by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with the Asia Times by special agreement with the author)
President Putin’s state of the nation address to the Federal Assembly in Moscow this week was an extraordinary affair. While heavily focused on domestic social and economic development, Putin noted, predictably, the US decision to pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and clearly outlined the red lines in regard to possible consequences of the move.
It would be naïve to believe that there would not be a serious counterpunch to the possibility of the US deploying launchers “suitable for using Tomahawk missiles” in Poland and Romania, only a 12-minute flight away from Russian territory.
Putin cut to the chase: “This is a very serious threat to us. In this case, we will be forced – I want to emphasize this – forced to take tit-for-tat steps.”
Later that night, many hours after his address, Putin detailed what was construed in the US, once again, as a threat.
“Is there some hard ideological confrontation now similar to what was [going on] during the Cold War? There is none. We surely have mutual complaints, conflicting approaches to some issues, but that is no reason to escalate things to a stand-off on the level of the Caribbean crisis of the early 1960s”.
This was a direct reference to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 when President Kennedy confronted USSR’s Nikita Khrushchev over missiles deployed off the US mainland.
The Russian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, has discreetly assured that conference calls with the Pentagon are proceeding as scheduled, every week, and that this bilateral dialogue is “working”.
In parallel, tests of state-of-the-art Russian weaponry such as the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile and the hypersonic Khinzal also proceed, alongside mass production of the hypersonic Avangard. The first regiment of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces will get the Avangard before the end of this year.
And then there’s the Tsircon, a hypersonic missile capable of reaching US command centers in a mere five minutes – leaving the whole range of NATO military assets exposed.
What Putin meant in his address about Russia targeting “centers for decision-making” was fundamentally related to NATO, not the American mainland.
And once again, it’s crucial to underline that none of these disturbing developments mean that Russia would engage in a pre-emptive strike against the deployment of US missiles in Eastern Europe. Putin was adamant that there’s no need for it. Moreover, Russian nuclear doctrine forbids any sort of pre-emptive strikes, not to mention a nuclear first strike.
House of the Rising (Nuclear) Sun
To allow this new paradigm to sink in, I went on a long walk across Zamoskvorechye – “behind the Moskva river” – stopping on the way back in front of the Biblioteka Lenina to pay my respects to the Grandmaster Dostoevsky. And then it hit me; this was entirely connected to what had happened the day before.
The day before Putin’s state of the union address I went to visit Alexander Dugin at his office in the deliciously Soviet, art nouveau building of the former Central Post Office. Dugin, a political analyst and strategist with a refined philosophical mind, is vilified in Washington as Putin’s ideologue. He has also been targeted by US sanctions.
I was greeted in the lobby by his multi-talented daughter Daria – active in everything from philosophy and music to geopolitics. Dugin was being interviewed by RAI correspondent Sergio Paini. After the wrap-up, the three of us immediately engaged in a discussion on populism, Salvini, the Italian politician, and the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests in France), in Italian. (Dugin is fluent in many languages).
Then we picked up on what we had left behind, when I was in Moscow last December and talked extensively with Daria. Dugin was in Shanghai teaching an international relations course at Fudan University (see here and here), and gave lectures at Tsinghua and Peking University. He returned quite impressed by Chinese academia’s interest in populism, plus German philosopher Martin Heidegger and the Gilets Jaunes, as well as the evolving paths of Russia and China’s strategic partnership.
Eurasia debate
So inevitably we delved into Eurasianism – and strategies towards Eurasian integration. Dugin sees China applying a sort of remixed Spykman outlook to the “Road” component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which is maritime, along the rimland. He privileges the “Belt” component, which is overland, with one of the main corridors going through Russia via the upgraded Trans-Siberian railway. I tend to view it as a mix of Halford Mackinder, the famed English academic, and the influential American political scientist Nicholas Spykman; China advancing on the West, simultaneously in the heartland and the rimland.
Dugin’s office has the atmosphere of a revolving think tank. I was trying to inform him on how Brazil – under the ‘leadership’ of Steve Bannon, who walks and talks like he runs the Bolsonaro presidential clan – has been dragged to the frontline in the US in contrast to the Eurasian integration chessboard. Suddenly, none other than Alastair Crooke drops in. Serendipity or synchronicity?
Alastair, with his consummate diplomatic flair, is, of course, one of the world’s foremost experts in the Middle East and Europe – and much else. He’s in Moscow as a guest for one of the Valdai Club’s famed discussions, on the Middle East, along with key figures from Syria and Iran.
