Atlanticists mobilise to salvage NATO as Russia toughens its stance
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | November 28, 2024
The American film maker and philanthropist who created the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, George Lucas, once said, “Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” Within a week of Russia “testing” the Oreshnik hypersonic missile in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, against which the NATO has no defence, the Western alliance is already transiting through the Dark Side from fear to hatred and hurtling toward unspeakable suffering.
The Russian Defence Ministry has disclosed that since the Oreshnik’s appearance in the war zone, Ukraine carried out two more attacks on Russian territory with ATACMS missiles. In the first attack on November 23, five ATACMS missiles were fired at an S-400 anti-aircraft missile division near the village of Lotarevka in Kursk Region. The Pantsir missile defense system, which provided cover for this division, destroyed three of them while two missiles reached the target damaging the radar. There are casualties among the personnel.
In the second attack by 8 ATACMS missiles at the Kursk-Vostochny airfield on Monday, seven were shot down while one missile reached the target. The falling debris slightly damaged the infrastructure facilities and two servicemen suffered minor injuries. The Russian MOD stated that “retaliatory actions are being prepared.”
The Russian military experts estimate that the attacks were planned for some time and the Americans handled the targeting. On November 25, the White House acknowledged for the first time the shift in policy allowing the use of ATACMS to attack Russian territory. Admiral John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the White House National Security Council, revealed during a press gaggle on Monday, inter alia, saying that “well, obviously we did change the guidance and gave them [Kiev] guidance that they could use them, you know, to strike these particular types of targets.”
Following the attack on Monday, Ukraine sought an emergency meeting of the NATO–Ukraine Council in Brussels at the level of permanent representatives. Oreshnik was the main topic, and the need to strengthen the air defence system. The NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said later, “Our support for Ukraine helps it fight, but we need to go further to change the trajectory of this conflict.”
No doubt, NATO is very concerned about the emergent situation but still won’t accept a Russian victory. Hotheads in the West are once again talking about the deployment of troops by NATO countries to Ukraine for combat operations, which was originally mooted by French President Emmanuel Macron in February.
But plainly put, unless the US is willing to put boots on the ground, the rest of NATO will simply run around like a headless chicken. The UK with an 80,000-strong army has very few combat units; the 175,000-strong German army has forgotten how to fight; and France is in deep political and economic crisis. As for the US, public opinion opposes wars and president-elect Donald Trump cannot ignore it.
However, petrified that Trump may turn his back on the war, there is a school of thought in Europe that they could offer something interesting to incentivise him other than the carrot of Ukraine’s vast stores of critical minerals that Americans lack — eg., more trading incentives for America; greater spending on NATO; more pressure on Iran; “peacekeeping boots on the ground” inside Ukraine; help in Trump’s upcoming economic skirmishes with China and so on. Meanwhile, much brainstorming is going on in the US too as to how to save NATO from Trump’s scalpel.
A Guardian columnist wrote, “If the EU and UK seize the $300bn of Russian state assets sitting in Euroclear, money Putin has long written off, we can bring serious funding to the table. Trump does not need to spend any more money on Ukraine – we can buy the weapons. America can even make a profit while securing peace in Europe. Trump would be able to show how he got those parasitic Europeans to cough up, prove his detractors wrong by rebooting America’s most traditional alliances – all while putting “America first”.”
All this testifies to the angst in the European mind that Oreshnik has forced a paradigm shift in the Ukraine war. The triumphalist betting that Russia would be bluffing on nuclear deterrence has given way to fear, since Russia now may not need nuclear weapons to retaliate against attacks on its territory. Oreshnik is a non-nuclear weapon, it is by no means a weapon of mass destruction but is a high-precision weapon of immense destructive power that annihilates its targets — and Europeans have no means to defend against it.
Succinctly put, if Biden’s plan to “Trump-proof” the Ukraine war has put Europe and Ukraine in a royal fix making them a punch bag for Russia. Make no mistake, Oreshnik will soon make sure that there won’t even be a proxy regime in Ukraine for the West to “support”. It is humiliating to watch the proxy’s nose being rubbed in the dust.
A punishing Russian retaliation is imminent for the two latest ATACMS attacks. The sharp deterioration in Russia’s ties with the UK suggests a high probability that Britain could be in Moscow’s crosshairs. The station chief of the British intelligence in the embassy in Moscow has been expelled; western reports cite significant supplies of Storm Shadow missiles (numbering 150) to Ukraine lately after the election of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The top Russian military expert Alexei Leonkov told Izvestia newspaper, “Here is the fact of the US targeting, here are the fragments of the ATACMS missile, by which it can be clearly identified. We have the right to strike back. Where and how will be decided by the Ministry of Defence and the Supreme Commander—in-Chief. He [Putin] said that they would be warned about the impact. Our enemies must prepare for an answer.
The big question is at what point Russia may strike the NATO military hubs in Romania and Poland. The former Russian President and Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said yesterday that all bets are off. “If the conflict develops by the escalation scenario, it is impossible to rule out anything, because the NATO member states have effectively got fully involved in this conflict,” he said in an interview with Al Arabiya.
Medvedev added in chilling words, “The Western states must realise that they fight on Ukraine’s side… Meanwhile, they fight not only by shipping weapons and providing money. They fight directly, because they provide targets on Russian territory and control American and European missiles. They fight with the Russian Federation. And if this is the case, nothing could be ruled out… even the most difficult and sad scenario is possible.
“We would not want such scenario, we have all said that repeatedly. We want peace, but this peace must take Russia’s interest into consideration in full.”
