Demonstrative nukes are about as effective as threatening a guy with a gun, it basically cues the other guy to kill you because you have done him the favor of throwing the initiative and moral high ground away. Put the nukes away or accompany any tactical nukes in Ukraine with a a full barrage on the US and EU. And probably Israel too why not.
That makes sense. Any use of tactical nukes logically needs to be accompanied by full launch of strategic weapons. As soon as NATO realizes nuclear missiles are in the air headed towards NATO countries they will launch all their missiles and go into immediate search and destroy mode for Russian subs. "Demonstative nukes" gives away the initiative and would be a fatal flaw in such an exchange.
If the Russian Military can't handle this Kursk incursion (which I think they can) they have no business going to war with NATO in any form or fashion.
A dirty bomb attack on the KNPP would warrant full nuclear reprisal, I think both sides know that. The capture of the KNPP to exchange for ZNPP makes sense, but would be a pretty large failure for the Russian Army.
" Any use of tactical nukes logically needs to be accompanied by full launch of strategic weapons." Respectfully disagree. I completely agree there are many paths from use of tactical nukes to full strategic nuclear war, but at the same time there are breakpoints that make that progression anything but inevitable.
For example, suppose Russia uses tactical nukes with dial-a-yield set down low, in the 10kt or so range, to eliminate US/NATO short range nuclear missiles and nuclear weapons systems in Poland, the Baltics, and Romania, that is, nukes directly on Russia's border or so close they may as well be, poised for decapitation strikes on Moscow. Russia could also nuke rapid response NATO ground attack aircraft poised for rapid load of nukes from forward based nuclear bases in the Netherlands, Italy, and Germany.
That would vaporize the adjacent hamlets, but it wouldn't touch the territories of the US, UK, or France. Is the US going to immediately launch an "all-in" strategic strike on Russia, which would guarantee the total erasure of every American, the United States, every military base the US has overseas, every capital ship, and the depopulation of every US vassal state worldwide? Just to "get even" for a hamlet in Poland? Not likely.
To take another example, the US keeps its carrier task forces (11 at the present time, I believe) at sea and conveniently far away from any land. Russia could wipe out an entire carrier task force with zero collateral damage to any US city or any city at all. You wouldn't even know the carrier task force had been vaporized if you didn't see a distant flash in the night sky or had special instruments to detect the subsonic atmospheric and oceanic pulses. Same with the US's huge strategic base on Diego Garcia island far out in the Indian Ocean.
Russia could wipe out US foreign military assets all day long without ever touching the US's mainland territories. That's a consequence of the US having lots of tentacles all over the planet. But the US can't strike Russia's military (except for fewer than five tiny bases) without nuking Russian homeland.
There's a lot of tactical nuking Russia could do without crossing the line into killing US cities. If the US crosses that line and kills a Russian city, the US knows that means it will forever cease to exist as a nation and culture, with every American in the US and almost every American on the planet dying. So there's certainly an incentive for both sides not to jump to killing cities and setting off nukes in each other's homeland.
Should have done that in 2022, before we got to this point. When the west started deliberations on providing weapons to Ukraine, that’s when to threaten this action. And be ready to use it.
It is of course all conjecture, but yes, I think America, Britain and France would immediately launch everything in the situations you mention.
It goes against conventional wisdom, but a nuclear war can be won or lost by giving away the initiative.
The west is not going to back down, nuclear use or not. The only way Russia wins is by winning the proxy war, and keeping it proxy. If they aren't militarily capable of doing so, someone made a mistake somewhere in the decision making process to go to war in the first place.
Opinions will very, of course, but it is mine that Russia will likely have one chance to launch before being inundated by NATO's superior air power/ISR/force projection and lose a nuclear war if they don't get in a full first strike.
"but a nuclear war can be won or lost by giving away the initiative."
If by "giving away the initiative" you mean by not striking first, that's a totally false proposition which is believed only by people who do not understand the technical details of nuclear arms, their effects, the systems for using them, and the scale of the arsenals on both sides.
It's a bit like saying that if two men are in a room together, with each of them wearing a vest with 20k of plastic explosive and both of them have their fingers on a button to blow up their vest that one or the other of them can win or lose by giving away the initiative. Nope. It doesn't matter which of them presses his button first. What matters is that the moment either of the two buttons is pressed, both men die as 20kg of plastique is more than enough to kill both men and to level the entire building in which they stand. Nobody "wins."
To shorten the text, in what follows "US" means both the US's arsenal as well as the UK and French arsenals working together in a coordinated strike. By "nuclear weapons" I also mean the various launch systems that carry warheads to their targets.
The US doesn't have enough nuclear weapons or the technical capability to use a first strike to reduce Russia's arsenal to the point that the US and all Americans would not cease to exist as a result of a Russian response to a US first strike. That's true even if Russia "rode out" the first strike and didn't launch on warning, which it will.
So, how exactly, does the US "win" a nuclear war by striking first when the result of that is the US and every American ceases to exist?
That's a consequence of several factors: Russia has over 6,000 nukes. Those are dispersed over such a large territory that Russia has plenty of time to decide to launch them before inbound US nukes can destroy the Russian nukes. Intermediate range missiles launched from next to Russia's borders can't get to most of Russia's nukes before they can be launched.
Also, Russia's nukes are based primarily in hidden locations the US cannot detect, such as on moving submarines and on moving launch vehicles hidden in many thousands of miles of endless forests. Russia has relatively few nukes based in silos or on bomber bases or surface ships. But even the majority of those could launch on warning long before inbound US nukes could kill them. If Russia "rode out" a first strike, conceding the destruction of silos, and surface ships, the thousands of nukes that would remain would be more than enough to annihilate the US and all of its vassals.
Another factor is that decapitation strikes won't work on Russia. A somewhat controversial (in the West) aspect of Russia's nuclear war fighting plans is the explicit delegation of command authority beyond the President. The US also does that (see Daniel Ellsberg's fine book on the matter) but it lies to the population to hide the actual delegation of nuclear war initiation to a very wide cast of characters. The notion that only the US President cracking open some secret codes can launch a nuclear war is an absurd, Hollywood, lie.
Russia is more explicit in stating the obvious that yes, command authority in extremis is broadened beyond the President and that is done explicitly for a "dead hand" system that ensures a sneak attack decapitation strike on the leadership in Moscow will not succeed, and instead will for sure result in an extinction event in the West.
That's an example of Russian thinking: tell the West openly that if they try a decapitation strike the result for sure will be worse than if they didn't. Which brings me to...
"The west is not going to back down, nuclear use or not. " Maybe yes, maybe no. The US's history in nuclear plans indicates a certain degree of self-delusion and suicidal disregard for obvious risks. For example, when Ellsberg and other nuclear war planners suggested that decapitation strikes were counterproductive because killing the enemy's leaders eliminated any possibility of a war's escalation spiral being ended before 100% mutual destruction, such talk was opposed by people who thought that a US which was 95% depopulated and reduced to lower level of life than the Dark Ages could somehow say it "won" if it struck first.
So if a total nitwit like possible VP Walz ends up as President (say, if President Kamala gets offed in some Ukrainian false flag operation...) there's no counting on the US being rational about anything having to do with nuclear war.
But the actual track record through many nuclear brinksmanship crises between the US and USSR (there have been more than just Cuba) shows that US presidents have tended to get religion about not incinerating the US and were perfectly willing to "back down" from suicidal actions when they stared the Apocalypse in the eye.
"Russia will likely have one chance to launch before being inundated by NATO's superior air power/ISR/force projection and lose a nuclear war if they don't get in a full first strike." Wrong on all three counts.
- Russia can "ride out" a US first strike and still have more than enough nukes to physically kill every American and every US vassal worldwide.
