Fidel Castro: An incident could set in motion an all out nuclear war
Fidel Castro Ruz | 16.07.2010 15:12 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Social Struggles | World
Obama intends to mislead the world talking about a world free of nuclear weapons that would be replaced with other extremely destructive weapons designed to terrorize the leaders of other States and to accomplish the new strategy of complete impunity. The Yankees believe that Iran will soon surrender.
From my viewpoint, the United States and its NATO allies have said their last word. Two powerful states with authority and prestige failed to exercise their right of vetoing the perfidious UN Resolution. It was the only possibility to gain time in order to find a formula to save peace, an objective that would have given them more authority to continue struggling for it. Today, everything hangs by a thread.
From my viewpoint, the United States and its NATO allies have said their last word. Two powerful states with authority and prestige failed to exercise their right of vetoing the perfidious UN Resolution. It was the only possibility to gain time in order to find a formula to save peace, an objective that would have given them more authority to continue struggling for it. Today, everything hangs by a thread.
Fidel Castro Ruz
On July 4, I said that neither the United States nor Iran would give in: “one, prevented by the pride of the powerful, and the other because it has the capacity and the will to fight oppression, as we have seen so many times before in the history of mankind.”
In nearly every war, one party wishes to avoid it and, sometimes, the two parties do. This time it will happen although one of the parties does not wish it. That was the case of the two World Wars of 1914 and 1939, only 25 years one from the other.
The carnage was awful in both wars, which would not have erupted had it not been for previous miscalculations. Both defended imperialist interests and believed they could accomplish their goals without the exceedingly high price finally paid.
In the case in question, one of the parties involved advocates absolutely fair national interests. The other pursues illegitimate and coarse material interests.
An analysis of every war fought throughout the recorded history of our species shows that one of the parties has pursued such goals.
It’s absolutely wrong to entertain the illusion that this time such goals will be attained without the most dreadful of all wars.
In one of the best articles ran by the Global Research website, signed by Rick Rozoff, the author offers plenty of indisputable arguments, which every well-informed person should be aware of, about the intentions of the United States.
According to the author, the United States believes that “…you can win if the adversary knows that it is vulnerable to a sudden and undetectable, appalling and devastating strike that it has no possibility to respond to or to defend from.”
“…a country with the aspiration of continuing as the only one in history with full military predominance all over the Earth, in the air, the sea and in space.”
“A country that keeps and expands military bases and troops as well as fighting-groups of aircraft carriers and strategic bombers on practically every latitude and longitude, and which does so on a record war budget after World War II amounting to 708 billion dollars next year.”
It was also “…the first country to develop and use nuclear weapons…”
“…the United States has deployed 1,550 nuclear warheads while keeping 2,200 in storage (or 3,500 according to some estimates) and a triad of ground, air and submarine delivering vehicles.”
“The non-nuclear arsenal used to neutralize and destroy the air and strategic defenses, and potentially all the major military forces of other countries, will consist in intercontinental ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and hypersonic bombers, and super-stealth strategic bombers that can avoid radar detection and the ground- and air-based defenses.”
Rozoff enumerates the numerous press conferences, meetings and statements given in the past few months by the chiefs of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the senior executives of the US administration.
He explains the NATO commitments and the reinforced cooperation with the Near East partners, meaning Israel in the first place. He says that “the US is also intensifying the space and cyber war programs with the potential to paralyze other nations’ military command and surveillance, control, communication, information and intelligence systems rendering them helpless except in the most basic tactical field.”
He refers to the signing by the US and Russia, on April 8 this year, in Prague, of the new START Treaty, “which contains no restriction as to the actual or planned potential for a US conventional prompt global strike.”
He also reports a number of news on the issue and offers a most striking example of the US objectives.
He indicates that “…the Defense Department is currently examining the entire range of technologies and systems for a Conventional Prompt Global Strike that could offer the president more credible and technically adequate options to tackle new and developing threats.”
I sustain the view that no president –and not even the most knowledgeable military chief– would have a minute to know what should be done if it were not already programmed in computers.
Rozoff proceeds undisturbed to relate what Global Security Network states in an analysis from Elaine Grossman under the title, The Cost of Testing a US Global Strike Missile Could Reach 500 Million Dollars.
“The Obama administration has requested 239.9 billion dollars for research and development of the prompt global strike by US military services in fiscal year 2011…if the level of funds remains as anticipated for the coming years, by the end of fiscal year 2015 the Pentagon will have spent 2 billion dollars in prompt global strike, according to budget documents introduced in Congress last month.”
“A comparable terrifying scenario of the effects of a PGS, in this case of the sea version, was described three years ago in Popular Mechanics:
“An Ohio-type nuclear submarine emerges in the Pacific ready to execute the President’s order for launching. When the order comes, the submarine shoots to the sky a 65-tons Trident II missile. Within 2 minutes, the missile is flying at 22,000 km/h. Over the oceans and out of the atmosphere it speeds for thousands of kilometers.