Soon the three of us are engaged in an absorbing conversation on the soul of Islam, the purity of Sufism, the Muslim Brotherhood (those fabled friends of the Clinton machine), what President Erdogan and the Qataris are really up to, and the sterility – intellectual and spiritual – of the Wahhabi House of Saud and the Emirates.
We tend to agree that discussions like this, going on in Moscow – and in Tehran, Istanbul, Shanghai – would greatly profit from the presence of a progressive Steve Bannon, capable of organizing and promoting a running, non-ideological debate on multipolarity.
A day before Putin’s stark reminder against any slip towards nuclear Armageddon, we were also discussing the post-INF world, but with emphasis on post-Mackinder (and post-Brzezinski) Eurasian integration. And that includes Russian and Chinese intellectual elites acutely aware that they can’t afford to be isolated by American hyperpower.
I walked Alastair to his hotel, past a gloriously illuminated Bolshoi. I kept going, and as Lubyanka disappeared from view, a sidewalk busker was playing ‘House of the Rising Sun’, the Animals version. In Russian.
Hopefully, it will not feature a rising nuclear sun.
Re Alistaire Crooke, here is an interview with Peter Lavelle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYQQtKlbklE
It is great to see Crooke in person on this interview; I have been following him for ages at Strategic-Culture.org.
Katherine
Katherine
I saw the interview. It was excellent. And Crook is right. The US has no vision of the future, because it cannot forget the past. Simple psychology. It cannot accept reality. This psychological condition will break the US empire.
Thank you Katherine !
I just watched the entire interview of the video link you forwarded.
In the last minute of the interview Alistaire Crooke summarizes with this:
“I’m not sure which will happen first, whether we’ll end up in a conflict or end up in a financial crisis” ?
And this is indeed the question: financial catastrophe, nuclear war…..or both ??
Harry_Red
You gave the key to the problem. The upcoming financial crisis is the reason for this tension between the US and other powers, like Russia, China, Iran, etc. As analysts have stated, the US is kicking the can down the road, postponing the inevitable. People think that the US debt is 21 trillion dollars, It’s more than that. Most people don’t know that there is such a thing as a domestic debt, the previous US administrations having looted everything they could have layed their hands on. Even US university professors are not sure what the domestic debt is, being many times greater than the foreign debt. In order to prevent a financial crash, Wall Street needs more plundering, like grabbing all the oil which Venezuela has. Since Maduro does not wish to bestow Venezuelan oil fields to US corporations, the US has him declared illegitimate. How practical. However, this imperial attitude cannot last for ever. The US is making enemies and losing confidence of the international community. We now have people in Germany stating that they trust Russia more than they trust the US. That’s what happens to imperial powers, as proven by history.
I highly doubt that Steve Bannon will support your efforts. Steve Bannon is isolationist. There is a nationalist autarky movement taking place in America, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, France, Austria, Sweden, etc. It is the antithesis of the Chinese vision of internationalism.
People have had it with the pseudo-intellectual ivy league ivory tower pontificators destroying their lives, their countries, and the world, regardless of where they are from.
Bannon is ILLUMINATI. Bolsonaro run by Mossad.
Not a Bannon fan, but agree with some of his ideas, but you wouldn’t know if Bannon was illuminati, unless you were illuminati, right, since it is a secret society, or maybe you are Mossad, so you would know since you would be spying on him.
Mourao, the vice president, is a freemason.
He do not hide that he obeys foreign people .
I wonder why they are called “free”mason..? 🤔
If I were to politically label myself, it would be an anti-war, liberty, autocrat, not asking for an entirely closed economy, but an economy that produced all essentials within our borders, for reasons national security, and national survival, allowing imports of luxury items that would be taxed. Imports used to be strictly luxury items throughout world trade history, like spices and silk.
“What Putin meant in his address about Russia targeting “centers for decision-making” was fundamentally related to NATO, not the American mainland.”
That’s a real shame.The US doesn’t care about NATO targets in Europe.Sure it would be damaging to them.But only the fear of actual US targets being hit might make them think twice over putting the missiles directed at Russia in Europe.
Pepe seems to think that the Russians, if a strike of any consequence comes their way, will not strike North America (USA Command Centers).
What Putin said was crystal clear: “centers for decision-making”.
How could NATO act without US Commands? All nukes the US have placed forward in West and East Europe are controlled directly, not by proxy, by US commanders. Decisions will come from the USA.