- You're drinking the Kool-Aid with that "superior" bit. NATO's air power will get shredded by Russian air defenses, which will include nuclear-tipped air defense in such a war. ISR doesn't matter in the opening minutes of such a war because there isn't effective feedback in such a chaotic situation. They'll make their plans well in advance and then those plans will contact reality and be immediately out of date. Further ISR won't exist because the US's ISR toys and systems are all highly vulnerable in a nuclear war environment. As to force projection, NATO's is sufficient for dealing with tribesmen in sandals in the desert who can't shoot back, but it is laughably weak for any real conflict with Russia. It's forces are also conveniently concentrated where they will cease to exist in the first 30 minutes of a conflict.
Finally, Russia has the same "first strike" constraints as the US: Russia with a first strike cannot kill enough US weapons to prevent the effective annihilation of Russia in response. That's not a "win." Decapitation strikes also are highly unlikely to work because of the very broad and deep delegation of launch authority within the US.
Just saying, as a practical matter if strikes on cities or near cities start happening in the US or the Russian homelands, the next step is almost certainly a strategic exchange that will leave Russia in ruins and which will annihilate the US and every US vassal. There's a strong incentive not to try a first strike but instead to avoid escalating above tactical strikes outside of the homelands.
In that situation, Russia has an asymmetric advantage in that the US's "world hegemon" military might is spread out all over the world outside the US with much of it in places where the US's military strength can be annihilated without even significant collateral damage to the host vassal country.
I'd say a better metaphor is drawing a gun on someone you know is armed. You better be drawing to shoot and kill, because that is what your opponent will think and will be responding accordingly.
Let’s hope so. Like a Bill Hickock walking into a rowdy saloon and firing a few rounds at the ceiling. On a good day, everybody simmers down and has a drink. On a bad day, somebody else draws a Peacemaker. Or maybe that’s the best day.
The Duran guys had an ex MIT prof who gave a pretty frightening account of Russia's early warning capabilities, in that, they simply didn't have them, and that the US operated a monopoly on the sort of geosyncronous look-down IR satellites which would spot missile launches. I did some research and saw that his info might be a bit dated, as Russia launched a new series of satellites from 2010 onwards.
Kursk - depending on how you look at it - is either a disaster for Ukraine or a disaster for Russia. It appears to be both; the question is who does it first. The Russians are getting tactical victories in Donbass and roasting a lot of equipment in Kursk. The Ukrainians are shifting the Overton window and reducing the threshold dramatically for increased Western involvement in the war. I wouldn't be surprised if in the coming weeks we hear more about JASSM, and if the US starts handing over Tomahawks and other long range systems along with targeting assistance inside Russia. The Brits are having the time of their life, safe in the knowledge that there are no consequences for what they are doing. Its a big SAS/SBS/MI6 exercise.
And nothing will happen. I have become convinced that they have figured out Putin is a dove, and is bluffing.
I'm sure the Russians do have a 'trigger point'. It will just happen one day and 'they' will instantly regret their actions as civilization ends. It's perverse with the NATO nuts threatening to nuke Russia when they themselves have next to zero missile defence. What they send, I would suggest, will be more than exceeded by what will come back the other way.
Postel is the "expert" you're quoting; not sure that his information is current enough to be accurate. The Russians have been launching a new constellation of satellites.
The problem with "Russian satellites" is that they are all based on Western chips/tech unlike the Soviet era ones which were almost entirely home produced.
Until Russia acquires the industrial capacity to make their own (unlikely without a Soviet style industrial policy), their satellite capability will be limited.
Space systems use radiation hardened electronics, you would be surprised at the specs of the processors in most NASA orbiters/landers etc, and these are all based on current military standards.
So i would argue that there is little problem for Russia/China to produce such chips.
They have their own fabs and still produce chips, so that’s not an accurate assessment. Neither is your statement about Russia’s industrial policy, or have you missed the lessons from the SMO it seems to have got the attention of western analysts that “gas station” is something more substantial.
If Russia can't handle a proxy war with Ukraine on its doorstep it can't candle a direct war with NATO, not even close.
That doesn't make Putin a dove, it makes him a pragmatist. There is no such thing as a "demonstrative nuke", not strategically speaking. If you use some, you use all, and you do it quick or you lose.
It looks to me like Russia is taking out a lot of manpower/equipment in Kursk. In the longer run it'll probably lead to the collapse of Ukraine. If not, the Russian army isn't up to the task, which had little to do with Putin's level of aggression.
No argument on that point. I happen to agree - NATO lite is basically a stalemate, with a slight Russian advantage. Direct war they'd lose if it didn't go nuclear. Even with Chinese help.
I'm not ready to call it a near stalemate yet, still think the Ukrainian Army will crumble mid 2025, but we shall see. If not, perhaps war wasn't the right choice?
Well, let's rewind the clock. Was Minsk 1 correct? Probably. Minsk 2? Fool me twice. Invading with a small force to basically impose a Minsk 3 (Istanbul?) Starting to feel a bit stupid now. 3 years in and still calling it a SMO, when the enemy has successfully created a bridgehead in your own country? It's Tropic Thunder time.
Minsk 1 and 2 were correct if it was realized the rebuilding of the military needed more time to have any chance in a conflict with NATO.
I'd disagree that the intention of Minsk 3 was to force peace as there was no way in hell Ukraine and NATO were going to agree to Russian demands at that point, that had to be known by Putin and staff.
The initial invasions goal was to secure the land bridge to Crimea, take out the NATO base in Mariopol, secure the canal and ZNPP, and flank the Donbas fortifications. It worked pretty well, though the defense in Kharkiv later gave.
If Russian leadership actually thought Kiev was going to surrender in Istanbul, they are absolute fools, as Kiev was under no such threat to warrant that, nor was there anything the Russian Military could have done at that point to force surrender.
Putin admitted he thought Minsk 1 and 2 was binding and was disappointed that Ukraine didn't take it seriously and used it to rebuild its military. In short, Putin got played by Ukraine.
I don't think Moscow expected the avalanche of support from the west, nor were they ready to impose consequences on the supply of weapons that ultimately killed a lot of Russians. Were this the Americans I think there is no doubt that the reaction would have been totally different.
You're wrong. Don't fall for the trap of overestimating NATO capabilities and underestimating Russian strength. It's been the #1 major hubristic assumption driving DC/NATO doctrine in this abject disaster.
The Russians are far, far stronger than they're letting on.
Are they? Is that why they are pulling equipment from Kaliningrad to defend Kursk? If they are so powerful, which, I actually believed as well, where the hell is the Russian army?
I will make a prediction. It's January 1 2025, and the AFU is still in kursk. If I'm wrong I'll come back to this comment and admit that I have no idea what I'm talking about.
"I will make a prediction. It's January 1 2025, and the AFU is still in kursk."
Kiev's nazis have been in Russia for over two years now, ever since Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhiye, and Kherson became part of Russia. Except for a side show in Kharkov province, this entire war is being fought *in Russia.*
As far as Russians are concerned the important part of that war are the fronts in those parts *of Russia* which most effectively lead to the defeat of the nazi regime in Kiev. Those fronts are *not* a tiny strip of territory in Kursk oblast where virtually nobody lived that has no military import, it is the territories like occupied Donetsk where destruction of Kiev's forces tees up further collapse leading to total defeat.
If Kiev wants to keep sending more and more "elite" troops into Kursk to be killed, no problem. Russia will be happy to keep slaughtering them.
Yeah unless Russia is willing to go full Soviet total war.
And even if it does, Russian culture is not the same as it was in the Soviet era. Most Russians would not fight for the Motherland as they did in Soviet times.
If Russia launched a nuke on a cruise missile from one side of Russia to the other, hitting a target inside of Russia with pinpoint accuracy and flying on a low altitude unpredictable trajectory, it would definitely send a message. They did something similar with conventional explosives in Syria several years ago. Yes, it would put the whole world on notice.
This proves that they have taken physics to levels that humans have never seen before. They are decades ahead.
It's astonishing.
You can therefore be certain that the Russians have capabilities in all military applications that the West does not have, including offensive, defensive and surveillance, from space to deep underwater.
