Nuclear apples and oranges

No, the Deep State will not intentionally pursue the conflict to the nuclear phase, that is why Putin needs to stop the Ukrainian government from murdering Russians.

However, a series of misadventures and accidents could lead the conflict to a conventional battle between US/NATO Russia which would force Russia to surrender or use nukes. That is the card US/NATO has over Putin.

Just how far is Putin willing to go? Is he willing to engage in air to air combat over the skies of Ukraine?

Paradoxically or not, by getting tough, Putin actually reduces the chance of any of those nightmare scenarios. With a little pressure he can break the Western phalanx and get a reasonable settlement on Ukraine, and perhaps even on World Order as a whole.

It appears Putin is done with his “breather”.

If the American Elite thought they could get away with Nuclear war without hurting themselves,

They would have goddamn tried it already.

Article by Boris Novoseltsev on the current events in Ukraine:

Moscow, reasonable Europeans and the people of Donbass resisting the Kiev regime support a ceased-fire and a dialogue as the way to manage the ongoing crisis. The United States sees things differently.

First, the continuation of Ukrainian conflict meets the US interest as Moscow has to concentrate on the issue of Ukraine at the expense of other international efforts.

Second, the intensification of punitive campaign gives Kiev a pretext for declaring the state of emergency. The anti-terrorist operation will be artificially prolonged to turn the country into a military dictatorship as the state of emergency continues to be in force.

Third, Gasprom switched over to prepayment system for gas. Now it delivers to Ukraine only the amount that has been paid for. Washington and Kiev plan to intimidate Europeans with the possibility of terrorist act committed to stop gas supplies to Europe. They realize the old continent has no alternative to energy provided by Russia.

The second point seems of particular interest, as it provides, along with the planned fortification of the Russian border, the means to control the population by force, once Euro and IMF imposed austerity kick in:

It will give Washington time to toughen the state of emergency to strengthen the regime it has installed in Ukraine. But the scenario has time limit. As soon as the association agreement with the European Union is signed the living standards of Ukrainians are going to go down increasing the possibility of popular uprising

What Goals Does US Pursue in Ukraine? – Strategic Culture

B.

Hey all,

I’m currently putting together an analysis of the current economic outlook here in Kiev and the short-term outlook on the economic front. An economy SITREP, so to say. Probably the best background article I can point you to would be this one…

http://bread-circuses-today.blogspot.com/2014/06/everything-is-annihilated-split-of.html

While this was written in January, before the coup and Crimea flying the coop, it’s pretty up to date, including a lot of 2013 data. And the comments section is worth perusing too, though it does get a bit sidetracked by language politics.

As always, feel free to stop by my blog for more Ukraine news, at http://bread-circuses-today.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the mention AntiNWO!

Gringos will get’em in 2016. They should for their perfidious politics against novorossiya. So many innocent people died because that KGB coward. Dugin gave him the bluprint in his The Fundation of the Geopolitics. Ukraine is so important to Russias security and should be contained. Putin failed at least to declare R2P long ago.

@Guru

well said

mindfriedo

Donetsk miners threaten to take arms if Kiev continues military operation
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_06_18/Donetsk-miners-threaten-to-take-arms-if-Kiev-continues-military-operation-5942/

The US will not be doing any nuclear first strikes. Even if they had the capability and thought they could pull it off, it would mean the end of the Republican and Democratic parties if they attempted it. For comparison, current polling puts 75% of the American public in opposition to putting troops back on the ground in Iraq. The plan to use air strikes in Syria was crushed by massively popular opinion against it in the US. So willingly nuking another nation, causing millions of deaths, and starting a nuclear winter is so out there anyone who proposed it in DC would likely be hauled off in a straight jacket. As a course of action it’s about the only thing that would guarantee the American public would get off it’s ass and immediately tear down the deep state brick-by-brick ala the French and the Bastille.