“At the top of its parabola, in space, the four warheads of the Trident separate and start descending on the planet.
“The warheads flying at 21,000 km/h are full of tungsten rods with twice the resistance of steel.
“Once on target, the warheads explode and thousands of rods fall on the area, each carrying 12 times the destructive force of a .50 caliber bullet. Everything within 279 square meters of that whirling metal storm is annihilated.”
Then Rozoff explains the statement made this year, on April 7, by the chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Leonid Ivashov, under the headline Obama’s Nuclear Surprise, where he refers to the US President remarks in Prague last year with the following words: “The existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War,” and about the signature of the START II in that same city on April 8, the author points out:
“In the history of the United States during the past century, there is not one example of sacrifice of the US elites for humanity or for the peoples of other countries. Would it be realistic to expect that the arrival of an African-American president to the White House might change the political philosophy of that nation traditionally aimed at achieving global domination? Those who believe that something like that could happen should try to understand why the US –the country whose military budget exceeds that of all the other countries of the world combined– continues spending huge amounts of money in war preparations.”
“…the concept of Prompt Global Strike envisions a concentrated attack with the use of several thousand conventional precision weapons that within 2 to 4 hours would destroy the crucial infrastructure of the targeted country and force it to capitulate.”
“The concept of Prompt Global Strike is aimed at ensuring the US monopoly in the military field and to widen the gap between that country and the rest of the world. In combination with the defensive deployment of missiles that should supposedly preserve the US from retaliatory attacks from Russia and China, the Prompt Global Strike initiative will turn Washington into a global dictator of the modern era.”
“Essentially, the new US nuclear doctrine is part of the new US security strategy that could more adequately be described as a strategy of complete impunity. The US increases its military budget, gives free rein to NATO as a global gendarme, and plans exercises in a real situation in Iran to prove the efficiency of the Prompt Global Strike initiative.”
In substance, Obama intends to mislead the world talking about a world free of nuclear weapons that would be replaced with other extremely destructive weapons designed to terrorize the leaders of other States and to accomplish the new strategy of complete impunity.
The Yankees believe that Iran will soon surrender. It is expected that the European Union will inform about a package of its own sanctions to be signed on July 26.
The latest meeting of 5 plus 1 was held on July 2, after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that “his country will resume the talks by the end of August, with the participation of Brazil and Turkey.”
A senior EU official warned that “neither Brazil nor Turkey will be invited to the talks, at least not at this point.”
“Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki remarked that he is in favor of challenging international sanctions and proceeding with the upgrading of uranium.”
Since Tuesday July 5, and in view of the European insistence in promoting additional measures against Iran, this country has responded that it will not negotiate until September.
Thus, with every passing day there are fewer possibilities to overcome the insurmountable obstacle.
What will happen is so obvious that it can be exactly foreseen.
As for me, I should be self-critical since I made the mistake of affirming in my Reflections of June 27, that the conflict would break out on Thursday, Friday or Saturday at the latest. It was known that Israeli warships were moving toward their target alongside the Yankee naval forces. The order to search the Iranian merchant ships had been issued.
However, I lost sight of a previous step: Iran’s continued refusal to allow the inspection of a merchant ship. In the analysis of the Security Council’s intricate language to impose sanctions on that country, I overlooked the detail of that previous step for the inspection order to be enforced. It was the only required step.
The 60-days period assigned by the Security Council on June 9, to receive information on the implementation of the Resolution, will expire on August 8.
But something more unfortunate still was happening. I was working with the latest material on the issue produced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba and the document did not include two crucial paragraphs which were the last of said Resolution and which literally read:
“It requests that, in a 90 days period, the Director General of the IAEA submits to the IAEA Board of Governors and, simultaneously, to the Security Council for its examination, a report indicating whether Iran has carried out the complete and sustained suspension of all the activities mentioned in Resolution 1737 (2006), and if it is implementing every measure demanded by the IAEA Board of Governors and observing the remaining provisions of Resolutions 1737, 1747, 1803 and the current Resolution;
“It affirms that it will examine Iran’s actions in the light of the report mentioned in paragraph 36, which shall be submitted in a period of 90 days and that a) it will suspend the implementation of the measures provided that Iran suspends every activity related to upgrading and reprocessing, including research and development, and while the suspension stands, the IAEA will verify, to allow the celebration of negotiations in good faith to reach a prompt and mutually acceptable result; b) it will cease to implement the measures specified in paragraphs 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 12 of resolution 1737, as well as in paragraphs 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of resolution 1747, in the paragraphs 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 of Resolution 1803 and in paragraphs 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23 and 24 of the current resolution, as soon as it determines, after receiving the report mentioned in the previous paragraph, that Iran has fully observed its obligations in compliance with the relevant Security Council resolutions and the requisites of the IAEA Board of Governors, a determination to be confirmed by the Board itself; and c) in case the report indicates that Iran has failed to abide by the provisions of Resolutions 1737, 1747, 1803 and the current resolution, it will adopt, in accordance with article 41 of chapter vii of the UN Charter, other appropriate measures to persuade Iran to do as provided in said resolutions and the requisites of the IAEA, and underlines that other decisions shall be adopted if such additional measures were necessary…”
Apparently, after many hours of hard work making copies of every document, somebody at the Ministry fell asleep, but my eagerness to seek information and exchange views on these sensitive issues enabled me to detect the omission.
