could be a real problem for the rest of us.
“start the Second Coming”
Wasn’t that Bush II’s goal in his Iraq War?
This is a calm discussion of doing something much worse than the Holocaust. It is the killing by choice of tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, almost all total innocents, with death continuing to stalk the planet long after in radiation and chaos.
Besides the fundamental evil, it can’t work out well.
Even if the US “won” it would lose. Even if not one missile flew back at the US, the US would be horribly damaged, along with the rest of the world including severe damage to its own allies.
The resulting collapse of government over huge spaces would produce worldwide chaos.
The resulting radiation from US strike spreading around the world would produce worldwide chaos.
The resulting blowback from such harms and from the mass murder of a nuclear war of choice would collapse the US political system, if not immediately then soon. Deservedly so.
Then again, they might miss a few missiles, and we’d get blasted back to something like Germany or Japan after WW2. It would not take many to do it.
It’s just a matter of time before the missiles fly and our human species comes to an end. Much better to put all the nukes under the control of the UN. That way we at least would have a chance.
Relax. Don’t worry. Be happy.
My college roommate used to say, “Say “Whee!” in the face of death.”
Whee!
Finally jimbo someone gives us all some good advice.
I think that it was Herman von Moltke (the elder) who once said:
‘’No plans of operations extend with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main enemy force.’’
This truism has a long history of serial hare-brained military theories which have come to grief in the heat of battle, based upon deeply flawed stratagems and underestimation of the enemy’s capabilities. The Battle of the Somme (1916), The Maginot Line (1939) the Fall of Singapore (1941), Operation Barbarossa (1941). To quote Hitler on Barbarossa. ‘We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.’ Bit wide of the mark perhaps.
A winnable thermonuclear war is yet another addition to this hubristic military idiocy. William J Perry United States Secretary of Defence from February 3, 1994, to January 23, 1997, under President Bill Clinton writes:
‘’To be effective against an ICBM attack a defensive system exact attrition rates well in excess of 90% – the first time! No historical data supports the contentions that such attrition rates could be achieved in any defensive system in real combat situations….
When I think of the forlorn idea of defence against a nuclear attack I am tempted to think that the notion especially typifies Einstein’s grim and painfully realistic observation that ‘the unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our modes of thinking’. It certainly has been normal in history to think of fashioning defences against evolving military threats. But nuclear weapons unleashed in large scale attacks, bring a sure destruction, one so massive as to rule out any successful defence. Defence-in-conflict, a traditional mode of thinking is no longer plausible. In a nuclear war, the long-standing norm of reliance on defence has become a self-deception, a most human and understandable one, and one that is rooted in the aversion of the new reality.’’
Russia and the US have both approx. 1700-1800 each. Russia’s latest addition to its nuclear strike force is the RS-28 Sarmat, also known as Satan 2, a MIRV-equipped, super-heavy thermonuclear armed intercontinental ballistic missile in development by the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau] from 2009, intended to replace the previous R-36 missile. Its large payload would allow for up to 10 heavy warheads or 15 lighter ones or up to 24 hypersonic glide vehicles Yu-71, or a combination of warheads and massive amounts of countermeasures designed to defeat anti-missile systems; it was heralded by the Russian military as a response to the U.S. Prompt Global Strike. Do the American strategists really imagine that they are going to eliminate in its entirety the whole Russian nuclear arsenal like sitting ducks in their silos? That takes self-deception and stupidity to a whole new level. Imagine, for example, what would be the result of a Satan 2 ICBM penetrating US air space and landing slap bang on Yellowstone Park and/or the San Andreas Faultline?
This more broadly broaches of the not insignificant matter of a nuclear winter and global warming which would be vastly accelerated. It would be a fair guess to say that a nuclear war would result in an Extinction Level Event beginning in the northern hemisphere and then spreading inexorably to the southern hemisphere. Think Neville Shute and his dystopian novel – ‘’On the Beach.’’ How did in the name of Jesus did we ever get to this place?!
Thank you Lee Francis, beautifully done…
we are in the third known great extinction presently.
The Pentagone and the Military Industrial Complex have always believed in America’ First Strick Capability, not taking into account than several Russian nuclear submarine with for every one 16 missiles having 10 warheads each are hided deep in both oceans surrounding America. This will make sure than not a single idiot US decider will see the result of its Attack. The whole planetary military show is only made for the benefit of the creeps making fortune in that armaments’ industry…
When you get someone as bright as Stephen Hawking warning us we should fear aliens http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/25/stephen-hawking-aliens_n_551035.html we might as well all put our hands up and surrender.
The idea we should worry about imaginary aliens that might not exist instead of very real threats coming from Earthlings that definitely do exist is a new kind of madness only a genius could think up. To put it quite literally: what on earth have we got that aliens might want? As far as I can see, not too much, unless we taste very nice.
As this article demonstrates very clearly, we’re making a fine enough job of destroying ourselves for any alien to go to all the bother of travelling countless light years across the universe to do it. Nuclear weapons are just a way of speeding up a process our great leaders set in motion decades ago. Hail the great leader!
I think I might’ve strayed a bit off topic there.
It’s only a matter of time before China will impose an embargo on all shipping plying the SCS, where about $5T of Trade & Oil passes from the Indian Ocean via the Melecca Strait. China is willing to go to war on this; will the US backdown?
It is NOT China who is willing to go to war but the USA. China DOES NOT ATTACK and even DOES NOT THREATEN USS, but it is USA who threaten China and gradually increases these thteats.
Sounds pretty unlikely.What would it profit the PRC in real life to shut down the South China Sea?
I would prefer to test that ” Limited Nuclear Strike ” on North Korea. Then we’ll know if it works as planned. One more provocation by KIM, & He’ll get it.
To attack NK means to attack China and Russia as well. And, who is the aggressor of the two? NK with its very limited LOCAL capabilities – or the USA who is going to stage NUCLEAR ATTACK against this small and weak country?
Extraordinary that nuclear war is still being contemplated! What purpose does it serve? Military superiority? Again, for what purpose? Enemity for what reason? Saving civilization – or destroying it? The superpower paradigm has no relavance to the outside world other than to remind that the trumpet is to sound heralding the end of time. Madness. Sheer Madness!
miltary profits, poulation control and reduction
No matter the scare of man’s. Weak mind to initiate a total response !
The end itself is going to intiated by the power or hand of God ! He let the two headed beast live thru ww2 and. For his purpose. So if they. , Govts launch death on the earth
God will step in
You guys do know that Russia has nuclear armed submarines too.A lot of them quite actually lol?
I’m sorry, but I don’t buy any of this except for the concern that we’re pushing Russia to a “hair-trigger” or fire-on-warning status.