Indeed, the only logical explanation for Biden’s brinkmanship in collusion with the Atlanticists in Europe in the lame duck phase of his presidency is that Oreshnik has upstaged his best-laid plans. Saner voices in Europe are speaking up. In a hugely symbolic act of defiance, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico disclosed on Wednesday that he has accepted an official invitation from Putin to the events in Moscow in May commemorating the 80th anniversary of Victory in World War II. Slovakia is a member country of both EU and NATO.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer in a telephone conversation with Trump, reaffirmed Austria’s readiness to serve as a platform for international peace talks on Ukraine. During the conversation, Trump reportedly evinced interest in Nehammer’s previous exchanges with Putin on Ukraine.
Can Europe Return to Reason & Reverse Its Decline?
Jeffrey Sachs, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen
Glenn Diesen | Nov 27, 2024
I had a conversation with Jeffrey Sachs and Alexander Mercouris about the political changes in Europe. The optimism of the European project as a region of peace and prosperity is long gone. The objective had been to resolve conflicts on the continent peacefully and use collective bargaining power to establish greater economic and political independence. Instead, the continent is experiencing war, de-industrialisation, socio-economic and political instability, excessive dependence on the US, and growing irrelevance in the wider world. What went wrong and can the decline be reversed?
The rest of the world adjusts to the emerging multipolarity with a multivector foreign policy by diversifying economic connectivity to improve economic competitiveness and enhance political autonomy. In contrast, the Europeans have subordinated themselves completely to the US and thus suffer from economic decline and political subordination. Declining rationality is also a clear problem as the Europeans pursued policies towards Russia that they knew would put them on a collision course with Russia. Instead of pursuing course correction, the proxy war with Russia increased the security dependence on the US, which enabled Washington to impose bloc discipline. The recovery of Europe requires reversing the militarisation of dividing lines in Europe, and diversifying economic ties to avoid excessive dependence on any one state or region.
Canada helps Israel in broadening its definition of ‘anti-Semitism’
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | November 26, 2024
Once again, anti-Semitism was the catchphrase for political rhetoric denouncing the protest in Montreal against NATO’s complicity with Israel’s genocide. NATO delegates met in Canada for the 70th annual session of its Parliamentary Assembly, and protesters called for Canada’s withdrawal from the organisation, even as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the country is on track to increase its military spending, which NATO has established as two per cent of the country’s GDP.
“We need to commit ourselves every day to NATO and the principles that keep us safe in this uncertain world,” said Trudeau, acting as if former colonial powers were not responsible for “this uncertain world” and, along with Israel, the genocide in Gaza.
Activists at the protest thought otherwise, of course. As the gathering outside the meeting turned violent, Israeli and mainstream media were swift to label the protest as “anti-Semitic”, as did Trudeau. Montreal’s police, however, said that they did not receive reports of anti-Semitic violence or hate crimes. Mayor of Montreal Valerie Plante condemned the violence, but said that she did not believe that the protest was anti-Semitic.
The protest was organised by Divest for Palestine and the Convergence of Anti-Capitalist Struggles, with the purpose of exposing NATO’s complicity with Israel’s genocide.
However, as Israel increasingly targets any criticism of its actions as “anti-Semitism”, Trudeau followed suit.
“As a democracy, as a country that will always defend freedom of speech, it’s important for people to be able to go out and protest and express their anger, their disagreements in free and comfortable ways,” he declared. “But there is never any room for anti-Semitism, for hatred, discrimination, for violence.”
Canada’s Defence Minister Bill Blair took a similar position. “Those behaviours are unacceptable and we can condemn them, and in particular the hatred and anti-Semitism that was on display, in the strongest possible terms.”
According to reports in Israeli media, a protestor referenced the “Final Solution” which was a Nazi euphemism for the Holocaust.
What stands out is the discrepancy in responses to two different scenarios – Israel’s internationally-approved genocide and a protest against NATO – which showed clearly that the latter’s manifestation of violent action, directed against a transatlantic military alliance, was deemed to be more disturbing than Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza and the Palestinian people.
Besides this discrepancy, Israel is also extending the “anti-Semitic” label to include any form of protest directed even at organisations that are not Jewish, but prioritise allegiances to Zionism and Zionist colonial violence. The target audience of the protest in Montreal was clearly the NATO delegates.
NATO members have supported Israel’s genocide through purchasing the occupation state’s military technology (“as field-tested against Palestinian civilians”) and also by selling weapons to Israel. Since 2017, Israel has also benefited from its permanent official mission established in NATO headquarters in Brussels. In January 2023, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog at NATO headquarters, noting that,
“NATO and Israel have worked together for almost 30 years.”
Calling out NATO’s complicity in genocide is not anti-Semitic by any stretch of the imagination. Trudeau has confirmed recently that Canada will abide by the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. What message is Trudeau sending to the Canadian public about his government picking and choosing what part of colonial violence it deems worthy of support, while vilifying protestors for drawing attention to government-level hypocrisy?
New Russian Missile Delivers Six Warheads and Three Messages
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | November 27, 2024
On November 21, just two days after Ukraine acted for the first time on American permission to fire Western supplied long-range missiles deeper into Russia, Russia launched a missile attack on a military base in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. That base houses the missile and space company Pivdenmash, which produces missiles, rockets, satellites and engines.
The attack included six cruise missiles and a Kinzhal hypersonic missile. There is nothing new or unusual about hitting that military target or about using those missiles. But there was something very unusual about the 9M729 Oreshnik missile that was also included in the attack.
The Oreshnik is a new intermediate range ballistic missile that has never been seen or used before. Ted Postol, professor emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, calls it an “absolutely new weapon.” Russian President Vladimir Putin called the Orseshnik “experimental” and said that the strike was a test fire.
Though intermediate range ballistic missiles like Oreshnik are typically designed to carry nuclear warheads, the missile used in this attack was armed with conventional warheads.
What is remarkable about the demonstration of the Oreshnik is that it flew at around Mach 10 or 11, making it a hypersonic missile. Unlike ordinary ballistic missiles, this one seemed to increase its range by gliding parallel to the earth during part of its flight path instead of maintaining the expected inverted U-shape ballistic trajectory.
