There's a new development in Russian military doctrine that, (as far as I know hasn't been reported by the US corporate MSM). It is something people in the US need to know about and interpret as a clarification of Russia's deterrence policy. It's also meant to get the attention of US policy makers who need to come to terms with Russian deterrence policy and stop the provocations that could lead to war.
In essence, the Russian military has issued a warning. Any incoming ballistic missile launched at its territory will be met with a nuclear retaliation because there is no way of knowing whether the missile is a conventional or nuclear warhead.
To put it bluntly, a missile attack on Russian soil will bring a nuclear retaliatory strike on the aggressor. Russian orbiting satellites will detect precisely where a missile attack was launched.
Though Russia has a no first strike policy of initiating a nuclear missile strike this new policy is clearly aimed at the US whose reneging on nuclear treaty agreements, placing missiles in Romania and Poland, conducting war games in the Black Sea and the Baltic States, expanding NATO to Russia's doorstep is interpreted by Russia as provocations increasing the threat of war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has maintained any attack on Russian soil will be met with swift retaliation on the aggressor.
This new Russian military policy just clarifies what will happen if Russia is attacked by a missile. It also means US policy makers need to come to their senses rejecting any idea of winning a nuclear war.
US bellicosity toward Russia and now China-to say nothing about its provocations and sanctions on Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Nicaragua, Cuba, North Korea-has put the world in jeopardy worse than any time during the cold war between the US and the Soviet Union-save for the 1961 Cuban missile crisis.
During the cold war the US and USSR understood clearly a nuclear attack on the other would bring a nuclear retaliatory strike by the other. It was known as MAD, "Mutually Assured Destruction", an acknowledgement by both adversaries that prevented nuclear war.
Now...the deterrence that MAD provided has been rejected in favor of a US $trillion upgrade of its nuclear weapons stockpile, initiating provocations aimed directly at Russia and China, two nuclear weapons superpowers, something totally unprecedented during the cold war with the USSR, the placing of tactical nuclear weapons on US Navy warships including nuclear submarines can only mean the US is preparing for a war with one or the other or both. Simply an insane strategy that will bring a nuclear holocaust.
As unpredictable as Trump is, a belligerent fundamentalist Christian Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State spouting vitriol daily against both Russia and China, who knows if some "October" surprise is in the works, some "wag the dog" misadventure initiating a war particularly with China now seemingly in the crosshairs most prominently in the South China Sea; a US ploy sending carrier task forces under the guise of conducting "freedom of navigation" in the waterway which China sees as a provocation directed at her in an area of Chinese strategic national interest, not some American lake where the US can conduct an updated version of its old "gunboat diplomacy."
Whether the US conducts some false flag operation or an accident happens where military deaths occur who knows how the other side will act or react. They don't seem to have telecommunications with the other. There have been military flyovers, ships having close calls with the other, even conducting round the clock war games at the same time as their adversary.
The world may be in the middle of a pandemic with Covid-19. But the real threat is a new war with Russia or China.
The US presidential election is less than 3 months away.
Let's hope the "Trumpster" isn't so impetus to start a new war believing the country will back him. Particularly if he believes he won't be re-elected in November.