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In September 2019, researchers at Princeton’s Program on Science and Global Security published a video which shows the “domino effect” of using just one tactical (low-yield) nuclear weapon.
The study project is called “Plan A” and the result is a video, which shows how quickly the end of the world would come if a war between the US and Russia were to begin and just one low-yield nuclear weapon was launched.
As it is always the case in all NATO-aligned fan-fiction (and as per NATO’s main narrative), in order to avoid a conventional conflict, Moscow undertakes the simplest decision – launch a “nuclear warning shot” from the Kaliningrad exclave.
Presumably a strategic bomber drops a low-yield nuke on an area near the Polish city of Zagan, which is a potential site for a US/NATO base, currently empty.
And the entire scenario begins quite unlikely – Russia’s nuclear doctrine does not have a “preemptive strike” policy, the only country that has such a policy is the US, and why it would simply drop a nuke on a civilian area is also questionable.
But, who knows, though, the Russians are “evil,” so anything and everything should be expected.
“This project is motivated by the need to highlight the potentially catastrophic consequences of current US and Russian nuclear war plans. The risk of nuclear war has increased dramatically in the past two years as the United States and Russia have abandoned long-standing nuclear arms control treaties, started to develop new kinds of nuclear weapons and expanded the circumstances in which they might use nuclear weapons,” the description of Princeton’s SGS outlines.
How it essentially manages to get the situation wrong from the first 30 seconds of a 4-minute video is puzzling. Regardless, yes, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia would retaliate with nuclear strikes if the US were the first to launch them (or another adversary), and its doctrine also states that.
To repeat, the only country with nuclear warheads, that also has a “preemptive” nuclear strike policy is the US, and this video begins in a situation that Moscow assumes Washington’s war-time doctrine. Russia, in 1993, did drop its “no first use policy,” but its 2010 doctrine only suggests that nuclear weapons would be used in response to an adversary using them first. Any other suggestions that it could resort to such weapons first comes down to speculation.
It should furthermore be mentioned that the idea of the project and the “reference point” was the 1983 movie “War Games, starring Matthew Broderick, in which he accidentally triggers a nuclear war.
Regardless, after the nuclear warning shot is launched, all hell breaks loose and the video estimates that 34 million people would die in Europe in under 5 hours. Most of those people would die during the initial 45-minute window.
A further 60million would be injured by the blasts.
The nuclear strike is launched from Kaliningrad to stop a NATO/US advance through western Europe. Immediately after, NATO and Russia exchange 480 nuclear strikes via aircraft.
Europe is destroyed just hours later, and the US fires 600 warheads from its land and submarine bases at Russia’s nuclear forces.
Russia retaliates with missiles launched from silos and submarines.
With the aim of blocking the other side’s recovery, Russia and Nato each obliterate one another’s 30 most populated cities using five to ten warheads on each town.
This exchange plays out how the war would develop.
It leads to around 91.5million causalties across the entire conflict. That includes 31.4million fatalities, and 57.4million injuries.
Renata Dwan, director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, warned in May that all states with nuclear weapons are modernising them, increasing the threat of apocalypse. The world appears to be closer to nuclear than ever before.
She said it’s important “to recognise that the risks of nuclear war are particularly high now, and the risks of the use of nuclear weapons, are higher now than at any time since World War Two”.
As a result of such a scenario, the radioactive fallout from the nuclear disaster would cause additional deaths and injuries.
Studies also suggest that, even with a limited nuclear engagement, Earth’s atmosphere would cool dramatically, driving famine, refugee crises, additional conflicts, and more deaths.
The simulations of the fatalities were made with Alex Wellerstein’s NUKEMAP, in which everybody can simulate blowing up any location on Earth, with estimations of casualties, fallout and so on.
For those who want an even more realistic experience, there’s also NUKEMAP VR, which lets users blow up a location on Earth, while watching it through their virtual reality headset.
The future, truly, is now.
