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For more than a month, U.S. President Donald Trump has been conjuring with the idea of supplying nuclear-capable Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. This week, however, he told reporters that he had backed away from the prospect.

Several weeks ago, shortly after Trump announced he was considering arming Ukraine with Tomahawks, our weekly editorial on October 3 warned that “all bets are off for a peace deal”. We contended that the American president, by considering such a move, was not genuine in his diplomatic efforts to end the nearly four-year conflict. “Trump is acting as a big-mouth poker player who has very few cards to play… betting that his boorish tough talk and the hype about sending Tomahawks to Ukraine… will somehow intimidate Russia to sit at the negotiating table and accept a half-baked peace deal.”

Moscow has not been intimidated to rush a peace deal on Trump’s or NATO’s terms of an immediate ceasefire, insisting instead that a resolution to the conflict must involve a substantive international security treaty and the eradication of root causes, including the Nazi nature of the Kiev regime and NATO’s historic expansionism.

When Trump was asked this week if he was still considering supplying the iconic missile to Ukraine, he said: “No, not really.”

That was after weeks of demurring; he might, he might not, we’ll see, and so on. What changed his mind?

In the last phone call between Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, on October 16, it was reported that Putin sternly warned that supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks was an escalation too far. He indicated that the weapon would not change the battlefield situation in Ukraine’s favor but that it would bring the U.S. and Russia directly into confrontation.

Sixty-three years after the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, with John F Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, this was an uncanny echo of that critical moment when the world faced nuclear war.

Trump subsequently claimed that he asked Putin, “Would you mind if I send Tomahawks to Ukraine?” We can only imagine Putin’s terse response.

The lame question from Trump suggests that the American president was not actually serious about the proposal and that the whole prior and subsequent reporting of his musings was a bluff aimed at unnerving Moscow.

The Tomahawk has a range of about 2,000-2,500 km and is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. It would also require U.S. participation to launch it from Ukrainian territory. If the missile were fired at St Petersburg or Moscow, Russia would have no choice but to consider it a possible preemptive nuclear attack.

Thus, it is averred, Trump was told that if he went ahead with his insane idea to supply Ukraine, then he had better be prepared to accept responsibility for starting World War III.

The day after the phone call with Putin, on October 17, Trump hosted the Ukrainian puppet president at the White House, whereupon Trump started backpedaling on the Tomahawks. He said that the U.S. needs to retain stockpiles for its own security interests and may not be able to supply Ukraine. “We need Tomahawks for the United States, too. We can’t deplete our country,” said Trump.

Though pointedly, last week, the Pentagon announced that there were no inventory limitations and that the White House was clear to send Tomahawks to Ukraine if President Trump made that determination.

Well, it looks like Trump has chosen caution to be the better part of valor, or should we say, bluffing. At least for now, anyway.

Still, the insanity of NATO’s war psychosis is always looming. Trump’s erratic and egotistical whims make him an unreliable interlocutor.

Following his “disappointing” meeting with the Ukrainian puppet, Vladimir Zelensky, last month, the European NATO warmongers have stepped up lobbying for the Tomahawks. NATO chief Mark Rutte met with Trump in the White House on October 22 to discuss the matter, no doubt reflecting the anxiety of the European elite that Trump was going soft on the idea.

This week, the former NATO chief, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, came up with the scheme of Germany supplying its Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine as a way to pressure Trump to follow up with Tomahawks.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Washington, Olha Stefanishyna, also reportedly claimed that “discussions” with the Trump administration for the cruise missile are “still ongoing”.

In this context, there are reports of British intelligence working on a false-flag provocation to blow up the Zaporozyhe Nuclear Power Plant, the biggest civilian plant in Europe, causing mass casualties and blaming it on Russia, even though Russia is in control of the ZNPP. Such an extreme provocation could be used to sway the White House.

For now, it seems, Trump has encountered the uncomfortable reality of his and NATO’s psychological games by desisting from supplying Tomahawks to Ukraine.

Similar reality checks are going on elsewhere. The imminent defeat of NATO’s Ukrainian proxy army in Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk) and Kupyansk is one such rude awakening from NATO’s illusions that Western media have been spinning for the past four years. Only last month, Trump was talking about green-lighting a counter-offensive by Ukraine against Russia and taking back territory.

Pertinent, too, was the unveiling last week of Russia’s breakthrough nuclear-capable weapons, the Burevestnik cruise missile that can fly unlimited distances, and the Poseidon torpedo, both of which are invulnerable to U.S. defenses. That would also seem to be a moment of realization for the NATO warmongers that their fantasies of defeating Russia are futile.

Another dousing with cold water is the potential deployment of Russian hypersonic missiles in Venezuela to upgrade the Latin American country’s air defenses amid U.S. aggression. It is reported this week that Trump is now having second thoughts about his (illegal) threats to attack Venezuela, fearing the military operation could end in abject failure with deaths of U.S. servicemen, at a time when voters are souring big time on the 47th president.

Bullies usually only operate with impunity and delusions about their strength until reality punches them in the face.

Trump’s throwing around the idea of Tomahawks to Ukraine seems to have hit him like a boomerang. One might hope that he can retain some common sense and restrain the transatlantic War Party.

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Russia’s successful testing this week of two breakthrough nuclear-capable weapons, the Burevestnik and Poseidon, marks an absolute technological besting over the United States, which is why President Trump overreacted with warnings of renewed nuke testing.

The weapons unveiled by Russia shift the strategic nuclear balance decisively. In chess terms, they are tantamount to checkmate.

The United States and its NATO allies have no means of defense against Russia’s new nuclear weapon delivery systems. The Burevestnik is a supersonic cruise missile, while the Poseidon is an unmanned submarine vehicle. The unique feature is that both are powered by onboard miniaturized nuclear reactors, which give them unlimited distance capacity. The weapons can circumnavigate the globe indefinitely and strike at targets from multiple unknown directions.

In terms of engineering achievement, the development is revolutionary. There are endless possibilities for civilian, peaceful applications.

Russia disavows a first-strike option in its nuclear doctrine, maintaining that its arsenal is for defense only. By contrast, the United States asserts a first-strike, or preemptive attack, option. The U.S. doctrine is despicable and is an extension of its historic claim of being the only country to have ever used atomic weapons, as it did without warning against Japan in 1945, killing 200,000 people.

But these new Russian weapons will ensure that the United States’ first-strike threats for decapitation of enemies are now null and void. Some military analysts comment that Russia’s strategic advantage now ensures that World War III is avoided – unless the U.S. wants to obliterate itself along with the planet.

Other analysts point out that the United States must disabuse its delusions of seeking global dominance and enter into negotiations with Russia to end the conflict in Ukraine, as well as get serious about respecting arms control.

An amusing aside is that in recent weeks, Trump has been menacing Moscow with threats of possibly delivering Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine for use against Russia. The Tomahawk, developed four decades ago, flies about 2,000 km at subsonic speeds and can theoretically be shot down with advanced Russian air defense systems. Whereas the Burevestnik can fly around the globe multiple times at supersonic speeds, and the U.S. has no defense against it.

Trump’s posturing with the Tomahawk now looks ridiculous.

His response to the news of Russia’s new weapons was a crude overreaction. Other NATO powers have kept silent, no doubt reflecting their stunned realization of impotence.

Trump announced on Wednesday with his usual bluster: “Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.”

This American president is not known for his ability to comprehend accurate details. And this is a classic case. His “instruction” to start testing nuclear weapons on an equal basis “immediately” is a non-starter because the U.S. has no weapons comparable to Russia’s. So, that suggests Trump is ready to resume testing on existing nuclear weapons. If he does proceed, and it is not certain if the Congress or Pentagon would permit that, it would mean ending a more than 30-year moratorium on nuclear test explosions.

A Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has been in existence since 1996, after nuclear powers realized the detriment to the planet from thousands of nuclear explosions carried out since the 1940s. Is Trump willing to break the taboo and go back to that bygone era?

Russia pointed out that the Burevestnik and Poseidon tests were non-nuclear. There were no warheads detonated. What was demonstrated was the capability of nuclear delivery systems.