Suppose those authors at Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have done their homework and have got it right – the new super-fuse would enable a flawless attack and would take out virtually all of Russia’s land-based ICBMs and also their parked-in-port missile subs. Presumably swarms of US attack submarines would account for most or all of the Russian submarines on patrol. My question is this: assuming that 2% of their missiles survived the sneak attack, would any sane US planner undertake this? The US would still lose a dozen of our cities as well as the communities downwind in the fallout trail from those bursts. The deaths in the US alone would be in the range of 40 million. But what about Europe and Asia? Those silo-busters are all ground bursts, which maximizes the radioactive fallout. Japan, China, and Europe would probably have a death count not a lot smaller than that of the US, and for the next several hundred years or so those deaths would continue.
There are of course other wild-cards. Sneaky things can be done by weaker opponents. There is nothing at all “bizarre” about a 50 megaton weapon causing tidal waves from Maine to Florida. No need at all to waste any of the surviving warheads on the US east coast… Russia has invested a lot of money in missile defense. They might use the S-400 and S-500 weapons to try to increase the number of surviving silos with a resolute defense of a few of them. Speaking of XX megaton weapons, only a few nations have super-volcanoes within their borders. What do you suppose that 1961 Tsar Bomba would do to Yellowstone? A dying Russia might decide the question deserved an answer. Finally there was the pompous blather by Dianne Feinstein. Was there ever a “Defense” Appropriation that warmongering ***** resisted?
It’s my opinion this new nuclear surge is just another of the many ways to make sure truckloads of money continue to pour into Big Weapons. That process means the politicians continue to get lots of Political Contributions from those companies, and the Big Brass can hope for more stars on their shoulders as well as very comfortable retirement jobs if they did as they were told during their active years.
I’ll admit these opinions of mine reflect the belief that the Power Elites aren’t suicidally insane. If that’s the case, there might be a problem after all.
A sane person, no, a Neocon, Exceptionalist, who is safely ensconced in a deluxe govt built bunker with all of the trimmings who thinks they are ending the Russian menace once and for all, maybe to yes.
In your scenario, I don’t think that the devastation would be quite as bad regarding Europe. The high yield blast used for nuclear bombs has a very short half life, so yes, it would be bad, but I don’t think the fall out deaths would top 10M or even 1M and it would take decades to develop a higher cancer rate. As for the U.S., you have that about right. Hey, what’s losing 10% of our population if we rid ourselves of those pesky Russians :-).
And what of China? Yes, they have a small nuclear arsenal (estimated at around 250), but 250 nukes can still do a lot of damage. And what of Trump pushing China and Russia into an alliance?
Man, the inmates have taken over the asylum. If anyone thinks that a nuclear war is winnable, that should be grounds for impeachment due to gross incompetence and outright insanity. Follow that up with heavy-duty meds and a one-way trip to St. Elizabeth’s.
I had the same idea. If the new US Wonder Nukes are so marvelous, China could be disarmed as a casual afterthought. Yet zero mention of that possibility. All I’m hearing anymore is Russia-Russia-Russia. I wonder why the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists authors seem to be OK with that.
Actually it’s more likely as 400 now. As to alliance between China and Russia, it is already in place although without formal pact. Its main article – to defend each other against USA (and the other NATO states, especially France and UK with their small and antiquated but still nuclear arsenal). This informal CORDIAL ENTENTE is already working and in full swing. Its result is demonstrated through inability of USA to drive China out of contested isles in South China Sea.
It’s hard to say which came first – China’s construction of military isles, or Obama’s “pivot to Asia.” And, of course, Obama didn’t make this pivot up on his own. He paid attention to his generals and the intel.
A nudge begets a push begets a shove begets an alliance begets… Thing is, this stuff has gone on for millennia. More often than not, the ones with cool heads survived. We are not operating with cool heads now.
this predates trump, O supported first strike option and trillion dollar new generation nuke program, and it predates O. IF one focuses on Trump , one is the blind maan and the elephant, perhaps holding the trunk.
When Lee Harvey Oswald “defected” to the Soviet Union, he arrived at his last destination before crossing the border by airplane. It was a day when there were no commercial flights between his departure and his destination. He went to the U.S. Embassy and announced that he intended to renounce his citizenship and provide the U.S.S.R. with classified information. The Russians gave him a job in a radio factory. His apartment was bugged. Factories in the U.S.S.R. had “political officers” monitoring the activities of their employees. Every word Oswald ever spoke, even in his sleep, was recorded and analyzed. Oswald married a woman whose family was connected to the intelligence apparatus. By the end of his sojourn, the Russians knew more about him than he knew about himself. When he left, the U.S. State Department lent him cash for expenses. Returning to the U.S. at the height of the “cold war”, he was not investigated, interrogated, detained or debriefed. He was befriended by a personal acquaintance of George H.W. Bush. He worked as a paid informant for multiple U.S. intelligence agencies. His wife was befriended by a woman related to the Forbes family, the owners of the same Forbes estate where Svetlana Stalin was given sanctuary when she defected to the U.S.
These “facts” have been thoroughly documented. When it was announced that Oswald was the “lone nut” assassin, the Russians knew exactly what had happened. Having studied Oswald scrupulously for two years, they recognized that he would have been an incompetent assassin. He was obviously a patsy. In the world of intelligence, there is no “political correctness”. The stakes are too high to pretend someone is “special” when they are actually “retarded”. There is no self-delusion, lack of certainty or charitable benefit of the doubt. There are no “theories”. When sufficient facts point to a verdict, right or wrong, that verdict becomes the operational reality.
The Russians are completely aware of the true nature of every “State Crime Against Democracy” committed by the U.S. “deep state” for the last fifty four years…even the “unmentionable” ones. The U.S. propaganda machine portrays nuclear brinksmanship as “self defense”. The Russians see it as a “hostage situation”. They see a crazed, irrational criminal nation at the end of a long crime spree – cornered at the end of its fugitive reign – out of money and out of options other than a nuclear arsenal, bumbling criminal accomplice nations and millions of hostages.
If you were Russia, how would you handle this hostage situation? Think fast, y’all, time’s a wastin’. And those Russian submarines? A few will always escape detection. One is enough to obliterate every major city on the East Coast.
Hey F.G. Watch out, with talk like that you’ll scare the children….
Seriously I sometimes wonder if the Russians wouldn’t be the more sensible and compassionate ones. Consider the U.S. is the global invader. Russia on the other hand is the defensive nation, and Russia’s long history proves this out. Then there are Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, and Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov, who actually prevented an all out nuclear war. Thank God for patience, and verification.
The two nations I fear the most having nuclear capabilities is the U.S. (Under a irrational leader) and Israel (under an even more irrational leader). Let’s all hope Iran isn’t the next Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and pray there isn’t another U.S. President who is a Harry Truman.
And thanks for furthering my education on the JFK assassination.
