Russia simulates nuclear attack on Poland

[-TSS-]

Russia together with Belarus has had a military-exercise where they practise invading the Baltic countries and end the exercise ends in a simulated nuclear strike against Poland.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/6480227/Russia-simulates-nuclear-attack-on-Poland.html

This is is all just flexing of muscles and happened 4 years ago but I must say that I don't believe it for a second that NATO would start WW III for the sake of the Baltic countries even though they are NATO-members.

Edited September 18, 2013 by -TSS-

[Boges]

Was Von Ribbentrop consulted first?

[Signals.Cpl]

This is is all just flexing of muscles and happened 4 years ago but I must say that I don't believe it for a second that NATO would start WW III for the sake of the Baltic countries even though they are NATO-members.

They most definitely would, last time around the allies sold out their smaller allies and ended up paying dearly for it. Should the west abandon their smaller allies to anyone, it would end the alliance and destroy American credibility. Last time around the French and British sold out Czechoslovakia to the Germans and ended up facing Germans armed with Czech tanks and weapons...

[dre]

They most definitely would, last time around the allies sold out their smaller allies and ended up paying dearly for it. Should the west abandon their smaller allies to anyone, it would end the alliance and destroy American credibility. Last time around the French and British sold out Czechoslovakia to the Germans and ended up facing Germans armed with Czech tanks and weapons...

I dunno they sweet FA for Georgia.

[Signals.Cpl]

I dunno they sweet FA for Georgia.

And Georgia was not a NATO member. As soon as they abandon a NATO member, the US in particular and NATO as a whole lose meaning. We will see NATO collapse and be replaced by regional alliances, a big reason most European nations want to be member of NATO was and is security. Abandon member nations and NATO becomes about as useful as the UN.

[xul]

They most definitely would, last time around the allies sold out their smaller allies and ended up paying dearly for it. Should the west abandon their smaller allies to anyone, it would end the alliance and destroy American credibility. Last time around the French and British sold out Czechoslovakia to the Germans and ended up facing Germans armed with Czech tanks and weapons...

Credibility means nothing to today's American since the CEOs of their bankrupt companies no longer jump off skyscrapers like their old fashioned capitalist predecessors did in 1930s.

They most definitely would say what you say if they believed that Russian most definitely would not nuke Poland by risking WW III.

But if the worst scenario did happen, since there are many NATO members, I merely wish Canadian PM wouldn't be the first NATO member leader advising US president: "Not to call you a coward, Master, but sometimes cowards do survive"

Edited October 6, 2013 by xul

[Rue]

Putin is KGB, always was and always will be. He sees the world no differently than the KGB in the heat of the cold war did. The US and Western Europe, in particular the United Kingdom are seen as the no.1 and 2 enemies.

Its deeply entrenched in his mind as a given.

Putin survives by using the former KGB apparatus as the body guards for the Russian mob. In return he calls the external shots, the mob calls the internal shots.

Inside the country, the Russian mob rules protected by Putin.

He's nothing but a thug.

The problem is he is a lethal thug. He made it to where he is and the top of the KGB because he can kill people with his bare hands and has killed people with his bare hands. He has no remorse. He is a classic example of a sociopath. He has no remorse.

He is cold, calculating, exact and unemotional. This is a man who channels his anger into a psychic place where there are no feelings just cold, detached, matter of fact decisions. Anger is for weaklings. You kill before you are killed.

Putin has an above average i.q. to the point of genius. He can see 5 steps ahead. He has been trained in psychological profiling and

murder. In short, he is a lethal weapon and there is no one in Russia to stop him as long as he works with the mob and that he does.

His foreign policy protects their drug cartels first and foremost in Syria.

This is a man who is sitting on the world's water and oil reserves.

His power comes from anarchy in his country and no opposition. He is a war lord and he has the two most precious resources of the world at his ginger tips and I have not even mentioned lumber, platinum, silver, gold and so many other minerals.

He also has a catastrophe in spent and rotting nuclear plants, a nation of epidemic levels of alcoholism, depressive mental illness and

cancer from the nuclear contamination.

His regular army is barely fed but his inner elite core swells with all the luxuries the average Russian will never know.

His nation is collapsed, spent and rotting but he rules like the war lord he is, nothing more then an up dated version of a Czar.

Putin likes to flex his muscles. He compensates for his lack of height by trying to look and sound bigger than he is so he flexes and uses missiles, a favourite symbol of short men. Call it what is is-insecurity over his size.

