Modernizing America’s Nuclear Capabilities Is a Must

A Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile in its silo in Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, circa 1980. (Image source: U.S. Department of Defense)

 

 

• In 1989, America had 1,000 nuclear missile silos, and a small number of additional bomber and submarine bases and submarines at sea, facing 13,500 Soviet warheads. Today, the U.S. has 450 such silos facing 1,750 Russian warheads. That is a switch from a ratio of 13 Russian warheads to every U.S. missile silo, to a ratio of 4 Russian warheads to every U.S. missile silo. Getting rid of Minuteman ICBMs would reverse that progress and make the ratio even worse, with 175 Russian warheads to every U.S. missile silo. How is that an improvement?
• The U.S. “cannot afford to delay modernization initiatives” while the “American people and our allies are counting on congressional action to fund our nuclear enterprise modernization efforts.” — General Robin Rand, the commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command.
• America’s ability to defend itself is at stake.

In April 2017, the Pentagon launched the U.S. Defense Department’s legislatively mandated quadrennial Nuclear Posture Review to determine American policy, strategy and capabilities. The process now underway involves testimony from experts arguing over how the estimated $27 billion spent annually (growing over the next decade by an additional $10 billion a year) on America’s nuclear arsenal should be allocated.

Donald Trump says he wants to ‘greatly strengthen and expand’ U.S. nuclear capability, a radical break from U.S. foreign policy

In lockstep with Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threat:

 

President-Elect Donald J. Trump looks out after a meeting with military leadership at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

 

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday called for the United States to expand its nuclear arsenal, after Russian President Vladi­mir Putin said his country’s nuclear potential needs fortifying, in what would reverse decades of efforts to reduce the number and size of the two countries’ nuclear weapons.

In a tweet that offered no details, Trump said, “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”

Trump’s tweet came shortly after Putin, during a defense ministry meeting, talked tough on nuclear weapons.

Norway’s Link to Clinton Foundation & Obama — Corruption to Create World War III

 

QUESTION:  I read your blog daily, first thing in the morning. What surprise me is your ability to see through the dust. Socrates has been of real help and thanks a lot.

I have a concern within Nato governance that I like your view on. Trump has not touched it however how can there be a direct link between Norway’s enormous contribution to the Clinton Foundation and the appointment of Jens Stoltenberg as new General Secretary in Nato. Jens Stoltenberg has just released a book about his carrier that smell propaganda, putting shit on all of his opponents however revealing how he sabotaged the previous labor leader of the Norwegian Labor party. It comes in the same line as rewarding President Obama with the Nobel peace price.

Cutting Budgets and Increasing Nuclear Dangers (Part 2)

PART 1 is here – click

The US defense budget was unveiled by the administration and sent to Congress February 9, 2016 and already the “military critics” and their long knives are anticipating how to disembowel critical elements of our nation’s military.

For example, Mr. Gordon Adams, previously at the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration and Mr. Lawrence Korb at the Center for American Progress, are both calling for the dismantlement of the US nuclear deterrent.

Mr. Adam’s proposals not only will save almost no money over the near term, any delay in the acquisition of the new submarine is fraught with danger. For example, already the hull life we are expecting from the current submarines will be greater than any other submarine in our nation’s history.

Former SecDef: Remove ICBMs From Nuclear Triad

If you needed any more proof that the American political establishment has lost its mind and is bringing the United States into suicide, this should suffice.

He may no longer be a defense secretary, but it gives insight into what the ruling governments think and how dangerous they are for America. He is deluded into thinking America needs to take the “moral high road” and dismantle, one of the 45 declared goals of Communism, Russia’s checklist for weakening the United States and opening the opportunity for attack. But then again, how can someone be so deluded into thinking disarming will lead to peace while the adversaries don’t disarm? The only other logical reasoning behind this belief is that it’s intentional.

