US officials consider nuclear strikes against Russia?

Here is an article of the Saker about NATO's planned deployment of Cruise missiles.  Below it is the article he discusses.

Is the Pentagon really preparing to nuke Russia? (Hint: no!)

Vineyard of the Saker,

6 June, 2015

The Internet is abuzz with articles claiming that the USA is preparing to nuke Russia.  Apparently, this all began with an article in the World Socialist Website entitled “US officials consider nuclear strikes against Russia“.  This article was then picked up by Global Research which “upgraded” the title to “Military Madness: US Officials Consider Nuclear Strikes against Russia“.  After that everybody else picked up the panic-inducing canard and ran with it.

This is all nonsense.

Here is what is really going on.

This all really began with the Associated Press posting a story about how the “US might deploy missiles in Europe to counter Russia“.  Notice that this original story speaks of “countering” not “striking”.  If you read the story, you will see that it is all really simple: some circles in the USA are accusing Russia of deploying intermediate range missiles in Europe in violation of the INF treaty.  When the Pentagon brass was asked about what the US could do about it they came up with a 100% predictable answer: we will deploy our own missiles.  That’s it.

The first question is whether Russia did anything to violate the INF treaty.  An excellent article in the National Interest entitled “Is Russia violating the INF treaty” explains it all: the entire case is based on nothing.  Well, almost nothing.  Here is what caused all this panic:

1) Russia did fire some ICBMs (long range intercontinental missiles) at a shorter range a couple of times which would put their trajectory under the maximum limit of the INF.  But since nobody disputes that these missiles are ICBMs, this really means absolutely nothing.

2) There are suspicions that Russia might develop intermediate-range ground based cruise missile either based on the Iskander missile or on the Granat.  But since there is zero proof of that having occurred, these suspicions also mean nothing.

What is really happening is very simple: since the USA is going ahead with its crazy plans to develop an anti-missile “shield” in Europe, Russia responded by *threatening* to deploy (according to some sources, already deploying) its Iskanders in Kaliningrad and along its western borders.  Iskanders are very capable missile which scare the hell out of NATO because they would be perfect to strike forward deployed NATO command centers and forces.  The obvious solution for NATO would be NOT to deploy its command centers of forces so far the the East.  Even better, scraping the idiotic missile-defense shield would completely solve this problem.  But since NATO has to terrify the Europeans by a non-existing Russian “threat”, NATO cannot do that: even though no such threat exists, the NATO boys need to show their immense courage and determination by doing all sorts of silly and useless things.  Like forward deploying.

As a result of the “brilliant” strategy, NATO now has a bullseye painted on its fancy anti-missile facilities and forward deployed assets.  And NATO don’t like that one bit.  So they came up with yet another silly but macho statement about “we will deploy our own intermediate range missiles to threaten the Russian intermediate range missiles”.  Minor detail: NATO command centers and forward deployed forces are either fixed or very easy to detect.  Russian Iskanders are road mobile and basically undetectable.  But nevermind that, as long as the general public get a sense of 1) fear and b) NATO’s macho courage – all is well, right?

So, let recap: NATO is *considering* deploying missile which would be deployed to *respond* to a *possible* (future) violation by Russia of the INF treats.  “Military madness”?  Hell no!  Just a garden variety political grandstanding, that’s all.  If the article in the World Socialist Website was misleading, then the “upgraded” title of Global Research is outright irresponsible.  Nobody in the USA is really considering using nuclear weapons against missiles on the Russian territory because everybody knows that this would guarantee a devastating response on the territory of the continental USA.  Of course, if by the verb “considering” we mean “develop the capability to” then both sides have considered nuking each other since the end of WWII.  But these articles make it sound like the USA has suddenly decided to prepare for a nuclear attack on Russia, and that is utter nonsense.

Please also note that this entire debate around the INF has nothing to do with the Ukraine.  This is just a remake of the “Pershing/GLCM vs SS-20″ crisis of the 1980s.  Been there, done that.  Nothing new here.

