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By Rick Rozoff (about the author)
Become a Fan (12 fans) -- Page 3 of 5 page(s)
The first addition to the missiles in Poland, even before their deployment, is the US's commitment to station a Patriot battery with 96 warheads to Poland, within striking distance of Russia's Kaliningrad enclave and Belarus now that the Pentagon has developed a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) system with a range of 120 kilometers.
And all of the above is only a small portion of the integrated full spectrum global and space system the US and its allies have already successfully tested and are preparing to deploy, which include:
-Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD)
-Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV)
-Ground Based Interceptor (GBI)
-Forward Based X-Band Radars (FBXB)
-Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)
These permit the destruction of other nations' missiles in the launch, boost, midcourse and terminal phases and in theory in the silo.
The global missile system also includes - in addition to ground-based interceptor missiles - air, sea and
space components.
The sea-based element is the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, increasingly being deployed on US and
allied NATO and what has recently been termed Asian NATO warships. Linked with the Pentagon's plans for a
"1,000-ship navy" and a complementary US/NATO/Asia-Pacific NATO "3,000-ship navy," this would provide Washington and its military allies the ability to patrol all the world's waterways and shipping lanes with missile killer capacities.
The spaced-based components include kinetic-energy weapons, space lasers, space-based conventional weapons space-based Interceptors, with the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle an 'amphibious' intermediate weapon.
Regarding the third leg of the US nuclear triad, not even in theory a defensive one, the B-2 stealth bomber
is described by its proponents as being equipped with "sixteen 2,400 lb (1,100 kg) B83 nuclear bombs in a
single pass through extremely dense anti-aircraft defenses."
The Pentagon and the B-2's manufacturer, Northrop Grumman, regularly boast that it can penetrate radar and air defenses and strike "deep in the interior" of a targeted state that possesses "strategic depth."
That description, given today's political reality, can only pertain to Russia and China.
As authors Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, referring to the general strategy of delivering crippling first strikes, wrote in their paper "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy" in Foreign Affairs, a publication of the Council of Foreign Affairs, in its
March/April 2006 edition:
"It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike.
"The U.S. Air Force has finished equipping its B-52 bombers with nuclear-armed cruise missiles, which are probably invisible to Russian and Chinese air-defense radar. And the air force has also enhanced the avionics on its B-2 stealth bombers to permit them to fly at extremely low altitudes in order to avoid even the most sophisticated radar."
On the general strategy of so-called missile defense, the Russian analyst Yury Rubtsov said late last September:
"The pending deployment of interceptor missiles in Poland is a link in the system of the global anti-missile shield sweeping from Greenland to Alaska created by the United States that does not conceal its plans for setting up a fourth and a fifth position area for its anti-missile shield.
"The system that Americans are forming is to include offshore and on-land elements in Alaska, California, Japan, Greenland and a number of European countries. A naval base in the Aleutian Islands has been put back in service to support sea-based radar mounted on a re-built oil platform.
Become a Fan (12 fans) -- Page 3 of 5 page(s)
And all of the above is only a small portion of the integrated full spectrum global and space system the US and its allies have already successfully tested and are preparing to deploy, which include:
-Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD)
-Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV)
-Ground Based Interceptor (GBI)
-Forward Based X-Band Radars (FBXB)
-Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)
These permit the destruction of other nations' missiles in the launch, boost, midcourse and terminal phases and in theory in the silo.
The global missile system also includes - in addition to ground-based interceptor missiles - air, sea and
space components.
The sea-based element is the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, increasingly being deployed on US and
allied NATO and what has recently been termed Asian NATO warships. Linked with the Pentagon's plans for a
"1,000-ship navy" and a complementary US/NATO/Asia-Pacific NATO "3,000-ship navy," this would provide Washington and its military allies the ability to patrol all the world's waterways and shipping lanes with missile killer capacities.
The spaced-based components include kinetic-energy weapons, space lasers, space-based conventional weapons space-based Interceptors, with the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle an 'amphibious' intermediate weapon.
Regarding the third leg of the US nuclear triad, not even in theory a defensive one, the B-2 stealth bomber
is described by its proponents as being equipped with "sixteen 2,400 lb (1,100 kg) B83 nuclear bombs in a
single pass through extremely dense anti-aircraft defenses."
The Pentagon and the B-2's manufacturer, Northrop Grumman, regularly boast that it can penetrate radar and air defenses and strike "deep in the interior" of a targeted state that possesses "strategic depth."
That description, given today's political reality, can only pertain to Russia and China.
As authors Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, referring to the general strategy of delivering crippling first strikes, wrote in their paper "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy" in Foreign Affairs, a publication of the Council of Foreign Affairs, in its
March/April 2006 edition:
"It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike.
"The U.S. Air Force has finished equipping its B-52 bombers with nuclear-armed cruise missiles, which are probably invisible to Russian and Chinese air-defense radar. And the air force has also enhanced the avionics on its B-2 stealth bombers to permit them to fly at extremely low altitudes in order to avoid even the most sophisticated radar."
On the general strategy of so-called missile defense, the Russian analyst Yury Rubtsov said late last September:
"The pending deployment of interceptor missiles in Poland is a link in the system of the global anti-missile shield sweeping from Greenland to Alaska created by the United States that does not conceal its plans for setting up a fourth and a fifth position area for its anti-missile shield.
"The system that Americans are forming is to include offshore and on-land elements in Alaska, California, Japan, Greenland and a number of European countries. A naval base in the Aleutian Islands has been put back in service to support sea-based radar mounted on a re-built oil platform.
Rick Rozoff has been involved in anti-war and anti-interventionist work in various capacities for forty years.
He lives in Chicago, Illinois.
Is the manager of the Stop NATO international email list at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
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