Forget first strick..everybody is out then…like two kids standing in a bathtub full of gas each holdng a match and daring to strike first.both loose…a bunch of idiots
Ahhh….. I’m just thinking today about the Father of the neocons… the lowlife Paul Wolfowitz…..Remember the Wolfowitz doctrine….you probably don’t because that requires too much thinking….lol…but anyway the GREAT USA has been under the influence of this scorched earth policy since Bill Clinton…..HELLO….What’s ole Paul doing these days ……along with his underlings Big Dick Cheney…Victoria Nuland….the honorable Robert Kegan…..Who did I leave out….oh okay….the great Donald Rumsfeld…..And many more…..hello CIA…..Hello FBI…..Please don’t have me display my typing skills…..
scorched earth, native genocide , ww2 firebombing and atomic, vietnam napalm.
I believe we need a citizens-directed False Flag Watch Unit. It could become the FFW for short, and regularly featured like the weather forecast. Breaking through our current spell of stupidity is our greatest challenge. If our system is truly “broken,” as is common talk, we as citizens need parallel government forces that really are devoted to citizens, and not just US citizens. Today in zero hedge you can find an article “The conflict within the Deep State just broke into open warfare.” This comes on the heels of the latest wikileaks. The article also strengthens recent speculation on threads within this site that the DNC leak was a false flag. We now know numerous false flags historically have become a secret weapon of the State. Could a false flag on the order of 9/11 be contrived? (Do not harass me on how I’ve stated this; I don’t want my comment deleted.) How easy it is to use the false flag is currently being demonstrated to us with the Russians are coming demonizing and turning the nation into bobble heads saying Amen with Rachel Maddow. It’s a good area to investigate. How much of the government has gone really rotten? Are there still good people in the agencies, in the military? I do think there are. They may be our only hope–the lingering Edward Snowdens and Chelsea Mannings.
I also want to mention what to me is one of the most inspiring moments of history. My background for this is watching Ferdinand Marcos’s troops take over Olongapo, turning this carnival-like town into crowds shuffling obediently down the sidewalks, everything closed down, armed troops on the corners, prodding you on and not smiling. Then, despite
Reagan’s loving support, Ferdinand himself had to step down and be whisked away to die in Hawaii. Why? The military said NO to him. He was done.
There is no doubt that mad-men past and present rule over us. Their bloodlust is insatiable. They have destroyed the Middle East with all their “planned wars.” Now they are determined to frolic with nuclear war. Their insane “war plans” will lead us to extinction. Will nobody arrest these war criminals?
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2016/10/the-evidence-of-planning-of-wars.html
Presumably, while our Dr. Strangeloves were developing these Frankenstein-like weapons of total destruction the Russian armaments people were sitting in the staff lounge gulping vodka and downing some caviar. Let’s not forget the Russians were the first to put a man in space.
If our mad scientists and military leaders (who haven’t won any wars since WW2 other than Panama, Grenada and the turkey shoot along the Kuwait border) do prove to be right with their proposed devastation of Russia that will surely be the ultimate Pyrrhic Victory.
i understand the usa uses russian rocket engines and the russian a newer generation.
Does this leave any doubt that our “leaders” are dangerously insane?? With so many fatal tipping points staring us in the face, can we still pretend that business as usual will just go on and on? We are sitting on a time bomb that can go off at any minute of any Day or night. Does anyone still have an ounce of respect for the idiots that have brought us all to this pass?
I was a member of a group called Mobilization for Survival in the 1980s re the Star Wars program, and we have to organize again. I have read that Oppenheimer met with Truman and was quite alarmed when Truman glibly talked of using the atom bomb, and he did use it, to show the Soviets what the US could do and Japanese paid the price! Oppenheimer came to regret his role in the Manhattan Project. The level of divorce from reality is definitely psychopathy now. The invasion of Iraq and subsequent regime change wars have blunted all sense of reality! Civilian deaths from targeted drone attacks are in military parlance “bug splat”. We are living in the Evil Empire!
Oppenheimer knew from the beginning he was working on a project, which if successful, would produce an explosive equal to thousands of tons of TNT. During June of 1945 he and three others were on the Scientific Panel of the Interim Committee, and here is their 1-page report.
Nobody at the time, and so far as I know, nobody since then has thought of a plausible non-violent way to “show off” the new weapon which would have worked.
Concluding, the author you read was either uninformed or dishonest.
The real ‘tell’ will be if the U.S. withdraws from Start 2, we would only do that if we thought …
1. We could achieve nuclear primacy, or 2. we could bankrupt Russia in an arms race, well actually this would achieve 1.
We are delusional if we think we can do this. I read that the blast/heat radius of a 1MT bomb is 10 miles, so that’s a total diameter of 20 miles of 2nd degree burns and all of our warheads are smaller than that. The Russians are deploying 10 railroad missile cars (30 so that means 10 will be on the rails). If you look at their vast rail network, the distance between cities, and the number of normal railcars, this means that we would have to come within 15-20 miles of each one. Even if we used satellites to only cover railroad tracks with boxcars on it, we would have to budget close to 1,000 warheads just to chase down these 10 boxcars where each one has 10 warheads. This would blow our Start 2 budget.
The virtually unlimited spending by the Pentagon has created so many deadly systems available to military commanders that they are spoiled for choice and this capability causes intense pressure by those same commanders to use these new toys. This affects the advice they give to civilians and thus, seems to increase the probability of conflict. Lyndon Johnson was no doubt influenced by the new capabilities that Air Power gave Army generals to deploy troops rapidly by helicopter and make the guerilla war appear winnable by conventional means. This turned out to be patently false and the lesson seems to be getting relearned in the Middle East, where notwithstanding our overwhelming advantage in firepower and air forces we have been forced into another stalemate by a relatively lightly armed and untrained enemy. The wizards of war keep coming up with new names and strategies but the results remain the same, 3 trillion dollars and thousands of lives lost later we are no closer to winning there than in Vietnam. Nuclear war is not winnable by any civilized standards and the collateral damage could equal the destruction of the targeted areas. We have lost control of our Defense Department and Armed Forces spending because of Congress and greed. It is going to lead us into a war where we lose a lot more than 3000 people, no matter how many of them we kill. It is not a win when your civilization no longer exists as it did before the conflict, which ours will not if the missiles are fired. It only takes one missile to inflict millions of casualties and trillions in damage. Cooler heads need to prevail.
It is also not a “victory” for your civilisation when it slaughters wholesale an entire other civilisation by an unprovoked stealth attack, which is what is being described here–something they don’t see coming and therefore cannot defend against. It is a monstrous sin, whether there is a God that sits in judgement or not, and whether the attacking nation itself survives or even profits by seizing the resources of its victim.
Yes, amazing destructive technologies have been created by the United States in the past couple of decades, since the Cold War supposedly ended following the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the collapse of its economy, a time when there should have been a “peace dividend” rather than a rush to create a doomsday machine. The cost of building that monstrosity was only the gutting of the American economy, the pauperisation of the American middle and working classes, the atrophication of the American infrastructure, the neglect of American education, the transmogrification of the American healthcare system from nonprofit to obscene profits, the militarization of the domestic police force even as street crime and gun violence was allowed to metastasize, and the general coarsening of society abetted by a no-holds-barred winner-take-all political and media circus that ignores the real needs of society while attending to only those in the top fraction of the 1%.