From my viewpoint, the United States and its NATO allies have said their last word. Two powerful states with authority and prestige failed to exercise their right of vetoing the perfidious UN Resolution.
It was the only possibility to gain time in order to find a formula to save peace, an objective that would have given them more authority to continue struggling for it.
Today, everything hangs by a thread.
My main purpose was to warn the international public of what was developing.
I have done so partly watching what was happening as the political leader that I was for many long years facing the empire, its blockade and its unspeakable crimes. I’m not doing it for revenge.
I do not hesitate to take the risk of compromising my modest moral authority.
I shall continue writing Reflections on the subject. There will be others after this one to continue delving in the issue on July and August, unless an incident occurs that sets in motion the deadly weapons that are today aiming at each other.
I have greatly enjoyed the final matches of the Football World Cup and the volleyball matches, where our brave team is leading its group in the World League.
In nearly every war, one party wishes to avoid it and, sometimes, the two parties do. This time it will happen although one of the parties does not wish it. That was the case of the two World Wars of 1914 and 1939, only 25 years one from the other.
The carnage was awful in both wars, which would not have erupted had it not been for previous miscalculations. Both defended imperialist interests and believed they could accomplish their goals without the exceedingly high price finally paid.
In the case in question, one of the parties involved advocates absolutely fair national interests. The other pursues illegitimate and coarse material interests.
An analysis of every war fought throughout the recorded history of our species shows that one of the parties has pursued such goals.
It’s absolutely wrong to entertain the illusion that this time such goals will be attained without the most dreadful of all wars.
In one of the best articles ran by the Global Research website, signed by Rick Rozoff, the author offers plenty of indisputable arguments, which every well-informed person should be aware of, about the intentions of the United States.
According to the author, the United States believes that “…you can win if the adversary knows that it is vulnerable to a sudden and undetectable, appalling and devastating strike that it has no possibility to respond to or to defend from.”
“…a country with the aspiration of continuing as the only one in history with full military predominance all over the Earth, in the air, the sea and in space.”
“A country that keeps and expands military bases and troops as well as fighting-groups of aircraft carriers and strategic bombers on practically every latitude and longitude, and which does so on a record war budget after World War II amounting to 708 billion dollars next year.”
It was also “…the first country to develop and use nuclear weapons…”
“…the United States has deployed 1,550 nuclear warheads while keeping 2,200 in storage (or 3,500 according to some estimates) and a triad of ground, air and submarine delivering vehicles.”
“The non-nuclear arsenal used to neutralize and destroy the air and strategic defenses, and potentially all the major military forces of other countries, will consist in intercontinental ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and hypersonic bombers, and super-stealth strategic bombers that can avoid radar detection and the ground- and air-based defenses.”
Rozoff enumerates the numerous press conferences, meetings and statements given in the past few months by the chiefs of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the senior executives of the US administration.
He explains the NATO commitments and the reinforced cooperation with the Near East partners, meaning Israel in the first place. He says that “the US is also intensifying the space and cyber war programs with the potential to paralyze other nations’ military command and surveillance, control, communication, information and intelligence systems rendering them helpless except in the most basic tactical field.”
He refers to the signing by the US and Russia, on April 8 this year, in Prague, of the new START Treaty, “which contains no restriction as to the actual or planned potential for a US conventional prompt global strike.”
He also reports a number of news on the issue and offers a most striking example of the US objectives.
He indicates that “…the Defense Department is currently examining the entire range of technologies and systems for a Conventional Prompt Global Strike that could offer the president more credible and technically adequate options to tackle new and developing threats.”
I sustain the view that no president –and not even the most knowledgeable military chief– would have a minute to know what should be done if it were not already programmed in computers.
Rozoff proceeds undisturbed to relate what Global Security Network states in an analysis from Elaine Grossman under the title, The Cost of Testing a US Global Strike Missile Could Reach 500 Million Dollars.
“The Obama administration has requested 239.9 billion dollars for research and development of the prompt global strike by US military services in fiscal year 2011…if the level of funds remains as anticipated for the coming years, by the end of fiscal year 2015 the Pentagon will have spent 2 billion dollars in prompt global strike, according to budget documents introduced in Congress last month.”
