The Nuclear Race Accelerates
by Manlio Dinucci*
(9 August 2022) At the Redzikowo base in Poland, work has begun on the installation of the “Aegis Ashore” system, at a cost of more than $180 million. It will be the second U.S. missile base in Europe, after that of Deveselu in Romania became operational in 2015.
The official function of these bases is to protect, with the “shield” of SM-3 interceptor missiles, the U.S. forces in Europe and those of European NATO allies from “current and emerging ballistic missile threats from outside the Euro-Atlantic area”.
In addition to the two land installations, four ships equipped with the same Aegis system, deployed by the U.S. Navy at the Spanish base of Rota, cross the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Baltic Sea. The U.S. Navy has about 120 destroyers and cruisers armed with this missile system.
Both ships and Aegis land installations are equipped with Lockheed Martin’s Mk 41 vertical launchers: vertical tubes (in the body of the ship or in an underground bunker) from which the missiles are launched. Lockheed Martin itself, illustrating the technical characteristics, documents that it can launch missiles for all missions: anti-missile, anti-aircraft, anti-ship, anti-submarine and attack against land targets. Each launch tube is adaptable to any missile, including “those for long-range attack”, including the Tomahawk cruise missile. It can also be armed with a nuclear warhead.
It is therefore impossible to know which missiles are actually in the vertical launchers of the Aegis Ashore base in Romania and which will be installed in the one in Poland. Nor which missiles are on board the ships that cross the limits of Russian territorial waters. Not being able to check, Moscow takes for granted that there are also nuclear attack missiles.
Same scenario in East Asia, where Seventh Fleet Aegis warships cross in the South China Sea. The main US allies in the region – Japan, South Korea, Australia – also have ships equipped with the US Aegis system.
This is not the only missile system the US is deploying in Europe and Asia. In his speech at the George Washington School of Media and Public Affairs, General McConville, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, stated last March that the U.S. Army is preparing a “task force” with “long-range precision fire capability that can go anywhere, consisting of hypersonic missiles, medium-range missiles, precision strike missiles” and that “these systems are capable of penetrating anti-aircraft barrage space”. The general pointed out that “we plan to deploy one of these task forces in Europe and probably two in the Pacific”.
In such a situation, it is not surprising that Russia is accelerating the deployment of new intercontinental missiles, with nuclear warheads that, after ballistic trajectory, glide for thousands of kilometers at hypersonic speed. Nor is it surprising to hear the news, published by the Washington Post, that China is building over one hundred new silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.
The arms race takes place not so much on the quantitative level (number and power of nuclear warheads) as on the qualitative one (speed, penetrating capacity and geographical location of nuclear carriers). The response, in case of attack or presumed attack, is increasingly entrusted to artificial intelligence, which must decide the launch of nuclear missiles in a few seconds. It increases the possibility of a nuclear war by mistake, risked several times during the Cold War.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted by the United Nations in 2017 and entered into force in 2021, has so far been signed by 86 states and ratified by 54. None of the 30 NATO and 27 EU countries (except Austria) have ratified or even signed it. In Europe, only Austria, Ireland, Malta, San Marino and the Holy See have signed and ratified it. None of the nine nuclear countries – the United States, Russia, France, Great Britain, Israel, China, Pakistan, India and North Korea – has ratified or even signed it.
| * Manlio Dinucci is an award-winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer living in Pisa, Italy. He is a research associate at the Canadian Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). |
Source: https://www.globalresearch.ca/nuclear-race-accelerates/5750135, 15 July 2022
This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.
The B61-12 Mini-nukes “Made in America” to be Used in “A Nuclear First Strike” – Coming Soon to Europe
by Manlio Dinucci*
“Production of the B61-12 nuclear bomb begins”, Sandia National Laboratories announced from the United States.
The B61-12, which replaces the previous B61 deployed by the U.S. at Aviano and Ghedi and other European bases, is a new type of weapon.1 It has a nuclear warhead with four power options, selectable depending on the target to be destroyed. It is not dropped vertically, but at a distance from the target on which it is directed guided by a satellite system. It can penetrate underground, exploding deep to destroy command center bunkers in a nuclear first strike.
The B61-12s, classified as “non-strategic nuclear weapons,” are deployed in Europe – in Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain and probably other countries – at distances far enough to strike Russia. They thus have offensive capabilities similar to those of strategic weapons.
Another nuclear weapon system, which the United States is preparing to install in Europe against Russia, is ground-based intermediate-range missiles. They can also be launched from “anti-missile shield” installations, deployed by the U.S. at bases in Deveselu in Romania and Redzikowo in Poland, and aboard five warships cruising in the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Baltic Sea close to Russia.
That such installations have offensive capabilities is confirmed by Lockheed Martin itself. Outlining the characteristics of the Mk 41 vertical launch system, used in both land and naval installations, it specifies that it is capable of launching “missiles for all missions, both defense and long-range attack, including Tomahawk cruise missiles”. These can be armed with nuclear warheads.
Europe is thus being turned by the U.S. into the front line of a nuclear confrontation with Russia, even more dangerous than that of the Cold War.
1 Cf. also https://swiss-standpoint.ch/news-detailansicht-en-international/the-us-bomb-is-ready-soon-also-in-the-eu.html
and https://swiss-standpoint.ch/news-detailansicht-en-international/nuclear-green-pass-the-bomb-for-italy-comes-out-in-may.html