Hypersonic missiles are very hard to hit with air defense systems. This missile may be even harder to hit because it carries six warheads, each of which carries six submunitions, which means that the missile releases thirty-six warheads, probably with the addition of several decoys. Analysts say that each of those thirty-six submunitions may take a different trajectory before hitting the same target. That, and the ability of the thirty-six warheads to overwhelm a missile defense system, make it very hard to intercept all the warheads.
In his televised address, Putin said, “There are no means of countering such weapons today.” Certainly, there are no air defense systems in Ukraine that can defend against them. Putin says that the missile defense systems deployed by the United States in Europe are powerless against them. Analysts suggest that most American air defense systems are not up to the challenge of the Oreshnik missile and that, those that might be, could be overwhelmed by the multiple payload, especially if the first missile was followed by a second.
Russia’s Defense Ministry says that all of the missile’s warheads hit their target, and Putin says that after the successful operational test the Oreshnik missile will go into serial production.
The mainstream media has reported that video evidence suggests that the missile may actually have been carrying only dummy warheads. Ukrainian authorities are investigating that possibility. Postol told me that this interpretation is not quite correct. The missiles were not dummies, but they were not armed with explosives possibly because they did not need to be. At the speed these submunitions are flying at, they liquify when they hit the ground and then expand rapidly. Like a meteor impact, this creates a massive explosion without the need to arm the missiles with explosives.
As the missile delivers multiple warheads, so the warheads delivered multiple messages.
The first is a response to the United States calling Putin’s bluff on declaring Ukraine’s firing of Western long-range missiles deeper into Russian territory with American guidance a red line. The Oreshnik missile ups the ante and shows that Russia was not bluffing.
“Putin made clear,” The New York Times tells the West, “that the Russian missile test was a response to those strikes.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “The main message is that the reckless decisions and actions of Western countries that produce missiles, supply them to Ukraine, and subsequently participate in strikes on Russian territory cannot remain without a reaction from the Russian side.”
Most pointedly, Putin said, “We believe that we have the right to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities.”
The second reason is a response to the American withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. That treaty, signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan in 1987 and negated by Donald Trump in 2019, would have rendered missiles like the Oreshnik obsolete.
When discussing the first use of the Oreshnik intermediate range ballistic missile, Putin said, “It was not Russia but the United States that destroyed the system of international security,” referring to the American withdrawal from the treaty. He said that by clinging onto “hegemony,” the United States is “pushing the whole world toward a global conflict.”
In a televised address, Putin said, “It is a mistake on the part of the United States to destroy the system that was established by the [INF] missile treaty in 2019. We see that the United States and their allies are now considering, and have successfully tested, their capabilities to deploy advanced missile systems in different parts of the world, and their exercises routinely include the use of such systems…The use of the novel [Oreshnik] system, which was essentially an operational test, was carried out in response to the decisions made by the United States and their allies.”
And that leads into the third reason. Firing the Oreshnik missile was a response to the official U.S. opening of an air defense base in Redzikowo in northern Poland. The Aegis Ashore missile system is capable of intercepting short and intermediate range ballistic missiles. But it is also capable of firing nuclear tipped Tomahawk missiles that would take only minutes to arrive in Russia. Russia also sees it as a provocative move to weaken Russia’s nuclear deterrent potential.
The United States has long claimed that the missiles are not a threat to Russia and that their purpose is to intercept missiles fired from Iran. Russia has never believed that claim. Russia’s suspicion was confirmed when, at the opening ceremony, Polish President Andrzej Duda announced, “The whole world will see clearly that this is not Russia’s sphere of interest anymore.”
Russia has now added the Polish military base to its list of “priority targets for potential destruction.” Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, called the opening of the base another step in the “decades-long destructive policy of bringing NATO military infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders.”
Peskov said that Russia would respond to the base by “adopting appropriate measures to ensure parity,” while Zakharova said that military bases like the one in Poland could be destroyed by “a wide range of the latest weapons,” a possible reference to the Oreshnik missile.
Putin seemed to specifically include the Polish base as a motivation for demonstrating the abilities of the Oreshnik missile when he said that “[m]issiles like Oreshnik are our answer to NATO’s plans to deploy medium- and shorter-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific.”
Though the United States and its Western partners continue to make escalatory decisions on the bet that Vladimir Putin is bluffing with his talk of red lines, the powerful demonstration of the Oreshnik intermediate range, hypersonic ballistic missile is a caution, once again, that the confidence behind that bet might be unfounded.
Moscow to retaliate against Kiev’s ATACMS strikes – Lavrov
RT | November 26, 2024
Moscow will retaliate against continuing Ukrainian strikes on Russian soil with Western-supplied long-range missiles, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.
His statement came after Kiev fired US-made ATACMS missiles at Russia’s internationally recognized territory, despite an earlier warning from the Kremlin.
“Missile strikes deep inside Russian territory are an escalatory step,” Lavrov told Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper. “All of our warnings that these unacceptable actions will be met with an appropriate response have been ignored.”
Those behind attacks on Russian citizens and infrastructure will face “well-deserved punishment,” the minister warned. He added that “no escalation coming from the enemy would force us to abandon our goals” in Ukraine.
Lavrov reiterated that Moscow remains committed to neutralizing “threats to Russia’s security,” including Ukraine’s aspirations to join the US-led NATO alliance.
In a video address last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow “reserves the right” to strike countries that allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied arms against Russia.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that it was preparing an unspecified response to Ukrainian strikes targeting an air defense battery and an airfield in Kursk Region. According to the MOD, Kiev used American-made ATACMS missiles during the attacks on November 23 and November 25.
On November 21, Russia struck a weapons factory in Dnepr with its brand-new Oreshnik ballistic missile. According to Putin, the strike was a response to “aggressive actions of NATO member” who support Ukraine.
