This is precisely the point number of us, recall mine and Larry's statements on this matter, made constantly. I described the new paradigm on strategic weapons for years--here is one of those. Similarly, Scott concludes:
Keep also in mind a dramatically accelerating gap between the US and Russia in anti air/missile defense, especially against the background of astonishing performance of air defense systems in SMO, which provides crucial boost in the development of already vastly superior Russian AD/ABM systems with S-500 and S-550 being in serial production. Those systems are also the part of the equation because now they are beginning to have a massive mitigating effect on any plans on first decapitating strike by the US on Russia. In simple words, these system and those which are coming soon can blunt dramatically effect of any attack on Russia. The US has nothing comparable to that and is, obviously, lagging dramatically in hypersonic weapons. Read the whole piece by Scott, it is excellent, and this growing gap may open a possibility for a suicidal act from the US when it finally grasps what I am on record for years--the arms race is lost and the technological gap is absolutely massive.
This posture has zero relation to ethics or love of peace--it is a measure to somehow slow down the development of Russia's new strike technologies and to get access through inspections to at least some Russia's advancements. Reducing risks of nuclear exchange, of course, is good under any circumstances but let's not forget about technological gap which is growing between Russia and US in this field and I expect the growth only to accelerate.
Recall, both me and Larry spoke about this on many occasions: it is not just about warheads and delivery systems, it is also about mitigating the strike. Here the US is not even in the same league, and serial deployment of S-500 which has practically full blown Anti-ICBM capability and of something we didn't see yet, including A-235 Nudol getting ready to become mobile, not to mention laser weapons development, are the means to greatly mitigate US deterrent. The US has no answer to this and that drives this desire to negotiate without any preconditions. Plus, China's deterrent figures prominently in those desires. Speaking of which.
And these are just some issues pertaining a complete overhaul of global balance of power and this wouldn't have been compete without Ben Wallace parading himself and UK as clowns, with this dude embarrassing himself and UK's "elite producing machine", Sandhurst including, because they, evidently, do not study real war there anymore. Speaking to WaPo (behind the paywall) this proud product of British military "school" (or kindergarten) didn't exclude the possibility of 404 taking Crimea back when "Russia will run out of required equipment". Boy, they do grow them dumb in London. Well, what do you expect from the military establishment whose only war-making capabilities are reduced to false flag SAS operations, killing civilians and conducting terrorist acts. As rumor has it (I have no independent confirmation) a number of British officers have been killed in Kiev during Russia's latest missile strikes. Medvedev's recent statement gives a hint of sorts that Russia is now in business of reducing the numbers of NATO "advisers" in 404. London in general, and Wallace in particular still do not understand the significance of this picture, and continue to make mistake by misidentifying themselves in it.
In the end, using Premier League analogy--in the game of geopolitics, Russia is Manchester City, UK is a weekend amateur team of employees of local post-office competing against teams from local brewery and meat packing factory. Or, using a purely British, Kiplingian analogy--Tabaqui. I warned about this 7 years ago. As classic Soviet cartoon Mowgli portrayed it:
Or as the common wisdom has it--one has to play in a proper league. Otherwise it ends with this;
I couldn't resist, LOL. I am sure Rio Ferdinand never experienced such a prostate exam, performed by Carlos Tevez, before or ever since.
Translation:Indeed, there is practically no reason for optimism. Our Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov continues his contacts with Americans. We would like to see the effectiveness of these contacts to be higher, considerably higher. There is a big potential (reserves) here.
Ryabkov himself stated that he doesn't know: "based on what does American side make statements on soon to be achieved agreement on arms control?" Lie, it seems, permeates whole American political, cultural, media, scientific, economic, foreign policy discourse. American politicians, journalists, "scientists", analysts, diplomats, military lie non-stop, about everything, under any circumstances. They lie, only to have their their lies debunked immediately, to their faces, but they continue to lie, looking into the eyes of people who know absolutely that they are being lied to. There is nothing real left in America anymore, everything is an illusion, a pretense of a functioning society, economy, political establishment. And everybody lies, including "scientists" (as was demonstrated in my post yesterday). It is bizarre, it is worse than in USSR, it begins to approach levels of brainwashing of Maoist China or North Korea.
I said it many times, I will repeat again, Russia IS NOT negotiating those "ineffective", "improbable", "non-existent" weapon systems which the United States desperately tries to get its hands on. Russia (USSR) trusted the West in late 1980s only to be lied to and cheated. Russians are good students. The United States is non-agreement capable, Marshal Billingslea is laughed at in Russia as if being a clown (clown craft requires better skills than those of US "diplomats"). The next step, after October 18, a formal expiration of UN arms embargo on Iran:
In an interview with Iran’s
Resalat newspaper on Sunday, Russia’s ambassador to the country, Levan
Jagarian, affirmed that he would have “no problem” selling the air
defense systems as soon as the United Nations arms embargo on Iran
expires Oct. 18.
It seems the decision has been made in Kremlin, since Jagarian's statement is merely a corroboration of what Lavrov stated earlier this week that once arms embargo expires on 18th, well, it will not be just S-400. Of course, SU-30SM(2) are on the shopping list as well as such items as russified SSJ-100 New, and other items which Iran desperately needs. As I already stated, Russia doesn't give a flying fvck anymore about West's "sanctions", as I said earlier, look at how Russia decouples from Europe. There is very little to discuss with combined West. You simply do not talk to BSers and, yes, nobody really gives a shit what Israel thinks. She was given a "good deal" by Russia, but, as I always say--Russia is not there to save people from themselves. Israel put her bets on the US, helped to corrupt and subvert American political discourse and modified US foreign policy from being simply bad into one unmitigated disaster, so, she kind of had it coming for Tel-Aviv, or Jerusalem or what have you. Let them enjoy. As for American politicians and diplomats, as good ol' saying goes: you see their lips (or Twitter) moving, this is how you know they are lying. Rephrasing famous Descartes' dictum: I am lying, therefore I am living.