When Putin says he will strike launchers, and command centers, he does not imply only NATO. He clearly speaks directly to US Command Centers everywhere.
The entire deterrence of all the new weapons Russia has for its nuclear triad is based on the targets being USA first and foremost, not Brussels alone. All the Hegemon’s core will be destroyed.
Thus, “centers for decision-making” could include, the WH, Pentagon, Mar-a-lago, NORAD, command planes in the sky, all submarines, all ships and boats of the naval forces, etc. Nothing will be left untouched.
MAD means ‘assured destruction’. If Russia is attacked–missiles and drones, F-35s–the Russians will destroy the West, the Hegemon, and whatever civil and military centers for decision-making they believe would be capable of subsequent authority. The first strike the Russians launch will be total, not token.
What would be the point of destroying Brussels and not all of the USA?
Would the US merely hit Moscow? The challenge to overcome MAD is to account for all the adversary’s potential to destroy in kind. So far, even the warmongering neocons have not been psycho enough to think this is possible. The new weapons Putin has makes this even less likely.
By announcing that the US planners, advisers, think tanks, bunkers and mountain caves (as well as Trump resorts) all will be destroyed in a first wave, second wave and time-delayed if need be third coup de grace, Russia has re-established MAD.
Technologically, the Russians have a decade advantage.
The best counter move by the Hegemon is color revolution and hybrid war, not some fantastic new weapon.
There are indications that the US “thinking” is to gain advantage back with “US SPACE FORCE”. Sounds like a Japanese Anime series.
Meanwhile, Putin awaits conversations with the US leadership whenever they come to their senses.
It is good, as Pepe reports, that the two Militaries talk frequently. That’s not a beginning. But it is good.
The American generals will grow to understand the Russian generals are certain of their advantage.
The follow up chat: Decision Making Centers: “Your new hypersonic weapons are a threat!” VVP: “Not a threat! They are all defensive”
Larchmonter445, you are perfectly correct.
Pepe seems to live in an alternative reality this time. The “centers for decision-making” is not in Brussels or anywhere in Europe, it is directly either the WH or the pentagram on US soil. The americans will not be seating down behind their Prime Time TV, watching how bombs will be dropped in Europe, but the war that they wanted so much will be brought to them, on their soil.
The true ‘centre of decision-making’ is in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Putin would help ensure peace if he reminds Bibi from time to time that an attack on Russia by Israel’s puppet hyper-power will result in Israel’s vitrification. That would calm things down immeasurably.
I don’t think those are the real decision centers. The real power is probably more like a decentralized
network, akin to the interlocking directorships of the global corporate. The controlling shareholders of these
corporations, which constitute a vast, transcendent wealth that dwarfs the GDP of all but a few nations most
likely consists of a relative small number of people. I have heard the hubs of this network described by various names, such as the committee of 300, the Queen’s Privy Council, the Black Nobility, the Rhodes-Milner roundtable, the BIS, the vatican. The transnational banks, Barclays is a behemoth, a veritable leviathan, many controlled by the synagogue of satan banking clans, are a dominant faction. The various ngos, foundations, think tanks, philanthropies and even governments are just pimples and pustules on this grotesque satanic body. If the decision making centers you describe are destroyed, then this network will move in to fill the power vacuum, which is even worse because it is pure evil.
the committee of 300, the Queen’s Privy Council, the Black Nobility, the Rhodes-Milner roundtable, the BIS, the vatican, the transnational banks, Barclays, etc, have not their fingers on the nuclear button and whatever their influence and power, do not command the armies.
You are correct that any preemptive nuclear strike against Russia, even if launched from European soil, will result in a full nuclear response by Russia against the US. Partly because the decision to make the preemptive strike would have been made in the US and the other part is that the initial strike will be followed by a full strike by missiles from US mainland and submarines.
What Pepe and I think Putin meant by decision making in Brussels or Nato could be concerning, not launching, but stationing missiles in Europe.
Presently there are no nuclear missiles on European soil and so if there was a nuclear war today, Europe might hope to survive while the US and Russia concentrate on knocking each other out. The only way for Europe to survive is to stay out of it and not be a threat. Now if the US stations missiles in Europe that changes everything. Europe goes from possibly surviving a nuclear war to become the first to be destroyed.