The American side should learn from history that its arrogant unilateral conduct is self-defeating.

The United States under George W Bush unilaterally pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 because it wanted to encircle Russia with offensive missile systems in Europe. Sure enough, the U.S. expanded NATO towards Russia’s border and installed Aegis missiles in Poland and Romania as a means of intimidating Moscow.

In response to the U.S. abandonment of the ABM Treaty, Russia has developed a suite of new weapons that far surpass anything in the American arsenal, and for which there is no U.S. air defense. Russia has hypersonic missiles, Avangard, Zircon, Khinzal, and Oreshnik that can fly at Mach 10, or over 12,000 km/h, in unpredictable trajectories.

The unveiling of the Burevestnik and Poseidon weapons means it’s game over for the American Dream of dominating and terrorizing the world.

The upper hand that Russia has acquired is a result of the U.S. trying to be underhanded.

Trump’s warning of resuming nuclear explosive testing is a crude overreaction that betrays American admission of being bested by Russia.

Resuming test nuclear explosions is the futile response of a loser.

What the American side needs to do is begin treating Russia with respect and get down to the business of negotiating security and arms control treaties on a mutual basis for the sake of global peace.

A more troubling question is: Is the United States capable of such reasonable negotiation?

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U.S. President Trump’s toying with the idea of supplying Tomahawk cruise missiles to the Kiev regime is not a good look. Not from the point of view of it causing a threat to Russia. It doesn’t. But rather, it shows that Trump is not serious about ending the NATO proxy war against Russia.

Thus, Russia will have to win the war militarily on the battlefield and present its terms for peace as the outright victor. Any chance of a negotiated settlement to the conflict with the Trump administration now seems remote.

When Trump welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15, our weekly editorial headlined: “Trump-Putin summit a breakthrough for peace, but the U.S. needs to end the war.”

The meeting in Anchorage was indeed a breakthrough for potential diplomacy, rather than the usual dead-end Western hostility towards Russia, and Trump appeared to understand the Russian position of addressing the root causes of the conflict.

However, two months on, Trump has shown no impetus to “end the war.” He could have done this by ending all U.S. military support to the Kiev regime. On the contrary, in the weeks since the Alaska summit, Trump has announced the supply of Extended Range Attack Missiles (ERAMs) to Ukraine. The ERAMs with a range of 500 km exceed what the Biden administration had offered. Trump approved the move because European NATO members would pay for the munitions, a cynical calculation that does not sound like a principled peacemaker.

So, Trump is not ending the war. He is maneuvering to get the Europeans to pay for it, that’s all. Trump’s problem is that he expected a quick, flashy peace deal with Russia to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine – and to pick up the Nobel Peace Prize for being such a brilliant dealmaker. Such a Hollywood ending!

In reality, Trump and his administration have evidently no understanding or will to address the root causes of the proxy war. Their rhetoric acknowledges that it is a proxy war, but Trump and his aides are vacant when it comes to conducting serious negotiations about NATO’s historic aggression, NATO’s betrayal of post-Cold War promises, Russia’s strategic security concerns, and the rights of the Russian people faced with a NATO-weaponized genocidal Neo-Nazi regime on their borders. Trump’s superficial approach is betrayed by his erratic attitude and increasingly churlish comments about Putin and Russia.

The latest move by Trump, purportedly considering sending Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, and his reported authorization of sharing U.S. intelligence with the Kiev regime for targeting deep strikes inside Russia, does not add up. It sounds rather more like an empty bluff by a person whose oversized ego is bruised from Russia not playing along with his theatrical peace efforts.

For a start, the United States and its NATO partners are already sharing intel with the Kiev regime on targeting Russia with missiles and drones. And they have serious blood on their hands for doing so. Therefore, Trump’s “approval of intel-sharing” is nothing new. The way it is dramatically reported in the U.S. media suggests that Trump is hamming it up as some kind of leverage on Russia.

On the Tomahawk itself: as Putin acknowledged during a major public discussion at the Valdai forum in Sochi this week, the Tomahawks are a powerful weapon that can cause serious damage. The cruise missile has a range of 1,500-2,000 km with a warhead of 450 kg of explosive impact that can penetrate deep bunkers. But the subsonic weapon, dating from the 1970s, would be effectively neutralized by modern Russian air defenses. Also, the launching of Tomahawks is beyond the capacity of the Ukrainian forces. It is launched from warships and submarines. Is the United States willing to openly engage in firing long-range missiles into Russia?

As Putin also noted, even if Tomahawks were supplied, they would not change the battlefield situation in which the NATO-backed Ukrainian forces on the ground are rapidly losing territory along the entire 1,000-km front. NATO has lost the war. The Tomahawks are just another illusory “wonder weapon” that NATO and its propaganda media have touted before on many occasions without any military success. Recall F-16s, Leopard Tanks, Abrams, Challengers, Storm Shadows, SCALPS, ATACMS, and so on. They were all supposed to win the war, and they didn’t.

In any case, a Reuters report later this week, citing an “official source,” said it was unlikely for the U.S. to supply Tomahawks to Ukraine at this time because there are none to spare, with all existing inventory committed to U.S. Navy requirements. And with “peacemaker” Trump lining up to go to war on Venezuela and again on Iran, the Americans probably would do better conserving their stockpiles.

What this suggests is that Trump is acting as a big-mouth poker player who has very few cards to play, as he once admonished the Kiev puppet, Zelensky, in a White House spat. The American president is betting that his boorish tough talk and the hype about sending Tomahawks to Ukraine and “sharing intel” will somehow intimidate Russia to sit at the negotiating table and accept a half-baked peace deal, which is all about him winning a Nobel trophy and having his ego lit up with neon lights.

Trump’s talk about Tomahawks, if it were genuine, is “insanity,” as Scott Ritter pointed out this week.

But here’s the thing: Trump’s talk is not genuine, and that means his entire posturing about finding a peace deal in Ukraine with Russia is also not genuine. He is playing games for his ego and to simply shift the cost of war onto Europe.

Moscow cannot rely on the Trump administration to end the conflict based on a negotiated, honest solution of the root causes. The root causes stem from U.S. imperialist power and its European lackeys. Trump is way out of his depth in dealing with that.

Russia will have to end the war militarily on its terms for a lasting peace.

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Someone must always be blamed

There is no limit to stupidity, said an ancient sage. There is no limit to those who want to make stupidity a way of life, as in the case of the European Union and its Commission President, Ursula Von der Leyen, who continues to attack Russia and praise Ukraine, invoking war as the only way for Europe to survive.

It seems like an oxymoron, but it is true: Von der Leyen has once again reiterated that war is the only way forward for the European Union, a solution that concerns the very existence of the EU, no ifs, no buts. She called it “logic of aid” to Ukraine, but what logic? That of military aid that ended up under bombs? That of sanctions that were supposed to cripple the Russian economy but instead brought the whole of Europe to its knees? That of anti-Russian propaganda to incite hatred, which instead has led to a growth in support for Putin’s Russia?

It is unclear how it is possible to help Ukraine, at least not more than has already been done. Or perhaps the only real help would be to remove Zelensky from power, giving the country the chance to hold elections and choose a new leader, but this peaceful and diplomatic option does not seem to be on the table. Something dangerous, destructive and, above all, extremely expensive is needed. As many euros as possible must be burned. The war machine is fuelled by the euros of millions of European citizens, and it is by no means a “green” engine.

You called it “the logic of defence industry integration”, but it is not clear who has an interest in integration, other than yourself. The difficulties that currently make massive European rearmament politically impractical and economically unsustainable are mainly financial and industrial in nature. Reorienting the European defence industry’s production apparatus towards large-scale production would require huge investments, years of work, the training and recruitment of tens of thousands of specialised technicians (currently unavailable), and above all stable and advantageous access to strategic raw materials, steel, explosives and, in particular, low-cost energy sources.

All these conditions are currently absent in Europe, where the renunciation of Russian gas at affordable prices — now in place for almost three years — has led to a contraction in industrial production, a growing trend towards deindustrialisation, a sharp increase in energy costs, logistical inefficiencies, increasingly expensive supply chains and growing difficulties in sourcing raw materials.