As I say non-stop, unless one rehearses to go out on the stage of the Saturday Night Life for some absurd, and long ago stopped being funny, skit, this whole START "business" doesn't even qualify for a minimally amusing routine. One doesn't talk in ultimatums to the only power on Earth which can turn D.C. into parking lot even without nuclear weapons but these simple skills are beyond the grasp of American "diplomacy". Lack of culture and sophistication in D.C. prevents them from understanding a simple principle which is: ultimatums tell more about the side which issues them, much more and are the first sign of desperation and weakness in a dyadic relations between US and Russia. Russia is not compromising on her arsenal, in fact, something tells me she is holding something back. To be revealed when the time comes.
Pompeo, in his interview to Bild (in German), declared the creation of anti Nord Stream 2 "coalition". This is not news and Russia is pretty nonchalant about it. Obviously it is all about US LNG, which MUST go to Europe, both to finance US ailing economy and kill any prospects for already barely competitive EU products. It is between Germany and the US. It is all boring. And, really, did anyone think that Russians will react otherwise to ultimatums? I know, I know, history is not a strong point in D.C. but they should really refresh it once in a while. I mean real history, not narratives.
And Jesus Christ was an American and was born in Kalamazoo, MI. It is a well-known fact. So Donald Trump, evidently briefed by his utterly competent and crushingly precise aids, knows now that:
Absolutely, and, in fact, Yuri Gagarin was American too as are 3M22 Zircon and Avangard hypersonic system. Here is a video of Vladimir Putin congratulating and honoring a Chief Designer of Avangard system Gerbert Efremov.
But as we all know, mathematics and physics were also invented in the United States and I am sure Trump will be briefed on this crucial fact shortly. But jokes aside, one can cut US desperation with the knife, this how dense and tense this desperation is. Spinning Bullshit, the only skill US pundits have, can go only so far, then cognitive dissonances, some of them extremely severe, begin their onset and people start experiencing all kinds of psychological and psychiatric disorders.
There are fields in which the United States will never have advantage over Russia, in the best case scenario for the US, plus there are many fields in which the United States is not a competitor for Russia. Here is one such field:
Obviously a use of such terms as "aggression" is one such sign of a hysteria in the top echelons of American power and soon, even commercial space launches by Russians, including missions to ISS will also be termed as "aggression". We all know, that any loss in any field by the US is always a result of Russia's aggression. Remember B-737 Max and Boeing fvcking things up in the worst possible way? All was a result of Russia aggression. Do you know that commercial aircraft MC-21 is an exhibit A of Russian aggression. Russians are especially aggressive in energy or in Russia's education (that is altogether--a crime against humanity) which in STEM is a direct competitor to the US and even phony university "ratings" do not work anymore. Russian cities are extremely aggressive, because Moscow's and St. Pete's art and culture scene makes NYC look like a fvcking Wanker County fair. Everything is Russian aggression, including, of course, Russian aggression being responsible for US losing every single war in the last 25 years, having no functioning political system, and American elites being represented primarily by morons.
But the field where Russian aggression reached its peak is the field of weapons, because, in act of criminal Russian aggression, Russia's military history and experience dwarf that of the United States and Russians simply produce better weapons than the US. They have to. As a result the United States is not even a viable competitor in few key military fields ranging from Air Defense Systems to high supersonic and hypersonic missile technologies. They never were for the last 50 years and the lag in these main strike weapons of modern and future war is not just huge--generational, really--it grows. US is desperate to stop advanced weapons' development in Russia, and, in his interview to Russia's ultra-liberal Kommersant (in Russian), Marshall Billingslea wasted 10 minutes of my valuable life time bloviating on the matters of START treaty extension, threatening Russia with new....whatever, and speaking in pseudo-strategic platitudes, which Russia, most likely, will ignore. Why shouldn't she, especially knowing that no discussion on serious matters is possible with the US. Non-agreement-capable, period. BTW, one of the funny features about Billingslea--his original Bachelor's Degree is in...History of Arts. Get it, boys and girls? His formative humanly and academically years he spent studying useless crap, which provides zero background for any productive activity.
US desperately needs all Russia's hypersonic weapons to be put under the umbrella of the US "inspections" and a treaty which will afford the US at least hypothetical chance at countering them. This is not going to happen since Russia is not the USSR and Putin is not Gorbachev. Plus, what is most important, and I already mentioned it--US lag in modern weapon systems is generational. Yes, the United States can still create some advanced enabler technologies such as satellite constellations, advanced combat networks, proceed with advancement of Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), may still build advanced state-of-the-art platforms such as US submarines, but these are platforms and enablers. They mean little without weapon systems they enable and carry. Some American military porn internet resources already count SM-6 AD missile as a "standard anti-shipping missile" on US Navy's Arleigh Burke-class DDGs. Really? Introduction of yet another "wave" of US and Norwegian subsonic anti-shipping missiles is hailed as some kind of a milestone, which it is not. So what that LRASM/JASSM is capable of EECM? Good ol' P-700 Granit already carried ECCM suites in 1970s. Every Soviet (forget modern Russian) AD complex starting from Osa-M always had anti-surface attack mode as its reserve function. For lay people this may not sound important, but during 080808 war with Georgia, one of the Russian Black Sea Fleet's small missile ships sunk Georgian missile boat not by its main missile but by salvo from its Air Defense Complex Osa-M.
