The head of US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) warned that a nuclear war with Russia or China is a “real possibility” and is calling for a change in US policy that reflects this threat.
“There is a real possibility that a regional crisis with Russia or China could escalate quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons, if they perceived a conventional loss would threaten the regime or state,” Vice Adm. Charles Richard wrote in the February edition of the US Naval Institute’s monthly magazine.
Richard said the US military must “shift its principal assumption from ‘nuclear employment is not possible’ to ‘nuclear employment is a very real possibility,’ and act to meet and deter that reality.”
The STRATCOM chief said Russia and China “have begun to aggressively challenge international norms and global peace using instruments of power and threats of force in ways not seen since the height of the Cold War.”
Richard hyped up Russia and China’s nuclear modernization, calling for the US to compete with the two nations. When it comes to China’s nuclear weapons, the US and Russia have vastly larger arsenals. Current estimates put Beijing’s nuclear arsenal at about 320 warheads, while Washington and Moscow have about 6,000 warheads each.
Even if Beijing doubles its arsenal over the next decade, as the China hawks are predicting, it will still be small compared to Washington’s. The US would have to eliminate a good amount of its arsenal to convince Beijing to participate in arms control agreements.
Since STRATCOM is the command post that oversees Washington’s nuclear arsenal, its commanders are always overplaying the risk of nuclear war and asking for more money to modernize the stockpile. But with the US prioritizing so-called “great power competition” with China and Russia and an increased US military presence in places like the South China Sea, the Arctic, and the Black Sea, the threat of nuclear war is rising.
why would they lose a war with an enemy on their own backyard that couldn’t defeat the taliban
If Russia, Iran, and China formed a military alliance, call it RICTO, no country in the world would consider an attack on any one of them. The three apart are somewhat vulnerable.
If there is nuclear war, it will be the US that plans it, strives for it and starts it. The world needs to unite against the American warmongers and their Israeli masters.
When we dropped those two bombs, we entered the world into something hellish.
Threat of war is good for their business.
Small contained wars are good for their business.
Large un -contained war with nukes is very bad for their business.
The MIC has to walk a fine line
i love paying taxes to fund utter stupidity rivaled by insanity’: “Richard said the US military must “shift its principal assumption from ‘nuclear employment is not possible’ to ‘nuclear employment is a very real possibility,’ and act to meet and deter that reality.”
This loop has bsing us for how long now? Who buys this anymore?
“…and an increased US military presence in places like the South China Sea, the Arctic and the Black Sea the threat of nuclear war is rising.”
funny, I don’t recall any big build of Chinese or Russian forces in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Central /South America or along the Pacific Coast, nor to the north in Canada nor to the south in Mexico….
must be all a one way street then….
Nearly every day there is a Global Hawk drone over the Black Sea just off Crimea at around 16,000m altitude. Then you have the US warships in the Black Sea and Persian Gulf, plus the regular B52 flights to the Gulf.
This happens when someone is challenged to a fight. The fight the challenger assumes will never happen, so the show is psychological. Telling the world who is the top dog. It is reckless, as bad things can happen unintentionally. Or something will happen intentionally, and if our response is not in keep with image projected, lives could be put in danger for someone’s vanity.
Increasing the US nuclear ‘deterrent’ would solve nothing because the US did horrendous damage to Libya with conventional weapons. Given Russia’s small population and economy, as compared to the US’ and NATO’s, Russia would have to use nukes to avoid being Libyanized, which would be worse for them than nuclear war.
The Admiral is right to be concerned about possible nuclear war but he has the wrong answer for it. The right answer is for US to withdraw, militarily, from Eurasia.
His comment is ridiculous. No country wants a nuclear war. None. It is a great big threat to scare.
Besides, a nuclear war is bad for business. Better to have little wars so that the military industrial complex on all sides can make their dough.
Never mind the 1st 100 days, within the 1st 30 days, I believe Biden is the worst president we’ve had since Trump. He’s already reneged on rejoining the JCPOA, shooting for more sanctions on N. Korea, intent to extend, possibly expand troops in Afghanistan, sent an air force fleet to Norway to counter Russian, Sent a destroyer to Taiwan Strait for the first time….
