Russian Generals Like to Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick, Americans Not so Much
The US generals speak more often publicly than our Russian ones. American generals are already part of the US political landscape. And again, at the end of the week, yet another one gave a speech. At the budget hearings in the House Committee on Military Forces, John Hyten, who's a chairman of the strategic command of the US Armed Forces, tried to reassure Congress. They were clearly agitated by Putin's annual message, in which the Russian President once again called on the US to sit down at a negotiating table to discuss strategic world stability. For the sake of persuasiveness, Putin reported on Russia's new capabilities to guarantee an ability to overcome the US global missile defense system. And here how General Hyten reassured the Congressmen.
John Hyten: "We're ready for all threats that are out there, and no one should doubt us".
Well, this is normal, a standard response. And further, the clarification:
John Hyten: "By the way, they don't know where our submarines are, and they're capable of destroying their country if we go down that path".
First, I daresay, Hyten doesn't know what we do and don't know. Pretty childish. Secondly, Putin was just talking about our ability to destroy the US in case of aggression, overcoming any missile barriers. But for Putin, this is an argument to start negotiations and reduce tension. But for the chairman of the US Strategic Command, General John Heiten, it's only an excuse to repeat that "we will destroy them, also" which is just as well. That is, Hyten is arguing for global suicide. that's really what it's called. And the US General John Hyten, chairman of the Strategic Command is trying to console everyone with this prospect of a global suicide. Way to go.
US Deputy Secretary of Defense, John Rudd, reported at similar hearings, but now in the Senate, that the US missile defense is incapable of withstanding the strategic forces of Russia and China. Someone is finally getting it. A group of Senators is now calling on US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, to begin a dialogue with Russia on the topic. But Tillerson is evading a meeting with Lavrov for now. And I even seem to understand why. After all, Trump proclaimed that the US will speak with the world only from a position of strength. And that only this position is effective. And then Putin told Americans something so big, that now they're no longer able to speak with us from a position of power. And that's why Tillerson is playing a game of hide and seek with Lavrov.
Our Foreign Ministry asked for the ministers to meet and the State Department responded that they supposedly didn't receive the request. We call this playing a fool. Sooner or later the meeting will take place because objectively, it's now necessary for everyone. It corresponds to the existential, that is, US vital interests.
In the history of our relations, right now is a stage when it will be necessary to agree. I'm sure. And this is why. When the Americans first invented the atomic bomb, and that was by the end of WWII, the legendary Briton, a model of British nobility, Winston Churchill, immediately began to persuade US President Truman to drop the atomic bomb on the Kremlin. Truman didn't dare, but nevertheless decided to drop the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Japan was the one who got it. Although the decisive argument was to intimidate Soviet Russia. "The United States is at the peak of world power," Churchill announced in March of 1946. And he urged: "On the basis of the military strength of the English-speaking world, to find mutual understanding with Russia. Then the main road to the future will be clear not only for us but to everyone, not only in our time but also in the next century."
And here we are in the next century. And since then, West's relations with Russia somehow didn't turn out well on the basis of military power. The peace was preserved thanks to the equality of nuclear capabilities. Any emerging imbalance was followed by a threat to everyone. And neither side allowed the other to get too far ahead. So in 1949, the USSR tested its own atomic bomb.
Then the Americans went after much more powerful thermonuclear weapons. They were the first to explode such a device in November 1952 on the Enewetak Atoll. But it was a fixed set-up. Only 8 months later, in August 1953, the USSR tested the world's first hydrogen bomb, capable of being carried by airplane.
"The raging explosion destroys all military equipment within a 4 km radius".
It was a completely Russian development with an original "Tsar-configuration". In 1961, at the Novaya Zemlya test range, we tested the hydrogen "tsar-bomb". The blast wave went around the Earth 3 times.
The USSR proved that it was capable of creating thermonuclear weapons of almost unlimited power. But the US beat the USSR in the means of delivery. It had better bombers. Then, the USSR created jet fighter-interceptors and temporarily lowered the US superiority. And the Americans came up with jet bombers B-47 and B-52, capable of penetrating into Soviet airspace. The USSR had a massive response. In the late 1950s, the first intercontinental rocket in the world was a Russian one. The US created a similar one only 2+ years later.
