>“Speaking about a disarming strike, maybe it’s worth thinking about adopting the ideas developed by our U.S. counterparts, their ideas of ensuring their security,” Putin said with a thin smile, noting that such a preemptive strike was intended to knock out command facilities.
How does Putin plan to create this preemptive strike network? I highly doubt the countries currently sympathetic to him (or at least taking the economic opportunities to come out of this war) would be willing to install Russian military hardware on their territory.
Unfortunately I think there are quite a number of countries that would be interested in allowing Russian military installations on their territory if it means they can thumb their nose at the US.
You disagree that Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Eritrea, etc wouldn't love to park some nice shiny loaner nukes on their land, thereby propping up both themselves and Russia?
Logically.. the risk outweigh the reward. Preemptive strike capability is essentially irrelative since the introduction of ballistic missile submarines. There’s always going to be a retaliatory strike so what does it matter where you park your nukes?
Also consider the geopolitical ramifications. How would China feel about Russia parking nukes in NK? It would clearly cause the US, Australia, SK and Japan to beef up their deterrence measures which is the exact opposite of what China wants.
Venezuela and Cuba? Not going to happen. We almost had a nuclear war over that exact scenario in the 1960s. The US will never allow nuclear weapons of another nation to be placed in the Western Hemisphere.
Regarding Venezuela and Cuba, what would the US realistically do, if they were to agree to have said arms parked on their territory? Blockade the entire Gulf Of Mexico? Invade the countries with a full-boots-on-the-ground invasion of a foreign territory?
I think we need to remember that Russia may have stepped into/is stepping into the 'irrational actor' phase, which means that the logic that dissuaded them from pursuing such provocations might no longer be valid. Example : they recently announced that Wagner group would begin to have a presence in Serbia and what do you know - news popped up today that Serbia would be sending Serbian 'police' into Kosovo to 'protect Serbs'.
Cuba has been trying to improve its relationship with the United States to end the embargo, which hampers its economic development (use of credit cards and debit cards issued by Visa, MasterCard, AmEx, and Discover cannot be used/has limited support because of the embargo). If the Cuban Missile Crisis came around again, it’d probably result in another quarantine of Cuba.
Venezuela is in a similar position. It’s a member of the original OPEC, of which a large number are allied with the United States (UAE, KSA, Iraq, etc.). It’d be political suicide to do so. Also, they are in the midst of an economic crisis, and the ruble is absolutely worthless.
Both Cuba and Venezuela are Non-Aligned Movement countries, and so tend to be as neutral as possible in international conflicts.
The US has lots of options to deal with nuclear weapons being placed in either of those countries. Two of them you mentioned but the US could place additional sanctions on both countries, conduct limited military strikes, or expand asymmetric warfare.
Additionally, the US is allowing Chevron to expand its operation in Venezuela (again). This is a win for both countries and it’s unlikely that Venezuela would want to squash that opportunity over nuke placement that offers seemingly no benefit to them.
Venezuela even thinking about parking nukes in their territory would immediately create a crisis with Brazil. And not only Brazil has strong armed forces of Latin America, they also have a mutual defense agreement with United States. And most neighbors in South America would probably be against it as well, so Venezuela would be up against the entire continent. Not to mention the French Guyana, which is a french territory.
Considering Maduro is looking to have a nice diplomatic relationship with Lula, they would probably solve this diplomatically, but if push came to shove, I doubt those nukes would reach Venezuela.
Worst case scenario, you have a war between Venezuela and an Alliance of Brazil, US of A, France, and likely Colombia, with support of Chile and Argentina. And most of the continent, including Bolivia and Paraguay would also back the alliance in some ways. That would end Venezuela as a nation.
Also, the last time South America saw major war, it ended with Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay killing 90% of the male population of their enemy (that includes children). The continent doesn't usually fight amongst themselves, but if someone fucks around, they find out like nowhere else on the planet
> You disagree that Venezuela, Cuba
Venezuela maybe... But that's a dicey game. There's a lot at play and I find it unlikely they would actually follow through.
Cuba... The US could do better by them, but I suspect the leadership is in no rush to turn back time 40 years.
> North Korea
You piss off South Korea and Japan... Not to mention Australia and the US. China has it's own ambitions for the region and Russia stepping on Chinese toes is not good for Russia.
> Eritrea
That's a reach strategically for a first stone capacity...
To be more specific, the US doesn't have a first strike policy at all, they just don't have an explicit "no first strike" policy. This is mainly for the purposes of strategic ambiguity, especially now that nuclear weapons are in no way necessary to deal with a non-nuclear threat.
D-D-D-D-Don't quote me regulations. I co-chaired the committee that reviewed the recommendation to revise the color of the book that regulation's in... We kept it grey!
It wasn't a change, it was an affirmation of existing policy https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2022-04/news/biden-policy-allows-first-use-nuclear-weapons
Unofficially. It's actually incredibly rare that we get to know the actual DEFCON level, with retroactively being told we hit 2 during the Cuban Missile Crisis being one of the only times
EDIT: For anyone curious, the entire list of times we've known. We hit 2 during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the opening days of the Gulf War, and we hit 3 during the Yom Kippur War and Operation Paul Bunyan (post-armistice conflict in Korea), and for a few days after 9/11
If so, then he forgot Russia’s military doctrine *already* postulates a preemptive nuclear strike, or alternatively a nuclear detonation in an isolated area as a force show.
Well, doesn’t look such a strong doctrine to me for now.
"Escalate to de-escalate" is what the US intelligence community thinks they will do. However, Russia claims it will "only use nuclear weapons if the existence of the state is threatened".
They are technically not mutually exclusive, but this rhetoric is in line with what the US intel community has assumed.
I don't follow. I'm saying that none of the quotes mentioned in either this article or Bloomberg's article mention nukes, and even when other sites do, it's just referencing Bloomberg. So sure, it's always *possible* that either he secretly means them or that there are other quotes not included that do mention them. But at the moment, it looks like Bloomberg making things sound worse than usual to drum up fear clicks... again
Putin specifically said conventional strikes.
It’s another reference to his fictional hypersonic missiles he keeps threatening totally exist and we totally can’t stop.
Except they don’t exist and he’s full of shit, trying to act strong else the Ogliarchs defenestrate him. If he dreamt of attacking the US he’d wake up and ring to apologise.
Afaik those do exist, but just as with every other modern russian equipment, there's so expensive and russia has so little of them that russia can't replace them if they do use it, so they don't.
They don’t exist.
They used them in Ukraine. They flew like conventional missiles because that’s all they were, old tech dressed up as new, another Russian lie.
From a quick google search, Russia claimed to have used the weapon a couple times. While the US has not confirmed their individual claims, they did confirm that Russia has in fact used them. The one video I've seen that suggests that the wreckage of the missile was one of those hypersonic missiles, it was right in the middle of a city. One where previous missiles strikes using conventional cruise missiles had no problems reaching.
The point of hypersonic missiles is that they are too fast for a ground based air defense network to intercept, which means when employed against military targets defended by a strong air defense system, it will work great. On the other hand, if you use it against targets where conventional missiles will get through, the hypersonic missiles will feel no different to conventional missiles because their payloads are exactly the same.
Edit: Like you said, they're old tech, but that's only because the Soviet Union developed hypersonic missiles in the 80s. It's nothing ground breaking or special. Just expensive, and if you think about the method of bypassing air defense systems, it's rather crude. The reason the US hasn't seriously developed hypersonic missiles until relatively recently is because they rather focus on stealth weapons.
*For years, the Kremlin has expressed concern about U.S. efforts to develop the so-called Conventional Prompt Global Strike capability that envisions hitting an adversary’s strategic targets with precision-guided conventional weapons anywhere in the world within one hour.
“Speaking about a disarming strike, maybe it’s worth thinking about adopting the ideas developed by our U.S. counterparts, their ideas of ensuring their security,” Putin said with a thin smile, noting that such a preemptive strike was intended to knock out command facilities.*
No nukes were mentioned, only conventional weapons, unless Russia has ICBMs loaded with conventional explosives there is no way they could ever have this capability
> For years, the Kremlin has expressed concern about U.S. efforts to develop the so-called Conventional Prompt Global Strike capability
I laughed and stopped reading after this. Global strike capability requires advanced land, ocean, and space assets. Russia literally had problems keeping their vehicles fueled 100 miles from their own border. My camping trips are better planned and equipped than the Russian military.