Russian satellites are built almost exclusively with western chips/tech. Its a huge contrast to soviet satellites built with almost entirely homegrown tech. That is a huge issue
No its not. Google the problems Roskosmos and Rogozin were facing, particularly with the closure and sale of Soviet enterprises that were responsible for the production of satellites.
Seems to me , you like all western by far overstate Putin's power over every area of Russian life civilian & military. The Russian national security Council is the most powerful grouping in Russia today. If you believe for 1 second they're afraid to first advise Putin, then Secondly outright demand an action sanctioned by him your mistaken
The situation is far worse if the 1 man built the entire institution which is failing.
Putin had 20 years or so to fix the situation. He did not. In fact we can say he built modern Russia in its current form. The failure is on him entirely.
Lol how have I lost my mind? Should I remind you what the first Finance Minister of the Russian Federation Egor Gaidar said shortly after the USSR fell: "Why do we need industry when we can buy everything we need from abroad?"
Yeah unfortunately the collapse of the USSR, loss of its industries, the 90s and capitalism all worked together to create a perfect storm for the destruction of Russian nuclear capabilities.
Its the fear of a potential Russian nuclear response that prevents NATO invasion, but seeing how things are going at Kursk shows us that Russian early warning systems are either not very good, they don't have good military analysis/intelligence cadre, Russian military command is incompetent or all three.
Lol I don't see an argument from you, only insults.
I am fluent in Russian and can read what Russian officials themselves say regarding the situation. Its no secret for any Russian speaker what the 90's (and collapse of the USSR) did to Russian science and industry.
Correct. It was Theodore Postel who told Duran listeners that the Russians have about 90 seconds to react to a cruise missile attack from Germany. This puts them on a hair trigger. Anything that remotely smells like an attack would trigger massive thermal nuclear retaliation. Even if it's just a flock of geese that confound radar scopes. Which has happened in the past.
In my book As America Crumbles...: A Grim Chronicle Exploring the Evil Source of America’s Catastrophic Decline, I came to the answer. To save you the money, it's the Pentagon looting.
Do you want to know more? Anyone who wants $$ from the US Government from abroad must have a so-called SAM number and, in order to get it, a certain NCAGE code. The later is given by the NATO, i.e., the Pentagon.
Your correct, it's been a looting campaign all round. The neoliberal era has produced exactly the results that come from corporate asset stripping and rampant financial gambling via arbitrage; a total diminution of productive capability. China completely owns the supply chains, so it's decision to cease any supply of equipment/tech for rare earth production and export bans on materials will continue to impair production. The US has been building factories to produce batteries but failed to account for the production of graphite.
I was an investor in a Maryland-based fiber-optic company, Ciena Corp., two decades or more ago. They received a loan of about $200 million on very favorable terms—basically a gift—from the government. Within a week or a month, they closed their operation in Maryland, for which the money was allocated, and moved it to China.
I see. Yes, and I understand that corrupt party officials who’ve taken graft have been purged and suffered consequences. At the moment it seems the defence sector is getting some attention.
It occurred to me that the US could be trying to provoke the Russians to use tactical nukes in order to pave the way, so to speak, for their use by Israel. After all, Israel is far more important to the US elites (I am not using the term "national interests") than Ukraine. If the Russians were goaded into the first use, combined with the ongoing public conditioning, they could be made into the public scapegoat while allowing Israel nuclear weapons behind the "noise curtain" of the Russians using them first. Just a thought...
There's no call for the MoD to reach for a tactical nuke first, or maybe even @ all, because their conventional weapons carry a heft of battlefield effectiveness
Israel will use nukes first and start the world afire, because they are the chosen with lots of money and they don't like anyone else besides themselves, including US citizens. They spent us broke on nuclear weapons so we would have to use them so most of us die and they start over.
A possible explanation for nato forbidding use of missiles over Russian territory. The Russians may have stated that any cruise or ballistic missile entering Russian air space will be considered to possibly have a nuclear warhead. The implications are obvious
Yes, yes, let me twirl the tips of my mustache & consider these clandestine documents from 2008 through 2014--both a cache & a stash, I tell you--which Financial Times has just acquired, describing Russia's nefarious nuclear intent to use its Northern Fleet in targeting Norway.
This trove of leaked documents, which is also a tranche, if you like, pantingly fear-mongers Russia's capability of delivering pre-emptive tactical nukes from its surface ships.
Cue Edvard Munch's "The Scream"
It's August, a month w/ the doggiest of summer's dog days--and the various battlefronts have gone stale. Iran didn't retaliate against Israel. OTAN mercs & the AFU mounted an Incursion to Nowhere, but VVP didn't target Kiev w/ a tactical nuke. Instead, his Russian Forces continue to run the table in the Donbass. But that's SOP--full of a series of towns whose names are difficult to pronounce or remember, held by a dwindling supply of AFU cannon-fodder.
So the try-hard Financial Times struggles to get our attention by scaring us into believing that secret internal Russian plans call for a potential nuclear "demonstration" strike if things start to escalate.
Over the 31 months of the SMO, when have things not escalated--?!!? Sometimes *things* have escalated weekly, but Russia has not answered that escalation in kind. Why, while winning via conventional means, would Russia need to do so now?
Well, Professor Jeffrey Lewis knows why. "Their concept of war is total war," he confidently told Financial Times. "They're going to want to use [tactical nuclear warheads] and they're going to want to use them quickly."
I can imagine the spittle flying from the Professor's mouth as he lip-smackingly perseverates. Is that a twinkle of glee in his eye--?!!?
Russia has proven itself very capable of delivering an impressive array of devastating strikes w/ its arsenal of conventional weapons, even using the hypersonic, for which no Western air defense system has an answer--so there is no need for Russia to twizzle a tactical nuclear warhead atop one of its missiles.
My thought is that this Financial Times article is its own pre-emptive strike, falsely ginning up the possibility of Russia reaching for the nukes in order to straighten OTAN's spine & get its attention tracking more seriously along nuclear lines.
The article is a projection piece, in other words--a psy op style of journalism, ahem, that we've seen before. It tells us what Russia is going to do when actually the Powers That Be behind the article [ neocons ] are goading the U.S.-led OTAN into doing that very thing: reaching for the tactical nukes.
"My thought is that this Financial Times article is its own pre-emptive strike, falsely ginning up the possibility of Russia reaching for the nukes in order to straighten OTAN's spine & get its attention tracking more seriously along nuclear lines."
Excellent analysis. Meanwhile, back at the "democratic" circle jerk in Chicago...no mention of how things have turned to shit for the neocons in Gaza and Ukraine. Move along...nothing to see here. Just another pro sportz extravaganza. Go team go!! We are so effed here...on the fruited plain.
TACTICAL NUKES have already been used “numerous” times, but not publicly. Gordon Duff one Editor of Veterans Today and now Intel Drop made it his primary job to report on nuclear science and technology, and their use. He is real, diplomatically established in the Mideast (Syria especially of all places), and Europe, now mostly retired. Most of the events were Israeli or US in Mideast, four in Iraq according to Duff. He has also said that Ukraine and Russia exchanged tactical nukes and destroyed surplus satellites to show they were "all in" back in 2014. As an overview, I would recommend
Duff always used to complain no one would call him up and interview him. He can be found at "Intel Drop" or through Kevin Barrett (“Truth Jihad” and Substack)
I would note the variety of tactical nukes, and especially those producing ELECTRO-MAGNETIC PULSES (EMPs) which have the remarkable properties of taking our electrical and electronic devices, but leaving people alive. I think the faster the semi-conductor, the faster it burns out. Where is the money? Markets and money both exist only on computers. Where would an F35 be if hit by an EMP? Where would the Taiwan semi-conductor plants be? Where would London be without working computers, markets, money, or electricity? About 1776.
Yes, he has a BAD reputation with the military, Google, and the British financial royalty. And he had connections with the Syrians, Russians, and Dr. Mehran Keshe. Look him up.