“A comparable terrifying scenario of the effects of a PGS, in this case of the sea version, was described three years ago in Popular Mechanics:
“An Ohio-type nuclear submarine emerges in the Pacific ready to execute the President’s order for launching. When the order comes, the submarine shoots to the sky a 65-tons Trident II missile. Within 2 minutes, the missile is flying at 22,000 km/h. Over the oceans and out of the atmosphere it speeds for thousands of kilometers.
“At the top of its parabola, in space, the four warheads of the Trident separate and start descending on the planet.
“The warheads flying at 21,000 km/h are full of tungsten rods with twice the resistance of steel.
“Once on target, the warheads explode and thousands of rods fall on the area, each carrying 12 times the destructive force of a .50 caliber bullet. Everything within 279 square meters of that whirling metal storm is annihilated.”
Then Rozoff explains the statement made this year, on April 7, by the chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Leonid Ivashov, under the headline Obama’s Nuclear Surprise, where he refers to the US President remarks in Prague last year with the following words: “The existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War,” and about the signature of the START II in that same city on April 8, the author points out:
“In the history of the United States during the past century, there is not one example of sacrifice of the US elites for humanity or for the peoples of other countries. Would it be realistic to expect that the arrival of an African-American president to the White House might change the political philosophy of that nation traditionally aimed at achieving global domination? Those who believe that something like that could happen should try to understand why the US –the country whose military budget exceeds that of all the other countries of the world combined– continues spending huge amounts of money in war preparations.”
“…the concept of Prompt Global Strike envisions a concentrated attack with the use of several thousand conventional precision weapons that within 2 to 4 hours would destroy the crucial infrastructure of the targeted country and force it to capitulate.”
“The concept of Prompt Global Strike is aimed at ensuring the US monopoly in the military field and to widen the gap between that country and the rest of the world. In combination with the defensive deployment of missiles that should supposedly preserve the US from retaliatory attacks from Russia and China, the Prompt Global Strike initiative will turn Washington into a global dictator of the modern era.”
“Essentially, the new US nuclear doctrine is part of the new US security strategy that could more adequately be described as a strategy of complete impunity. The US increases its military budget, gives free rein to NATO as a global gendarme, and plans exercises in a real situation in Iran to prove the efficiency of the Prompt Global Strike initiative.”
In substance, Obama intends to mislead the world talking about a world free of nuclear weapons that would be replaced with other extremely destructive weapons designed to terrorize the leaders of other States and to accomplish the new strategy of complete impunity.
The Yankees believe that Iran will soon surrender. It is expected that the European Union will inform about a package of its own sanctions to be signed on July 26.
The latest meeting of 5 plus 1 was held on July 2, after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that “his country will resume the talks by the end of August, with the participation of Brazil and Turkey.”
A senior EU official warned that “neither Brazil nor Turkey will be invited to the talks, at least not at this point.”
“Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki remarked that he is in favor of challenging international sanctions and proceeding with the upgrading of uranium.”
Since Tuesday July 5, and in view of the European insistence in promoting additional measures against Iran, this country has responded that it will not negotiate until September.
Thus, with every passing day there are fewer possibilities to overcome the insurmountable obstacle.
What will happen is so obvious that it can be exactly foreseen.
As for me, I should be self-critical since I made the mistake of affirming in my Reflections of June 27, that the conflict would break out on Thursday, Friday or Saturday at the latest. It was known that Israeli warships were moving toward their target alongside the Yankee naval forces. The order to search the Iranian merchant ships had been issued.
However, I lost sight of a previous step: Iran’s continued refusal to allow the inspection of a merchant ship. In the analysis of the Security Council’s intricate language to impose sanctions on that country, I overlooked the detail of that previous step for the inspection order to be enforced. It was the only required step.
The 60-days period assigned by the Security Council on June 9, to receive information on the implementation of the Resolution, will expire on August 8.
But something more unfortunate still was happening. I was working with the latest material on the issue produced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba and the document did not include two crucial paragraphs which were the last of said Resolution and which literally read:
“It requests that, in a 90 days period, the Director General of the IAEA submits to the IAEA Board of Governors and, simultaneously, to the Security Council for its examination, a report indicating whether Iran has carried out the complete and sustained suspension of all the activities mentioned in Resolution 1737 (2006), and if it is implementing every measure demanded by the IAEA Board of Governors and observing the remaining provisions of Resolutions 1737, 1747, 1803 and the current Resolution;
“It affirms that it will examine Iran’s actions in the light of the report mentioned in paragraph 36, which shall be submitted in a period of 90 days and that a) it will suspend the implementation of the measures provided that Iran suspends every activity related to upgrading and reprocessing, including research and development, and while the suspension stands, the IAEA will verify, to allow the celebration of negotiations in good faith to reach a prompt and mutually acceptable result; b) it will cease to implement the measures specified in paragraphs 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 12 of resolution 1737, as well as in paragraphs 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of resolution 1747, in the paragraphs 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 of Resolution 1803 and in paragraphs 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23 and 24 of the current resolution, as soon as it determines, after receiving the report mentioned in the previous paragraph, that Iran has fully observed its obligations in compliance with the relevant Security Council resolutions and the requisites of the IAEA Board of Governors, a determination to be confirmed by the Board itself; and c) in case the report indicates that Iran has failed to abide by the provisions of Resolutions 1737, 1747, 1803 and the current resolution, it will adopt, in accordance with article 41 of chapter vii of the UN Charter, other appropriate measures to persuade Iran to do as provided in said resolutions and the requisites of the IAEA, and underlines that other decisions shall be adopted if such additional measures were necessary…”
Apparently, after many hours of hard work making copies of every document, somebody at the Ministry fell asleep, but my eagerness to seek information and exchange views on these sensitive issues enabled me to detect the omission.