Those are all already very real casualties of these products from Hell that America has blown its precious resources on, all in the hopes of some day stealing Russia’s resources. Why else would we want to gratuitously kill all of its people in a nuclear conflagration? And, I guarantee you, if we do such a heinous thing, only the pigs in the top echelons of American society will steal away with all the booty. There won’t be a single additional school book purchased with the ill-gotten goods, to say nothing of the fact that the pan-global radioactive dust cloud will kill us all too in the ensuing nuclear winter.
What I see speculated upon in this article is pure evil by leaders of what can only be the evil government of an evil society. These plans make the imperial Romans, who only burned or slaughtered a few Christians and barbarians in the Coliseum, seem like Little Sisters of the Poor in comparison. Attila the Hun had more humane compassion.
Realist you are right. If there is nothing left, then what have you conquered? At least Attila would have had farmland and cities to thrive in.
If the aliens did have an explorer space craft survey our planet, they would past it up, because nobody could live there. In fact could it be possible we here on earth have, or soon will find a destroyed planet by their occupants, and believe no one had ever inhabited it? To bad we humans don’t take all of our genius energy and apply it to doing such things as would be necessary that we could all survive and live in peace…but there again our American minds think profit, and only profit, and as your grandmother may have told you ‘money is the root of all evil’.
I see N Korea and Iran as being possibly the new Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of our time. I also don’t expect that Russia, China, and the U.S. would draw down on each other right away. The news coverage would be like none other, and the world would be scrambling in righteous fear. Russia would be threatening to blow up Poland, and China would have Japan in her crosshairs. Finally Israel might get to test out that Iron Dome thing of theirs, and if it fails then all holy hell will break loose.
No, it is long overdue to tear down these silos Mr Trump, so get busy talking and negotiating away out of this mess. Blessed are the peacemakers Mr Pence, so do what Jesus says, and quit listening to your cracker end time preachers. Listen to John Lennon, and give peace a chance.
Realist:
Right on the money!
People today forget to give credit and thanks to the Kennedy brothers, if only for NOT starting a nuclear war in 1962. I can’t imagine what Nixon would have done in a Cuban Missile Crisis, but I have no doubt he would have taken the military’s advice to bomb Cuba and dare the Russians to do anything about it. And that the Soviets would have at the very least seized Berlin. And after that — bombs away.
Actually JFK’s response was hawkish and militaristic and naturally would have led to war except a Russian officer, Vasili Arkhipov, refused to follow the protocols of war and stopped the escalation.
JFK enacted a military blockade with orders to shoot any Russian ship that didn’t obey the USA orders. A Russian diesel submarine was too deep to receive orders and when the USA started dropping non-lethal depth charges, it seemed to those in the submarine that they were being attacked with lethal depth charges and war had begun. The protocol was to fire a nuclear weapon at the USA aircraft carrier. The captain of the submarine and the political office both agreed to follow protocol. But Arkhipov, who was second in command of the sub but commander of the entire fleet of four subs, was the third person who had to turn the key and he refused. He insisted they surface instead and receive orders from Moscow. Here’s an in depth article about this: How One Man Held Off Nuclear War: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/23/how-one-man-held-off-nuclear-war/
Russia did not start the problem. Missiles in Cuba was a response to USA missiles in Turkey.
In the end it was both JFK and Krushchev who did a mutual backing down and had to do it through unofficial channels.
A year later JFK was shot. A year and a half later Krushchev was given forcible early retirement.
Miranda, thank you for telling my favorite story of, later, Admiral Arkhipov. Three extra points regarding this story:
1) the whole incident happened in the international waters, the US blockade of Cuba was utterly illegal, what to say about dropping depth charges on a Soviet nuclear missile armed submarine?
2) Arhkipov was a legend in the Russian navy due to his brave actions in recovering a Russian nuclear powered submarine off the coast of Greenland; this is how he could overrule the two other commanders who were authorised to make a decision; it was Arkhipov’s informal personal authority which won.
3) Surfacing a submarine is surrendering, although the US Navy did not board the surfaced submarine then let it return back to SU – but it could not proceed on its mission to Cuba.
Do you not see that incidents such as this convinced the US military that they may have a chance to convince the Russian and Chinese submarine commanders to surrender instead of launching – it appears that they drew a completely opposite lesson from this incident then you and I. For the US military, his was a show of weakness, not a show of sense.
So very true, Kiza. I think you show an example of how ‘ordinary people’ tend to project their own reasonableness and common sense onto those who are unfortunately possessed of, if not a psychopathological condition, then a purely ‘military’ perspective. People of that mindset are incapable of interpreting an action like Arkhipov’s as anything but a key indicator of weakness, susceptibility, or aggressive capability. Never as the saving act of grace it was.
Kiza:
Excellent comment!
One modern nuclear missile armed submarine, especially if the missiles are MIRV, could kill up to 100M people. Launching the missiles is an extremely difficult decision for a normal person, be it a First Strike or a Retaliatory Strike. What it all boils down to is that US tends to assume – our psychopaths are better than your psychopaths.
Do not think of Arhipov, just think for a moment about the US moron who was dropping depth charges on a Soviet nuclear missile armed submarine in 1962!? He would rather cause a global apocalypse then refuse an insane order – that is US military.
Lol they already had Berlin :/
They already had Berlin :/ lol
All I can say is that any country that brazenly initiates a nuclear exchange in this fashion is an international pariah that should be opposed by every other civilized nation — assuming civilization could survive a full-blown nuclear exchange, which any total war between the US and Russia would cause. These scenarios fill me with dismay, and should be subject to more public discussion and exposure. I’m ashamed that American policymakers would ever consider such a vile step. And Americans like to think of the Russians as the Evil Empire!
Russia AND CHINA. SIMULTANEOUSLY ;-] Is Russia – or China – evil or not IS IMMATERIAL. WHAT IS MATERIAL – just TWO factors:
1) Is any of these two going to strike USA first?
2) Do they possess the ability AT LEAST JOINTLY to inflict PROHIBITIVE damage to the USA? Damage INCOMPATIBLE WITH LIFE?
On the FIRST question we must reply NEGATIVELY.
On the SECOND question we must reply AFFIRMATIVELY.
Therefore, under such sircumstances IT IS CRAZY EVEN TO DISCUSS ANY PREVENTIVE (PREEMPTIVE) strike against Russia and/or China.
The missile maniacs are in positions of power, and are in control. They need to be put in restraints, preferably in mental institutions. Their war agendas will destroy us all.
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/02/will-war-agenda-of-war-criminals-result.html
Atomic madness is incompatible with all biodiversity
Military intelligence is an oxymoron. Always was, always will be. Military solutions are problems. Time we stopped the adulation of our military “heroes.” We need peace heroes.
