U.S. long-range missile launch in the Arctic: “We are intentionally trying to be provocative”

 https://archive.ph/ft7i8 Stars and Stripes November 9, 2022

‘Unconventional’ delivery of US airpower in Arctic tailored to serve notice to Russia

U.S. special operations forces flying over the Arctic on Wednesday rolled a long-range missile out the back of a C-130 aircraft, dropping it by parachute before it blasted toward its target in the distance.

The operation marked the first-ever demonstration in Europe of Rapid Dragon, an experimental program that uses standard air drop procedures to launch air-to-surface cruise missiles.

“It puts this thing within range of Russia. We are intentionally trying to be provocative without being escalatory,” Special Operations Command Europe’s Lt. Col. Lawrence Melnicoff told Stars and Stripes….

The missile launch, carried out inside the Arctic Circle at Norway’s Andoya Space Range, also showcases how allies can muscle up by mixing and matching weapons systems in new ways, Melnicoff said.

It was the culmination of the Stuttgart-based SOCEUR’s demonstration of American and allied units’ ability to rapidly mobilize and deliver long-range precision fire over great distances.

…This is the first time Rapid Dragon, a precision munitions capability for medium-sized or larger cargo aircraft that allows U.S. and NATO forces a flexible rapid response option, has been employed in the U.S. European Command theater.

The Norway exercise coincided with drills in Poland and Romania. They’re all part of U.S. European Command’s Atreus program, which aims to expand military options for allies.

Similar missions have been held in the Baltics and Romania involving aircraft loaded with High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, which are flown to landing zones and offloaded for quick-strike targeting.

November 9, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

What Could Nuclear War Mean For Wyoming? Pretty Much The Worst Parts Of The Bible

  Cowboy State Daily November 9, 2022  By Kevin Killough, State Energy Reporter
Kevin@CowboyStateDaily.com

The last time Americans gave any serious consideration to the prospect of nuclear war, Rocky Balboa was fighting in the fourth installment of the Rocky movie franchise, beating the steroid-injecting Russian heavyweight Ivan Drago.

If the situation in Ukraine escalates, there’s a real concern the world could face a nuclear war. If that terrible situation were to arise, what would happen to Wyoming? 

According to modeling by NUKEMAP, a direct hit to Cheyenne — the Cowboy State’s most likely target in a nuclear exchange — would result in more than 30,000 instant deaths. 

…………………………………………………. According to NUKEMAP, 31,260 people die instantly. Another 26,390 are hurt, most of which would be severe, including third-degree burns.

A crater 1,000 feet wide and 230 feet deep would open up beneath the blast on land that once held the Capitol. The fireball would be about 2,400 feet wide, which would engulf most of downtown Cheyenne. An area 1.5 miles wide would be hit with radiation doses that would be lethal within a month for anyone in the zone. 

That zone would go nearly as far as Dell Range Boulevard. About 15% of those who survive in the zone would likely die of cancer eventually. 

The zone that would produce third-degree burns would go about 3 miles in all directions. The fallout corridor, in which people would get severe radiation exposure — potentially lethal over time — would go nearly as far as Casper. 

The mushroom cloud would rise 10 miles over Cheyenne and be more than 12 miles wide. 

By most estimates, the Red Desert would be the safest area from the impacts of nuclear blasts and the subsequent fallout. 

………………. besides eliminating Americans, bombing population centers destroys the nation’s infrastructure. That means no electricity, no internet and no basic services, such as clean drinking water and medical care. 

Wyoming would have a lot of coal mines and farms, and if it did get passed over by the bombs, survivors may have a safe zone from which America would rebuild. 

Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, a senior fellow for Defense Priorities, a military think tank, told Reason that Biden’s stated policy to help Ukraine no matter what until Russia withdraws to its former borders risks dragging the United States into a very high nuclear risk. …………

November 9, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Will Biden Gamble on a Ukraine Coalition?

First, what is the aim of the coalition? Is the aim to expel Russian forces from Ukrainian territory? Is the aim to reinforce Ukrainian defense lines and achieve a ceasefire for negotiations? Or is the coalition merely a device to drag the rest of the NATO alliance into a war with Russia that very few Europeans will support? 