We were hoping to get rid of Trump to avoid wars & unite the divided country, but looks like we’re gearing up to engage in multiple fronts with adversaries! Meanwhile, the pandemic is killing more Americans every day, our economy is in distress & families are hurting. Why can’t we get a decent administration to run this country?
Things started going downhill when Americans started believing that it was the job of an “administration” to “run this country.” Ever since, it’s become increasingly a matter of “play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
“Biden is the worst president we’ve had since Trump”
I laughed but that wasn’t funny because it’s true. And it’s true every time a new president is elected.
Agree completely: trump worst since obummer, obummer worst since W, and on and on back to JFK;
IMO, JFK, for all of his foibles, marked the end of America and from then on, we have had disaster after disaster. Carter might have had a chance IF he had not installed zionist, neo con warmongering Brezinski in an influential role.
Are we now forced to accept a “standard” of oh well, at least, candidate A is not worser (sic) than incumbent B; it appears that is now our standard but application fails with biden.
Taras, JFK had a big problem with sex, he was the classic addict. Other than that I think he could have done much good,,but his respect for women was zilch!
I might partially agree with you up a certain point but compare that, the alleged disdain for women, to what the us has done to entire countries: libya, syria, iraq, and all of the assorted countries where obummer practiced his targeted kills.
I think the level of disdain versus complete disregard for humanity differs in quantum dimensions. I won’t use the anglo saxon verb here as to what jfk did with women to what the us has done to nations, civilian populations, nations infrastructure on a massive scale.
wars, JoBye is a bigger con man than Trump,,and a bigger liar!
No one is a bigger con man than Trump. Nor is there a bigger liar(30,573)than Trump. And that wasn’t meant as a compliment to Biden.
https://trofire.com/2021/01/21/trump-told-more-than-30000-lies-while-serving-as-president/
wars,,I disagree. 🙂
No problem They both suck and I think we agree on that.
Wars, rightoo Bro’,,:)
You are right. They all think they have eight years to fool us. So start briskly, get MIC going, patronize us with “exiting” Yemen, as if we care for words. No concern for hungry at home and shuttered economy. Still “debating”.
While letting millions of infected walk around our neighborhoods. No concerns. Not even on anyone’s agenda.
Hope virus just disappears once spring comes and flu shots season ends.
When people start actually caring for people, not politics or politicians. And “administration” is not something to focus on, but good for nothing elected Congress. It is Congress that enables the spending, thus the behavior of everyone fed by Federal money.
Since we cannot muster energy to grasp over 400,000 deaths in one year, more American lives lost than during the entire WWII — what will wake us? The assorted bureaucracy in uniforms is thus concluding that risk is acceptable. So what if nuclear bomb takes away hundreds of thousands? So what? We would squabble endlessly the numbers; did they really die of the bomb, or were already in poor health, and died while stumbling in the dark?
As Yeats said, center cannot hold. We are made up of extremes, nobody caring to hear another. The wise lack all conviction, the ignorant full of passion. We are the sad descendants of the age of reason and enlightenment. Reached its final vulgar and uncaring finale. While still preaching light to the unenlightened world.
Your comment has been twitter-ized:
https://twitter.com/alan2102z/status/1357352095247179776
Not so. The Biden administration has been in force less than one month and you are running your mouth off? Do you really believe that the 74 million who voted for the serial adulterer want to unite? It is apparent that you are among them.
Get back to us this time next year. OK?
I would not put all the eggs into Biden-Trump basket. We who listen with apprehension the war drums coming out of this administration — are alarmed. This does not make us pro-Trump. The issue of wars and expanding military presence around the globe WILL REMAIN TOP CONCERN with Trump long gone.
Biden will be judged. Day one. Nobody has patience waiting eight years for nothing to change. It is good Trump is gone. Biden cannot count on eight years if he does not get it.
Yes. Biden is the worst President since Trump. . Trump was the worst President since Obama. Obama was the worst President since Bush… Bush was the worst President since Clinton.
Get the picture?… They all sucked…
I get very uneasy when these clowns, the so-called military “leaders” and “planners” start talking about the possibility of nuc war; it is as if they do not realize that there is no winning nuc war, limited or otherwise.
It may be just a ploy to further loot the treasury for weapons systems that do not work but all the same once this discussion starts, we have enough crazies in the pentagon and state that it becomes a very concerning discussion.
