Hypersonic ICBMs for North Korea
Hypersonic ICBMs for North Korea
Where have all the (nuclear) strategic arms limitation treaties gone?
Published: 2023-09-06
Missing the Headline
On Tuesday 5th for Judging Freedom Ray McGovern dropped a bomb an ICBM noting that to nobody's surprise the swamp media had omitted from their reporting the most important story of the day. Russia had provided North Korea with Topol-M Inter-Continent Ballistic Missiles. These tubes fly into space and descend on their target at hypersonic speeds and can carry multiple, possibly nuclear, warheads. The transfer of capability comes just days ahead of the planned meeting of the Russian and North Korean leaders in Vladivostok.
[A Topol-M launch. Source Russia MoD via CSIS.]
Currently, neither the USA nor any of its allies have any defence against this.
In Napolitano's later in the day interview with Col Macgregor (yes, links to both and more are below under Sources) the same topic is raised in which Macgregor provides an overview of the triangular relationship between the US and South Korea with reference to Japan as well to China and Russia over North Korea. Its a complex and very interesting history.
However, there is another expert, a Russian, who gives are far more insightful and extremely alarming response to a related question. During Regis Tremblay's re-branded program, Dateline News and Conversations, from the end of last month he invited Scott Ritter and Vladimir Kozin on to discuss nuclear disarmament and how we got ourselves in the current nightmare of almost no nuclear disarmament treaties left operational. Regis asked both guests to answer this question and they agreed on the core culprit, the USA, or more precisely that the USA has left treaty after treaty and to make matters worse is now as some have described it "agreement incapable". By this is meant that neither Russia nor China have any trust in the USA's leadership rendering negotiations pointless.
Not Reading the Bold Print
This situation is the latest note in a long list of the same wherein the USA has withdrawn from or completely ignored bilateral or multilateral agreements which some past, or even its current administration had signed. The ABM or INF nuclear treaties are just examples of this imperial behaviour within the context of nuclear arms reduction. Another is the commitment not to expand NATO eastward towards Russia which has been repeatedly broken for decades and is one of the reasons for the current war in Ukraine. On China's side they are disinterested in meeting with the USA to only discuss issues about which the USA cares and not those which China does. Alexander Mercouris believes this to be the main reason for Xi Jinping choosing to not attend the upcoming G20 meeting hosted by BRICS+ partner India. Xi is avoiding the US President.
Close, Mr. Mercouris, close. The unipolar, restricted discussion problem is a part of it. And, yes, Xi Jinping like so many other non-European leaders has no desire whatsoever to meet with agreement incapable, my agenda only, I'm having trouble reading from my teleprompter and don't look at what my son's been up to Biden. May I suggest, Alexes, that the reason is exactly the same as that chosen by Putin over the EU sanctions which you commented upon recently. The mission is to take all of the oxygen out of the western propaganda machines, disallowing them to crow about some limited victory and force them to speak about other things or just make shit up. Those media are well practiced in both of the later.
I suggest that this "provide no oxygen" behaviour has evolved from a tactic into a strategy. So far as I understand things, excepting nuclear weapons, the core aspects of power are control over courts and law, control over finance, superiority of arms, better intelligence, better technology (these last three are closely related), and control over information distribution and opinion otherwise known as 'soft power'. The groups of nations largely being lead by China and Russia under the banners of BRICS+ and/or the SCO have counter strategies to each of the above.
For law and courts they are attempting to re-purpose the UN back towards its charter to re-enable it to provide a court of opinion for national voices. For finance they are transacting international trade in national currencies and building inter-bank messaging systems outside of US/NATO dominated SWIFT. For (non-nuclear) arms, Russia leads in missile offense and defence and seems on par for other land and air based platforms. I've no idea about sub-surface boats, though Russia has developed the nightmarish Poseidon nuclear torpedo, the effect of which is to create a devastating wave attack on coastal targets. The hypersonic missile leaves US aircraft carrier groups as a liability. On intelligence, the CIA has had numerous public outings of its failure on human intelligence in both Russia and China, including publicly calling for recuits in both nations. I mean, how desperate do you have to be? One expects that MI-6 still has the lead in western human intelligence. On the technology front, particularly in computing, China is rapidly gaining ground to the point that the US has recently banned this type of technology export to China. Let us not forget that the contention over Taiwan is also about its integrated circuit manufacturing technology. The chips are only a part of this, of greater interest is the massive dataset backed machine learning algorithm technology mislabeled as "AI" where China and I suspect Russia are also advancing in leaps and bounds. This leaves us with information and opinion distribution/soft power/propaganda and the Russia/China strategy seems to be to remove the oxygen from the consensus media and support alternative voices. The US disinformation-warfare/propaganda efforts by groups like the DHS and CIA offshoots like Bellingcat are one part of the USA's counter to this. Another is the threatening of USA writers from publishing on platforms like Strategic Culture via knocks on their door by armed FBI officers. Then we have the whole shadow-banning, de-listing, algorithmic suppression, X-strikes channel deletion by the new western-gatekeepers' government-collusion fusion-center censorship brigades. I merely mention these to highlight the efforts being placed in maintaining the US’ information/opinion distribution control. Needless to say, they're fighting a rising tide with a few teaspoons.