The White House confirmed on Monday that it had lifted restrictions on the use of ATACMS by Ukrainian troops. The US previously barred Ukraine from using long-range weapons deep inside Russian territory due to concerns of possible escalation.
What’s all the fuss about? Is nuclear war really that dangerous?
By Drago Bosnic | November 26, 2024
We’re in the Second Cold War. Those thinking otherwise have probably been living under a rock. Unfortunately, that rock won’t save anyone and we know it by the change in rhetoric. Namely, in previous decades, nuclear war was a mere hypothesis in the minds of most people, an extremely unlikely prospect that we could casually discuss, theorize on, contemplate as to how it would play out, etc. It truly is meticulous work, involving an enormous amount of moving parts and it could even be argued it’s fun, as evidenced by numerous mass media that use it as their main trope. Whether it’s a post-apocalyptic scenario, a modern war that got out of control or something along those lines, it’s quite prominent in movies, TV shows, video games, etc. Now, imagine fan favorites such as the Mad Max franchise, Fallout or Metro series, certain Call of Duty titles, etc. suddenly becoming a reality. It’s certainly a scary thought.
Well, thanks to the warmongering oligarchies in Washington DC and Brussels, this is exactly the scenario we’re facing. And if you think it’s too far-fetched or even impossible, think again. Leaders and top-ranking officials of the most powerful NATO countries openly support long-range strikes on Russia using Western-sourced missiles, operated by American, British and other NATO personnel. This comes despite President Vladimir Putin’s crystal clear warning that Russia would consider the world’s most vile racketeering cartel a party to the conflict and that it would respond accordingly. Worse yet, even after Moscow used a conventionally armed ICBM/IRBM in response to these NATO attacks, the political West only keeps escalating. The purpose of this text is to understand what’s at stake and that if the warmongers, war criminals, plutocrats and kleptocrats have their way, the world will pay the ultimate price.
Let’s imagine that Russia decides it’s sick and tired of over three decades of NATO’s lies, deceit, crawling invasion and now nearly three years of direct attacks and total war. The Neo-Nazi junta keeps launching these Western-sourced missiles and the Kremlin knows who’s behind it. Do you think Russia would use thermonuclear weapons in Ukraine, a land that has belonged to it for over 1,200 years, against the people it considers ethnic Russians (even though they reject this notion)? Even if we ignore these basic facts, the answer is no, as it would be suicidal to fire a nuclear weapon at an area so close to home. The fallout could easily reach any Russian and/or Belorussian territory. Thus, it can be expected to see Moscow use more “Oreshniks” and similar missiles. However, Russia’s updated strategic doctrine also allows the use of such weapons against targets beyond NATO-occupied Ukraine.
Namely, Moscow knows exactly which NATO command centers are used to coordinate attacks on Russia’s undisputed territory and may decide to neutralize them. Missiles such as the “Oreshnik” give it unprecedented non-nuclear strategic strike capabilities, meaning that Russia’s first retaliatory attack should not trigger NATO’s nuclear response. However, the world’s most vile racketeering cartel doesn’t have comparable weapons and could only use nuclear-tipped missiles or bombs. In response to this, the Kremlin deploys its unrivaled strategic arsenal in full force. How long do you think this would last? I’ve recently argued it would be largely over in 15 minutes. Now I’ll explain in detail how. First, the early warning systems (composed of a plethora of land, sea, air and space-based assets) would sound an alarm and the Russian strategic nuclear-armed triad would react immediately.
Composed of Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN), Aerospace Forces (VKS) and Navy (VMF), the Russian triad could deploy at least 5,500 thermonuclear warheads, each of which is orders of magnitude more destructive than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, combined. As of October, the RVSN has 772 warheads on over 200 RS-24 “Yars”, 340 on 46 R-36M2 “Voevoda” and 78 single-warhead RT-2PM2 “Topol-M” ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles). The number of strategic HGVs (hypersonic glide vehicles), specifically the “Avangard” is unknown, but is usually thought to be in the dozens. The VKS operates 580 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles (the Kh-102 and several advanced iterations of the Kh-55), deployed on 55 Tu-95MS and 17 Tu-160 strategic bombers, better known as missile carriers in Russian military nomenclature. And last, but certainly not least, the Navy, the most survivable element of any triad.
The VMF operates 15 SSBNs (nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines) carrying 240 SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles) armed with at least 896 warheads. The grand total is 2,657 thermonuclear warheads ready to go at this very moment. Note that this doesn’t include well over 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons deployed on SSGNs (nuclear-powered guided missile submarines), hypersonic weapons such as the 9M723 used by the “Iskander-M”, the 9-S-7760 “Kinzhal” and numerous other missile types. Altogether, Russia has well over 4,500 warheads ready for both strategic and battlefield use. However, it also has upwards of 1,500 thermonuclear warheads awaiting dismantlement, but which could be returned to service due to NATO aggression and be installed on land-based ICBMs, IRBMs (intermediate-range ballistic missiles), SLBMs, ALCMs (air-launched cruise missiles), etc.
Once again, this is without even considering newer Russian weapons that we know exist (RS-28 “Sarmat” ICBMs, “Avangard” HGVs, “Oreshnik” hybrid/modular IRBM/ICBM/HGVs, the “Poseidon” nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed underwater drones/torpedoes, etc) and those that we don’t know anything about (except that they exist), including experimental, as President Putin himself spoke of “weapons based on new physical principles” on many occasions. However, just to illustrate the destructive power of the new “Sarmat”, consider that it can carry a range of heavy and light MIRVs (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles). This includes 10-15 heavy warheads or 20+ light ones. The destructive power of heavy warheads is stated to be 750 kilotons (kt) to 1 megaton (Mt) each. Light warheads have a yield ranging from 150 kt to 450 kt, with one kiloton being equal to 1,000 tons of TNT.