Compared to 2021, the price of almost all weapons systems has tripled. This means that even if European states were to triple their defence and military investment budgets today, those resources would barely be enough to purchase the same amount of weapons, ammunition and equipment that could be obtained four years ago.

What is certain is that the defence industry will benefit from this war. The 800 billion requested will be divided among a handful of arms manufacturers, an unprecedented windfall. Whether or not the war actually happens is irrelevant, because what really matters is that the money has been spent and someone has got rich.

Once again, the blame will not lie with the EU, but with Putin, Russia and the multipolar world. Someone always has to be blamed.

Europeans are not willing to sacrifice even one life for Ukraine, while Russians are even prepared for nuclear war.

The European Union will do everything possible to prevent peace in Ukraine. The West is struggling to admit that the confrontation with Russia has led to the disintegration of Ukraine, and any agreement between Moscow and Kiev would be seen in Europe as a defeat, as the author of the article observes.

Zelensky has acknowledged that, sooner or later, he will have to deal directly with Putin. This is a step forward, considering that for years he swore he would never do so. Ukraine fought to join NATO, but it will not be part of it. It tried to join the European Union, but that path also seems to be blocked. In essence, Ukraine has lost everything. Macron, for his part, cannot admit that the effort to defeat Russia has ended up destroying Ukraine itself.

Europe does not seem at all interested in real negotiations. It wants a truce only to gain time and resupply Kiev militarily. It does not want genuine peace, because peace between Russia and Ukraine would be interpreted as a bitter defeat for the entire European project.

The Council of the European Union has approved a resolution establishing a new operational tool to strengthen security on the continent: the Security Action in Europe (SAFE), which entered into force on 29 May.

This mechanism provides for the financing of urgent and large-scale investments in the European defence and technology industry (EDTIB). The aim is to boost the sector’s production capacity, ensure the timely availability of armaments and fill existing military gaps, with the ultimate goal of strengthening the Union’s military readiness.

Through SAFE, the EU will make up to €150 billion available to participating Member States, at their request and on the basis of national plans. The funds will be provided as long-term loans at favourable rates. From the outset, the Ukrainian defence industry has been included in the programme, thus enabling the EU to continue its military support to Kiev.

The strategic significance of the initiative is clear: a proxy war against Russia via Ukraine, accompanied by gradual preparations for a direct military confrontation. The implications for Europe are serious, including the risk of its own geopolitical disaster. Meanwhile, €150 billion is expected to be allocated to this operation.

It should be remembered that SAFE is only the first phase of ReArm Europe. Although initially met with a cool reception by several Member States, the approval of SAFE shows that the project is taking shape. For this reason, the threat posed by a new European imperial order, whose structured and hostile approach towards Russia is accompanied by great economic and industrial potential, should not be underestimated.

The Europe of cannons is bringing down the rule of law

The arms race clearly highlights a profound regression in contemporary political and legal thinking. This is not just a strategic shift, but a reversal of values: what was once considered an exception – the use of military force – is now becoming the organizing principle of international politics, marking a return to an archaic phase of international law. The European Union, born out of a radical choice against war as a normal means of conflict resolution, now seems to be renouncing its original mandate, adhering to a logic of power that empties it of its legal and constitutional nature and robs it of its philosophical depth.

The ReArm Europe project conceals a new security paradigm that redefines the political identity of the Union no longer as a legal union (already controversial in itself), but as a military entity. It is a sign of the decline of the civilisation of law, supplanted by a culture of power. In this context, the disturbing influence of a political realism degenerated into cynical decisionism emerges strongly, where strategic effectiveness supplants any consideration of substantive legitimacy.

The picture is worsened by the substantial irrelevance of national political forces which, at least on paper, should defend a more rights-based vision of Europe. In Italy, for example, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is unable to propose an incisive alternative at European level. Her dissent, limited to form and lacking legal and philosophical arguments, demonstrates the weakness of the Italian political class in contributing to the construction of a coherent and autonomous European vision. In other words, Italy suffers first and foremost from a lack of “auctoritas”, even more than “potestas”: it is incapable of proposing an alternative project because it has lost its political vision.

Even more worrying is the evolution of British politics. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has quickly taken on the characteristics of a conflict-oriented technocrat. His military build-up programme, which aims to prepare the UK by 2035 (with more optimism than the EU), represents an ontological transformation of the function of the state: from guarantor of the law to a decision-making centre based on threat. His openness to sending troops to Ukraine under the pretext of “peacekeeping” reveals an instrumental use of international law, reduced to mere rhetorical cover for decisions motivated by power politics. So-called democratic interventionism is thus transformed, as it was in the post-9/11 period, into disguised humanitarian imperialism.

The crux of the matter, however, is deeper: it is the very structure of modern legal thinking that is in crisis. The legitimacy of military expansion is based on a Hobbesian view of the state as a monopoly of force, reinforced by Schmitt’s concept of “friend-enemy”. In this perspective, the law retreats in the face of emergency and the legal system is reduced to a simple decision. The most serious problem is that this exception has become the norm: war is no longer the last resort of law, but its very origin.

Law, in its essence, is a rational order aimed at the common good, and cannot be pursued by means that, by their very nature, represent disorder, such as war and systematic rearmament. Today, however, these limits seem to be dissolving: war is being prepared as a matter of routine, investments are being made in defence without clear objectives, and the idea of armament as an end in itself is being accepted. It is the triumph of political irrationality.

The arms race is not a sign of strength, but evidence of the profound crisis of a political project that has lost its soul.

Segue nostro Telegram.

Parte 1

La desecretazione di alcuni documenti testimonia in realtà che il presidente Kennedy, consapevole che le autorità israeliane – Shimon Peres in primis – mentivano riguardo alla natura del programma nucleare, avesse esercitato fortissime pressioni sul primo ministro Ben-Gurion per indurlo a desistere dall’intento di dotarsi di un’arma atomica. Fece notare al capo del governo israeliano che la Cia aveva scoperto l’accordo segreto tra Tel Aviv e la Dassault in base al quale l’avanzata azienda francese era stata incaricata di realizzare 25 missili a media gittata in cambio di 100 milioni di dollari. Il presidente sapeva che questa tipologia di missile, denominato Jericho-1, era in grado di trasportare una testata nucleare miniaturizzata a 500 km di distanza.

Di fronte all’evidenza, Ben-Gurion smise di negare e assunse posizioni molto più equivoche, conformemente alla dottrina della “utile ambiguità”, che consisteva essenzialmente nel non confermare né smentire l’esistenza dell’arsenale nucleare israeliano. Un concetto sintetizzato nella celebre formula coniata da Shimon Peres – e sistematicamente utilizzata da tutti i successivi governi israeliani – per rispondere a Kennedy: «non saremo i primi a introdurre armi atomiche in Medio Oriente». Sul piano operativo, le autorità israeliane cercarono di convincere Kennedy ad autorizzare Israele a dotarsi della bomba atomica sulla base di ragioni legate alla difesa del Paese da aggressioni straniere. «Signor presidente, il mio popolo ha il diritto di esistere e questa esistenza è in pericolo», scrisse Ben-Gurion in una nota diretta a Kennedy. Il presidente Usa continuò tuttavia a tenere la propria linea di ferma contrarietà, arrivando a rifiutare la proposta di Ben-Gurion di sottoscrivere un trattato di sicurezza con Israele e, soprattutto, a invitare nella sua tenuta in Florida il ministro degli Esteri israeliano Golda Meir allo scopo di delegittimare il premier, specialmente alla luce della forte acredine che c’era tra quest’ultima e il premier; un’acredine di cui Kennedy era perfettamente al corrente. Assieme a Pinchas Sapir, Golda Meir era la leader dell’ala del partito Mapai – lo stesso di Ben-Gurion – che contestava il programma nucleare israeliano, considerandolo il principale fattore d’intralcio nei cruciali rapporti con gli Stati Uniti. È probabilmente in forza di ciò che Kennedy si mostrò molto più aperto e conciliante con la Meir, assumendo un impegno di enorme importanza per Israele: «gli Stati Uniti – confidò Kennedy al ministro degli Esteri israeliano – hanno in Medio Oriente un rapporto speciale con Israele, paragonabile solo a quello intrattenuto con la Gran Bretagna in un ampio ambito di questioni internazionali […]. Penso sia chiaro che, nell’eventualità di una invasione, gli Usa interverrebbero in aiuto di Israele. Ne abbiamo le capacità e le stiamo potenziando».