The runaway nuclear race continued until the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1961, the US deployed its missiles against the USSR in Turkey. In response, Khrushchev placed rockets right to the US temple, in Cuba. The situation got so tense that at some point, the countdown was in minutes. Under these conditions, negotiations had to be made, that is, under a threat of mutual destruction. Rockets from both Cuba and Turkey were removed.
Since then, a new era has dawned, one of mutual agreements and a nuclear balance. Since then, peace has been ensured in this way, through balance. And the agreements began.
1963, Moscow. A treaty prohibiting testing of nuclear weapons in the air, space, and underwater.
1968. A treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
1972, Moscow. The Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems (ABM) became the most important one. According to it, the USSR and the USA created only one protected area. We picked Moscow. The US picked the military base Grand Forks, in North Dakota. The point of the treaty was so that neither side could defend itself from missile retaliation, so that a sense of security would not become a temptation to attack. The treaty worked for 3 decades, becoming a reliable part of nuclear deterrence between the USSR and the US. In the history of international politics, the 1970s became a period of de-escalation, a relaxation of international tension.
1972. Strategic arms limitations talks had begun (SALT). SALT-1 agreement was signed. This was a temporary agreement. The idea was to stop and freeze the existing nuclear capabilities.
1975, Helsinki. The Helsinki Act on Security and Cooperation in Europe became the pinnacle of detente. There they agreed not to use force, and not to fight at all.
1979, Vienna. OSV-2. The countries agreed to count the warheads and their delivery means: missiles, airplanes, and submarines, and mutually limit their numbers. And their number then was such that the USSR and the US could destroy each other several times over. That is, turn each other into that very "radioactive ash." And this mutual possibility did not surprise anyone back then. It was common knowledge. On the contrary, the mutual unequivocal recognition forced Moscow and Washington to negotiate. And they came to an agreement. With the understanding that nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence are the guarantees of peace.
This idea was defended by Margaret Thatcher, UK PM, when she came to Moscow to meet Mikhail Gorbachev.
Margaret Thatcher: "If you say that we have been on the verge of war several times, but it didn't erupt, then maybe one of the reasons for this was the fear of nuclear weapons. I think that conventional weapons are just as awful, but they don't allow to prevent a war: they didn't allow us to prevent a war in which the Soviet Union suffered terribly. If we can keep the peace, it is only through deterrence, nuclear deterrence. Since the emergence of nuclear weapons, no one has risked starting a war. Let me ask you: what do you prefer, the absence of war due to the existence of nuclear weapons, or do you prefer not to have nuclear weapons, but to have the danger of another war with the use of conventional weapons? I have no doubt as to how you will answer. I value peace, freedom, justice most of all. And because I think that nuclear deterrence prevents anyone from starting a major war, I think we need to preserve nuclear deterrence".
Nothing has changed since then. We have only seen new examples of how dangerous to the world is the violation of nuclear balance, how dangerous the feeling of one's own superiority is.
The Soviet Union has also experienced the temptation to gain such superiority. Since the military technologies didn't stand still, in the late 1970s, the USSR deployed medium-range nuclear SS-20 missiles along our western limits, in the Czech Republic and even in East Germany, the GDR. Such weapons did not fall under any agreements at the time. In response, the US set up their equivalents, Pershing-2 and Tomahawk cruise missiles in West Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. The flight time to target of the Soviet and the US systems was approximately the same: 10 minutes. That is,10 minutes and there's no more Europe, both Western and Eastern, up to the Urals. There could have been an accidental launch. But they decided to negotiate.
1987, Washington. The Treaty on medium and shorter-range missiles. Liquidation. Not really in our favor, but it is what it is.
1991, Moscow. START-1. Treaty on the Reduction of Strategic Offensive Arms. During 7 years, we and the US had to decrease our arsenals by approximately equal number of warheads, on the carriers of the strategic nuclear triad: land rockets installations, submarines, and bombers. The collapse of the Soviet Union made it difficult to carry out START-1.
1993, Moscow. START II. The treaty prohibited ballistic missiles with separating warheads.
And it would have been so, if in 2002 the US did not unilaterally withdraw from the 1972 ABM Treaty on missile defense-2. In response, Russia withdrew from START II.
START III is valid for now, signed in 2010. Under this treaty, by 2021 we need to have each with the US: 1550 nuclear warheads on strategic carriers. But Russia signed the treaty with a reservation, if the US will develop its ABM, then we will leave START III. So, in fact, there are no restrictions left right now. We can leave at any time. Like we promised.