Thus, 150 kt is equivalent to 150,000 tons of TNT exploding at once. To put this destructive power into perspective, we can use the “Little Boy” atomic bomb which the US dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Namely, it had a yield of 15 kt and it virtually instantly killed around 100,000 people, with at least another 50,000 dying in the aftermath of the explosion. This would mean that the combined yield carried by a single RS-28 missile is up to 750 times greater than that of the Hiroshima bomb. It should be noted that at least 50 of these are being built, as they are slated to replace the aforementioned R-36M2 “Voevoda”. That’s the equivalent of the destructive power of 37,500 Hiroshima bombs. And that’s just 50 missiles, out of well over 300 land-based ICBMs in the Russian military. However, thanks to US/NATO aggression against the world, Moscow might decide to make 100 of these, doubling that destructive power to 75,000 by 2030.
Unfortunately, some completely delusional lunatics at the Pentagon think they can launch a “decapitation strike” on Russia and “ensure” there’s no retaliation. There’s just one “tiny” problem with this – the Russian Navy. Namely, even if the world’s largest country suddenly vanished, its Navy alone could destroy much, if not most of the world. Even just half of its SSBNs, namely the now legendary eight Borei-class subs, carry 16 R-30 “Bulava” SLBMs (each missile armed with up to ten 150 kt thermonuclear MIRVs). I’ll let you do the math on that one. To top it all, the Kremlin’s nuclear triad can also be used even if the entire Russian leadership is neutralized. The system enabling this is called the “Perimeter” (known as the “Dead Hand” in NATO) and is activated automatically in case of an all-out attack on Russia. Perhaps the most dumbfounding fact is that the US military is perfectly aware of all this, but it’s still pushing for escalation.
Some of the world’s most prominent leaders, intellectuals and experts have been warning about the dangers of nuclear warfare. Perhaps the best example of this is the message conveyed by the late Fidel Castro in an interview with the globally renowned Professor Michel Chossudovsky. Namely, President Castro said that “in a nuclear war the ‘collateral damage’ would be the life of all humanity”. It doesn’t get much simpler than this and yet it’s 100% on point. What’s more, the mainstream propaganda machine is also perfectly aware of this, as evidenced by the BBC’s latest piece on Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Obviously, because it’s the BBC, it cannot do even this without ludicrous lies, as they’re claiming the information came from an “anonymous Russian deserter” who supposedly revealed “war secrets”, even though this information is publicly available (if one is bothered to look for it, that is).
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Right-Wing Candidate Georgescu Leads in Romania Presidential Election: Why is the West Trembling?
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 25.11.2024
Right-wing independent candidate Calin Georgescu has pulled off a shock victory in the first round of Romania’s presidential election.
Little-known candidate Calin Georgescu, who was shown running at around 5% in pre-election polls, upended all predictions and is now set to face off against center-right contender Elena Lasconi in the second round on December 8.
What Are His Views?
On NATO:
A professed champion of national sovereignty, Georgescu has often criticized what he called his country’s “subservience” to the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In interviews and public appearances he, has questioned the benefits of Romania’s membership in NATO, arguing that the alliance will not protect any of its members should they be attacked.
He criticized the presence of an American missile defense facility at a NATO-controlled base in the village of Deveselu, calling Romania’s agreement to host it a “diplomatic shame.” He has also called NATO’s ballistic missile defense shield in Romania a confrontational measure.
On Ukraine:
Georgescu has questioned military aid being pumped by Romania to Ukraine. The social media-savvy candidate recently launched a viral TikTok campaign calling for an end to supporting the Kiev regime that appeared to have struck a chord with voters. “Tonight, the Romanian people cried out for peace. And they shouted very loudly, extremely loudly”, Georgescu said after his win.
On Russia:
Georgescu has described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a genuinely great leader who loves his country in a 2020 interview. Romania’s best chance lay with “Russian wisdom,” media reports cite him as saying in another interview.
On Moldova:
Georgescu started out as a member of the right-wing Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) party, which advocates for the integration of Moldova into Romania, but eventually broke with it to campaign as an independent.
Georgescu’s success feeds into the barometer of right-wing political successes across Europe amid dissatisfaction with Brussels’ policy and eroding public support for Ukraine.
Similar sentiments fueled Ukraine critic Peter Pellegrini’s win in the presidential election in Slovakia this summer, and the success of the right-wing Freedom Party (FPO) in Austria’s parliamentary elections.
NATO admiral urges Western businesses to prepare for ‘wartime scenario’
RT | November 25, 2024
Businesses in NATO countries should prepare themselves for a “wartime scenario” and adjust their production lines and supply chains to be less vulnerable to blackmail by nations such as Russia and China, the outgoing chief of the US-led bloc’s military committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, said on Monday.
Speaking at a European Policy Center think-tank event in Brussels, he urged Western industries and businesses to implement deterrence measures.
“If we can make sure that all crucial services and goods can be delivered no matter what, then that is a key part of our deterrence,” Bauer argued.
“Businesses need to be prepared for a wartime scenario and adjust their production and distribution lines accordingly. Because while it may be the military who wins battles, it’s the economies that win wars,” the NATO official said. He mentioned China and Russia in the context of how he believes wars are waged in the economic sphere.
“We thought we had a deal with Gazprom, but we actually had a deal with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” he stated, apparently referring to the drop in Russian gas supplies to the EU, which took place after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.
At the time, the EU declared that ending its reliance on Russian energy was a key priority, and many members voluntarily halted their imports, while supplies also plunged due to the sabotage of Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines.
American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh blamed the sabotage on the CIA, alleging that the agency had carried out the attack under the direct orders of the White House – an allegation it has denied.
Bauer then extended his warning to China, claiming that Beijing could use its exports to NATO states and the infrastructure that it owns in Europe as leverage in the event of a conflict.