The USA has no desire to engage in a nuclear war with Russia.  The real US strategy is very different, if no less dangerous: what he USA are doing is creating a crisis out of nothing by creating tensions on all levels, from the financial sector, to sports, to the completely artificial INF issue.  From the US point of view, the current attempts at subverting the FIFA and at subverting the INF Treaty are on the same conceptual level: give them Russkies hell on all levels.  And *of course* that this is dangerous, bordering on the reckless, really.  It is also self-defeating (you can bet that with the latest US ‘victory’ against Blatter just after he was re-elected the anti-US hatred in the world surged by another X number of points).  

Yes, the Empire is in a panic mode, acting stupidly and trying to “make the Russians blink” even though in the Russian culture threats and grandstanding are always interpreted as a sign of weakness.

One more thing: the Russians consider the areas of deployment of the Iskanders a state secret.  In other words, they will not reveal where these missiles are deployed or what they target (remember, Russians don’t believe in threats).  At the most, they will make sure that NATO knows about it, in general terms, if needed.  But don’t expect threats coming out of Moscow.

Finally, the really interesting question is whether the Russians will deploy a new generation of intermediate range missiles.  If yes, they will announce it and officially withdraw from the INF.  My sense is that they might.  The Russians are getting very, very fed up with the US/NATO/EU’s total lack of cooperation, general bad will and constant petty provocations.  There is a special disgust for central European prostitutes (Poland, Romania).  The Kremlin might figure a simply military reality: since Russia has no offensive plans to attack Europe, US intermediate range missiles would really serve no purpose in Europe while the local population might begin to freak out, seeing US nuclear missiles arrive in vast numbers.   In contrast, since Russia is in a purely defensive posture, having intermediate range missiles might be very useful to protect against a possible NATO attack.  Finally, there is the geographical factor: if Russian intermediate range missile strike in Europe, this would not be an attack on the US mainland. 

But if US intermediate range missiles strike in Russia, that would be an attack on the Russian mainland.  So who do you think will have stronger reservation before pressing the button?

Of course, I hope that intermediate range missiles do not get deployed.  The very last thing the world needs right now is yet another source of tensions and fear.  

And, as I have written many times here, while the USA wants as high tensions as possible (short of actual war), Russia desperately needs the lowesttensions possible.  So I think that the Russians will secretly work on being ready to deploy intermediate range missiles at very short notice, but that they will try very hard to avoid a situation were this might be needed.

Anyway, the next time you come across a panic-inducing headline à la “US about to nuke Russia” take a deep breath, don’t jump to conclusions and give yourself time to find out if such hyperbole is warranted or not.

Cheers,

The Saker

US officials consider nuclear 

strikes against Russia

By Niles Williamson

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is meeting today at the headquarters of the US European Command in Stuttgart, Germany with two dozen US military commanders and European diplomats to discuss how to escalate their economic and military campaign against Russia. They will assess the impact of current economic sanctions, as well as NATO’s strategy of exploiting the crisis in eastern Ukraine to deploy ever-greater numbers of troops and military equipment to Eastern Europe, threatening Russia with war.

A US defense official told Reuters that the main purpose of the meeting was to “assess and strategize on how the United States and key allies should think about heightened tensions with Russia over the past year.” The official also said Carter was open to providing the Ukrainian regime with lethal weapons, a proposal which had been put forward earlier in the year.

Most provocatively, a report published by the Associated Press yesterday reports that the Pentagon has been actively considering the use of nuclear missiles against military targets inside Russia, in response to what it alleges are violations of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. Russia denies US claims that it has violated the INF by flight-testing ground-launched cruise missiles with a prohibited range.

Three options being considered by the Pentagon are the placement of anti-missile defenses in Europe aimed at shooting Russian missiles out of the sky; a “counterforce” option that would involve pre-emptive non-nuclear strikes on Russia military sites; and finally, “countervailing strike capabilities,” involving the pre-emptive deployment of nuclear missiles against targets inside Russia.

The AP states: “The options go so far as one implied—but not stated explicitly—that would improve the ability of US nuclear weapons to destroy military targets on Russian territory.” In other words, the US is actively preparing nuclear war against Russia.

Robert Scher, one of Carter’s nuclear policy aides, told Congress in April that the deployment of “counterforce” measures would mean “we could go about and actually attack that missile where it is in Russia.”

According to other Pentagon officials, this option would entail the deployment of ground-launched cruise missiles throughout Europe.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Joe Skewers told AP, “All the options under consideration are designed to ensure that Russia gains no significant military advantage from their violation.”