As I am on record non-stop for years, US "defense" (in reality military aggression) issues are not just in technological field, some of the US technology is good. It is in understanding a war for what it is. NO US serviceman even fought in defense of his country, town, family. This is the main, metaphysical, reason why US top brass, once a generation which saw serious war departed, could never grasp an essence of the warfare, because they have no grasp what would happen if they lose not just the war, the US has a great record of that, but what they treasure in life. This is the obstacle which cannot be overcome by inventing some new fighting doctrine or by regurgitating same ol' and beaten to death strategic and operational truisms. One has to start thinking differently but that is precisely what is lacking in the decision-making circles in the US today, where reality and fantasy long ago lost a clear demarcation line between the two. Well, it is inevitable in the country where one of the main voices in defining military policy include such people as a graduate of a History of Arts program or a comic and con-artist. I guess, in the world of fantasy and fakes those skills are sufficient.
START Treaty is dead, because of the US exceptionalism, I mean, because of US political class being exceptionally arrogant and exceptionally incompetent, if not outright dumb. Marshall Billingslea is your typical product of the US law "education" machine and political career within swamp. Serving as an aid to late Jesse Helms alone qualifies a man for a serious observation by experienced psychologist but that is only half the problem. The issue is larger and it is that realistically it is impossible to teach US upper power echelon anything because it makes shit up as it goes to experience a constant gratification from own aggrandizement, a perpetual orgasm, of sorts, and one does not negotiate with such people. So, this dude came up with the set of conditions for extension of START Treaty, which, everybody understand the United States wants dead and works hard for that. He spoke to Washington Examiner and declared:
There is no need to debunk this obvious newspeak, but some retrospective is needed here--obviously the United States, at the peak of own, grossly talked up, unipolar moment in 2002 decided to quit 1972 ABM Treaty--one of the most important building blocks of the arms control system. But here is a clue, in 2002 Bush Jr. Admin thought itself to be very righteous and very competent--a defining characteristic of US body politic. They, and their in-house lawyers and corridor generals, thought that the end of history has arrived and US was well on its way to a complete "democratic" global dominance--a typical mode of thinking, or, rather lack thereof, by the whole highly concentrated cabal of all kinds of geopolitical, military, economic and what have you "experts" abusing their sinecures inside the Beltway think-tankdom. Well, it is not 2002 anymore and some hard cold military-technological realities begin to dawn even on all those career bureaucrats in, now, Trump Admin.
The reason to a Billingslea's bloviation about START is not even China and preposterous desire to make her a party to this treaty, despite the fact that even if to consider a degree of misinformation about the actual size of Chinese strategic nuclear arsenal emanating from Chinese themselves, China's arsenal still remains well below massive nuclear arsenals of Russia and US. But, obviously, nobody in Trump Administration ever heard of weight categories in boxing, power lifting and wrestling. The real, also well know, reason for this patent BS from US Department of State is this:
The two systems covered by the treaty are the new Sarmat
intercontinental ballistic missile and the Avangard hypersonic missile
stage, a maneuvering nuclear or conventional warhead delivery system. Three other new weapons include a new
air-launched ICBM called Kinzhal; and the Burevestnik, a
nuclear-powered, nuclear-tipped subsonic cruise missile. That new
missile blew up during a test in August, killing several Russian arms
developers and spreading radiation in the White Sea. The last new strategic weapon is a drone submarine armed with a large nuclear warhead capable of blowing up ports.
Here is the real deal. As I stated not for once, and even wrote a book on this issue, main concern is a dramatic shift in geopolitical power balance that Kinzhal and Burevestnik provide even merely in a conventional, non-nuclear that is, variants. Burevestnik (Petrel) is a weapon which assures that no one who makes a homicidal decision to unleash a global war, while sitting it out somewhere in Patagonia or in New Zealand, will feel safe from, as it is becoming known, Mach=6+ justice capable to wait for attack for days in the air. In general, this weapon is for cooling heads trying to save their asses in the Southern Hemisphere, in addition to its already wide range of purely military applications globally. Per Kinzhal--it was discussed so much and on so many occasions that I simply see no reason to concentrate again of the weapon which changed naval warfare forever. Wait for 3M22 Zircon getting to IOC by the end of this--start next year and you may confidently add this too to the list. The issue is a dramatic lag of the United States in hypersonic weaponry and anti-air and anti-missile defense. In other words, the US lost arms race in these and other key fields of military (or dual use) technology. There is simply nothing out there which can compete with something like S-400, not to speak of S-500, forget about Nudol, US has NO supersonic missile weapons, it certainly doesn't have any viable hypersonic technology and I can continue with this list for a long time.
In one of the more remarkable demonstration of the depth to which US military-industrial complex fell in the last decades is the fact that the US Navy for years hasn't been able to come up with a viable design for a frigate and was forced to resort to an Italian (Finkantieri) design of what essentially is a FREMM class frigate. It is a nice ship and the US Navy made a choice in favor of this ship. These are unprecedented developments which can not obscure the fact, that even with the most of hulls and equipment of the American origin, this frigate follows in the wake of a technological and fighting doctrine catastrophe of a ship-class known as LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) known in US Navy as self-propelled 57-mm gun. If that wasn't enough, latest revelations about F-35 not being capable to fly super-sonic without damaging itself, only underscore a major clusterfvck that US technological "expertise" has become and underscores neurotic, delusional and arrogant statements from US political top, which was, most likely, briefed on a simple fact that the only default position for the US in a new world is to build as many nuclear ICBMs as possible and even this position is untenable, once one takes a look at the US economy.
