Nuclear Escalation: The Spite of the Exiting Biden Regime

Risking civilization, betting on Russian rationality

Published: 2024-11-23

Updated 2024-11-23: Corrected on the excellent information provided by a community member. An article by John Helmer on the Oreshnik “test” was added to sources.

Updated 2023-11-24: Added an important video from The Schiller Institute which includes a description by Scott Ritter of the technical components of the Oreshnik missile.

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Introduction

The Russian Security Council have been extremely concerned about the encroachment of US, nuclear capable weapons to the Russian Federation. Two mechanisms have been used by the US to perform these encroachments. The primary has been via NATO enlargement. Through this the US has been able to station nuclear capable weapons systems closer to the borders of the Russia Federation. The secondary mechanism has been through the US withdrawal from nuclear weapons treaties. The most alarming of these was the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty under the first presidency of Donald Trump.

Russia's overt entry into the civil war in Ukraine was motivated by numerous factors including strong domestic pressure to assist the peoples of Donbas against the impending ethnic cleansing by Ukraine's US armed and trained and neo-Nazi infested national military. Another major factor, which the Russian Federation attempted to address through the issuance of two draft security treaties, one to each of NATO and the US, was Ukraine's threatened inclusion in NATO. Those draft treaties, issued on 2021-12-15, were ignored by both NATO and the US. After France and Germany’s abrogation of responsibility for ensuring Ukraine implement the Minsk II Accords, this was par for the course. Russia tried anyway.

Ray McGovern was involved in the process of negotiating the INF Treaty. During the period which led to Russia's overt entry into then almost 8 year long civil war in Ukraine, he stressed Russian President Putin's extreme concern for these short flight time nuclear threats. He cited a press interview with Putin, in Russian, in which the president is questioned on the topic. Putin reveals his unease by the tone and manner of his response. It was sharp as opposed to his usual controlled demeanor.

The stress derives from these proximate nuclear threats. They reduce the decision making time available to a leader who is responsible for a nuclear arsenal from the 30 odd minutes when the threat is launched from the continental United States to 10 minutes or less when launched from Germany or Poland or Romania. 10 minutes is insufficient time to resolve mistakes in identification of an observed threat. What would the US do if Nicaragua had nuclear capable missile silos run by an aggressive, foreign, nuclear armed power?

Short flight time threats put these catastrophic weapons on hair trigger alerts, which is to nobody's benefit.

Throwing Hand-Grenades As One Walks Out the Door

The US executive recently agreed to provide the targeting packages required for US ATACMS missiles and UK Storm Shadow missiles for targets within the 1991 borders of the Russia Federation. As a response, on 2024-11-19 Russian President Putin signed into effect an update to their nuclear defense doctrine which had previously been described. Its primary change ascribes collective responsibility to military collectives for the actions of its individual member states. This widens target selection for Russia if it deems necessary a military response to a military provocation from a member of a military alliance. The choice expands from one state to any in the collective.

In response to ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles which were fired from Ukraine into Russia's 1991 borders using US provided targeting data, Russia launched a new, intermediate range missile, called Oreshnik (“the walnut”). The Oreshnik had six independent "Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles" (MIRVs) [*], each of which contained six submunitions. The Yuzhmash missile production factory in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine was targeted. The submunitions caused no visible light flashes or explosions on impact. Larry Johnson assesses that “the missiles, traveling at speeds upwards of 10 Mach, penetrated deeply into the ground, which means much of the damage is below ground.” Their lack of visible explosions happened to ensure that everyone got to see all 36 lightning impacts.

[*]: Ritter disagrees with this “MIRV” classification description. See sources. These are actually 6 fully independent missiles which just happen to use the same booster launch system. As noted, each missile also has 6 sub-munitions. He confirms the kinetic only damage design — no explosives.

Following the successful “test”:

President Vladimir Putin has announced that serial production of the new Oreshnik hypersonic, intermediate range, 36-warhead missile has commenced.

[from John Helmer]

The US missiles which were part of the provocation targeted a Soviet era weapons depot in Bryansk. The Russian Ministry of Defence reported that their missile defence systems destroyed 5 of the 6 US missiles. The sixth was reportedly struck but did impact. The actual damage caused appeared very limited. However, this was not the case for the 10 UK missiles (Storm Shadows with US provided targeting data) fired from Ukraine into the Kursk oblast. Some of these effectively reached their target which was an active Russian Military Command Post. Russian soldiers were killed by US targeted UK weaponry.

