Chilling US Escalations Target Russia, Risk Nuclear War

June 1st, 2024 - by Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com & Steven Starr / Special to WBW

“Ukraine Can Use US Weapons Inside Russia”
Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com

Russian War Planners See US
Preparing for Nuclear First Strike
Steven Starr / Special to EAW

(May 31, 2024) — I think the people running the show are delusional. They believe they can make “Russia back down” and are selling their war with the idea that Russia will attack Europe if it “isn’t stopped in Ukraine.”

In other words, they believe their own propaganda, and they clearly have no idea about the ramifications of attacking Russian strategic nuclear Early Warning Systems or hitting deep in Russia with missiles and cruise missiles that they supply, program, and operate. Russia will hit back at NATO for this, and the fools in Washington will use this as an excuse to continue to escalate. It is dangerous and reckless beyond belief.

The recent multiple attacks on the Russian nuclear Early Warning System (EWS) served no other purpose than to attempt to blind Russia to an incoming nuclear attack.

According to Dr. Theodore Postal, Russia lacks the satellite reconnaissance capabilities of the US and must rely almost entirely on its 10 land-based long-range strategic radar facilities to detect any incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) or the warheads they carry.

https://www.twz.com/content/2021/02/SPRN-Russian-early-warning-system-TOPSHOT-scaled.jpg?quality=85&width=1920&quality=70

Photos show that the Russian EWS facility at Amir has been damaged. The loss of this EWS radar facility (hopefully it can be quickly repaired) causes Russia to lose the ability to quickly detect incoming missiles and warheads launched by US Ohio class nuclear subs in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. This is illustrated by the slide below, which Dr. Theodore Postol of MIT created

A single US Trident sub can launch more than 200 independently targeted strategic nuclear warheads — more than enough to destroy Russia. 

Moscow has its own EWS facility, which can detect this type of attack, however, the detection will take place several minutes LATER than it would have been detected by the Armavir EWS facility.  The Figure copied below (also done by Dr. Postol) illustrates Armavir  EWS radar band in yellow and the Moscow EWS radar band in red; when the missile or warhead breaks the radar band, it takes more than a minute for the radar to make the alert.

Reach of Russian Strategic Nuclear Early Warning Radars

 

Notice also a satellite could detect the thermal signature of the boost phase of the launch of a missile almost immediately; the US has satellites to detect Russian missile launches, but as previously mentioned, Russia does not.  You can see in the Figure below that satellites add 5 to 7 minutes of warning time.  If the Armavir EWS facility is out of action, political and military leaders in Moscow will have at most 1-3 minutes to decide on whether to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike in response to the perceived attack.

The decision to attack the Russian nuclear EWS systems was made in Washington. The drones were guided to their targets using US aerial and satellite reconnaissance (they have to take multiple evasive actions in the course of their flights to evade Russian radar systems, and this can only be supplied via real-time targeting information provided by the US). The operators of the drones were likely mercenaries trained in the US or out-of-uniform US troops. Russia knows this and so it considers this a US attack on its nuclear Early Warning Systems.

ANY such attacks against the EWS system used to protect Russia from a nuclear attack can justify, under Russian law, a nuclear retaliatory strike.  The potential to cripple Russia’s ability to respond to nuclear threats, and effectively triggers 19c of Russia’s nuclear response doctrine:

Paragraph 19c of the Basic Principles states: “attack by an adversary against critical governmental or military sites of the Russian Federation, disruption of which would undermine nuclear forces response actions”. This effectively means any interference of any kind against civilian or military infrastructure, which would undermine nuclear retaliation capability.

Excerpt from text…:
“The conditions specifying the possible nuclear weapons use by the Russian Federation are as follows:

  1. c) attack by adversary against critical governmental or military sites of the Russian Federation, disruption of which would undermine nuclear forces response actions.“

The US/NATO/Ukraine have already conducted multiple drone attacks on the Russian airbase at Engels, which is where Russia keeps its long-range strategic nuclear bombers. It appeared that at least in one of these attacks, a strategic nuclear bomber was damaged. Engels airbase is hundreds of miles inside of Russia and the drones could not have made it to the base without real-time targeting information supplied by US aerial and satellite reconnaissance.

Russian military planners must consider these attacks as a possible prelude to a nuclear first strike against Russia by the United States.

Biden Authorizes NATO Members to Stage
Long-range Missile Attacks on Russia
The US and NATO are also preparing to send F-16s to Ukraine. Russia has announced that they will consider these to be nuclear-capable weapon systems and treat them accordingly, including striking whatever bases these weapons are launched from — inside or outside of Ukraine (meaning in Poland and Romania).

Biden today authorized attacks inside Russia using US long-range weapons. France and Germany then followed the US, giving their approval to the use of “Western-supplied” weapons to attack targets inside Russia.  

The situation in Ukraine is escalating to the point of being out of control. Yet Western mass media ignores these events and the general public remains blissfully unaware that their leaders continue to escalate the war in Ukraine to the point where it can become a nuclear war that will destroy all nations and peoples.

Steven Starr is the director of the University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program, as well as a senior scientist at the Physicians for Social Responsibility

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