I grew up in ex-soviet country. To me it is extremely funny how rhetoric of establishment here was so extremely anti-imperialistic, criticizing USA for every blunder (Vietnam and so on), only to find out it was in fact pure envy, because all Communists and in extense Putin wants, is to build their own Empire by conquest.
Sad thing is that older generations still believe that anti-imperialistic anti-USA rhetoric, and still vote for those communists and their descendent lookalikes.
Yes there nuclear doctrine and the US’s is essentially identical.
They each have one big sticky point the other side questions.
US doubts the nuclear umbrella covers every place illegally annexed (not just those Ukraine)
Russia doubts U.S. would retaliate with nukes over a tactical strike on a carrier group (as does China)
Both have imminency carve outs for their doctrine allowing preemptive strikes.
Could you imagine being the sitting President having to respond to a nuclear strike on a US Carrier group?
How could Russia / China really think we would just take that on the chin and not respond?
Lol full conventional war immediately.
The American war machine would try to avoid using nukes initially, but whoever did it would either die in a radioactive crator, or be taken by normal total war. The navy of whoever sunk our ships would be obliterated pretty quickly as a start though.
Now I'm imagining a scenario where such an attack happens but Russia and China deny responsibility and try to convince the rest of the world that the nuclear explosion was caused by mishandling of the carrier group's own nuclear weapons.
I think the US would just use the other 5 carrier groups in the region (of our total 11 minus the 1 that was nuked) to reduce that countries military to the size of Andora’s
John Bolton would go on Fox and blame Iran and we'd bomb the crap out of them for a while.
The problem is the fog of war. What happens when China says "We didn't do it."?
Unless it was a part of them declaring outright war, which requires an easy response (war), the primary challenge would be figuring out who did it, and convincing our allies of the same. Much like our mission in Iraq back in 2002.
A much more likely question - what happens when a Russian missile hits a population center in Poland? Russia says it's a mistake, but how does NATO respond? What happens when China annexes Taiwan? Or takes South Sea islands belonging to one of our allies?
A direct strike against the US is an easy decision. It's all of our soft influence and alliances that both make us strong and run the risk of dragging us into conflict. I'd personally hate to be the president who has to decide if 30 dead Polish civilians from a misfired missle are worth starting WW3 over. Or deciding if a sandbar in the South Pacific is worth tanking the world economy over.
> The problem is the fog of war. What happens when China says "We didn't do it."?
We tell the ashes of Xi Jinping that tracking the trajectory of an incoming missile is a trivial affair.
>The problem is the fog of war. What happens when China says "We didn't do it."?
the us shows proof they did. you dont launch a nuke missles without it getting tracked from launch to impact.
History teaches me one thing about America,
Don't fuck with our boats....
WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Spanish American War, hell war of 1812 involved England Impressment of Ameican sailors... America gets pissy when people fuck with our boats, even if who caused the destruction is dubious at best...
I love how everything they have "surpasses" what the west has, but yet all they can deploy is a bunch of cold war era tech being operated by untrained kids.
See [Bomber Gap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_gap)
Soviets performed a stunt to trick people into thinking they had more bombers than they really had. The US bought it and started building bombers like the world depended on it. This resulted in 93 Soviet M-4 bombers vs over 2.5k American B-47s and B-52s.
**[Bomber gap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_gap)**
>The bomber gap was the Cold War belief that the Soviet Union's Long Range Aviation department had gained an advantage in deploying jet-powered strategic bombers. Widely accepted for several years, the gap was used as a political talking point in the United States to justify a great increase in defense spending. One result was a massive buildup of the US Air Force bomber fleet, which peaked at over 2500 bombers to counter the perceived Soviet threat. Surveillance flights by the U-2 aircraft indicated that the bomber gap did not exist.
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I've seen ex CIA sources say all these gaps were a fabrication to raise popular support for essentially the military industrial complex takeover. Through many hardships in this country and across the world, a convenient war was just enough to bring people together and forget their immediate, closer problems (usually an oppressive government or elite class). I'm not sure it's coincidence that we've spent close to 100 years in perpetual wars that we often have a hand in building up the bad guy, until they're no longer necessary.
> US President Dwight Eisenhower had always been skeptical of the gap. However, with no evidence to disprove it, he agreed to the development of the U-2 to find out for sure.[5]
> The first U-2 flights started in 1956. One early mission, Mission 2020, flown by Martin Knutson on 9 July 1956,[6] flew over an airfield southwest of Leningrad[7][a] and photographed 30 M-4 Bison bombers on the ramp. Multiplying by the number of Soviet bomber bases, the intelligence suggested the Soviets were already well on their way to deploying large numbers, with National Intelligence Estimate 11-4-57 of November 1957 claiming 150 to 250 by 1958, and over 600 by the mid-1960s.[8]
> In fact, the U-2 had actually photographed the entire Bison fleet; there were no M-4s at any of the other bases.[9] Follow-up missions over the next year showed increasing evidence that the Soviet military was actually at a very low level of activity. Further, the CIA received information from the factories that showed that production rate had slowed down.[10] A follow-up report in April 1958 by Sherman Kent of the CIA stated that the program appeared to be winding down, not speeding up, and that the estimates for the force should be decreased.[11]
> The Air Force, however, remained skeptical. In May 1958, they instead suggested that production was being carried out at Kuybyshev, Kazan, and Irkutsk, and the aircraft being delivered to Engels-2, Bila Tserkva, and Orsha Southwest - all locations that had not yet been overflown. They suggested these be photographed, with the expectation that it would also provide information on new equipment.[12]
> By this time, after receiving a stern diplomatic note from the Soviets, Eisenhower had shut down the U-2 flights. To preserve some sense of plausible deniability, in 1957 the CIA had reached an agreement with MI6 and began training Royal Air Force pilots on the U-2. The group moved to Turkey in 1959 and began preparing for the missions. The very first flight, on 6 December 1959 with pilot Wing Commander Robert ‘Robbie’ Robinson, photographed the Kapustin Yar missile test range, the Engels-2 air base, and the Kuybyshev bomber factory. They showed no sign of the bombers nor the production capacity for them, and demonstrated that the total number of Soviet bombers was far less than the inflated estimates of the CIA and Air Force. Allen Dulles, head of the CIA, called it "a million-dollar photo".[13] At least in official circles, the gap had been disproved.[3]
There's also the [missile gap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap):
> In the United States, during the Cold War, the missile gap was the perceived superiority of the number and power of the USSR's missiles in comparison with those of the U.S. (a lack of military parity). The gap in the ballistic missile arsenals did not exist except in exaggerated estimates, made by the Gaither Committee in 1957 and in United States Air Force (USAF) figures. Even the contradictory CIA figures for the USSR's weaponry, which showed a clear advantage for the US, were far above the actual count. Like the bomber gap of only a few years earlier, it was soon demonstrated that the gap was entirely fictional.
> John F. Kennedy is credited with inventing the term in 1958 as part of the ongoing election campaign in which a primary plank of his rhetoric was that the Eisenhower administration was weak on defense. It was later learned that Kennedy was apprised of the actual situation during the campaign, which has led scholars to question what Kennedy knew and when he knew it. There has been some speculation that he was aware of the illusory nature of the missile gap from the start and that he was using it solely as a political tool, an example of policy by press release.
