US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has revealed himself to be the 21st century's answer to the original Dr. Strangelove. Last week, while touring US nuclear weapons facilities, Carter threatened that the US was prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend against the new emerging Russian threat in Europe. Carter held a press conference at Minot, North Dakota, with a B-52 in the background, pressing for a $1 trillion budget to modernize and expand the US nuclear arsenal to "catch up" with Russia. In the meantime, the US is already moving ahead with a modernization of the B61-12 theater nuclear weapon, for deployment in Europe, that will blur the line between conventional and nuclear warfare, by increasing the accuracy and range and decreasing the payload. No longer will the US nuclear arsenal in Europe be strictly a deterrent.
At the same time, the Obama Administration has walked away from the Geneva negotiations with Russia, aimed at ending the nearly six years of war in Syria, through a joint US-Russian effort against the main jihadist forces–Al Qaeda (Nusra Front) and ISIS. On October 5, the Principals Committee huddled at the White House to consider three options for Syria: Create a no-fly zone over all or most of the country; create safe zones along the Turkish and Jordanian borders inside Syrian territory; bomb the entire Syrian Air Force out of existence in a 24 hour display of "shock and awe;" or arm the Syrian rebels–ie. jihadists–with manpads and other anti-aircraft weapons as part of a prolonged insurgency directed against the Assad government, which will increasingly be dominated by the very terrorist forces that the US and Russia were jointly targeting up until this week.
As Col. Lang has been writing for months, the Russian President has finally concluded that the US is not sincere in proposing joint operations against the jihadists of ISIS and Al Qaeda, and so he has thrown his military support behind an assault on Aleppo, to wipe out the terrorist pocket and effectively defeat the insurgency militarily.
The first three options taken up by the Principals at the White House mean direct war against Russia, a war that would, in light of Strangelove Carter's recent remarks, likely lead to a nuclear exchange–and not at the tactical level. Option four means the US is aligned with the jihadists in a prolonged, ie. permanent war in the Near East–hardly a much better option.
Madness. I thought the Saker had a good article on the topic:
http://thesaker.is/russian-options-against-a-us-attack-on-syria/
Fred Reed agrees:
http://fredoneverything.org/an-obsolescent-military-bombing-everything-gaining-nothing/
Very scary summary. I cant believe that the borg would risk nuclear war – its the ultimate lose lose choice, no matter what the children’s brigade wargames.
Its also hard to imagine pushing the us in that direction before the election, so Manpads it is. Would the Russian’s aggressively then arm the Houthis with manpads? One can imagine that leading to rising oil prices (which inadvertently would help Russia dramatically) – without manpads, the Houthis have been able to take Saudi territory.
IMO the US “leadership” no longer cares about the impression its statements produce in the USA and elsewhere – it says what it says just because it has to say something, anything.
No one is expecting to hear something like: “Crap! Our protection racket business model is being dismantled! They all gonna burn for this!”
Yet, there can be no guarantee that the mainland USA is spared once the larger war is ignited. “Breakfast at Twilight” story by Philip K. Dick (the same guy who wrote “Blade runner”) is probably the first literary exploration into the consequences.
Phillip K. Dick also wrote “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”.
Harper
This is Obummer policy. Carter and Brennan and Clapper are following his diktats. And he is the more restrained one in comparison to the Borg Queen. At least he pulled back from his red line when al Qaeda scammed him with sarin. If the Borg Queen is elected next month we can see what escalation really means. They really do believe that Putin will cave if they act crazy enough. But if he does then the Borg Queen in her triumphalism will escalate further. Next, closer to Russia’s borders and even internally. The Borg Queen’s supporters in their visceral hatred for Trump will create an existential threat to the US. Of course they will never accept any responsibility which is part and parcel of their PCness and the nanny state.
Truthfully, I am wondering how much of this crap is just folks who realize that they might be out of a job soon. When folks look to lose power, they start running their mouth. I think that the actions of a pufferfish might well prove instructive.
Folks around the world are starting to call our bluff. It is illustrative to watch a person in a poker game when this occurs. Folks that I tend to like just toss their cards on the table and laugh.
I think that what we are seeing here is the behavior of folks that I don’t usually like. When you call their bluff, they threaten and eventually leave the game in a pout (with the notable exception of SP4 Horner, whose ass I was privileged to kick).
There’s a Russian military buildup in Syria going on with the dispatch of three new missile corvettes, more Su-24s/34s, Su-25s on standby to deploy, an the new S-300 Gladiator system.
