by Rick Rozoff
April 11, 2010
from
GlobalResearch Website
A war can be won without being waged. Victory
can be attained when an adversary knows it is vulnerable to an instantaneous
and undetectable, overwhelming and devastating attack without the ability to
defend itself or retaliate.
What applies to an individual country does also to all potential adversaries
and indeed to every other nation in the world.
There is only one country that has the military and scientific capacity and
has openly proclaimed its intention to achieve that ability. That nation is
what its current head of state defined last December as the world's sole
military superpower. [1] One which aspires to remain the only
state in history to wield full spectrum military dominance on land, in the
air, on the seas and in space.
To maintain and extend military bases and troops, aircraft carrier battle
groups and strategic bombers on and to most every latitude and longitude. To
do so with a post-World War II record war budget of $708 billion for next
year.
Having gained that status in large part through being the first country to
develop and use nuclear weapons, it is now in a position to strengthen its
global supremacy by superseding the nuclear option.
The U.S. led three major wars in less than four years against Yugoslavia,
Afghanistan and Iraq from 1999-2003 and in all three cases deployed from
tens to hundreds of thousands of "boots on the ground" after air strikes and
missile attacks. The Pentagon established military bases in all three war
zones and, although depleted uranium contamination and cluster bombs are
still spread across all three lands, American troops have not had to contend
with an irradiated landscape.
Launching a nuclear attack when a conventional
one serves the same purpose would be superfluous and too costly in a variety
of ways.
On April 8 American and Russian presidents
Barack
Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed a New
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)
agreement in the Czech capital of Prague to reduce their respective nation's
nuclear arsenals and delivery systems (subject to ratification by the U.S.
Senate and the Russian Duma). Earlier in the same week the U.S. released its
new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) which for the first time appeared to
abandon the first use of nuclear arms.
The dark nuclear cloud that has hung over humanity's head for the past 65
years appears to be dissipating.
However, the U.S. retains 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 2,200 (by some
counts 3,500) more in storage and a triad of land, air and submarine
delivery vehicles.
More ominously, though, Washington is forging ahead with a replacement for
the nuclear sword and shield - for blackmail and for deterrence - with a
non-nuclear model that could upset the previous "balance of terror"
arrangement that has been a criminal nightmare for six decades, but for
sixty years without a massive missile war.
The new sword, or spear, entails plans for conventional first
strike weapon systems employing the same triad of land, air and sea
components - with space added - and the shield is a worldwide network of
interceptor missile deployments, also in all four areas. The Pentagon
intends to be able to strike first and with impunity.
The non-nuclear arsenal used for disabling and destroying the air defenses
and strategic, potentially all major, military forces of other nations will
consist of,
-
intercontinental ballistic missiles
-
adapted submarine-launched ballistic
missiles
-
hypersonic cruise missiles and bombers
-
super stealthy strategic bombers,
...able to avoid detection by radar and thus
evade ground- and air-based defenses.
Any short-range, intermediate-range and long-range missiles remaining in the
targeted country will in theory be destroyed after launching by kinetic,
"hit-to-kill" interceptor missiles. Should the missiles so neutralized
contain nuclear warheads, the fallout will occur over the country that
launches them or over an adjoining body of water or other nation of the
U.S.'s choosing.
A Russian commentary of three years ago described the interaction between
first strike and interceptor missile systems as follows:
"One can invest in the development of a
really effective ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] system and first-strike
weapons, for example, in conventional high-accuracy systems. The final
goal is to create a capability for a disarming first strike (nuclear,
non-nuclear or mixed) at the enemy's strategic nuclear potential. ABM
will finish off whatever survives the first blow." [2]
The long-delayed
Nuclear Posture Review Report of
earlier this month asserts the Pentagon's plans for,
"maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent
and reinforcing regional security architectures with missile
defenses...." [3]
It also confirms that the addition of,
"non-nuclear systems to U.S. regional
deterrence and reassurance goals will be preserved by avoiding
limitations on missile defenses and preserving options for using heavy
bombers and long-range missile systems in conventional roles."
At an April 6 press conference on the Nuclear
Posture Review with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs
of Staff Chairman Navy Admiral Michael Mullen, Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Gates said,
"we will maintain the nuclear triad of ICBMs
[Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles], nuclear-capable aircraft and
ballistic-missile submarines" and "we will continue to develop and
improve non-nuclear capabilities, including regional missile defenses."
