May 25, 2024

Bulletin 345: Russian early-warning radar against nuclear attackproject in 7 decades / interesting news

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    Previously: "Bulletin 344 (5/9/24): "Pit production, the largest nuclear warhead infrastructure project in 7 decades / interesting news

Dear friends and colleagues --

The Ukraine war, which the U.S. and its NATO vassals -- that's what U.S. NATO allies are, vassals with limited sovereignty -- prefer to continue and intensify rather than to conclude via good-faith negotiations, is reaching new depths of absurdity and new heights of danger. The body count continues to rise, of course.

The latest developments are as usual chronicled on our Ukraine page, freshly updated a moment ago by Trish with a large tranche of new articles. Please do check them out.

That page is a real gold mine of understanding, frankly. Too few people understand that the Ukraine war, which seems far away, is eating their future and feeding the national security state that has largely replaced U.S. democracy.

I (Greg) comment on some of the articles we post there, as time allows. In general, the articles we choose provide detailed treatments by seasoned individuals, as well as news that you won't get from U.S. mainstream sources.

We consider it the height of irresponsibility or stupidity, take your pick, to talk about "arms control," disarmament," or "banning The Bomb" without putting peace with Russia on the agenda first and foremost. 

We in the West, led by the U.S., have squandered diplomatic opportunities it will take at least a generation to recover. And to recover the peace, the U.S. will need to be much humbler nation, one sovereign state among others and not the "dictatress of the world," as John Quincy Adams put it in 1821. The U.S., not just Ukraine, is being defeated. The deeper our commitment, the greater our defeat will be.

So there is panic in some Western capitals. As part of this panic, there is now a coordinated transatlantic political effort to release Ukraine from strictures against using long-range weapons systems supplied by the West to hit targets deep in Russia.

Such attacks have done and will do nothing to change the battlefield situation, which is going very badly for Ukraine (as has long been apparent). Instead, these attacks are an asymmetric response to Ukraine's dire situation, a sort of "Hail Mary" effort designed to trigger a Russian reaction that will bring NATO forces more openly into the war, thus politically committing NATO members ever more deeply to the "Lost Cause that is Ukraine." As many including the seasoned Big Serge have noticed, so far Ukraine has gotten everything it has asked for in this war. ATACMs and other long-range weapons are very likely to be made available to strike deep into Russia. Some of these missiles (Taurus) might be able to hit Moscow. What then?

Meanwhile, consider the new Ukrainian conscripts on the front -- "Theirs not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die." Die, that is, for the U.S. aim of "breaking" Russia, as Kissinger put it. For the U.S., Ukraine is just a sacrificial pawn.

Months ago, Ukrainian attacks struck a Russian strategic nuclear bomber base deep in the rear, and now Ukraine has struck and presumably disabled a critical early-warning radar for over-the-horizon detection of ballistic missiles strikes. This is a key component of Russia's nuclear deterrent. As such the attack could be construed as one that "undermine[s] nuclear forces response actions," which is one of Russia's threshold criteria for initiating nuclear war, as Simplicius points out and -- of much more consequence -- Russian senator and aerospace leader Dmitri Rogozin immediately emphasized.

So is nuclear war imminent? Probably not. But step by step we are approaching it. Nobody knows the precisely where the watershed boundary lies, beyond which events begin to run downhill with increasing speed and momentum.

Back on May 6, Russia announced, for the first time, tactical nuclear drills in response to increasing Western threats to strike within Russia. At the time I wrote:

Opinions differ, but up to now I have not thought that Russia's remarks about nuclear retaliation were "threats." I would characterize the previous warnings more as reminders. Like Ray McGovern, who speaks with more authority, I take this latest warning as more serious than previous ones because of the drills, the inauguration of Putin for another term of office following a fully-legitimate landslide victory, but above all because of the increased external threats and escalating actions against Russian strategic assets and civilians. These are not provocations which can or should be ignored by any national leader. Russia is saying, we've had enough. Don't go further. Whether a nuclear warning is the right response is questionable, but that is not a judgment for we in the U.S. to make. We in the U.S. need to get over the idea that we can sit in comfortable judgment of the enemies we have created, preaching to them about what they should and should not do, and what is in their self-interest and what is not. Do Western analysts really believe they can or should second-guess Russia, that they know more and can think better than the Russian security apparatus? Many do think exactly that. I think it is at best stupid, and at worst racist to do so. The entire point of this nuclear warning, and the previous less-serious ones, is to make us in the West less comfortable. I don't like it certainly, and neither should anyone. But what is the best response here? To scold Russia, or blame Putin and his government, while inflaming the Ukraine conflict "we" ourselves helped provoke? Listen, friends: you tried that. This is the result. Your Ukraine project is failing. What's important is to stop the killing and destruction. At present, the whole goal of the U.S. and its Western allies seems to be to prolong the war, so "we" won't look bad. This is Vietnam in Europe, 2024, "dominoes" and all. What's most amazing is how many liberals fall for this. Essentially all of them, at this point.

It seems that many of us here in the West, not least many of us in the arms control and disarmament communities, cannot get off our high horses. Condemnation of those who don't do what we tell them to do in what we deem to be the "rules based international order" seems to be main substance of our "diplomacy" these days. "We are good and you are bad" -- it's as simple as that, and far too many people in the nuclear policy field fall into this way of thinking about Russia in particular. It's surprising that well-read people don't see the Orwellian nature of what is going on. It is leading directly toward nuclear war.

Thank you for your attention and best wishes,

Greg