A recent article in the LA Times caught my eye yesterday. It’s title was “$40-billion missile defense system proves unreliable“. I urge you to read the full article but the bottom line here is simple: the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, or GMD, is a catastrophic failure. Basically, the system is useless and would not even work against a (totally hypothetical) Iranian or North Korean strike with primitive missiles. And it’s not like there are just a few technological kinks which need fixing here or there – the entire system was mis-designed from day 1, just like the latest tri-service “flying brick” the F-35. Billions of dollars wasted for nothing except making the folks in the US military-industrial complex rich, very rich. I hope to write up one day a full analysis of why a country which in the past has produced absolutely world class military hardware and weapons systems (like the WWII Jeep or the F-16) is now systematically producing hugely expensive crap, but that is not my purpose today. Today I want to remind you all of a few basic facts:
1) The entire US nuclear arsenal is hopelessly outdated, especially it’s land-based component which is over 30 years old and whose B-1 and B-2 bombers which cannot deliver cruise missiles and whose “stealth” capabilities are no match for Russian air defense systems. The only part of the US nuclear triad which is more or less in good shape are the US Navy boomers.
2) The US GMD cannot even intercept primitive ballistic missiles.
3) Russia has recently deployed brand new mobile land-based (SS-27, SS-29) and sea based ballistic missiles (R-29RMU2, RSM-56) which are designed to be able to evade future ABM systems.
Please keep that in mind when you hear all this talk about a US first strike on Russia. What is happening now is a typical self-feeding rumor which somebody started (dunno who) and who get’s picked up by more and more people who then end up quoting each other as a proof of the thesis. So my advice to you is this: the next time you come across an article suggesting that the US is about to nuke Russia (or some variation thereof), see if the author offers a plausible scenario of how this could be done. This scenario should not just mention some vague “Star Wars” like “secret” technologies (like nukes in space) but mention existing, tested and deployed systems.
There are enough real reasons to be discouraged, disgusted, worried and outright despondent about the world we live in and there really is no need to add a completely artificial nuclear scare to this.
My 2cts.
The Saker
Saker Message:
I really wish that there was a way to get rid of nuclear weapons, but there is not.
Thanks for the post.
Dear Saker,
Thank you for your reassurance about the unlikelihood of a US Nuclear First Strike. I was one of your readers who posted this “rumor” last night. Alas, the source seemed credible to me. It was an article by Paul Craig Roberts, who appears to have impeccable credentials, and which was posted by Gleb Basov, Twitter Novorossiya spokesman whom I’ve generally found reliable:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/06/17/washington-beating-war-drums-paul-craig-roberts/
The article cites many references, and has an aura of validity. I am a physicist by training, and it certainly struck me that way. If this article is in error, I’m very happy to hear it.
I’m not surprised if the US offensive weapons systems are in total disarray. I worked for years in military systems development, and nearly every project was a fiasco of incompetence.
At any rate, at least you can see where this “rumor” might be coming from. Sorry to have repeated it, especially if it’s nonsense. And thank you, Saker, for addressing the issue and setting my heart at rest.
The question is, would the powers that be in the Imperial States of Hubris actually listen to Pentagon, or would they keep pushing and prodding and scheming till they reached a point where THE War is inevitable in the deluded belief they are the pinnacle of creation and thus unbeatable? After all, God is on their side and they are exceptional (i.e. ubermensch).
@Anonymous:It was an article by Paul Craig Roberts, who appears to have impeccable credentials, and which was posted by Gleb Basov, Twitter Novorossiya spokesman whom I’ve generally found reliable:
Good point! Let me reply to you not here, but in a separate post I will write in the next 20mins. ok?
The Saker
Maybe the US is feeding false information to lull the imaginary adversaries into complacency.
If the advanced military systems of the US are so unreliable, was there any action taken to impeach those accountable for the fiascos ??
The comments by Sergey Glazyev – aide to President Vladimir Putin – probably reflects analysis and scenario of what would happen if Russia gets involved in a kinetic war in Ukraine. He outlines the ways in which the US would benefit ultimately from the war, and concludes the most effective and sane counter attack against the Washington and US would be against the US dollar to collapse the US’s economy and society. Read it for yourself and decide if that is the best chess move.
http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_06_18/Putins-aide-proposes-anti-dollar-alliance-to-force-US-to-end-Ukraines-civil-war-8030/
Meantime, people are dying in Donbass.
There are no “facts” regarding the U.S. readying for a “first strike” on Russia. This is pure fear-mongering.