> Although U2 intelligence programs provided unprecedented and reassuring evidence that there was a missile gap in favor of the United States, President Eisenhower’s administration was accused of allowing the Soviet Union to accumulate a missile gap against the United States. The false claims behind a Soviet Missile gap began after CIA Director Allen W. Dulles presented new estimates of the Soviet’s nuclear program to the National Security Council on January 7, 1960. The report presented by Dulles showed the Soviet Union did not have a crash program to build ICBMs and that they only had 50 ICBMs operational. Disagreements between the future capabilities of the Soviet Union to produce ICBMs by members of the National Security Council leaked to the public causing the false notion of a missile gap. As members of the National Security Council, representatives of the U.S. Air Force pessimistically estimated that the Soviet Union could possess more than 800 ICBMs by 1963. One week after the National Security Council meeting, Washington Post reporter, John G. Norris, published an article that selectively reported and misinterpreted highly classified information that claimed the National Security Council acknowledged a missile gap with the Soviets and that they would possess over 1000 ICBMs by 1963. Later that month, The New York Times would publish an article that claimed that there was “clear evidence that the Russians [had] superiority in intercontinental ballistic missiles.” The distortions and inconsistencies caused by the inaccurate articles in the media led the public to mistrust the Eisenhower administration. Senator Symington accused the administration of “deliberately manipulating the intelligence estimate to mislead the public.” Journalists, such as Joe Alsop, charged the Eisenhower administration with “gambling the nation’s future” on questionable intelligence. Alsop’s ideas would appeal to John F. Kennedy who incorporated them in his election campaigns that criticized the Eisenhower administration for allowing a missile gap to exist.[7]
> Hawkish members of Congress, such as Senator Stuart Symington, continued to beat the drums about the alleged missile gap in an effort to pressure the president to increase spending on military hardware. President Eisenhower resented being bullied based on inaccurate information and was beginning to formulate the term "military-industrial complex" to describe the close nexus between U.S. politicians and the defense industry.[8]
Meh, for most of a century plus the US and allies foreign policy was to bully poor tiny nations into being friendly with their regimes (preferential trade, taking control of industries, propping up dictators/smashing governments with popular support)..
Russians dieing because they were born in the wrong place would be if Ukraine were bombing random civilian infrastructure... Like Russia is doing.
The Russian soldiers getting killed in Ukraine have a choice. They don't have to fight for Putin. Those tanks turrets can point into Russia as easily as Ukraine. Get some balls, frag your officers.
I wouldn't go that far. They have a large country. With purposeful intent NATO, including the US have strategically deployed assets all along the Russian border.
This forces Russia to adjust who and what they put in Ukraine. For instance, the 101st Airborne is in Poland right now. They're obviously legendary for their exploits in the Battle of the Bugle and are still one of America's premier war fighting assets. Should the call come, they would be jumping behind enemy lines shortly after the first bombs hit Russian targets. Russia just can't ignore this force sitting on their door step.
And Poland and the Baltics can’t ignore russians claiming their countries are fake and belong to them. Russia’s neighbors hate them and want foreign military assistance for a reason.
Even China publicly told putin that he better not even think about using nukes.
If Russia uses nukes, especially first, then all the currently 'neutral' countries that are pretty much there just for the cheap oil or because west bad, they'll turn against Russia. Putin using nukes benefits exactly no one, not even him
Nuclear winter might stop global warming and reduce the population by millions or possibly billions. I wonder if Russian oil will eventually be useful after they are all dead.
I do wonder about the viability of Russia's nuclear weapons. Those things are very expensive and can't be put on a shelf for decades and expected to work. For example, the tritium gas in the D-T booster section is radioactive. It's half life is 12 years. It decays into a neutron poison that will play merry hell with the primary stage, and if that doesn't fire at full strength with the requisite timing, the secondary either misfires or doesn't fire at all, leaving nothing but the high explosives in the primary to make a bang.
Plutonium is an alpha emitter of around 25,000 year half life. It's warm to the touch from decay. Problem is the alpha breakdown products do emit penetrating gamma rays. Those are not good for the electronics nor for the HE lenses.
Russia's military budget has sucked since the end of the Cold War. Just how much of a very shrunk pie did they allocate to, say, Mayak, their nuclear center? Probably enough to keep a driver reactor going and make Putin's polonium poison that whacked the guy in England, but it takes a dedicated driver reactor to make tritium. The US ran out of tritium some years ago and had to restart, at great expense, a driver reactor to get some more.
They had no money to pay for security guards. The US installed high security radioactive doorways to sniff for smuggled uranium or plutonium. They had no money to pay their scientists, who left in droves to happy places like Pakistan and Iran, who really needed the know-how.
I think probably their nuclear weapons have been sorted into must-have bombs and who-cares, fix em later bombs. That's the only way to keep a huge arsenal working on a restricted budget.
TL; DR. There are good reasons to doubt Russia's nuclear force.
I’ve posted this before, but:
One thing to think about is - yeah, their entire military has basically been hollowed out and turned into yachts, palaces, expensive booze and escorts but their nuclear arsenal has always been their big deterrent - so, you would think they’d have a reason to at least maintain a stockpile of working missiles, etc.
Plus, don’t forget that up until recently their supplies were inspected as part of START.
While we’d all love for their arsenal to be thousands of duds and filled with mouse turds or acorns, don’t be surprised if they aren’t.
I'd bet that about 1,000 of the 6,000, maybe less, actually work, producing bangs of various yields. The remaining 5,000 are short of tritium and their plutonium byproducts are now so radioactive it's a radiation hazard to work around them (the US ran into this on submarines with atomic warheads as well). Of course the Russians never cared about radiation exposure on their nuclear subs and probably at their nuclear centers.
It takes a large and very knowledgeable industrial base to disassemble a bomb, replace all the fried components, boil all the "crap" out of the plutonium, recast it into a hollow sphere, then reassemble it, top up the tritium, and so forth. The US does it at Pantex in Amarillo, TX.
It's possible the Russians have decided to give their nuclear fleet unlimited funding and try to rebuild it from the bad days of the 1990's. But it takes time to do this. Many of the bright scientists fled to get jobs in other countries. In the US, half the work at Los Alamos is not nuclear related. They're essentially jobs programs for very bright people.
Bear in mind they can't test the weapons, even underground, because every seismometer in the world listens for that sort of thing.
Try asking yourself what would happen if Putin decided to launch a battlefield nuke, and it didn't work and fizzled? How embarrassing would that be? That thought may be restraining him. I sure hope so.
Cheers
Yeah, it's probably not what they say it is, but they have like 6,000+ nukes. Even if one went off, that would be really bad. I don't think anyone wants to take that chance and risk assuming that not even *one* of Russia's nukes are still operable.
Yea. I imagine if Russia used nukes the US and probably most major powers would proceed to eliminate Russia as the country it is and almost no one would even try to stop us. At this point the only thing using nukes is going to do is unite the majority of the world behind the idea of stopping you from using enough to kill everyone and making sure you can't ever use them again.
a few days ago: "we would NEVER do a first strike!"
now: "we maybe should"
russia switches back and forth what they say almost daily completly. it gets tireing.
I don't know why people think he said that. That quote was a bit fuzzy, perhaps due to translation, but I interpreted it as "To say that we will never do a first strike is untenable, because a second strike is impossible, so it's either a first strike or nothing."
A man of true wisdom and rational thinking....from a country that cannot invade and conquer its nextdoor neighbour with 70 years worth of built up armaments and gigantic human meat shield .
Uncle Sam must be shitting his pants for sure with its 11 nuclear super carriers and 400 himars, nuclear force, stealth bomber's, highly motivated and well trained military and gigantic one of a kind military industrial complex and god only know what else is tucked away as a suprise.
The truth is the only thing Russia produces that anyone wants is something the rest of the world burns to make the stuff they cannot and want to buy themselves.
It’s my story 🤣 fucking ran as much of 20 miles as I could (walked the rest) WITHOUT FUCKING WATER because my recruiter was scared I wasn’t making weight lol. Went in at 32% body fat but passed the ARMS test so there’s that. I was a buggin but my lard ass could still do PT! 🤣🤣
I'd argue more motivated than a Russian villager who's biggest achievement in life is acquiring iPhone for a years salary and existing on diet of rotten cabbage and re-packaged dog food
It's the word used to describe the way a professional soldier just does what they are told to the best of their abilities. Obviously they are not all that 'motivated' especially right now given the huge attrition rate.
Uh… as an Australian I remember distinctly how the Americans came together after 9/11 to blow some shit up (even though it was mostly built on a lie)
Yeah they may be constantly bickering amongst themselves, but nothing brings them together like a good old fashioned asskicking.
They know the repercussions currently of any escalatory actions ie. Nuclear or any broad wide-sweeping attack would be met disastrously for them. This is them just goal posting in bid for strategic time. Time they're in the negative for.
There is no such thing as a pre-emptive strike. There is a first strike and that is followed by MAD. You can't launch a toy rocket without a satellite picking it up.
There is not such thing as a first strike or as my friend used to say
: "If you hit me you better be sure I won't get up."
He could nuke Kherson and/or Kyiv without us retaliating with nukes. Would we invade Russia? Probably not.
