Preparing For The Unpreventable (Revelation 15)

 
Nuclear Escalation Is Getting More Likely, It’s Time To Step Up Missile Defense

Peter Huessy
President, GeoStrategic Analysis
4:20 PM 07/05/2016

Brad Roberts, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and head of the nuclear posture review, warned June 28th in a speech at the Carnegie Endowment that regional conflicts could very well see the use of nuclear weapons against the United States. The reason is that superior U.S. conventional capability forestalled Chinese and Russian objectives in Ukraine and the South China Sea.

Ten days earlier, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German Foreign Minister echoed such concerns as well, but warned that, “it would be fatal to search only for military solutions and a policy of deterrence.” He added, “what we shouldn’t do now is inflame the situation further through saber-rattling and warmongering.”

How serious is the current geostrategic balance? Are we in danger of any number of crises escalating to open conflict? And how should the U.S. respond? Should we deploy better military capabilities or ramp up our diplomacy, or both?

Certainly the Russian government has openly declared its willingness to use nuclear weapons against the United States and its European allies should NATO militarily step in to stop Russian aggression in Ukraine or the Baltics. On July 4th, RT published an essay — “U.S. Military Strategy Could Culminate in Nuclear Conflict” — warning that any armed conflict in Ukraine or the South China Sea would not be confined to those regions. The RT essay went on to note while the U.S. remained relatively unscathed in World War II, today’s military capabilities of China and Russia left no guarantee that the U.S. homeland would remain a sanctuary.

Brad Roberts, now with Lawrence Livermore, spoke directly to this problem as he explained that a conventional conflict over Ukraine or the South China Sea might very well escalate to the use of nuclear weapons by China and Russia. But he noted the aggression would be coming from Moscow and Beijing, not Washington, while the RT propaganda essay put the entire onus for any future conflict on what it complained were American and NATO “neocon” plots and designs.
What then should the U.S. posture in Europe and East Asia with respect to deterring conflict be? As Roberts sees it, the U.S. seeks to deter conflict and assure our allies that we have their back. This involves both conventional and nuclear capabilities, as our allies do not believe that non-nuclear capabilities as well as missile defense and conventional strikes can be substituted for nuclear deterrence. These capabilities are complements not substitutes.

Our adversaries such as Russia, China, and North Korea, says Roberts, worry about being encircled by U.S. and allied military bases whether in Eastern Europe or the Western Pacific. If a military conflict breaks out in these regions, the three nations are concerned with how to defeat what they see as a “conventionally superior nuclear armed major power” in the United States.

To fix such a dilemma, Roberts believes these nations will widen the conflict, and threaten the American homeland with nuclear strikes, and thus in a crisis or conflict induce us to “back down.” Such a strategy he notes involves “blackmail, brinkmanship and coercion” and a willingness to use “nuclear weapons on a very limited basis.” As such this significantly raises the nuclear dangers we face.

Given this environment, perhaps it is now time to revisit our missile defense strategy adopted in the post ABM treaty period which was to avoid exposing ourselves militarily to rogue regimes like North Korea and Iran, without upsetting the strategic balance with Russia and China.

Missile defense in the regions in question — Eastern Europe and the Western Pacific — consists of relatively limited deployments in Romania and Poland, and sea and land based deployments in Japan and the Republic of Korea. If future conflicts in these regions are where the use of nuclear weapons is most likely, then the U.S. and its allies have some choices. We could improve our regional nuclear capabilities, strengthen our conventional capabilities, or deploy more missile defenses.

The last option, deploying better and greater numbers of missile defense systems, poses no offensive threat, would enable the U.S. to exercise restraint in a crisis, and would enable the U.S. to de-escalate a possible conflict by blunting offensive attacks. The example of Israel using Iron Dome missile defenses to shoot down some 90 percent of the missiles from Gaza aimed at its populated areas is instructive in that it helped bring the rocket wars to a stop without the need for wholesale offensive operations that could have sparked a wider conflict.