The moves come in conjunction with some rather curt diplomatic exchanges:
“After US hit SyrianArmy in DeirEzZor, we took measures to prevent such ‘mistakes’ from happening” – @mod_russia
“Russian Ministry of Defense promise “a surprise” by S-300 and S-400 in Syria for any unidentified object”
“If the Russians actually believed we would shoot down their planes, they wouldn’t bomb the safe havens in Syria.- @LindseyGrahamSC”
“French FM to Lavrov: nothing can justify ‘deluge of fire’ on Aleppo”
“UN Syria envoy De Mistura presser: ‘900 Nusra (JFS) fighters are in Eastern Aleppo – are 900 people the main reason as to why 275k people are being attacked?'”
Meanwhile new districts are falling in Aleppo.
The Saker discusses escalation scenarios here:
http://thesaker.is/the-war-against-syria-both-sides-go-to-plan-b/
His central point is that a combination of Russian fighters, electronic warfare, targeting AWACs and anti-aircraft systems would inflict a very high cost on a US attempt to impose a no fly zone.
What I should really like to know from those who may be knowledgeable on the subject is the extent to which the Russian systems listed above pose a threat to front line US assets? I’ve some articles but when technical issues are combined with bias, the layman has no way of knowing.
At any rate, 2016 Syria is looking increasingly like 1914 Serbia…
It seems that the prudes from Mossad and/or NSA have downed Unz Review (http://www.unz.com), which is a great forum for intelligent free-thinkers. The Review’s latest article was harsh on Israel; seems that it was too much for the influential Israel-firsters.
Unz Review is published by Ron Unz, an honorable Jewish man – a mathematician, businessman, researcher, and thinker in one person. Unz has become a target of poisonous attacks from ADL for his excellent research in American meritocracy: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/ http://www.adl.org/anti-semitism/united-states/c/ron-unz-controversial-writer.html
The following is relevant to the Dr. Strangelove movie, not the geopolitical considerations operative in the theater of war today, but some may find it interesting. Briefly: as filmed, the movie had a more farcical ending – a food fight in the War Room.
“Ironically, Strangelove was being edited around November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated. In the scene as filmed, President Muffley is struck with a pie and Turgidson announced, “Our President has been struck down in his prime!” Because Kubrick considered the action too close to actual events, and too comical as staged (the actors appeared to be enjoying themselves a bit too obviously)[the scene was cut short].”
“Not with a bang, but a food fight”
http://beforenine.blogspot.com/2016/10/this-way-america.html
Found the video the Russian quotes came from above, subtitled:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ0cTxABUY8
damn, hope it comes back online; it’s a great site.
For the ADL, anti-semitism is any fact Jews don’t like.
Anna, Is it a DDOS attack? Or something more? I just clicked on my Unz bookmark and it looks like the former.
Fake alert, just delete the “),” and you’ll be fine.
Ron Unz:
http://www.unz.com/author/ron-unz/
Sen. Lindsey was particularly unhinged this AM on some morning talk show (CBS?).
He had no problem w/ risking combat (aka de facto war) w/ Russia over a Syrian NFZ.
“I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed.”
The HTML address in Anna’s original post is the problem.
The correct HTML is http://www.unz.com/, not http://www.unz.com),/
ked
Graham is a retired USAF reserve JAG officer. “Getting your hair mussed” for him is having a motion denied. pl
No, it was NOT a fake alert, the whole UNZ site was down for many hours whatever way tried to access it, even ‘wget’ (for those who know what it is).
Ibidem @LeaNder.
With the Deir-i-Zor attack it has finally dawned on the Russians that the US had never been negotiating in good faith and that all the cease fires were ruses to allow the rebels to rearm and reposition. I wonder what took them so long to come to this realization. The deployment of the S-400 and other reinforcements represent a line drawn in the sand against a no fly zone or any kinetic operations against the SAA, this is a sea change. Let us pray we do not call their bluff for they mean business. As I recall the nuclear apocalyptic novel “Alas, Babylon” began with an IR guided weapon launched by a US fighter pilot that accidentally locked on to the wrong target in Syria. Let us hope it is not prophetic.
Does anyone take into consideration that US and Russian nuclear weapons have not been tested for over 30 years. A trillion dollars is a lot for something that may not work.
Belive it or not, in 2008 VP Cheney thought about a “surgical strike” against the Russians before Bush shot it down.
I am not so sure that the Russians were so naive, rather that they needed a publicly acknowledged good reason for a stronger posture which was kindly provided by the Deir-i-Zor “mistake”.
Unfortunately this may still not be a good enough reason for the world’s sheeple.
r whitman,
The principles of physics haven’t changed.
something was “tested” on 911 in the WTC towers’ basements
This is a very dangerous situation. The U.S. propaganda apparatus has been cruising along for the last 35 years having fun pushing countries around that cannot fight back very hard. Remember the obscene speech given by Bush jr. 48 hours before the 2003 invasion of Iraq began?–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdTrSm-FIfo
Suppose someone for the U.S. tells Russia it has to stop bombing the Syrian opposition in 48 hours or the U.S. will establish a no fly zone over all of Syria, or over part of Syria. And Russia says, “No, thank you”. Then what? Is the U.S. going to try to put together a “coalition of the billing” to try to drive Russia out of Syria as was done to drive Iraq out of Kuwait in 1990? Who is going to join such a coalition to wage war against Russia in Syria, when Russia has an air force, electronic warfare capability, fast missiles that skim the surface of the water, long range missiles, etc.? Where is the U.S. going to mass its troops on a border of Syria in order to invade it?