What’s important to note is that any large-scale conflict between the United States and Russia will have a devastating impact on Europe. In this light, it remains unclear why some European states support the withdrawal of the US from the INF Treaty and thus create conditions for the deployment of US short-range missiles there.
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duh, mere cannon fodder for kikes!
With so many nukes that have gone missing. Terrorists that got materials to make dirty bombs. Yet no nukes have ever been detonated by them. We hear about Nagasaki and Hiroshima, yet they resemble all the other cities that have been fire-bombed. We hear about the deformities, an effect cause by the nuclear explosion’s radiation, but we all know depleted uranium does the same, look at Libya. We’ve seen so many footage of nuclear tests, yet it can be argued that they resemble composite footage, meaning they are fake. We hear about how the equal amount of tnt were used to measure up to the actual nuclear explosion, but who knows, maybe both explosions were tnt. Maybe we should just trust in the alliance axis and forget that the wold is actually a stage and they are the cast. Maybe we should forget that famous photo showing world leaders, including Putin, wearing a Freemason robe, all having a laugh. Maybe we should just believe Hollywood every time we are indoctrinated by their fancy CGI nuclear explosions, that it is actually a reality. Does no one question these things. Are everyone really so gullible. Big/Huge/Massive explosions exists, I get that. Does the famous, highly promoted, nuclear explosion exist? I don’t think so. Just my silly opinion.
“Russia’s nuclear doctrine does not have a “preemptive strike” policy” But Russia’s nuclear doctrine has use of tactical nukes policy in the case of direct attack on Russia. In the case of NATO attack all NATO troops would be annihilated before even stepping on the Russian soil. And they know that.
“United States and Russia have abandoned long-standing nuclear arms control treaties” NOT TRUE !!! Only US has unilaterally abandoned treaties, so Russia couldn’t do anything but to accept that !
Article or “research” that talks about total annihilation in casual and “rational” manner is warmongering in disguise. Since in reality NOBODY would survive nuclear exchange and those warmongering lunatics pertinently know that. What else can be said about total horror, but the warning that we should stay out of all that, as far as possible.
https://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/4/10/1397151911401/Dead-soldier-first-world–012.jpg
Z.P. – I know what you’re trying to say and don’t disagree, but – by any chance – have you been living in a cave the last few years?
“Russia would never use single nuke if not not attacked, let alone start war with nuke aggression.”
Obvious. So how does this remove the REAL threat?
Say some shitty little country in the Middle East does not like Russia interfering with its regional political ambitions but is powerless (by itself) to do anything about it. Their efforts to control a disobedient, rebellious Russia internally have failed, so they roll out the old, reliable Plan B through more powerful proxies.
You know the one: Demonization of leaders, economic ‘punishment’ of citizens to create dissent, fueling any kind of internal chaos, NGOs, media control, regime change, war, partitioning into smaller, weaker states, rewriting constitution and IMF-like loans (but not necessarily in that order).
Plan B isn’t working so far, but they’re pretty sure Russia could not economically survive a prolonged pointless war against a proxy – like the US (and NATO lackeys) – that is still in a position to print endless amounts of its own money and delay the consequences for decades.
So stir up as much animosity as possible between the US and Russia, toss in a few nuke false flags so nobody is really sure who is responsible (on either side or better yet, both) and they will take it from there. They have to – their populations will demand it. The handful of honorable men that were able to prevent that on either side in the past are gone.
Nobody (that matters) will care that the initial attacks don’t make any sense. If you can’t count on one side or the other responding with nukes, then provide that response on their behalf in the initial series of false flags. Would Russia nuke San Francisco using a commercial cargo container ship? Who cares – the crazy Americans just nuked Kaliningrad with an unmarked ship in response to that unprovoked evil Russian attack. And it looks like Russia retaliated for that by taking out Brooklyn. Anti-semites! Trump and neocon chickenhawks: Nuke War: ON!