Si tratta di un’assicurazione che le autorità di Tel Aviv non erano mai riuscite ad ottenere da Eisenhower, che per di più assumeva una valenza particolare con la fornitura a Israele degli Hawk – missili difensivi terra-aria fabbricati dalla Raytheon – autorizzata dallo stesso Kennedy. Il successo diplomatico capitalizzato da Golda Meir spinse nell’angolo il primo ministro Ben-Gurion, il quale decise di dimettersi e ritirarsi a vita privata. L’opinione pubblica israeliana attribuì il gesto di Ben-Gurion ad alcuni contrasti insanabili con le potenti organizzazioni sindacali e con l’establishment del partito Mapai per ragioni squisitamente interne, ma, secondo alcune ricostruzioni, a fare la differenza erano state le manovre diplomatiche di Kennedy, le quali avrebbero indotto al ritiro quello che molti abitanti dello Stato ebraico consideravano, al pari di Chaim Weizmann, un eroe nazionale.

In quegli anni, Shimon Peres segnalò a Benjamin Blumberg un giovane rampante di nome Arnon Milchan, titolare di una piccola impresa specializzata in prodotti chimici che sarebbe divenuto successivamente un famoso produttore di Hollywood. Milchan accettò subito di entrare a far parte del Lekem, per conto del quale mise in piedi una fitta rete di società di copertura attraverso cui furono trafugati svariati progetti delle centrifughe per l’arricchimento dell’uranio dal consorzio europeo Urenco – stessa cosa avrebbe fatto, anni dopo, lo scienziato Abdul Qadeer Khan, padre dell’atomica pakistana. Questo primo impotente successo consentì a Milchan di accreditarsi ad intermediario per la vendita di armi a Tsahal, nonché di ottenere lucrose commissioni su conti stranieri che sarebbero state messe quasi subito a disposizione sia del Lekem che del Mossad.

Una volta indossate le vesti di stimato businessman, Milchan ebbe modo di stringere un’alleanza strategica con Richard Kelly Smyth, vicepresidente della società Rockwell (poi confluita nella Boeing), che pose le basi per la fondazione della Milco, una società con sede in California incaricata di acquistare tecnologie da inviare in Israele. La Milco divenne istantaneamente uno dei principali fornitori della Heli Trading, principale compagnia di copertura del Lekem. La penetrazione della Milco nei settori nevralgici dell’industria bellica Usa e nei grandi centri di ricerca militare disseminati in tutto l’Occidente consentì al Lekem di acquisire tecnologie fondamentali per il programma nucleare e missilistico israeliano, tra cui il progetto originale del missile Pershing-2, la cui testata sarebbe stata riprodotta e sviluppata per le versioni più avanzate del missile Jericho. Parallelamente, il Lekem ebbe modo di acquisire, tramite una società di copertura, una cospicua partita di ossido di uranio (conosciuto come yellowcake) presso la città portuale belga di Anversa, facendo risultare la vendita come una normale transazione tra Italia e Germania. Lo yellowcake fu stipato in contenitori recanti l’etichetta plumbat (un innocuo derivato del piombo) e imbarcato su una nave presa a noleggio da una società liberiana di facciata. Secondo alcuni documenti declassificati statunitensi e britannici, in quel periodo (prima metà degli anni ‘60) Israele avrebbe inoltre ottenuto un secondo carico di ossido di uranio  dall’Argentina, nonché istituito un fruttuoso rapporto di collaborazione con Nyman Levin, un brillante fisico ebreo che si era imposto come responsabile di altissimo livello del programma nucleare britannico e che godeva di solidi agganci presso la comunità scientifica che aveva lavorato al Progetto Manhattan. Stando alla dettagliata ricostruzione di «Haaretz», Levin avrebbe passato a Israele una ragguardevole mole di informazioni sensibili circa le tecnologie sviluppate dalla Gran Bretagna e dagli Usa in campo nucleare a cavallo tra gli anni ’50 e ’60, riuscendo a eludere la sorveglianza degli investigatori dell’Mi5 preoccupati di evitare che si ripetesse un caso analogo a quello di Klaus Fuchs, il dotatissimo fisico teorico tedesco naturalizzato inglese arrestato nel 1950 per aver passato dati cruciali riguardanti il nucleare britannico e statunitense (Fuchs aveva preso parte al Progetto Manhattan) all’Unione Sovietica. Da alcune piste investigative sono inoltre emerse prove relative a un possibile coinvolgimento in attività spionistiche a favore di Israele di altre grandi personalità della comunità scientifica internazionale. Spicca in particolare il nome del fisico teorico ungherese naturalizzato statunitense Edward Teller, il principale artefice della bomba all’idrogeno portatore di una concezione politica iper-oltranzista (Stanley Kubrick si ispirò a lui per caratterizzare il celebre Dottor Stranamore) e favorevole allo Stato ebraico, nonché dotato di contatti diretti con l’influente scienziato israeliano Yuval Ne’eman – che in seguito avrebbe fondato il partito Tehiya. Grazie ai suoi ricorrenti viaggi a Tel Aviv, dove risiedeva la sorella, e ai suoi altolocati contatti negli ambienti scientifici e militari israeliani, Teller fu in grado di prevedere già verso la metà degli anni ‘60 che l’arsenale atomico israeliano era ormai un dato di fatto con cui gli Usa avrebbero dovuto fare i conti. Lo confidò al vicedirettore del Dipartimento di Scienza e Tecnologia Usa Carl Duckett, il quale dichiarò di averlo visto molto preoccupato per i passi da gigante compiuti dallo Stato ebraico in ambito nucleare. Osservazione che contrasta palesemente con quanto asserito dallo stesso Ne’eman, secondo cui Teller aveva fornito un contributo tanto entusiastico quanto sostanziale a convincere le autorità Israeliane a non aderire al Trattato di Non Proliferazione nucleare. Non a caso, il comportamento, tipico dei doppiogiochisti, tenuto da Teller in quelle fasi cruciali è ancora fonte di forti sospetti circa la sua lealtà agli Stati Uniti.

Negli Stati Uniti, intanto, l’assassinio di Kennedy aveva consacrato l’ascesa del suo vice Lyndon Johnson, senatore texano da sempre molto sensibile alla causa israeliana. Fu infatti il primo presidente ad inaugurare una sinagoga, dopo essersi adoperato negli anni ‘30, quando era congressista, per accogliere in Texas un cospicuo numero di ebrei in fuga dal “vecchio continente” aggirando la normativa che proibiva di accordare il permesso di soggiorno ai profughi europei negli Stati Uniti. Sotto l’amministrazione Johnson, gli Usa fornirono inoltre a Israele non solo 200 carri armati M-48, ma anche i vettori in grado di trasportare le testate atomiche che venivano fabbricate a Dimona, come i caccia Skyhawk e Phantom. Seymour Hersh, celebre giornalista investigativo, nota a questo proposito che «i forti legami emotivi tra Johnson e Israele, e la sua convinzione che le armi sovietiche stessero alterando l’equilibrio di potere nel Medio Oriente, lo indussero a diventare il primo presidente americano ad avere rifornito Israele di armi offensive ed il primo ad aver coinvolto pubblicamente l’America in sua difesa». Non stupisce quindi che, una volta messo al corrente dal direttore della Cia Richard Helms che Israele si era ormai dotato di armi nucleari ed aveva anche effettuato esercitazioni aeree per mettere a punto adeguate tecniche di sganciamento, Johnson comunicò a Golda Meir l’intenzione di mantenere questa scoperta segreta, anche per evitare che il Trattato di Non Proliferazione appena approvato dalle Nazioni Unite venisse rigettato dai Paesi arabi nemici dello Stato ebraico.