As is often the case, under such circumstances US "elites" resort to lying and stealing, so much so that even Russia's Foreign Ministry today officially demanded from Trump Administration to stop lying about WW II (in Russian). Daniel Larison may lament the upcoming death of the START and Trump's China "diversion", but behind all this hustle in D.C. ranging from perpetual sanctions' war, to losing one war after another, to killing START to lying about WW II is a reaction of sore losers who desperately want to see and feel themselves important and powerful. Same as Barbara Jean Trenton from Twilight Zone Episode "Sixteen-millimeter Shrine", in which aging movie star still pretends to be a young starlet capable to play roles of young lover, forgetting that she lives not in 1934 but in 1959. I know, reality is a bitch and US political top has neither class, nor competence, nor education to understand that making grandiose demands and statements they increasingly look like clowns or Barbara Jean Trenton. But I am on record, for years now, that most of those people have no concept of causality and that every act has consequences.
ADP National Research Institute report on unemployment is out and it is devastating:
As a result, which is strange (it should be really high because the worse off is the country, the better are earnings /s) Dow Jones even dipped couple of points into the negative territory. By far more important is a new normal--a chaotic behavior of oil prices which grow, then fall, then grow again, and which is, I guess, a "normal" behavior for the so called "free" (free from any responsibility) market. As it stood in the morning: Urals was up, the WTI was down--a mixed bag.
It is obvious that the devastation--and we still do not know the full extent of it--at the labor market is a decisive factor in erratic behavior of everything and of nearly everybody, especially against the background of some Green Berets obviously losing their bearings and trying to...
I think watching too much Hollywood and fighting Arab and Afghan peasants in sandals armed with AK-47s, under the umbrella of own Close Air Support, may have created a false sense of own invincibility among perpetrators, but judging by this "operation", one has to seriously question not only professional but mental merits of people who planned it. I merely scratch my head in disbelief--what the fvck were those people thinking? Venezuelan Armed Forces may not have intercontinental ballistic missiles and satellite constellations, but they sure as hell have radars, night and IR vision, patrols, even aviation and modern communications and know how to use them precisely for the purpose of tracking all kinds of strange people from the the US and its "allies" (Columbia, anyone) around itself. Russians may have helped also, but that is just me speculating. Even more astonishing is the reward which whoever planned this BS offered to them--between $50 and 100K for taking airport and facilitating Maduro's transfer to the US? Dude, they framed you for the price of the fvcking new 2020 Ford 150 Limited Truck. That's it? Boy, the going rate for "regime change" mercenaries, certainly, went down as of lately.
Where are those wonderful times when Arnie, totally out of fatherly duties and love, would go out completely alone and kick the ass of a battalion or two of all kinds of international (and domestically grown) commandos.
I miss those times, including the times when Alicia Milano was merely a charming child, not four-wheel drive feminist bitch supporting Hillary and advocating for vegan lifestyle, yes, by endorsing America's main vegetable Joe Biden. You see, everything is falling apart, but who cares, right? As long as stocks go higher, the ADP report will be forgotten in a couple of days, until next report. At least we know couple of unemployed Green Berets are now off the US government balance and are provided three hot square meals in whatever high security Venezuelan facility they are being held on charges of being complete morons. At least they can thank God for being in Venezuela, not in some Taliban underground prison.In other news, Pompeo called Lavrov, again, and "discussed" issues of Arms Control (in Russian). Obviously, "the forms must be obeyed" before the United States kills START. And it will kill it and then... and then what? Judging by the "quality" of operational planning demonstrated in Venezuela, one should seriously ask the question if the United States will kill itself first before killing everybody else.
Kyle Mizokami, who "blessed" many of us at some point of time with his "expert" opinions while writing for tabloid The National Interest, does it again. This time in Popular Mechanics. He, obviously, doesn't get, which is expected from the guy with some funny background in some "security", that the main issue are not some "hyper-sonic" weapons related to a rather bizarre concept of Prompt Global Strike but a completely different fruit altogether.
Based on that triviality, he concludes, that hypersonic weapons "are not accurate". There is one issue, though, with this whole "expert" opinion--not only those hypersonic weapons are very accurate and have confirmed their accuracy, but are already deployed on a combat duty. So, what's the problem then? The problem is that Mizokami writes about hypersonic gliders which in Russia are known as fully combat ready Avangard system and which the United States tried to create (still tries) under different programs. The fact that, as is now traditional, Mizokami has no idea what he is writing about is mentioning of GPS. Sure. But Mizokami, he is an "expert" after all, must know that both in ballistics and hypersonic weapons (call it a hunch) one of the main correction channels is optronic one, including, but not limited to, capability to get celestial correction, as well as final capture (lock) of the target. But even this is not the main point. The main point is THIS:
One may ask a question--WHY? It is a good question and part of the answer to this question is undeniably fiscal. The United States realistically is bankrupt, while its technology, even a good one as those handsome Arleigh Burke-class DDGs, is insanely expensive. This is to put it politely. But the other huge part of the answer is in this passage:
Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and senior fellow at the
Hudson Institute, said the cuts were a necessary step. Clark recently
authored a study with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments
that called for canceling the DDG service life extensions. “It’s
crazy to throw good money after bad for a bunch of ships you say you
don’t need,” Clark said. “I think the Navy is coming to grips with the
fiscal realities; the unsustainable nature of their current plan; and
the recognition it is going to have a need for fewer large surface
combatants in the future and needs to husband its resources to build a
larger fleet of smaller surface combatants. Those are going to be the
bulk of the distributed force they intend to have.”