The shittly little country loses the benefit of a powerful proxy (now weakened or ruined), but has eliminated the only credible powerful opposition to its regional control and looting schemes. I’m sure the tradeoff is worth it… in their small minds. Besides – think of the looting opportunities!
No I wasn’t “living in a cave” and I don’t like your attitude at all. Learn to talk normally and if you can’t, than just don’t talk to me. You interpret my comment wrongly than attack me from your presumption that I was thinking something that I really didn’t.
My comment was referring only on article and video ( US-NATO vs. Russia ) So all scenarios (other possible scenarios) were not considered in my comment. Just NATO vs. Russia like in video and article. I was triggered to say “Russia would never use single nuke” because video has shown Russia starting nuke conflict by dropping ONE nuke in Germany from Kaliningrad. Which is pure nonsense from any point of view, including tactical. That video is not objective “simulation” but more like biased propaganda video.
In my modest opinion this “toss in a few nuke false flags” theory would be only possible if someone on NATO side would be cooperating in “tossing” scenario to trigger WW3 . And I find that hardly possible to happen (at the moment) for different reasons.
Anyways I will leave all those Armageddon scenarios to you and people like you who are obviously much more intelligent, imaginative and much better informed than I am. I will stick with trivial things that do not take much of brains and imagination.
Thanks for your comment.
Apologies – it wasn’t meant as a personal attack on you. If you’re even here on SF reading the articles, then I presume your world view isn’t as simple as the single scenario in the video.
I’m reacting more to what assuredly IS the cavedweller-like worldview of many (most?) Americans today as well as the Captain Obvious video produced by Princeton’s Science and Global Security program. Because the world apparently needs more science and engineering PhDs to explain to policymakers why disarmament, nonproliferation and keeping nukes away from terrorists are good ideas and look: we even got numbers to back that up! Even though, as you point out, the US policymakers are the only ones tearing up treaties today and the US seems hell-bent on provoking Russia at every turn. the SGS studies are used in Washington to justify US actions, not discourage them.
I have no idea if you’re even American or not, but you have to realize this is an existential issue for me and my family (as Americans) and I can’t imagine Russians without the same concern. That makes the neocon’s Cold War II the biggest threat by far to US national security. It sets us up to be tricked into a war nobody really wants, and puts the blinders on Americans to think it’s purely a US-NATO/Russia thing and nobody else would ever possibly use it to their advantage.
I’m not sure what to make of your NATO comment. No participation or knowledge by either side (US-NATO/Russia) is necessary, nor is use of ICBMs required. Nobody tosses anything in my scenario – its all nukes in ships/shipping containers. The intent is to sew confusion and provoke an escalation from either side based on who they think used the nukes. Nobody will know for sure, at least for a few days, how they were delivered. Everyone will just assume ICBMs and pre-identified evil state actors.
I can think of other scenarios where sub-launched missiles from a third-party could be used to blame a US or Russian sub known to be in the same region. Of course the accused side is going to deny it and might even have proof, but nobody is going to worry about that if – what appear to be – retaliatory strikes have already been made. Any nuclear WWIII can be started in a few hours by an outside party with two or three small atomic bombs. Will the truth come out a year later? Who cares – it won’t matter much then.
I can see that you are one worried person and probably with the reason.
“The intent is to sew confusion and provoke an escalation from either side ”
And what would be the purpose of all that? What is for them to gain? And for what price? To get us all exterminated and them together with us? Surely they can’t be that stupid to expect that WW3 will be like WW2… I just fail to understand people deprived of all logic. And when I think of some neoconservatives than I think you just you might be right. There are some lunatics in position to bring harm to many people
” its all nukes in ships/shipping containers”
Scenario about deliberately starting conflict between Russia and NATO by using some clandestine nuke placed not far from the troops is not too far fetched. But it is extremely difficult to execute and to make it succeed to achieve its goal. Proliferation is genie that is already out of the bottle. It is tech that is already proliferated to some countries and now it is almost impossible to keep it as total secret or totally inaccessible. There is possibility that in the future might happen something like that. But many things and actions put our lives and survival in danger I don’t see point in losing my sleep over all that. We live in ever more dangerous world. Some countries (people) could get their hands on something like that if they have enough money and if they are really determined. And if it really happens, that doesn’t mean straight forward that it will trigger global conflict.
