The following day Britain's Independent ran a story the following quotes from which should disabuse anyone hoping that Washington's "post-nuclear world" will be any safer a one.
Referring to PGS intercontinental ballistic missiles with (at least in theory) conventional warheads, the newspaper warned that:
"Once they are launched, there could be difficulty in distinguishing their conventional payloads from nuclear ones. That in turn could accidentally trigger a nuclear retaliation by Russia or another similarly-armed power.
"Another danger is that if nuclear weapons are no longer at issue, there would be a bigger temptation for American military commanders to become more cavalier about ordering strikes. And unless intelligence can be fully relied upon, the chances of striking mistaken targets are high." [18]
U.S. officials have discussed the prospect of launching such missiles at a lower altitude than nuclear ICBMs would travel, but it would take an almost limitless degree of trust - or gullibility - on behalf of Russian or Chinese military officials to depend upon the assurance that ICBMs heading toward or near their territory were in fact not carrying nuclear weapons at whatever distance from the earth's surface they were flying.
In 2007, the year after the Pentagon first announced its Prompt Global Strike plans, a Russian analyst wrote that "the Americans are not particularly worried about their nuclear arsenal" and "have been thoroughly calculating the real threats to their security to be ready to go to war, if need be, in real earnest," adding "The 20th century saw two world wars and a third one is looming large."
"Despite the obvious threat to civilization the United States may soon acquire orbital weapons under the Prompt Global Strike plan. They will give it the capacity to deal a conventional strike virtually anywhere in the world within an hour." [19]
Elaine Grossman wrote last year:
"Once it is built, the Conventional Strike Missile is expected to pair rocket boosters with a fast-flying 'payload delivery vehicle' capable of dispensing a kinetic energy projectile against a target. Upon nearing its endpoint, the projectile would split into dozens of lethal fragments potentially capable against humans, vehicles and structures, according to defense officials...." [20]
A comparably horrifying scenario of the effects of a PGS attack, this one from the sea-based version, appeared in Popular Mechanics three years ago:
"In the Pacific, a nuclear-powered Ohio class submarine surfaces, ready for the president's command to launch. When the order comes, the sub shoots a 65-ton Trident II ballistic missile into the sky. Within 2 minutes, the missile is traveling at more than 20,000 ft. per second. Up and over the oceans and out of the atmosphere it soars for thousands of miles.
"At the top of its parabola, hanging in space, the Trident's four warheads separate and begin their screaming descent down toward the planet.
"Traveling as fast as 13,000 mph, the warheads are filled with scored tungsten rods with twice the strength of steel.
"Just above the target, the warheads detonate, showering the area with thousands of rods - each one up to 12 times as destructive as a .50-caliber bullet. Anything within 3000 sq. ft. of this whirling, metallic storm is obliterated." [21]
This April 7 former Joint Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces General Leonid Ivashov penned a column called "Obama's Nuclear Surprise."
Referring to the U.S. president's speech in Prague a year ago - "The existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War" - and his signing of the START II agreement in the same city this April 8, the author said:
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