“We are naive if we think the [Chinese] Communist Party will never use that power. Business leaders in Europe and America need to realize that the commercial decisions they make have strategic consequences for the security of their nation,” the official claimed.
It is unclear what “wartime” Bauer is predicting in his statements.
NATO has long declared Russia to be a direct threat, and Western officials have repeatedly claimed that if Moscow is allowed to win the conflict in Ukraine, it could then attack other European countries. Russia has dismissed these claims as nonsense. Restrictions that Moscow introduced in trade with the West have largely come in response to unprecedented economic sanctions placed on the country in connection with the Ukraine conflict.
Beijing has also faced its share of trade barriers and restrictions introduced by Western states, and introduced similar measures in response. According to most experts, including many in the West, the sanctions policy has backfired on Western economies, leading to supply shortages and inflation.
Will Armageddon Be Joe Biden’s Final Legacy?
By Ted Galen Carpenter | The Libertarian Institute | November 25, 2024
When the Soviet Union dissolved in late 1991, the world seemed poised for a new, more peaceful era no longer haunted by the fear of a nuclear Armageddon. The principal successor state from the wreckage of the USSR was a noncommunist Russia that was intent on becoming part of the democratic, capitalist West. President George H. W. Bush and his top advisers exercised considerable diplomatic skill in managing the twilight years and ultimate demise of the Soviet Union. Their core achievement was to gain Moscow’s assent to Germany’s reunification and membership in NATO. The implicit tradeoff (unfortunately, never put in writing) was that NATO would not expand beyond the eastern border of a newly united Germany.
The contrast between the benign end to the original Cold War and the current status of relations between the West (especially the United States) and Russia could not be greater or more alarming. NATO’s meddling in the armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia has reached the point of being an outright proxy war for the alliance. As NATO’s leader, the United States has pushed a series of extremely dangerous escalatory steps. The latest provocation is the decision by President Joe Biden’s administration authorizing Ukraine to use long-range U.S. Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) that are capable of striking at least 190 miles inside Russia. Moscow has responded by adopting a new nuclear doctrine warning that the use of such missiles by NATO’s Ukrainian proxy would mean that Moscow is officially at war with the U.S.-led alliance. Perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin is bluffing, but the risk of a nuclear collision between NATO and Moscow now appears to be at unprecedented levels.
It is bitterly ironic that the decision to let Ukraine use American missiles that might trigger World War III has been made by the lamest of lame duck U.S. presidents. At the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour, the leaders of the Democratic Party pressured Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. They did so because the evidence of his cognitive decline had become undeniable. However, his hand-picked successor, Kamala Harris, then proceeded to lose the presidential election to Republican nominee Donald Trump.
To say that the Biden administration has no mandate to make such a crucial decision involving war and peace would be a monumental understatement. In fairness, though, the current foreign policy crew is not solely responsible for fouling-up relations with Russia and provoking a new cold war with nuclear implications. That “achievement” has been a bipartisan effort taking place over a span of more than three decades.
Toward the end of George H. W. Bush’s administration, public opinion polls in Russia showed that nearly 80% of Russians held positive views of the United States. In the late stages of the Bill Clinton administration, nearly the same percentage held negative opinions.
It was hardly a surprising development. During his years in office, Clinton and his Russian-hating advisers (especially UN ambassador and later Secretary of State Madeleine Albright) antagonized Moscow on multiple occasions. Washington went out of its way to attack Russia’s long-standing religious and political clients, the Serbs, as the Yugoslav federation disintegrated. However, the Clinton administration’s decision to expand NATO to include Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary struck the biggest blow to East-West relations.
Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, continued and intensified the policy of provoking and antagonizing Russia. Subsequent rounds of NATO expansion brought U.S. military power to Russia’s immediate neighborhood by adding such new members as the three Baltic republics, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania. Most provocative of all, Bush pushed to add Ukraine to the alliance. Although Germany and France temporarily blocked immediate moves to make Ukraine a member, Washington’s ultimate goal was quite clear.
A rising number and volume of warnings against making Ukraine a NATO asset also came from Putin and other officials. Washington and its key European allies ignored those warnings but it became clear in 2014 that the Kremlin was not bluffing. When President Barack Obama and key European leaders helped overthrow Ukraine’s generally pro-Russia president and install a regime subservient to NATO, Moscow struck back emphatically, seizing Ukraine’s strategic, but majority Russian populated, Crimean peninsula.
Relations between the West and Russia continued to deteriorate thereafter. In the autumn of 2021, the Kremlin proposed a new relationship with the West that amounted to Russia’s minimum demands. Those demands included a guaranteed neutral status for Ukraine—thus foreclosing the prospect of Kiev’s eventual membership in NATO. The Kremlin also sought the withdrawal of advanced U.S. weaponry from the easternmost members of NATO. It amounted to an ultimatum, and when the Biden administration treated Moscow’s demands with contempt, the Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. That offensive, combined with the decision by the United States and its allies to impose severe economic sanctions against Russia, ignited an ever-escalating military crisis.
It is uncertain whether President-elect Donald Trump intends to end the dangerous impasse with Moscow. Contrary to the partisan myth that Trump has been Putin’s puppet, his actual policies during his first term were consistently hardline. One can hope, though, that he has fully absorbed the lesson of what a disaster Washington’s love affair with Ukraine has become for both countries. Restoring cooperative bilateral relations with Russia is essential for global peace.
There is an alarming possibility, however, that Trump won’t get the opportunity, even if he wishes to back away from the beckoning abyss. The lame-duck Biden administration still holds power for nearly another two months, and that is more than enough time to plunge the country into nuclear war, if administration leaders are so inclined. The departing president’s conduct in recent weeks, especially authorizing Ukraine to attack Russia with U.S.-supplied, long-range missiles, is beyond reckless. Biden’s legacy is already bad, but it could become even worse.
Ballistic vs. Cruise Missiles: What’s the Difference?