Mullen spoke of,
"defend[ing] the vital interests of the
United States and those of our partners and allies with a more balanced
mix of nuclear and non-nuclear means than we have at our disposal
today." [4]
The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense
Review Report of February 1 stated,
"The United States will pursue a phased
adaptive approach to missile defense" and "develop capabilities that are
mobile and relocatable."
Furthermore,
"the Administration is committed to
implementing the new European Phased Adaptive Approach within a NATO
context. In East Asia, the United States is working to improve missile
defenses through a series of bilateral relationships. The United States
is also pursuing strengthened cooperation with a number of partners in
the Middle East." [5]
The Quadrennial Defense Review Report of
February spoke of similar plans.
The Review,
"advances two clear objectives. First, to
further rebalance the capabilities of America’s Armed Forces to prevail
in today’s wars, while building the capabilities needed to deal with
future threats."
It states,
"The United States remains the only nation
able to project and sustain large-scale operations over extended
distances" with "400,000 U.S. military personnel... forward-stationed or
rotationally deployed around the world," and which is "enabled by cyber
and space capabilities and enhanced by U.S. capabilities to deny
adversaries’ objectives through ballistic missile defense..."
One of its key goals is to,
"Expand future long-range strike
capabilities" and promote the "rapid growth in sea- and land-based
ballistic missile defense capabilities." [6]
The U.S. is also intensifying space and cyber
warfare programs with the potential to completely shut down other nations'
military surveillance and command, control, communications, computer and
intelligence systems, rendering them defenseless on any but the most basic
tactical level.
The program under which Washington is developing its conventional weapons
capacity to supplement its previous nuclear strategy is called Prompt Global
Strike (PGS), alternately referred to as Conventional Prompt Global
Strike (CPGS).
Global Security Newswire recently wrote of the proposed START II
that,
"Members of Russia's political elite are
worried about what the agreement says or does not say about U.S.
ballistic missile defense and 'prompt global strike' systems..."
[7]
In fact the successor to START I says nothing
about American interceptor missile or first strike conventional attack
policies, and as such says everything about them. That is, the new treaty
will not limit or affect them in any manner.
After the signing ceremony in Prague on April 8 the U.S. State Department
issued a fact sheet on Prompt Global Strike which stated:
"Key Point: The New START Treaty does not
contain any constraints on current or planned U.S. conventional prompt
global strike capability."
By way of background information and to provide
a framework for current U.S. military strategy it added:
"The growth of unrivaled U.S. conventional
military capabilities has contributed to our ability to reduce the role
of nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks...
The Department of Defense (DoD) is
currently exploring the full range of technologies and systems for a
Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS)
capability that could provide the President more credible and
technically suitable options for dealing with new and evolving threats."
[8]
Describing the constituent parts of PGS, the
State Department press release also revealed:
"Current efforts are examining three
concepts: Hypersonic Technology Vehicle, Conventional Strike Missile,
and Advanced Hypersonic Weapon. These projects are managed by the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA),
the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Center, and Army Space and Missile
Defense Command respectively....[The START II] warhead ceiling would
accommodate any plans the United States might develop during the life of
this Treaty to deploy conventional warheads on ballistic missiles."
In language as unequivocal as the State
Department has been known to employ, the statement added:
"New START protects the U.S. ability to
develop and deploy a CPGS capability. The Treaty in no way prohibits the
United States from building or deploying conventionally-armed ballistic
missiles."