So now Europe has a very big decision to make. Is the EU going to allow it? I think Putin is saying to the EU, Don’t just think Russia will target the missiles but also the major capitals of Europe that allowed that decision, these will also be targeted.
I can not believe that the EU counties will be so stupid as to allow nuclear missiles to be stationed Europe. Clearly there is an advantage for the US to do so. By stationing them in Europe it forces Russia to concentrate a lot of assets towards Europe to counter them and therefore taking some pressure of the US. If further defensive measures can be made in the future, then possibly by sacrificing Europe the US can survive.
Are you speaking to US owned/operated nuclear missiles specifically deployed to Europe? Or nuclear missiles in Europe, any instance of nukes? Because if you are speaking to the latter, doesn’t France have nuclear weapons? I know the UK does, but they aren’t technically part of Europe (aside from the EU). I’m sure you were speaking of the former?
France has ’em but the Germans make them for France these days…France used to and may now also make their own. In other news, Italy and Turkey and UK and Israel and Germany have modern well-designed and potent gadgets. The NPT is meaningless. There are legalistic rationalizations for “justifying” US transfer of bombs to several NATO and perhaps also non NATO client States of Empire, which also, obviously, makes ’em. Pak and India and China and Japan have them too, again in case Japan, there are legalistic rationalizations about ownership – I think ownership in the case of Imperial nuclear explosive resides with the US Department of Energy, not the military, but that’s kinda silly, custody is what matters, physical custody, and that’s obviously in the hands of the military. You may get a laugh about this if you watch movie “Doctor Strangelove and discover “Plan R”, which General Jack Ripper used – he had possession and a wing of bombed up B52 aircraft. Dark Comedy…https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dr+strangelove
See https://thebulletin.org/2015/10/the-okinawa-missiles-of-october/ for one almost firing, down to guns drawn and a stand-off within command, and the missiles (MACE B’s) down to seconds…another, less well defined, a submarine with the missile out of the magazine and engine running is a good claim by a crew of that US sub, and of course the Soviet submarine near Cuba that was about to fire a nuclear-tipped torpedo – that close call came down to one vote…yes, Soviet subs had a protocol, and, if memory serves, the vote had to be unanimous – 3 votes, one said “nyet”
And there are many more close calls, including about 100 bombs under local control in Cuba while the US establishment fought with Kennedy. Kennedy said “nyet”…if they’d attacked Cuba the US East coast wouldabeen toast. Again, one vote…
The US takes the position that the NPT does not apply in War-time. It does, in legal terms, just as the prohibition on chemical and biological weapons does. But, as I said, the NPT is meaningless to-day. The implication is that if the US decides that it is “at war” it automatically repudiates any treaty it wants to… And ratified treaties are constitutionally also US law, so they’re attitude is that they are not subject to any law whatsoever, if they say so…is this clear enough?
1) US nuclear bombs stationed in Europe: https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/nato-nuclear-disarmament/
2) If the European countries “will be so stupid as to allow” US nuclear cruise and ballistic missiles to be stationed in Europe, then obviously Russia will attack the US if these US operated missiles are launched at Russia. Why would Russia let Americans target Russia from Europe and only strike Europe ?
Thats like saying that the US would only nuke Mexico if Russia launches its missiles from Mexico, and the US would skip nuking Russia…..makes no sense.
3) The decision-making centers as Larchmonter445 correctly points out, are in the US White House, Pentagon, CIA and the National Security Council’s Eisenhower Executive Office Building, among many many other locations. Washington D.C. would need to be completely whipped out with multiple MIRVs west and east of the Potomac.
4) Is there a scenario whereby Russia would skip nuking Europe and only nuke the US ?
Is there a possibility that only the US launches missiles without the UK and France launching theirs, or without the European stationed US air-force nuclear attacking Russia ?
Can the Russians differentiate US launches from ground, air and sea from that of Europe ?
Can the Russians afford not to nuke Europe in case of only US launching ?
As things currently stand, I cannot believe that Europe would be somehow saved from a nuclear exchange, but what I am absolutely convinced of is that the US is the number one primary strategic and tactical target of Russia in case of a nuclear exchange with Europe needing to be attacked on a tactical level, but obviously also strategic.
I agree with largely all that you said.
The link that you provided says that Germany, Belgium and the Neatherlands made a statement in 2009 that all nuclear weapons should be removed from their countries and Europe. If that’s the case then the big question is “Why are they still there?”
The numbers and types of current nuclear weapons that the US stations in Europe, I think, provide nothing to the equation other that make Europe a target.
