USA; Bhasmasur Gone MAD
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." What really happened in Beijing to Obama, from 'Salon' , by Patrick Smith , author of "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century." and International Herald Tribune's bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992.
"Gold is a good place to put money these days given its value as a currency outside of the policies conducted by governments." The former Wall Street Oracle Alan Greenspan
http://tarafits.blogspot.in/2012/09/a-short-history-of-decline-of-american.html
Let me first explain what are Bhasmasur and MAD.
In Hindu mythology, Bhasmasur or Bhasmasur (Sanskrit: भस्मासुर) was an asura or demon who was a devotee of the god Shiva . Bhasmasur's great penance pleased Shiva. When asked what Bhasmasur wanted, he asked for immortality (permanent hegemony) .Only Eternal time could grant that .So Bhasmasur settled for and was granted the power that anyone whose head he touched with his hand would immediately be turned into ashes (Bhasa). Bhasmasur straightaway attempted to touch Shiva's head to possess his consort Parfait .Shiva fled, chased by Bhasmasur relentlessly.
Somehow, Shiva managed to reach god Vishnu for help. Vishnu agreed to help him out and transformed himself into Mohini, an exceedingly beautiful woman. Bhasmasur immediately fell in love with Mohini and asked her to marry him. She told him that she was very fond of dancing, and would marry him only if he could match her dance mudras and moves identically. Bhasmasur agreed and they started dancing. It went on for days. As Bhasmasur matched Mohini aka Vishnu posture by posture, he began to let his guard down. Mohini struck a dance pose where her hand was placed on top of her own head. As Bhasmasur copied her, touching his own head, Bhasmasur was immediately turned into ashes.
Greek's version of Hubris is similar, ie even a wise person granted unlimited power is liable to go mad as is the case with once hyper power, United States of America. Hubris (/ˈhjuːbrɪs/, also hybris, from ancient Greek ὕβρις) means extreme pride or self-confidence. When it offends the Gods of ancient Greece, it is usually punished.
M.A.D ;Mutually Assured destruction.
Mutually assured destruction (M.A.D.) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender, becoming thus a war that has no victory nor any armistice but only total destruction. It is based on the theory of deterrence according to which the deployment of strong weapons is essential to threaten the enemy in order to prevent the use of the same weapons. The strategy is effectively a form of Nash equilibrium in which neither side, once armed, has any incentive to disarm.
So far this MAD hypothesis has worked with God's grace ,and it has evolved over time after USSR tested its nuclear weapons a few years after the needless 1945 US nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But as Eric Schlosser reveals in his riveting 2013 book Command and Control, there have been dozens of close calls, from the 1962 Cuban missile crisis to the Titan II missile explosion in Damascus, Ark. And popular films such as Stanley Kubrick's 1964 Dr. Strangelove have played out how it could all go terribly wrong, as when General Jack D. Ripper becomes unhinged at the thought of a "Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids" and orders a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union.
A deterrence strategy like MAD is not a long-term sustainable solution because of escalation, accidents and crazies, and efforts have been made over the past two decades to reduce the world's stockpiles, from a peak of around 70,000 in 1986 to about 17,300 today, Can we get to "nuclear zero"? Quite unlikely!
1962 Cuban crisis
This crisis was followed with abated breath; fear and a feeling of terror .Its details are quite well known. Summary below;
By 1962, both the United States and the Soviet Union had developed the capability of launching a nuclear-tipped missile from a submerged submarine, which completed the third leg (after land and air) of the nuclear triad weapons strategy necessary to fully implement the MAD doctrine. Having a three-branched nuclear capability eliminated the possibility that an enemy could destroy all of a nation's nuclear forces in a first-strike attack; this, in turn, ensured the credible threat of a devastating retaliatory strike against the aggressor, increasing a nation's nuclear deterrence.