I personally belong to the people who do not believe in limited nuclear conflicts. If nukes start to fly nothing will stop all out nuclear destruction of the planet. As for all the dangers that might trigger Armageddon – I believe that there are already plenty of people involved, paid for preventing that kind of danger. So I don’t see point on getting obsessed with that subject and losing my sleep over that.
“And what would be the purpose of all that?”
The ‘shitty little country’ used as an example in the original reply (Putin’s off-mic characterization) was Israel. You may have noticed their unfettered enthusiasm for power and control, and preemptively ensuring that by weakening its neighbors ‘because we’re surrounded by enemies’. Russia is interfering with Israel’s right to exist, by some of their reckoning.
Other state actors (or powerful weasels using those states) outside of US-NATO/Russia could have motive. Ukraine? Turkey? Saudi Arabia? China? The elimination of a perceived threat (enemy) and rebalancing of power might be motive enough to see the US and Russia go at it.
What is for them to gain?
Power and control (at least in their own little region or sphere of influence) when Russia and the US are in smoking ruins? Booty/territory from US/Russia possessions away from their irradiated mainlands?
Elimination of a perceived enemy or rival they otherwise can’t (or won’t) remove themselves?
Money? That’s not so ridiculous. There’s dozens of ex-pat Russian oligarchs that were in the process of stealing billions in Russian state assets, but were rudely interrupted by Putin before they could strip Russia bare. They have a mortal hatred for Putin and Russians for interrupting their looting spree, and don’t give a damn about Americans. On the other side, there are very wealthy people that see the US maintaining a monopoly on certain kinds of profitable activity or interfering with their efforts to do the same. Post-nuke US won’t be so much of a problem for their profiteering.
And for what price? To get us all exterminated and them together with us?
Some probably think like that, but I’m talking specifically about the risk of psychopathic leaders who frankly don’t give a damn about anyone else and don’t believe that they (or the planet) will really be destroyed. Kind of defeats the purpose of eliminating the US and Russia if you can’t move in and take their place.
How many outside players like that, if any? Who can say, but there’s plenty of abject evil out there to convince me there must be a few. The US isn’t the only country infested with deep state mafias with access to state resources and capable of acting on their own. At what price? Any, if they thought they could get away with it and benefit somehow. That’s how psychopaths think.
I actually have much more faith in pure US and Russian military restraint from using nukes when such scenarios are considered in isolation. It’s worked so far. What worries me is seeing a purposeful and concerted prolonged effort to ramp up tensions (most clearly on the US side) an ignore the ‘opportunity’ that offers some third party seeking to exploit the situation. Maybe I’m wrong and it’s all home-brew, saber-rattling Cold War II by the neocons and their MIC ilk. It feels different this time to me. This doesn’t keep me up at night, but I won’t be a bit surprised if something like this happens. The little people in the US have been conditioned for it for decades.
Russia and China should also make in clear to Israel and the US , that there will be many nukes that come their way in the event of a nuclear conflict.
I doubt very much that they don’t know already very well, that Russia and China are definitely not countries to play games with. Except bunch of neoconservatives in Washington… I can hardly imagine somebody to be stupid enough, not to understand what would total nuke exchange bring to this planet. Those who would not die immediately, would be dead later, with horrible suffering. This planet would become non habitable place immediately.
DUCK and COVER https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/v31Oq5ggGY53AesalGXvtPx_aKg=/0x0:594×443/1200×0/filters:focal(0x0:594×443)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/9035301/GettyImages_566420175.jpg
And the Zio scum with hideaways around the globe will in fact have a slow death as a nuclear winter consumes the globe. Even IF they survive that, they will be living without any of the luxuries they have now.
