Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Russia's Fear of Nuclear War
Thanks to Paul Craig Roberts, a highly respected and honoured journalist, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan era, academic and Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy, we have a bit of a glimpse into the mindset of Russia during this period when the Cold War seems to be rewarming, particularly in the minds of America's mainstream media.
In late April 2017, there were a handful of frightening articles that appeared in what is now classified "the fake news media" and the "Kremlin-controlled media" . The articles in question quoted comments made during a news briefing by Lt. General Viktor Poznihir, Deputy Chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces at the annual Moscow International Security Conference (MCIS), Russia's answer to the Munich Security Conference which is held in Germany. The MCIS has become a forum for Russia to present its agenda to the world and to deal with issues in world security. Here is a link to the MCIS website which describes the focus of the conference as quoted here:
"The Conference will be focused on the most critical problems of global and regional security. The plenary sessions will look closely at the issues of combating international terrorism, security problems in Europe and Asia-Pacific region, role of defence agencies in enhancing security in different regions of the world.
Counterterrorism and counterradicalism in the Middle East, security of information space, BMD implications, and security in Central Asia will also be in the spotlight of separate discussion sessions of the Forum."
The countries participating in the sixth annual Moscow Conference included Austria, Albania, Azerbaijan, Algeria, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Brazil, Vietnam, Germany, Egypt, India, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, IrelandSpain, Italy, South Korea, China, Japan, Cuba, Canada, Norway, France, Saudi Arabia and, surprisingly, the United States.
With that background, let's look at how RT (Russian Television), oft-cited as a Kremlin-inspired and controlled propaganda media outlet, reported on the conference:
"The United States is pursuing global strategic domination through developing anti-ballistic missile systems capable of a sudden disarming strike against Russia and China, according to the deputy head of operations of the Russian General Staff.
“There is an obvious link between Washington’s prompt global strike initiative, which seeks capability to engage “any targets anywhere in the world within one hour of the decision,” and the deployment of missile launch systems in Europe and aboard naval vessels across the globe, Lt. Gen. Viktor Poznikhir said at a news briefing on Wednesday.
“The presence of US missile defense bases in Europe, missile defense vessels in seas and oceans close to Russia creates a powerful covert strike component for conducting a sudden nuclear missile strike against the Russian Federation,” Poznikhir explained.
While the US keeps claiming that its missile defenses are seeking to mitigate threats from rogue states, the results of computer simulations confirm that the Pentagon’s installations are directed against Russia and China, according to Poznikhir.
American missile attack warning systems, he said, cover all possible trajectories of Russian ballistic missiles flying toward the United States, and are only expected to get more advanced as new low-orbit satellites complement the existing radar systems.
“Applying sudden disarming strikes targeting Russian or Chinese strategic nuclear forces significantly increases the efficiency of the US missile defense system,” Poznikhir added. American ABM (anti-ballistic missile) systems are not only creating an “illusion” of safety from a retaliatory strike but can themselves be used to launch a sneak nuclear attack on Russia.
In a blatant breach of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the standard land-based launching systems can be covertly rearmed with Tomahawk cruise missiles instead of interceptors – and the Pentagon’s denial of this fact, according to Poznikhir, is “at the very least unconvincing.”
Moreover, Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, signed in 1972 with the Soviet Union, allowed it to develop more advanced weapons that can now not only pose a threat to targets on the ground but in space as well.
“In February 2008, the Pentagon demonstrated the possibility of engaging spacecraft with its ABM capabilities,” Poznikhir said. “An American satellite at an altitude of about 250 km was destroyed by a Standard-3 missile, an earlier modification, launched from a US Navy destroyer.”
“Given the global nature of the ABM ships’ deployment, the space operations of any state, including the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China, are under threat.” (my bolds)
What Lt. General Poznihir is quite eloquently stating is that the Operations Command of the Russian General Staff has concluded that the United States is preparing to launch a first strike nuclear attack against Russia and China.
These comments from a high-level Russian military leader are game-changing and, if it truly reflects the sentiments of Russia's military (and I can't imagine that it doesn't given the venue), should be cause for great concern. It suggests that the Pentagon believes that it can garner an unconditional win a first-strike nuclear attack against Russia, an attack that Russia's military believes could occur at any time. This possibility should have created great concern among America's politicians and mainstream media and should have been headline news on April 26th, 2017.
So, how much coverage did this story get? Here's what Google turned up:
While Lt. General Poznihir's comments appeared on a handful of other sites, they were severely abbreviated, removing the impact of what he really said during his news briefing. It also doesn't appear that these comments were addressed by any Member of Congress, the Oval Office or any politician anywhere in the Western world.
It is fascinating to see that the real media left this story totally untouched, likely because it doesn't fall into their narrative nor does it fit the narrative of the White House, Congress or the Deep State that they rely on for their "talking points".
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