That doesn’t even count the rest of the world’s reaction, which at least, would likely be a global embargo of everything American by the rest of the planets population. (Nations may not do it but the global masses likely would immediately) This would kill the American deep state just as dead since reserve currency status would be shattered.

You have to remember that even the lunatics in power in the west still have to have at least the appearance of moral authority. A first strike nuclear attack would be so far beyond the pale that the psychological horror would crush the American psyche and culture. It would make the guilt and cultural remorse of the Germans look like a hiccup. It’s about the only thing that would make America give up on violence and become a nation of pacifists…again something the deep state isn’t keen on. A nuclear first strike simply isn’t going to happen.

Saker,
What do you think of the possibility of a massive first strike by PGS or some other space based weapon?

It sez here, it’s the gas that drives the politics:

The US is attempting to organize a redistribution of the European energy market

http://journal-neo.org/2014/06/06/rus-ssha-py-tayutsya-organizovat-peredel-evropejskogo-e-nergeticheskogo-ry-nka/

Those who are claiming that US RIM161 missiles in Poland
provide an ABM shield for the continental USA seem confused
about geodesics. A balistic missile follows a trajectory, which
when projected down onto the earth’s surface is a geodesic
or great circle path.
If an R36 missile were to be fired from the region of Novosibirsk
towards say Chicago, it would be fired on an approximately 350degree
bearing, more or less over the North Pole.
The missile would not pass closer than 3000 miles of Poland
well outside the maximum 1300 miler range of a RIM161.

The RIM161 may be of some limited use in defending western
Europe against intermediate range missiles.

It would not provide defence of the continental USA in the
event of a Russian retaliation against a US first strike.

To the extent that they partially limit the effectivess of Russian
missiles against Western Europe, their main result would be the
removal of one step of a potential ladder of escalation for the
Russians. Ie, they might provide some protection against a
Russian retaliation against a US base in Germany were the US to
make a demonstration nuclear strike against a single conventional
base in Russia.

But a US president could not assume that Russia, in the event of
any nuclear attack on its territory would not respond with a
corresponding attack on the continental USA.

There is another scenario. The powers in the US and elsewhere are aware that Peak Oil is upon us. At some point this means the collapse of civilization. When civilization collapses the electric grids go down. When the electric grids go down all operating nuclear power plants will go critical, all spent fuel pools that have relatively hot fuel will boil and then burn. 400+ Chernobyls or Fukushimas. A Carrinton Event solar flare or EMP attacks can do this, but the failure of the grids of the world from lack of fuel is a certainty even if the time line is not http://truth-out.org/news/item/7301-400-chernobyls-solar-flares-electromagnetic-pulses-and-nuclear-armageddon
12 years ago, without even accounting for the melt down of the world’s nuclear plants Richard Heinberg in his first book on Peak Oil “The Party’s Over” outlined possible endgame scenarios and the one I thought most likely was Last Man Standing. In 2010 he looked at that again concerning China vs the US http://richardheinberg.com/213-china-or-the-u-s-which-will-be-the-last-nation-standing
It would seem to me that when you realize that there is no way to win because we are all going down, the most likely game is last man standing. What else is there to win other than hanging on a bit longer than the other side. Based on the US government’s knowledge of peak oil (see the Hirsh report for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_report )I presume Russia is just as aware and with their reserves could claim last man standing status if it weren’t for all the nuclear weapons in the US arsenal. Surely Fukushima has brought this into stark focus. The accident happened because cooling of the reactors and the fuel pools failed. Imagine 400+ Fukushimas at a time when the grid has failed and the ability to remediate is zero. We are all going down, the only game left in town is who goes down last.

Nora,

To paraphrase your fine point, US military is a marvelous tool for fighting Grenada, but it’s of no use in a continental warfare against a hard power like Russia.

And since the West is totally reliant on technology, it could be easily defeated by taking out most or all of its electric powerplants. That could be done very quickly.