The very notion defies credulity.
Americans are sheep and bleat anything they’ve overheard, so you’ve got herds of sheep bleating utter nonsense.
Better way: Russia must stab wedge into NATO between UKUSA and rest. Right nuclear weapon=$$$
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-18/putin-advisor-proposes-anti-dollar-alliance-halt-us-foreign-aggression
There is no f’ing way we nuke Russia…but there IS a lot of concern for a false-flag pysop which BLAMES Russia, Iran, Syria or “pick-an-enemy” the ZIOs want to dismantle…
The disintegration and demoralization of US Intel coincides with the dual-citizen take-over of those institutions. The absolute IN-YOUR-FACE manipulation, deceit, mendacity and evil they are perpetrating worldwide will hasten their demise. The ONLY young Americans I know remotely interested in working for these institutions are other nasty dual-citizen, whiny-azzed liars which no one with any intelligence or integrity cares to be around. Good. Having them all in one place makes them easier to find. Talk about “screwing-the-pooch”. Mazel-tov. Bitches.
…adding to my previous post… a close friend of one of my kids is being “recruited” by intel… suffice to say this kid is a TOP target… good family… incredibly smart…well-educated… honest…kind…all the qualities one hopes to possess… attends a highly-competitive undergraduate program… NOT ivy… NOT dual-citizen… this kid worked online Id’ing PEDO rings… just because he could… and because it was doing “good”… they WANT this kid bad… he isn’t REMOTELY interested… this is what ZIOs have brought on themselves…and US intel…tick-tock.
Dear Saker,
In response to your question as to why a country that once produced top class military hardware is now turning out nothing but expensive crap Im afraid the answer is very simple and can be summed up in one word, corruption.
The military industrial complex is totally corrupt and as you rightly point out some people are getting filthy rich out of it all. Have you never wondered why the department of defence is the only US government department that has NEVER been audited ? So not one cent of the trillions of tax payers dollars that your congress has handed over to the pentagon has ever been accounted for nor is ever likely to be accounted for. Someone is running a really sweet scam at the expense of the taxpayer and stories of “contractors” in Iraq being paid $100, 000 just to take the bins out are only the tip of the iceberg. I sometimes think the American public must be totally dumb or else they have more money than sense. Anyway I take heart in the rampant corruption endemic in the US administration. This will eventually be their downfall.
You can say all this all you wish, but don’t forget that (1) the US has used nuclear weapons in the past (2) the US Military has asked multiple times for authorization to use nuclear weapons during conflict (3) US military doctrine relies on the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Russia during a losing ground battle (4) nuclear obliteration against another nuclear state was realistically threatened by supposed Foggy Bottom rational actors as recently as 2001 (Pakistan) (5) Timoshenko’s ravings about annhilating Russians with nuclear weapons.
Don’t underestimate the crazy.
Russia opens another economic front:
Putin Advisor Proposes “Anti-Dollar Alliance” To Halt US Aggression Abroad
…
Glazyev’s set of countermeasures specifically targets the core strength of the US war machine, i.e. the Fed’s printing press. Putin’s advisor proposes the creation of a “broad anti-dollar alliance” of countries willing and able to drop the dollar from their international trade. Members of the alliance would also refrain from keeping the currency reserves in dollar-denominated instruments. Glazyev advocates treating positions in dollar-denominated instruments like holdings of junk securities and believes that regulators should require full collateralization of such holdings. An anti-dollar coalition would be the first step for the creation of an anti-war coalition that can help stop the US’ aggression.
Unsurprisingly, Sergey Glazyev believes that the main role in the creation of such a political coalition is to be played by the European business community because America’s attempts to ignite a war in Europe and a cold war against Russia are threatening the interests of big European business. Judging by the recent efforts to stop the sanctions against Russia, made by the German, French, Italian and Austrian business leaders, Putin’s aide is right in his assessment. Somewhat surprisingly for Washington, the war for Ukraine may soon become the war for Europe’s independence from the US and a war against the dollar.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-18/putin-advisor-proposes-anti-dollar-alliance-halt-us-foreign-aggression
Good.