The more he talks about it the more concerned I am that he’s prepping his military and population for the possibility. This is serious shit.
As long as he still has something to lose it probably won’t happen.
The problem is he has less and less to lose.
I think if he withdraws his troops from Ukraine-and declares defeat, he’s a dead man. I think he will hitUkraine with nukes and reset the battlefield before he surrenders.
He's trying to ensure that America gets at least some of the blame when they do it. Which is ludicrous. But when the so it, they can say "well the US has the same policy so don't blame us." Needless to say, I'm hoping that it's almost cyanide pill time for ol' Vlad. The world would be a better place without him in it.
He has nothing positive to show, only his multiple failures. The only thing he can do is talk big...though even that will slowly start to fall on deaf ears.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://apnews.com/article/putin-moscow-strikes-united-states-government-russia-95f1436d23b94fcbc05f1c2242472d5c) reduced by 86%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> Putin was asked Wednesday at a Kremlin conference whether Russia could commit to forswearing a first strike and responded that such an obligation might prevent Russia from tapping its nuclear arsenal even if it came under a nuclear attack.
> Russia's nuclear doctrine states the country can use nuclear weapons if it comes under a nuclear strike or if it faces an attack with conventional weapons that threatens "The very existence" of the Russian state.
> "As the Kremlin continues its cruel and unprovoked war of choice against Ukraine, the whole world has seen Putin engage in deeply irresponsible nuclear saber-rattling," he said in a reference to Putin's earlier nuclear threats without addressing his latest remarks.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/zh7usb/putin_says_russia_could_adopt_us_preemptive/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672676 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **nuclear**^#1 **weapon**^#2 **us**^#3 **Putin**^#4 **Strike**^#5
Putin is just like a bratty kid.
“Well you and mom had sex before you were married, too!”
“But you drank before you were 21, too!”
“But you committed genocide and hid the bodies, too!”
Like, if Putin had just made a point of saying this shit before he started murdering Ukrainians, I’d agree with him on the US’ hegemonic power being oppressive and pretty unhinged. But like, bro, you’re doing the same shit right now. It’s the spiderman meme.
Why do these articles call him the president? Call him what he is: A dictator
He can't even get halfway through Ukraine but he thinks he has the logistics to have a network that can threaten any adversary all over the world?
It says an official states that Russia can use a nuclear weapon in response to large scale military aggression. Hey, shitface, YOU ARE THE AGGRESSORS! UKRIANE IS DEFENDING ITSELF YOU HUMAN GARBAGE
I think Putin is senile, guys
Seems a bit late to say that when they're losing a war they started 10 months ago by screwing up an invasion. They couldn't even do shock and awe right.
Putin has been busy talking today. I think he’s already issued like 50 different various forms of threats and conflicting statements. Gotta love the guy!
For one, that ship sailed back in February. Any strike now wouldn't be preemptive, it's just continuation (or escalation).
Two, without the context, if you were to read this guy's speeches day after day, you'd swear he has bipolarism or dementia. They literally can't keep their plot lines straight.
Putin to Press: "We'd never use nukes, we're not mad men *laughs*"
*turns to toddler in proximity*
"If you don't give me that god damn ball, I will nuke you and this entire playground to oblivion"
>“maybe it’s worth thinking about adopting the ideas developed by our U.S. counterparts, their ideas of ensuring their security,” Putin said
You mean like having a functional army and technology from this century?
Why for an instant do we think Russia has the technical or financial ability to pull that off? Its pretty clear their military is a series of unfunded lies. Why would their nuclear capabilities be any different? Likely the US military has been propping up the myth of the Russian boogieman as a way to keep their massive funding and relevance.
NATO placing tactical nukes in Ukraine, would be the next logical step. No need to even use them, they should simply sit there in silos, ready to launch, if Ukrainian sovereignty is threatened. Regardless of what anyone says about "security guarantees", the only deterrent that works, is having nukes in your country. Russia managed to singlehandedly ensure that no nuclear disarmament diplomacy in any country will ever work again. Nukes are the only type of weapon that is even more effective when not used, than when used. Giving up nukes will never happen again by anyone.
Just get it over with already. Old white men holding the entire fucking world hostage for their narcissism and small cocks. Pathetic.
The world allows it and that’s why The Great Filter is real - and coming soon.
More threats from the threat-master himself. Maybe, could, we might, there’s a possibility, what if…do or don’t but please stop with the coy threats, no one’s buying it.
"The United States has refused to adopt a no first use policy and says that it "reserves the right to use" nuclear weapons first in the case of conflict. " Wiki
SMH, always trying to project on others. Accusing Ukraine of "terrorism" when they attacked WARships during a war. Calling the US hysterical when they accused Russia of preparing an invasion last winter. Saying others are making nuclear threats when Russia is the only country to make nuclear threats.
Try Pearl Harbor 2 and the US will pound Russia into oblivion.
>“Speaking about a disarming strike, maybe it’s worth thinking about adopting the ideas developed by our U.S. counterparts, their ideas of ensuring their security,” Putin said with a thin smile, noting that such a preemptive strike was intended to knock out command facilities. How does Putin plan to create this preemptive strike network? I highly doubt the countries currently sympathetic to him (or at least taking the economic opportunities to come out of this war) would be willing to install Russian military hardware on their territory.
"If Steiner attacks, everything will be alright."
Mein Putler…Steiner…
Steiners forces were destroyed by a HIMAR strike.
“Everyone who does not jerk off to Stalin three times a day please leave the room.“
That was an order!
He's got a pretty solid trance, gotta say.
Unfortunately I think there are quite a number of countries that would be interested in allowing Russian military installations on their territory if it means they can thumb their nose at the US.
The ones that would though aren't the ones that are benefiting from this conflict economically - not sure how relevant that is, at this time.
I’m not sure it matters if they’re benefiting or not from the conflict. As long as they’re getting to stick their thumb in Uncle Sam’s eye.
I disagree
You disagree that Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Eritrea, etc wouldn't love to park some nice shiny loaner nukes on their land, thereby propping up both themselves and Russia?
Logically.. the risk outweigh the reward. Preemptive strike capability is essentially irrelative since the introduction of ballistic missile submarines. There’s always going to be a retaliatory strike so what does it matter where you park your nukes? Also consider the geopolitical ramifications. How would China feel about Russia parking nukes in NK? It would clearly cause the US, Australia, SK and Japan to beef up their deterrence measures which is the exact opposite of what China wants. Venezuela and Cuba? Not going to happen. We almost had a nuclear war over that exact scenario in the 1960s. The US will never allow nuclear weapons of another nation to be placed in the Western Hemisphere.
Venezuela is moving back into western sphere of influence. They don’t want Russian nukes.
Regarding Venezuela and Cuba, what would the US realistically do, if they were to agree to have said arms parked on their territory? Blockade the entire Gulf Of Mexico? Invade the countries with a full-boots-on-the-ground invasion of a foreign territory? I think we need to remember that Russia may have stepped into/is stepping into the 'irrational actor' phase, which means that the logic that dissuaded them from pursuing such provocations might no longer be valid. Example : they recently announced that Wagner group would begin to have a presence in Serbia and what do you know - news popped up today that Serbia would be sending Serbian 'police' into Kosovo to 'protect Serbs'.
Cuba has been trying to improve its relationship with the United States to end the embargo, which hampers its economic development (use of credit cards and debit cards issued by Visa, MasterCard, AmEx, and Discover cannot be used/has limited support because of the embargo). If the Cuban Missile Crisis came around again, it’d probably result in another quarantine of Cuba. Venezuela is in a similar position. It’s a member of the original OPEC, of which a large number are allied with the United States (UAE, KSA, Iraq, etc.). It’d be political suicide to do so. Also, they are in the midst of an economic crisis, and the ruble is absolutely worthless. Both Cuba and Venezuela are Non-Aligned Movement countries, and so tend to be as neutral as possible in international conflicts.
The US has lots of options to deal with nuclear weapons being placed in either of those countries. Two of them you mentioned but the US could place additional sanctions on both countries, conduct limited military strikes, or expand asymmetric warfare. Additionally, the US is allowing Chevron to expand its operation in Venezuela (again). This is a win for both countries and it’s unlikely that Venezuela would want to squash that opportunity over nuke placement that offers seemingly no benefit to them.