To understand the minds of the plutocrats who control the strings of elected officials, one must understand what they value. They value their life style (Born Rich, a title produced by the heir to johnson & johnson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fS-4aQNNaw), and it takes power to maintain it. Power over the coin used by the globe is what can afford such wealth and luxury. That coin has no value but the state’s power to make it so (the U.S. dollar). If the U.S. dollar loses it’s position as global reserve currency, the owner’s of the coin, are owner’s of fancy funny money. One way to maintain the dollar’s power, is to remove the competition.
If the competition cannot be removed through covert subversion, than overt war will have to do. The powerful captains of finance and industry who sit members of the Counsel on Foreign Relations will never allow detente with Russia. China is too powerful in terms of global currency, but without Russia, it can never supplant the U.S. dollar.
The plutocrats at the top, prefer to burn the earth, than go broke.
Scorched Planet Policy….
This is a highly astute, right-on comment. I’d like to recommend an essay in Counterpunch, appearing today, which echoes the same theme as Common Tater: it’s titled “The deep state and the dark arts,” easy to find.
Fine article D5-5. Here is the link…
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/10/the-deep-state-and-the-dark-arts/
D5-5
Thanks for pointing out the article, it was a good read.
‘Although U.S. war planners would still be challenged to target warheads on Russia’s submarines …’
Challenged? It’s next to impossible. I don’t think we want to gloss over that. The Russians are also arming the subs with MIRV’s with that use hypersonic gliders .. just in case anyone thinks a missile defense is going to work.
It’s madness.
And, not to put to fine a point on it … why would we want to kill all the people in Russia anyway?
…why would we want to kill all the people in Russia anyway?
Probably some reason similar to what prompted the Nazis to want to wipe out all the Jews.
money, queen isabel drove the jews out to finance mercenaries to drive the moors out.
Or eliminating the American Indians.
Russia has 12 strategic nuclear submarines. Since the 1950’s each has been trailed by a NATO attack submarine ready to sink it immediately upon hearing its hatches open for a launch. Look into how many mysterious ‘accidents” they have had and the operational tempo of their fleet. The only survivable nuclear warheads Russia has are on mobile launchers.
http://russianforces.org/navy/
This is simply not true. It is true that US has been trying to track Soviet, Russian and Chinese nuclear missile submarines using:
1) gravitational sensors on satellites,
2) underwater arrays of mainly passive sensors.
Once a submarine is discovered it can be shadowed by attack submarines. But this has always been a cat & mouse game which Jerry often wins. Let us assume that Russia has eight out of twelve nuclear missile submarines on duty at any given time. It is extremely unlikely that more than four of five of those are successfully trailed by US attack submarines. Furthermore, why do you assume that the Russian submarines do not have defences against the US attack submarines?
You read like a typical brainwashed military person, convinced of own military superiority until the shooting starts. Very dangerous.
You may also analyze the times when the majority of such accidents has happened. We DO NOT see any recent disasters with Russian submarines. And – the attack on ANY nuclear object belonging to EITHER RUSSIA OR CHINA will trigger an immediate massive SIMULTANEOUS attack against USA by these two countries. It is totally inappropriate to calculate what must be done in order to prevent or at least inhibit the attack of Russia and/or China against USA since neither if these countries is going to launch first attack – or s.c. Preventive Strike. But if any of their nuclear object will come under attack – or if they will detect a massive launch – they will respond immediately and NOT by local or limited BUT BY TOTAL NUCLEAR STRIKE against USA.
It seems that you are really eager to start the war just because you feel superior and unvulnerable. Imagine yourself and your family on the other side of the story. But – here is food for thought: the USA already for two years brag that they will teach China how to behave in South China Sea. First they demanded to cease and desist all land reclamation activity; then went as far as to demand China to dismantle all its military and non military installations there; finally USA pushed Philippines to the Haaque court (rendering very predictable decision) – and what? China has rejected the very jurisdiction of this court and continues its rapid progress on contested islands – and what then? Was USA able to stop China?
usa has not ratified the current navigation treaty but uses it to justify their belligerence. the sprat… islands are extremely close to phillipines, and a couple other nations but quite distant from china.
The Philippines went, not to an international court, but to an arbitration body. Since China did not join in the arbitration, any decisions are meaningless.
Anyway, at present the Philippines government is trying to be more friendly with it’s big neighbor and distance itself from it’s colonial master.
Remember, a large number of Filipinos have Chinese ancestors, Chinese relatives, etc.
As to the submarines: Russian subs DO NOT NEED to travel far from their bases. The missiles (each with 16-24 RV) travel 10000-12000 miles. ON THE CONTRARY – the best position for subs to launch their missiles is to be AS FAR AS POSSIBLE from NATO borders – so that the most vulnerable part of missle’s travel (the first minute of launch with the slowest speed) IS OUT OF REACH for possible air defense launchers. That’s why Russia has placed its most dangerous subs (including one or two SECRET AND UNDECLARED) in Arctic in its INNER and meticulously defended waters – very far away from NATO’s air defense systems BUT VERY CLOSE TO CANADA AND USA. The same is true as to its Far East.
Stephen, to understand the military thinking about the retaliatory strike from the submarines and land mobile launchers, please read my comment above. The military always consider humans, with their likes and fears, as the weak link in the military chain. A retaliatory nuclear strike from submarines is not assured if you could convince the commanders to save their own and their crew’s lives by surfacing instead of launching.
Obviously, no psychology works on 100% of people, therefore even if the post-Strike propaganda is extremely succesful, at least some commanders would self-sacrifice and launch. This means that a few million US people would still pay for the nuclear adventure, but the families of the important people would not happen to be in the wrong place at a wrong time, just like on 911. So what is there to lose?
You FORGET that in case of massive strike against Russia and/or China the TOTAL MASSIVE DUEL will imnediately take place AND THE FAMILIES OF THESE SAILORS WILL BE WIPED OUT BY “PREEMPTIVE STRIKE”. In addition, it seems that nobody here is aware of the so called SYSTEM “PERIMETER” – which is an AUTONOMOUS massive launch as a response on lack of communication within a certain predetermined time period (it used to be 20 mins – but now it might be shortened to 12 or even 10 – or who knows how much – mins)
You must have heard the expression – the fog of war. How can you assume that every Russian and Chinese military commander will have perfect information about the situation, especially when all of the C3 (command, control and communication) facilities have been destroyed? The goal of the First Strike is primarily to destroy C3 and thus prevent retaliation, only secondarily to target each and every enemy missile silo. Read the case of commander Arkhipov, to avoid US battle group the Soviet submarine was submerged too deep and had no information about what happened to the Soviet Union whilst they were being targeted by depth charges by a US battle group, possibly as a follow up after a First Strike. They thought that their country was gone and that they should launch a nuclear torpedo on the US aircraft carrier and then start launching nuclear missiles on their US land targets.
Have you ever spoken to any submariner about the life when on mission? The emotional pressure, the isolation and so on.
As to automatic deadman-switch launch, that would be definitely a Doomsday Machine from Dr. Strangelove, a madness greater than any of the current US nuclear madness. What could go wrong?