Ah, that is much-much warmer. The reason for that is a simple fact that large and expensive surface combatants are not survivable in the modern naval combat, unless they have weapon systems which can fight REAL hypersonic weapons such as fully combat ready and deployed Kinzhal, 3M22 Zircon or even nearing M=5 X-32 anti-shipping missiles. That is the real hypersonic threat, not those exotic Avangard gliders which merely exist to forestall the appearance in the future of similar systems in the United States and, if it ever materializes (I doubt it, but who knows) some sort of strategic anti-missile system. Unlike Avangard, which is a nuclear deterrent, another one in Russia's arsenal, Kinzhal, X-32 and Zircon are actual weapons designed specifically to fulfill a classic Sea Denial (or, if one wants an exercise in Pentagonese from me--Battle Space Denial) in both conventional or nuclear variants. They, not the Avangard, are the weapons which, being tactical-operational ones, achieved already a strategic and even doctrinal effect and these weapons are extremely precise. United States knows that. Liana, as Shoigu reported recently, namely last Peon NKS is nearing completion (in Russian), that's what is going to complete creation of Liana, which will (already does) provide detection, tracking and targeting for hypersonic and supersonic weapons against any targets.
Same way as creation of modern rifles and machine guns forced infantry to abandon linear tactics and reduce its battlefield "footprint" by spreading (distributing) itself over distance, inevitably same distribution over area, including reduction in size and, inevitably, tightest control of emissions is one of the ways for surface combatants to increase their chances of survival against weapons which cannot be stopped and will not be stopped for some fairly long time by the US Navy. This is why, the United States lacking those capabilities, is destroying START treaty by demanding to include in it such weapon as Kinzhal. US also increasingly nuclearizes its own posture precisely because it lacks those conventional capabilities. Russia was ready to talk about Avangard and even offered a "discussion" on Kinzhal, but all those "discussions" today come with many strings attached and price to be paid, and Russia, certainly, is not discussing Zircon. The United States is not ready to pay this price. This is the point Mizokami misses when discussing hypersonic gliders, which are not even that important against the background of a real RMA which completely changed power balance globally.
In related news, it will be Severodvinsk, not Kazan, which was initially planned, to launch Zircon soon (in Russian), while Admiral Gorshkov will continue testing of this weapon this year. Several launches are announced. Zirconization of the Russian Navy proceeds apace. Well, that, plus global de-petrodollarization. We are at the threshold of the brave new world, or should I say: Brave New World? No, not Huxley's novel, but Iron Maiden's album, wink-wink;) Judging by modern day "experts" this future seems assured for us and it will require a lot of bravery to face it.
1. Trump and his Administration are trying the only trick they know--to bully and apply max pressure (threats) to get whatever they seek (such as China joining, why?) and then, in the last minute, extend START Treaty. It is obvious that this so called "policy", if it is indeed A policy, doesn't work and will not work with Russia, not to speak of China whose nuclear arsenal is much smaller than that of US or Russia's;
2. Trump, actually wants START to expire--the point of view which I hold so far--which will untie America's hands in building up the only real power tool she has left, nuclear weapons. It is because the United States lost a conventional "arms race", albeit I don't like this term and prefer "being late" for the Real Revolution in Military Affairs.
As was stated many times, the field in which the United States currently may have some extremely narrow lead or barely parity with Russia is in SOME, I underscore, only SOME, enablers in terms of American developed computational abilities, which derive from still impressive semi-conductor (microchip) industry. Sure, but, as I also repeat ad nauseam, no matter how good your enablers are, if they do not command state-of-the-art weaponry, their value drops dramatically. E.g. LRASM may be everything it is stated to be, long-range, stealthy, smart anti-ship cruise missile, but it is still sub-sonic weapon whose parameters allow modern AD systems develop firing solution, in the worst case scenario, within very few seconds (implying LRASM being detected already within radio-horizon). Consider this simple fact, Russia readies Pantsir SM with hyper-sonic (that is M=5+) missiles which will have no problems dealing with high super-sonic or even low hype-sonic targets at ranges of 40 kilometers, not to speak of a slow subsonic targets even in salvo, since hyper-sonic interceptor missiles shorten the "busy" time of a missile-control channel of AD system dramatically, thus allowing to switch to dealing with other incoming threats much faster.
This is just a simple example, there are plenty of those, not to mention open admission by leading Russian specialists in early-warning and radar technologies, such as NPO Vympel's own Sergei Boev, about ROFAR (or Radio-photonics) systems getting ready soon to be deployed. Go to minute 31:00 in the video (in Russian). So, no matter how productive one's computer is, if it cannot control weapons capable to reliably, with good level probability, say Pk=0.7 and higher, kill the target it doesn't matter how sophisticated your microchip is, let alone how much your enabler costs--in real war with the peer it will be reduced to a passive expensive equipment. No American weapon in existence can intercept any modern Russian missile systems such as already fully deployed strategic Avangard or anti-shipping (or land-attack, depending on the task) M=9+ Kinzhal or just successfully tested 3M22 Zircon. So, let's drop any pretense of politeness here and admit that in a strategic sense the United States currently is in a very unenviable position, to put it mildly. The nation which US "elite", at least its largest part, and we can state this confidently, hates viscerally, Russia that is, not only called US strategic bluff, but doing so revealed a very real "missile gap" which for the United States will be very difficult, if possible at all, to narrow, forget about closing it.
