AntiWar.com & John Lewallen / Avoiding Nuclear War.com – 2018-12-04 23:01:12
US, NATO Give Russia
60 Days to Comply With Nuclear Treaty
Russia denies violating terms of 1987 INF treaty
Jason Ditz / AntiWar.com
WASHINGTON (December 4, 2018) — After years of claiming Russia is violating the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Tuesday that the US is giving Russia 60 days to comply with the deal.
The big obstacle to this is, despite the US making such allegations for several years, and getting NATO to endorse their narrative, Russia has denied ever violating the deal in the first place, and insists the missile in question, the 9m729, is not banned by the treaty.
The question is based on the missile’s range, with INF banning everything from 500 km to 5,500 km. Russia has only tested the missile to about 400 km, and it is intended to replace a missile that itself was only 400 km. US officials, however, have speculated that the missile has a much longer range.
This makes any deal unlikely, as Russia would not only have to admit the missile has a longer range than it was tested to actually have, but also agree to get rid of the system, which would severely limit their short-range capabilities until they are able to roll out something else that the US would accept.
US officials have been keen to pull out of the INF for awhile anyhow, and this ultimatum is mostly meant to serve as a legal pretext to do so. The withdrawal would allow the US to deploy nuclear missiles into Europe.
The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review
Creates Risk of Strategic Attack on US Homeland
John Lewallen / Avoiding Nuclear War.com
(November 25, 2018) — Strategic nuclear war, involving risk of nuclear missile attacks against US cities and now the possible use of high-altitude nuclear electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) bombs to collapse computerized civilization continent-wide, is a catastrophically unfavorable field of battle for the United States.
The 2018 nuclear posture review defines four nations as major strategic threats against the US which must be deterred with a huge nuclear arsenal based on expansion of the “nuclear triad” developed to confront the Soviet Union. These nations are Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.
In order to deter nuclear attack on their nations, Russia and China have a longstanding strategy of maintaining “Second-Strike Threat Credibility”: the perceived ability to impose a nuclear counter-attack on the US homeland even if the US has hit them with a nuclear strike intended to destroy their military completely. Now North Korea apparently has gained second-strike threat credibility against the US
The 2018 nuclear posture review claims that renewal and expansion of the US nuclear arsenal is necessary because China, Russia, and North Korea have expanded their nuclear arsenals and become more threatening. Actually, the US drives the whole ongoing war of nuclear threat confrontation by developing more first-strike weapons, deploying them around these nations, and threatening “pre-emptive first strike” if the US believes an attack against them is imminent.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly explained, US attempts to set up strategic missile defense and threatening deployments force Russia to develop counter-forces to maintain second-strike threat credibility and deter attack from the US.
This insane “game” is very expensive and puts the whole US in increasing peril of nuclear attack, either by accident or as a pre-emptive strike. No nation is suicidally crazy enough to initiate nuclear attack against the US.
It is urgent that the US immediately de-escalate nuclear threat confrontation. President Trump’s 2017 attack threats against North Korea provoked a North Korean threat to detonate an H-bomb over the Pacific for the first time since the 1960s, leading to ongoing peace talks with the United States. (See my analysis “Did A North Korea Nuclear EMP Bomb Threat Lead to Peace Talks With President Trump?” posted at avoidingnuclearwar.com.) Similar direct negotiations with China and Russia are urgently needed.
Trump also ended the “war games” threatening attack against North Korea, calling them “provocative.” The whole US nuclear posture is “provocative,” and could provoke nuclear attack against the US homeland.
Why Republicans Should Support Signing the
Treaty for Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear weapons are the great equalizers; or, in military jargon, the ultimate asymmetrical weapons. The probable possession of just one nuclear EMP bomb capable of wiping out US computerized civilization was enough to cause the US to stop threatening North Korea with attack. For the US military strategists focused on protecting the homeland with maximum military strength, it is essential to reverse current strategy of escalating nuclear threat. Avoidance of nuclear war is the only sane strategy to prevent national suicide.
US nuclear posture drives the whole worldwide war of ongoing nuclear threat confrontation. By joining the treaty banning nuclear weapons, and accepting the need to phase out the US nuclear arsenal, the US may be able to keep the “nuclear taboo” in place which has kept anyone from detonating a nuclear weapon in battle since the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945.
The US can retain the few nuclear weapons essential for deterring nuclear attack on the US homeland, and take full advantage of its superiority in non-nuclear weapons until general reconciliation occurs on Earth.
Current peace talks started with North Korea by President Trump should be supported by everyone. They challenge the entrenched inertia of a “nuclear-industrial complex” which is trying to stop them. It will take concerted effort to overcome this complex, but our national survival depends on moving toward de-escalation of nuclear confrontation. We need thoughtful Republican leadership to keep from dragging ourselves into catastrophic nuclear war.
Ending the Cover-up of
Nuclear EMP Bombs in Missiles and Satellites
The probable deployment of nuclear electromagnetic bombs (HEMP) in missiles and satellites by Russia, China, and now North Korea is so challenging to the US nuclear-industrial complex that to this day there is a Cover-up of their very existence. Very few strategic analyses include HEMP weapons, even one of which, if detonated high above the US, could destroy computer chips in line of sight continent-wide and in space, completely destroying US electronic civilization.
We owe our current survival to President Trump’s recognition that he needed to begin peace talks with North Korea to avoid a threatened detonation of an H-bomb over the Pacific, which possibly would be the first HEMP event since the global computerized network came into existence.
There is no military defense against a HEMP attack on the US Peace with HEMP-armed nations is our only path to national survival. I believe HEMP weapons, which in all scenarios of strategic nuclear war are used initially to wipe out US computer chips nationwide, make the whole concept of fighting strategic nuclear war nihilistically absurd, and all the weapons in the2018 nuclear posture review useless and obsolete.
I’m asking everyone to print and read the EMP Commission “Statement for the Record” issued on October 12, 2017, titled “Empty Threat or Serious Danger: Assessing North Korea’s Risk to the Homeland,” by Drs. William R. Graham and Peter Vincent Pry. Dr. Graham, who served as an advisor to President Reagan, has led the study and presentation of accurate public information about HEMP weapons since the discovery of HEMP in the Starfish Prime H-bomb test in 1962.
While I disagree with his military defense approach to the HEMP threat, this information is impeccable and the effort to protect the US electronic grid from both HEMP attack and inevitable coronal mass ejection from the sun is urgently needed.
President Trump is the first president to take Graham et.al. seriously. On October 9, 2018, at Trump’s direction, the Department of Homeland Security issued a “Strategy for Protecting and Preparing the Homeland Against Threats of Electromagnetic Pulse and Geomagnetic Disturbances,” essentially a statement of intention which will need a lot of support to put into effect.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