The criminality and recklessness of the foreign policy of Washington and its NATO allies is staggering. A pre-emptive nuclear strike against Russian forces, many of them near populated areas, could claim millions of lives in seconds and lead to a nuclear war that would obliterate humanity. Even assuming that the US officials threatening Russia do not actually want such an outcome, however, and that they are only trying to intimidate Moscow, there is a sinister objective logic to such threats.

Nuclear warmongering by US officials immensely heightens the danger of all-out war erupting accidentally, amid escalating military tensions and strategic uncertainty. NATO forces are deploying for military exercises all around Russia, from the Arctic and Baltic Seas to Eastern Europe and the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Regional militaries are all on hair-trigger alerts.

US officials threatening Russia cannot know how the Kremlin will react to such threats. With Moscow concerned about the danger of a sudden NATO strike, Russia is ever more likely to respond to perceived signs of NATO military action by launching its missiles, fearing that otherwise the missiles will be destroyed on the ground. The danger of miscalculations and miscommunications leading to all-out war is immensely heightened.

The statements of Scher and Carter confirm warnings made last year by the WSWS, that NATO’s decision to back a fascist-led putsch in Kiev in February, and to blame Russia without any evidence for shooting down flight MH17, posed the risk of war. “Are you ready for war—including possibly nuclear war—between the United States, Europe, and Russia? That is the question that everyone should be asking him- or herself in light of the developments since the destruction of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17,” the WSWS wrote .

In March, Putin stated that he had placed Russian forces, including its nuclear forces, on alert in the aftermath of the Kiev putsch, fearing a NATO attack on Russia. Now the threat of war arising from US policy has been confirmed directly by statements of the US military.

These threats have developed largely behind the backs of the world working class. Workers in the United States, Europe and worldwide have time and again shown their hostility to US wars in Iraq or in Afghanistan. Yet nearly 15 years after these wars began, the world stands on the brink of an even bloodier and more devastating conflict, and the media and ruling elites the world over are hiding the risk of nuclear war.

US President Barack Obama is expected to escalate pressure on Russia at the G7 summit this weekend, pressing European leaders to maintain economic sanctions put in place in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year. The latest outbreak in violence in Ukraine this week, which the US blames on Russia, is to serve as a pretext for continuing the sanctions.

Speaking to Parliament on Thursday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko warned of a “colossal threat of the resumption of large-scale hostilities by Russian and terrorist forces.” He claimed without proof that 9,000 Russian soldiers are deployed in rebel-held areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine.

“Ukraine’s military should be ready for a new offensive by the enemy, as well as a full-scale invasion along the entire border with the Russian Federation,” Poroshenko said. “We must be really prepared for this.” He said the Ukrainian army had at least 50,000 soldiers stationed in the east, prepared to defend the country.

Poroshenko’s remarks came a day after renewed fighting in eastern Ukraine between Kiev forces and Russian-backed separatists resulted in dozens of casualties. This week’s fighting marked the largest breach to date of the cease-fire signed in February.

Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday that Russia believed the previous day’s hostilities had been provoked by Kiev to influence upcoming discussions at the G7 summit this weekend and the EU summit in Brussels at the end of the month. “These provocative actions are organized by Ukraine’s military forces, and we are concerned with that,” he stated.

Each side blamed the other for initiating fighting in Marinka, approximately nine miles west of the rebel stronghold of Donetsk. Yuriy Biryukov, an adviser to Poroshenko, reported on Thursday that five Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the fighting, and another 39 wounded. Eduard Basurin, deputy defense minister and spokesman for the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), told Interfax that 16 rebel fighters and five civilians had been killed.

Ukrainian forces also fired artillery at the rebel-held city of Donetsk on Wednesday. Shells landed in the southwest districts of Kirovsky and Petrovsky, killing 6 people and wounding at least 90 others. The city’s Sokol market was severely damaged, with several rows of shops burned to the ground.

Responding to Wednesday’s developments, members of the fascistic Right Sector militia have been called to mobilize for battle. Andrey Stempitsky, commander of the militia’s paramilitary battalion, posted a message on Facebook calling on those who went home during the cease-fire to “return to their combat units.” He warned that the Right Sector would “wage war, ignoring the truce devotees.”