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 23.11.2024
Russia’s successful combat test of the Oreshnik intermediate-range missile garnered its share of attention and more than a little confusion as media and amateur observers alike began comparing the new ballistic weapon to other weapons in both Russia and NATO’s arsenals, including cruise missiles.
Sputnik sets the record straight by outlining the key differences between these two very distinct types of weapons:
Ballistic missiles
Powered by a single rocket or series of rockets operating in stages to propel them to the required trajectory, ballistic missiles ascend tens of kilometers into the atmosphere, shedding motors and thrusters along the way, with larger ones leaving the atmosphere altogether, after which their payload separates and begins its descent back down toward Earth, traveling in an arc.
Ballistic missiles typically have three flight phases, starting with the boost phase, followed by a midcourse phase – which starts when the rocket motor(s) stop(s) firing and the missile’s payload starts to coast, usually while continuing to ascend, and finally the terminal phase, during which the payload starts the final course toward its target(s).
Some also have a distinct fourth phase, which kicks off after the post-boost phase, during which the onboard multiple independent reentry vehicle (MIRV) bus makes changes to its trajectory, and decoys are released to confuse and saturate enemy missile defenses.
Some ballistic missiles can make changes to their trajectory, so long as onboard rocket fuel allows, but usually, any maneuverability attributed to these weapons is the result of their payloads.
Russia’s Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, for instance, is blasted into space by an ordinary ICBM, but becomes maneuverable after separating from its carrier. MIRV buses also often contain small rocket motors and inertial guidance, allowing alterations to its payload’s trajectory before individual warheads separate.
Cruise Missiles
Cruise missiles are jet engine-powered weapons that stay within the atmosphere throughout their flight. In fact, they often fly at extremely low altitudes, ‘hugging’ the ground as few as a few meters from the surface to avoid detection.
These weapons are designed for precision strikes against an array of ground and sea-based targets and, if fitted with nuclear warheads, can target large built-up areas or entire carrier strike groups (in the case of Russia’s P-800 Oniks, for example). Conventional cruise strikes can be calibrated to attack targets as small as individual buildings or bunkers.
Cruise missiles stay maneuverable through their approach to their targets, featuring GPS, inertial guidance, terrain mapping and/or other tools to guide them. Some designs allow human operators to manually guide missiles in the terminal phase.
Pros and Cons of Ballistic and Cruise
Cruise missiles are typically far cheaper (costing as little as 15% as a typical tactical ballistic missile), with their launch more difficult to detect, and the missiles boasting higher accuracy. However, unless they are nuclear armed, their firepower is typically lower, with the US AGM-86 ALCM air-launched cruise missile boasting the largest payload in this class of weapon – 1,362 kg, while most cruise missiles average about 500 kg.
Ballistic missiles are typically less accurate (with a circular error probable, or CEP, measured in the tens or even hundreds of meters, compared to meters for cruise missiles), but do have a number of distinct advantages – the most obvious of which is payload size (Russia’s RS-28 Sarmat, for example, has a 10,000 kg payload).
Ballistic missiles’ arcing approach also allows their payloads to accelerate to incredible speeds (often hypersonic), while cruise missiles typically stay subsonic or supersonic through their flight, which makes them easier to intercept, and reduces the sheer kinetic force with which they slam down onto their targets.
Collapsing Empire: RIP Royal Navy
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | November 23, 2024
On November 15th, The Times published a remarkable report, revealing serious “questions” are being asked about the viability of Britain’s two flagship aircraft carriers, at the highest levels of London’s defence establishment. Such perspectives would have been unreportable mere months ago. Yet, subsequent reporting seemingly confirms the vessels are for the chop. Should that come to pass, it will represent an absolutely crushing, historic defeat for the Royal Navy – and the US Empire in turn – without a single shot fired.
The HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales first set sail in 2017 and 2019 respectively, after 20 years in development. The former arrived at the Royal Navy’s historic Portsmouth base with considerable fanfare, a Ministry of Defence press release boasting that the carrier would be deployed “in every ocean around the world over the next five decades.” The pair were and remain the biggest and most expensive ships built in British history, costing close to $8 billion combined. Ongoing operational costs are likewise vast.
Fast forward to today however, and British ministers and military chiefs are, per The Times, “under immense pressure to make billions of pounds’ worth of savings,” with major “casualties” certain. Resultantly, senior Ministry of Defence and Treasury officials are considering scrapping at least one of the carriers, if not both. The reason is simple – “in most war games, the carriers get sunk,” and are “particularly vulnerable to missiles.” As such, the pair are now widely perceived as the “Royal Navy’s weak link.”
Matthew Savill of British state-tied Royal United Services Institute told The Times that missile technology is developing “at such a pace” that carriers are rapidly becoming easy for Britain’s adversaries to “locate and track”, then neutralise. “In particular,” he cautioned, China is increasing the range of its ballistic and supersonic anti-ship missiles. Meanwhile, Beijing’s “hypersonic glide vehicle”, the DF-17, “can evade existing missile defence systems,” its “range, speed and manoeuvrability” making it a “formidable weapon” neither Britain nor the US can adequately counter.
Savill advocated “cutting one or both of the carriers,” as this “would free up people and running costs and those could be reinvested in the running costs of the rest of the fleet and easing the stresses on personnel”. Nonetheless, he warned that scrapping the carriers would be a “big deal for a navy that has designed itself around those carriers…and that the £6.2 billion paid for them would be a sunk cost.”
That the Royal Navy has “designed itself” around the two carriers is an understatement. For just one to set sail, it must be supported by a strike group consisting of two Type 45 destroyers for air defence, two Type 23 frigates for anti-submarine warfare, a submarine, a fleet tanker and a support ship. This “full-fat protective approach”, Savill lamented, means “most of the deployable Royal Navy” must accompany a single carrier at any given time:
“You can protect the carriers, but then the Navy has put all of its eggs in a particularly large and expensive basket.”