And Russia warned that the US' desire to create its own anti-missile defense, will be considered as an attempt to obtain a unilateral advantage, because this will be an attempt to abandon nuclear balance as a principle of nuclear deterrence. Nobody listened to us. Russia proposed the creation of a joint missile defense system, and if necessary, with the allocation of sectors of mutual responsibility. But nobody listened to us. Russia finally warned that in response to the creation of the US missile defense system, we will develop our own attack systems capable of overcoming any barriers. Nobody heeded our words. They just waved it off, as if "do whatever you want."
And we started to. In 2004, Putin openly said that we started to and that it will likely be done. They did not hear us either. In 2007, in Munich, Putin spoke out against a unipolar world, where only the United States decides everything. They did not listen.
"Listen to us now!" Putin once again urged on the first day of March. But now under new conditions, with Russia's new attack systems having been successfully tested, and some starting to be mass produced, capable of overcoming any US missile defense systems, both existing as well as the future ones for many decades to come.
The day after the message, the US television channel NBC published an interview with Putin, where the Russian President once again clearly defined the cause-effect relationship.
When Megyn Kelly referred to some "analysts" blaming Putin for the return of the Cold War, she heard this in response: "From my point of view, the people you mentioned are not analysts, they are propagandists. Why? Because everything I spoke about today, this isn't an initiative from our side, it's the response to the missile defense program, and the response to America's 2002 unilateral withdrawal from the treaty on the limitation of anti-missile defense. If we want to talk about the arms race, when it began at this moment, when the US withdrew from this treaty".
And now we see why the US needed a unilateral withdrawal from the treaty on the limitation of anti-missile defense systems. And not for protection from Iran. This threat was solved by a "nuclear deal" with the Persians. But in order to surround Russia with anti-missile systems. In Romania, Poland, Alaska, and California, in South Korea, and Japan. On ships and submarines in the world's oceans. And even a fool can see that the Americans are building up their missile defense system as part of their offensive strategic capabilities. As an element of a general design aimed at upsetting the nuclear balance.
In order to deprive the US of any illusions of being able to create a superiority, Putin spoke about Russia's new arsenal, the same one he had previously warned about. The antidote of the American missile defense system has now been found. Therefore, through the restoration of the nuclear balance, peace is assured. Margaret Thatcher would have liked this very much.
Besides Russia guaranteeing peace on the planet in this way at the present point of time, there are other side effects, pleasant ones.
First, it is the realization that Russia has created a big technological gap. Irreconcilable liberals scolded us that we haven't invented our "iPhone." But what we now have is a MEGA-iPhone and even cooler.
Second. Our ability for technological breakthroughs will give birth to many good things, even for non-military use. For example, new laser systems have already been used to extinguish a powerful fire in 2011 at the West-Tarkosalinskoye gas field in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District. And how can one imagine outer space exploration without rocket engines with a nuclear reactor?
Third. We need peace as an opportunity and as time for development and long-term competition, where Russia will definitely win.
In the meantime, as they say, let's read the book. Russian system of enforced peace. What's else is new? How is it linked to the systems already in service? And why, after all, is it better to come to an agreement? Putin is still offering this option. This is the main point. And it's time, because it's much cheaper for us to make the technology what will turn expensive American missile defense system into useless objects. It is incomparably cheaper and already here. This is what allows Putin to calmly present options to the US and the West in a new NBC interview:
Vladimir Putin: "Let's sit down calmly and talk, sort things out. I think the current President wants this, but certain powers don't let him do it, but we are ready for this on any issue: on the missile issues, and the cyberspace, and on combating terrorism. We're ready at any time. But the American side needs to be ready also".
In the meantime, Putin explains tirelessly: "We're creating only one completely new heavy-class missile that will replace the one that we call Voyevoda (battlemaster), and you are calling, God forgive me, "Satan." We will replace it with a new one, a more powerful rocket, a ballistic one, all other systems are non-ballistic. This is the whole point because the anti-ballistic missile system works against ballistic missiles. But we have created a whole new set of strategic weapons that don't move along ballistic trajectories and the anti-ballistic missile systems are powerless against them, which means that US taxpayers' money is thrown to the wind".