Questo salto di qualità nelle relazioni israelo-statunitensi nasce soprattutto dalla necessità degli Usa di controbilanciare la fornitura di armi sovietiche all’Egitto di Nasser, il quale, fiutata l’aria che tirava, cercò a sua volta di dotarsi di armi atomiche rivolgendosi a Mosca, che però rifiutò la proposta in conformità all’obiettivo di evitare di favorire una corsa agli armamenti nucleari in Medio Oriente. L’Egitto si rivolse allora a scienziati tedeschi che avevano lavorato al programma missilistico varato dai nazisti, riuscendo a reclutare Heinz Krug, che aveva svolto un ruolo di primo piano nella messa a punto dei micidiali missili V-1 e V-2. Secondo «Haaretz», Krug si mise alle dipendenze di Nasser dopo aver declinato l’offerta del suo ex eminente collega Werner Von Braun di lavorare per gli Stati Uniti, e riuscì a mettere insieme una squadra di tecnici (Wolfgang Pilz, Hans Kleinwachter, ecc.) con cui aveva lavorato in precedenza con il fine di realizzare un moderno programma missilistico per conto dell’Egitto. Venuto a conoscenza delle manovre di Nasser, il Mossad inviò al Cairo, con l’incarico di scoprire l’identità degli scienziati tedeschi, un commando formato da Yitzhak Shamir, Zvi Malkin e nientemeno che Otto Skorzeny, l’ex pupillo di Hitler che aveva svolto molte operazioni segrete dietro ordine esplicito del Führer. Passato alle dipendenze degli israeliani per vedere il proprio nome depennato dalla lista di Simon Wiesenthal ed evitare così di incorrere nello stesso destino toccato ad Adolf Eichmann, Skorzeny e la sua unità non solo rapirono e uccisero Krug, ma passarono anche al Mossad la lista completa di tutti i tecnici implicati nel programma nucleare egiziano, puntualmente eliminati da sicari israeliani nell’ambito dell’Operazione Damocles. Alcuni dei tecnici che lavoravano al progetto furono uccisi dallo stesso Skorzeny, attraverso un pacco bomba recapitato presso il sito militare noto come Factory-333.

Il “patto con il Diavolo” aveva evidentemente dato i suoi frutti.

By Wolfgang MUNCHAU

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When Donald Trump visits the Middle East this week, he will bump into some familiar people. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Fink and Sam Altman will also be in Riyadh. I doubt they will spend much time talking about Gaza, or Iran. They are all there for the same reason: to talk about AI.

The stock markets have currently put a high price on these tech companies. But AI is also commanding a high price from America’s foreign and security policy community: it will change the nature of warfare more profoundly than any other innovation we have experienced in our lifetimes. Ronald Reagan’s infamous Strategy Defence Initiative, also known as Star Wars, failed because the old technology could not deliver the precision that was needed. But AI could make it a reality and America’s concern is that China might get there first.

But America also worries that they are leading the charge with AI-powered drones. We think of drones as modern, but those used in the Russia-Ukraine war still need an operator. Imagine, then, if one side had AI-powered drones at their disposal? The West and Nato may be comfortable in their current — swiftly dating — military capabilities. But AI warfare is a completely new game.

And China is already forging ahead in the two areas that will prove critical. The first is the supply of energy — which is vital to power large AI data centres. The West should be concerned by the sheer scale of the expansion of China’s energy capacity. China has a renewable capacity target of 2,461 gigawatts by 2030. The corresponding numbers for the EU and US are respectively 1,100 and 500 gigawatts. For the Chinese, the heavy lifting will come from renewable sources, such as the world’s largest hydropower plant in Tibet, which will have an energy capacity roughly the size of Germany’s capacity today. Just from one single dam. This dam is not even included in China’s target number.

AI is furiously energy-hungry. As the car industry has only recently found out, the electric car is not just an evolution — it is a different product. The same applies to anything reliant on AI. Germany’s Rheinmetall is a formidable producer of ammunition and tanks. They make the best tanks in the world. But they are old-school — the heavy-metal version of defence manufacturing. You don’t want to be in one of them when being attacked by a swarm of AI-powered drones.

And so, as China marches ahead, Europe’s absurd data protection regulations and AI regulation effectively criminalise the 21st century’s most important evolving business sector. The Financial Times reported that British soldiers were prevented from using signal jamming on the grounds that it violated GDPR. Europeans have, in general, no idea what damage they are inflicting upon themselves with their absurd data protection obsession. And no clue what it does to their security. In the gilded foreign policy salons of Europe’s capitals, you will not hear much about AI-drones, or satellite-based AI-missiles systems. It is as though AI has yet to be invented in the Western foreign policy universe.

China, meanwhile, has more energy than we do, puts serious money into AI, and is not regulating itself to death. Take 5G. While we Europeans struggle with it, the Chinese are already developing 6G — the technology which is needed to handle the communications for next generation manufacturing.

This is the second critical area in which China is excelling: high-tech manufacturing. In the US and the UK, the prevailing view is that sophisticated countries should move into services and leave the shop-floor economy to upstarts like China. This is a story we have been telling ourselves for too long. And it is one that economists, in particular, don’t understand. They think it is more efficient to let China do all the manufacturing, for the US to specialise in high tech and finance, and to let Europe be a museum. They are simultaneously oblivious to those voters who want real jobs, to the nature of 21st-century manufacturing, and to security concerns.

The irony here is that the US understands the AI-service economy like no one else. And it still just about leads the world in research. But China has been able to catch up because all the new technology is open-source. As an anonymous employee at Google candidly admitted: “We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI.” Nor does the US. This is not a world of secret algorithms, or of industrial patents. The costs of entry are low — all you need is a bunch of desktop computers with a good graphics card. Anyone can join in. In the old world, the technology leadership meant that the US was years ahead of the competition. No more.

But the threat from China is more sophisticated than just copying our homework. They are better at producing and deploying at scale. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, said years ago that his company picked China for its manufacturing not because it was cheap, but because they were good at it. Similarly, Elon Musk built his main European car plant in Germany because they know a thing or two about manufacturing. But there are also downsides — which he has recently discovered — but he still respects the skills. And while Germany’s mid-tech manufacturing economic model is no longer working, there are still skills in Germany and other European countries that may be tapped for a US keen on reinventing manufacturing.

“The threat from China is more sophisticated than just copying our homework.”

While the US is keen for manufacturing to return to its shores, we must be clear that this doesn’t mean the reanimation of those old blue-collar jobs that were lost in the Rust Belt. This industry will be run by robots, not men, and serviced by robots. This isn’t about jobs. This is about capability.

For the US to acquire these capabilities, it needs allies. The Biden administration did manage to lure Europeans into relocating to the US through the Inflation Reduction Act. And Trump is trying to do the same through his much cruder policy of tariffs. The means are different, but the goal is ultimately the same — to get European companies to invest in the US.

I doubt, though, that Trump’s tariffs will turn the US into an Industry 4.0 manufacturing powerhouse, capable of competing with China. It has taken Beijing 30 years to get from a position of a pre-industrial economy to where they are now. Energy and manufacturing are what matters in this 21st-century arms race. China is streets ahead on both. The only chance the US has in this race is to build a clever alliance. The Riyadh meetings are useful. I still have not heard a plausible plan that tells us where the manufacturing know-how will come from.

Original article: UnHerd

The U.S. is dusting off the nuclear threat card to try to re-establish its hegemony, but is it really worth it?

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Nuclear weapons on the battlefield are an ever-increasing risk and competitors to the global challenge must confront this danger. The U.S. is dusting off the nuclear threat card to try to re-establish its hegemony, but is it really worth it?

The physiological need to show itself as the strongest

For the United States of America, nuclear deterrence is not a merely political or strategic problem, it is an existential problem: American hegemony is based purely on the primacy of deterrence on a global scale; this means that, as new competitors have entered the nuclear arms race, America has lost its primacy and must somehow compensate for the tactical disadvantage in order not to risk it becoming strategic.