He is too smart to engage in a war. In his world its all about psychological threats. Its all about playing the war upstairs in the mind and humiliating your opponent with words and gritted teeth smiles and icy stare downs.

He can't invade. His army has no logistics. What he can do though is manipulate terrorists and extremists or commando units. The days of protracted world wars are over. Its all about fighting war through proxy using local conflicts to get your death or point across.

[Michael Hardner]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/18/unwavering-commitment-pence-tries-to-assure-europe-that-us-will-support-partnership.html

 

Quote

Vice President Pence on Saturday worked to assure NATO allies that the United States would be “unwavering” in its commitment to the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Pence, in his first overseas trip as vice president, told the Munich Security Conference that President Donald Trump intends to "stand with Europe." He sought to calm nervous European allies who remain concerned about Russian aggression and have been alarmed by the U.S. president’s positive statements about his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Pence is turning into the steady voice of the administration.  Even FOX's reporting on this reveals to the casual reader that something is askew in US Military strategy for this to happen.

[GostHacked]

On 9/19/2013 at 0:00 PM, Signals.Cpl said:

And Georgia was not a NATO member. As soon as they abandon a NATO member, the US in particular and NATO as a whole lose meaning. We will see NATO collapse and be replaced by regional alliances, a big reason most European nations want to be member of NATO was and is security. Abandon member nations and NATO becomes about as useful as the UN.

The fall of Turkey could very well put the final nail in NATO's coffin.

[-TSS-]

It is embarassing for NATO to have a country like Turkey as one of its members.

[Rue]

Totally agree TSS. It may be though NATO is obsolete. The biggest threat to democracy is terrorism not Russia.

The biggest threat to Western economies is China and their own mishandling of finances.

Russia is a country run by an organized crime syndicate that has Putin as its trained pit bull. His army can barely feed itself.

Russia can cause a lot of trouble in limited conflict zones but it can't take on a world war. It barely could take over Crimea without screwing that up.

If it was as powerful as people say it is, it would have swallowed up all of Ukraine and been in the Baltic states by now.

Russia reacted to NATO placing allies right on its door step a violation of an unwritten rule their should be neutral buffer countries like Sweden or Finland in between.

That's actually changed the Finnish and Swedish stance as to neutrality. They are getting dragged right into this obsession about Russia.

There is no ideology coming out of Russia that spreads and infects like the legendary communist germ of the cold war days.

Hell the spread of communism was referred to no differently than syphilis and herpes.

Well what infection is Putin exactly spreading that is contagious? Do the Russian mob look like a lifestyle people are being seduced by?

The Russian mob is quite happy making money. World Wars get in the way of their money making activities. They no more wanted war than the Mafia wanted Italy to side with Hitler and get in a war. Its not good for business.

All I am saying is the reference to Russia as some cold war menace was a reconstituted concept brought in to the Obama regime by Zbigniew Brezinski, an old Polish anti semitic man who was Carter's National Security advisor and was rejected as a crackpot by the intelligence community.

The fact Obama resurrected this man as his advisor led to the notion the US should ally with Iran and China and feud with Russia.

That concept is incorrect. China is the biggest foe of the US and all world capitalist economies not Russia.

Russia is a threat to Ukraine, the Baltic states yes but Europe would sell out both like it did Georgia or did nothing in the past when Churchill warned the world what Stalin was up to.

Europe and NATO won't fight Russia. NATO is a pretext for a military industrial complex. Every NATO country's no.1 source of employment and economy is military including Canada. Check it out for yourself and see who employees those in Europe who do work. Its someone either in or spun off from the military industrial complex. As long as that is NATO will come up with an enemy to justify the military spending just like Russia and China have to do because in Russia and China the no.1 industries as well are military.

You really think F35 spending is going to stop Putin or terrorism? Right.

Would Putin invade Finland, Sweden, the Baltic States, Poland, he's not Hitler. Finland traditionally has good reason never again to trust Russia the same way the Baltic states and Ukraine do. I get that. I just don't see NATO giving a damn about them.

I think Trudeau sending 600 troops to Latvia is being used as a pretext to justify not spending 2% of Canada's gnp on military spending as we are supposed to do as a NATO member. Its just a cynical cover exercise so we can leave it to the US to do the heavy spending to prop NATO.