Would be pretty stupid for the slave-masters to eliminate all the slaves. But that is the basic stupidity of this all, nobody wins. The great butter battle! Interestingly enough there has been an influx of a certain racial group into NZ and Australia of late
Your Prime Minister likes ‘waifs and strays’ :)
I think the drills where children hide under their desks were very important in surviving nuclear war as follows:
Without the drills: students are vaporized while seated at their desks.
With the benefit of the drills: students are vaporized while crouched under their desks.
To survive on the planet with poisoned atmosphere, water, with as you say “nuclear winter”, sky covered with permanent clouds and no sun, no crops, no eatable food of any kind (unless stored on protected place) hard to believe that they can live very long there. “IF they survive” they could grow skin and other cancers on themselves, for fun, in their “well” protected underground bunkers.
I could make a better animation
If you read the tripe from Mark Schneider and other nuclear weapons experts in the U.S. you would think that Russia was on the verge of overtaking the U.S. in just about every weapons category and Russia’s modernization of their weapons was ‘aggression’.
If you watch the video, Russia is the one having to keep up wiht the Joneses. I’d be modernizing too.
One thing that is famous among Strategic Missile Forces is “you are a winner when you can keep a nuclear weapon in the launcher, and you will lose when you launch it, or be forced to launch it”. Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter, but there must be one reason why those words can be famous and should always be remembered carefully. Pray for world peace. Peace in our time and peace in the future. We don’t like war But we also won’t stand still if the enemies keep banging on our door to create chaos in our house, we will expel them At All Costs! This has been warned many times.
“…But we also won’t stand still if the enemies keep banging on our door to create chaos in our house, we will expel them At All Costs!…”
Do you mean like our decisive, iron-fisted response to chaos creators, the American Zionist Council and their Israeli PR arm AZPAC in the 1950’s? We didn’t even want to expel them, just have them register as the foreign agents they were. Easily solved after a name change in 1959; they’re now known as AIPAC and remain exempt from registering due to the AIPAC loophole. They’re not really chaos creators because they don’t directly fund pro-Israeli candidates (or fund the destruction of ‘unfriendly’ candidates). They just know a lot of people with a lot of money [wink, wink].
You’re probably not thinking of AIPAC, though. They don’t need to bang on our door at all. They crawled through the open window one night decades ago and started moving in their furniture and relatives. Very slowly – we didn’t even notice they were taking over. WE are the ones that have to bang on the door to get in our own house now – but only if we pay the rent they charge us and observe a few of their ‘house rules’ (like not creating chaos). We can’t expel them – they own the cops and judges. Besides, it will be against the law soon to accuse them of ‘creating chaos’ in our house. That’s anti-Semitic and will result in OUR eviction.
Well.. I am not an American, I think, United States people will know more about what is happening in their country. But I know one thing, what controls the United States today is not Americans, you know who they are, most people who are not deceived by MSM know that the citizens of the United States are controlled by a small group of people who have their own interests (more specifically the interests of their own native country). Ok I will say it more openly, who controls the current domestic and foreign policy in America? The White House today submits to the Knesset! They don’t even cover it up anymore. Native citizens of the United States cannot protest in matters of defending Israeli interests, even though it is against US policy. Even though Israel commits a crime the name of Israel will remain clean in US. Are you a native American? If so, then find a way to reclaim your house, so you don’t need to bang on your own door. The power of the people is greater than the power of the government if the people realize it!
Nice video, but it won’t happen between U.S/Europe vs Russia. Mutual destruction is something all sides will avoid at all cost, so you can be relaxed no U.S or Russian leaders are crazy enough to do it. However, when it comes to the MIddle East, that is a different story. Israel and Iran are on a collision course, maybe even nuclear one. If Iran launches thousands of ballistic missiles over here, you can be sure our response would be aimed directly vs Tehran, not their proxies. I don’t suggest anyone to test us in that kind of situation, if Israel is destroyed you can imagine what happens to our enemies.