We need not go into the details of the 13 day confrontation in October 1962 between the USSR and Cuba on one side and the United States on the other side. The crisis is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to turning into a nuclear conflict and is also the first documented instance of mutual assured destruction (MAD) being discussed as a determining factor in a major international arms agreement.
The confrontation ended on October 28, 1962, when US president Kennedy and United Nations Secretary-General U Thant reached an agreement with Soviet leader Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement never to invade Cuba.
Secretly, the US also agreed that it would dismantle all US-built Jupiter IRBMs, armed with nuclear warheads, which were deployed in Turkey and Italy against the Soviet Union. The tense negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union , which were carried out through intermediaries , pointed out the necessity of a quick, clear and direct communication between Washington and Moscow. As a result, a direct telephone link between the leaders of the two countries was established.
Who saved the world in 1962; Vasili Arkhipov !
Arguably the most dangerous moment in the crisis was recognized only during the Cuban Missile Crisis Havana conference in October 2002. Attended by many of the veterans of the crisis, they all learned that on October 27, 1962 the USS Beale had tracked and dropped signaling depth charges (the size of hand grenades) on the B-59, a Soviet Project 641 (NATO designation Foxtrot) submarine which, unknown to the US, was armed with a 15 kiloton nuclear torpedo. Running out of air, the Soviet submarine was surrounded by American warships and desperately needed to surface.
An argument broke out among three officers on the B-59, including submarine captain Valentin Savitsky, political officer Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov, and Deputy brigade commander Captain 2nd rank (US Navy Commander rank equivalent) Vasili Arkhipov. An exhausted Savitsky became furious and ordered that the nuclear torpedo on board be made combat ready. Accounts differ about whether Commander Arkhipov convinced Savitsky not to make the attack, or whether Savitsky himself finally concluded that the only reasonable choice left open to him was to come to the surface. During the conference Robert McNamara stated that nuclear war had come much closer than people had thought. Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, said, "A guy called Vasili Arkhipov saved the world."
This Soviet-American confrontation was synchronous with the 1962 China-India war with the USA's military blockade of Cuba. Historians speculate that the Chinese attack against India coincided with the Cuban missile crisis to draw attention away from the Himalayan War.
Before proceeding further, let me reiterate an observation, which needs verification, that in US and even in Israel (specially in 2006 war with Hezbollah) some of the top military commanders come from the air force, who easily seduce political leaders and strategic experts with their computer generated power point presentations .How bombings and missiles would neutralize enemy defenses and forces and ground troops can then easily mop up the enemy remnants.
During informal afternoon discussions at India's National Defence College in 1976 , after the air force , gunnery and tank brigadiers had their say , infantry officers would say ; ok, yes , but who and how would the ground troops fight , defeat and take over the ground and then defend it .
In the 2006 war in south Lebanon between the famed Israeli Commandos, highly motivated and trained Hezbollah cadres beat the hell out of Israelis and destroyed many of their so called invincible tanks .An investigation in Tel Aviv headed by a former Judge concluded that Israel, the so called best fighting force in the region did not win the war.
US Bhasmasur in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine
As in the Indian mythology, Washington believes that it has the power to destroy anyone it touches. It has been proved so in the case of Vietnam, and in recent years, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and to some extent in Syria and Ukraine, not counting almost all the former Soviet socialist states in East Europe, where a small percentage of its population in league with Washington, Wall Street and the City, London have brought untold misery and suffering on the people, which is unbelievable. To some extent it can be certainly said that the Afghans and Iraqis have hit back and injured Bhasmasura to some extent.
US Marine Col John Murtha,"The US military is broken in Iraq"
This point was clearly exposed in US led 2003 illegal invasion of Iraq and its brutal occupation, when expected fierce resistance for which the Iraqi leadership had drawn up plans made late decorated US Marine Col John Murtha bemoan that US military was broken in Iraq and a political solution must be explored .Since then US presidents dare not officially place boots on the ground as in Libya, Syria or Ukraine. US never intended that Iraqi armed forces be good enough to do real battles .No air support equipment or training .And then promiscuous corruption made Iraqi forces run away from well equipped and better trained Islamic State (IS) Jihadis ( in Turkey and Jordan ) and organizing transfer from Libya and elsewhere. The so called Kurdish Peshmerga are like fattened chickens unlike PKK fighters with decades if experience of fighting.