@Andrew:
(1) the US has used nuclear weapons in the past
Yes, against a state which did not have nukes
(2) the US Military has asked multiple times for authorization to use nuclear weapons during conflict
Yes, but against states like North Korea or Iraq. Not a nuclear super-power
(3) US military doctrine relies on the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Russia during a losing ground battle
Yes, the Flexible Response doctrine which assumed a Soviet ATTACK on Western Europe and a Soviet conventional superiority. Today NATO officials (somewhat naively) flaunt the fact that NATO has a 16:1 superiority in conventional weapons over Russia. Besides, I can tell you from direct knowledge that while Flexible Response was the official US doctrine, at the time several top US commanders told off the record that no US President will ever risk trading New York or Boston for Munich or London…
(4) nuclear obliteration against another nuclear state was realistically threatened by supposed Foggy Bottom rational actors as recently as 2001 (Pakistan)
Right. Pakistan. QED.
(5) Timoshenko’s ravings about annhilating Russians with nuclear weapons.
Thank God this crazy witch does not have nukes.
Look – you ARE right: we should never underestimate the crazies. I agree. Fully. And maybe there are some of them planning a nuclear attack on Russia. All I am saying is that if they are, then they are crazy and if they do it, then the USA will disappear from the world map. But could the satanic pride and folly of some mentally deranged and hateful SOBs bring that about – maybe. I sure hope not.
Kind regards,
The Saker
Illusion and Reality
Reality has little space in the modern elites brains. They more and more believe they create the world by propagating their ideas. US Americans believe in their exceptionalism as much as in the superiority of their weapon-systems. Quite sure their ABM are as inadequate as their trillion dollar f35 disaster.
The point is and thats what is frightening that even a limited nuclear war would be disastrous. Wars are not started because of one side can win it but because one side THINKS it can. Even if its a miscalculation especially with nuclear weapons it becomes a disaster for ALL sides.
Well after all the enlightenment and education for the masses we can be sure such a miscalculation can’t happen or …?
Q
AGS
YES. Mr. Nora was utterly astounded, waay back in the day, when a dual-citizen colleague with obvious first-loyalties to Israel got a plum position in DOS. And then the floodgates just opened. (Jews benefitted more than any other group, including women, from the Civil Rights legislation etc. Also, you will note, their support of same pretty much dried up as soon as anti-Jewish quotas in law, medicine, the stock exchange, etc. disappeared. I.e., when they got theirs.)
It might be nice to come up with a list of new laws and regulations, just in case we’re ever in a position to implement them. Top on my list right now — even before tackling corporate donations and re-taxing the sons of b*tches — would be banning dual citizenship. Second might be, if you’re a citizen here, you pay taxes here, period and paragraph, but first, you’re either an American citizen, Or. You’re. Not. No voting, no government positions, no unregistered lobbying, No. Nothing.
About 13 years ago, I was working as a ´nurse tech´ in a Georgia (US) hospital.
There was a patient (forgot the diagnosis, which we were not really allowed to look into anyway):
A somewhat confused gentleman in his 70s who once had been ´rear admiral of the Pacific fleet´. (That´s wat my superior RN said).
He was the typical ´tin foil hat´ type, very paranoid, but obviously very intelligent and used to be obeyed.
He was definitely more extreme than the character: dr. Strangelove…
Since that moment, I did not trust the rationality of the people in charge.
Unless it was a con artist, but they tend to perform badly when they are in bad shape…
Speaking of the F-35:
The designer of the F-16 explains why the F-35 is such a crappy plane
There are many versions of “missile defense” – some don’t work and some are doing much better in testing. The ground-based mid-course that you refer to, featured in LA Times, is not able to intercept successfully. But the Aegis ship-based system, now being deployed by US in Black and Mediterranean seas is having much more success in testing phase.
Obama has now decided to move that same system into Romania as Aegis-ashore. Various Army ground-based MD systems like PAC-3 and THAAD also are doing better with testing and are currently being used to surround Russia (deployed in Poland) and China (deployed in South Korea, Japan, Okinawa, Guam).
So while the US Space Command does test a first-strike on China and Russia there is no way the Pentagon could “win”. It would be global destruction for all. But the belief by some in the Pentagon that they can use these systems to get an advantage is real stuff.
It could be that MD in the end is nothing but a loaded gun to the head of China or Russia. Any way you cut it MD systems are dangerous and destabilizing.
It was because of MD that George W. Bush withdrew the US from the ABM Treaty with Russia. That treaty basically outlawed the development & deployment of MD systems.