The Department of Defense,
"is studying CPGS within the context of its
portfolio of all non-nuclear long-range strike capabilities including
land-based and sea-based systems, as well as standoff and/or penetrating
bombers...." [9]
The non-nuclear missiles referred to are
designed to strike any spot on earth within sixty minutes, but as the main
proponent of PGS, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine General
James Cartwright, recently boasted,
"At the high end," strikes could be
delivered in "300 milliseconds." [10]
Speaking of the air force third of the GPS
triad,
-
nuclear-armed cruise missiles fired from
B-52 bombers
-
X-51 unmanned aircraft that can fly at
5,000 miles per hour
-
the Blackswift "spaceplane",
...Cartwright has also said that current
conventionally armed bombers are "too slow and too intrusive" for many
"global strike missions." [11]
On January 21 Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn called for
placing the Pentagon,
"on a permanent footing to fight both
low-intensity conflicts to maintaining air dominance and the ability to
strike any target on Earth at any time... The next air warfare priority
for the Pentagon is developing a next-generation, deep-penetrating
strike capability that can overcome advanced air defenses..." [12]
In a Global Security Network analysis
titled "Cost
to Test U.S. Global-Strike Missile Could Reach $500 Million,"
Elaine Grossman wrote:
"The Obama administration has requested
$239.9 million for prompt global strike research and development across
the military services in fiscal 2011... If funding levels remain as
anticipated into the coming years, the Pentagon will have spent some $2
billion on prompt global strike by the end of fiscal 2015, according to
budget documents submitted last month to Capitol Hill." [13]
The land-based component of PGS, Minuteman
intercontinental ballistic missiles with a conventional payload, will,
"initially boost into space like a ballistic
missile, dispatch a 'hypersonic test vehicle' to glide and maneuver into
a programmed destination, which could be updated or altered remotely
during flight." [14]
Last month Defense News featured an
article with the title "U.S.
Targets Precision Arms for 21st-Century Wars," which included
this excerpt:
"To counter... air defenses, the Pentagon
wants to build a host of precision weapons that can hit any target from
thousands of miles away. Known as a family of systems, these weapons
could include whatever the Air Force chooses as its next bomber, a new
set of cruise missiles and even, someday, hypersonic weapons developed
under the Pentagon's Prompt Global Strike program that would give the
speed and range of an ICBM to a conventional warhead." [15]
A recent Washington Post report on PGS
quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warning that,
"World states will hardly accept a situation
in which nuclear weapons disappear, but weapons that are no less
destabilizing emerge in the hands of certain members of the
international community." [16]
The same source added,
"the
Obama
administration... sees the missiles as one cog in an array of
defensive and offensive weapons that could ultimately replace nuclear
arms," and quoted the Pentagon's Cartwright as affirming: "Deterrence
can no longer just be nuclear weapons. It has to be broader." [17]
The following day Britain's Independent ran a
story the following quotes from which should disabuse anyone hoping that
Washington's "post-nuclear world" will be any safer a one.
Referring to PGS intercontinental ballistic missiles with (at least in
theory) conventional warheads, the newspaper warned that:
"Once they are launched, there could be
difficulty in distinguishing their conventional payloads from nuclear
ones. That in turn could accidentally trigger a nuclear retaliation by
Russia or another similarly-armed power.
"Another danger is that if nuclear weapons are no longer at issue, there
would be a bigger temptation for American military commanders to become
more cavalier about ordering strikes. And unless intelligence can be
fully relied upon, the chances of striking mistaken targets are high."
[18]
U.S. officials have discussed the prospect of
launching such missiles at a lower altitude than nuclear ICBMs would travel,
but it would take an almost limitless degree of trust - or gullibility - on
behalf of Russian or Chinese military officials to depend upon the assurance
that ICBMs heading toward or near their territory were in fact not carrying
nuclear weapons at whatever distance from the earth's surface they were
flying.
In 2007, the year after the Pentagon first announced its Prompt Global
Strike plans, a Russian analyst wrote that,
"the Americans are not particularly worried
about their nuclear arsenal" and "have been thoroughly calculating the
real threats to their security to be ready to go to war, if need be, in
real earnest," adding "The 20th century saw two world wars
and a third one is looming large."
"Despite the obvious threat to civilization the United States may soon
acquire orbital weapons under the Prompt Global Strike plan. They will
give it the capacity to deal a conventional strike virtually anywhere in
the world within an hour." [19]
Elaine Grossman wrote last year:
"Once it is built, the Conventional
Strike Missile is expected to pair rocket boosters with a
fast-flying 'payload delivery vehicle' capable of dispensing a kinetic
energy projectile against a target. Upon nearing its endpoint, the
projectile would split into dozens of lethal fragments potentially
capable against humans, vehicles and structures, according to defense
officials...." [20]
A comparably horrifying scenario of the effects
of a PGS attack, this one from the sea-based version, appeared in Popular
Mechanics three years ago:
"In the Pacific, a nuclear-powered Ohio
class submarine surfaces, ready for the president's command to launch.