It would be a DOOMSDAY indeed. The solution is simple: Mr. Woshik needs to accept at least two facts:
1) At least for some countries Mr. Woshik is a hegemon no more
2) At least several countries must be left in peace WITHOUT ANY ATTEMPT FROM ME. WOSHIK TO CROSS ANY OF THEIR RED LINES
The technology has been advancing so fast that psy-ops on sub commanders sounds like a belated thriller from someone who would want to write like Tom Clancy. The technology has now moved way past that into MIRV mobile launchers, hypergliders and probably the ultimate concealment weapon – the nuclear drone sub, just announced btw.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a24216/pentagon-confirm-russia-submarine-nuke/
A deep underwater drone armed with a nuclear bomb is much more realistic as a weapon to circumvent the air based ABMD. It brings the reality that both countries are trying to bankrupt each other militarily. If ABMD cost many trillions of dollars to develop and deploy, to develop an equivalent underwater Anti Drone Defense could cost as much.
Madness by any measure, especially the US constantly trying to achieve nuclear primacy when it signed a commitment to reduce nuclear arms as part of non-proliferation.
“Nobody wins a nuclear war” was the poster in the Cold War years, and it still holds today. The worst thing is that this “Russia is our enemy” infection seems to have spread throughout the land for no apparent reason, and President Trump, who had ONE good plan, to avoid conflict with Russia, has now been persuaded that this détente is impossible. Even in the USSR days, most of the fears were hyped up on both sides, but at least “MAD” reassured even the crazed commie-haters (and also those on the USSR side) that any use of nukes would be catastrophic for all. Since Clinton and GW Bush, this has been set aside as if it is false.
So much needs to be done to improve the world, but war is not it!!!
I get a different reading of the situation over on EIR, in their “hot news” column. Trump’s stance on Russia will not be determined by the news media, meaning he will not go along with the foolish hysteria over Russia being an enemy and a dire threat. It almost seems like MSM is trying to stampede public opinion in this direction, like what they did for Bush-Cheney Iraq war. Meanwhile, China’s BRI is taking the World by storm, helping with 70 major infrastructure projects in 66 Countries affecting 4.5 billion people World-wide…already 12 times the size of the Marshall Plan (FDR’s New Deal principles applied to other nations),and growing. China’s BRI (to which Russia is a founding partner) is FDR’s New Deal policies for the 21st century, proving that nations can relate to one another on a different basis other than geopolitics that cast other nations as potential rivals requiring “regime change” (a sick euphemism for murder and destruction). This BRI policy completely obsoletes the Trans-Atantic policy of unipolar world dominance, hence all the hysteria over Russia and how they need “regime change”.
china achieves through economics what the usa destroys from vilence. except Tibet and the Uighars and more rainforest protectors are dying now that china has greater property interests.
I wouldn’t trust EIR, the voice of Lyndon LaRouche, too far.
As President Kennedy also said, “Even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouths”. More like ice cubes maybe? It looks like these genii have forgotten our old friend, nor have they considered what China would do if ever a first-strike was initiated by the US on anyone ever. I’m tired of my mind boggling so. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013EF000205/full
“In 1961, senior Pentagon consultants drafted a 33-page blueprint for initiating — and winning — a nuclear war against the Soviet Union”.
As one might expect of the military top brass, ten years late. It was in 1950 that John von Neumann pleaded with Eisenhower to launch a nuclear first strike against the USSR before it acquired similar weapons. Eisenhower dismissed the proposal, presumably on ethical grounds. Ironically, it would probably have succeeded in 1950, although it is doubtful whether anyone could carry out such a horrible unprovoked attack and retain any self-respect.
Eisenhower didn’t become president until 1953.
Facts, dates, scientific data can be such pesky impediments to a good story.
Some “tough” guys and girls from under the cupola continue thinking of Russia as of decaying, fading and waning fragment of USSR. NOTHING CAN BE FARTHER FROM REALITY. And, while soviet leaders broke soviet economy trying to hold equal against USA on virtually all fronts and in all spheres of military monster, Russia has developed AND PERFECTED a conception of asymmetric warfare. If one warrior has ten layers of armour on his body and a hundred available weapons to obliterate his adversary, and this adversary has ONLY ONE ability – to pierce his enemy eye and destroy his brain AND RETAINS THIS ABILITY AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT – then whatever armour and weapon his enemy has in his possession THE TWO HAVE COMPLETE PARITY. By surrounding USA with quiet deepwater drones and bombs with miniature warheads LOADED WITH GIGANTIC THERMONUCLEAR CHARGE Russia achieves parity with USA EVEN IF RUSSIA HAS ONLY THIS WEAPON AVAILABLE.
knights versus compound crossbows!
As President Kennedy said, “And we call ourselves the human race.” Our race remains a primitive species. On a planet occupied by a civilized and intelligent species, nuclear weapons would not exist. In fact, on a planet occupied by a civilized and intelligent species, war would not exist. We remain primitive, savage, and ignorant. Despite our technological progress, it appears this will not change anytime soon.
Thank you Thomas Phillips for your comment.
As an eighteen year old rah-rah American Paratrooper, with the 101st. Airborne Division in the Spring of 1963, we were deployed to Florida to “stage” for the invasion of Cuba. This was less than six months after the Cuban Missile Crisis, we were issued live ammo (unusual for a training exercise) and sat on the runway for several hours as the aircraft were refueled. The tension of waiting and imagining our fate was enormous. Later, were told that there was a change, and we would be flying back to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Many years later after seeing the images of The Joint Chiefs meeting with President Kennedy and his private response to Bobby Kennedy about their insanity I realized just how close we came to being obliterated. The Soviet Advisors left behind after the Missle Crisis had retained a battlefield nuclear component that the U.S. was unaware of and President Castro had offered to sacrifice the Island if we invaded…
The Military always, it seems, has some “brilliant” plan to achieve their “objective” but it is always the poor grunts on the ground that pay the price.
Nuclear warfare is unwinnable no matter what the Military says… Seeing this being considered again is simply crazy.
TOTALLY AGREED!!
Totally agree. Terrified we have a self-absorbed fool for a president who has surrounded himself with a cast of knaves and fools.
We’ve always had that.
bagdad had universal , even for foreigners, comprehensive free enlightened hostipals in 800 CE
Thomas Phillips:
I agree with you. Humanity’s future is in the hands of what one commentator has described as “trousered apes.” (Well, mostly the trousered.)
Wow, we have truly selected the dregs of mankind to be our leaders, haven’t we?
The scum of the earth, those without operating consciences to restrain them, the psychopaths, have used their advantage to gain control of all our institutions; military, economic, religious and political.
Imagine the adrenaline rush of the maniac at the time he actually presses the button. Supreme power! Irresistible, even if it means his own death.
“A bureaucracy is very much like a cesspool, the really big chunks float to the top”.
– Imhoff’s Law
While I agree with your sentiments regarding the psychopathic behavior of leaders it begs the question – is it natural selection that the most ruthless and uncaring for other human life rise to leadership rolls so frequently? Institutions show the same behavior, corporations are completely uncaring, made in the image of their creator as it were. Still, easier to understand the rise of Franco in Spain than why so many blindly followed and submitted to his cruelty.
“Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices, the one encourages (interaction), the other creates (divisions). The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in it’s best state is but a necessary evil … For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest;” Thomas Paine (1737-1809), Common Sense
They say that power corrupts, what is in fact occurring is that, the corrupt seek power.
Paine believed that government was created by society to “furnish” protection against those members who’s “impulses of consciences …”, were not “… clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed.” However, those same conscienceless people who made laws necessary, now create the laws.
The killers murderous warmongers and greedies are in charge. What is to be done? How do we get rid of them? We have a responsibility to our children and our planet to do so. We need to act now.
the revolution, sometimes peaceful usually arrives when a critical mass are impovished to a critical level. Occupy had across the board support until the establishment apparatus crushed it. make as much common cause with all citizens of any persuasion in order to abolish the oilarchy.
this contemplation is madness masturbation. to imagine that they imagine is circular insanity. whew!!
Who is “we”? For this madness to be progressing to its inevitable end, any kind of accountability of those in power to the mass of humanity must be first destroyed. In the West, we are almost there!
Here is a sobering look at the damage that can be done to major world centres by the U.S. and Russian inventory of nuclear weapons:
http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2017/02/nuclear-superpowers-and-impact-of.html
Our only hope is that saner heads will prevail.
I have posted a comment here before about an article on RT of a few months ago which, unfortunately, I could not locate again. The article described how the US intelligence has been tasked with collecting profiling information on the commanders of Russian and Chinese nuclear forces. The goal was to estimate how likely and how many of the commanders would launch if the nuclear command in Moscow and Beijing were obliterated by a First Strike. Essentially, the US intelligence was tasked with creating paychilogical profiles of the opponents’ nuclear force commanders. The First Strike on Russian and Chinese command centres and silo-based nuclear strategic forces by US would be followed by an extreme psychological campaign to discourage commanders of mobile and submarine forces from launching a retaliatory strike. For example, it is well known that it is relatively hard to discover enemy nuclear submarines, until they start launching missiles. Every nuclear missile submarine commander knows that launching his missiles is a death sentence for him and his crew because his submarine is a prime target for follow on nuclear strikes. Therefore, the post-Strike propaganda would aim to encourage surrender to “prevent further unnecessary deaths”. How many of the remaining commanders would surrender instead of launching if the strategic command was not there to give orders?
This is how advanced and detailed is the US planning for the First Strike.
Please note that even back in the 50s the US strategic nuclear force was targeting both USSR and China at the same time, to prevent a win by China if USSR and US damaged each other. How likely would it be that the same kind of thinking would not prevail now when the two are strategic partners.
I know that subs have decoys which will throw the target off, if ten miles is enough distance, and if the damn thing works. In addition I would only hope Russia and China have a contingency battle plan, and I believe they do. The question is, it comes down to being deliberate, as Wyatt Earp once said.
I saw a headline today which caused a horrible thought, let me share it with you;
While Pope Francis is saying provocative things and reaching out to all faith denominations and when suddenly Pope Joseph Aloisius Ratzinge pops up as the Pope of the new West Religion. Pat Robinson is a cardinal, and Mike Pence is a mere bishop on his way up…. At the rate our news is going, all we need now is something representing religion. I mean Russia’s been demonized, and Iran plus N Korea have already been damned to hell. So why not bring in the religious. You almost need too if your going to war.
Trump if you are wondering will sue CNN & MSNBC and win, and not come to work that much. Pope Joe, Archbishop Pence,,and Mad Dog, will do what’s necessary. Bannon will go to Wyoming and fish with Dick, I mean Dick Cheney. And we’ll all get to see ourselves on the new reality show ‘Desperate Citizens’. Our evaporating will be televised. Let’s hope it’s not on Super Bowl Sunday because we just love the commercials.
Hair triggers, and fail safe mechanisms, aren’t nice things to hear about when talking about the fragility of our nuclear age. I know the Russians seem all about defensive borders, and that’s the way it should be for now. What worries me is the DC group think, and people believing it will never happen to us, and knowing that they are the ones who are in charge of this nuclear contraption…and with that, I say by peace,,and I do mean Peace! Joe
WHAT THEN?
1. Winning for its own sake is the only point for this
President.
2. If everything “worked” as Joe Tedesky implies (perhaps
it wouldn’t?), what exactly would be gained? Certainly
not the love and adoration of the Russian people nor
of any of its allies. Obviously, the insecurity of the US
would be magnified many times over.
3. The economy stupid! Trump must know that the
rehabilitation of the rust belt or the rest of America
is possible only rhetorically. One thing does replace
great losses for all in the American economy:
vast fiscal spending. For centuries such spending
has only been acceptable to Americans when it
is on war. One can go back to the Civil War, the
Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War,
World War I and World War II. FDR programs of the
“New Deal” solved little. Not until the Federal Budget
of 1941 were there “jobs” for everyone (of course
many died…albeit patriotically). And in the military
of the late 20th and 21rst centuries,those who
benefit are not public. They are giant corporate
defense contractors (Lockheed-Martin, Boeing etc).
Even on the ground, much is done by enormous
private contractors. There are perks to these
private corporations, factories are built for them,
there are “cost plus guarantees” and so forth,
4. After surgically removing your opponent’s
military capabilities (if that is possible), what happens then?
Will there be a “happy” Russian public willing to throw
flowers at the feet of liberating and fearfully
destructive Americans and their allies?
5. What will be the effect in the rest of the world?
Here the problems are more than can be listed here,
Briefly, the Trump “base’ would be overjoyed at their
“win”, their victory. Of further considerations—not to
mention the gruesome deaths of millions of our
opponents as well as an increase in insecurity
at home, little will be understood at all.
—Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Peter lately some friends of mine all people who keep up on current trends, and results, conversed one evening about the here now and growing robotic age. These friends all retired from top management jobs in the banking industry, were stumped by what people would do when replaced by automation. Rather than me go into the weeds with this I’ll just say this, why aren’t we working towards a solution for the idle humans who will be the biproduct of this robotic age, and start working on a solution to this growing problem?
Could not working on a solution, and toying with war be a solution, that if the elite can run to their bunkers (lots a luck with that even if they do manage to make it underground) or is this the brilliance of their sophisticated minds to do somekind of population control, while they save themselves? My guest they don’t know for sure, because some Think Tank told them some kind of garbage and they believe it will work so their okay…and I’m the stupid one, but in brief they are all idiots. Correct that they are all narcissistic idiots, and greedy ones too.
We as a society should spend our money on working out solutions to our futuristic problems, which will and are occurring. Although these geniuses think going Green means coming up with corporate slogans, and creating new cool packaging for their products, and we who need to buy their crap are the ones who get to roll our eyes at their buffoonery as we go through the check out isle knowing we are screwed having them as our leaders. Yeah let’s vote one more time for the array of chuckleheads we get to choose from.
