War in Ukraine has delivered a sequence of messages from Russia’s leadership — threats to use nuclear weapons, tactical and strategic, and announcements that next generation ICBM ‘Sarmat’ missiles are being deployed. What Hans Kristensen points out here is a proliferation and escalatory reliance on nukes
Category: Nuclear Weapons
Quotes: Rattling & Ratcheting Nukes
A moment last fall in the Moscow press talked of turning the U.S. into a ash wasteland, the result of Russian nuclear weapons. This carryover from the first Cold War (call it 1.0) has bestowed another level of Mutually Assured Destruction to today’s new Nuclear MAD, a Cold War 2.0 getting hotter day by day…
Eyes On the Global Security Threat
This is no time for equivocation. The ‘West v East’ war (not “special operation” as Russia calls their invasion of Ukraine) is a tragedy. The Putin decision to invade Ukraine is disastrous — humanly, strategically, morally, politically — and for year to come will be seen for what it is — a preventable disaster
Will Russia Lose the War? If So, then What?
On occasion an academic comes along and cuts thru the jargon to offer clear insight where most experts are running along usual tracks. In the case of explaining Russia’s war against Ukraine, here is an academic who cuts thru the jargon to explain what’s happened to Russia as its president ordered war. If Russia loses, […]
“The first casualty of war is truth”
Oh how the truth is bent, twisted, psyop’d, propagandized, comm killed and botted about. Today, war in Ukraine is displayed with dis- and mis-info, virally blasted out and marketed as war-by-other-means.
Another Perspective on Ukraine-Russia and What Comes Next
Perspective is essential in understanding causes of war — and roads to peace. Strategic Demands strives in our work to see security, and mutual security, with a realistic perspective. Here, Anatol Lieven, brings a “Responsible Statecraft” perspective…
War in the Ukraine
February 24, 2022: And so it starts with a Russian President speech, then tanks roll, planes attack, bombs fall, Russian troops move into Ukraine… diplomacy collapses, a campaign of war commences with a warning of “consequences you have never seen”
Nuclear Drills Today
The Russia-Ukraine Crisis… February 19, 2022… ‘Ratcheting Up’, tactical nukes in the field… Nuclear ‘Drills’ as Russian Forces Run ‘Firing Exercises’
Bigger Picture Beyond the Ukraine Conflict
Ukraine reveals an expanded Great Game, a 21st century geostrategy, a GreatGameX. GreatGameX encompasses a greater Eurasian continent. GreatGameX geopolitics confront post WWII U.S. hegemony and recall a 19th/20th century struggle for control of Central and South Asia
Nations Pledge to Avoid Nuclear War
The U.S. offers up a five-nation ‘Statement on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races‘ … At the same time, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meeting of nations has been delayed – again. Delegations had been scheduled to converge on U.N. headquarters January 4, 2022
New German Coalition Government, New Positions on Nuclear Weapons
Recall that the German Green Party, out in front of some 100 Green parties internationally, led ‘ban the bomb’ opposition to nuclear weapons in Europe in the 1980s. The new German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, is a German Green Party leader. Green politics calls …
U.S. Department of Defense – Report on China
Two citizens of the United States respond to the latest U.S. Department of Defense Report to Congress on the “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China”. The editor of Strategic Demands focuses in on a predictable result of U.S. nuclear weapons ‘modernization’ and expansion of capabilities…
ICBMs ‘Hair-trigger’ Launch on Warning Era Must End
As readers of Strategic Demands may recall, your editor as a younger man was close to Dan Ellsberg during his Rand research days in Santa Monica. Dan’s role with the “Pentagon Papers” was historic, but few know of Dan Ellsberg’s role as a U.S. nuclear war planner…
No First Use
Remember the storm that rose with the ‘Peril’ revelation of General Milley’s call to China? Do not forget how ex-president Trump’s state of mind was in question as he refused to acknowledge defeat and exit the White House. The ex-president has yet to acknowledge his election defeat nearly a year later. The former Commander-in-Chief, who […]
As Is, the U.S. President’s Authority to Order Nuclear Weapons Launch
In the interest of furthering the goal of nuclear era sanity, Strategic Demands is re-posting the recent PolitiFact ‘clarification’ on the singular authority, the legal and practical powers of president Donald Trump to order the launch of nuclear weapons. The president’s state-of-mind was in deep question as he attacked the legality of the 2020 election
Future of War Technologies Emerging
July 26, 2021 Watch the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman, General John Hyten, discuss Defense Technology, High Tech Planning and Spending, Force Coordination, Communication and Battlefield, Full Dimension Superiority
Remembering Trinity
July 16, 1945 5:29 a.m. “The Gadget” Detonates… https://fas.org/blogs/security/2020/07/75-years-ago-the-trinity-nuclear-test/ On the 75th Anniversary of the ‘Trinity Test’ ♠