‘National Embarrassment’
March 2021 saw the publication of a long-awaited report, Global Britain in a Competitive Age – “a comprehensive articulation” of London’s “national security and international policy,” intended to “[shape] the open international order of the future.” The two aircraft carriers loomed large in its contents. One passage referred to how HMS Queen Elizabeth would soon lead Britain’s “most ambitious global deployment for two decades, visiting the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific”:
“She will demonstrate our interoperability with allies and partners – in particular the US – and our ability to project cutting-edge military power in support of NATO and international maritime security. Her deployment will also help the government to deepen our diplomatic and prosperity links with allies and partners worldwide.”
Such bombast directly echoed the bold wording of a July 1998 strategic defence review, initiated a year earlier by then-prime minister Tony Blair. Its findings kickstarted London’s quest to acquire world-leading aircraft carriers, which culminated with the birth of HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. Britain’s explicit objective, directly inspired by the US Empire’s dependence on carriers to belligerently project its diplomatic, economic, military and political interests abroad, was to recover London’s role as world police officer, and audaciously assert herself overseas:
“In the post-Cold War world, we must be prepared to go to the crisis, rather than have the crisis come to us. So we plan to buy two new larger aircraft carriers to project power more flexibly around the world… This will give us a fully independent ability to deploy a powerful combat force to potential trouble spots without waiting for basing agreements on other countries’ territory. We will… be poised in international waters and most effectively back up diplomacy with the threat of force.”
Blair’s reverie appeared to finally come to pass in May 2021, when HMS Queen Elizabeth set off on a grand tour of the world’s oceans, escorted by a vast carrier strike group. Over the next six months, the vessel engaged in a large number of widely-publicised exercises with foreign navies, including NATO allies, and docked in dozens of countries. Press coverage was universally fawning. Yet, in November, as the excursion was nearing its end, an F-35 fighter launched from the carrier unceremoniously crashed.
The F-35’s myriad issues were by that point well-established. The jet, which has cost US taxpayers close to $2 trillion, entered into active service in 2006 while still under development. It quickly gained a reputation for hazardous unreliability. In 2015, a Pentagon report acknowledged its severe structural issues, limited service life and low flight-time capacity. Two years later, the Department of Defense quietly admitted the US Joint Program Office had been secretly recategorising F-35 failure incidents to make the plane appear safe to fly.
Despite this, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales were specifically designed to transport the F-35, to the exclusion of all other fighter jets. However, Britain has all along struggled to source usable F-35s, which produces the ludicrous situation of the two carriers almost invariably patrolling seas with few if any fighters aboard at all, therefore invalidating their entire raison d’être. In November 2023, the Daily Telegraph dubbed these regular “jet-less” forays a “national embarrassment”.
‘Carrier Gap’
An even graver embarrassment, rarely discussed with any seriousness by the British media, is that the two aircraft carriers have been plagued with endless technical and mechanical issues as long as they’ve been in service. Flooding, mid-operation breakdowns, onboard fires, and engine leaks are routine. Both vessels have spent considerably more time docked and under repair than at sea over their brief lifetimes. In 2020, an entire HMS Prince of Wales crew accommodation block collapsed, for reasons unclear.
As the elite US foreign policy journal National Interest acknowledged in March 2024, “the Royal Navy remains unable to adequately defend or operate” its two carriers “independently” – code for the Empire being consistently compelled to deploy its own naval and air assets to support the pair. This is quite some failure, given British officials originally intended for the vessels to not only lead NATO exercises and deployments, but “slot into” US navy operations wherever and whenever necessary.
The Empire’s inability to outsource its hegemonic duties to Britain has created a critical “carrier gap”. Despite maintaining an 11-strong fleet, Washington cannot deploy the vessels to every global flashpoint at once, grievously undermining her power and influence at a time of tremendous upheaval worldwide. In a bitter irony, by encouraging and facilitating London’s emulation of its own flawed and outdated reliance on aircraft carriers, the US has inadvertently birthed yet another needy imperial dependent, further draining its already fatally overstretched military resources.
Several Royal Navy destroyers were originally part of abortive US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian, launched in late 2023 to smash Ansar Allah’s righteous anti-genocide Red Sea blockade. Almost immediately, it became apparent the British lacked any ability to fire on land targets, therefore rendering their participation completely useless.
Subsequently, photos emerged of areas on Britain’s ships where land attack cruise missiles should’ve been situated. Instead, the spaces were occupied by humble treadmills, for use as on-board gyms.
It transpired that the appropriate weapons hadn’t been purchased, due to a lack of funds – the money having of course been spent instead on constructing barely operable aircraft carriers, which now face summary defenestration. By investing incalculable time, energy, and money in pursuing the mythological greatness associated with carrier capability, Britain – just like the US Empire – now finds itself unable to meet modern warfare’s most basic challenges. Meanwhile, its adversaries near and far have remorselessly innovated, equipping themselves for 21st century battle.
Days after The Times portended the impending death of London’s aircraft carriers, mainstream media became awash with reports of savage cutbacks in Britain’s military capabilities, in advance of a new strategic defence review. Five Royal Navy warships, all of which had lain disused due to staffing issues and structural decay for some time, were among the first announced “casualties”. What if anything will replace these losses isn’t certain, although it likely won’t be an aircraft carrier.
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From the Archives
Fact File : Civilian Internment 1939 – 1945
BBC – Compiled in 2003
Internment of civilian nationals belonging to opposing sides was carried out in varying degrees by all belligerent powers in World War Two. It was also the fate of those servicemen who found themselves in a neutral country.
At the outbreak of war there were around 80,000 potential enemy aliens in Britain who, it was feared, could be spies, or willing to assist Britain’s enemies in the event of an invasion. All Germans and Austrians over the age of 16 were called before special tribunals and were divided into one of three groups… continue
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