From my viewpoint, the United States and its NATO allies have said their last word. Two powerful states with authority and prestige failed to exercise their right of vetoing the perfidious UN Resolution.
It was the only possibility to gain time in order to find a formula to save peace, an objective that would have given them more authority to continue struggling for it.
Today, everything hangs by a thread.
My main purpose was to warn the international public of what was developing.
I have done so partly watching what was happening as the political leader that I was for many long years facing the empire, its blockade and its unspeakable crimes. I’m not doing it for revenge.
I do not hesitate to take the risk of compromising my modest moral authority.
I shall continue writing Reflections on the subject. There will be others after this one to continue delving in the issue on July and August, unless an incident occurs that sets in motion the deadly weapons that are today aiming at each other.
I have greatly enjoyed the final matches of the Football World Cup and the volleyball matches, where our brave team is leading its group in the World League.
Fidel Castro Ruz
Homepage:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20130
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Flashback: US imperial design:World military superiority without nuclear weapons
16.07.2010 15:48
U.S. nuclear weapon bases in Europe (2008)
from the archives:
America's Imperial Design. Prompt Global Strike: World Military Superiority Without Nuclear Weapons
by Rick Rozoff, 10 April 2010
Summary:
In essence, the new US nuclear doctrine is an element of the novel US security strategy that would be more adequately described as the strategy of total impunity. The US is boosting its military budget, unleashing NATO as a global gendarme, and planning real-life exercises in Iran to test the efficiency of the Prompt Global Strike initiative in practice. At the same time, Washington is talking about a completely nuclear-free world.
____________________
Prompt global strike: World military superiority without nuclear weapons
by Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO,10 April 2010
A war can be won without being waged. Victory can be attained when an adversary knows it is vulnerable to an instantaneous and undetectable, overwhelming and devastating attack without the ability to defend itself or retaliate.
What applies to an individual country does also to all potential adversaries and indeed to every other nation in the world.
There is only one country that has the military and scientific capacity and has openly proclaimed its intention to achieve that ability. That nation is what its current head of state defined last December as the world's sole military superpower. [1] One which aspires to remain the only state in history to wield full spectrum military dominance on land, in the air, on the seas and in space.
To maintain and extend military bases and troops, aircraft carrier battle groups and strategic bombers on and to most every latitude and longitude. To do so with a post-World War II record war budget of $708 billion for next year.
Having gained that status in large part through being the first country to develop and use nuclear weapons, it is now in a position to strengthen its global supremacy by superseding the nuclear option.
The U.S. led three major wars in less than four years against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq from 1999-2003 and in all three cases deployed from tens to hundreds of thousands of "boots on the ground" after air strikes and missile attacks. The Pentagon established military bases in all three war zones and, although depleted uranium contamination and cluster bombs are still spread across all three lands, American troops have not had to contend with an irradiated landscape. Launching a nuclear attack when a conventional one serves the same purpose would be superfluous and too costly in a variety of ways.
On April 8 American and Russian presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) agreement in the Czech capital of Prague to reduce their respective nation's nuclear arsenals and delivery systems (subject to ratification by the U.S. Senate and the Russian Duma). Earlier in the same week the U.S. released its new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) which for the first time appeared to abandon the first use of nuclear arms.
The dark nuclear cloud that has hung over humanity's head for the past 65 years appears to be dissipating.
However, the U.S. retains 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 2,200 (by some counts 3,500) more in storage and a triad of land, air and submarine delivery vehicles.
More ominously, though, Washington is forging ahead with a replacement for the nuclear sword and shield - for blackmail and for deterrence - with a non-nuclear model that could upset the previous "balance of terror" arrangement that has been a criminal nightmare for six decades, but for sixty years without a massive missile war.
The new sword, or spear, entails plans for conventional first strike weapon systems employing the same triad of land, air and sea components - with space added - and the shield is a worldwide network of interceptor missile deployments, also in all four areas. The Pentagon intends to be able to strike first and with impunity.