American and allied missile defense options would better protect the U.S. homeland from missile attacks, consistent with Roberts’ warning that our adversaries might escalate a conflict by threatening America’s cities. Deploying such missile defenses at home and in the European and Asian theater, if done artfully, is a policy of restraint, enhancing U.S. and allied security while providing policymakers with more options in responding to such a threat.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/05/nuclear-escalation-is-getting-more-likely-its-time-to-step-up-missile-defense/#ixzz4DfwDIPbr

Antichrist Speaks Out Against The US and EU

‘US and Israel destroyed the EU,’ claims Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr


Powerful Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has warned of a fragmented European Union in the aftermath of the Brexit, accusing the US and Israel of destroying the bloc.

“The EU, with all its power, called on America and its spoiled son Israel to undermine the union,” Sadr said in a statement issued Saturday and published by Arabic news site Elaph on Saturday, adding that Britain’s vote to leave was “the first step towards undermining and weakening” the EU.
Sadr also said that the differences in opinion between the UK government and the British people about various matters, such as remaining or exiting the EU, show that the government does not know what the people’s needs are.

“The government is in its ivory tower and very distant (from what the people want) although there’s a system based on freedom and democracy looking after people,” Sadr said.

Commenting on David Cameron’s resignation following the Brexit vote, Sadr said this was due to the British PM “failing to implement his electoral vows.” (Reuters)

He also said that he does not expect Britain to be the last country to exit the EU, adding that other countries such as France and Germany may follow suit.

“These countries’ exit will mark the union’s end,” he added.

Sadr also called on the EU not to submit or weaken under American pressures, “as the fragmentation of the EU benefits the US the most on the political and economic fronts.”

Commenting on David Cameron’s resignation following the Brexit vote, Sadr said this was due to the British PM “failing to implement his electoral vows.”

Sadr’s followers in Iraq have been staging protests demanding anti-corruption reforms since February. His rivals see in the demonstrations an attempt by the cleric to dictate his views to the rest of the political class.

(With Reuters)

The Nuclear Holocaust Draws Near (Revelation 15)

US, EU, Russia Nuclear War Is A Growing Possibility – Official

Hydrogen bomb from Pixabay

BY Precious Silva ON Email Published: 1:03 pm, Mar 22, 2016  Updated: 1:03 pm, Mar 22, 2016

The nuclear threat is approaching closer to Europe as relations with Russia continue to degrade. There is a risk of nuclear confrontation as Russia continues to intimidate other nations while parts of the European continent call the country for exacerbating refugee crisis and threatening world peace. Will a new Cold War start?

 

While the number of nuclear weapons in Russia and United States declined compared to the Cold War era, still, both countries hold around 90 percent of the world’s stocks. Previously, NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called out Russia for intimidating neighbors with nuclear weapons. Washignton also expressed concern about the matter.

“The risk of confrontation with the use of nuclear weapons in Europe is higher than in the 1980s,” Reuters quoted Igor Ivanov, Russia’s foreign minister from 1998 to 2004 and now head of a Moscow-based think-tank founded by the Russian government. “We have less nuclear warheads, but the risk of them being used is growing,” added the official.

The decision of the United States to set up its missile defense shield in Europe is also adding to the problem. Specifically, a part of the shield will be placed in Poland which is closer to the Russian border. Closer US troops is seen as a threat to the Moscow.

“It can be assured that once the U.S. deploys its missile defense system in Poland, Russia would respond by deploying its own missile defense system in Kaliningrad,” explained Ivanov.

More important, the EU sanctions placed against Russia will only strain the relationship further and escalate tensions. According to Italian prime minister and ex-president of European Commission Romano Prodi, it will be detrimental for the EU to push the policy against Russia.

“For any European country it is not easy to be in conflict with EU official course,” Sputnik quoted the official. “Italy seeks improving relations with Russia, but there are certain limits established by general EU policy. I believe that Russia should bend every effort to help EU members that aspire to repair relations,” Prodi added. He said that mending relations with Russia is challenging because of the limited opportunities brought upon by EU policy. He also considered the policy a series of mistakes. But more importantly, the official said that a political dialogue may help ease the situation.