I agree with Trump-NATO is an organization that expects the US to carry it. The US should not have to carry Europe anymore. They damn well rebuilt Europe after WW2 and Japan, enough is enough.

As for Canada yah Trudeau knows he has lots of Ukrainian voters he wants to vote for him. You bet he knows the pandering anti Russian words to get their attention. His Foreign Minister  is Ukrainian he knew that. He knows being anti Russian gets him votes. He thinks being pro Chinese gets him votes. His foreign policy will be based on pandering to ethnic votes through his foreign policy.

He picks and chooses the ethnic groups he thinks have the most votes when devising his foreign policy. Its only a matter of time until Trudeau is doing photo ops in China and India, the Philippines. Smile for the voters back him who he thinks will vote for him.

 

Edited February 19, 2017 by Rue

[SpankyMcFarland]

Trump himself has questioned NATO's future. The US administration does not speak with one voice any more. 

[bush_cheney2004]

1 minute ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Trump himself has questioned NATO's future. The US administration does not speak with one voice any more. 

 

The U.S. should leave NATO and save a lot of money.   Let the deadbeats enjoy their bargain defense spending.

[Bonam]

On 2/19/2017 at 3:08 PM, Rue said:

Totally agree TSS. It may be though NATO is obsolete. The biggest threat to democracy is terrorism not Russia.

The biggest threat to democracy is definitely not terrorism. I'd say the biggest threats are internal... apathy, polarization, partisanship, concentration of power, etc. 

[eyeball]

On 2/19/2017 at 3:08 PM, Rue said:

The biggest threat to democracy is terrorism not Russia.

The biggest threat to the planet appears to be the manner by which democracy chooses to react to its fears.

[Queenmandy85]

While I agree NATO must stand together and an attack on one member is an attack on all, requiring a full nuclear response, it is chilling to note that such an action would result in the death of 95% of the world's population in the first week. The rest would die in the next few days. 

[Derek 2.0]

23 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:

While I agree NATO must stand together and an attack on one member is an attack on all, requiring a full nuclear response, it is chilling to note that such an action would result in the death of 95% of the world's population in the first week. The rest would die in the next few days. 

 

That's far fetched.......even during the height of the Cold War, when there were far more city killing warheads on both sides, it was estimated that even if the Soviets targeted major US population centers with a first strike (which they wouldn't, as they would be going after the American/NATO nuclear forces), the initial attack and fallout would claim ~1/3rd of the US population......an American strike on the Soviets would claim even less, due in large part to the then lower Soviet population density in cities with even more Soviet peoples living in rural areas............With that said, it was expected, that Europe would fair far worse, with both West and East Germany expected to lose ~80+% of their populations.....With that is the reality that most of the World's population found in South America, Africa and Southern Asia (assuming no exchange between India and Pakistan) wouldn't be directly effected by a nuclear exchange between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.............Today there are far less warheads, and the warheads that largely remain are smaller and in part due to technology, far more effective thanks to modern (GPS) guidance systems......allowing smaller to and fewer warheads to have the same "impact" (pun intended) as those warheads several decades ago.

[Queenmandy85]

Perhaps I was misinformed. My source was Colonel Nichols, CO of CFB Comox and his previous appointment was Canada's senior officer in NORAD during the early 1970's. I do believe you are underestimating the lethal effects of fallout. 

However, conceding your point, 100,000,000 American fatalities and an unknown number of surviving casualties, the destruction of infrastructure, the effects of radioactive fallout on agriculture, the issue precipitating a war between Nato and Russia and/ or China had better be worth it. I hope that a pissing contest would not qualify. In my youth there was a phrase, "Better to be red than dead."

[Derek 2.0]

11 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:

Perhaps I was misinformed. My source was Colonel Nichols, CO of CFB Comox and his previous appointment was Canada's senior officer in NORAD during the early 1970's. I do believe you are underestimating the lethal effects of fallout. 

 

Your source (or you) isn't looking at the entire picture........both sides, during the 70s, had far more warheads at their disposal (then in the 10s of thousands), even then, such assumption is assuming the entire arsenals of both sides were active (at best 1/3rd would be at anytime), warheads weren't destroyed in targeted strikes, the end user was able to deploy and employ said forces and said warheads worked with 100% reliability (which they wouldn't)

 

I'm not underestimating fallout at all, more so, I have an understanding that fallout and the physical destruction (outside of the targeted area) isn't linear to the amount of megatons.......for example, if the Russians were so inclined, a single 800 kiloton warhead detonated over Saskatoon versus six 800 kiloton warheads detonated over Saskatoon wouldn't create a proportional amount of fallout that would effect the surrounding areas.....even blast and over pressure wouldn't be proportional within Saskatoon itself.......in other words, people ~100km away from ground zero would have little physical negative effect......