The non-nuclear arsenal used for disabling and destroying the air defenses and strategic, potentially all major, military forces of other nations will consist of intercontinental ballistic missiles, adapted submarine-launched ballistic missiles, hypersonic cruise missiles and bombers, and super stealthy strategic bombers able to avoid detection by radar and thus evade ground- and air-based defenses.
Any short-range, intermediate-range and long-range missiles remaining in the targeted country will in theory be destroyed after launching by kinetic, "hit-to-kill" interceptor missiles. Should the missiles so neutralized contain nuclear warheads, the fallout will occur over the country that launches them or over an adjoining body of water or other nation of the U.S.'s choosing.
A Russian commentary of three years ago described the interaction between first strike and interceptor missile systems as follows:
"One can invest in the development of a really effective ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] system and first-strike weapons, for example, in conventional high-accuracy systems. The final goal is to create a capability for a disarming first strike (nuclear, non-nuclear or mixed) at the enemy's strategic nuclear potential. ABM will finish off whatever survives the first blow." [2]
The long-delayed Nuclear Posture Review Report of earlier this month asserts the Pentagon's plans for "maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent and reinforcing regional security architectures with missile defenses...." [3]
It also confirms that the addition of "non-nuclear systems to U.S. regional deterrence and reassurance goals will be preserved by avoiding limitations on missile defenses and preserving options for using heavy bombers and long-range missile systems in conventional roles."
At an April 6 press conference on the Nuclear Posture Review with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Navy Admiral Michael Mullen, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Gates said "we will maintain the nuclear triad of ICBMs [Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles], nuclear-capable aircraft and ballistic-missile submarines" and "we will continue to develop and improve non-nuclear capabilities, including regional missile defenses." Mullen spoke of "defend[ing] the vital interests of the United States and those of our partners and allies with a more balanced mix of nuclear and non-nuclear means than we have at our disposal today." [4]
The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report of February 1 stated "The United States will pursue a phased adaptive approach to missile defense" and "develop capabilities that are mobile and relocatable."
Furthermore, "the Administration is committed to implementing the new European Phased Adaptive Approach within a NATO context. In East Asia, the United States is working to improve missile defenses through a series of bilateral relationships. The United States is also pursuing strengthened cooperation with a number of partners in the Middle East." [5]
The Quadrennial Defense Review Report of February spoke of similar plans.
The Review "advances two clear objectives. First, to further rebalance the capabilities of America’s Armed Forces to prevail in today’s wars, while building the capabilities needed to deal with future threats."
It states "The United States remains the only nation able to project and sustain large-scale operations over extended distances" with "400,000 U.S. military personnel...forward-stationed or rotationally deployed around the world," and which is "enabled by cyber and space capabilities and enhanced by U.S. capabilities to deny adversaries’ objectives through ballistic missile defense...."
One of its key goals is to "Expand future long-range strike capabilities" and promote the "rapid growth in sea- and land-based ballistic missile defense capabilities." [6]
The U.S. is also intensifying space and cyber warfare programs with the potential to completely shut down other nations' military surveillance and command, control, communications, computer and intelligence systems, rendering them defenseless on any but the most basic tactical level.
The program under which Washington is developing its conventional weapons capacity to supplement its previous nuclear strategy is called Prompt Global Strike (PGS), alternately referred to as Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS).
Global Security Newswire recently wrote of the proposed START II that "Members of Russia's political elite are worried about what the agreement says or does not say about U.S. ballistic missile defense and 'prompt global strike' systems...." [7]
In fact the successor to START I says nothing about American interceptor missile or first strike conventional attack policies, and as such says everything about them. That is, the new treaty will not limit or affect them in any manner.
After the signing ceremony in Prague on April 8 the U.S. State Department issued a fact sheet on Prompt Global Strike which stated:
"Key Point: The New START Treaty does not contain any constraints on current or planned U.S. conventional prompt global strike capability."
By way of background information and to provide a framework for current U.S. military strategy it added:
"The growth of unrivaled U.S. conventional military capabilities has contributed to our ability to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks....The Department of Defense (DoD) is currently exploring the full range of technologies and systems for a Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) capability that could provide the President more credible and technically suitable options for dealing with new and evolving threats." [8]
Describing the constituent parts of PGS, the State Department press release also revealed:
"Current efforts are examining three concepts: Hypersonic Technology Vehicle, Conventional Strike Missile, and Advanced Hypersonic Weapon. These projects are managed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Center, and Army Space and Missile Defense Command respectively....[The START II] warhead ceiling would accommodate any plans the United States might develop during the life of this Treaty to deploy conventional warheads on ballistic missiles."
In language as unequivocal as the State Department has been known to employ, the statement added:
"New START protects the U.S. ability to develop and deploy a CPGS capability. The Treaty in no way prohibits the United States from building or deploying conventionally-armed ballistic missiles."