So, what's left then for the United States under these conditions? Right, bluff again--because it is the only thing which is left for an enormously expensive and highly ineffective American military machine. One of this bluffs is actual expiration of the START and then attempts to nuclearize US "posture" to the utmost, including manufacturing whatever the strategic and mid-range nuclear missiles the United States will be able to afford and hoping that Russians will buckle and submit to the American demands. Right. It is all from the same opera as current NATO exercise Defender 2020, which is built around "Kaliningrad" scenario and Russians already voiced their concern with this NATO "defending". The essence of the concern is not that some 40, 000 NATO troops can "capture" Kaliningrad exclave--they can't, unless they want to sustain catastrophic casualties--but in the fact that desperate bunch of losers in NATO who cannot win a single war in generations and are clamoring for showing NATO's (that is US presence in Europe) "relevance" may accidentally cross the line and force Russia to, indeed, rearrange stones both at NATO's front lines and in a deep rear. That, of course, reeks of a possibility of a nuclear exchange because the United States (other NATO members are military dwarfs) is inherently nuclear-biased nation because it knows, at least some in Pentagon do, that it cannot fight and win conventional conflict against Russia in her geographic vicinity in a classic combined arms warfare scenario.
Thus, the United States will continue on a path towards complete nuclearization of its foreign policy, because at this stage the Empire has very little in terms of what can actually fight and win a conventional war with real opponent. Such a posture requires all strategic nuclear weapons limitations treaties to be disposed of. Plain and simple, but that goes far into the American history as a nation which didn't realize itself as a continental military power. Without this realization, even considering American glorious and rich naval history and global naval supremacy in the late XIX and good part of the XX century, we should always remember geopolitical strategic truism: the seat of the government is always on land--just ask Russians, they know.
Despite being one of the people behind The National Interest magazine which is, for all intents and purposes, a tabloid and a laughing stock due to its utterly ridiculous opinions (bar few far and between competent ones) on matters of warfare. In fact, Dmitri Simes was one of the victims of slander by the Russiagate-mongering media whores. But Simes' problem is a bit more complex--for years he was commenting on US polices to Russian audiences and that is where I always had issue with him and points of view he was trying to present as some kind of range of interpretations of views by some invisible Washington elites who arrived to those views as a result of rational thought based on understanding of the American national interest (no pun intended). Each time I watched Simes trying to explain this I had an urge to tell him to drop the pretense of expertise and face the reality that the United States is run by literally imbeciles and corrupt petulant sociopaths.
Here is Simes yesterday at Putin's press-conference where he asks a question about START's extension. Watch how Putin comments on that.
It is extremely instructive and both implicitly and explicitly underscores a total lack of credibility of the United States in any issue of the international relations. Comments on Ukraine are especially amusing, because they are true. So, I don't know Simes' thought process but today any talk about sensible arms limitations treaties with the United States is a complete exercise in futility, as it was starting from Russia getting Crimea back as a result of US (and EU) sponsored bloody coup in Kiev in 2014. We are inside the increasingly hard global geopolitical clash the declining United States initiated as the last resort in trying to save it increasingly ethereal hegemony. The obvious problem, of course, is the fact that the US doesn't have any resources for such a serious clash. Before financial noose tightens completely--different analysts only vary in the time frame, not the ultimate outcome--Russia has all the time she needs to play "the forms must be obeyed" game, making sure that no global conflict erupts, that is NOT initiated by increasingly desperate United States. After that? I don't know, I don't think anybody knows, least of all American political class most of which never worked a day in productive capacity or served in any way or form in the military to have experiences with the real world, be that inside the US, let alone outside where the ignorance of American politicians became legendary. I guess, the look at Dmitri's face by the end of Putin's response could tell the story, even when considering the fact that Simes is generally not very emotional and is rather on a grim side most of the times. Dmitri Simes is not a stupid man by far but he should have seen what was coming and about what I warned five years ago.
After that, I just needed to document this defeat. I do owe one clarification, however, to my readers here--I take no joy in seeing the country, which gave us shelter and became our home in the times of humanitarian catastrophe in Russia (former USSR to be more precise) in 1990s and whose founding ideas shone so attractively then, degenerating into the third world dysfunctional politically and economically clone of some African or Latin American failed states. But maybe there is a degree of a poetic historic justice in that. I don't know.
Now thanks to our reader Eduardo, who provided the link (Thank you) to Phil Giraldi's blazing account of the state of the US military, I want to quote some. As you may understand and I never hid it, in fact, I spoke about it openly--my background prevents me, for ethical reasons, from too much of a focus on the actual state of US military. Phil does have this right, fully deserved. This is what he has to say:
Read it in full. It is worth reading. I said many times--political scientists do not make good geopolitical analysts because they do not have instruments required for understanding the main factor which shapes geopolitical balance--military power and warfare. Phil Giraldi has those instruments.
In the kingdom run by imbeciles this is possible, in fact it increasingly becomes not only highly probable but reaches a finite probability of happening of 1, or of 100%.
Firstly, these cretins do all they can to sabotage any kind of cooperation with Russia, including by means of national treason, accusing already incompetent POTUS of being Putin's personal asset, no less. Then they accuse Russia of some absolutely bizarre Orwellian shit, they insult Russia and Russian people non-stop and now, all of a sudden it dawns on at least some of them that you need to talk to Russia on START issues and you need to do it soon. La-dee-fvcking-da. Secondly, China is not interested and rightly so, she is nowhere near Russian and American levels of strategic weapons and any attempts to include China into START are foolhardy at best. Trump and his infested with neocons and chicken-hawks administration might have been more-or-less flexible and reasonable on this issue if not the position POTUS was put into thanks to House's own crowd of psychopaths who do sincerely believe that Russia is evil incarnate. Any attempts by POTUS to find sensible strategic weapons accommodations with Russia will inevitably be interpreted as an impeachable offense.