I am pretty sure tha Iran have nuclear weapons..if they dont test a nuclear weapon like Korea is to avoid UN strong sanctions like Korea!…so Israel ( an small country) would be devastate too!
Pray to God we won’t ever have to find out if it’s true.
Israel is not match for Iran armed forces…above all when they failed in lebanon war 2006…
Not sure why Iran would launch a pre emptive strike on Israel it makes little sense, if anything from past actions its the Israelis more likely to attack first given their doctrine of defensive strikes.
“makes little sense”, you don’t know their Islamic agenda then.
Lets assume both Iran and Israel have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.
In a nuclear exchange which nation is more likely to survive?
The postage stamp size country with 10 million people strung along the Mediterranean Sea or the vast mountainous country of 83 million in which they have been dispersing and digging deep into the mountains for just this scenario?
These threats “don’t test us or else’ is a sign of a lack of confidence, You’ve been saying this forever and striking your enemies forever but the keep coming. Maybe it’s time to start a dialogue. Do whatever it takes to sit down with Iran and your neighbors and find common ground. If it comes down to who can survive a war with whom at some point in the future is simply going to be wiped off the map. It’s a numbers game and right now you are all in on the USA maintaining it’s place in the world in order to defend Israel ….. that is not a given right now so rather than wait until the power shift it would be best to make peace now while you still have the upper hand.
It’s your right to think we are going to be wiped off the map, I think otherwise. So we shall live and see, right? Iran has nothing to be afraid of from tiny Israel.
Iran will only fire on Israel in defense or revenge if US or Israel attacks them. Simple as that.
nuke the kikes and save humanity…..
And the winner is China!..
Ha ha 34 million lol They meant 340 million in first 5 minutes ha ha 34 million only with restricted attack with most missiles hitting military bases. Don’t want to think about nuc bombs exploding above LA, NY, Moscow, London, each city with 10+ million citizens.
No problem. There are still 7 800 000 000 motherfokkers left.
IMF and ECB will lent out usury loans for rebuilding and reorganisation. Everybody would be happy except the Americans, British, Russians, Poland, the spaghettis and the East-Europe buffer nations.
But the Russians will survive, Americans not. So that’s the price we will have to pay. Its worth it.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ee98e179508a5c8460a2c84658a8fd5995aacd946f8a0fb1f9c6da93d22665b2.jpg
There would be no farming possible, so by the time the month is out most of the population of the Northern hemisphere would be dead.
TL:DR , we would all die, more or less, in various forms, figuratively or physically, or one then the other. Let’s hope that shit does not happen, like ever.
Russia authorizes the use of nuclear weapons when the very existence of the state is at stake. Thats ambiguity that should never be explored. lol So Europe, and America and allies are busy destroying each other in the first wave of missiles. Now comes the insane part, they both find out that each of their major cities have been annihilated. Then they realize there is no recovery. Instead of evacuation, both sides bunker in. At what point in the suceeding waves will they ENLARGE their targets to third countries? And at what point will third countries be insecure enough, so as to compel them to join in?
save all these human lives by just nuking the kikes….
I nuke your mom in the ass every night.
Did not know South Front’s commenters are so thick. Gullible beyond repair. Believe in the moon landings too? Nukes aren’t real. Do some F@#%$ research, lazy ass sheeple. What is it that you don’t get about the World STAGE?? Did you forget Putin is a Freemason? Saddam had weapons of mass destruction too, right? Now I’ll probably be called a Zionist shill. Feel free to be offended.
Please tell me why nukes are fake? Is radiation fake too?
The use of military exercises to facilitate the deployment of military forces/assets coinciding with the application of broader operations that may trigger a kinetic conflict is a well established practice.
