LanceFreeman
Mayor
The following is excerpted from F. William Engdahl's recent article posted on the 'veteranstoday' web site:
On January 29, 2007 US Army Brigadier General Patrick J. O`Reilly, Deputy Director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, announced US plans to deploy an anti-ballistic missile defense system in Europe by 2011.
The Pentagon claimed that the deployment was aimed at protecting American and NATO installations against threats from enemies in the Middle East, notably Iran, and not from Russia.
Despite Washington’s insistence that its new planned Missile Defense was only defensive and aimed at “rogue states” like Iran or North Korea, in actual military fact it was not defensive at all, but a major offensive gain for Washington in any future military showdown with Moscow. The February 2014 US military coup d’etat in Kiev and subsequent hostile Washington acts against Russia have brought such a military showdown much closer than many realize.
In 2007 Washington began stationing US controlled nuclear-capable missiles in NATO-member Poland, and anti-missile phased array advanced radar detecting systems in NATO member Czech Republic. It was aimed at the one nuclear power on Earth with the sophisticated nuclear ability to launch an effective counter-strike–the Russian Federation. China’s nuclear arsenal at that point did not pose a comparable threat.
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BMD: Offensive not Defensive
VT has a reward for submission of a photo of Nuland riding on a broom
In a January 2006 London Financial Times interview, then-US NATO Ambassador, Victoria Nuland, the same Nuland who ran the US coup in Kiev in 2014, stated regarding the new Pentagon doctrine of “Global Strike,”… that Interviewed by London’s Financial Times, the US Ambassador to NATO, former Cheney advisor, Victoria Nuland, declared that the US wanted a “globally deployable military force” that would operate everywhere – from Africa to the Middle East and beyond—“all across our planet.” vi
Global Strike combined with Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) from the US side was creating an alarming imbalance in the strategic relation between Russia and the USA.
Washington was serious. “Missile defense” projects emerged in the 1980’s when Ronald Reagan proposed developing systems of satellites in space, as well as radar bases listening stations, and interceptor missiles around the globe, all designed to monitor and shoot down Soviet nuclear missiles before they hit their intended targets.
It was dubbed ‘Star Wars’ by its critics, but the Pentagon officially had spent more than $130 billion on developing the system by 2002. George W. Bush, beginning in 2002, increased that amount significantly.
Between 2002 and 2014 the Government watchdog General Accounting Organization estimated the US Government had spent another $98 billion developing a ballistic missile defense system. That’s excluding the untold billions which were being diverted to missile defense under secret Pentagon ‘black box’ budgets.
Important to know is that the US missile defense is not at all defensive. It is offensive in the extreme.
If the United States were able to shield itself effectively from a potential Russian retaliation from a US nuclear First Strike, the logic of nuclear war, then the US would be able to dictate its terms to the entire world, not just to Russia.
That would be Nuclear Primacy. That was the real meaning of Putin’s unusual Munich 2007 speech. He wasn’t paranoid. He was being starkly realistic.
Lt. Colonel Robert Bowman, who had been Director of the US Air Force Missile Defense Program during the Reagan era, in a telephone interview with this author shortly before his death, called missile defense, “the missing link to a First Strike.”
The Pentagon calls it Nuclear Primacy. Whatever the name it is bad for the world and the future of civilization.
___________
Russia’s chess surprise
This is what our dropping out of the missile treaty brought us
Now Russia has revealed a surprise, a brilliant form of checkmate as in chess. They announced an answer to Washington’s expanding Ballistic Missile “Defense” sites that today exist not only in Poland and the Czech Republic but also in Romania and Turkey.
Russia’s low cost technical development and huge pool of talent will always have them countering our hugely expense “new” weapons
Russia’s government has just announced that it has developed a new “bleeding edge” missile technology that would make the hundreds of billions in dollars that the USA has spent on encircling Russia (and China) with BMD installations utterly worthless. It’s a new ultra-advanced ICBM called RS-26.
Russia’s advanced RS-26intercontinental ballistic missile has a range of 11,000 km. For illustration, Washington DC is 7843 kilometers from Moscow. The new RS-26 also is capable of a continuously changing trajectory, meaning that it can penetrate even the most advanced missile defense shields.
According to a report in the Chinese media after their military leaders were shown a demonstration, even though it weighs just 80 tons, compared to the 120-ton RS-24 Yars predecessor, the Rubezh loads a frightening 1,2 megatons into its four 300 kiloton warheads. Moreover, its booster stage is under five minutes, which means that NATO radars in Europe will have no time to register the launch.
Adding to NATO BMD problems, during the descending section of its trajectory, at only a few hundred kilometers to the target, the missile’s warheads suddenly take a dive, lose altitude, and continue the approach as a cruise missile.
Now in this light a recent statement by Mikhail Ulyanov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, regarding the announced US deployment of upgraded US B61-12 nuclear bombs in Europe takes on an interesting new light.
Ulyanov, without elaborating, told a recent press conference in Moscow, “the Russian reaction to the deployment of new US bombs will be adequate, and its parameters will be determined by a thorough analysis of all circumstances…”
If the recent Russian military intervention in Syria demonstrated one thing to the world, it is that the Russian military capability today bears little or no resemblance to that of the 1980’s when TOW-missile-toting barbarians called Mujahideen, backed by the CIA and US Special Forces and billions of US dollars, managed to drive the Red Army from Afghanistan.
It’s now time to end these silly wargames that have Washington so obsessed. It would be far healthier for us to turn our swords – and nuclear bombers – into plowshares.