”So now Europe has a very big decision to make. Is the EU going to allow it? I think Putin is saying to the EU, Don’t just think Russia will target the missiles but also the major capitals of Europe that allowed that decision, these will also be targeted.”
Excellent resolve! At the very least, Russia should strike Warsaw, Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius. The majority populations in the respective countries are going to feel appreciable pride for having made a tangible sacrifice for the benefit of ”European values”.
Might Russia launch a pre-emptive strike with non-nuclear strategic weapons on a lesser nuclear power such as the UK? after the UK loses in a Trudent v S-500 match up, would Trump counterstrike in solidarity with the UK, where the dodgy Steele dossier came from? Does Trump owe the MI6-controlled Deep State anything, let alone sacrificing the Uas for clowns like Theresa May? Is NATO solidarity all just talk?
The Russian oligarch capitalists are in control of Russia.
Why should anyone care of the headline:
West that deploying missile launchers in Europe could ignite ‘tit for tat’ response
Why would anyone care about a comment from Anonymous (one of many such monikers), which opens with a sophomoric statement, backed with no proof of facts or hint that the statement is anything other than ‘boy in basement practicing onanist rituals’?
Since you make no sense and insist on being a non-individual by clinging to a cover name that is a crowd, not a person, why bother us with such an infantile statement.
The invitation to comment is generally regarded as an opportunity to bring some relevant facts or logical statement or historical information. It doesn’t even have to represent your opinion.
But it should represent something that is not juvenile.
On a topic of such existential importance, we expect serious comments.
”The Russian oligarch capitalists are in control of Russia.”
Whoever is in control of contemporary Russia, the achieved results thus far are awesome! Far from making Russia an imperialist oppressor nation, Russia — together with China — threatens to end Western imperialism forever. Doesn’t resonate too well with Western ’anti-authoritarians’ (their motto: ”There is no authority on Earth but George Soros”).
Steve Bannon is funded by billionaires. Any progressive version of Steve Bannon would be attacked by billionaires, not funded by them. An organizer who is protected and funded by billionaires will have a very different impact on the world than an organizer who is attacked and undermined by opponents funded by billionaires. If Steve Bannon were opposed by billionaires instead of being funded by billionaires, then he would look just like all the underfunded progressive organizers who are struggling to try to get past the obstacles set before them by billionaires. Or its highly likely that they would look like yet another dead body or yet another activist who was killed by billionaire backed paramilitaries. And, if Steve Bannon were opposed by billionaires, you would never have heard of him, since it largely the billionaires, such as the one who funded Breitbart that has turned Steve Bannon into a household name.
Any real opposition to billionaires will rise from the bottom. Waiting for a system that is controlled by billionaires to produce a progressive leader who organizes the defeat of the billionaires is simply Waiting for Godot. She will never arrive.
“What Putin meant in his address about Russia targeting “centers for decision-making” was fundamentally related to NATO, not the American mainland.”
Who in his right mind, in Russia, will develop hypersonic missiles to strike a target that is located 100 meters away, in Romania or in Poland? Few calibr will suffice to do the job. Those hypersonic missiles are meant for the US mainland.
Pepe uses a lot of words here and basically describes having met with and talked with some famous people. As L445 pointed out, Pepe misinterpreted what Putin obviously, in polite diplomatic language, meant about what Russia would take out if a first strike was detected coming Russia’s way.
Thanks for the article.
Perhaps INF treaty destroyers didn’t realize that besides Cuba there is Kamchatka and 5000km goes fast and far these days.
map
In regards of Mr VVP stating the targets such those command centers, he didn’t specifically mention head of the snake but I am sure he meant it.
What I took away from what Putin said is this:
If Washington should miscalculate and attack Russia using missiles stationed in Europe, Russia will respond by striking the US mainland, from which the decision to attack Russia would have emanated.
Of course, striking the European launch areas, goes without saying.
In any event, it should be clear to all by now that, In any confrontation with Russia, the US mainland would not be spared.
Americans, long accustomed to tranquility on the homefront, during bouts of aggression initiated elsewhere by Washington, should know that a war with Russia would mean the total destruction of the US mainland.
Selah
I agree S400,
In my earlier comment I tried to link a graphic image of earth and coverage of INF missiles launched from Kamchatka. Link didn’t make it.(my bad)
Abolition of INF by the west is truly Earth shattering mistake that will eventually sink in but unlikely understand by masses till it does.
