by Paul Craig Roberts
The insouciance of Washington and its European puppets toward the dangerous situation they are provoking with Russia is frightening. The Western world is now led by people who have made it clear that they will risk nuclear war in their pursuit of American hegemony. Evil has clearly triumphed in the Western world.
We are now on the brink of a nuclear holocaust. One false warning of nuclear attack, believed to be true, could cause Russia to launch a full-scale nuclear attack against the US and Europe.
False warning signals indicating incoming nuclear weapons have happened before, but were discounted because a sufficient level of mutual trust had been achieved. Now, with two decades of reckless provocations of Russia, with missile bases being constructed on Russia’s borders in Poland and Romania, with US/NATO fully committed to defeat Russia in Ukraine, and with massive anti-Russian propaganda in place of diplomatic negotiation, trust has been destroyed. Notice the provocative idiocy of US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin who mischaracterizes Putin’s warning about the extremely dangerous situation as “Russian saber-rattling.” With utter fools like Austin making decisions, there is a zero chance of avoiding Armageddon. Lloyd’s position is that it is Putin who must avoid provocative behavior, not Washington.
The expressed willingness of Finland, Sweden, Poland, and Romania to accept US nuclear weapons in their countries, together with the ability of the US to launch against Russia from the Black and Baltic seas, greatly heightens anxiety in Russia. Unlike the Cold War period, in the 21st century Washington has worked overtime to destroy all trust. Consequently, one more false warning is all it takes to exterminate mankind.
We are on the brink of nuclear war, and we do not have a John F Kennedy in the White House to stop it. Instead, we have insane neoconservatives committed to US hegemony at all cost.
Putin said:Russia’s nuclear doctrine is based on the “launch on warning” concept, which envisions nuclear weapons’ use in the face of an imminent nuclear attack spotted by its early warning systems.
“When the early warning system receives a signal about a missile attack, we launch hundreds of missiles that are impossible to stop,” he said, smiling. “Enemy missile warheads would inevitably reach the territory of the Russian Federation. But nothing would be left of the enemy too, because it’s impossible to intercept hundreds of missiles. And this, of course, is a factor of deterrence.”Putin says Russia could adopt US preemptive strike concept
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow could adopt what he described as a U.S. concept of using preemptive military strikes, noting it has the weapons to do the job, in a blunt statement amid rising Russia-NATO tensions over Ukraine.
“We are just thinking about it. They weren’t shy to openly talk about it during the past years,” Putin said, referring to the U.S. policy, as he attended a summit in Kyrgyzstan of a Moscow-dominated economic alliance of ex-Soviet nations.
For years, the Kremlin has expressed concern about U.S. efforts to develop the so-called Conventional Prompt Global Strike capability that envisions hitting an adversary’s strategic targets with precision-guided conventional weapons anywhere in the world within one hour.
“Speaking about a disarming strike, maybe it’s worth thinking about adopting the ideas developed by our U.S. counterparts, their ideas of ensuring their security,” Putin said with a thin smile, noting that such a preemptive strike was intended to knock out command facilities.
He claimed that Russia already has commissioned hypersonic weapons capable of carrying out such a strike, while the U.S. hasn’t yet deployed them. He also claimed that Russia now has cruise missiles that surpass their U.S. equivalents.