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
___________
On January 29, 2007 US Army Brigadier General Patrick J. O`Reilly, Deputy Director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, announced US plans to deploy an anti-ballistic missile defense system in Europe by 2011.
The Pentagon claimed that the deployment was aimed at protecting American and NATO installations against threats from enemies in the Middle East, notably Iran, and not from Russia.
Despite Washington’s insistence that its new planned Missile Defense was only defensive and aimed at “rogue states” like Iran or North Korea, in actual military fact it was not defensive at all, but a major offensive gain for Washington in any future military showdown with Moscow. The February 2014 US military coup d’etat in Kiev and subsequent hostile Washington acts against Russia have brought such a military showdown much closer than many realize.
In 2007 Washington began stationing US controlled nuclear-capable missiles in NATO-member Poland, and anti-missile phased array advanced radar detecting systems in NATO member Czech Republic. It was aimed at the one nuclear power on Earth with the sophisticated nuclear ability to launch an effective counter-strike–the Russian Federation. China’s nuclear arsenal at that point did not pose a comparable threat.
____________
BMD: Offensive not Defensive
VT has a reward for submission of a photo of Nuland riding on a broom
In a January 2006 London Financial Times interview, then-US NATO Ambassador, Victoria Nuland, the same Nuland who ran the US coup in Kiev in 2014, stated regarding the new Pentagon doctrine of “Global Strike,”… that Interviewed by London’s Financial Times, the US Ambassador to NATO, former Cheney advisor, Victoria Nuland, declared that the US wanted a “globally deployable military force” that would operate everywhere – from Africa to the Middle East and beyond—“all across our planet.” vi
Global Strike combined with Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) from the US side was creating an alarming imbalance in the strategic relation between Russia and the USA.
Washington was serious. “Missile defense” projects emerged in the 1980’s when Ronald Reagan proposed developing systems of satellites in space, as well as radar bases listening stations, and interceptor missiles around the globe, all designed to monitor and shoot down Soviet nuclear missiles before they hit their intended targets.
It was dubbed ‘Star Wars’ by its critics, but the Pentagon officially had spent more than $130 billion on developing the system by 2002. George W. Bush, beginning in 2002, increased that amount significantly.
Between 2002 and 2014 the Government watchdog General Accounting Organization estimated the US Government had spent another $98 billion developing a ballistic missile defense system. That’s excluding the untold billions which were being diverted to missile defense under secret Pentagon ‘black box’ budgets.
Important to know is that the US missile defense is not at all defensive. It is offensive in the extreme.
If the United States were able to shield itself effectively from a potential Russian retaliation from a US nuclear First Strike, the logic of nuclear war, then the US would be able to dictate its terms to the entire world, not just to Russia.
That would be Nuclear Primacy. That was the real meaning of Putin’s unusual Munich 2007 speech. He wasn’t paranoid. He was being starkly realistic.
Lt. Colonel Robert Bowman, who had been Director of the US Air Force Missile Defense Program during the Reagan era, in a telephone interview with this author shortly before his death, called missile defense, “the missing link to a First Strike.”
The Pentagon calls it Nuclear Primacy. Whatever the name it is bad for the world and the future of civilization.
___________
Russia’s chess surprise
This is what our dropping out of the missile treaty brought us
Now Russia has revealed a surprise, a brilliant form of checkmate as in chess. They announced an answer to Washington’s expanding Ballistic Missile “Defense” sites that today exist not only in Poland and the Czech Republic but also in Romania and Turkey.
Russia’s low cost technical development and huge pool of talent will always have them countering our hugely expense “new” weapons
Russia’s government has just announced that it has developed a new “bleeding edge” missile technology that would make the hundreds of billions in dollars that the USA has spent on encircling Russia (and China) with BMD installations utterly worthless. It’s a new ultra-advanced ICBM called RS-26.
Russia’s advanced RS-26intercontinental ballistic missile has a range of 11,000 km. For illustration, Washington DC is 7843 kilometers from Moscow. The new RS-26 also is capable of a continuously changing trajectory, meaning that it can penetrate even the most advanced missile defense shields.
According to a report in the Chinese media after their military leaders were shown a demonstration, even though it weighs just 80 tons, compared to the 120-ton RS-24 Yars predecessor, the Rubezh loads a frightening 1,2 megatons into its four 300 kiloton warheads. Moreover, its booster stage is under five minutes, which means that NATO radars in Europe will have no time to register the launch.
Adding to NATO BMD problems, during the descending section of its trajectory, at only a few hundred kilometers to the target, the missile’s warheads suddenly take a dive, lose altitude, and continue the approach as a cruise missile.
Now in this light a recent statement by Mikhail Ulyanov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, regarding the announced US deployment of upgraded US B61-12 nuclear bombs in Europe takes on an interesting new light.
Ulyanov, without elaborating, told a recent press conference in Moscow, “the Russian reaction to the deployment of new US bombs will be adequate, and its parameters will be determined by a thorough analysis of all circumstances…”
If the recent Russian military intervention in Syria demonstrated one thing to the world, it is that the Russian military capability today bears little or no resemblance to that of the 1980’s when TOW-missile-toting barbarians called Mujahideen, backed by the CIA and US Special Forces and billions of US dollars, managed to drive the Red Army from Afghanistan.
It’s now time to end these silly wargames that have Washington so obsessed. It would be far healthier for us to turn our swords – and nuclear bombers – into plowshares.
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
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