I think the Kursk attack provides the clearest indication of where this is headed. It's a massive escalation calculated to draw in more NATO support. Whether it works or not we will know soon enough. Then there is the Gulf that may well explode any day now, again with the aim of drawing in external powers. It seems like a massive whirlpool is sucking the world into a death spiral. Perhaps we've passed the event horizon?
Recall, too, that the follow-up to the Kursk incursion has been a torrid 16-day & running psy op-style Information War, of which this hyperventilatingly scary Financial Times disclosure of clandestine documents is a part.
What the OTAN-mercs & AFU couldn't produce on the ground--Shock & Awe--the OTAN obeisant media is trying to accomplish on their sites. It's cat nip for the doomers & the damned
Dima said today that the AFU have reportedly concentrated 30% of their forces along the Russian border. If true the shock and awe dice roll may still be in the wings
Isn't this like the third time Russia has moved all of its troops out of Kaliningrad? If NATO sources were to be believed every last Russian would be mobilized and deployed into Ukraine.
Kursk was a surprise, but neither shock nor awe followed. In various places the invaders--OTAN mercs & AFU--have self-cauldronized. The casualties have been massive.
However much a dilemma the Kursk incursion poses to Russia, VVP has categorized it as terrorism, so Bortnikov & Dyuma are tag-teaming on counter terrorism activities as a result, which involve Akhmet forces, former Wagnerians & the conscripts who are otherwise not permitted to fight on foreign soil at this point in their battlefield training.
Some Russian troops are on furlough right now for summer R & R. When they return, they will shore up the conscripts et al in Kursk.
Russia still has plenty of actionable weaponry to deploy strategically in Ukraine itself without reaching for the tactical nukes. VVP has warned the U.S. that Russia could as easily target OTAN airfields or military manufacturing sites if the AFU uses OTAN-supplied missiles against Old Russia, so that is a step up the escalatory ladder Russia could still mount--but using conventional weaponry: nukes aren't necessary.
The West is eager to get to the Nuclear Moment & it wants a casus belli to get there really quickly.
Cruisin' for a bruisin'
Patience & time are part of Russia's military doctrine
"...including scenarios for war-gaming and presentations for naval officers, which discuss operating principles for the use of nuclear weapons."
Any nuclear power has target folders and plans for how they would employ the weapons under various circumstances. This is to be completely expected. They don't just pick targets out of the blue... Chip
On FlightRadar24 yesterday, there was a UK Poseidon aircraft circling Kaliningrad using Polish and Lithuanian airspace. I did wonder why it was so interested in Kaliningrad, but don't anymore thanks to Simplicius.
As I typed that, there are two Boeing aircraft heading Odesa and the Black Sea. One is a Stratotanker, the other is a Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft. They are currently over the eastern side of Romania.
In the event of a wider war, I hope no one here lives anywhere close to Mildenhall in the UK, as that is surely going to be levelled in a first strike.
If I was the F16 pilot, I'd be getting bored shitless. Flying in large circles at 26,000ft making sure nothing comes close to the TWO surveillance aircraft manned by US personnel. I wonder what NATO has planned for the area currently being surveyed.
Given the fact that nobody's fooled by Putin's "red lines" and how he only succeeded in painting himself into a corner eith His bluff and slo-mo the only sensible thing left is the unconditional surrender of Russia since there's no way they will press the nuke button. Lack of balls which are all on the Ukies.
Oh sure. 500-600K dead Uke soldiers. German and Polish men having their pick of Uke girlfriends and former wives. Happy-happy! Double-plus-good! Things are just effing dandy for Ukraine and the fascist west. If I was Russian I'd save some large ordinance for Berlin. Stupid MFers. Do the world a favor too and take out the City of London. Centuries of trouble makers there. Vassals going to vassal...bigly sad.
Hidden toll in reputation damage before the RoW, which amounts to 7bn people
Unacknowledged embarrassment [ for exposing its MIC chicanery ] is still embarrassment
As expressed through the mouths of its puppets in Kiev, the stated goal of the Kursk incursion was
A) to force Russia to move troops & equipment from Donbass to Kursk
B) to occupy land sufficient to make Russia negotiate a "just peace" for Ukraine
C) to hold the Kursk NPP hostage
D) to make Russian citizens feel the pain of war
The U.S., using Ukrainian hands, may have achieved 'D'--but who is to say Russian citizens were not already feeling the pain of war?
An aside: the Kursk NPP is 100km from the Sumy region, well within ATACMS range. A feisty AFU, appearing to "go rogue," could have targeted the Kursk NPP from Ukraine in a surprise attack without losing 4400 & counting troops.
Of course OTAN-K [ think ISIS-K ] could have feigned no knowledge of such a thing & tsk-tsked about it to the Financial Times & Politico while still explaining with a shrug that Ukraine has a right to defend itself in a manner of its own choosing
Demonstrative nukes are about as effective as threatening a guy with a gun, it basically cues the other guy to kill you because you have done him the favor of throwing the initiative and moral high ground away. Put the nukes away or accompany any tactical nukes in Ukraine with a a full barrage on the US and EU. And probably Israel too why not.
That makes sense. Any use of tactical nukes logically needs to be accompanied by full launch of strategic weapons. As soon as NATO realizes nuclear missiles are in the air headed towards NATO countries they will launch all their missiles and go into immediate search and destroy mode for Russian subs. "Demonstative nukes" gives away the initiative and would be a fatal flaw in such an exchange.
If the Russian Military can't handle this Kursk incursion (which I think they can) they have no business going to war with NATO in any form or fashion.
A dirty bomb attack on the KNPP would warrant full nuclear reprisal, I think both sides know that. The capture of the KNPP to exchange for ZNPP makes sense, but would be a pretty large failure for the Russian Army.
" Any use of tactical nukes logically needs to be accompanied by full launch of strategic weapons." Respectfully disagree. I completely agree there are many paths from use of tactical nukes to full strategic nuclear war, but at the same time there are breakpoints that make that progression anything but inevitable.
For example, suppose Russia uses tactical nukes with dial-a-yield set down low, in the 10kt or so range, to eliminate US/NATO short range nuclear missiles and nuclear weapons systems in Poland, the Baltics, and Romania, that is, nukes directly on Russia's border or so close they may as well be, poised for decapitation strikes on Moscow. Russia could also nuke rapid response NATO ground attack aircraft poised for rapid load of nukes from forward based nuclear bases in the Netherlands, Italy, and Germany.
That would vaporize the adjacent hamlets, but it wouldn't touch the territories of the US, UK, or France. Is the US going to immediately launch an "all-in" strategic strike on Russia, which would guarantee the total erasure of every American, the United States, every military base the US has overseas, every capital ship, and the depopulation of every US vassal state worldwide? Just to "get even" for a hamlet in Poland? Not likely.
To take another example, the US keeps its carrier task forces (11 at the present time, I believe) at sea and conveniently far away from any land. Russia could wipe out an entire carrier task force with zero collateral damage to any US city or any city at all. You wouldn't even know the carrier task force had been vaporized if you didn't see a distant flash in the night sky or had special instruments to detect the subsonic atmospheric and oceanic pulses. Same with the US's huge strategic base on Diego Garcia island far out in the Indian Ocean.
Russia could wipe out US foreign military assets all day long without ever touching the US's mainland territories. That's a consequence of the US having lots of tentacles all over the planet. But the US can't strike Russia's military (except for fewer than five tiny bases) without nuking Russian homeland.
There's a lot of tactical nuking Russia could do without crossing the line into killing US cities. If the US crosses that line and kills a Russian city, the US knows that means it will forever cease to exist as a nation and culture, with every American in the US and almost every American on the planet dying. So there's certainly an incentive for both sides not to jump to killing cities and setting off nukes in each other's homeland.
Should have done that in 2022, before we got to this point. When the west started deliberations on providing weapons to Ukraine, that’s when to threaten this action. And be ready to use it.
It is of course all conjecture, but yes, I think America, Britain and France would immediately launch everything in the situations you mention.