The Washington establishment is considering a risky and ill-defined intervention in Europe.

 https://www.theamericanconservative.com/will-biden-gamble-on-a-ukraine-coalition/ Douglas Macgregor, Nov 3, 2022,

When Napoleon Bonaparte began his 1812 campaign to conquer Russia, he led the largest “coalition of the willing” in history. In addition to its French core, Bonaparte’s army of more than 400,000 consisted of Italian, Dutch, German, and Polish soldiers. They were at best unenthusiastic. Frankly, other than the French, only Napoleon’s Polish allies were truly eager to march on Moscow.

By the time Bonaparte’s multinational force reached Moscow, paralyzing cold, ruinous battles, exhaustion, disease, and poor logistical planning reduced the original invasion force to less than half of its original strength. It was not long before Prussia and its North German allies defected to the Russians while the remainder (minus the Poles) deserted or died on the march home. 

Today, the Biden White House appears to be considering the use of a multinational force aimed at Russia. The NATO alliance is unable to reach a unanimous decision to intervene militarily in support of Ukraine in its war with Russia. But as signaled recently by David Petraeus, the president and his generals are evaluating their own “coalition of the willing.” The coalition would allegedly consist of primarily, but not exclusively, Polish and Romanian forces, with the U.S. Army at its core, for employment in Ukraine.

All military campaigns succeed or fail based on strategic assumptions that underpin operational planning and execution. Without knowing the details of the ongoing discussions, it is still possible to raise questions about the coalition’s proposed operational “purpose, method, and end state.” 

First, what is the aim of the coalition? Is the aim to expel Russian forces from Ukrainian territory? Is the aim to reinforce Ukrainian defense lines and achieve a ceasefire for negotiations? Or is the coalition merely a device to drag the rest of the NATO alliance into a war with Russia that very few Europeans will support? 

Second, what will U.S. air and ground forces do if they are decisively engaged from the moment they cross the Polish and Romanian Borders into western Ukraine? The Russian High Command will no doubt identify the U.S. military component as the coalition’s center of gravity. It follows that Russian military power will focus first and foremost on the destruction of the U.S. warfighting structure together with its space-based command, control, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities.

Third, is Washington building a “coalition of the willing” for political reasons or because it anticipates a resource-intensive commitment and needs regional allies to share the burden? Since it is unlikely that conventional U.S. military power would defeat conventional Russian military power on its own, can the U.S.-led coalition assemble the diverse military capabilities required to dominate Russian forces with enough striking power to compel a change in Russian behavior? Equally important, can U.S. and allied forces protect Europe’s numerous transportation networks, as well as air and naval bases, from Russian air and missile attack? 

Fourth, will the coalition’s conduct of operations be subject to limitations deemed essential to allied partners? Differences of opinion always exist on questions of how to fight the opponent, how far to move, and just how much to risk. Lack of clarity about specific objectives can have serious consequences. In other words, how much unity of command can U.S. military commanders really expect from their allies in war and will the demand for unity of command outweigh purely national interests?   It is useful to remember that Moscow enjoys complete authority over all its forces including those of its partners and allies. Russian unity of command is absolute. Moscow is not compelled to cope with diverging preferences and opinions from coalition members.

Finally, Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO insists that Ukraine’s failure to prevail in its war with Russia would be interpreted as a defeat for NATO. Would heavy losses inflicted on U.S. ground forces in a confrontation with Russian military power not also signal Washington’s defeat? How rapidly could U.S. and allied forces replace their losses? Would severe U.S. losses raise the specter of a U.S. nuclear response? When does support for Ukraine put NATO’s security and survival at risk?

Washington’s recently announced reiteration of strategic ambiguity regarding the “first use of nuclear weapons” raises additional questions. Spokesmen for the Biden administration indicate that the president will not follow through on his 2020 pledge and declare that the sole purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack against the United States or its allies. 

Instead, President Biden approved a version of the policy from the Obama administration that permits the use of nuclear weapons not only in retaliation to a nuclear attack, but also to respond to non-nuclear threats. President Biden’s decision is at least as dangerous and destructive to American and Allied goals as was the Morgenthau Plan: a plan to deindustrialize Germany that, while rejected, probably lengthened the war against Nazi Germany by at least half a year. Does anyone in Washington, D.C., really believe that this new policy makes a nuclear war with Russia less likely? 

November 6, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Six Reasons Why Americans Should Care That US Troops Are In Ukraine

Andrew Korybko, Nov 2 2022,  https://korybko.substack.com/p/six-reasons-why-americans-should

This is a big deal for more than just the obvious reason that it could push that declining unipolar hegemon closer to a hot war with Russia by miscalculation.