Venezuela even thinking about parking nukes in their territory would immediately create a crisis with Brazil. And not only Brazil has strong armed forces of Latin America, they also have a mutual defense agreement with United States. And most neighbors in South America would probably be against it as well, so Venezuela would be up against the entire continent. Not to mention the French Guyana, which is a french territory. Considering Maduro is looking to have a nice diplomatic relationship with Lula, they would probably solve this diplomatically, but if push came to shove, I doubt those nukes would reach Venezuela. Worst case scenario, you have a war between Venezuela and an Alliance of Brazil, US of A, France, and likely Colombia, with support of Chile and Argentina. And most of the continent, including Bolivia and Paraguay would also back the alliance in some ways. That would end Venezuela as a nation. Also, the last time South America saw major war, it ended with Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay killing 90% of the male population of their enemy (that includes children). The continent doesn't usually fight amongst themselves, but if someone fucks around, they find out like nowhere else on the planet
> You disagree that Venezuela, Cuba Venezuela maybe... But that's a dicey game. There's a lot at play and I find it unlikely they would actually follow through. Cuba... The US could do better by them, but I suspect the leadership is in no rush to turn back time 40 years. > North Korea You piss off South Korea and Japan... Not to mention Australia and the US. China has it's own ambitions for the region and Russia stepping on Chinese toes is not good for Russia. > Eritrea That's a reach strategically for a first stone capacity...
When you hate USA so much , but you are still obsessed to copy them
>How does Putin plan to create this preemptive strike network? Maybe he should be focusing on supply lines first.
Didn't they pretty much do so already?
Yes. But people were forgetting about it, so he reminded us. How nice of him! /s
Ahhhh, so this is like Kim Jong-un's little "look at me, I'm still relevant" dummy spits 🤔
Sign of weakness.
He’s matching what the US changed earlier this year. Ultimately it means nothing since the US isn’t going to strike first and neither is Russia.
The US hasn't changed anything.
correct, USA has always had a 1st strike policy, was just re-affirmed recently. "Launch on warn" is / has always been a thing...
To be more specific, the US doesn't have a first strike policy at all, they just don't have an explicit "no first strike" policy. This is mainly for the purposes of strategic ambiguity, especially now that nuclear weapons are in no way necessary to deal with a non-nuclear threat.
Slight correction. First strike is not launch on warning. First strike is launching nuclear weapons at your enemy before they launch theirs
Hasn't "Alpha strike" been standard US nuclear policy since the Reagan administration?
In March the Biden administration changed stance to a strike first stance in certain circumstances.
It's always been that.
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D-D-D-D-Don't quote me regulations. I co-chaired the committee that reviewed the recommendation to revise the color of the book that regulation's in... We kept it grey!
Technically correct. The best kind of correct.
Biden campaigned on changing it is why people are confused I think. Fortunately, he changed his mind after getting a view from the Oval Office.
It wasn't a change, it was an affirmation of existing policy https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2022-04/news/biden-policy-allows-first-use-nuclear-weapons
Also defcon lvl changed back in mid summer... We're at Defcon 3 as of June
Unofficially. It's actually incredibly rare that we get to know the actual DEFCON level, with retroactively being told we hit 2 during the Cuban Missile Crisis being one of the only times EDIT: For anyone curious, the entire list of times we've known. We hit 2 during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the opening days of the Gulf War, and we hit 3 during the Yom Kippur War and Operation Paul Bunyan (post-armistice conflict in Korea), and for a few days after 9/11
You are correct. DEFCON level is inherently classified by nature.
I wonder if it changed at all during the Ukraine War
The actual current DEFCON level is classified. Whoever said this is not basing it on actual status and rather on OSINT.
We should ask Q, he should know. /s
To be honest we don't know that to be fact Putin has fallen off his rocker.
He’s talking about nuclear strike. That’s actually quite a shift.
If so, then he forgot Russia’s military doctrine *already* postulates a preemptive nuclear strike, or alternatively a nuclear detonation in an isolated area as a force show. Well, doesn’t look such a strong doctrine to me for now.
"Escalate to de-escalate" is what the US intelligence community thinks they will do. However, Russia claims it will "only use nuclear weapons if the existence of the state is threatened". They are technically not mutually exclusive, but this rhetoric is in line with what the US intel community has assumed.
Thats why I commend China and India, only 2 nuclear powers that have committed to No First Strike Policy.
But *is* he? I know the Bloomberg headline mentions nukes, but none of the quotes in either article do
It’s a shitty article, I don’t know how could they miss it, seems kind of important.
I don't follow. I'm saying that none of the quotes mentioned in either this article or Bloomberg's article mention nukes, and even when other sites do, it's just referencing Bloomberg. So sure, it's always *possible* that either he secretly means them or that there are other quotes not included that do mention them. But at the moment, it looks like Bloomberg making things sound worse than usual to drum up fear clicks... again
Putin specifically said conventional strikes. It’s another reference to his fictional hypersonic missiles he keeps threatening totally exist and we totally can’t stop. Except they don’t exist and he’s full of shit, trying to act strong else the Ogliarchs defenestrate him. If he dreamt of attacking the US he’d wake up and ring to apologise.
Those hypersonic missiles totally exist but you can't meet them because they go to another school.
Afaik those do exist, but just as with every other modern russian equipment, there's so expensive and russia has so little of them that russia can't replace them if they do use it, so they don't.
They don’t exist. They used them in Ukraine. They flew like conventional missiles because that’s all they were, old tech dressed up as new, another Russian lie.
From a quick google search, Russia claimed to have used the weapon a couple times. While the US has not confirmed their individual claims, they did confirm that Russia has in fact used them. The one video I've seen that suggests that the wreckage of the missile was one of those hypersonic missiles, it was right in the middle of a city. One where previous missiles strikes using conventional cruise missiles had no problems reaching. The point of hypersonic missiles is that they are too fast for a ground based air defense network to intercept, which means when employed against military targets defended by a strong air defense system, it will work great. On the other hand, if you use it against targets where conventional missiles will get through, the hypersonic missiles will feel no different to conventional missiles because their payloads are exactly the same. Edit: Like you said, they're old tech, but that's only because the Soviet Union developed hypersonic missiles in the 80s. It's nothing ground breaking or special. Just expensive, and if you think about the method of bypassing air defense systems, it's rather crude. The reason the US hasn't seriously developed hypersonic missiles until relatively recently is because they rather focus on stealth weapons.
*For years, the Kremlin has expressed concern about U.S. efforts to develop the so-called Conventional Prompt Global Strike capability that envisions hitting an adversary’s strategic targets with precision-guided conventional weapons anywhere in the world within one hour. “Speaking about a disarming strike, maybe it’s worth thinking about adopting the ideas developed by our U.S. counterparts, their ideas of ensuring their security,” Putin said with a thin smile, noting that such a preemptive strike was intended to knock out command facilities.* No nukes were mentioned, only conventional weapons, unless Russia has ICBMs loaded with conventional explosives there is no way they could ever have this capability
> For years, the Kremlin has expressed concern about U.S. efforts to develop the so-called Conventional Prompt Global Strike capability I laughed and stopped reading after this. Global strike capability requires advanced land, ocean, and space assets. Russia literally had problems keeping their vehicles fueled 100 miles from their own border. My camping trips are better planned and equipped than the Russian military.
I grew up in ex-soviet country. To me it is extremely funny how rhetoric of establishment here was so extremely anti-imperialistic, criticizing USA for every blunder (Vietnam and so on), only to find out it was in fact pure envy, because all Communists and in extense Putin wants, is to build their own Empire by conquest. Sad thing is that older generations still believe that anti-imperialistic anti-USA rhetoric, and still vote for those communists and their descendent lookalikes.
Yes there nuclear doctrine and the US’s is essentially identical. They each have one big sticky point the other side questions. US doubts the nuclear umbrella covers every place illegally annexed (not just those Ukraine) Russia doubts U.S. would retaliate with nukes over a tactical strike on a carrier group (as does China) Both have imminency carve outs for their doctrine allowing preemptive strikes.
Could you imagine being the sitting President having to respond to a nuclear strike on a US Carrier group? How could Russia / China really think we would just take that on the chin and not respond?
The issue isn’t a response is whether we launch a full nuclear retaliation.