The nuclear issue is obviously the most dangerous. I have read — but do not know if it is true — that the U.S. changed its nuclear use doctrine from responding only, with the possible ultimate course of Mutually Assured Destruction, to a doctrine in which the U.S. could do a nuclear first strike. I think that some people have foolishly spoken of “limited” nuclear war. In a nuclear exchange with Russia, there would be no limited nuclear war; once it starts, who is going to stop it and at what point, since nuclear weapons now are much more destructive and contaminating than those used on Japan?
Lurker,
The principles of conspiracy theory generation hasn’t changed either.
Post yesterday from Ron Unz reporting server failure, which was fixed. Nothing nefarious. I like a good story as much as the next guy, but perhaps really “nothing to see here”. A distraction.
http://www.unz.com/announcement/server-failure-and-website-restoration/
Raises question though, of whether some sort of how-ya-doing query mechanism for various info sources might be useful.
Israel did ask for this, did not it? http://www.voltairenet.org/article193570.html
“Reacting to the project for the bombing of the Syrian Arab Republic, Russia revealed the installation in Syria of air defence batteries supplied with S-300 and S-400 missiles. According to Russian experts, these weapons are not only capable of destroying any aircraft in flight, including stealth aircraft, but also cruise missiles…. This announcement raised a huge stir in Israël, since their experts are now persuaded that it was Russian weapons that shot down one of their aircraft and damaged another when Tsahal violated the cessation of hostilities on 13 September, during Aïd. The Israëli chief of staff declared that Israël had lost airborne dominance both in Syria and in Lebanon.”
“Of the nuclear powers, only the People’s Republic of China and India have declarative, unqualified, unconditional no-first-use policies. In 1982, at a special session of the General Assembly of United Nations, the USSR pledged not to use nuclear weapons first, regardless of whether its opponents possessed nuclear weapons or not. This pledge was later abandoned by post-Soviet Russia to compensate the overwhelming conventional weapon superiority enjoyed by NATO. The United States has a partial, qualified no-first-use policy, stating that they will not use nuclear weapons against states that do not possess nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction.
Large-scale missile defense systems are not first-strike weapons, but certain critics view them as first-strike enabling weapons. U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s proposed Strategic Defense Initiative, if it had ever been deployed (and proven successful), would have undermined the fundamental premise of mutual assured destruction (the inevitable outcome of equal and unacceptable destruction for both sides in the event of nuclear war), removing the incentive for the US not to strike first.
These proposed defense systems, intended to lessen the risk of devastating nuclear war, would lead to it, according to these critics. Indeed, according to game theory, the side not building large-scale missile defenses would have an incentive to launch a pre-emptive first strike while such a strike could still get through.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-emptive_nuclear_strike#Overview
Gross idiocy, whatever the “real deed” was it was certainly not a nuke in the basement.
Keep lurking and shut up.
The problem with this summary is that it excludes a very important part of Reagan’s 1983 SDI speech, the part where he offered to share the technology with the Soviet Union. That was explicitly part of what the Soviet’s rejected. Gorbachev (and I wish I could remember where I saw this) said later that the reason why the Soviets rejected Reagan’s offer was because they just couldn’t believe that the US would actually share the technology. Had it been implemented exactly as Reagan had laid out, both sides would have built mutually agreeable defenses and no one would have had an incentive to strike first. That would’ve been a way to undermine MAD that would’ve promoted peace.
Um except that despite billions spent none of the Star Wars “shields” actually work.
And Russia is way ahead in supersonic rockets now anyway.
But even a shield that doesn’t work enables escalation, it doesn’t reduce it.
Thanks for the link! We need to keep circulating such information which U.S. [imperialist] media will never make available.
asserted “Big Brother” in Orwellian logic
“…” thus-sly asserted an amateurish Physicist
“Thanks for the link! We need to keep circulating such information which U.S. [imperialist] media will never make available.”
New Commentator,
In helping the Diocletian Thesis Originator’s crusade in rectifying names, it is important to point out that imperialist media belongs to the exceptional elites for American Empire.
An example of United States (U.S.) media is what you are reading here.
While both groups reside on the same landmass (America, North) we are very separate groups of people. One is concerned for that well being of fifty individual states and their citizens, and the other demands it all for themselves.
Hope this is helpful in your future correspondence amongst U.S. media entities.