Dima, from Military Summary, reported those NATO missile attacks on Russia on 2024-11-20. He reported the Russian response, including video footage of the impact of the new missiles and their MIRVs (36 impacts), on 2024-11-21. Russian President Putin addressed the world at 20:10 Moscow time also on the 21st. Dave DeCamp from Antiwar also reported on the same day, US time, that Russia identified a NATO missile launch facility in Poland as a potential target should further provocations be issued by NATO states. Kyle Anzalone from The Libertarian Institute had reported on the opening of this provocative missile base in Poland, one week earlier.

Four months previous to that, Reuters reported that the US had agreed with Germany to deploy intermediate range nuclear capable missiles in Germany by 2026. The US nuclear threat escalation has been continuous and obvious.

Pissing off the Persians

On 2024-11-22 Jason Ditz from Antiwar reported that a vote "driven by the US, UK, and their allies" was initiated at the International Atomic Energy Agency (the U.N. intergovernmental agency for regulating the peaceful use of atomic energy). Its purpose was to rebuke Iran for "lack of cooperation". It was so unimportant as to not require a publication at the IAEA's website.

This vote was another example of the US abusing U.N. organisations for political purposes. For more on this, see the OPCW scandal, including John Bolton threatening its first Director Jose Bustani with assassinating his children.

Iran responded to the political abuse at the IAEA by declaring that it will both continue to allow inspections and bring on-line new centrifuges. The Biden administration achieved its purpose of the US legacy media reporting on the vote; an attempt to further ostracize Iran on behalf of the genocidal Zionists.

Returning to the Biden administrations actions related to Ukraine, on 2024-11-21 the New York Times issued a very convoluted article, from which Kyle Anzalone at Antiwar assessed that the US and partners had discussed providing nuclear weapons to Ukraine.

The NYT story acknowledged that:

Mr. Biden’s last-minute steps to give Ukraine weaponry it has been requesting for years are unlikely to change much on the battlefield.

Within its mumblespeak was this assemblage of words:

Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union. That would be an instant and enormous deterrent. But such a step would be complicated and have serious implications.

The first sentence declares that the 4 authors have no understanding of history. President Biden could not "return" nuclear weapons to Ukraine because the US did not "take [them] from it after the fall of the Soviet Union". Ukraine agreed with the Russian Federation to give up the Russian Soviet nuclear weapons which were stationed there. Those weapons required codes which only the Russians possessed. Without these, they were dangerous, nuclear waste.

Because the claims by the anonymous officials are false, so is everything which follows. This is pure, nuclear, scare tactics. It should be added to the abuse at the IAEA. They are deliberate emotional abuse based on fear mongering.

The Biden administration are throwing political hand-grenades into nuclear issues out of spite and to impede policies of the newly elected US administration. The NYT is facilitating these shenanigans, as one would expect.

one must consider the truly awful decision-making being initiated by the current governing regime of Democratic Party President Joe Biden now that the November 5^th election is over and Republican Party candidate Donald Trump has won convincingly. Now comes the reaction by Biden and his cohorts, where farce becomes tragedy, as Biden seeks to do whatever he can to limit the foreign policy and national security options that Trump will be able to exercise when he assumes office on January 20^th. It is politics at its most sordid in addition to being a formula for disaster with consequences that might easily lead to a nuclear World War 3 erupting both in Eastern Europe and in the Middle East.

[Philip Giraldi]

We can all be thankful that the Russian government is staffed with rational people. They understand what is happening. So do those 4 incendiary authors at the NYT who accurately summarized the insanity at the White House:

But the escalation risk of allowing Ukraine to strike Russia with U.S.-supplied weaponry has diminished with the election of Mr. Trump, Biden administration officials believe, calculating that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia knows he has to wait only two months for the new administration.

Yes, the outgoing Biden regime is firing missiles at Russia during the last two months of its rule because they think they can get away with it without triggering a nuclear war. They are calculating on Russia's rationality. Those fools happen to be correct.

The reason they are correct is not that which is spouted willy-nilly in US legacy media. Russia is not "bluffing" or "weak". Russia is, with BRICS and the SCO, playing the longer game. The US character, psyche even, does not understand strength in restraint. But, US military leadership does understand 36 unarmed warheads from 6 hypersonic missiles.

