Iran Promises to Restart Nuclear Weapons Work as Tehran Identified as Top Global Threat

Head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi / Getty Images

 

U.S. intel: Iran, Russia, China leading cyber charge against U.S.

Senior Iranian leaders on Thursday signaled the country is on the brink of restarting its contested nuclear weapons program, disclosing the Islamic Republic is prepared to restart the full-scale enrichment of uranium, the key component in a nuclear weapon, if it does not continue to receive cash windfalls from European countries still committed to the landmark nuclear agreement.

US Will Be “Defenseless” Against New Russian Nuclear Sub Equipped With Hypersonic Missiles

 

The Soviet-era arms race between the US and Russia is officially back on.

To wit, Moscow is reportedly building a fleet of nuclear submarines armed with hypersonic ICBMs capable of delivering a nuclear payload ten times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, according to CNBC, which cited a US intelligence report on the new weapons. Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted at six new super weapons during a speech back in March where he also revealed that Russia is working on a nuclear missile capable of evading NATO’s ring of ABM defenses.

Stocking Up for World War III

 

Nuclear nonproliferation efforts are ending. A new arms race has begun.

Since the United States and the Soviet Union backed away from the precipice of nuclear war in the 1980s, the world’s stocks of nuclear weapons have declined from an estimated 60,000 to an estimated 10,000.

According to a 2014 study by science journal Earth’s Future, however, it would take just 100 nuclear detonations to create a worldwide climate catastrophe causing massive famine and death.

Why is America still stuck with token missile defense?

The covers of silos housing ground-based interceptor missiles at the Fort Greely missile defense complex in Fort Greely, Alaska, on April 26, 2018. Photo: Reuters/Mark Meyer

 

The answer harks back to a 1972 treaty, and despite that agreement expiring years ago, defense experts and politicians failed to move with the times

The short answer: the anti-defense mentality of late 1960s politicians and academics, embodied in the spirit and main provisions of the 1972 US-Soviet anti-ballistic defense missile treaty, remains embedded in the US bureaucracy, our military and defense industry.

That spirit is the heart of official US policy: we must do nothing, develop or research anything, that poses obstacles to missiles from Russia or China striking America.

Planes, tanks, ships: Russian military gets massive upgrade

FILE – In this Thursday, Dec. 22, 2016 file photo, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shougu speaks during a meeting with senior military officials in Moscow, Russia. Sergei Shoigu told lawmakers Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017, that the sweeping military modernization program will continue at a high pace this year. Amid tensions with the West, the Kremlin has continued to spend big on new weapons despite Russia’s economic downturn. (Balashova Olga/Defence Ministry Pool Photo via AP, file)

 

MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian military received a sweeping array of new weapons last year, including 41 intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the wide-ranging military modernization will continue this year, the defense minister said Wednesday.

Minister Sergei Shoigu told lawmakers the air force will receive 170 new aircraft, the army will receive 905 tanks and other armored vehicles while the navy will receive 17 new ships this year.

Amid tensions with the West, the Kremlin has continued to spend big on new weapons despite Russia’s economic downturn.

China Boosting Nuclear Capabilities, Narrowing Gap With US, Russia

“The DF-5’s strengths are obvious. This is a powerful liquid-fuel missile which weighs 183 tons. Its energy potential is so great that it [led to China] creating a family of space launch vehicles based [upon this missile]. It is capable of delivering a powerful front section with ten warheads and the means of overcoming ballistic missile defenses to the US,” Vasily Kashin said.

 

China is likely to change the rules of the game in the Asian-Pacific region: in the coming years Beijing may narrow the gap with the US in terms of strategic nuclear capabilities, Russian military expert Vasily Kashin told Sputnik, referring to Beijing’s flight test of advanced DF-5C intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

There appear to be more and more reasons to expect China to make a spectacular breakthrough in the field of nuclear weapons development, Russian military expert Vasily Kashin told Sputnik, adding that this could lead to radical changes in the ongoing geopolitical game over Asia-Pacific.

On January 31 Bill Gertz, a senior editor of the Washington Free Beacon, reported that Beijing had flight tested “a new variant of a long-range missile with 10 warheads,” dubbing it a “dramatic shift in Beijing’s strategic nuclear posture.”

Russia Building New Underground Nuclear Command Posts

U.S. intelligence detects dozens of hardened bunkers for leaders

Russia is building large numbers of underground nuclear command bunkers in the latest sign Moscow is moving ahead with a major strategic forces modernization program.

U.S. intelligence officials said construction has been underway for several years on “dozens” of underground bunkers in Moscow and around the country.

Disclosure of the underground command bunkers comes as Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of U.S. European Command, warned recently that Russia has adopted a nuclear use doctrine he called “alarming.”

Russian Top Secret Hypersonic Glider Can Penetrate Any Missile Defense

Concept drawing of a hypseronic aircraft | Lockheed Martin

 

Russia’s new Yu-74 ultra-maneuverable hypersonic glide vehicles may become yet another response to the deployment of NATO’s missile installations in Eastern Europe, according to military analysts.

…

Last year Russia conducted a series of tests of the Yu-71 hypersonic attack aircraft. The Yu-71 is part of secret missile program codenamed “Project 4202.” The glider was said to reach speeds of up to 7,000 miles per hour. Due to its outstanding maneuverability and high speed the system can overcome any defense shield, military experts noted.

But that is half the story. According to analytical website Ostcraft.ru, this year Russia successfully tested its experimental Yu-74 hypersonic glide vehicle. The Yu-74 was carried by the intercontinental-range RS-18A (NATO codename: SS-19 Stiletto) ballistic missile system. The glider was launched from the Dombarovsky missile base in the Orenburg region and hit a target located at Kura Missile Test Range in northern Kamchatka region, the Russian Far East.