 

For former defense secretary William Perry, the danger of intercontinental ballistic missiles was starkly illustrated in 1979, when the then-undersecretary of defense for research and engineering was woken up in the wee hours and told 200 Soviet ICBMs were headed for the U.S.

The scare was quickly determined to be a false alarm, Perry told reporters earlier this month at a Center for Media and Security event in Washington, D.C. But the realization that such a scenario could disastrously trigger a U.S. response stayed with him.

Russia Again Flight Tests Illegal INF Cruise Missile

Russia has and always will cheat on weapons treaties. It’s to the Soviet’s strategic advantage to continue to make deals with America.

Russia knows that America will always take the “moral high road” and abide by the treaty, whereas Russia uses the treaty as a strategic step to make advances and get the upper hand. Throughout the last few decades, America has become completely disillusioned into believing that total disarmament is a demonstration of moral strength. In contrast, a nation can actually remain on the moral high road and simultaneously serve as the world’s hammer with a vast nuclear arsenal, without firing off one nuke. That is how America once was, today it is different and bent on its own demise. Today, and likewise because of this, Russia smells blood and is heading towards nuclear first-strike capability, full-steam ahead.

The Pentagon sees the threat and the White House continues to whitewash it, make concessions and put out happy news in the media. It makes you wonder what side the current administration is working for as suicidally disarming an entire nation is not a mistake. There are checks and balances in America for preventing such mistakes, that is, if you obey the rule of law.

At this pace, if strategic thinking does not change within the American political leadership, it’s only a matter of time before Vladimir Putin (or the next President) can claim checkmate and force America into either capitulation or, or worse, decimation.

“Treaties are like pie crusts, they are made to be broken.”

– Vladimir Lenin

 

A test of Russia’s SSN-30A Kalibr missile, of which the SS-X-8 might be a variant (screenshot)

 

Obama administration still weighing response—years after violation detected

Russia flight-tested a new ground-launched cruise missile this month that U.S. intelligence agencies say further violates the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, according to Obama administration defense and security officials.

The missile launch Sept. 2 was the latest flight test for what the Pentagon is calling the SSC-X-8 cruise missile. The cruise missile did not fly beyond the 300-mile range limit for an INF-banned missile, said officials familiar with reports of the test.

However, intelligence analysts reported that the missile’s assessed range is between 300 miles and 3,400 miles—the distance covered under the landmark INF treaty that banned an entire class of intermediate-range missiles.

The SSC-X-8 test also involved what officials called a “nuclear profile,” meaning that the weapon is part of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces.

Despite Promises, Obama Planning to Close ICBM Squadron

The Obama administration has drafted a plan to shutter an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) squadron three years after it assured hesitant lawmakers that the New START U.S.-Russia arms reduction treaty would not lead to deep cuts in the ICBM force.

A new timeline prepared by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon maps out a strategy to eliminate an ICBM squadron—and destroy its missile silos—by Dec. 5, 2017. An environmental assessment would begin next month.

Treaty Cheating — Russia said to be violating 1987 missile accord

Disguising stronger ICBMs as weaker ICBMs with less capability is the case here — and America is falling for it. While the U.S. continues to “reset”, the neo-Soviet Union continues to restart.

“Treaties are like pie crusts, they are made to be broken” – Vladimir Lenin

Russia is engaged in a major violation of the terms of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with the United States by building a new medium-range missile banned under the accord, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

Disclosure of the treaty violation comes as President Barack Obama last week called for a new round of arms negotiations with Moscow aimed at cutting deployed nuclear warheads by one-third.

Intelligence officials said internal assessments identified Russia’s new Yars M missile that was tested earlier this month as an INF missile with a range of less than 5,500 kilometers.

“The intelligence community believes it’s an intermediate-range missile that [the Russians] have classified as an ICBM because it would violate the INF treaty” if its true characteristics were known, said one official.

Obama to renew calls for nuclear reductions

BERLIN (AP) – President Barack Obama on Wednesday will renew his call to reduce the world’s nuclear stockpiles, including a proposed one-third reduction in U.S. and Russian arsenals, a senior administration official said.