The US led and Turkey supported disjointed fight against IS a Charade.
In September, 2013 stand-off on Syria between USA & EU against Russia, Washington blinked .There is a continuing stand-off between the two sides in Ukraine. It has been clearly proved that the Bhasmasur i.e. U.S.-led West with its NATO members is not invincible and the rest of the world, led by Russia can also destroy USA and its allies in Europe.
Look at the current leadership of United States led by Barack Obama, a Western gifted Nobel Peace Prize Lauriat in advance (what a sick joke!) and all the dangerous aggressive actions which he is undertaking at the behest of his handlers, the US corporate interests, led by financiers, bankers, military industrial complex, energy complex and other such rentier classes based on now outdated and sagging model of US dollar as a reserve currency.
Slowly but surely Brics and the rest of the world are coming together. While Putin of Moscow is holding back USA and other demons and hopefully soon through the strengthening of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, with the addition of India, Iran, even Pakistan and the expansion of Brics bank and other such arrangements proposed and led by China, Russia and India and others the power of the dollar as reserve currency without much backing of gold can be reduced to ashes.
The Wall Street Oracle Alan Greenspan finally admits
"Gold is a good place to put money these days given its value as a currency outside of the policies conducted by governments."
The old man sometimes speaks the truth .He had earlier admitted that Iraq was invaded in 2003 for its oil.
Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, Greenspan said that the bond-buying program was ultimately a mixed bag. He said that the purchases of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities did help lift asset prices and lower borrowing costs. But it didn't do much for the real economy.
"Effective demand is dead in the water" and the effort to boost it via bond buying "has not worked," said Mr. Greenspan. Boosting asset prices, however, has been "a terrific success."
He observed that history shows central banks can only prick bubbles at great economic cost. "It's only by bringing the economy down can you burst the bubble," and that was a step he wasn't willing to take while helming the Fed, he said.
The question of when officials should begin raising interest rates is "one of those questions I cannot answer," Mr. Greenspan said.
He also said, "I don't think it's possible" for the Fed to end its easy-money policies in a trouble-free manner....
"Recent episodes in which Fed officials hinted at a shift toward higher interest rates have unleashed significant volatility in markets, so there is no reason to suspect that the actual process of boosting rates would be any different, "Mr. Greenspan said.
"I think that real pressure is going to occur not by the initiation by the Federal Reserve, but by the markets themselves," Mr. Greenspan added.
And finally "The Maestro", having personally created the financial cataclysm the world finds itself in following a lifetime of belief in fiat, Keynesian ideology and "fixing" one bubble with an even greater and more destructive asset bubble, has suddenly had an epiphany and now has a very different message from the one he preached during his decades as the head of the Fed.
Mr. Greenspan said gold is a good place to put money these days given its value as a currency outside of the policies conducted by governments.
What Greenspan failed to add is that it is thanks to his disastrous policies (subsequently adopted by Bernanke and Yellen) that gold is the "place to put money."
The G 20 summit in Brisbane
It was clear how Obama and his poodles have been isolated, although Western media whores and channels continue to tell lies.
Let me reproduce a recent piece about the shrinking of US defence budget .Such wailing is also an attempt not to reduce the US Offence budget .But what will happen if dollar collapses as a result of use of other currencies for international trade , beginning with bilateral trade .What if a few Gulf monarchies sell oil in non-dollar currencies like Chinese Yuan and some others.