But thirdly, some "revelations", Putin did offer inclusion of Kinzhal and Poseidon into discussion on extension of START. It is obvious that Russia is not going to refuse these programs, especially when Kinzhal is already in its full combat capability and is operationally deployed. But Russia will be willing to discuss some limitations on these systems in numbers and a mode of deployment, What Russia is NOT going to negotiate is her brand new Sarmatand, such technologies as Peresvet. And here is one interesting speculative (read attentively--spe-cu-la-ti-ve) point I want to make. I seldom speculate but here it is, from the news piece:
Lawmakers, congressional aides and former officials say they are
unaware of the administration conducting any formal intelligence
estimates of the implications of New START's expiration either before or
after Trump unveiled the idea. Nor are they aware of extensive
inter-agency deliberations on devising a negotiating stance with China,
or even whether any negotiations with China have occurred.
I am positive there are some estimates but they are not released because this will create a massive political crisis (not that this Impeachment catastrophe is not bad enough) when it will be disclosed that the United States lost any edge in strategic weapons and lost arms race and are absolutely not defended from any strike. Russia's interest in START is purely security driven--the fewer nuclear weapons the United States have smaller is the probability of this technology going "rogue". Economic consideration is the important secondary one--Russia simply doesn't want to spent more money than necessary on matters of defense, while maintaining a serious technological edge. Ah yes, Peresvet. This month, Peresvetis officially combat deployed (in Russian). As Valery Gerasimov described this system when talking to military attaches from many nations:
«С начала декабря месяца осуществляется боевое дежурство лазерных
комплексов "Пересвет" в позиционных районах подвижных грунтовых ракетных
комплексов с задачей прикрытия их маневренных действий»
Translation:since the beginning of December laser combat complexes Peresvet are combat deployed in the positional areas of the mobile ground missile complexes (ICBMs) in order to cover for their maneuvers.
This is a very "loaded" statement for a reasons which pull very slightly the veil of secrecy over Peresvet's capabilities. There was very little doubt, once Peresvet was unveiled, that it would be more than capable to "blind" just about anything out there and, very likely, even recon satellites. But here is a trick--positional areas of mobile missile complexes such as RS-24 Yars, are a highest priority targets for US counter-force strategic weapons in first strike (Russia is not going to attack first). One can totally conceive here that in case of (God forbids) exchange when the US will lose targeting data from her recon satellite it wouldn't take much to launch at the positional area into the "last known" position of such system as Yars. Take the best case scenario of Yars' vehicles immediately reaching (not likely in real life) their maximum speed of 45 km/hr and having a map of possible roads of area, plus around 25-30 minutes of flight time by missile, so we are looking at a sector of the circle with the radius of 20 kilometers which could easily be "forked" by a few MIRVs from Trident-II D single missile. Do you get my drift? Yes, Peresvet is there to not just fight satellites, it is to allow all those mobile Topols and Yarses to launch undisturbed by means of not allowing MIRVs to get to them. How? Don't ask me. Russians, however, already announced that modernized and much more compact Peresvet will be paraded at the Red Square on May 9, very soon (in Russian). And this statement is also loaded.
Ask yourself a question now, how can one present US political top with an intelligence "assessment" which blows out of the water the whole notion of the American technological superiority, especially in the field which all those war-mongering creatures who never served a day in military uniform love to masturbate to--modern warfare. It is not Russia's capabilities, now generally well-known, and discussed million times in US media, in a feeble attempt to self-medicate, which matter, it is the lack of such in the US. Yes, of course, the United States still can annihilate the world several times over, the US Navy can still wreck havoc on the geographic fringe of any continent but that doesn't change the fact that if such a calamity visits upon the humanity, the United States will be annihilated with 100% probability under any existing scenario of global conflict, that is when the United States initiates it. Others will not do such a thing globally, certainly not Russia. In this particular case it becomes clear that it is both in US and world's interests to see START extended, if not--I write about "Revelation Mode" non-stop for the last couple of years.
Just to add to this topic. US News And World Report just recently published (yet another) power ranking of the nations. Russia came in second, obviously, behind the US. I just want to say--imbeciles: nations with GDP of $1.6 trillion do not make what Russia makes, especially in military field, and, yes, China's GDP is not $12.2 trillions, China's real economy dwarfs that of the US. But that just underscores my point--US elites are incompetent, ignorant and are not fit to run the country which they continue to push into the abyss. As long as the stock market driven by buybacks grows, I am sure, everything will be OK, right?
No really, as it turned out, Russians are not viewed by many in America as blood-thirsty interfererers in American democracy and genetically predisposed baby-eating monsters. Moreover:
You see how powerful Russian "propaganda" is? But I think the answer to this mystery is rather simple and the key word is "households". Yeah, yeah, you know those heterogeneous families which have to live not only with long separations but also with the danger of a family member being killed or maimed in Washington's non-stop wars of aggression. This is not your regular middle-class (if it still exists) sub-urban environment--it imposes completely different social, cultural and mental requirements for the family to survive. Now, consider the fact that Russians do not want to fight and speak about this openly and, yes, yes, did view at some point of time the United States as a natural ally--this moment is long gone. But Russians do not allow sodomy Internationale to destroy their own country and that could be (wink, wink) one of those factors too. But to any American who bothers to access Russian media, many of which are subbing in English, they may be culturally shocked by the fact that Russians do not hate, and in fact, sympathize with the average Americans and are keenly aware of the fact that Russia is facing US corrupt and aggressive "elites" who are the real enemy.