Obama will make his case during a speech at Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate. His address comes nearly 50 years after John F. Kennedy’s famous Cold War speech in this once-divided city.

Russia to send nuclear submarines to southern seas

The bear is back, while the USA is in retreat.

Russia plans to resume nuclear submarine patrols in the southern seas after a hiatus of more than 20 years following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Itar-Tass news agency reported on Saturday, in another example of efforts to revive Moscow’s military.

The plan to send Borei-class submarines, designed to carry 16 long-range nuclear missiles, to the southern hemisphere follows President Vladimir Putin’s decision in March to deploy a naval unit in the Mediterranean Sea on a permanent basis starting this year.

Two-Faced — Russia building up missile defenses while seeking to limit U.S. defenses

Another Gertz article with the same subject as a previous post:

Russia is engaged in a major buildup of both nuclear and conventional missile defense systems at the same time Moscow is seeking legal limits on U.S. missile defenses, according to U.S. officials.

The Russian military is developing and deploying an array of new and modernized anti-missile interceptors that are part of a strategic doctrine that calls for defending against what Moscow believes to be an increasing threat posed by offensive ballistic missiles, said U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports.

…

Additionally, the Russians are upgrading the SH-08 nuclear-tipped anti-missile interceptors that have been deployed around Moscow for more than two decades.

Off to a Bad Start — Why is the president letting America’s nukes rust?

It’s been said, “where there’s a will, there’s a way”… The United States in this case has no will, and therefore will in the future have no way to effectively stop other militarily advanced countries from attacking should they attain first-strike capability (or in Iran’s case, it likely wouldn’t matter) — something Moscow has wanted since before the Cold War.

In his April 8 article on FP, “Time to Face Facts,” Secretary of State John Kerry observed how “in the Senate, we clawed our way to ratification [of the New START Treaty] with 71 votes, a big bipartisan statement that the arms control and nonproliferation consensus could hold together even in a polarized political culture.”

The secretary fails to mention, however, that the reason he, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, was able to “claw” together enough votes to secure ratification is that President Obama and the Senate agreed to a 10-year effort to modernize our aging nuclear weapons complex and our nuclear delivery systems. It was this consensus on the link between nuclear modernization and nuclear force reductions that made New START ratification possible — not a consensus on arms control, as Secretary Kerry suggests.

Disarming America

State Department advisory board urges deeper nuclear force cuts including unilateral reductions

A State Department board of experts is calling for steep cuts in U.S. nuclear forces beyond the New START treaty limits and recommends unilateral or informal reductions to avoid expected Senate ratification battles.

“Treaties are an important but not always necessary method for reducing nuclear arsenals,” the new report by the International Security Advisory Board says. “The United States has reduced its nuclear arsenal without negotiating a new treaty in the past—both unilaterally and reciprocally with Russia.”

US edging toward decision on new nuclear arms cuts

The Obama administration is edging toward decisions that would further shrink the U.S. nuclear arsenal, possibly to between 1,000 and 1,100 warheads, reflecting new thinking on the role of nuclear weapons in an age of terror, say current and former officials.

The reductions that are under consideration align with President Barack Obama’s vision of trimming the nation’s nuclear arsenal without harming national security in the short term, and in the longer term, eliminating nuclear weapons.

The White House has yet to announce any plan for reducing the number of nuclear weapons, beyond commitments made in the recently completed New Start treaty with Russia, which obliges both countries to reduce their number of deployed long-range nuclear warheads to no more than 1,550 by 2018. As of March 1, Russia had already dropped its total to 1,492 and the U.S. stood at 1,737.

Obama has been considering a range of options for additional cuts, including a low-end range that would leave between 300 and 400 warheads. Several current and former officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said there appeared to be a consensus building around the more modest reduction to 1,000 to 1,100 deployed strategic warheads.

Full article: US edging toward decision on new nuclear arms cuts (Fox News)