We can without difficulty state that the U.S. has a physiological need to show itself as the stronger country, constantly confirming its political arrogance and diplomatic arrogance as the ordinary tools of spreading hegemonic power.

The American doctrine of nuclear deterrence is a fundamental pillar of U.S. national security strategy, developed during the Cold War and maintained with adaptations to the present day. Its essence lies in the ability to prevent nuclear conflict through the threat of devastating retaliation against anyone who dares attack the United States or its allies with nuclear weapons.

Deterrence is based on three principles:

• Capability: the nuclear military force must be sufficiently powerful and credible.
• Credibility: the adversary must believe that the U.S. would actually respond to an attack.
• Communication: the potential adversary must be aware of the devastating response it would suffer.

The concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) has been the evolution of deterrence, defining a balance between competitors with the aim of avoiding a nuclear apocalypse. Yet this did not prevent the U.S. from creating a ‘nuclear umbrella’, a true extended deterrence aimed at reassuring strategic partners.

Added to this is the criterion defined as ‘nuclear posture’, i.e. a state’s declaratory policy regarding the purpose of its nuclear arsenal, combined with the corresponding force structures, material capabilities and command and control structures in place for nuclear forces. Since deterrence is about shaping the thinking of potential aggressors, what the U.S. says and what it does are both important to nuclear posture. In the past, the nuclear postures of the United States and other countries have been variously described as ‘mutually assured destruction’, ‘flexible response’, ‘assured second strike’ or ‘assured retaliation’, ‘counterforce’ or ‘counter-strategy’, and most recently, ‘complex nuclear deterrence’. Nuclear posture can be understood as the doctrine and operation of a state’s nuclear forces to deter and potentially defeat adversaries if necessary.

U.S. think tanks are warning of a nuclear ‘slowdown’ for the country, as the Atlantic Council pointed out: ‘China is dramatically expanding its nuclear arsenal and North Korea now boasts of “accelerating development” of land-based tactical nuclear weapons. As a recent analysis by Markus Garlauskas warns, the growing risk of limited nuclear attacks is an important element of the future threat from China and North Korea. Meanwhile, Russia, with its arsenal of over 4,300 nuclear missiles, continues its nuclear sabre-rattling over Ukraine, while Iran is on the verge of building its own nuclear weapons.

The difference is stark. While the U.S. has been trying to reduce its stockpile of nuclear weapons, China, North Korea and Russia are accelerating the development of strategic weapons and doctrine for operational warfare. For too long, nuclear issues have been considered by many U.S. military and defence thinkers and practitioners as a separate ‘stovepipe’. This lack of attention to battlefield nuclear operations is a serious flaw in the way the U.S. and its allies have approached deterrence and war preparedness.

So what needs to be done? Simple: more nuclear weapons!

If the game is always the same, then employ more force to win more. Whoever has the most missiles wins.

Little does it matter if this means arousing the concern of other countries, provoking and perhaps even leading to political crises (something the Americans have always been fond of doing), what needs to be done is to ignore the appeals of other states and resolutely pursue the assertion of one’s own brute force. As justification for this, the U.S. claims that the attempt to regulate nuclear hegemonic expansion has been ‘threatened’ by… the presence of other countries with nuclear weapons! Practically only the hegemon should be allowed to have nuclear sovereignty, all other states should suffer it.

The convenience of an unstable and fragmented global market

If we try to think of the U.S. without the nuclear trump card, what is left?

In fact, the dominance of the dollar was historically imposed precisely because of the soft power of nuclear power: we, the U.S., have the atomic weapon, you don’t, so we decide what set-up to give the world, while you remain forever at a disadvantage. At the first questioning of this hegemonic principle, as happened during the Cold War, the reaction was merciless and the whole world was thrown into an interminable crisis. But without the nuclear power, the dollar would most likely never have become so strong. No country would ever have challenged the U.S. knowing that it could be razed to the ground in a matter of minutes.

Yet, maintaining one’s nuclear power is very expensive: the U.S. government’s Congressional Budget Office estimates nuclear spending at $756 billion over the period 2023-2032, a good $122 billion more than the 2021-2030 period that had already been estimated. Put another way, we are talking about an immense dollar-washing machine on a global scale. And what happens when there are difficulties with the state budget? More is invested in the strategic sector. Wars are money factories. If, however, one cannot make wars frequently, one at least gives the impression of always being close to the outbreak of a conflict, so as to generate a non-stop arms race. Water turns the mill wheel. Simple as that.

Hegemony is based on the political utility of insecurity for a war always around the corner

Indeed, without insecurity as a permanent figure in strategic calculations, nuclear hegemony would not work.

If the logic of provocation prevails, the ground force surrenders the advantage of manoeuvre because it does not develop a counter to a weapon that the adversary possesses, has a doctrine of employment and trains for survivability and resilience. A ground force that cannot manoeuvre can neither conquer terrain nor force objectives. In other words, it cannot win battles. Giving up manoeuvre is a sure path to defeat on the battlefield.

It is hard to believe that large-scale combat operations against a nuclear-armed adversary will not go nuclear if victory is sought. Not going nuclear today may mean not winning. Not winning may not be a viable option in the next big war between states.

Again as reported by the Atlantic Council, the U.S. should move towards an upgrading of nuclear warfare, following three points:

First, the armed forces should use resources to initiate a plan to implement ‘nuclear culture’ among both command plans and troops, so as to raise awareness and normalise to the idea of nuclear war.

A second step is to include adversary nuclear attacks in the scenarios of large-scale conventional combat operations, so the armed forces should organise and lead this training.

Third, military leaders should mandate that acquisition waiver decisions that exempt contractors from meeting nuclear survivability requirements for equipment and vehicle development be the responsibility of the Office of the Secretary of the Army and not delegated. Delegation is likely to result in exemptions being granted for convenience or to reduce costs without a full understanding of the strategic and operational implications of the threat.

Keep in mind that deterrence is partly based on the principle that adversaries are vulnerable. All conceivable situations in which the aggressor’s fear of retaliation will be minimal should be explored and attempts made to eliminate them. Vulnerability should lead states to be more cautious and refrain from even minor provocations because of the fear of escalation and because the gains can only be limited. Neither a completely effective defence nor the abolition of nuclear weapons is possible, but only these could eliminate vulnerability in the nuclear age.

With vulnerability comes uncertainty: one cannot know the exact range, location or timing of the attack. Of further importance is the uncertainty over the ability to control escalation. Since the severity of the consequences of a nuclear war is enormous, even a low probability of unintended escalation is sufficient to induce caution. The very essence of a crisis is its unpredictability and the fact that, once initiated, there is no guarantee that either state can control its development. The enemy is seen as a rational actor and if it acts unpredictably, the risk increases.

In all this, consider that we do not know the actual development of the various types of weaponry, the vanguards and latest prototypes are unknown. This means that the ‘special status’ as a nuclear power on a global scale is a much sought-after label to be able to carry more political weight and dialogue with partners on a more equal footing.

It does not matter whether or not the U.S. has stronger nuclear technologies than others: what matters is the world’s perception of its own country. The threat must appear credible. Communicating credible deterrence is an active process. It is not the static equivalent of the scarecrow in a farmer’s field. It is more like an active farmer patrolling the field with his rifle, firing it from time to time to make sure and prove that it works. The nuclear equivalent is the regular maintenance, training and operation of nuclear forces in realistic geostrategic circumstances.

Here we can see why it suits the U.S. to revive the nuclear danger card: a reputation to maintain, banks to restore and a bit of a show on the silver screen.

Who knows whether this arrogance will not cost America dearly as it seeks to become great again?

Segue nostro Telegram.

Il pericolo di una escalation nucleare è reale. L’equilibrio internazionale si è fino ad oggi basato sulla deterrenza come strumento di “garanzia”. Ma se questa cambia o viene a mancare, cosa succederà?