It produces more losers than winners and even a mild outcome is horrific.
S75ponny
https://www.voltairenet.org/article205308.html
This is a translation of recent article on voltairenet.org
For consideration:
The hypersonic missile Zirkon, as well as the Avangard system, were mentioned by President Vladimir Putin in his speech of February 20. [1] He also warned that if the United States were to place medium-range missiles in Europe, Russia would target not only launching facilities, but also their command centers. Some of them are on the American continent.
We have already been accustomed to the fact that the association of certain terms in Vladimir Putin’s speeches is not a coincidence; and that they have a known substrate of US intelligence services.
The only weapon that can hit the United States, from Russia, for which the Pentagon has no antidote, is Avangard. But Russia will only have two Avangard systems in operational service, and only by the end of 2019.
In the absence of the Avangards, Zirkon has enormous potential for modernization and adaptation, which the United States is most afraid of. I suppose a Zircon with an increased radius becomes a smaller Avangard that can strike US territory.
I think that President Putin would like to let the Americans know that Zirkon, with its enormous speed, could become their nightmare, after their unilateral exit from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
The Zirkon Scramjet (ramjet) engine can increase the amount of fuel by 5 times, which would allow repeated starts and stops.
In this way, he returns several times to the initial altitude and cruising speed and reaches a range of more than 6,000 km. We must note that the mass of the Scramjet engine and its fuel (liquid hydrogen) is 500 to 600 kg.
The optimal density of the atmosphere is that where the resistance to friction is as small as possible. Still, the Scramjet engine will operate at a cruising altitude of 50 to 60 km. To reach this height, Zirkon will need a more powerful rocket engine than he currently has.
A variant would be that a similar Russian missile RSD-10 (15Zh45) would simultaneously launch 2 to 4 Zirkon systems at an altitude of 60 km. The RD-10 had a ballistic trajectory, while the new Zirkon, with its hypersonic jumps, makes it impossible to predict its trajectory parameters by the Pentagon.
not sure what your point is even if your “considerations”…are correct….since striking the american main land does not require the missile comes from Russian ground….
Re: striking the american main land does not require the missile comes from Russian ground
Exactly. Subs can do the job.
The translation of the VVP speech runs precisely as>
“I am saying this directly and openly now, so that no one can blame us later, so that it will be clear to everyone in advance what is being said here. Russia will be forced to create and deploy weapons that can be used not only in the areas we are directly threatened from, but also in areas that contain decision-making centres for the missile systems threatening us.
What is important in this regard? There is some new information. These weapons will fully correspond to the threats directed against Russia in their technical specifications, including flight times to these decision-making centres.”
While there are nodes of decision-making relays, the primary decision-making place, the primary center, is not in Europe. These matters are controlled by a chain of command. There’s nothing ambiguous about this except the President has not announced the coordinate set to the square meter. Nobody gives firing coordinates – these are deep secrets. Like Strangelove said, Deterrence is based on fear, but only if you tell the world.
Ok, Brother Vlad is telling the world. Telling the primary “decision makers, that they’ll go to hell at about the same time as he goes to heaven.
Of course the targets are in the US. That’s been the case ever since the Soviet B-29 copy became operational – the late 1940’s And of course the other target set lies in Russia. That OPLAN was drawn in 1941, but they didn’t have as many bombs as they wanted, and them the Commies built their own gadget, and bought 70 years or so of stalemate. The change is in hair-triggers and vastly more ruinous infernal machines that fly so fast and so accurately that it’s 5 minutes from sublaunch to the obliteration of the Pentagon, and 10 minutes to Moscow from those MK41 launchers in Poland, etc.
(you’ll recall how Premier Kissoff loved surprises, and the Party Conference and all that)
But VVP goes on to say this> “What would I like to add? Our American colleagues have already tried to gain absolute military superiority with their global missile defence project. They need to stop deluding themselves. Our response will always be efficient and effective.”
He is not addressing Europeans. That “translates” to “If you shoot, you shall die.” VVP also said, recently but not in this speech, the bit about hell and heaven as the result….
Moving into deeper water, the recent Crosstalk with Crooke said something about “rapture politics” being the dominant ideology in the central command of Bolton/Pompeo/Trump and so on. This is probably true, and would tend to imply that they are immune to empirical logic, eg barking insane, delusional, psychotic – somewhere along that slope. This may be one reason VVP keeps repeating the deal, shoot=death…and y’all r guna go first. He even put it as Heaven and Hell, maybe in an attempt to put it in their terms…
(I am waiting for the rapture, so I can have the fishing boat my nuttychristian neighbor will have to leave behind when he beams up.)