The Americans and Russians detonated hundreds of atmospheric warheads throughout the Cold War.......and well.....you can go to Vegas and not come home glowing in the dark.

 

 

Quote

 However, conceding your point, 100,000,000 American fatalities and an unknown number of surviving casualties, the destruction of infrastructure, the effects of radioactive fallout on agriculture, the issue precipitating a war between Nato and Russia and/ or China had better be worth it. I hope that a pissing contest would not qualify. In my youth there was a phrase, "Better to be red than dead."  

 

To paraphrase General Buck Turgidson.......I never said either side wouldn't get their hair messed up.......a major exchange would crater the World economy and have huge negative impacts on the largely Second and Third World countries that would remain unharmed from the war itself......but it wouldn't end all, or most, of life on the planet.....

[bush_cheney2004]

2 hours ago, Derek 2.0 said:

 

That's far fetched......

 

Agreed...it is far fetched because the former U.S. SIOP had very specific, escalating objectives including limited first strike options.  During much of  the Cold War, the general strategy was initial defense suppression and preservation of survivable assets for follow-up attacks, principally by alert manned bombers with hours of ingress flight time.  For the U.S., targets were flexibly selected for specific reasons beyond just large population centers from a very large target database.   The large targeting domain was prioritized,  translated, and coordinated into specific target packages for "coverage" by nuclear weapons delivery platforms.

Improvements in targeting accuracy also reduced the need for very high yield, multiple megaton warheads.

[bush_cheney2004]

1 hour ago, Queenmandy85 said:

... In my youth there was a phrase, "Better to be red than dead."

 

In my youth, it was the opposite...."Better dead than red".

[Queenmandy85]

B-C 2004, you paint a very clinical picture. Think about what it would be like on a human level and then consider how people would survive in a society without hospitals, electricity, communications, clean water, anything that depends on computers and electonics.

[Derek 2.0]

7 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

Agreed...it is far fetched because the former U.S. SIOP had very specific, escalating objectives including limited first strike options.  During much of  the Cold War, the general strategy was initial defense suppression and preservation of survivable assets for follow-up attacks,

Exactly......and likewise from the strategic perspective of the Soviets....The very first target for ones strategic weapons were the other guys strategic weapons, leadership and command & control establishment.....

 

7 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

principally by alert manned bombers with hours of ingress flight time.

And of course the USN's then TACAMO fleet in conjunction with the SSBN portion of the nuclear trident.......

 

8 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

For the U.S., targets were flexibly selected for specific reasons beyond just large population centers from a very large target database.   The large targeting domain was prioritized,  translated, and coordinated into specific target packages for "coverage" by nuclear weapons delivery platforms.

 

Exactly.......large industrial and population centers would be very low on the initial list of first and second strike targets....Thats not to say some cities with strategic targets found within their limits wouldn't be primary targets of a first strike though.....

8 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

Improvements in targeting accuracy also reduced the need for very high yield, multiple megaton warheads.

 

Exactly....likewise....smart (conventional) munitions themselves have also negated much of the need for low yield battlefield nukes that were still determined a requirement by both sides into the 80s...   

[ZenOps]

A modern Starfish Prime would knock out communications and the power grid of a continent.

It would instantly make hundreds of satellites and tracking systems useless.  The GPS system would be effectively useless, for a time anyhow.

Arguably, missile defense systems are a stupid idea if they are not designed to intercept a nuke in high altitude space.

[DogOnPorch]

2 hours ago, ZenOps said:

A modern Starfish Prime would knock out communications and the power grid of a continent.

It would instantly make hundreds of satellites and tracking systems useless.  The GPS system would be effectively useless, for a time anyhow.

Arguably, missile defense systems are a stupid idea if they are not designed to intercept a nuke in high altitude space.

 

GPS sats are in high orbits (20,000 km) and would likely survive an EMP + First Strike. However, they are synchronized from the ground, so accuracy would quickly deteriorate as time marched on. GPS satellites, mind you, would be targets of ASAT weapons rather early on in such a conflict, one would think.