An unnamed senior military official revealed during a press briefing on Monday that US boots are on the ground in Ukraine as part of the Pentagon’s efforts to inspect and track weapons shipments to that crumbling former Soviet Republic according to a transcript published by the Department of Defense. This is a big deal for more than just the obvious reason that it could push that declining unipolar hegemon closer to a hot war with Russia by miscalculation.

Here are the six other reasons why Americans should care that US troops are in Ukraine:

The Deployment Proves That The Ukrainian Conflict Is Indeed A Proxy War On Russia

The US-led West’s Mainstream Media (MSM) nor the SBU’s anti-Semitic and fascist global troll network (“NAFO”) can no longer deny that the Ukrainian Conflict is indeed a NATO proxy war on Russia, which was obvious to all objective observers but has hitherto not been acknowledged by those two forces.

* America Is Indisputably Leading The Abovementioned Effort

Building upon the above, there’s no question that America is leading this multinational proxy war effort against that newly restored world power as evidenced by this latest deployment, which further confirms what Russia’s been saying this entire time about Washington’s direct involvement in the conflict.

* Public Pressure Might Have Played A Role In The Pentagon’s Accountability Mission

CBS News’ bombshell report in early August revealing that only around 30% of all foreign military aid to Ukraine actually reaches its destination provoked unprecedented public anger and might thus have played a role in the Pentagon’s commencing its accountability mission that its officials just disclosed.

* The US Doesn’t Fully Trust Its Ukrainian Proxies

Another element of the “official narrative” that was shattered by the Pentagon’s confirmation of its limited deployment to Ukraine is that the US supposedly places full trust in its Ukrainian proxies, which clearly isn’t true otherwise it wouldn’t be putting its troops in harm’s way to track weapons shipments.

* Ukrainian-Based Neo-Nazi Terrorist Groups Are A Credible Threat To Europe

Elaborating on the insight that was just shared in the preceding point, it can therefore be confidently surmised that American spy agencies also assess that Ukrainian-based Neo-Nazi terrorist groups are a credible threat to Europe since they’re the only actors who could realistically siphon off those arms.

* The Next Congress Might Use This Deployment As The Pretext For Scaling Down Military Aid

The US will inevitably have to scale down its arms shipments to Ukraine since its military-industrial complex lacks the capability to indefinitely sustain the pace, scope, and scale of this assistance, yet the next Congress might use this deployment as the pretext for doing so instead of admitting that fact.

The remainder of the analysis will summarize the six reasons that were just shared.

Americans should care that their country is leading NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine, especially since their own government doesn’t trust their local partners to the point where US troops had to be deployed to monitor arms shipments there. Public pressure might already have played a role in commencing this accountability mission so it therefore follows that subsequent such pressure could facilitate the next Congress’ potential plans to scale back aid to that country and hopefully foster peace.

November 3, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

War and Regrets in Ukraine

The truth is Moscow’s redline concerning Ukrainian entry into NATO was always real. Eastern Ukraine and Crimea were always predominantly Russian in language, culture, history, and political orientation. Europe’s descent into economic oblivion this winter is also real, as is support for Russia’s cause in China and India and Moscow’s rising military strength.

Washington may regret its role in the war in Ukraine.

 https://www.theamericanconservative.com/war-and-regrets-in-ukraine/ Douglas Macgregor, Oct 19, 2022

Of the Vietnam War, Henry Kissinger, former national security advisor and secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford, said, “We should never have been there.” Before long, Americans, even the politicians inside the Beltway, will reach the same conclusion about Washington’s Ukrainian proxy war against Russia. 

No one in the White House, the Senate, or the House consciously set out to turn the proxy Ukrainian war with Moscow into a contest of “competitive societal collapse” between Russia and NATO. But here we are. No one imagined that the Biden administration and the bipartisan war party would drive Americans and Europeans into a political, military, and economic valley of death, from which there is no easy escape. Yet that is precisely what is happening.

For the moment, Washington remains blind to these developments. Whether in print, radio, television, or online, the narrative is clear: despite horrific losses—at least 400,000 Ukrainian battlefield casualties including 100,000 soldiers killed in action—Ukrainian forces are winning. Moreover, the narrative says, America’s financial and economic dominance will ultimately overwhelm the deceptively weak Russian economy.

The Ukrainian-victory narrative admittedly benefits hugely from Western media that actively “tune out” opposing views and depict Russia and its armed forces in the worst possible light. The fact that nearly half a century of the Cold War conditioned Americans to think the worst of Russians certainly helps. 

Yet there is also a measure of “true faith” at work, a condition of national narcissism, inside the Beltway that believes Washington can control what happens thousands of miles away in Eastern Ukraine. The message resonates in Congress because it rests on a critical strategic assumption that American citizens have yet to challenge: that American national power is limitless and unconstrained—as though a series of strategic failures, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, never happened.

Given that American politicians are always more preoccupied by domestic affairs than foreign policy, members of Congress are quick to adopt the “true faith.” This faith explains why for the last eight years members thought a future war with Russia was a low-risk affair. Ukrainians would provide the cannon fodder and Washington would provide the expensive weaponry and munitions. 

Predictably, Washington’s governing strategic principles are unchanged from previous U.S. interventions around the world. Muddle through: masses of soldiers—in this case Ukrainians advised by U.S. and allied officers—and huge infusions of cash, equipment, and technology can and will permanently alter strategic reality in America’s favor. 

The stupefying air of self-righteousness the Biden administration assumes when it attacks erstwhile strategic partners such as Saudi Arabia or delivers moralizing lectures to Beijing’s leadership, or when its media surrogates express contempt for the Russian state, is downright dangerous. Political figures in Washington are ready to indulge any transgression if it is committed in the name of destroying Russia. They do not view U.S. foreign policy in the context of a larger strategy, nor do they comprehend Russia’s capacity to hurt the United States, a bizarre judgment of Russia’s actual military and economic potential. 

The result is a toxic climate of ideological hatred making it hard to imagine a contemporary U.S. secretary of State ever signing an international agreement renouncing war as an instrument of U.S. national policy, as Secretary of State Frank Kellogg did in 1928. But as one of Shakespeare’s characters in the Merchant of Venice warned, “The truth will out.” 

The ongoing buildup of 700,000 Russian forces with modern equipment in Western Russia, Eastern Ukraine and Belorussia is a direct consequence of Moscow’s decision to adopt an elastic, strategic defense of the territories it seized in the opening months of the war. It was a wise, though politically unpopular choice in Russia. Yet, the strategy has succeeded. Ukrainian losses have been catastrophic and by November, Russian Forces will be in a position to strike a knockout blow. 

Today, there are rumors in the media that Kiev may be under pressure to launch more counterattacks against Russian defenses in Kherson (Southern Ukraine) before the midterm elections in November. At this point, expending what little remains of Ukraine’s life blood to expel Russian forces from Ukraine is hardly synonymous with the preservation of the Ukrainian state. It’s also doubtful that further sacrifices by Ukrainians will assist the Biden administration in the midterm elections.  

The truth is Moscow’s redline concerning Ukrainian entry into NATO was always real. Eastern Ukraine and Crimea were always predominantly Russian in language, culture, history, and political orientation. Europe’s descent into economic oblivion this winter is also real, as is support for Russia’s cause in China and India and Moscow’s rising military strength.

In retrospect, it is easy to see how Congress was beguiled by the denizens of think tanks, lobbyists, and retired generals, who are, with few exceptions, people with a cocktail level of familiarity with high-end conventional warfare. Members of the House and Senate were urged to support dubious strategies for the use of American military assistance, including reckless scenarios for limited nuclear war with Russia or China. 

For some reason, U.S. politicians have lost sight of the reality that any use of nuclear weapons would overwhelm the ends of all national policy.  

November 2, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Pentagon Scraps Submarine Nuclear Cruise Missile Program

The United States’ newly declassified Nuclear Posture Review and its National Defense Strategy show that the U.S. government is intent on modernizing and updating its nuclear arsenal.

National Interest, by Caleb Larson, 31 Oct 22, The U.S. Department of Defense has decided to ax the sea-launched nuclear cruise missile, known as the SLCM-N, instead opting to refurbish current stockpiles of nuclear weapons and rely on the Trident, a submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missile.

A fact sheet for the recently-published nuclear posture review, which outlines the United States’ nuclear capabilities, described the future of the U.S. strategic deterrence arsenal…………………………………………………

For now, it seems the United States will not pursue a naval nuclear cruise missile but instead focus on modernizing and refurbishing the capabilities it already has.  https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/pentagon-scraps-submarine-nuclear-cruise-missile-program-205627

November 1, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment