Pentagon Accelerates Testing Of New B61 Nuclear Gravity Bomb

 

President Donald Trump’s promises to rebuild the American nuclear arsenal are starting to bear fruit, and according to a US Air Force general update from May 1, the US has already conducted more than two dozen tests of its new B61-12 guided nuclear gravity bomb.

As Military.com reports, plans to spend over $1 trillion to modernize the US “nuclear triad” – nuclear bombers and missiles launched from land-based silos and submarines – have been fast-tracked thanks to the new Nuclear Posture Review, as well as increased military spending authorized during the Trump administration.

The Future the US Military is Constructing: a Giant, Armed Nervous System

Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. John Richardson, gives a keynote address during the Naval Future Force Science and Technology (S&T) Expo, July 21, 2017. This is a slide from his presentation.

 

Service chiefs are converging on a single strategy for military dominance: connect everything to everything.

Leaders of the Air Force, Navy, Army and Marines are converging on a vision of the future military: connecting every asset on the global battlefield.

That means everything from F-35 jets overhead to the destroyers on the sea to the armor of the tanks crawling over the land to the multiplying devices in every troops’ pockets. Every weapon, vehicle, and device connected, sharing data, constantly aware of the presence and state of every other node in a truly global network. The effect: an unimaginably large cephapoloidal nervous system armed with the world’s most sophisticated weaponry.

US Needs 400 New Nuclear ICBMs to Deter ‘Crazy World’: General

 

NATIONAL Harbor, Md. — “We are in a crazy world” of proliferating nuclear threats that will persist for generations to come and require the U.S. to invest $80 billion to $100 billion in new ICBMs to deter adversaries, Air Force Gen. Robin Rand said Monday.

“There are bad characters around the world” who “need to know we’re ready,” Rand, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, said during a strategic deterrence panel at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber convention.

US Nuclear Modernization Plans to Bury Existing Arms Control Regime

Courtesy: Strategic Culture Foundation

 

You may like Donald Trump or not but he will go down in history as the President who made decisions of fundamental importance for his country and the world. Nobody else but Donald Trump will determine the configuration of US future nuclear arsenal, which is to go through massive modernization. Modernizing the US’s entire nuclear arsenal would cost $400 billion by 2026, according to a figure released by the Congressional Budget Office. The United States will modernize nearly every part of its nuclear arsenal, including replacement warheads, upgraded command-and-control systems, and other improvements across the strategic triad. Kicked off in April to be finished by the end of the year, the Nuclear Posture Review is underway and the final decisions are to be taken during the Donald Trump’s tenure.

Russia Goes Hypersonic: the West Lagging Behind in Missile Technology Race

Remember all those times Global Geopolitics has warned that the Russians and Chinese were either on par or soon going to be more militarily advanced than America?

Just in case, here’s a few refreshers posted throughout the years:

WORLD WAR III? US fears China will win any conflict because strength of Red Army’s fleet

Nuclear Submarines and Hypersonic Missiles: China Is Making Game-Changing Weapons Advances

Global Ballistic Missile Threats Beginning to Outpace US Defense Capability

China, Russia, Iran Closing Gap with Smaller, Older U.S. Military

Russia claims to have super weapon that disables western satellites and long range arms

Chinese bought division of IBM that manufactures computing servers for U.S. Navy Aegis cruisers

China Tests ICBM With Multiple Warheads

‘Stolen’ J-31 can beat American jets in dogfight, says US pilot

Pentagon: Military Losing Technological Superiority to China

Photos show second China stealth fighter prototype has test flight

Silent Running

Obama’s Lost in Space

 

 

On March 30, the Russian Navy launched Kazan, the second upgraded Yasen-class project 885M submarine. The Navy will take delivery of the vessel in 2018. A total of seven Yasen class nuclear attack submarines are to be built by 2023. Kazan is an upgraded Project 885M design – an advanced version that is in many ways much more capable than the lead ship of the class, Severodvinsk, the first submarine in the series, entered service in 2016.