It goes against conventional wisdom, but a nuclear war can be won or lost by giving away the initiative.
The west is not going to back down, nuclear use or not. The only way Russia wins is by winning the proxy war, and keeping it proxy. If they aren't militarily capable of doing so, someone made a mistake somewhere in the decision making process to go to war in the first place.
Opinions will very, of course, but it is mine that Russia will likely have one chance to launch before being inundated by NATO's superior air power/ISR/force projection and lose a nuclear war if they don't get in a full first strike.
"but a nuclear war can be won or lost by giving away the initiative."
If by "giving away the initiative" you mean by not striking first, that's a totally false proposition which is believed only by people who do not understand the technical details of nuclear arms, their effects, the systems for using them, and the scale of the arsenals on both sides.
It's a bit like saying that if two men are in a room together, with each of them wearing a vest with 20k of plastic explosive and both of them have their fingers on a button to blow up their vest that one or the other of them can win or lose by giving away the initiative. Nope. It doesn't matter which of them presses his button first. What matters is that the moment either of the two buttons is pressed, both men die as 20kg of plastique is more than enough to kill both men and to level the entire building in which they stand. Nobody "wins."
To shorten the text, in what follows "US" means both the US's arsenal as well as the UK and French arsenals working together in a coordinated strike. By "nuclear weapons" I also mean the various launch systems that carry warheads to their targets.
The US doesn't have enough nuclear weapons or the technical capability to use a first strike to reduce Russia's arsenal to the point that the US and all Americans would not cease to exist as a result of a Russian response to a US first strike. That's true even if Russia "rode out" the first strike and didn't launch on warning, which it will.
So, how exactly, does the US "win" a nuclear war by striking first when the result of that is the US and every American ceases to exist?
That's a consequence of several factors: Russia has over 6,000 nukes. Those are dispersed over such a large territory that Russia has plenty of time to decide to launch them before inbound US nukes can destroy the Russian nukes. Intermediate range missiles launched from next to Russia's borders can't get to most of Russia's nukes before they can be launched.
Also, Russia's nukes are based primarily in hidden locations the US cannot detect, such as on moving submarines and on moving launch vehicles hidden in many thousands of miles of endless forests. Russia has relatively few nukes based in silos or on bomber bases or surface ships. But even the majority of those could launch on warning long before inbound US nukes could kill them. If Russia "rode out" a first strike, conceding the destruction of silos, and surface ships, the thousands of nukes that would remain would be more than enough to annihilate the US and all of its vassals.
Another factor is that decapitation strikes won't work on Russia. A somewhat controversial (in the West) aspect of Russia's nuclear war fighting plans is the explicit delegation of command authority beyond the President. The US also does that (see Daniel Ellsberg's fine book on the matter) but it lies to the population to hide the actual delegation of nuclear war initiation to a very wide cast of characters. The notion that only the US President cracking open some secret codes can launch a nuclear war is an absurd, Hollywood, lie.
Russia is more explicit in stating the obvious that yes, command authority in extremis is broadened beyond the President and that is done explicitly for a "dead hand" system that ensures a sneak attack decapitation strike on the leadership in Moscow will not succeed, and instead will for sure result in an extinction event in the West.
That's an example of Russian thinking: tell the West openly that if they try a decapitation strike the result for sure will be worse than if they didn't. Which brings me to...
"The west is not going to back down, nuclear use or not. " Maybe yes, maybe no. The US's history in nuclear plans indicates a certain degree of self-delusion and suicidal disregard for obvious risks. For example, when Ellsberg and other nuclear war planners suggested that decapitation strikes were counterproductive because killing the enemy's leaders eliminated any possibility of a war's escalation spiral being ended before 100% mutual destruction, such talk was opposed by people who thought that a US which was 95% depopulated and reduced to lower level of life than the Dark Ages could somehow say it "won" if it struck first.
So if a total nitwit like possible VP Walz ends up as President (say, if President Kamala gets offed in some Ukrainian false flag operation...) there's no counting on the US being rational about anything having to do with nuclear war.
But the actual track record through many nuclear brinksmanship crises between the US and USSR (there have been more than just Cuba) shows that US presidents have tended to get religion about not incinerating the US and were perfectly willing to "back down" from suicidal actions when they stared the Apocalypse in the eye.
"Russia will likely have one chance to launch before being inundated by NATO's superior air power/ISR/force projection and lose a nuclear war if they don't get in a full first strike." Wrong on all three counts.
- Russia can "ride out" a US first strike and still have more than enough nukes to physically kill every American and every US vassal worldwide.
- You're drinking the Kool-Aid with that "superior" bit. NATO's air power will get shredded by Russian air defenses, which will include nuclear-tipped air defense in such a war. ISR doesn't matter in the opening minutes of such a war because there isn't effective feedback in such a chaotic situation. They'll make their plans well in advance and then those plans will contact reality and be immediately out of date. Further ISR won't exist because the US's ISR toys and systems are all highly vulnerable in a nuclear war environment. As to force projection, NATO's is sufficient for dealing with tribesmen in sandals in the desert who can't shoot back, but it is laughably weak for any real conflict with Russia. It's forces are also conveniently concentrated where they will cease to exist in the first 30 minutes of a conflict.
Finally, Russia has the same "first strike" constraints as the US: Russia with a first strike cannot kill enough US weapons to prevent the effective annihilation of Russia in response. That's not a "win." Decapitation strikes also are highly unlikely to work because of the very broad and deep delegation of launch authority within the US.
Just saying, as a practical matter if strikes on cities or near cities start happening in the US or the Russian homelands, the next step is almost certainly a strategic exchange that will leave Russia in ruins and which will annihilate the US and every US vassal. There's a strong incentive not to try a first strike but instead to avoid escalating above tactical strikes outside of the homelands.
In that situation, Russia has an asymmetric advantage in that the US's "world hegemon" military might is spread out all over the world outside the US with much of it in places where the US's military strength can be annihilated without even significant collateral damage to the host vassal country.
Well that'd for sure cure global warming, a new global winter. Not sure anyone would survive that for long.
I like that take, optimistic!
I did recently buy a new battery for my Geiger Counter.
I disagree. It is like shooting in the air to get the attention of bickering politicians and hacks and saying: Hey guys do we really want this?
More like you are shooting someone with a gun in a not-immediately-fatal region and asking them if they really want to go.
No, not blowing it in a remote area of the other country. Obviously in a neutral remote area.... Far north or something.
A remote area of another country is like shooting them in the leg or grazing them. Yes that would be BAD.
I'd say a better metaphor is drawing a gun on someone you know is armed. You better be drawing to shoot and kill, because that is what your opponent will think and will be responding accordingly.
Same comment as above:
No, not blowing it in a remote area of the other country. Obviously in a neutral remote area.... Far north or something.
A remote area of another country is like shooting them in the leg or grazing them. Yes that would be BAD.
Let’s hope so. Like a Bill Hickock walking into a rowdy saloon and firing a few rounds at the ceiling. On a good day, everybody simmers down and has a drink. On a bad day, somebody else draws a Peacemaker. Or maybe that’s the best day.
Right, it is kind of a last ditch effort to get rationality back. Might not work.
Sir, You are far better than me assessing this... please:
Do You really think we are going above the nuke threshold???
Just the idea is scaring me... in a uncommon way.
But in that case I really hope they don't forget to pinprick the evil... or all is going to be absolutely useless...
The Duran guys had an ex MIT prof who gave a pretty frightening account of Russia's early warning capabilities, in that, they simply didn't have them, and that the US operated a monopoly on the sort of geosyncronous look-down IR satellites which would spot missile launches. I did some research and saw that his info might be a bit dated, as Russia launched a new series of satellites from 2010 onwards.