Bear in mind that the person or persons who give the order to strike will be deep underground, alive and well AFTER the retaliatory strike. So, in initiating nuclear war, the initiators and their families will survive. True, they may have to live the remainder of their lives in an underground bunker, which I imagine has been set up to look like a shopping center with all the amenities- food courts, stores, etc. but everything is free. The kids won’t be too happy with their new lives compared to their old lives but they’ll get used to it in time.

Anonymous 22:43

Noting that most Bolsheviks were Jews is not anti-Semitic unless facts can be anti-Semitic and we’re not quite there yet, I don’t think.

You seem to have a rather strange perception of Freedom of Speech — also patriotism. One can be adamantly opposed to things one’s country is doing, you know, and still love it very much. “My country, right or wrong” is jingoism/xenophobia, not patriotism. And as for gays, well, people here have a range of opinions on the subject, And. Feel. Free. To. State. Them.

I’m frankly far more offended by your asking us to self-censor. And disinclined to either trust you or take you seriously.

Anglosvcan always been trusted to use mercenary terrorists to do nuke on wh o so ever they do not like.unless anglos are directly killed.

The point made so eloquently by Saker in the past is there is a real possibility and indeed probability that a conventional war between the US and Russia would end up nuclear.

This is the cause for most concern.

As for the commentator(s) who refer to Russia pulling out the nukes due to a superior US/NATO – ludicrous. You may want to take some time and (re)read some of the Saker’s earlier analysis about the ZERO conventional capability of US and the NATO puppets against Russia on its own turf.

All the US chest beating with the ships in the Black Sea, two words – sitting ducks.

@ KC

Peak Oil is most likely an American propaganda psyops that has been pushed to disguise other, more sinister, agendas.

William Engdahl has been a leading voice questioning the Peak Oll psyops and why it has been promoted. As he puts it:

“The myth of oil scarcity has allowed four giant corporations along with a handful of Wall Street banks to control the world’s largest and most essential commodity, oil. The myth originated in the 1950’s from a geologist at Royal Dutch Shell. It was revived in 2003 in time for the US bombing of Iraq. The reality is quite different from claims of Peak Oil. In reality the world is running into oil and not running out of oil. In Myths, Lies and Oil Wars F. William Engdahl discusses little-known details of wars and manipulations designed over the past half century or more– wars in Africa, the ‘Arab Spring’, Iraq– all to maintain a lock-grip control of the world’s known oilfields. The myth of scarcity has been a pillar of their power and in fact of the power-projection of the United States as sole superpower.”

from Myths, Lies and Oil Wars
https://www.createspace.com/3923714

See also:
The truth about ‘Peak Oil’
http://www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-0292.html

Confessions of an “ex” Peak Oil Believer
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Peak_Oil___Russia/peak_oil___russia.html

Peak Oil Fraud
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8TDhpYBu0o

For all the French speakers out there, let me give a link to a summary of the consequences of a US <—> Russia maximum nuclear exchange today – e.g. following a foolish, or more precisely raving mad attempt at a “disarming first strike” – by a poster whose pseudonym is the same as mine… hum ;-)
http://www.air-defense.net/forum/topic/18462-echange-nucléaire-stratégique-etats-unis-russie-conséquences/?p=774559

Now a summary of the main points in Engish:
– Scenario basic assumption is nuclear exchange between US and Russia only. Can be extended to other states as well, notably in Western Europe, obviously with worst demographic consequences
– Assumption is that a disarming first strike attempt succeeds as well as it can be realistically thought it would. No magic wand for anybody, just: generally successful counter-force strikes
– Estimated total 1,600 nuclear warheads strike their targets (US+Russia), with combined power over 600 megatons
– Both USA and Russia suffer immense demographic losses directly (nuclear weapons) and indirectly (disorganization, notably of food production). Losses between 50% and 70% of population are probable in each country
– No “nuclear winter” to speak of. The threshold to start such a thing is estimated somewhere between 1,500 and 5,000 megatons of detonations in a short time span, and only 600 explode: US/Russian nuclear arsenals are much smaller than they used to be
– Global economic depression in the cards, obviously
– Famine is to be feared in some countries as secondary global consequence because of the loss of US food exports
– Very rough estimate of demographic losses is 6% to 10% of world population, that is 400 to 700 millions killed. Americans and Russians account only for about half, the rest are famine victims globally
– The world would probably prosper again quite rapidly, after a few difficult years in economic depression
– America and Russia may very well rise again: Mongol conquest in Russia and Black Death in France are examples of similarly immense demographic losses that the respective countries (in these examples, Russia and France) eventually overcame. However, the timespan would be counted in generations, and not just two of them… and recovery would be anything but certain
– Of course, the 21st century would be an Asian-centric one… Even if Europe was spared, prosperous as it would remain it doesn’t have the same demographic potential as Asia notably China