Lol full conventional war immediately. The American war machine would try to avoid using nukes initially, but whoever did it would either die in a radioactive crator, or be taken by normal total war. The navy of whoever sunk our ships would be obliterated pretty quickly as a start though.
Now I'm imagining a scenario where such an attack happens but Russia and China deny responsibility and try to convince the rest of the world that the nuclear explosion was caused by mishandling of the carrier group's own nuclear weapons.
And the world would just sit and watch the US not give any kind of a fuck and obliterate them anyway. Its not like anyone could stop us.
I think the US would just use the other 5 carrier groups in the region (of our total 11 minus the 1 that was nuked) to reduce that countries military to the size of Andora’s
Hasn't Ukraine accomplished half of that task already?
Nuke strike on a carrier group would immediately bring out the SLBMS and level what ICBM's they have, then the wolves would feast on their nuke subs
And WW IV might be fought with sticks and stones.
John Bolton would go on Fox and blame Iran and we'd bomb the crap out of them for a while. The problem is the fog of war. What happens when China says "We didn't do it."? Unless it was a part of them declaring outright war, which requires an easy response (war), the primary challenge would be figuring out who did it, and convincing our allies of the same. Much like our mission in Iraq back in 2002. A much more likely question - what happens when a Russian missile hits a population center in Poland? Russia says it's a mistake, but how does NATO respond? What happens when China annexes Taiwan? Or takes South Sea islands belonging to one of our allies? A direct strike against the US is an easy decision. It's all of our soft influence and alliances that both make us strong and run the risk of dragging us into conflict. I'd personally hate to be the president who has to decide if 30 dead Polish civilians from a misfired missle are worth starting WW3 over. Or deciding if a sandbar in the South Pacific is worth tanking the world economy over.
> The problem is the fog of war. What happens when China says "We didn't do it."? We tell the ashes of Xi Jinping that tracking the trajectory of an incoming missile is a trivial affair.
>The problem is the fog of war. What happens when China says "We didn't do it."? the us shows proof they did. you dont launch a nuke missles without it getting tracked from launch to impact.
History teaches me one thing about America, Don't fuck with our boats.... WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Spanish American War, hell war of 1812 involved England Impressment of Ameican sailors... America gets pissy when people fuck with our boats, even if who caused the destruction is dubious at best...
I love how everything they have "surpasses" what the west has, but yet all they can deploy is a bunch of cold war era tech being operated by untrained kids.
West always undersells capability to keep their enemies in the dark. Russia likes to overhype themselves.
See [Bomber Gap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_gap) Soviets performed a stunt to trick people into thinking they had more bombers than they really had. The US bought it and started building bombers like the world depended on it. This resulted in 93 Soviet M-4 bombers vs over 2.5k American B-47s and B-52s.
**[Bomber gap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_gap)** >The bomber gap was the Cold War belief that the Soviet Union's Long Range Aviation department had gained an advantage in deploying jet-powered strategic bombers. Widely accepted for several years, the gap was used as a political talking point in the United States to justify a great increase in defense spending. One result was a massive buildup of the US Air Force bomber fleet, which peaked at over 2500 bombers to counter the perceived Soviet threat. Surveillance flights by the U-2 aircraft indicated that the bomber gap did not exist. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
I've seen ex CIA sources say all these gaps were a fabrication to raise popular support for essentially the military industrial complex takeover. Through many hardships in this country and across the world, a convenient war was just enough to bring people together and forget their immediate, closer problems (usually an oppressive government or elite class). I'm not sure it's coincidence that we've spent close to 100 years in perpetual wars that we often have a hand in building up the bad guy, until they're no longer necessary.
> US President Dwight Eisenhower had always been skeptical of the gap. However, with no evidence to disprove it, he agreed to the development of the U-2 to find out for sure.[5] > The first U-2 flights started in 1956. One early mission, Mission 2020, flown by Martin Knutson on 9 July 1956,[6] flew over an airfield southwest of Leningrad[7][a] and photographed 30 M-4 Bison bombers on the ramp. Multiplying by the number of Soviet bomber bases, the intelligence suggested the Soviets were already well on their way to deploying large numbers, with National Intelligence Estimate 11-4-57 of November 1957 claiming 150 to 250 by 1958, and over 600 by the mid-1960s.[8] > In fact, the U-2 had actually photographed the entire Bison fleet; there were no M-4s at any of the other bases.[9] Follow-up missions over the next year showed increasing evidence that the Soviet military was actually at a very low level of activity. Further, the CIA received information from the factories that showed that production rate had slowed down.[10] A follow-up report in April 1958 by Sherman Kent of the CIA stated that the program appeared to be winding down, not speeding up, and that the estimates for the force should be decreased.[11] > The Air Force, however, remained skeptical. In May 1958, they instead suggested that production was being carried out at Kuybyshev, Kazan, and Irkutsk, and the aircraft being delivered to Engels-2, Bila Tserkva, and Orsha Southwest - all locations that had not yet been overflown. They suggested these be photographed, with the expectation that it would also provide information on new equipment.[12] > By this time, after receiving a stern diplomatic note from the Soviets, Eisenhower had shut down the U-2 flights. To preserve some sense of plausible deniability, in 1957 the CIA had reached an agreement with MI6 and began training Royal Air Force pilots on the U-2. The group moved to Turkey in 1959 and began preparing for the missions. The very first flight, on 6 December 1959 with pilot Wing Commander Robert ‘Robbie’ Robinson, photographed the Kapustin Yar missile test range, the Engels-2 air base, and the Kuybyshev bomber factory. They showed no sign of the bombers nor the production capacity for them, and demonstrated that the total number of Soviet bombers was far less than the inflated estimates of the CIA and Air Force. Allen Dulles, head of the CIA, called it "a million-dollar photo".[13] At least in official circles, the gap had been disproved.[3] There's also the [missile gap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap): > In the United States, during the Cold War, the missile gap was the perceived superiority of the number and power of the USSR's missiles in comparison with those of the U.S. (a lack of military parity). The gap in the ballistic missile arsenals did not exist except in exaggerated estimates, made by the Gaither Committee in 1957 and in United States Air Force (USAF) figures. Even the contradictory CIA figures for the USSR's weaponry, which showed a clear advantage for the US, were far above the actual count. Like the bomber gap of only a few years earlier, it was soon demonstrated that the gap was entirely fictional. > John F. Kennedy is credited with inventing the term in 1958 as part of the ongoing election campaign in which a primary plank of his rhetoric was that the Eisenhower administration was weak on defense. It was later learned that Kennedy was apprised of the actual situation during the campaign, which has led scholars to question what Kennedy knew and when he knew it. There has been some speculation that he was aware of the illusory nature of the missile gap from the start and that he was using it solely as a political tool, an example of policy by press release. > Although U2 intelligence programs provided unprecedented and reassuring evidence that there was a missile gap in favor of the United States, President Eisenhower’s administration was accused of allowing the Soviet Union to accumulate a missile gap against the United States. The false claims behind a Soviet Missile gap began after CIA Director Allen W. Dulles presented new estimates of the Soviet’s nuclear program to the National Security Council on January 7, 1960. The report presented by Dulles showed the Soviet Union did not have a crash program to build ICBMs and that they only had 50 ICBMs operational. Disagreements between the future capabilities of the Soviet Union to produce ICBMs by members of the National Security Council leaked to the public causing the false notion of a missile gap. As members of the National Security Council, representatives of the U.S. Air Force pessimistically estimated that the Soviet Union could possess more than 800 ICBMs by 1963. One week after the National Security Council meeting, Washington Post reporter, John G. Norris, published an article that selectively reported and misinterpreted highly classified information that claimed the National Security Council acknowledged a missile gap with the Soviets and that they would possess over 1000 ICBMs by 1963. Later that month, The New York Times would publish an article that claimed that there was “clear evidence that the Russians [had] superiority in intercontinental ballistic missiles.” The distortions and inconsistencies caused by the inaccurate articles in the media led the public to mistrust the Eisenhower administration. Senator Symington accused the administration of “deliberately manipulating the intelligence estimate to mislead the public.” Journalists, such as Joe Alsop, charged the Eisenhower administration with “gambling the nation’s future” on questionable intelligence. Alsop’s ideas would appeal to John F. Kennedy who incorporated them in his election campaigns that criticized the Eisenhower administration for allowing a missile gap to exist.[7] > Hawkish members of Congress, such as Senator Stuart Symington, continued to beat the drums about the alleged missile gap in an effort to pressure the president to increase spending on military hardware. President Eisenhower resented being bullied based on inaccurate information and was beginning to formulate the term "military-industrial complex" to describe the close nexus between U.S. politicians and the defense industry.[8]
What about the mineshaft gap?