When the order comes, the sub shoots a 65-ton Trident II ballistic
missile into the sky. Within 2 minutes, the missile is traveling at more
than 20,000 ft. per second. Up and over the oceans and out of the
atmosphere it soars for thousands of miles.
"At the top of its parabola, hanging in space, the Trident's four
warheads separate and begin their screaming descent down toward the
planet.
"Traveling as fast as 13,000 mph, the warheads are filled with scored
tungsten rods with twice the strength of steel.
"Just above the target, the warheads detonate, showering the area with
thousands of rods - each one up to 12 times as destructive as a
.50-caliber bullet. Anything within 3000 sq. ft. of this whirling,
metallic storm is obliterated." [21]
This April 7 former Joint Chief of Staff of the
Russian Armed Forces General Leonid Ivashov penned a column called "Obama’s Nuclear
Surprise."
Referring to the U.S. president's speech in Prague a year ago ("The
existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy of
the Cold War") and his signing of the START II agreement in the same city
this April 8, the author said:
"No examples of sacrificial service of the
US elites to mankind or the peoples of other countries can be discovered
in US history over the past century. Would it be realistic to expect the
advent of an African-American president to the White House to change the
country's political philosophy traditionally aimed at achieving global
dominance?
Those believing that something like that is
possible should try to realize why the US - the country with a military
budget already greater than those of all other countries of the world
combined - continues spending enormous sums of money on preparations for
war." [22]
Specifically in reference to PGS, he detailed
that,
"The Prompt Global Strike concept envisages
a concentrated strike using several thousand precision conventional
weapons in 2-4 hours that would completely destroy the critical
infrastructures of the target country and thus force it to capitulate.
"The Prompt Global Strike concept is meant
to sustain the US monopoly in the military sphere and to widen the gap
between it and the rest of the world. Combined with the deployment of
missile defense supposed to keep the US immune to retaliatory strikes
from Russia and China, the Prompt Global Strike initiative is going to
turn Washington into a modern era global dictator.
"In essence, the new US nuclear doctrine is an element of the novel US
security strategy that would be more adequately described as the
strategy of total impunity. The US is boosting its military budget,
unleashing NATO as a global gendarme, and planning real-life exercises
in Iran to test the efficiency of the Prompt Global Strike initiative in
practice.
At the same time, Washington is talking
about a completely nuclear-free world." [23]
Notes
1) Obama Doctrine: Eternal War For Imperfect
Mankind - Stop NATO, December 10, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/obama-doctrine-eternal-war-for-imperfect-mankind
2) Alexander Khramchikhin, The MAD situation is no longer there -
Russian Information Agency Novosti, May 29, 2007
3) Nuclear Posture Review Report - United States Department of Defense
April 2010 http://www.defense.gov/npr/docs/2010%20Nuclear%20Posture%20Review%20Report.pdf
4) United States Department of Defense - American Forces Press Service
April 6, 2010
5) United States Department of Defense, February 1, 2010 http://www.comw.org/qdr/fulltext/1002BMDR.pdf
6) United States Department of Defense, February 2010 - Quadrennial
Defense Review Report, February 2010 http://www.defense.gov/qdr/QDR%20as%20of%2026JAN10%200700.pdf
7) Global Security Newswire, April 2, 2010
8) U.S. Department of State, April 9, 2010
9) Ibid
10) Defense News, June 4, 2009
11) Ibid
12) Defense News, January 22, 2010 - U.S. Extends Missile Buildup From
Poland And Taiwan To Persian Gulf - Stop NATO, February 3, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/u-s-extends-missile-buildup-from-poland-and-taiwan-to-persian-gulf
13)
Global Security Network, March 15, 2010
14) Ibid
15) Defense News, March 22, 2010
16) Washington Post, April 8, 2010
17) Ibid
18) The Independent, April 9, 2010
19) Andrei Kislyakov, Defense budget: nuclear or conventional? - Russian
Information Agency Novosti, November 20, 2007
20)
Global Security Newswire, July 1, 2009
21) Noah Shachtman, Hypersonic Cruise Missile: America's New Global
Strike Weapon - Popular Mechanics, January 2007
22) Strategic Culture Foundation, April 7, 2010
23) Ibid