We Americans are privatizing ourselves to death. All basic needs like healthcare, fixed utilities, and food staples, should be available through somekind of public welfare….but Mr Joe isn’t that socialism? Yes Poindexter, but it sure beats slavery. Instead we are now raping our population with higher, and higher prices, and I wonder if anyone has noticed that people just don’t make enough to afford their over inflated junk.
A Canadian friend of mine, said to me recently, how we Americans crack him up. My Canadian friend said, why don’t you Americans just raise the price of gasoline by a dollar and have everyone included in your healthcare system? The only answer to that is, where’s the profit in that? Now that answer is totally one hundred percent red, white, and blue American.
Joe, I got really worried a few years ago when I saw a few TV serials popularising the survivability of US in a nuclear war. I listed them before, if I remember correctly, the stupidest one was called Jericho, but there were at least two other. Someone is doing a hard sell of a nuclear war. Back a few decades ago, The Morning After was a movie which shocked US so deeply that considering a nuclear war became impossible for that generation. Now, the US is getting nuttier and nuttier, the military ranks are full of imbeciles who think that they could win a nuclear war and the national leadership is not worth two broken pennies (none of the election candidates were worth anything).
I remember that show ‘the Morning After’, but it only got watched by those not watching a football game or a popular sitcom. I think the problem is, is that we have all lived with the nuclear threat for so long that we think it will never happen. What has kept us fairly safe from nuclear war occurring is over the years our leaders have worked on nuclear weapons agreements. In other words we have talked with each other, and possibly, no apparently held off the final calamity of using these evil devices of death.
Now be an American leader, and try talking to someone such as Putin. Rachel Maddow for one would nail that leader to the cross if that leader were Republican. If the shoe were on the other foot Sean Hannity would intimidate the hell out of any Democrate for not being as strong as Vladimir, because that’s what we do. It’s crazy, but it makes for good tv.
The scenario that I see, is that the nukes will fly over some country like Iran, or N Korea. You know because those two countries are bad, and since we are the good guys they will need to be eliminated in order to save mankind. Oh the casualties of the fallout will be written off as collateral damage, by the elite who will be safe and secure cannibalizing each other down in their beautifully decorated bunkers. Besides we paid a lot of tax dollars to keep us all safe, so we are just waiting for the right someone or someone’s to say, let’s do it.
Sorry, the TV movie was called The Day After:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/
The Day After did a great deal of good towards getting people to realize that a nuclear war was unwinnable. It’s said that even Reagan became alarmed after watching it.
In the film, the USA doesn’t “survive”- it is annihilated and we see the pitiful survivors as they face the first winter with no crops or hospitals or even shelter. Electricity is a thing of the past, and the remaining population is regressing into savages in short order.
Probably, in a real exchange, there would be a lot less survivors and land that people could expect to live on even temporarily. One bomb can take out several major cities and a two hundred mile swath of the country with radiation- and we are still talking many thousands of warheads heading in our direction.
It’s an extremely fine depiction of what WWIII might be like, (at least for television at the time it was made). I thought it was terrifying when I saw it when it was released.
I think the film did a lot of good at wising folks up to the truth.
Even more terrifying than The Day After, typical Hollywood schmaltz, was the BBC’s Threads (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/?ref_=nv_sr_1), so scary they refused to screen it in Britain. Download and shudder at the madness of our “leaders”.
Especially now that China has become America’s No.1 whipping boy….
Some recent articles say that Russia has only radars to detect (massive) launch. This is NOT true since it HAS growing number of military satellites. This article. speaks ONLY of missiles in silos whereas Russia precisely has vast majority of its newest missiles MOBILE (tracks, railway vagons, submarines, surface ships, etc.). IN ADDITION Russia, executing an old plan of Saharov, have seeded the waters surrounding USA (and maybe at least certain countries of NATO) with nuclear deep diving drones and the quietest bombs- moles with each warhead 1000 to 2000 as powerful as Fat Man. Plus very well developed hypersound missiles capable to move at around 10 to 12 Mach before splitting to multiple warheads and between 21 and 25 Mach as RV. THIS IS CONCEPTION OF ASYMMETRIC WARFARE perfected by Mr. Putin on 10% (in $ equivalent of course! ;-)) of USA military budget.
The concept of mole-missiles buried into the US coast and waiting to be triggered appears to be a poor propaganda invention, for at least two good reasons:
1) the nuclear bombs require rather constant maintenance as their control parts deteriorate due to age and due to nuclear radiation; the absolute longest they could be triggered after being left unattended is about 10 years
2) nuclear bombs are just too expensive to be buried into the mud and sand inside enemy’s territorial waters.
I am also a bit sceptical about these “super-fuses” of US. The silo based missiles are really easy to destroy in the age of GPS – a decent nuclear missile can strike enemy’s silo with 1m accuracy.
It is quite sufficient to have land mobile launchers on trucks and trains and nuclear missiles on submarines to retaliate. The rest is propaganda.
Someone who really follows increadibly rigorous process of testing weapon adopted in Russia and succint reports about the progress made by Russian generals, military analysts, scientists, and finally Russian President himself may safely be sure that not only it has been done but even quietly tested (as to communication and action). As you may notice, Mr. Putin DOES NOT routinely threaten anybody. On the contrary – he is ALWAYS silent until he has certain MATERIAL to merely constatate the fact. The same is true about people in his administration. Would he has a history of thteats – as virtually ALL OTHER world leaders do and routinely – then reasonable doubts would naturally arise. But mere fact that USA does not possess techniques to use such weapons does not guarantee that the others also do not have such techniques. Recent breakthoughs of China and Russia in spheres of lasers, EM and railguns, microwave pulse, several types of space abd rocket engines on new principles and finally mass production of hyperspeed missiles (both ballistic and RV and cruise) do not have analogues in USA – and yet they are very real.
By the way – really and realistically: how many nuclear warheads is needed to erase anybody from the surface of the earth? NOT EVERYBODY BUT ANYBODY! – So?
the sacrifice of korean airbus 007 was to scramble russian pacific subs and missles. life magazine depicted the usa spy plane shadowing flight 007, the spy satellite and space shuttle positioned above the sacrificed passengers. subs can lay on the bottom for 2 years and then retaliate with enough missiles on a plaris to destroy many major cities.
And – last BUT NOT LEAST: for the USA there is NO separate war against Russia or China – since none of these two will quietly look at ppssible distruction of its ONLY real ally only to be devoured right after this. On the contrary – USA will face BOTH Russia AND China SIMULTANEOUSLY. And China to be sure also has more than handful of nice tricks. In addition to the hyperspeed perfected by both countries, both of them made several very important breakthoughs in recent 2-3 years making many of today’s achievements of USA military obsolete.
Thank you for the information.
We are defenseless against mega-war profiteers who wants more money and more power by any means. In a normal democratic society, the highest echelon of “deciders” would have been subjected to comprehensive psychological evaluation.