U.S. pundits and strategic experts seem blissfully unaware of how close we all are to being fried in a nuclear strike by Russia. (Fair Labeling: if you are simply looking for yet another reason to demonize Putin, rather than to understand where he is coming from, save time and read no further.)
Here’s the thing: the Russians have good reason to be on hair-trigger alert. Their early-warning radar system is so inadequate that there are situations (including those involving innocent rocket launches) under which Russian President Putin would have only a few minutes — if that — to decide whether or not to launch nuclear missiles to destroy the rest of the world — on the suspicion that Russia was under nuclear attack.
Russia, of course, is not about to admit that its early-warning system is far inferior to the US’s world-wide, satellite-based capability. But such is the case. The implications could not be more serious.
This came to mind today as former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the Kremlin would never allow the destruction of Russia. He warned, however, that if Washington did achieve what he described as its destructive aims, the world could face a dystopian crisis that would end in a ‘big nuclear explosion.’
President Putin addressed this issue four years ago, shortly after unveiling Russia’s new nuclear arsenal, including hypersonic missiles and other highly advanced weapons. Commenting on nuclear war, Putin told an interviewer:
‘Certainly, it would be a global disaster for humanity; a disaster for the entire world.’ He added that ‘as a citizen of Russia and the head of the Russian state I must ask myself: Why would we want a world without Russia?’
Use Them or Lose Them
Putin went on to say that, despite the disastrous consequences, Russia would be forced to defend itself using all available means, if its very existence were put at stake:
‘A decision on the use of nuclear weapons may only be taken if our ballistic missile attack warning system not only detects a launch, but also predicts that the warheads would hit Russian territory. This is called a retaliation strike.’
That’s the rub. Some radar ‘detects’ and ‘predicts,’ and we’re all toast — or freedom fries. While Russia now has in its operation inventory sophisticated weaponry that can defeat any traditional Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) defense, it lags the US in the capability for early warning.
Think about it. Which should you fear more: getting fried on purpose, or getting fried by mistake? Macabre. Are not these choices incredibly stupid for rational human beings? If forced to choose, though, I think I’d resent much more getting fried by ‘Oops, pardon our mistake.’ Please read what follows and ask yourself whether an immediate ceasefire is needed in Ukraine, or whether those who want to risk war with Russia should be given their head.
Russia: Limited Early-Warning Coverage
The US’s satellite ‘global situational awareness’ alert system enables it to detect immediately the launch and location of a ballistic missile anywhere on the planet, including the sea. Russia lacks that worldwide capability. If this technical shortcoming is not taken into account (and there are signs that the Pentagon is paying it no heed), we could all suddenly be very dead — or ‘mostly dead’ (to quote Billy Christal in The Princess Bride). (Ted Postol spelled this out in some detail at a Committee for the Republic virtual salon on March 17.
Postol, a retired MIT professor of physics and senior Pentagon adviser, provided a brief case study, which I summarize below:
‘On Jan. 25, 1995, Russian generals were focused on a rocket that was launched from Norway and detected by their automatic-alarm radar. Could this be the opening volley of a large-scale nuclear attack including sea-launched ballistic missiles? Given Russia’s inability to detect missile launches from submarines at sea, those generals could not rule out the possibility that Russia was already under attack by nuclear-armed Trident submarines.
A saving grace in 1995 was that those same generals had reliable intelligence that US ICBMs were not about to attack. At least equally important, in 1995 relations between Russia and the US were on a relatively even keel. Now? Not so much.’
Postol added the following to indicate Russia’s redoubled concern over its early warning deficiency: the US has now increased the overall killing power of US ballistic missile forces by a factor of between two or three. This is exactly the kind of capability that a nuclear-armed state would build if it wanted to have the capacity to fight and ‘win’ a nuclear war by a disarming first-strike.
The rocket from Norway? Scientists launched it to study the Northern Lights, but apparently no one had thought to tell the Russians.