Targets listed by Russia 1 (the list seems speculative to me)
“State TV channel Russia-1 has presented a list of five US decision making centres that will become likely targets for Russia’s Zircon hypersonic missiles deployed on submarines if Washington decides to attack Moscow using its missile arsenal. According to the media outlet, the Pentagon will be one of the primary targets because it houses top military command centres, as well the Joint Chiefs of Staff….”
They go on with short list of targets in NA
see> https://sputniknews.com/us/201902241072695820-russian-zicron-missile-targets/
Missile ZIRCON speed mach 9….that’s about 6,850 miles per hour, or about 114 miles per second. Intercept is impossible. Zero defense.
Some advice? Here>
@ 1:53 > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY66elCQkYk
114 miles per MINUTE, not second. Still quick.
My error in changing from metric to US, sorry. p
I was really surprised to read that Pepe thinks Putin was NOT referring to Washington when talking about targeting nukes on ‘decision-making centres’.
It seems obvious to me, and anything else makes no sense whichever way you look at it. Russians are not idiots and even less so when it comes to defense.
Targeting NATO decision makers in Europe would be as useful as targeting NATO trained penguins in the Arctic i.e. not very coz they live elsewhere.
Very strange…why would Pepe think this way? Or, perhaps he wants us to think this way…
@Idiocrates
”Targeting NATO decision makers in Europe would be as useful as targeting NATO trained penguins in the Arctic i.e. not very coz they live elsewhere.”
Haha, good point (although I sincerely doubt there are any NATO trained penguins in and around Antarctica either). Still, Europe’s bootlicking governments and their dumbed-down subjects would certainly deserve ’Enlightenment’, nuclear style.
Tit-for-tat can become rhythmically soporific. The world is lulling itself into a false sense of security – ‘slip towards nuclear Armageddon’. I think the concerns about NATO pushing closer to Russia’s borders (its near-abroad, which America should understand) are understandable. The US has an equivalent near-abroad policy, the Monroe Doctrine. If core interests are so undermined to pose an existential threat nations do to war, however destructive. It seems we will sleepwalk into world war three. When we wake it will be too late. But history has warned us.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Armageddon is a US choice
The Helmer article includes this from VVP >
” Any use of nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies, weapons of short, medium or any range at all, will be considered as a nuclear attack on this country. Retaliation will be immediate, with all the attendant consequences…”
“or its allies…”
There is zero ambiguity. In the past there have been several known near-launch events, especially in times of tensions such as the Crises in the Caribbean 1962 – A MACE-B launch from Okinawa came down to guns-drawn and failed to take place because of one man’s bravery and a detail in protocols. That launch targeted China primarily, as most of the USSR was out of range…and of course China was not involved in the crises. They got the firing order, but the alert status was one level below the protocols for firing…and the launch officers argued at gunpoint.
They’re playing Russian Roulette with global suicide.
https://www.stalkerzone.org/the-former-head-of-nato-threatened-to-punish-minsk-if-democracy-and-freedom-arent-installed/
Rassmussen the psychopath earns another layer deeper in hell
@Anonymous:
Regarding that SACEUR office clerk – I long the day some power will answer the western bloc’s arrogant threats with a humiliating out of nowhere blow they will never forget – most likely, sadly this day will never come, but hope is the last to die.
“The Russian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, has discreetly assured that conference calls with the Pentagon are proceeding as scheduled, every week, and that this bilateral dialogue is “working”.”
“What Putin meant in his address about Russia targeting “centers for decision-making” was fundamentally related to NATO, not the American mainland.”
“And once again, it’s crucial to underline that none of these disturbing developments mean that Russia would engage in a pre-emptive strike against the deployment of US missiles in Eastern Europe. Putin was adamant that there’s no need for it. Moreover, Russian nuclear doctrine forbids any sort of pre-emptive strikes, not to mention a nuclear first strike.”
Why is the Russian gov’t ( in public ) not understanding that the US goal ( from past operations now declassified to strike the cities of the former-USSR ) is a first strike, or, at a minimum, the future threat to do just that?
@ “Why is the Russian gov’t ( in public ) not understanding that the US goal ( from past operations now declassified to strike the cities of the former-USSR ) is a first strike, or, at a minimum, the future threat to do just that?”