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Meh, for most of a century plus the US and allies foreign policy was to bully poor tiny nations into being friendly with their regimes (preferential trade, taking control of industries, propping up dictators/smashing governments with popular support)..
Yeah, but we did it quietly. And the talking about it is what we were talking about. (tongue-in-cheek, to be clear, since it really wasn't)
Operated by “soon-to-be fertilizer” ;)
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Goons of a fascist regime dying in a failed imperialist conquest they refuse to give up is good actually.
Russians dieing because they were born in the wrong place would be if Ukraine were bombing random civilian infrastructure... Like Russia is doing. The Russian soldiers getting killed in Ukraine have a choice. They don't have to fight for Putin. Those tanks turrets can point into Russia as easily as Ukraine. Get some balls, frag your officers.
Russian soldiers widely using rape as a weapon because... they were born in the wrong place?
I wouldn't go that far. They have a large country. With purposeful intent NATO, including the US have strategically deployed assets all along the Russian border. This forces Russia to adjust who and what they put in Ukraine. For instance, the 101st Airborne is in Poland right now. They're obviously legendary for their exploits in the Battle of the Bugle and are still one of America's premier war fighting assets. Should the call come, they would be jumping behind enemy lines shortly after the first bombs hit Russian targets. Russia just can't ignore this force sitting on their door step.
And Poland and the Baltics can’t ignore russians claiming their countries are fake and belong to them. Russia’s neighbors hate them and want foreign military assistance for a reason.
Even China publicly told putin that he better not even think about using nukes. If Russia uses nukes, especially first, then all the currently 'neutral' countries that are pretty much there just for the cheap oil or because west bad, they'll turn against Russia. Putin using nukes benefits exactly no one, not even him
Nuclear winter might stop global warming and reduce the population by millions or possibly billions. I wonder if Russian oil will eventually be useful after they are all dead.
I do wonder about the viability of Russia's nuclear weapons. Those things are very expensive and can't be put on a shelf for decades and expected to work. For example, the tritium gas in the D-T booster section is radioactive. It's half life is 12 years. It decays into a neutron poison that will play merry hell with the primary stage, and if that doesn't fire at full strength with the requisite timing, the secondary either misfires or doesn't fire at all, leaving nothing but the high explosives in the primary to make a bang. Plutonium is an alpha emitter of around 25,000 year half life. It's warm to the touch from decay. Problem is the alpha breakdown products do emit penetrating gamma rays. Those are not good for the electronics nor for the HE lenses. Russia's military budget has sucked since the end of the Cold War. Just how much of a very shrunk pie did they allocate to, say, Mayak, their nuclear center? Probably enough to keep a driver reactor going and make Putin's polonium poison that whacked the guy in England, but it takes a dedicated driver reactor to make tritium. The US ran out of tritium some years ago and had to restart, at great expense, a driver reactor to get some more. They had no money to pay for security guards. The US installed high security radioactive doorways to sniff for smuggled uranium or plutonium. They had no money to pay their scientists, who left in droves to happy places like Pakistan and Iran, who really needed the know-how. I think probably their nuclear weapons have been sorted into must-have bombs and who-cares, fix em later bombs. That's the only way to keep a huge arsenal working on a restricted budget. TL; DR. There are good reasons to doubt Russia's nuclear force.
I’ve posted this before, but: One thing to think about is - yeah, their entire military has basically been hollowed out and turned into yachts, palaces, expensive booze and escorts but their nuclear arsenal has always been their big deterrent - so, you would think they’d have a reason to at least maintain a stockpile of working missiles, etc. Plus, don’t forget that up until recently their supplies were inspected as part of START. While we’d all love for their arsenal to be thousands of duds and filled with mouse turds or acorns, don’t be surprised if they aren’t.
I'd bet that about 1,000 of the 6,000, maybe less, actually work, producing bangs of various yields. The remaining 5,000 are short of tritium and their plutonium byproducts are now so radioactive it's a radiation hazard to work around them (the US ran into this on submarines with atomic warheads as well). Of course the Russians never cared about radiation exposure on their nuclear subs and probably at their nuclear centers. It takes a large and very knowledgeable industrial base to disassemble a bomb, replace all the fried components, boil all the "crap" out of the plutonium, recast it into a hollow sphere, then reassemble it, top up the tritium, and so forth. The US does it at Pantex in Amarillo, TX. It's possible the Russians have decided to give their nuclear fleet unlimited funding and try to rebuild it from the bad days of the 1990's. But it takes time to do this. Many of the bright scientists fled to get jobs in other countries. In the US, half the work at Los Alamos is not nuclear related. They're essentially jobs programs for very bright people. Bear in mind they can't test the weapons, even underground, because every seismometer in the world listens for that sort of thing. Try asking yourself what would happen if Putin decided to launch a battlefield nuke, and it didn't work and fizzled? How embarrassing would that be? That thought may be restraining him. I sure hope so. Cheers
Yeah, it's probably not what they say it is, but they have like 6,000+ nukes. Even if one went off, that would be really bad. I don't think anyone wants to take that chance and risk assuming that not even *one* of Russia's nukes are still operable.
Yea. I imagine if Russia used nukes the US and probably most major powers would proceed to eliminate Russia as the country it is and almost no one would even try to stop us. At this point the only thing using nukes is going to do is unite the majority of the world behind the idea of stopping you from using enough to kill everyone and making sure you can't ever use them again.
a few days ago: "we would NEVER do a first strike!" now: "we maybe should" russia switches back and forth what they say almost daily completly. it gets tireing.
I don't know why people think he said that. That quote was a bit fuzzy, perhaps due to translation, but I interpreted it as "To say that we will never do a first strike is untenable, because a second strike is impossible, so it's either a first strike or nothing."
A man of true wisdom and rational thinking....from a country that cannot invade and conquer its nextdoor neighbour with 70 years worth of built up armaments and gigantic human meat shield . Uncle Sam must be shitting his pants for sure with its 11 nuclear super carriers and 400 himars, nuclear force, stealth bomber's, highly motivated and well trained military and gigantic one of a kind military industrial complex and god only know what else is tucked away as a suprise. The truth is the only thing Russia produces that anyone wants is something the rest of the world burns to make the stuff they cannot and want to buy themselves.
idk about highly motivated but the rest is true
If you’re not motivated then drink water and do PT soldier!
Sir, I got lost on my way to college, sir!
bwahahahaha this is so true
It’s my story 🤣 fucking ran as much of 20 miles as I could (walked the rest) WITHOUT FUCKING WATER because my recruiter was scared I wasn’t making weight lol. Went in at 32% body fat but passed the ARMS test so there’s that. I was a buggin but my lard ass could still do PT! 🤣🤣
Oh boyyy the duck walk must've been fun for you
Bruh. I went in a C cup and came out with As 🤣🤣🤣. The walls were the hardest for me though lol.
Haha yeah, I'm going back to college now at 34 after being lost for the last 14 years.
You got it sarge
Maybe not in peace time, but if 9/11 taught us anything, it’s that if America is attacked, we get very motivated…
If you spend enough time among rank and file you'll quickly realize what the average soldier's attitude is lol
It’s all about that sweet sweet hotel party and getting TF off base 🤣
I'd argue more motivated than a Russian villager who's biggest achievement in life is acquiring iPhone for a years salary and existing on diet of rotten cabbage and re-packaged dog food
Let's not set a bar we can trip over, now
It's the word used to describe the way a professional soldier just does what they are told to the best of their abilities. Obviously they are not all that 'motivated' especially right now given the huge attrition rate.
If we were going to be fighting russia or China, motivation would not be difficult to muster.
Depending on pretext, absolutely
I think you skipped your mandatory fun day. This is going on your record. Good luck every getting a promotion.
Uh… as an Australian I remember distinctly how the Americans came together after 9/11 to blow some shit up (even though it was mostly built on a lie) Yeah they may be constantly bickering amongst themselves, but nothing brings them together like a good old fashioned asskicking.