Aside from asking the Norwegians to forewarn the Russians next time, what else can be done? The Washington can stop making relations still more tense over Ukraine. The Pentagon may boast about its formidable offensive strategic capabilities, but it has no way to protect us from a Russian nuclear attack. And if a false alert occurs a la 1995, this time sans the ‘saving grace’ of a decent bilateral relationship with Russia, we could all end up as human fries. It should give us zero consolation to know that most Russians would too.
https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2022/03/23/will-humans-be-the-next-freedom-fries/
Geen woord hierover tijdens Cobelens’ televisie-optreden bij de bejaarden-omroep Max, op woensdag 22 maart 2022.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfUrHN0ytrI
Gezien de consequenties van zijn volstrekt absurde voorstelling van zaken, is de vraag of hier geen sprake is van opruiing, juist op het moment dat volgens deskundigen de mogelijkheid van een Nucleair Armageddon steeds dichterbij komt. Wie in Hilversum haalt het in zijn of haar hoofd een dergelijk ongeleid projectiel voor de camera neer te zetten? Ik bedoel, als iemand als Willem Engel opgepakt wordt vanwege 'opruiing' is het onlogisch dat Pieter Cobelens vrij kan rondlopen, terwijl hij toch het risico bepleit om de hele mensheid uit te roeien.
Nog een echte deskundige: ‘Nuclear Age Peace Foundation president David Krieger’ die in 2017 uiteenzette dat:
Nearly 15,000 nuclear weapons are currently under the control of nine countries. Each has a complex system of command and control with many possibilities for error, accident or intentional use.
Error could be the result of human or technological factors, or some combination of human and technological interaction. During the more than seven decades of the Nuclear Age, there have been many accidents and close calls that could have resulted in nuclear disaster. The world narrowly escaped a nuclear war between the United States and Soviet Union during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Human factors include miscommunications, misinterpretations and psychological issues. Some leaders believe that threatening behavior makes nuclear deterrence more effective, but it could also result in a preventive first-strike launch by the side being threatened. Psychological pathologies among those in control of nuclear weapons could also play a role. Hubris, or extreme arrogance, is another factor of concern.
Technological factors include computer errors that wrongfully show a country is under nuclear attack. Such false warnings have occurred on numerous occasions but, fortunately, human interactions (often against policy and/or orders) have so far kept a false warning from resulting in a mistaken ‘retaliatory’ attack. In times of severe tensions, a technological error could compound the risks, and human actors might decide to initiate a first strike.
De bekende Australische journalist Caitlin Johnstone zette op 24 maart 2022 uiteen:
It is probably also worth noting that the US has been updating its nuclear arsenal with advancements which make its nuclear-armed rivals more likely to calculate the need for a full-scale nuclear first strike. As R Jeffrey Smith explained last year for The Center for Public Integrity, improvements in the ability to perfectly time a nuke's detonation make it much more destructive and therefore capable of destroying underground nuclear weapons, which would necessarily make a government like Russia more likely to launch a preemptive strike in a moment of tension to avoid being disarmed by a US strike.
Others worry, however, that those leaders — knowing that many of their protected, land-based weapons and associated command posts could not escape destruction — might be more prone to order their use early in a crisis or conflict, simply to ensure they are not destroyed when incoming warheads arrive, promoting a hair-trigger launch policy that could escalate into a general cataclysm.
Physicist James Acton, who co-directs the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and has written extensively about the need to avert unnecessary conflicts, said that efforts to modernize the nuclear arsenal should be more focused on ensuring the weapons’ safety, security, and reliability, and less on goosing their accuracy.
‘If China or Russia believe in a conflict or a crisis that we are going to attack or destroy their nuclear forces and command posts, that gives them an incentive to use nuclear weapons first, or to threaten their use. They have strong incentives to take steps that would further escalate the crisis and create new dangers,’ Acton said.
New air- and sea-launched cruise missiles also place Russia on hair-trigger alert, Smith writes:
‘New air- and sea-launched cruise missiles in particular, [Nuclear Weapons Council chair Andrew Weber] said, are not necessary, and will undermine deterrence because they are stealthy, surprise-attack weapons that will make opponents nervous enough to adopt hair-trigger launch policies. Since they can be deployed with both conventional and nuclear warheads and it’s impossible for opponents to tell the difference, their use could cause unintentional escalation from a conventional to a nuclear war.’
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/being-this-close-to-nuclear-war-should?s=w
Meer over het immense gevaar van het uitbreken van een nucleaire oorlog de volgende keer.
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