The Kazan’s armament includes 3M22 Zircon – a hypersonic cruise capable of speeds of around Mach 5.0-Mach 6.0 (7,400 kilometer per hour (4,600 mile per hour) expected to enter into production in 2018. At a cruising altitude of 30,000 m its kinetic energy at impact is 50 times higher than existing air-ship and ship-to-ship missiles. The projectile can travel covering 155 miles in 2.5 minutes, which is faster than a sniper’s bullet. The enemy will not have enough time to get scared, let alone react.

For comparison, the sea-based Kalibr cruise missile travels at a Mach 0.9 speed, but while approaching the target, its warhead speeds up to Mach 2.9.

US preparing for potential conflict in South China Sea: report

During the Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition held by the Air Force Association in National Harbor, Maryland on Sep. 16, the US secretary of defense, Ashton Carter, said Washington was already moving ahead to prepare for a potential conflict with China in the disputed South China Sea region, Russia’s Tass news agency reports.

AFA 2015: Russia has closed air power gap with NATO, US warns

• Russia’s military modernisation has diminished NATO’s air superiority in Europe
• The Pentagon is most alarmed by Russia’s ability to create A2/AD challenges

Russia’s military modernisation has diminished NATO’s air superiority in Europe, US Air Force (USAF) General Frank Gorenc, the commander of US Air Forces in Europe and Africa, said during the Air Force Association’s annual symposium on 14 September.

“They have closed the gap,” Gen Gorenc, also the chief of Allied Air Command, told reporters during a briefing.

Lockheed Unveils ‘TR-X’ As Next-Generation U-2

 

WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin this week revealed its Skunk Works proposal for a next-generation U-2 spy plane, a tactical reconnaissance aircraft called “TR-X.”

As the Air Force looks to retire Lockheed’s U-2 Dragon Lady in 2019, the company has come up with a next-generation replacement, Scott Winstead, strategic business manager for the U-2 program, told reporters on Monday at the Air Force Association’s annual conference. Lockheed is still shaping the capabilities of TR-X, a high-altitude aircraft that is designed to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions for decades to come.

Futurist: Risk of Miscalculating Nuclear War is Higher Than Ever

With future combat likely to occur in cyberspace and space as well as on land, sea and air, the potential for nuclear-miscalculation is greater than at any time since the worst days of the Cold War, said Singer, a strategist with the New America think tank.

“You may now not do certain things, because you need to signal to the other side, ‘Yeah, we’re at war, but we’re not in that kind of war,’” Singer told a group Monday at the Air Force Association’s annual Air and Space Conference outside Washington, D.C. “This also applies to how we think about deterrence and cyber conflict.”

White House Blocks Pentagon Report on Russian Treaty Breach

House chairman urges fast U.S. response to Moscow’s INF missile breach

The White House is blocking the release of a Pentagon risk assessment of Russia’s violation of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, according to a senior House leader.

Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, disclosed the existence of the Pentagon assessment last month and said the report is needed for Congress’ efforts to address the problem in legislation.

“As we look to the near-term future, we need to consider how we’re going to respond to Russia’s INF violations,” Rogers said in an Air Force Association breakfast July 8. “Congress will not continue to tolerate the administration dithering on this issue.”

US Military Could Not Handle One Major Theater Operation If Sequester Sticks

“You gentlemen make life and death decisions in the Tank almost every day,” a somber Cooper said at a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration, looking straight at Army Gen. Ray Odierno, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, Air Force Gen. Mark Welsh and Marine Gen. James Amos. “We are unwilling to even come up with a budget for America.”

Even the usually partisan HASC Chairman Buck McKeon, after offering a very short defense of the House and GOP’s actions on sequestration, spoke the truth to the Joint Chiefs and the packed hearing room: ”It’s not your fault. It is us.”

How bad will it get if the United States Congress does not reverse the Budget Control Act, the foundation of sequestration?

Three of the four Joint Chiefs told the HASC that they would not be able to execute the most basic strategic requirement of the US military: defeating an enemy in a single major theater operation. Only Gen. Amos, Marine Commandant, said his self-sufficient force could handle one MTO, but could not handle more than that.