My personal opinion is that no matter how deluded, no matter how cynical, no matter how downright evil American or Russian leaders might be, none of them could conceivably agree risking that horror.

The fundamental problem is that men are not rational agents. The game of war in the Ukraine is reckless, as reckless as 9/11, as reckless as Afghanistan, was reckless as Libya, as reckless as Iraq.

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4046811478707691837&postID=1966197583877125595

ProF. Floyd Rudmin, of the University of Tromsø in Norway writes in a recent CounterPunch article,

A rational world cannot tolerate chaos, or a collapsed economy, or a civil war, or any kind of war, in a region with nuclear reactors. If the power grid fails, if workers are unable or unwilling to show up for their shifts, if there is an act of sabotage, an act of war, if something happens to a nuclear reactor, then the Ukraine, Europe, Russia, and the rest of the world will receive heavy doses of radioactive fallout. There is now no government in Ukraine with the resources to manage a nuclear catastrophe.

Ukraine theoretically renounced possession of nuclear weapons at the end of the ‘Cold War,’ but heated rhetoric at the start of the current conflict suggested the country could develop nuclear weaponry quickly…and, as Kamps says, in conflict zones, reactors themselves become potential weapons.

Pointing out that “The ability to start a war has now been distributed across hundreds of relatively low-ranked individuals, on both sides,” Prof. Rudmin suggests a number of steps he says the ‘international community’ should take to prevent nuclear catastrophe in Ukraine, including: deploying non-aligned peace keeping troops; settling the Crimean secession with a second referendum; pressing for formation of an interim government of national unity including all factions; granting immediate economic aid, without condition; investigating all oligarchs for financial crimes; and auditing the $5 billion Victoria Nuland, the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, has gone on record saying has been spent by the US in Ukraine. See: What Can be Done? The Crisis in Ukraine

But Ukraine is not alone in embodying the threat of a nuclear time bomb. All 400 of the world’s operating nuclear reactors pose a ‘clear and present danger’ to the planet – and will continue to do so even after they are decommissioned, because of the unsolved and apparently unsolvable problem of isolating millions of tons of nuclear waste from the environment for longer into the future than human civilizations has yet existed.

Cases in point are the recent fire and radiation-releasing explosion at the 15-year-old,’state-of-the-art’ model Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico (supposedly designed to last 10,000 years before something like this happened); and moves by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reduce safety standards at decommissioned reactors, where thousands of tons of highly irradiated waste remains onsite.[See: Senators fight to keep nuclear protection zones in place For decomissioning power plants. ]

The case for the abolition of nuclear energy and weapons (all reactors are ‘weapons-in-waiting’) has never been so clear, nor so urgent to pursue. Nuclear Ukraine is yet another wake-up call.

The US political establishment is on the verge of going insane.

I easily imagine a scenario in the near future where a President Obama, Clinton, or McCain orders a completely unjustified tactical nuke strike on an enemy.

…stopped only by a mass resignation by the infinitely saner professional military leadership at the Pentagon.

If USA caused Fukashima with HAARP Test that supposedly went wrong can you imagine those psychopaths that caused this Disaster Now Currently Radiating the whole West Coast of US who opened the lunatic Asylum?