In this context, the increasing scale of US-NATO deployments associated with military exercises of this bloc coincide with developments in Ukraine that have the potential to result in a more profound stage of conflict:
– “[If the] Ukrainian Armed Forces openly backed by NATO kicks off a large-scale offensive to eliminate the DPR and the LPR [without Russian support], the local self-defense forces will likely not be able to repel such an attack for a long period of time. Russia has two response options: – to react to the NATO aggression in the diplomatic and media sphere only, accept millions of refugees from eastern Ukraine and close the border preventing the infiltration of NATO-Ukrainian units into Russia; – to start actively supporting the DPR and the LPR with military supplies, advisers and maybe even a limited military action. This scenario will eventually lead to an open conflict between NATO and Russia that will turn to a big regional war, or in the worst-case scenario a global war.” (Actual Scenario Of Big War In Eastern Europe, Southfront, 27/11/2019)
Recognising the US-NATO military build-up in Eastern Europe, US-Taiwan moves towards partition from the PRC (moves towards war as defined by the PRC Anti-Secession Act), expanding strategic architecture (with Article 5 of the NATO charter translating to a broader conflagration rather than increasing the security of member states), an active low intensity conflict between India and Pakistan (with recent escalatory actions of India being an aspect of the implementation of Israeli-like policies against similarly occupied populations), intensifying US-NATO-Israel-GCC confrontation against Iran, the replication of pre-Iraq war policies against the DPRK (economic warfare, efforts to dismantle/degrade retaliatory capabilities, destabilisation/regime change operations, etc.), an approaching structural failure of the Western bloc financial system, a likely Holy War component as Israel continues the expansion of land theft and concurrent Judaisation of occupied territories including plans targeting key Islamic sites, etc., the foundation of another world war are in place.
While no nation seeks a nuclear war event, it is a logical outcome of an uncontrolled escalation scenario. Russian analysts recognise US-NATO ambitions of destabilising, partitioning, regime changing, subjugating and securing the assets/resources of the Russian Federation remains an active project. However such covetous plans, if implemented aggressively enough, translate to war. In a nuclear era this has significant implications.
Note: A worst case scenario, if it in time occurs, does not translate to human extinction but it would eclipse previous wars (many nations would largely be destroyed). Subsequent deaths would result from radiation poisoning, mob violence, famine, disease, etc. but stability would in time return (although the political map of the world would be altered). For example:
– “Even a full-scale thermonuclear exchange between Russia and the US is patently survivable. The theory of “nuclear winters”, at least in its wilder variants (drops of many tens of degrees), has been long discredited……. Fallout radiation levels decay rapidly, and it will be safe to emerge from shelters almost everywhere after just two weeks. Most rural areas and many small towns would be almost unaffected, at least directly…. There will be a modest global cooling, and a collapse of the global economy. Many Third World countries may indeed slip into famine due to the breakdown of global trade. The US, Russia, and chunks of Western Europe will be economically and demographically shattered, having lost 10%-25% of their population and perhaps 80% of their GDP. (Let’s War-Game What a Real Russia / China / US Escalation Might Look Like, Anatoly Karlin, 17/04/2018)
In reality, the Cold War never ended, only the format changed (Cold War attitudes and prejudices/bigotries being hardwired in many, reinforced by ongoing Western bloc media narratives). In the ongoing pursuit of global primacy (‘full spectrum dominance’/world domination) the U.S./NATO/allied bloc employed deceit successfully to dismantle the Soviet Union and subsequently integrated successive former Soviet states into the still expanding NATO military bloc in violation of former agreements (a ‘European Union’-NATO project based on the replication of the former ‘Soviet Union’ economic/military bloc model but in opposition to Russia). This project does not increase the security of this bloc. Quite the opposite. Such architecture merely serves to involve all members in the event of war (as outlined in Article 5 of the NATO charter).
As adversarial operations are expanding/intensifying, the current situation is likely a relative calm preceding the logical progression of conflict (and despite efforts to prevent a direct kinetic stage of conflict that will likely prove ineffective as limits of restraint will in time be exceeded).
Recognising many active and globally expanding conflicts are progressing towards one, the acceleration of defensive/retaliatory architecture by the Russian Federation is timely.