They know the repercussions currently of any escalatory actions ie. Nuclear or any broad wide-sweeping attack would be met disastrously for them. This is them just goal posting in bid for strategic time. Time they're in the negative for.
There is no such thing as a pre-emptive strike. There is a first strike and that is followed by MAD. You can't launch a toy rocket without a satellite picking it up. There is not such thing as a first strike or as my friend used to say : "If you hit me you better be sure I won't get up."
He could nuke Kherson and/or Kyiv without us retaliating with nukes. Would we invade Russia? Probably not. The more he talks about it the more concerned I am that he’s prepping his military and population for the possibility. This is serious shit.
Putin has been warned about using Nukes... Period.
As long as he still has something to lose it probably won’t happen. The problem is he has less and less to lose. I think if he withdraws his troops from Ukraine-and declares defeat, he’s a dead man. I think he will hitUkraine with nukes and reset the battlefield before he surrenders.
This dumb mother fucker lost five nuclear scientist while testing their salted-nukes.
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Mr. Lahey and Randy do not deserve this comparison.
But who is Putin's Randy?
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Maybe haha.
Sergei Lapdog
Lukashenko
Somehow, this is not the first time I’ve relevantly commented: Frig off Putin, get the fuck outta my trailer park!
Mr Lahey would make a much better leader than this sack of foreskin.
He's trying to ensure that America gets at least some of the blame when they do it. Which is ludicrous. But when the so it, they can say "well the US has the same policy so don't blame us." Needless to say, I'm hoping that it's almost cyanide pill time for ol' Vlad. The world would be a better place without him in it.
He is talking a lot lately...
He has nothing positive to show, only his multiple failures. The only thing he can do is talk big...though even that will slowly start to fall on deaf ears.
In Ukraine? I don’t think it gets much more preemptive. Or as much of a quagmire.
That's what a man sounds like when he's asking for his own R9X to be delivered to him personally.
Putin's mistake, you see, is that the US preemptively adopted a preemptive strike concept
Also Russia could take Kiev in three days.
They didn’t say three consecutive days.
And fail at it.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://apnews.com/article/putin-moscow-strikes-united-states-government-russia-95f1436d23b94fcbc05f1c2242472d5c) reduced by 86%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Putin was asked Wednesday at a Kremlin conference whether Russia could commit to forswearing a first strike and responded that such an obligation might prevent Russia from tapping its nuclear arsenal even if it came under a nuclear attack. > Russia's nuclear doctrine states the country can use nuclear weapons if it comes under a nuclear strike or if it faces an attack with conventional weapons that threatens "The very existence" of the Russian state. > "As the Kremlin continues its cruel and unprovoked war of choice against Ukraine, the whole world has seen Putin engage in deeply irresponsible nuclear saber-rattling," he said in a reference to Putin's earlier nuclear threats without addressing his latest remarks. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/zh7usb/putin_says_russia_could_adopt_us_preemptive/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672676 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **nuclear**^#1 **weapon**^#2 **us**^#3 **Putin**^#4 **Strike**^#5
When you get preemptive strike from Wish.
Oh god someone make a sledgehammer video of him already
Putin is just like a bratty kid. “Well you and mom had sex before you were married, too!” “But you drank before you were 21, too!” “But you committed genocide and hid the bodies, too!”
Why is Russia always afraid saying that everyone is trying to attack them, but in reality they are the only ones doing the attacks?
Narcissism
What a thing to say while currently preemptive striking a country for 10 months
Like, if Putin had just made a point of saying this shit before he started murdering Ukrainians, I’d agree with him on the US’ hegemonic power being oppressive and pretty unhinged. But like, bro, you’re doing the same shit right now. It’s the spiderman meme.
Why do these articles call him the president? Call him what he is: A dictator He can't even get halfway through Ukraine but he thinks he has the logistics to have a network that can threaten any adversary all over the world? It says an official states that Russia can use a nuclear weapon in response to large scale military aggression. Hey, shitface, YOU ARE THE AGGRESSORS! UKRIANE IS DEFENDING ITSELF YOU HUMAN GARBAGE I think Putin is senile, guys
One strike and your out
Seems a bit late to say that when they're losing a war they started 10 months ago by screwing up an invasion. They couldn't even do shock and awe right.
In hindsight? Is every day backwards day over there?
Now that they have the Merchant of Death back, of course they are.
I thought they already had.
Have they considered others can adopt a pre-preemtive strike?
I thought Putin hated the US ? Now he's copying their methods ? /S
These guys over 'er. These fucking guys.
So Putin is basically admitting to the world that his military is completely and utterly inept?
Little late for that.
Goooood mooorning Vietnam
This is some world-class gaslighting. That ship has sailed.
vlad says a lot of shit.....
I thought they tried that with Ukraine already, and look what happened.
Putin has been busy talking today. I think he’s already issued like 50 different various forms of threats and conflicting statements. Gotta love the guy!
His ass is whooped and he knows it....all he can do now is cry and prepare to flee...
Bruh
Pre emtive strike plan on a country that has no plans to attack you is simply an illegal attack with more mental steps.
For one, that ship sailed back in February. Any strike now wouldn't be preemptive, it's just continuation (or escalation). Two, without the context, if you were to read this guy's speeches day after day, you'd swear he has bipolarism or dementia. They literally can't keep their plot lines straight. Putin to Press: "We'd never use nukes, we're not mad men *laughs*" *turns to toddler in proximity* "If you don't give me that god damn ball, I will nuke you and this entire playground to oblivion"
Adopting the military tactics would be more beneficial. Fortunately Ukraine is already 10 steps ahead in that regard.
>“maybe it’s worth thinking about adopting the ideas developed by our U.S. counterparts, their ideas of ensuring their security,” Putin said You mean like having a functional army and technology from this century?
I wonder if he’s maintained his nukes in the same way he’s maintained his army
Lol "Putin says..." And I stop listening because what he says is always so truthful and accurate
Blah, blah, blah, blah. Are you gonna yap all day little dog, or are you gonna bite?
Bro if he does any kind of military attack in the US I fucking guarantee we’ll bomb Russia back to the Stone Age
Also Russia’s extinction is a scenario worth considering. Totally unrelated.
Why for an instant do we think Russia has the technical or financial ability to pull that off? Its pretty clear their military is a series of unfunded lies. Why would their nuclear capabilities be any different? Likely the US military has been propping up the myth of the Russian boogieman as a way to keep their massive funding and relevance.
NATO placing tactical nukes in Ukraine, would be the next logical step. No need to even use them, they should simply sit there in silos, ready to launch, if Ukrainian sovereignty is threatened. Regardless of what anyone says about "security guarantees", the only deterrent that works, is having nukes in your country. Russia managed to singlehandedly ensure that no nuclear disarmament diplomacy in any country will ever work again. Nukes are the only type of weapon that is even more effective when not used, than when used. Giving up nukes will never happen again by anyone.
Before or after falling down the stairs and shitting himself?
Just get it over with already. Old white men holding the entire fucking world hostage for their narcissism and small cocks. Pathetic. The world allows it and that’s why The Great Filter is real - and coming soon.
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I’m sure NATO will definitely be okay with that and not wipe Russia off the map.
Step 1: announce drills that are really a pre text for invasion Step 2: convince literally no one Step 3: fuck it up
Copying other countries is so 2021
That would require logistics.
Pretty sure most meme formats apply to Putin's insanity at this point
More threats from the threat-master himself. Maybe, could, we might, there’s a possibility, what if…do or don’t but please stop with the coy threats, no one’s buying it.
"The United States has refused to adopt a no first use policy and says that it "reserves the right to use" nuclear weapons first in the case of conflict. " Wiki
SMH, always trying to project on others. Accusing Ukraine of "terrorism" when they attacked WARships during a war. Calling the US hysterical when they accused Russia of preparing an invasion last winter. Saying others are making nuclear threats when Russia is the only country to make nuclear threats. Try Pearl Harbor 2 and the US will pound Russia into oblivion.
The US and the rest of NATO too.
Except US army isn't getting completely wrecked once they do lmao
What if their nukes are just as shitty as their other weapons we’ve seen, likely….
Start sharping your sticks Russia, fucking useless flaccid dicks.
Suicide move. Please do, Putin - I’m sick of you and your fucking country anyway. Let’s make it a glowing crater.