That leaves the nuclear arms question as the core arm of power not covered above. I strongly encourage you to listen to the Ritter and Kozin interview. I took my eye off Regis for a while, which was a mistake. Or, I'm glad to have returned to examine what he has been producing.
Kozin and Ritter are peers. Kozin is a Russian nuclear arms and arms control treaty expert and has worked for the Russian government in these capacities. The interview is recorded before the news of Russia supplying hypersonic ICBM technology to North Korea. The topic is USSR/US or Russia/US nuclear arms control. Kozin stresses that he is speaking as a private citizen. He informs Tremblay, Ritter and the audience that his position on the use of nuclear arms has changed. He now, as a private citizen, is an advocate of Russia placing tactical nuclear weapons in the enclave of Kalingrad, just as they have been emplaced in Belarus. This is a complete reversal for him, from being an advocate for nuclear arms control treaties to believing that in the current climate Russia should be building and deploying a nuclear deterrence. When he first states this, Tremblay is so surprised that he asks Kozin to re-state his position.
If you wish to understand why Russia has delivered ICBM's to North Korea, listen to Kozin.
Forget the Baby and the Bath Water, Flush the Bath Too
Now, before everyone starts panicking, don't. Putin is not unhinged, and is very cautious with nuclear policy. I would be extremely surprised if North Korea will be able or allowed to arm one of the Topol-M's with nuclear warheads. Dummies, yes. Real ones, no. However, this information is intended not to be public or known to western intelligence either. We can assume that CIA/MI-6/Mossad will be desperately trying to find out, and so the intelligence/counter-intelligence game will be played, which is all fine and dandy.
Rather than panicking, I am extremely alarmed. These two gentlemen, Ritter and Kozin are taking a position echoed by others also far wiser and more knowledgeable than I, like McGovern, on this topic. We got through the Cold War without a nuclear armageddon because of the common-sense and bravery of a few officers and "dumb luck" (to bring title-image holder Minerva McGonagall into the narrative). We are currently in an even worse situation than the later part of the Cold War, with no strategic arms or intermediate nuclear forces treaties while the idiots behind the powers that shouldn’t be in US/NATO are charging like a bull at nuclear armed Russia and China.
I'm unaware of China's nuclear posture though expect it echoes Russia's, which is that strategic nuclear weapons (i.e the BIG ones) will be used to defend against an existential threat.
This is exactly what the USA is doing in Ukraine and what it is about to do in the South China Sea/Taiwan. The lack of arms control treaties increases the likelihood of a mistake or miscalculation which would result in the armageddon which we have so far been so fortunate to avoid.
Sources
NOKO Kim Jong Un may meet Putin - Changing the World's Stage？ w⧸Ray McGovern, Napolitan interviews McGovern, Judging Freedom, 2023-09-05
Ukraine Shifting the World's Stage w⧸Col. Doug Macgregor, Napolitan interviews Mcgregor, Judging Freedom, 2023-09-05
Kozin & Ritter: Who's To Blame? Collapse of Nuclear Arms Treaties. What It Looks Like to a Russian, Tremblay interviews Ritter and Kozin, Dateline News and Conversation, 2023-08-25
This is a Alphabet/Google/Youtube property, so you’ll have to follow the link or download it [hint: yt-dlp]
US Government Threatens Writers With Heavy Fines if They Continue To Write for Sanctioned Russian Outlet, Natalyie Baldwin, Antiwar, 2021-12-07
Strategic Culture: From Clausewitz to Constructivism [PDF], Jeffrey S. Lantis, Intelligence Resource Program: Federation of American Scientists / SAIC, 2006-10-31
Strategic Culture Foundation, the “Russian Think Tank” publication.
Note: They had their .org domain disowned from them. The .su is their new DNS home.
Strategic Culture Foundation, Wikipedia what the west has to say about them.
Culture
Contrary to regular advice, the video is a key part of this performance, as well of the audio. As a skilled cellist I know has said, we are fortunate that this performance was recorded. du Pré is a masterful cellist. Her entire body embraces her instrument to render Dvořák’s composition.
Jacqueline du Pré - Dvořák Cello Concerto – London Symphony Orchestra cond. Daniel Barenboim, uploaded by blue8348 on 2017-10-24
Comment policy: On topic, no abuse.