Are we barreling ahead toward a nuclear World War III with Russia?
Recent headlines show us that tensions are increasing between Russia and the West almost daily and while Americans are focused on the economy, the strange unprecedented military movements throughout the country, disease, bird flu, the 2016 presidential candidates and a whole host of other issues, moves are being made by the U.S., NATO and Russia that should also be highlighted because any war between Russia and the West is guaranteed to become nuclear and wipe out a significant portion of the population.
“If someone threatens our territories, it means that we will have to aim our armed forces accordingly at the territories from where the threat is coming. How else could it be? It is NATO that approaching our borders, it’s not like we are moving anywhere,” Putin said speaking at a joint media conference with Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto in Moscow on Tuesday.
The comments come after The New York Times ran a piece Saturday, which said the Pentagon could store “battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries.”
Day later, Poland and Lithuania revealed on-going talks with Washington to host US military equipment warehouses. This prompted a harsh reaction from Moscow; Russia warned that it has no binding obligations limiting its armed forces in its Western region.
We also see that Russia is boosting their nuclear capabilities with 40 new Intercontinental missiles this year, while we see other recent reports indicating that America's nuclear arsenal has been reduced, what we have is outdated and our "450 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are stored in decaying 60-year-old nuclear silos in Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming that look like a poorly maintained Cold War museum."
The average age of a U.S. nuclear warhead is 27 years. Many of the buildings where the nuclear missiles and bombs are stored date back to the 1950s — and it shows. Blast doors on the country's nuclear missile silos are too rusty to seal shut. The roof of a security complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., that houses most of the U.S. supply of enriched uranium collapsed in March. For years, the three ICBM complexes had just one working wrench available to tighten the bolts on the missiles' warheads. When the wrench was needed, the workers would FedEx it from base to base. Today, the principal information technology used to operate and launch the ICBMs is an 8-inch floppy disk from the 1960s.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is ordering a massive overhaul of America's nuclear weapons program after finding that "we've taken our eye off the ball," he said at a press conference on Friday morning. The Pentagon released a review of the nuclear forces that found outdated equipment, weak leadership, and abysmal morale among the men and women responsible for maintaining and launching some of the most destructive weapons on the planet. It found, for example, that the Air Force had only one wrench to attach and remove nuclear warheads on 450 ICBMs at three different bases. Maintenance officers would FedEx it among the bases.
The wrench fiasco, since remedied, "is reflective and indicative of a system that has been allowed to slowly back downhill," Hagel said. "We must change the culture of the nuclear force, especially in the Air Force."
Russia: According to the March 2015 New START numbers, Russia has 1,582 strategic warheads deployed on 515 ICBMs, SLBMs, and strategic bombers. The Federation of American Scientists estimates Russia has several thousand nondeployed strategic warheads and approximately 2,000 tactical nuclear warheads. An additional 3,700 are awaiting dismantlement.
United States: According to the March 2015 New START declaration, the United States has 1,597 strategic nuclear warheads deployed on 785 ICBMs, SLBMs, and strategic bombers. The Federation of American Scientists estimates that the United States' nondeployed strategic arsenal is approximately 2,800 warheads and the U.S. tactical nuclear arsenal numbers 500 warheads. In total, the U.S. has about 4,800 nuclear warheads , including tactical, strategic, and nondeployed weapons. Additional warheads are retired and await dismantlement.
General Yury Yakubov, a senior Defense Ministry official, was quoted as saying by Interfax "If America’s heavy arms, be it tanks, artillery systems or other heavy military hardware are deployed to Eastern Europe and the Baltic States, it will be the Pentagon’s and NATO’s most aggressive step since the end of the Cold War a quarter of a century ago." (Source- ‘Most aggressive since Cold War’: Russia may beef up border if US arms stationed in E. Europe)
That article also reminds readers that "Russia formally announced a “complete” halt to its participation in the CFE Treaty on March 10, 2015, citing NATO’s expansion as the reason."
More:
Deployment of American military hardware would contravene the Russia-NATO act. This stipulates the alliance must not deploy substantial troop numbers on new NATO member states’ territory, Aleksey Fenenko, an expert at the Institute of International Security Problems, told RIA Novosti.
Fenenko believes Russia will be unable to give a proper diplomatic answer to this step, so counter-measures will most probably be of a military nature.
“Russia will simply aim short-range attack missiles on [NATO] installations in Poland,” he said.
Perhaps the most concerning statement comes from Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov when he said "A few days ago, reports started to turn up about certain [American] missiles put in a certain location and about certain ammunition depots in Eastern European countries and the Baltic. It looks like our colleagues from NATO member states are pushing us into an arms race."
It won't be an "arms race" it will be a slaughter with Russia boosting their nuclear arsenal and the US allowing ours to degrade to the point where we don't even know what works and what doesn't.
While it is important to keep our eyes on all the latest current news, disease, borders, politics, etc.... none of it will mean a thing if the US, via NATO, continues to march us all into World War III.... because a nuclear war will have no winners, just millions upon million of dead bodies.
Video below: The international military-technical forum ‘ARMY-2015’ begins in the Russian town of Kubinka in the region of Moscow on June 16 and will continue until June 19.