And the Russians and Chinese are also well aware of the crazies-it does not make for a more stable world.
What’s really scary is when they start talking about ways to win a nuclear war, and there are apparently some people working on that.
There are those who actually believe that a first strike would do it. Well, while ours were in the air, others will be firing off theirs from air, sea, ground. Satellites would be hit (remember the Chinese a few years ago taking out one of their old satellites – it was a warning), knocking out communications. Telephone repeaters taken out. The only communications remaining would be line of sight walky talky, and CB. The electric grid would be knocked out.
Then, the human race would slowly die out, with a whimper, as in On the Beach.
For what?
The pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are enough for me. The videos and interviews with survivors are things of nightmares.
For all that bluster about USA ‘good’ Russia and China’ bad’ he speaks reality and sense when he expresses deep concerns about how things are moving along. He’d be really mad not to be concerned in a very serious way too. But the prime movers for aggression have been the USA and it’s allied NATO forces. Add a combination of an explosion of contractors and mercenaries, intelligence services, Special Operatives in the armed forces and a motley crew of Jihadist Sunni fundamentalists in train and we have dangers evolving all over the place.
The Navy is vulnerable and somehow appears more constrained in it’s role for Western Empire’s control of the seas. It’s not to do with ‘freedom of navigation’ but to threaten and bully other sovereign countries deemed as enemies to be defeated.
Diplomacy from the western vassal States’ leaders is dangerous and aggressive too! Propaganda through the western agencies composing MSM and ‘free press’ has reached saturation point. The waste and the destruction these military people have been perpetrating across the planet exists because of corruption within the body politic and a greedy lust for power. No expense is spared. The Corporate world is dizzy with accumulated wealth. Fear is induced for compliant populations from imaginations being poisoned by relentless media indoctrination. This has been deliberately encouraged to spread and is now well and truly embedded in western revised lies within main educational institutions.
A manufactured neo- liberal agenda is again underway. However, it’s bound to blow up in societal fracturing within Empire itself. Such an imposed agenda is rightly and properly resisted and ridiculed both at home and abroad. People are manipulated by this political corporate world’s corruption. That corruption is criminal but seems to be somehow permissible? Sanctions and force are to be the way forward? It’s a mad, mad, mad world in 2021.
So the more we spend to send conventional forces to threaten the far side of the world, the more we risk ending the human race. Got it, admiral. But more nukes for us won’t make us any safer.
Duh, as long as the weapons exist, there is a risk of their use.
From sputniknews:
https://sputniknews.com/world/202102031081970524-russian-envoy-to-us-i-cant-believe-sane-us-generals-really-consider-nuclear-war-with-moscow/
Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov stated that he doesn’t believe that any sane American general is really considering a full-scale nuclear military conflict with Moscow.
“I believe that such an idea visits the heads of some politicians who are not well”, Antonov added.
Apparently Antonov hasn’t met STRATCOM chief Vice Adm. Charles Richard.
There are more US Navy Admirals today than during both World Wars, so with that many flags at the Pentagon feed trough there’s bound to be one who goes off the deep end to demonize Russia and China with “challenging international norms” as if the US hasn’t done that in spades with its endless wars.
Don, These Admirals and Generals must be very much in the dark, or stupid beyond belief, because the Beings that control the Tic-Tac’s and other type craft’s,which the military finally admits are real, will never allow an all out nuclear war to destroy paradise Earth. Humans however are seen as very expendable in such a situation. You may think I am crazy in saying this,,but the facts speak for themselves if you care to do the research I have done for many decades. Today the evidence is easy to find, if one dares to look.
Any Admiral worth his Naval Academy Diploma has to be ready for any eventuality and take immediate action to avoid another Pearl Harbor from the far east. While the Japanese were bombing PR, the US was selling steal and other commodities, including agricultural products to Japan, just like we are doing now with China. Russia is still the Big Boy of nuclear bombs with over 6000 that we know of, other wise economically Russia has become the sick man of Europe under Putin..
I absolutely agree with them, the only downside will be that the living will envy the dead.
Nuclear war has always been a real possibility.
That is why until recently the US was cautious about major power wars.
Now we just want to “win” a nuclear war, something we’ve known is impossible since Day One back in the 1950’s.
We and NATO have missiles surrounding Russia like a pack of wolves ready to strike.