My own thoughts run this way>
Of course this is an interesting question. According to deductive logic, suppose Russia spoke the bald truth that they do in fact expect a first strike by the US and its satellites. This would tend to reduce Russian options, largely in the realm of Rhetoric, domestic politics, and realpolitik. Contrariwise, ambiguity forces the opponent to doubt. I am not any sort of expert in game theory, but in Strategy defeats occur when the number of options is equal to either zero, or sometimes to one, while the other actor retains more than one. There is no advantage in saying what everybody knows, and some advantage in ambiguity. I suspect it is also a matter of legality – planning and preparing a first strike is a war-crime. (planning a war of aggression) Men were hanged for this at Nuremberg. Soviet judges sat on the court. VVP is a lawyer, Russia is attempting to preserve the structures of international law. If they spoke of US designs directly it would weaken this effort and complicate a diplomatic resolution – which is their goal.
The hypersonic weapons-set now entering into deployed position is itself a statement that they expect (know) that the US does design a first strike (as everyone also knows) and that they seek to change the US Policy of first strike. VVP recently said, more or less, the US elite are nuts, but maybe they can count. And that if they try a first strike they’ll die and register in hell, while Russians go to heaven – possible the US parties will go even before their attack on Russia or her allies goes many seconds past the first detonation, Mach 9 is about 6800 mph, now where is that submarine? 114 miles per minute makes this a possibility.
Subs cruise the coasts. US subs, Ruskie subs, Chinese subs…and I remember a SLBM firing in the Catalina Channel that was denied despite numerous experienced observers who knew what they saw, including a TV helio pilot who had seen many official firings of missiles in Vietnam combat..The Catalina launch remains a non-event, but it happened not many years ago. Chinese was the theory as to source of launch.
Similarly Kitty Hawk would have died in seconds off Okinawa in October 2006 @ https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/chinese-submarine-appeared-in-the-middle-of-a-carrier-battle-group.html Assuming a nuclear torp. And that was then…
Assume 3 minutes to notify sub. 3 minutes to fire. target @ 400 miles… Of course it probably would take longer, but that looks possible…11 minutes to bang and Pet-a-gone to hell. Of course firing all 40 birds would take longer, I think – but Ivan’s sure to work out that problem and minimize the firing period, as it betrays the sub’s position. Some sub launched birds cruise slowly well away from the sub, underwater, before flying. Presumably (I do not know) all 40 birds would emerge from the surface at about the same moment…that would be an option highly desirable, as it minimizes any remote possibility of intercepting the birds as well as any advantage in sinking the sub to prevent all the birds from being launched.
“The Making of US Military Defeats” (and an interesting magazine)
@ https://catalyst-journal.com/vol2/no2/the-making-of-us-military-defeats
Assuming that we are not about to be obliterated, this may be useful analysis…and there are other interesting topics there as well.
excerpt> “…imperialists looking to build support for the next American war by arguing that the US military has learned the “lessons” of Afghanistan or Iraq and therefore will be more effective in a future war in Iran or wherever. Brownlee accurately identifies the three factors that I see as most important in explaining America’s failure, over the past fifty years, to win any sustained war: misallocation of generous Pentagon budgets, aversion to American casualties, and neoliberal plunder policies that undermine the bases for enlisting sufficient local allies of an American occupation. Brownlee describes these three factors as “glitches in [the US] counterinsurgency apparatus,” and suggests that my article implies that if these factors were overcome, the United States could win such wars. In fact, my analysis finds that the three factors are not mere glitches, or even changeable policy preferences. The United States lost wars, not because civilian or military leaders failed to learn “lessons” from past wars, but because structural constraints make it impossible for the United States to fight wars any differently from the way in which it did in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. For that reason, the United States will never be able to win counterinsurgency wars, or indeed any sort of war except perhaps for large-scale conventional wars of the sort that US weapons are designed to fight. …”
The Americans and their Europeon whores will have to be taught a very painful lesson that you should not provoke the Bear, as the Bear will tear your head off.
The Europeon-Americans delude themselves that they have a right to rule over the entire world–and the world will not resist them.
Europe and America will be reduced to a nuclear wasteland, if they continue their wars of aggression, as sooner rather later, you all will meet nations that are more than able to give you a taste of your own medicine and then some.
Just a little jingle because after the war we may not be able to sing>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrbv40ENU_o
and another ditty> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs