ICH Topic: "RIP INF Treaty: Russia’s Victory, America’s Waterloo" by Dmitry Orlov
February 12, 2019 "Information
Clearing House"
- On March 1, 2018 the world learned of
Russia’s new weapons systems, said to be
based on new physical principles. Addressing
the Federal Assembly, Putin explained how
they came to be: in 2002 the US withdrew
from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. At
the time, the Russians declared that they
will be forced to respond, and were
basically told “Do whatever you want.”
- Kinzhal: a hypersonic air-launched cruise missile that flies at Mach 10 (7700 miles per hour) and can destroy both ground installations and ships.
-
Avangard: a maneuverable hypersonic payload delivery system for intercontinental ballistic missiles that flies at better than Mach 20 (15300 miles per hour). It has a 740-mile range and can carry a nuclear charge of up to 300 kilotons.
-
Poseidon: an autonomous nuclear-powered torpedo with unlimited range that can travel at a 3000-foot depth maintaining a little over 100 knots.
- Burevestnik: a nuclear-powered cruise missile that flies at around 270 miles per hour and can stay in the air for 24 hours, giving it a 6000-mile range.
-
Peresvet: a mobile laser complex that
can blind drones and satellites,
knocking out space and aerial
reconnaissance systems.
- Sarmat: a new heavy intercontinental missile that can fly arbitrary suborbital courses (such as over the South Pole) and strike arbitrary points anywhere on the planet. Because it does not follow a predictable ballistic trajectory it is impossible to intercept.
The
initial Western reaction to this
announcement was an eerie silence. A few
people tried to convince anyone who would
listen that this was all bluff and computer
animation, and that these weapons systems
did not really exist. (The animation was of
rather low quality, one might add, probably
because Russian military types couldn’t
possibly imagine that slick graphics, such
as what the Americans waste their money on,
would make Russia any safer.) But eventually
the new weapons systems were demonstrated to
work and US intelligence services confirmed
their existence.
Forced to react, the Americans, with the
EU in tow, tried to cause public
relations scandals over some unrelated
matter. Such attempts are repeated with
some frequency. For instance, after the
putsch in the Ukraine caused Crimea to
go back to Russia there was the
avalanche of hysterical bad press about
Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which
the Americans had shot down over
Ukrainian territory with the help of
Ukrainian military.
Similarly, after Putin’s announcement of new weapons systems, there was an eruption of equally breathless hysterics over the alleged “Novichok” poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter. A couple of Russian tourists, if you recall, were accused of poisoning Skripal by smearing some toxic gas on the doorknob of his house some time after he left it never to return. Perhaps such antics made some people feel better, but opposing new, breakthrough weapons systems by generating fake news does not an adequate response make.
Say what you will about the Russian response to the US pulling out of the ABM treaty, but it was adequate. It was made necessary by two well-known facts. First, the US is known for dropping nuclear bombs on other countries (Hiroshima, Nagasaki). It did so not in self-defense but just to send a message to the USSR that resistance would be futile (a dumb move if there ever was one). Second, the US is known to have repeatedly planned to destroy the USSR using a nuclear first strike. It was prevented from carrying it out time and again, first by a shortage of nuclear weapons, then by the development of Soviet nuclear weapons, then by the development of Soviet ICBMs.
Similarly, after Putin’s announcement of new weapons systems, there was an eruption of equally breathless hysterics over the alleged “Novichok” poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter. A couple of Russian tourists, if you recall, were accused of poisoning Skripal by smearing some toxic gas on the doorknob of his house some time after he left it never to return. Perhaps such antics made some people feel better, but opposing new, breakthrough weapons systems by generating fake news does not an adequate response make.
Say what you will about the Russian response to the US pulling out of the ABM treaty, but it was adequate. It was made necessary by two well-known facts. First, the US is known for dropping nuclear bombs on other countries (Hiroshima, Nagasaki). It did so not in self-defense but just to send a message to the USSR that resistance would be futile (a dumb move if there ever was one). Second, the US is known to have repeatedly planned to destroy the USSR using a nuclear first strike. It was prevented from carrying it out time and again, first by a shortage of nuclear weapons, then by the development of Soviet nuclear weapons, then by the development of Soviet ICBMs.
Continue reading at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51097.htm
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