I fondamenti della deterrenza

La deterrenza nucleare è una strategia fondamentale nelle scienze strategiche e militari, che si basa sull’uso della minaccia di una risposta nucleare devastante per prevenire l’uso di armi nucleari o per scoraggiare attacchi strategici da parte di uno o più avversari. A pieno titolo, si inserisce nel più ampio contesto della strategia nucleare, che riguarda l’impiego di armi nucleari per proteggere gli interessi nazionali, difendere la sicurezza e influenzare il comportamento degli stati avversari. La deterrenza nucleare ha assunto un ruolo centrale durante la Guerra Fredda e continua a essere un elemento cruciale della politica di difesa delle molte potenze nucleari dell’intero pianeta.

Il concetto si basa su una psicologia delle relazioni internazionali che punta a rendere inaccettabili le conseguenze di un’azione ostile per l’avversario. Semplice ma molto, molto efficace. In termini nucleari, si tratta di fare in modo che il nemico percepisca che i costi di un attacco, o di un conflitto che porti all’uso di armi nucleari, superano di gran lunga i benefici che potrebbe ottenere da tale attacco.

La deterrenza nucleare può essere suddivisa in due principali forme:

Deterrenza diretta: riguarda la minaccia di utilizzare armi nucleari in risposta a un attacco nucleare o convenzionale da parte di un avversario. L’idea di base è che, se un avversario ritiene che l’attacco a un paese deterrente comporti la probabilità di una ritorsione nucleare devastante, sceglierà di non attaccare.

Deterrenza indiretta: si riferisce all’uso della minaccia nucleare per influenzare il comportamento di un nemico in contesti non direttamente legati all’uso di armi nucleari, come guerre convenzionali o confronti strategici. In questo caso, la minaccia di escalation nucleare funge da strumento per influenzare le decisioni di un nemico in situazioni di conflitto o crisi.

Una delle principali caratteristiche della deterrenza nucleare è la cosiddetta triade nucleare, un concetto sviluppato dagli Stati Uniti durante la Guerra Fredda, la quale consiste nella combinazione di tre componenti principali:

Missili balistici intercontinentali (ICBM): sono missili lanciati da terra, con una gittata di oltre 5.500 km, che possono trasportare testate nucleari e colpire obiettivi strategici a lunga distanza, in particolare le capitali e i centri di comando nemici. Sono quelli di cui si sente parlare oggigiorno sempre di più e che rientrano, per esempio, nella riforma della dottrina nucleare russa promulgata da Vladimir Putin pochi giorni fa.

Forze di bombardieri strategici: velivoli a lungo raggio, come il bombardiere B-52 degli Stati Uniti, che possono trasportare testate nucleari e colpire bersagli strategici. Questi bombardieri possono essere utilizzati anche in una funzione di ritorsione, perché la loro mobilità consente di mantenere una minaccia credibile anche in caso di attacco preventivo.

Missili balistici lanciati da sottomarini (SLBM): i sottomarini nucleari, grazie alla loro capacità di operare silenziosamente e di rimanere nascosti nelle profondità marine, forniscono una risposta di “secondo colpo” altamente credibile e difficilmente distruttibile. La presenza di sottomarini nucleari nelle acque internazionali riduce la probabilità che un avversario possa distruggere l’intero arsenale nucleare prima di essere colpito a sua volta.

La triade nucleare è progettata per garantire che, indipendentemente dal tipo di attacco subito, almeno una parte significativa delle forze nucleari rimanga intatta, pronta a infliggere una punizione devastante in caso di attacco. Questo principio è noto come second strike capability” che è la base della deterrenza nucleare efficace: l’assicurazione che un attacco nucleare non resterà senza risposta.

La logica della distruzione mutua assicurata

Il concetto di Mutual Assured Destruction  (MAD), o distruzione mutua assicurata, è una delle principali dottrine strategiche che definisce la deterrenza nucleare. Essa afferma che, in un conflitto nucleare tra due potenze nucleari, la probabilità di sopravvivenza di entrambe le parti sarebbe estremamente bassa, in quanto entrambe infliggerebbero danni irreversibili e catastrofici; di conseguenza, entrambe le parti sono fortemente dissuase dall’iniziare un conflitto nucleare.

La logica di MAD si basa su diversi principi fondamentali:

• Credibilità della minaccia: per essere efficace, una minaccia di ritorsione nucleare deve essere credibile. Ciò significa che una potenza nucleare deve possedere forze nucleari sufficienti e la volontà politica di utilizzarle in caso di attacco.
• Vulnerabilità reciproca: entrambe le potenze nucleari devono essere vulnerabili all’attacco nucleare dell’altra, il che significa che entrambe devono possedere forze nucleari sopravvissibili, come i sottomarini nucleari o i silos sotterranei di missili balistici.
• Incertezza sul risultato: anche se entrambe le potenze possono infliggere danni devastanti all’altro, nessuna delle due parte può sapere con certezza quale sarebbe l’esito di uno scambio nucleare, poiché le conseguenze potrebbero essere globalmente catastrofiche e imprevedibili.

Oltre ai principi di base, la deterrenza nucleare include anche concetti avanzati legati alla credibilità, alla comunicazione e all’innovazione tecnologica.

Deterrenza estesa: una nazione nucleare può estendere la propria deterrenza a paesi alleati, promettendo di difenderli con la propria capacità nucleare. Questo principio è alla base delle alleanze della NATO, dove gli Stati Uniti offrono la protezione nucleare agli alleati europei.

Disincentivazione tramite la non first use: alcune nazioni nucleari, come la Cina, hanno adottato politiche di “non first use” (NFU), impegnandosi a non utilizzare mai armi nucleari per prime, ma riservando il diritto di rispondere a un attacco nucleare con una rappresaglia nucleare. Questo approccio riduce il rischio di escalation, ma può anche essere visto come una debolezza, poiché potrebbe non offrire un deterrente sufficientemente forte.

Armi nucleari tattiche: oltre alle armi nucleari strategiche, esistono anche armi nucleari “tattiche”, ovvero armi di potenza ridotta, destinate a impieghi in teatri di guerra locali. Queste armi sollevano dibattiti sulla loro capacità di dissuadere un attacco, in quanto potrebbero abbassare la soglia dell’uso nucleare. Anche di queste abbiamo sentito molto parlare soprattutto dal 2022, con l’inizio della SMO russo-ucraina.

Sistema di comando e controllo: per garantire una deterrenza credibile, le potenze nucleari devono avere un sistema di comando e controllo estremamente robusto e sicuro, che impedisca l’accesso a comandi non autorizzati e protegga le forze nucleari da attacchi di sabotaggio o hackeraggio.

Rischio dopo rischio

La gestione della deterrenza nucleare continua a essere una sfida fondamentale per la sicurezza globale.

Lo stallo in corso sull’Ucraina è diventato di fatto un confronto diretto tra la Russia e la NATO, entrambe dotate di armi nucleari che ora operano senza le garanzie della diplomazia della Guerra Fredda. L’interruzione della comunicazione privata, un tempo pietra miliare della gestione della deterrenza nucleare, ha lasciato il posto a una comunicazione pubblica che si svolge in una guerra mediatica. Questo pericoloso cambiamento ha aumentato drasticamente la probabilità di errori di calcolo catastrofici. Molto peggio di un film di Hollywood.

Teniamo presente che, durante la Guerra Fredda, un sistema imperfetto ma funzionale di diplomazia discreta permetteva di inviare e ricevere segnali con chiarezza. La comprensione reciproca, anche tra nemici, aiutava a prevenire malintesi che avrebbero potuto sfociare in un conflitto nucleare. Oggi, questo cuscinetto critico è come se fosse evaporato. La Russia ha adottato un approccio diretto e privo di ambiguità, segnando pubblicamente le sue linee rosse in assenza di una diplomazia affidabile; le sue linee rosse sono messe a nudo per il mondo, non perché cerchi un’escalation, ma perché l’ambiguità si è dimostrata fatale di fronte al doppio linguaggio occidentale. Nel mentre, l’Occidente è pieno di contraddizioni e gossip mediaticamente alimentati fino a raggiungere un livello di confusone che rende difficile discernere le informazioni. Tuttavia, la deterrenza resta una questione di credibilità e quando la credibilità si gioca sotto gli occhi di tutti, il rischio che i leader siano costretti ad agire per “dimostrare le loro minacce” diventa esponenzialmente più alto.

