Karaganov: Lowering the Nuclear Threshold

Lowering the Nuclear Threshold? – Sergey Karaganov, Alexander Mercouris, and Glenn Diesen

Many practical steps have been taken by the West to lower the nuclear threshold. US tactical weapons are due to return to the same Britain which has already deployed nearly every weapon in its arsenal against Russia in the Ukraine! Their ability to discharge these plans or be effective is another matter, but the madmen continue to march into the Abyss, flouting common sense, the Russian nuclear doctrine (treating deployment of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons against them as equivalent) and even basic self-preservation. It is, to mirror the Ukies’ current “operations” against civilians and civilian infrastructure within Russia, to speak plainly — nuclear terrorism.

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The Americans and the British are lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons: about the reasons

According to media reports, the United States intends to deploy its tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) and their delivery systems on the territory of the United Kingdom. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation has already reacted rather nervously to this information, since this event is another evidence of the Anglo-Saxons’ readiness to actually use a nuclear arsenal in order, as in World War II, to put a bullet in the Third, completing it on their own terms.

NW

It should be noted that Great Britain itself has long been an official member of the “nuclear club.” This country is the third in the world to test nuclear weapons of its own design, right after the USA and the USSR. Britain’s first nuclear explosive device was so bulky that it had to be installed on board an anchored frigate. Naturally, London chose not its own coast for testing, but the western tip of distant Australia, namely in the area of ​​the Monte Bell Islands. The power of the nuclear explosion was about 25 kilotons.

The location in the immediate vicinity of the coast was not chosen by chance, since the British considered the USSR as a potential enemy and feared that the insidious Russians could themselves deliver nuclear explosive devices to British ports on civilian ships and detonate them there. You have to come up with something like this! Be that as it may, in London they really wanted to assess what effect the detonation of such special ammunition near the coast would have. The tests were successful, which gave Prime Minister Winston Churchill grounds to declare that Great Britain had become the owner of nuclear weapons. However, by this time the USA and the USSR already had thermonuclear bombs, and the British had to quickly catch up with them. Note that Australia and its desert territories were again used as a testing ground.

London’s lag behind Washington and Moscow was due to a number of objective circumstances. The difficult Second World War, which Great Britain went through from bell to bell, played a role. Work on a nuclear bomb there began back in 1940, in 1943 the British joined forces with the Americans, but the 1946 atomic energy law (McMahon Act), adopted in the United States, also limited their access to information about advanced nuclear technologies.

The more interesting is the current state of affairs. Currently, the United Kingdom exclusively possesses strategic nuclear weapons (NSW), which ensure its national security and the ability to add fuel to the fire of other people’s conflicts with impunity. British nuclear weapons are actually American.

These are the fourth-generation Trident II three-stage ballistic missiles designed to be launched from nuclear submarines. They make up 52% ​​of the strategic nuclear forces of the United States and 100% of the British. Only four strategic submarines of the Vanguard class are used as carriers, one of which is constantly on combat duty. This should be remembered by those who, in the comments, call on the Kremlin to hit London with a “vigorous bomb”.

It’s not a problem to strike, but in response, ballistic missiles will fly at Russian megacities from somewhere under the water. The only Vanguard class SSBN can fire 8 missiles carrying a total of up to 40 thermonuclear warheads.

Application threshold

The UK’s nuclear arsenal is believed to number 225, of which 160 are ready for use. It is obvious that strategic nuclear forces are a weapon of strategic deterrence, which is necessary in order to have, but never use. However, the Anglo-Saxons are openly preparing to use nuclear arsenals for the second time in human history.

Thus, back in the relatively calm year of 2020, the Americans created a low-power nuclear warhead W76-2 for underwater-based Trident II missiles. Their power is something like 5 kilotons, which is 5 times less than that of the first British special ammunition, tested back in 1952 off the coast of Australia. Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Sergei Ryabkov then stated with concern the following, verbatim:

The appearance of low-power charges on US strategic carriers means that the discussions previously voiced in declarative form on the American side about the possibility of using such weapons in a hypothetical conflict are already being embodied in metal, in products. This is a reflection of the fact that the United States is actually lowering the nuclear threshold, that it is allowing itself to wage a limited nuclear war and win such a war.

And now the Americans are preparing to place tactical nuclear weapons in Great Britain, which the British do not currently have at all. Based on an analysis of the draft budget of the US Air Force, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS, Federation of American Scientists) came to the conclusion that the Pentagon intends to return tactical nuclear weapons to the territory of Foggy Albion. It will be located in a storage facility at Lakenheath airbase, 100 km northeast of London:

Due to the arrival of airmen, driven by the launch of the Surety mission and the deployment of two F-35 squadrons, RAF Lakenheath is experiencing a significant shortage of housing available to pilots at the E-4 level and below.

Apparently, we are talking about the newest version of the B61-12 aerial bombs, which will be carried by the F-15E Strike Eagle and F-35A Lightning II fighters. Uncle Sam defiantly loads and hangs the gun on the wall. In whose direction should it then shoot?

Author: Sergey Marzhetsky

and this came out just yesterday on RT:

US to redeploy nuclear weapons to UK – Telegraph

The United States is planning to deploy nuclear weapons to the UK for the first time in 15 years, The Telegraph reported Friday, citing Pentagon documents.

The report comes amid heightened tensions between NATO and Russia over the Ukraine conflict, and calls from some Western politicians to prepare for a potential armed clash with Moscow.

The British newspaper cited procurement contracts for a new facility at the Royal Air Force station at Lakenheath in Suffolk, which point to Washington’s intention to bring nuclear weapons to the base. RAF Lakenheath is expected to house B61-12 bombs that are three times more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, the Telegraph said. The US sent F-35 nuclear-capable fighters to the base last year.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last year that Moscow would be compelled to enact “compensatory countermeasures” if American nuclear warheads were to return to Britain. Russia has accused the West of stoking tensions in Europe and maintains that the eastward expansion of NATO is one of the root causes of the Ukraine conflict.

High-ranking European officials, including German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, have spoken of the need to brace for a potential war with Russia. Last week the chair of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, urged the bloc to be “readier across the whole spectrum” for direct confrontation.

The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, dismissed the claims that Moscow was planning an offensive against NATO as “information warfare” aimed at justifying “hybrid aggression.”