Kursk - depending on how you look at it - is either a disaster for Ukraine or a disaster for Russia. It appears to be both; the question is who does it first. The Russians are getting tactical victories in Donbass and roasting a lot of equipment in Kursk. The Ukrainians are shifting the Overton window and reducing the threshold dramatically for increased Western involvement in the war. I wouldn't be surprised if in the coming weeks we hear more about JASSM, and if the US starts handing over Tomahawks and other long range systems along with targeting assistance inside Russia. The Brits are having the time of their life, safe in the knowledge that there are no consequences for what they are doing. Its a big SAS/SBS/MI6 exercise.
And nothing will happen. I have become convinced that they have figured out Putin is a dove, and is bluffing.
I'm sure the Russians do have a 'trigger point'. It will just happen one day and 'they' will instantly regret their actions as civilization ends. It's perverse with the NATO nuts threatening to nuke Russia when they themselves have next to zero missile defence. What they send, I would suggest, will be more than exceeded by what will come back the other way.
Depends who's in charge. I might be wrong but I can't unsee it - Putin is the problem.
<< The Brits are having the time of their life >>
It is a Katie-bar-the-door moment if Barrow-in-Furness is in peril or a target near Hull.
We've got to ride through the night to clean up the streets for our wives & our daughters.
Postel is the "expert" you're quoting; not sure that his information is current enough to be accurate. The Russians have been launching a new constellation of satellites.
I called him an ex MIT prof. Which is what he is. I don't use the word expert, ever. That words utility has been destroyed
That's fine, but I think his information is either incomplete or his analysis if flawed.
Perchance Postel's analysis predates the 2008-2014 vintage of these secret docs--?!!?
Postel’s opionions were discussed at Andre Martyanov’s blog some months ago when the drone strike on a Russian facility occurred.
Postel is a retired MIT professor and he is very current in his grasp of the situation.
Typo?
Postol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Postol
The problem with "Russian satellites" is that they are all based on Western chips/tech unlike the Soviet era ones which were almost entirely home produced.
Until Russia acquires the industrial capacity to make their own (unlikely without a Soviet style industrial policy), their satellite capability will be limited.
Space systems use radiation hardened electronics, you would be surprised at the specs of the processors in most NASA orbiters/landers etc, and these are all based on current military standards.
So i would argue that there is little problem for Russia/China to produce such chips.
They have their own fabs and still produce chips, so that’s not an accurate assessment. Neither is your statement about Russia’s industrial policy, or have you missed the lessons from the SMO it seems to have got the attention of western analysts that “gas station” is something more substantial.
If Russia can't handle a proxy war with Ukraine on its doorstep it can't candle a direct war with NATO, not even close.
That doesn't make Putin a dove, it makes him a pragmatist. There is no such thing as a "demonstrative nuke", not strategically speaking. If you use some, you use all, and you do it quick or you lose.
It looks to me like Russia is taking out a lot of manpower/equipment in Kursk. In the longer run it'll probably lead to the collapse of Ukraine. If not, the Russian army isn't up to the task, which had little to do with Putin's level of aggression.
No argument on that point. I happen to agree - NATO lite is basically a stalemate, with a slight Russian advantage. Direct war they'd lose if it didn't go nuclear. Even with Chinese help.
I'm not ready to call it a near stalemate yet, still think the Ukrainian Army will crumble mid 2025, but we shall see. If not, perhaps war wasn't the right choice?
Well, let's rewind the clock. Was Minsk 1 correct? Probably. Minsk 2? Fool me twice. Invading with a small force to basically impose a Minsk 3 (Istanbul?) Starting to feel a bit stupid now. 3 years in and still calling it a SMO, when the enemy has successfully created a bridgehead in your own country? It's Tropic Thunder time.
Minsk 1 and 2 were correct if it was realized the rebuilding of the military needed more time to have any chance in a conflict with NATO.
I'd disagree that the intention of Minsk 3 was to force peace as there was no way in hell Ukraine and NATO were going to agree to Russian demands at that point, that had to be known by Putin and staff.
The initial invasions goal was to secure the land bridge to Crimea, take out the NATO base in Mariopol, secure the canal and ZNPP, and flank the Donbas fortifications. It worked pretty well, though the defense in Kharkiv later gave.
If Russian leadership actually thought Kiev was going to surrender in Istanbul, they are absolute fools, as Kiev was under no such threat to warrant that, nor was there anything the Russian Military could have done at that point to force surrender.
Putin admitted he thought Minsk 1 and 2 was binding and was disappointed that Ukraine didn't take it seriously and used it to rebuild its military. In short, Putin got played by Ukraine.
So the question still stands, if the Russian Military wasn't strong enough to force surrender within 3 years, was going to war the right call?
I don't think Moscow expected the avalanche of support from the west, nor were they ready to impose consequences on the supply of weapons that ultimately killed a lot of Russians. Were this the Americans I think there is no doubt that the reaction would have been totally different.
Amazing how you to found each other in this void of the Internet.
Anyway, you're aware RuAF are only using about 10% of their potential in Ukraine, right?
You're wrong. Don't fall for the trap of overestimating NATO capabilities and underestimating Russian strength. It's been the #1 major hubristic assumption driving DC/NATO doctrine in this abject disaster.
The Russians are far, far stronger than they're letting on.
Are they? Is that why they are pulling equipment from Kaliningrad to defend Kursk? If they are so powerful, which, I actually believed as well, where the hell is the Russian army?
I will make a prediction. It's January 1 2025, and the AFU is still in kursk. If I'm wrong I'll come back to this comment and admit that I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Who says they are pulling equipment from Kaliningrad?
I thought I read that in Simplicious post today...
"I will make a prediction. It's January 1 2025, and the AFU is still in kursk."
Kiev's nazis have been in Russia for over two years now, ever since Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhiye, and Kherson became part of Russia. Except for a side show in Kharkov province, this entire war is being fought *in Russia.*
As far as Russians are concerned the important part of that war are the fronts in those parts *of Russia* which most effectively lead to the defeat of the nazi regime in Kiev. Those fronts are *not* a tiny strip of territory in Kursk oblast where virtually nobody lived that has no military import, it is the territories like occupied Donetsk where destruction of Kiev's forces tees up further collapse leading to total defeat.
If Kiev wants to keep sending more and more "elite" troops into Kursk to be killed, no problem. Russia will be happy to keep slaughtering them.
John, with all my respect, the Russian armed forces need to, at the very least, be able to eject the AFU from pre-2022 borders after 4 months.
They practice "The Art of War, Sun Tsu". The USSA/NATO/MIC, etc and etc, practice the Art of Lies and bull shit.
Yeah unless Russia is willing to go full Soviet total war.
And even if it does, Russian culture is not the same as it was in the Soviet era. Most Russians would not fight for the Motherland as they did in Soviet times.
Russians KNOW who the enemies are.
They will fight on their own regard, not as dictated by the Politburo.
If Russia launched a nuke on a cruise missile from one side of Russia to the other, hitting a target inside of Russia with pinpoint accuracy and flying on a low altitude unpredictable trajectory, it would definitely send a message. They did something similar with conventional explosives in Syria several years ago. Yes, it would put the whole world on notice.
Postel is wrong. Here is why.
The Russians have developed hypersonic weapons.
This proves that they have taken physics to levels that humans have never seen before. They are decades ahead.
It's astonishing.
You can therefore be certain that the Russians have capabilities in all military applications that the West does not have, including offensive, defensive and surveillance, from space to deep underwater.
Russian rocket leadership is acknowledged. Satellites is US. Subs is US. EW is Russia. It's not up or down, it's nuanced.
No. It is not nuanced.
These breakthroughs in hypersonic tech mean breakthroughs in STEM that apply across all defensive and offensive military platforms.
The US subs and satelltes are good but not as good as what Russia has. It's just that Russia doesn't advertise it.
Russian satellites are built almost exclusively with western chips/tech. Its a huge contrast to soviet satellites built with almost entirely homegrown tech. That is a huge issue
Total nonsense
No its not. Google the problems Roskosmos and Rogozin were facing, particularly with the closure and sale of Soviet enterprises that were responsible for the production of satellites.