Now a short statement. Couple of days ago Deputy FM Ryabkov, later corroborated by Putin himself, offered to "discuss" (I underscore it) inclusion of Kinzhal and Poseidon systems in negotiations on the extension of the START. Calm down, if some of you read it as a "surrender" (I lost count how many times Russia "surrendered" in the last 10 years) it is not--discussion is not a limitation, a limitation is not a rejection and both Russian and American sides are keenly aware of the significance of especially Kinzhal. It is allegedly a non-strategic weapon which has even in conventional form a massive strategic effect by basically annulling all NATO's naval power as a start, it is capable of land-strikes too. I, personally, don't think that new START's extension will be signed, but it really does mean very little at this stage, plus I could be wrong, of course, but as they said in the Landsraad" "The forms must be obeyed."
Daniel Larison misidentifies motive, or, rather, doesn't go deep enough. He writes on Bolton's (of course his, Trump is merely a useful idiot in this) success in sabotaging START.
Bolton is against the treaty because it constrains and reduces the U.S.
arsenal. He is against arms control as such. He talks about more
ambitious, comprehensive agreements as a way to cover up the fact that
he doesn’t want arms control treaties to exist. This is not a case of
making the perfect the enemy of the good. It is feigning interest in
“something” better to conceal a desire for destruction.
And still fails to provide the main cause for Bolton's aversion to "reduction of the US arsenal". Yes, we know that Bolton is a chicken-hawk, and we all know his (some) personal qualities which are cowardice and being a beta-male, trying desperately to act out his deep rooted complexes of inferiority. We also know that Bolton is in the pockets of Israeli lobby and Military-Industrial Complex. It is all fine and dandy, but this description can easily be applied to very many (majority, really) people in US political "elites". The main reason for Bolton acting like this is the fact that he believes, as only incompetent people can in lieu of knowledge and sound judgement, in US still being capable to fight and win a war with Russia. This IS both motive and rationale for Bolton's aggressiveness--he really doesn't have a clue about what he is trying to push through. Him being a cuck is an ornament to his, otherwise, full ignorance of serious military-technological issues which drive arms control and evolution of weapons.
Indeed, Bolton is a lawyer by education and, thus, an ignoramus. He, certainly, as many in US government humanities-"educated" operatives, believes that the United States still can outproduce Russia in intercontinental ballistic missiles category, thus, in Bolton's view "winning" an arms race. Maybe even "bankrupting" Russia in the process. That is the thinking of an amateur--the number of times the United States can obliterate Russia (now, I believe it is either 6 or 7) over doesn't change the balance of power. Sure, the United States may go from capability to annihilate Russia 7 times over to being able annihilating her 12 times--this changes absolutely nothing in a dyadic (US-Russia) relation, because it is enough to "kill" the nation only once. After that, game changes. If Russia can obliterate the United States 5 times over, as opposed to US' ability to do so 7 or 12 times, something doesn't add up, in this case, in Bolton's desire to bury START--he is not THAT stupid not to understand this simple fact that cut-off for any strategic nuclear weapons is not 7, not 5 but just 1 time--it is enough to kill the nation once with nuclear weapons. But Bolton still needs this opening for increases in US strategic arsenal. Or maybe he IS that stupid?
Before answering this question we need to answer the other one: are 3M22 Zircon or Kinzhal "strategic" weapons? Technically--no. But realistically--yes. Project 885 Yasen-class SSGN armed with 16-20 nuclear (or even conventionally) armed 3M22 Zircons and "parked" somewhere within the several million square miles area near both US Coasts can deal damage to the United States approaching that by the launch of several SLBMs of Bulava-class by Borei-class SSBN. We live today in the age of a strategic ambiguity which came with real revolution in military affairs and Russia decidedly pulling ahead of the United States in cutting edge stand-off hypersonic precision weapons, both in conventional and nuclear variants. This is not to speak of anti-missile defense systems Russia already deploys. How far back is the United States in this race? I don't know, but I would suggest a generation of weapon systems. Can (I am not saying that he is) Bolton theoretically be aware of this situation, granted that he treats Pentagon as his own fiefdom? I assume some "news", as well (not optimistic) as the time frame for the United States catching up with Russia in this arms race, may have reached Bolton. In this case, demolishing START is an obverse side to admitting the loss in this arms race and trying to impress Russia with sheer number of US intercontinental (and medium-range, of course, with INF being demolished too) missiles--because there is NO quality there.
Russians do not particularly care about how many times over they will be annihilated by the U.S. strategic arsenal--7 or 107--Russians (those who have a professional military background) already know where they are with the next generation of weapon systems, as well as are aware of the increasing technological gap between Russia and the US in systems which really matter for actual war fighting, not just nuclear deterrence. And it is here, in the field of actual combat, where the unprecedented historically shift in military balance happened in the last few years. Or was it that unprecedented? Well, it is just the matter of personal opinion, or is it? No, I am being facetious. Numbers do not lie, that is when professionals handle them. The United States desperately needs some "response" to Russia and in attempts to find it it will inevitably further destroy its reputation, as well as will admit to the fact, by destroying yet another arms limitation treaty, that it has no viable answer to own strategic conventional (and nuclear) vulnerability and lost arms race of which I am writing for years now. So, Bolton may have faith in whatever he wants, including in the American military mythology, but the times when both countries had to, using Khrushchev's lingo, produce ballistic missiles "as sausages" are long gone and new counter-force capabilities are evolving really fast thus making any quantitative changes in ballistic missiles not as important as qualitative ones, including bringing on board competent and realistic American military and political leaders, not the types as Bolton, Pompeo and, in the end, possibly Trump himself.