Warnings

The Pentagon was informed of the launch of the new Russia missiles in advance. This Russian caution was to avoid accidental nuclear misunderstanding. These new missiles are based on older models which may have been mistaken as nuclear armed. Russia safely tested its now demonstrated capability under combat conditions and destroyed an enemy missile production facility in the process.

The Pentagon will get a 30 minute warning next time, too.

Indeed, Russia has informed the world that if and when it feels forced to respond by targeting NATO facilities utilized by but outside of Ukraine it will issue a public warning. Nobody will need to be harmed when Russia destroys these future targeted military facilities in member states of military alliances which are attacking it.

But destroy those military targets Russia can, purely by adding some explosives to the Oreshniks. They could do far worse, as Prof. Ted Postol warned the Dialogue Works audience (see sources). If Russia desired, it could visit the devastation seen in Hamburg during WWII on the entirely of the German Republic.

Russia has no desire to use nuclear weapons. It wants more than 10 minutes to disambiguate a potential nuclear attack.

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Sources

Press release on Russian draft documents on legal security guarantees from the United States and NATO, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russian Federation, 2021-12-17

Executive Order Approving the Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence, Kremlin, 2024-11-19

Statement by the President of the Russian Federation, Kremlin, 2024-11-21

Russia Says US Missile Defense Base in Poland Is a Potential Target, Dave DeCamp, Antiwar, 2024-11-21

Report: US and European Officials Discussed Giving Ukraine Nuclear Weapons, Kyle Anzalone, Antiwar, 2024-11-22

Iran Announces New Centrifuges To Come Online After IAEA Rebuke, Jason Ditz, Antiwar, 2024-11-22

Trump's Vow to End the War Could Leave Ukraine With Few Options, NYT, Archive.today, 2024-11-22

US Opens Provocative Missile Base in Poland, Kyle Anzalone, The Libertarian Institute, 2024-11-14

US to start deploying long-range weapons in Germany in 2026, Reuters, Archive.today, 2024-07-28

Oreshnik - the 3 Km Per Second Plot Twist, Pepe Escobar, The Unz Review, 2024-11-22

Why These New Russian Missiles Are Real Game Changers, b., Moon of Alabama, 2024-11-22

ICC Sends a Message to Netanyahu, But US Insists It Won't Be Delivered, Larry C. Johnson, SONAR21, 2024-11-22

Let's Use Some Intelligence in Describing 'Long-Range' Missiles, Larry C. Johnson, SONAR21, 2024-11-21

A Week from Hell, Philip Giraldi, The Unz Review, 2024-11-22

The Ukraine War After The Penny Has Dropped - Make That The Oreshnik, John Helmer, Dances with Bears, 2024-11-23

Prof. Ted Postol Assessing Russian Attack on Ukraine by Hypersonic Missile [h8LvIkGkfes], Alkhorshid interviews Prof. Postol, Dialogue Works, 2024-11-22

Harvest Time🔥First ICBM Strike💥Velyka Novosilka Partially Encircled⚔️Military Summary For 2024.11.21 [hVrLEcxI7Wc], Dima, Military Summary, 2024-11-21

Harvest Time🔥 ATACMS & Storm Shadow Strike💥 West Braces For Retribution🌏 Military Summary 2024.11.20 [mZVHVUKH3s4], Dima, Military Summary, 2024-11-20

The Next 60 Days Will Be the Most Dangerous of Your Life — International Peace Coalition Meeting #77 [J1o_TmfjcS0], Scott Ritter and many others, The Schiller Institute, 2024-11-22

• Following an all to calm and accurate description of what a nuclear war looks like, including the nuclear winter from Prof. Steven Starr (U. Missouri) [starts 00:33:22], Scott Ritter describes the core of an upcoming article. He details the weapon used by Russia. It, believes Ritter, is kinetic. No explosives. No defense either. It is designed to destroy the launch facilities of the type opened in Poland which Anzalone reported on. Its development is a direct response to these dangerous, proximate, nuclear capable launch facilites.

• Ritter’s analysis begins at: 00:51:51. Note: he makes one name error. He obviously means Trump when he says Reagan, refering to the US withdrawal from the INF treaty in 2019.

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