America’s nuclear defences rely on floppy discs and 1970s computers, according to audit

Nothing new per se in this article other than the announcement of upgrades, finally. However, it’s likely too little, too late. Alarm bells went off over this issue years ago as detailed in previous posts:

America’s Nuclear Arsenal Is Still Controlled By Antique Computers With Floppy Disks

Russia’s nuclear weapon arsenal surpasses US

 

America’s nuclear force still uses floppy disks designed in the 1970s to coordinate some of its functions, according to a watchdog report released on Wednesday.

The report by the Government Accountability Office points to a number of worryingly outdated “legacy systems” still in use across the US government that are in desperate need of upgrading.

A Pentagon command and control system – responsible for US nuclear forces, such as intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear bombers, and tanker support aircraft – runs on an IBM Series/1 computer and uses 8-inch floppy disks, the report says.

A New Nuclear Strategy: Painting A Nuclear Bullseye on America

The only people within a country who would want to disarm that same country, making it vulnerable to enemies who routinely break treaties to gain first-strike capability, are the same people who want to destroy their own country. There is no excuse, ignorance or naïveté in such high levels as this. The only mistake is letting these people be in positions of power to destroy a nation from within. People continue to deny this, and will until it’s too late.

It doesn’t matter who wins the White House in November of 2016. They will have a mess they cannot clean up. Only God will be able to save the nation if it turns back to Him rather than being bent on suicide and lucky if it ever sees 2018.

 

The defense budget was sent to Congress on February 9th and already many are looking at ways to cut the budget further, even though the administration undercut the 2015 Fall budget agreement with Congress on defense spending by some $25 billion.

However, the administration largely supports the nuclear modernization accounts, increasing funding for the new strategic bomber, the Minuteman ICBM and the Ohio Replacement strategic submarine.

But others are proposing very radical nuclear ideas. One suggestion would eliminate entirely the Minuteman ICBM force and its three bases and 450 missiles–unilaterally.

Why would the United States, without our Minuteman missile force, make it easy, in fact tempting, for an adversary such as Russia, to take out the entire U.S. strategic nuclear forces in one or a series of very limited even surreptitious first strikes? 

CHINA SECURITY: China Is Developing More Effective Ways to Hide Nukes

A new, potentially off-road missile launch truck made by the Tai’an Corporation that could be for the new “DF-31B” ICBM reportedly tested in September 2014. (Chinese Internet)

 

It’s possible a real-world nuclear war could end without a single missile being fired, and the United States could find itself on the losing end.

I’ve covered the problem before. The United States has barely moved its nuclear launch sites since the Cold War, and according to Richard Fisher, senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, all of these sites are overtargeted by Russian and Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

Of course, it’s not unusual for rivals to target nuclear weapons sites; some of the original U.S. nuclear war scenarios had all the Soviet nuclear weapons sites as primary targets.

The difference today is that while you can literally find most U.S. nuclear weapons sites using Google Earth—and while Russia and the United States are disposing of warheads—the Chinese regime is making significant efforts to build its nuclear arsenals, and to keep these weapons hidden.

Former U.S. official urges Pentagon to skip buying new ICBMs

Again, America’s enemies are arming and modernizing while America wants to continue suicidally disarming. This brings into play serious doubts what side the previous administrations (as well as current) are working for, as this is beyond incompetence or ignorance.

This is the same defense secretary who worked under the Clinton administration. This is the same Clinton administration who purposely sold American supercomputers to China via the U.S. Department of Commerce and is largely responsible for the Asian giant’s threatening rise. One can only wonder what has been given to Russia since then.

 

Former Defense Secretary William Perry on Thursday called for the Pentagon to skip replacing its aging stockpile of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), arguing that U.S. nuclear-armed submarines and a new long-range bomber program would provide sufficient deterrent value.

Perry, a close friend and mentor of the current defense secretary, Ash Carter, said the United States was on “the brink of a new nuclear arms race,” that would be extremely expensive, and the ICBMs were not necessary as a deterrent force.

Chinese dual-use missiles and satellites point to emerging ‘Prompt Global Strike’ capability

The development of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) Kuaizhou/Fei Tian dual-use mobile solid fuel space launch system and the dual-use 138 Jilin surveillance satellite constellation point to the emergence of a capability similar to the United States’ Prompt Global Strike (PGS) programme.

Russian submarine with 20 ICBMs and 200 nuclear warheads is sailing to Syria

Further background information on a previous post.

Ironically, the previous post, originally derived from state-owned propaganda outlet Sputnik News, mentions that the submarine was Arctic-bound for anti-submarine drills. We’ll likely find out within the next few days where it actually winds up — likely in Syrian waters.

 

The world’s largest submarine, the Dmitri Donskoy (TK-208), Nato-coded Typhoon, has set sail for the Mediterranean and is destined for the Syrian coast, debkafile reports exclusively from its military and intelligence sources. Aboard the sub are 20 Bulava (NATO-code SS-N-30) intercontinental ballistic missiles with an estimated up to 200 nuclear warheads. Each missile, with a reported range of 10,000km, carries 6-10 MIRV nuclear warheads.

China shows off missile ‘able to destroy aircraft carriers’ at massive WW2 parade

Chinese President Xi Jinping inspects the troops Photo: Xinhua/REX Shutterstock

 

Some 12,000 troops file past President Xi Jinping in Beijing, along with formations of tanks and armoured vehicles as warplanes screamed overhead.

China showed off a new missile reportedly capable of destroying an aircraft carrier on Thursday as it flexed its military muscle with a huge parade marking 70 years since the defeat of Japan in World War Two.

The parade, which was shunned by most Western leaders, witnessed 12,000 troops file past President Xi Jinping, along with formations of tanks and armoured vehicles as warplanes screamed overhead.