La decisione dell’Occidente di abbandonare la diplomazia privata a favore di una postura da megafono rivela un pericoloso mix di arroganza e miopia. I leader occidentali non stanno semplicemente giocando con Mosca; stanno giocando con il loro pubblico interno, con i partner strategici e con i cittadini che osservano inesorabilmente.

La strategia dell’Occidente, costruita sull’illusione dell’esitazione russa, è un errore di calcolo catastrofico. Mosca non si fa illusioni sulla posta in gioco e le sue azioni riflettono la consapevolezza della minaccia esistenziale rappresentata dalle provocazioni della NATO.

A differenza della Guerra Fredda, questa non è più una partita a scacchi in cui un’attenta strategia e il rispetto reciproco delle linee rosse dettano le mosse. È una partita a poker, giocata con fiches nucleari, in cui il bluff e la strategia del rischio sostituiscono la logica e la moderazione. Gli Stati Uniti e la NATO, incoraggiati dalla loro stessa propaganda, scommettono che la Russia non si inasprirà; ma la Russia non rinuncia alla sua tradizionale difesa esistenziale, perciò è pronta a fare qualsiasi cosa.

La storia non sarà gentile con coloro che giocano con il futuro dell’umanità per il bene della propria vanità politica.

In 1965, American singer and composer, Barry Macguire released his song, ‘Eve of Destruction,’ a commentary on the raging racial conflict in American society, the war in Vietnam, the armed violence raging in the Middle East and the threat of nuclear war.

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His truthful observation immediately made the song popular and its lyric still rings very much true today as it was nearly 60 years ago—racial tension still afflicts American society, the world is now in ‘de facto’ World War 3 under the shadow of nuclear annihilation as the West continues to escalate its proxy war in Ukraine against Russia while proceeding with their military ‘bloc alliances’ in Asia for their war with China.

Meanwhile, Israel, America’s sledgehammer in the Middle East, is making sure that its naked aggression would engulf the entire region in war.

The Philippines, of course, is fast becoming the center of tension in Southeast Asia over our leaders’ mistaken belief that tying our fate to our ‘ironclad’ military alliance with the United States and reverting to our role as an obedient “tuta” is the surest way to maintain our territorial integrity in relation to China.

It is foolish of us to believe Uncle Sam’s argument that constantly provoking and embarrassing China would result to “concession.”

Instead of resorting to diplomacy as any mature and sane person would do given our dismal situation, we up the ante of our provocation by reneging on our “promise” to return, “by September,” the US’ ‘Typhoon Missile System’ that was brought in here last April during the biggest ‘Balikatan’ military exercise this year. To drive home the point of our servility, we even announced that we want to purchase the missile system “for our own defense and security.”

Instead of listening to the (still) friendly overtures from Chinese officials for us to “stop going further down the wrong path,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo, in an open display of either naivete or stupidity or both, told Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian that “No, (Typhoon) is “not destabilizing” the region and that it is “not a threat” to China.

But how convenient that it was placed near the tip of Northern Luzon facing China and Taiwan?

Let us be clear, Typhoon is an offensive weapon system. Our officials saying otherwise is lying to us in our faces.

If armed with a ‘Tomahawk’ cruise missile with its range of 2,400 kilometers and which the system is capable of, it can hit mainland China including Hongkong, Macau, Hainan, Guangxi, Guangdong and as far as Hubei and yes, Taiwan, in case China decides to reclaim this US-client island province by force.

Russian President Vladimir Putin commented last June 28 that the deployment here of the Typhoon is now part of Russia’ calculations for potential nuclear targets when war with the United States erupts (see also Pinoy Exposé, July 1, 2024).

President Putin said this in the context of Russia’s decision to proceed with the production of new missile systems such as the deadly ‘Oreshnik’ which even the US has no counter measure.

Unless our defense and security officials are content on watching Netflix war films and reading gossip columns for “enlightenment” and “education,” we remind them that the war in Ukraine proved the superiority of Russian arms versus their counterparts in the West. This superiority extends to those of China.

Presently and in the immediate future, only China and Russia possess nuclear-armed ‘hypersonic weapons’ that they would not hesitate to use, as Russia has shown, in defense of their sovereignty and core interests.

Should we persist down the wrong path of provocation instead of diplomacy, this might as well be our ‘Eve of Destruction.’

Original article: Pinoy Exposé

It’s hard not to see Zelensky’s obsession with the Storm Shadows for what it is: a panic attack. 

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Time is really running out for Zelensky in Ukraine. A more recent obsession with long-range missiles and Ukraine’s permission to use them has made the headlines of late and an upcoming meeting in Washington DC with President Biden is now the subject for journalists. Zelensky is expected to put his case in person to Biden, but will also meet Trump later and invite him to visit Kiev. He will beg once again permission to use UK-made Storm Shadow missiles at Russian military targets within Russia, following a week of hyped up press reporting falsely claiming that Biden was about to give approval.

It’s hard to interpret the hype or its objective as now that the excitement has ebbed, we are left with some harsh realities which must be praying on Zelensky, as, neither a Trump victory nor a Harris one bodes well for him.

The volume of military aid being shipped to the Ukraine is woefully low and reports of a downed F-16 and a Kursk campaign which has cost Ukraine heavily bear witness to the overall problem that Zelensky has: logistically both with equipment and soldiers, the Ukrainians are simply outnumbered and outclassed by Russia.

Zelensky knows this and has had to deal with six government ministers leaving abruptly his cabinet after what appears to be a failing strategy on all fronts, not least Kursk.

But he will waste his time dealing with either Biden or Harris.

Joe Biden has a number of black dogs looking him in the eyes from the Ukraine dossier and the last thing he wants for his own foreign policy trail of havoc legacy is a world war with Russia – which is surely what would happen if the Storm Shadows were deployed. Biden did hint though he might allow Ukraine to use French or British-made storm missiles but not with the blessing of the U.S., which is nonsensical given that some of the components are actually made in America.

Biden has three main areas of concern about the Storm Shadows.

Firstly, he is very conscious that whatever he does now running up to the presidential election date, which actually raises the stakes in Ukraine with Russia will play into the hands of Donald Trump who has capitalized on the chaos of the war and promised a quick fix in the first few days in office, if elected. Secondly, he is worried that a fixation of the Storm Shadows will allow Zelensky to take his eye off the ball on the battlefield in Kursk, allowing Russia to deliver a humiliating defeat against Ukraine which is likely to find its troops surrounded there in the coming weeks. And thirdly, that the Storm Shadows and the hype that is attached to them will distract Zelensky and his military cabal so much, that they will leave key transport hubs like Pokrovsk – currently in the hands of Ukraine and vital for troop supplies – vulnerable, falling into the control of Russian forces. Some military analysts believe that Pokrovsk’s fall could mean a decisive advance to Russia and may even mean the end of the war, given Russian advances in other areas of the Donbass.

It’s hard not to see Zelensky’s obsession with the Storm Shadows for what it is: a panic attack. Even western media, whose narrative drips with NATO talking points [read BULLSHIT] are struggling to talk up the Kursk offensive. Is it possible that Zelensky already sees the writing on the wall and that Storm Shadows are his ultimate, last resort? The meeting in Washington appears at best to be an oxymoron held by two morons who have little understanding of their own situations. According to some reports, it is being hailed as a meeting where the Ukrainian president will present Biden with his “peace plan” while also hoping in return that he will be offered NATO membership. But nearly everything Zelensky does is disingenuous as smoke and mirrors is his style, which even recently the Russian foreign minister mentioned was tiring him. The Storm Shadows debacle will continue though as western media use it as fallback fodder when they have nothing else to write about. But like so much about the Ukraine war, they will remain largely a myth, an urban legend which village idiots will obsess over, but no one will actually be able to use. Finally, we have, if nothing else, a red line which Washington will understand and respect.