The Department of Defense "is studying CPGS within the context of its portfolio of all non-nuclear long-range strike capabilities including land-based and sea-based systems, as well as standoff and/or penetrating bombers...." [9]
The non-nuclear missiles referred to are designed to strike any spot on earth within sixty minutes, but as the main proponent of PGS, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine General James Cartwright, recently boasted, "At the high end," strikes could be delivered in "300 milliseconds." [10]
Speaking of the air force third of the GPS triad - nuclear-armed cruise missiles fired from B-52 bombers, X-51 unmanned aircraft that can fly at 5,000 miles per hour, the Blackswift "spaceplane" - Cartwright has also said that current conventionally armed bombers are "too slow and too intrusive" for many "global strike missions." [11]
On January 21 Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn called for placing the Pentagon "on a permanent footing to fight both low-intensity conflicts to maintaining air dominance and the ability to strike any target on Earth at any time....The next air warfare priority for the Pentagon is developing a next-generation, deep-penetrating strike capability that can overcome advanced air defenses...." [12]
In a Global Security Network analysis titled "Cost to Test U.S. Global-Strike Missile Could Reach $500 Million," Elaine Grossman wrote:
"The Obama administration has requested $239.9 million for prompt global strike research and development across the military services in fiscal 2011....If funding levels remain as anticipated into the coming years, the Pentagon will have spent some $2 billion on prompt global strike by the end of fiscal 2015, according to budget documents submitted last month to Capitol Hill." [13]
The land-based component of PGS, Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles with a conventional payload, will "initially boost into space like a ballistic missile, dispatch a 'hypersonic test vehicle' to glide and maneuver into a programmed destination, which could be updated or altered remotely during flight." [14]
Last month Defense News featured an article with the title "U.S. Targets Precision Arms for 21st-Century Wars," which included this excerpt:
"To counter...air defenses, the Pentagon wants to build a host of precision
weapons that can hit any target from thousands of miles away. Known as a family of systems, these weapons could include whatever the Air Force chooses as its next bomber, a new set of cruise missiles and even, someday, hypersonic weapons developed under the Pentagon's Prompt Global Strike program that would give the speed and range of an ICBM to a conventional warhead." [15]
A recent Washington Post report on PGS quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warning that "World states will hardly accept a situation in which nuclear weapons disappear, but weapons that are no less destabilizing emerge in the hands of certain members of the international community." [16]
The same source added "the Obama administration...sees the missiles as one cog in an array of defensive and offensive weapons that could ultimately replace nuclear arms," and quoted the Pentagon's Cartwright as affirming: "Deterrence can no longer just be nuclear weapons. It has to be broader." [17]
The following day Britain's Independent ran a story the following quotes from which should disabuse anyone hoping that Washington's "post-nuclear world" will be any safer a one.
Referring to PGS intercontinental ballistic missiles with (at least in theory) conventional warheads, the newspaper warned that:
"Once they are launched, there could be difficulty in distinguishing their conventional payloads from nuclear ones. That in turn could accidentally trigger a nuclear retaliation by Russia or another similarly-armed power.
"Another danger is that if nuclear weapons are no longer at issue, there would be a bigger temptation for American military commanders to become more cavalier about ordering strikes. And unless intelligence can be fully relied upon, the chances of striking mistaken targets are high." [18]
U.S. officials have discussed the prospect of launching such missiles at a lower altitude than nuclear ICBMs would travel, but it would take an almost limitless degree of trust - or gullibility - on behalf of Russian or Chinese military officials to depend upon the assurance that ICBMs heading toward or near their territory were in fact not carrying nuclear weapons at whatever distance from the earth's surface they were flying.
In 2007, the year after the Pentagon first announced its Prompt Global Strike plans, a Russian analyst wrote that "the Americans are not particularly worried about their nuclear arsenal" and "have been thoroughly calculating the real threats to their security to be ready to go to war, if need be, in real earnest," adding "The 20th century saw two world wars and a third one is looming large."
"Despite the obvious threat to civilization the United States may soon acquire orbital weapons under the Prompt Global Strike plan. They will give it the capacity to deal a conventional strike virtually anywhere in the world within an hour." [19]
Elaine Grossman wrote last year:
"Once it is built, the Conventional Strike Missile is expected to pair rocket boosters with a fast-flying 'payload delivery vehicle' capable of dispensing a kinetic energy projectile against a target. Upon nearing its endpoint, the projectile would split into dozens of lethal fragments potentially capable against humans, vehicles and structures, according to defense officials...." [20]
A comparably horrifying scenario of the effects of a PGS attack, this one from the sea-based version, appeared in Popular Mechanics three years ago:
"In the Pacific, a nuclear-powered Ohio class submarine surfaces, ready for the president's command to launch. When the order comes, the sub shoots a 65-ton Trident II ballistic missile into the sky. Within 2 minutes, the missile is traveling at more than 20,000 ft. per second. Up and over the oceans and out of the atmosphere it soars for thousands of miles.
"At the top of its parabola, hanging in space, the Trident's four warheads separate and begin their screaming descent down toward the planet.