Seems to me , you like all western by far overstate Putin's power over every area of Russian life civilian & military. The Russian national security Council is the most powerful grouping in Russia today. If you believe for 1 second they're afraid to first advise Putin, then Secondly outright demand an action sanctioned by him your mistaken
If the mistake is down to 1 man - that is a far better situation than if the mistake is a complete institutional failure including the 1 man.
The situation is far worse if the 1 man built the entire institution which is failing.
Putin had 20 years or so to fix the situation. He did not. In fact we can say he built modern Russia in its current form. The failure is on him entirely.
Is it not "the Putin" a multicell organism that runs Russia?
Putin created the system and conditions for running the country. He's had plenty of opportunity to change it.
Such absurdity!
As the U$A illustrates, there are more than who is in the prez's chair to make policy changes. And at the very bottom is Congress and H of Reps.
USSR had early warning satellites. It's stupid to think Russia didn't retain and update the network.
With what? Russia lost the capability to build the technology necessary to update the network and must rely almost entirely on western tech
You've lost your mind. What kind of BS are you spewing?
Lol how have I lost my mind? Should I remind you what the first Finance Minister of the Russian Federation Egor Gaidar said shortly after the USSR fell: "Why do we need industry when we can buy everything we need from abroad?"
Ancient fucken history. jeezuz you thick dooming cunts are beyond redemption.
It still holds true tho. Go read Helmer's article and see how long Chubais maintained power even though he was from that era.
Yeah unfortunately the collapse of the USSR, loss of its industries, the 90s and capitalism all worked together to create a perfect storm for the destruction of Russian nuclear capabilities.
Its the fear of a potential Russian nuclear response that prevents NATO invasion, but seeing how things are going at Kursk shows us that Russian early warning systems are either not very good, they don't have good military analysis/intelligence cadre, Russian military command is incompetent or all three.
Get back on your meds, moron.
Lol I don't see an argument from you, only insults.
I am fluent in Russian and can read what Russian officials themselves say regarding the situation. Its no secret for any Russian speaker what the 90's (and collapse of the USSR) did to Russian science and industry.
Correct. It was Theodore Postel who told Duran listeners that the Russians have about 90 seconds to react to a cruise missile attack from Germany. This puts them on a hair trigger. Anything that remotely smells like an attack would trigger massive thermal nuclear retaliation. Even if it's just a flock of geese that confound radar scopes. Which has happened in the past.
In my book As America Crumbles...: A Grim Chronicle Exploring the Evil Source of America’s Catastrophic Decline, I came to the answer. To save you the money, it's the Pentagon looting.
https://amzn.to/4dJuMGK
Do you want to know more? Anyone who wants $$ from the US Government from abroad must have a so-called SAM number and, in order to get it, a certain NCAGE code. The later is given by the NATO, i.e., the Pentagon.
Your correct, it's been a looting campaign all round. The neoliberal era has produced exactly the results that come from corporate asset stripping and rampant financial gambling via arbitrage; a total diminution of productive capability. China completely owns the supply chains, so it's decision to cease any supply of equipment/tech for rare earth production and export bans on materials will continue to impair production. The US has been building factories to produce batteries but failed to account for the production of graphite.
I was an investor in a Maryland-based fiber-optic company, Ciena Corp., two decades or more ago. They received a loan of about $200 million on very favorable terms—basically a gift—from the government. Within a week or a month, they closed their operation in Maryland, for which the money was allocated, and moved it to China.
In China, that would be a hangable offense.
I see. Yes, and I understand that corrupt party officials who’ve taken graft have been purged and suffered consequences. At the moment it seems the defence sector is getting some attention.
"Farrow in Burness" ???
Shades of "Our queer old dean"
Or Jeffrey Lewis
_________who studies arms control
Jeffrey is fear-mongering from the height of Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
I mean, it's Jeffrey
Can you say Eek--?!!?
Best Spoonerism I've seen in a while!
It occurred to me that the US could be trying to provoke the Russians to use tactical nukes in order to pave the way, so to speak, for their use by Israel. After all, Israel is far more important to the US elites (I am not using the term "national interests") than Ukraine. If the Russians were goaded into the first use, combined with the ongoing public conditioning, they could be made into the public scapegoat while allowing Israel nuclear weapons behind the "noise curtain" of the Russians using them first. Just a thought...
Russia is not goadable
There's no call for the MoD to reach for a tactical nuke first, or maybe even @ all, because their conventional weapons carry a heft of battlefield effectiveness
Israel will use nukes first and start the world afire, because they are the chosen with lots of money and they don't like anyone else besides themselves, including US citizens. They spent us broke on nuclear weapons so we would have to use them so most of us die and they start over.
A possible explanation for nato forbidding use of missiles over Russian territory. The Russians may have stated that any cruise or ballistic missile entering Russian air space will be considered to possibly have a nuclear warhead. The implications are obvious
Well, that was bleak 😎
You'll need thicker sun-glasses than those.
Yes, yes, let me twirl the tips of my mustache & consider these clandestine documents from 2008 through 2014--both a cache & a stash, I tell you--which Financial Times has just acquired, describing Russia's nefarious nuclear intent to use its Northern Fleet in targeting Norway.
This trove of leaked documents, which is also a tranche, if you like, pantingly fear-mongers Russia's capability of delivering pre-emptive tactical nukes from its surface ships.
Cue Edvard Munch's "The Scream"
It's August, a month w/ the doggiest of summer's dog days--and the various battlefronts have gone stale. Iran didn't retaliate against Israel. OTAN mercs & the AFU mounted an Incursion to Nowhere, but VVP didn't target Kiev w/ a tactical nuke. Instead, his Russian Forces continue to run the table in the Donbass. But that's SOP--full of a series of towns whose names are difficult to pronounce or remember, held by a dwindling supply of AFU cannon-fodder.
So the try-hard Financial Times struggles to get our attention by scaring us into believing that secret internal Russian plans call for a potential nuclear "demonstration" strike if things start to escalate.
Over the 31 months of the SMO, when have things not escalated--?!!? Sometimes *things* have escalated weekly, but Russia has not answered that escalation in kind. Why, while winning via conventional means, would Russia need to do so now?
Well, Professor Jeffrey Lewis knows why. "Their concept of war is total war," he confidently told Financial Times. "They're going to want to use [tactical nuclear warheads] and they're going to want to use them quickly."
I can imagine the spittle flying from the Professor's mouth as he lip-smackingly perseverates. Is that a twinkle of glee in his eye--?!!?
Russia has proven itself very capable of delivering an impressive array of devastating strikes w/ its arsenal of conventional weapons, even using the hypersonic, for which no Western air defense system has an answer--so there is no need for Russia to twizzle a tactical nuclear warhead atop one of its missiles.
My thought is that this Financial Times article is its own pre-emptive strike, falsely ginning up the possibility of Russia reaching for the nukes in order to straighten OTAN's spine & get its attention tracking more seriously along nuclear lines.
The article is a projection piece, in other words--a psy op style of journalism, ahem, that we've seen before. It tells us what Russia is going to do when actually the Powers That Be behind the article [ neocons ] are goading the U.S.-led OTAN into doing that very thing: reaching for the tactical nukes.
"My thought is that this Financial Times article is its own pre-emptive strike, falsely ginning up the possibility of Russia reaching for the nukes in order to straighten OTAN's spine & get its attention tracking more seriously along nuclear lines."
Excellent analysis. Meanwhile, back at the "democratic" circle jerk in Chicago...no mention of how things have turned to shit for the neocons in Gaza and Ukraine. Move along...nothing to see here. Just another pro sportz extravaganza. Go team go!! We are so effed here...on the fruited plain.