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/
Here is a full Pentagon review of MD at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCkzECStuMQ
The comments I have read regarding a possible US first strike seem to be focused not on the plausibility of such an unthinkable action, but on the fear that US politicians could be talked into the plausibility of it. The US political and military leadership seem to be lost in a world of complete unreality.It can be argued, I think now, that the entire US goal of “full spectrum dominance” is an agressive, but unrealistic fantasy, cut from the same cloth as “first strike capabilities”..The facts are that vetted, peer reviewed science has determined that any nuclear conflict involving 15 or so, 10 – megaton warheads would result in near or total human extinction because of the dramatic effects of fire storms on climate change and the global nature of fallout. This means, that even if Russia made a national suicide pact and detonated its nukes over its own cities without a single American launch, humanity would be doomed.
I’ve been thinking about it a bit and we cant rule out the possibility that, knowing everything about nuclear holocaust we do, the political leadership of the Capitalist world which is, inarguably, degenerate beyond all hope of redemption have decided based on whatever secret reports they have available to them, (and whether those reports are correct or not. Secret reports cant be peer reviewed), that Human life must be culled back to a primal starting point. They may be stocking shelters and mine shafts and selecting suitable nubile, female, underwear models to re-breed their demon – spawn in a world depopulated by nuclear Armageddon. It may be that, they believe they will survive 10 years or so underground and will return to the surface when we’ve all been eliminated en masse. Call it the Dr. Stranglove contingency.
I’ve been thinking about it a bit and we cant rule out the possibility that, knowing everything about nuclear holocaust we do, the political leadership of the Capitalist world which is, inarguably, degenerate beyond all hope of redemption have decided based on whatever secret reports they have available to them, (and whether those reports are correct or not. Secret reports cant be peer reviewed), that Human life must be culled back to a primal starting point. They may be stocking shelters and mine shafts and selecting suitable nubile, female, underwear models to re-breed their demon – spawn in a world depopulated by nuclear Armageddon. It may be that, they believe they will survive 10 years or so underground and will return to the surface when we’ve all been eliminated en masse. Call it the Dr. Stranglove contingency.
Re Anonymous
Americans are sheep and bleat anything they’ve overheard, so you’ve got herds of sheep bleating utter nonsense.
18 June, 2014 16:11
Sheep are useful; others take meat and wool from them.
However the quality of the meat deteriorates in proportion to stress levels.
The bleating of sheep indicates:
1. Discomfort on the part of the sheep.
2. That the sheep are being stimulated.
3. Non-sheep perceive that sheep require stimulation.
4. Bleating attracts the wolf pack.
However remember – ” Four legs good, two legs better” still lies in the exceptionalism paradigm.
Why is usually more important than what.
So the opposition is once more engaged in self-defeating strategies.
Anon: 20:21
The facts are that vetted, peer reviewed science has determined that any nuclear conflict involving 15 or so, 10 – megaton warheads would result in near or total human extinction because of the dramatic effects of fire storms on climate change and the global nature of fallout.
The Tsar Bomba was a 50 megaton atmospheric test. It had no noticable effect on climate. It had been planned to make it a 100 megaton test, but it was realized the exploision would engulf the delivery bomber and kill the crew. You are claiming 150 megatons total (just three Tsar Bomba’s) would essentially wipe out human life.
Frankly, I doubt it, and suspect you are off by at least two orders of magnitude from the amount of explosive power needed to even begin to see such effects – i.e. the delivery of 1500 warheads with 10 megatons each delivered over Russia and the US/UK/Canada MIGHT create such conditions, at least in some of the earth. For some perspective, the Mt. Tambora volcanic eruption in 1815 sent 38 cubic miles of ejecta into the atmosphere from a singular concentrated upwards explosion estimated at 800 megatons. This caused a very cool summer throughout the northern hempisphere, resulting in famine in some places from shortened growing seasons. The 1500 warhead scenario disperses the explosive power over 1/8 of the surface of the earth and ups it by a factor of 20. However, recall there is no effect from atomic bombing to fill the atmosphere with mass amounts of dust and aerosols – the tendency is for outward explosive dispersal of ground particulate matter since the airburst explosions would force air down and out from the target site. As a simple thought experiment, my suspicion is this seems sufficient to replicate the effects of Mt. Tambora and possibly worsen them, however, its obvious given that humanity made it through the Tambora eruption with barely a hiccup that you would need to significantly worsen Tambora like effects to create a fullscale world wide pollution of the atmosphere to fail the food supply.
I hate to be so positive about survivability of a nuclear holocaust, but I think you are vastly overhyping a far too low level to cause nuclear winter, and I suspect those evil wingnuts who dream of a first strike on Russia are easily capable of making the same calculations (and planning their evacuation to an abode in the Southern hemisphere)