"Traveling as fast as 13,000 mph, the warheads are filled with scored tungsten rods with twice the strength of steel.
"Just above the target, the warheads detonate, showering the area with thousands of rods - each one up to 12 times as destructive as a .50-caliber bullet. Anything within 3000 sq. ft. of this whirling, metallic storm is obliterated." [21]
This April 7 former Joint Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces General Leonid Ivashov penned a column called "Obama's Nuclear Surprise."
Referring to the U.S. president's speech in Prague a year ago - "The existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War" - and his signing of the START II agreement in the same city this April 8, the author said:
"No examples of sacrificial service of the US elites to mankind or the peoples of other countries can be discovered in US history over the past century. Would it be realistic to expect the advent of an African-American president to the White House to change the country's political philosophy traditionally aimed at achieving global dominance? Those believing that something like that is possible should try to realize why the US - the country with a military budget already greater than those of all other countries of the world combined - continues spending enormous sums of money on preparations for war." [22]
Specifically in reference to PGS, he detailed that "The Prompt Global Strike concept envisages a concentrated strike using several thousand precision conventional weapons in 2-4 hours that would completely destroy the critical infrastructures of the target country and thus force it to capitulate.
"The Prompt Global Strike concept is meant to sustain the US monopoly in the military sphere and to widen the gap between it and the rest of the world. Combined with the deployment of missile defense supposed to keep the US immune to retaliatory strikes from Russia and China, the Prompt Global Strike initiative is going to turn Washington into a modern era global dictator.
"In essence, the new US nuclear doctrine is an element of the novel US security strategy that would be more adequately described as the strategy of total impunity. The US is boosting its military budget, unleashing NATO as a global gendarme, and planning real-life exercises in Iran to test the efficiency of the Prompt Global Strike initiative in practice. At the same time, Washington is talking about a completely nuclear-free world." [23]
____________________
Notes
1) Obama Doctrine: Eternal War For Imperfect Mankind
Stop NATO, December 10, 2009
2) Alexander Khramchikhin, The MAD situation is no longer there
Russian Information Agency Novosti, May 29, 2007
3) Nuclear Posture Review Report
United States Department of Defense
April 2010
4) United States Department of Defense
American Forces Press Service
April 6, 2010
5) United States Department of Defense, February 1, 2010
6) United States Department of Defense, February 2010
Quadrennial Defense Review Report, February 2010
7) Global Security Newswire, April 2, 2010
8) U.S. Department of State, April 9, 2010
9) Ibid
10) Defense News, June 4, 2009
11) Ibid
12) Defense News, January 22, 2010
U.S. Extends Missile Buildup From Poland And Taiwan To Persian Gulf
Stop NATO, February 3, 2010
13) Global Security Network, March 15, 2010
14) Ibid
15) Defense News, March 22, 2010
16) Washington Post, April 8, 2010
17) Ibid
18) The Independent, April 9, 2010
19) Andrei Kislyakov, Defense budget: nuclear or conventional?
Russian Information Agency Novosti, November 20, 2007
20) Global Security Newswire, July 1, 2009
21) Noah Shachtman, Hypersonic Cruise Missile: America's New Global Strike
Weapon
Popular Mechanics, January 2007
22) Strategic Culture Foundation, April 7, 2010
23) Ibid
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Rick Rozoff
e-mail:
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Homepage:
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Has Fidel lost his memory marbles?
16.07.2010 18:44
Senile despot watch
warmonger troll alert!
16.07.2010 19:15
Reply to "Senile despot watch":
You and your troll colleagues who are systematically infesting Indymedia and any other UK website where there is any trace of genuine dissent, are doing a great job in carving up those who oppose imperialist warfare. Well done!
Note:
"An "Internet troll" or "Forum Troll" is a person who posts outrageous message to bait people to answer. Trolls delight in sowing discord on the forums. A troll is someone who inspires flaming rhetoric, someone who is purposely provoking and pulling people into flaming discussion. Flaming discussions usually end with name calling and a flame war.
A classic troll tries to make us believe that he is a skeptic. He is divisive and argumentative with need-to-be-right attitude, "searching for the truth", flaming discussion, and sometimes insulting people or provoking people to insult him. A troll is usually an expert in reusing the same words of its opponents and in turning it against them."
source:
anti-troll
shurely shome mishtake
18.07.2010 08:30
''Ah yes, Fidel Castro, the man who single-handledly engineered the incident..."
Umm I think, actually, he meant the Fidel Castro who was relentlessly pressured by aggressive U.S. foreign policies to negotiate economic ties (for sugar exports) with Russia. You know, the same Fidel Castro who allowed the Russians to pursue a completely predictable RESPONSE to the maniacal U.S.- Eastern European 'Jupiter' missile threat on Moscow.
Not sure which Castro you're referring too. Are you sure he exists?
:)
MB
MB