And wet dreams about powering 40hp 3-phase motors in a production environment with acres of solar panels.
lol, like (like button hasn't worked in months)
TACTICAL NUKES have already been used “numerous” times, but not publicly. Gordon Duff one Editor of Veterans Today and now Intel Drop made it his primary job to report on nuclear science and technology, and their use. He is real, diplomatically established in the Mideast (Syria especially of all places), and Europe, now mostly retired. Most of the events were Israeli or US in Mideast, four in Iraq according to Duff. He has also said that Ukraine and Russia exchanged tactical nukes and destroyed surplus satellites to show they were "all in" back in 2014. As an overview, I would recommend
https://veteranstoday.com/2021/07/12/vt-nuclear-education-history-of-nuclear-weapons-design-1945-to-2015/
Also this article on the variety of nuclear explosions, some not giving off radiation which is one reason they are not public.
https://veteranstoday.com/2021/07/07/vt-nuclear-education-subcritical-and-microfission-explosives/
More articles can be found here.
https://veteranstoday.com/?s=nuclear+education
Duff always used to complain no one would call him up and interview him. He can be found at "Intel Drop" or through Kevin Barrett (“Truth Jihad” and Substack)
I would note the variety of tactical nukes, and especially those producing ELECTRO-MAGNETIC PULSES (EMPs) which have the remarkable properties of taking our electrical and electronic devices, but leaving people alive. I think the faster the semi-conductor, the faster it burns out. Where is the money? Markets and money both exist only on computers. Where would an F35 be if hit by an EMP? Where would the Taiwan semi-conductor plants be? Where would London be without working computers, markets, money, or electricity? About 1776.
" He has also said that Ukraine and Russia exchanged tactical nukes and destroyed surplus satellites to show they were "all in" back in 2014."
Abject nonsense. Make a note to never believe anything you hear from Gordon Duff.
Yes, he has a BAD reputation with the military, Google, and the British financial royalty. And he had connections with the Syrians, Russians, and Dr. Mehran Keshe. Look him up.
You are right.
what do you think of Big Serge's dismissal of the idea that the UkrainiansNuclear threat re the Kursk nuclear plant.?
Yeah, actually this is an excellent question. Somebody should ask it in the next mailbag.
I think the Kursk attack provides the clearest indication of where this is headed. It's a massive escalation calculated to draw in more NATO support. Whether it works or not we will know soon enough. Then there is the Gulf that may well explode any day now, again with the aim of drawing in external powers. It seems like a massive whirlpool is sucking the world into a death spiral. Perhaps we've passed the event horizon?
Recall, too, that the follow-up to the Kursk incursion has been a torrid 16-day & running psy op-style Information War, of which this hyperventilatingly scary Financial Times disclosure of clandestine documents is a part.
What the OTAN-mercs & AFU couldn't produce on the ground--Shock & Awe--the OTAN obeisant media is trying to accomplish on their sites. It's cat nip for the doomers & the damned
Dima said today that the AFU have reportedly concentrated 30% of their forces along the Russian border. If true the shock and awe dice roll may still be in the wings
OTOH, people say other two border oblasts have properly prepared their forefields, so AFU will literally commit suicide by attacking them.
Well-said.
Won't be a surprise this time, so the "shock" component of the Shock & Awe is off the table, which will steal some thunder from the "awe."
So it will be awful for the AFU, sans the awe: no shock & just awful
Isn't this like the third time Russia has moved all of its troops out of Kaliningrad? If NATO sources were to be believed every last Russian would be mobilized and deployed into Ukraine.
Kursk was a surprise, but neither shock nor awe followed. In various places the invaders--OTAN mercs & AFU--have self-cauldronized. The casualties have been massive.
However much a dilemma the Kursk incursion poses to Russia, VVP has categorized it as terrorism, so Bortnikov & Dyuma are tag-teaming on counter terrorism activities as a result, which involve Akhmet forces, former Wagnerians & the conscripts who are otherwise not permitted to fight on foreign soil at this point in their battlefield training.
Some Russian troops are on furlough right now for summer R & R. When they return, they will shore up the conscripts et al in Kursk.
Russia still has plenty of actionable weaponry to deploy strategically in Ukraine itself without reaching for the tactical nukes. VVP has warned the U.S. that Russia could as easily target OTAN airfields or military manufacturing sites if the AFU uses OTAN-supplied missiles against Old Russia, so that is a step up the escalatory ladder Russia could still mount--but using conventional weaponry: nukes aren't necessary.
The West is eager to get to the Nuclear Moment & it wants a casus belli to get there really quickly.
Cruisin' for a bruisin'
Patience & time are part of Russia's military doctrine
True. That UK base in Cyprus is quite vulnerable, they say.
"...including scenarios for war-gaming and presentations for naval officers, which discuss operating principles for the use of nuclear weapons."
Any nuclear power has target folders and plans for how they would employ the weapons under various circumstances. This is to be completely expected. They don't just pick targets out of the blue... Chip
On FlightRadar24 yesterday, there was a UK Poseidon aircraft circling Kaliningrad using Polish and Lithuanian airspace. I did wonder why it was so interested in Kaliningrad, but don't anymore thanks to Simplicius.
As I typed that, there are two Boeing aircraft heading Odesa and the Black Sea. One is a Stratotanker, the other is a Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft. They are currently over the eastern side of Romania.
In the event of a wider war, I hope no one here lives anywhere close to Mildenhall in the UK, as that is surely going to be levelled in a first strike.
The Rivet Joint aircraft has just gone dark, as in, it has switched off its transponder and no longer visible on FlightRadar24 website.
Either that or FlightRadar24 deleted it. :) Only way to know is to be on location with an SDR and an appropriate antenna. xD
The Rivet joint aircraft is back on FlightRadar24, along with a US Navy Poseidon and an F16.
If I was the F16 pilot, I'd be getting bored shitless. Flying in large circles at 26,000ft making sure nothing comes close to the TWO surveillance aircraft manned by US personnel. I wonder what NATO has planned for the area currently being surveyed.
Given the fact that nobody's fooled by Putin's "red lines" and how he only succeeded in painting himself into a corner eith His bluff and slo-mo the only sensible thing left is the unconditional surrender of Russia since there's no way they will press the nuke button. Lack of balls which are all on the Ukies.
Oh sure. 500-600K dead Uke soldiers. German and Polish men having their pick of Uke girlfriends and former wives. Happy-happy! Double-plus-good! Things are just effing dandy for Ukraine and the fascist west. If I was Russian I'd save some large ordinance for Berlin. Stupid MFers. Do the world a favor too and take out the City of London. Centuries of trouble makers there. Vassals going to vassal...bigly sad.
50,000 dead Russian soldiers after 3 years and another 50,000 dead for another 3 years of slo-mo.
Clearly lives don't matter to you nor Putin as long as it's not your family.
War ain’t an ice cream social.
concur
Who cares about dead Ukie soldiers? Certainly no one in Washington or London or Brussels... This is a very cheap war of the US and A....
Hidden toll in reputation damage before the RoW, which amounts to 7bn people
Unacknowledged embarrassment [ for exposing its MIC chicanery ] is still embarrassment
As expressed through the mouths of its puppets in Kiev, the stated goal of the Kursk incursion was
A) to force Russia to move troops & equipment from Donbass to Kursk
B) to occupy land sufficient to make Russia negotiate a "just peace" for Ukraine
C) to hold the Kursk NPP hostage
D) to make Russian citizens feel the pain of war
The U.S., using Ukrainian hands, may have achieved 'D'--but who is to say Russian citizens were not already feeling the pain of war?
An aside: the Kursk NPP is 100km from the Sumy region, well within ATACMS range. A feisty AFU, appearing to "go rogue," could have targeted the Kursk NPP from Ukraine in a surprise attack without losing 4400 & counting troops.
Of course OTAN-K [ think ISIS-K ] could have feigned no knowledge of such a thing & tsk-tsked about it to the Financial Times & Politico while still explaining with a shrug that Ukraine has a right to defend itself in a manner of its own choosing
Ackshually, there is a markedly lower number of trolls and bots on paid articles... Hm....
agree, noticed it quite some time ago. Trolls don't pay to troll.