U.S. military readiness for war, competitive edge worsening: officials
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/15/us-usa-budget-defense-idUSKCN0IZ0WI20141115
15 November , 2014 .(Reuters) - The U.S. military's ability to stay ahead of technology advances by other countries and respond to multiple crises around the world is already in jeopardy and will get worse unless mandatory budget cuts are reversed, top U.S. officials warned on Saturday.
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert told Reuters the Navy would have to cut forces and reduce its ability to position ships around the world if lawmakers did not ease or reverse the cuts, which are due to resume in fiscal 2016.
"Electronic warfare, electronic attack, anti-submarine warfare - all of these higher end areas - will fall further behind because we're just not investing in them," he said in an interview at a conference at the Reagan Presidential Library.
He said the Navy's ability to stay ahead of potential adversaries would "degrade significantly" unless the cuts ended.
Greenert and other U.S. officials are urging Congress to end the cuts known as "sequestration," citing growing strains amid increasing threats, including Russia's aggression in the Crimea region, and increasing Islamic State extremism in Iraq and Syria.
Executives with Lockheed Martin Corp, Huntington Ingalls Industries and Raytheon Co said they were cutting overhead to drive down weapons costs but budget uncertainty limited their ability to make needed investments.
Industry and military officials said the changing political landscape and escalating threats could increase the chances for another short-term agreement to stave off budget cuts.
Admiral James Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the conference that procurement of new weapons had slowed, even as escalating demands around the world made it difficult to restore the military's readiness for new missions.
"We aren't modernizing as fast as we should in a highly competitive, technical landscape. Almost every element of our forced structure is shrinking while potential threats expand."
Air Force Secretary Deborah James said half of U.S. combat air forces were not at the needed level of training and maintenance to respond to high-end crises. Marine Corps Commandant General Joseph Dunford said only half of Marine Corps forces at home were currently ready to deploy.
Chief Pentagon weapons buyer Frank Kendall said other countries were making rapid advances in areas such as missile technology, counter-space capabilities and fighter jets.
And finally an article how anti-Bhasmasur Moscow with support from China and others are prepared to take on US and the West , if necessary .Hopefully slow erosion of US dollar as Reserve currency would make USA and its poodles reduced to economic and hence military ashes .
On September 1, 2014 the US State Department published a report, in which it was stated that for first time since the collapse of the USSR, Russia reached parity with the US in the field of strategic nuclear weapons. Thus, Washington admitted that Moscow regained the status that the Soviet Union had obtained by mid-70′s of the XX century and then lost.
According to the report from the State Department, Russia has 528 carriers of strategic nuclear weapons that carry 1,643 warheads. The United States has 794 vehicles and 1,652 nuclear warheads.
It just so happens that today, Russia's strategic nuclear forces (SNF) are even more advanced in comparison with those of the US, as they ensure parity on warheads with a significantly smaller number of carriers of strategic nuclear weapons. This gap between Russia and the United States may only grow in the future, given the fact that Russian defense officials promised to rearm Russia's SNF with new generation missiles.
The progress was made possible thanks to the treaty on the limitation of nuclear weapons, also known as START-3. The treaty was signed by Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama on 8 April 2010 in Prague (came into force on 5 February 2011). In accordance with the document, nuclear warheads of the parties are to be reduced to 1,550 by 2021. The number of carriers (intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers) is supposed to be cut to 700 units.
It was the first strategic agreement, after the treacherous policy of democrats, in which Russia managed to win significant advantages. In the treaty, the Americans, for the first time in history, undertook to reduce their strategic nuclear potential, while Russia won an opportunity to increase it. Furthermore, the new treaty removed important limitations that existed in the previous START 1 and START 2 treaties. It goes about the size of areas for the deployment of mobile ICBMs, the number of multi charge ICBMs, and the possibility to build railway-based ICBMs. Russia did not make any concessions.
Having written off Moscow as a serious geopolitical rival, flying on the wings of inaccessible military and technological superiority, Washington drove itself into a trap, from which it does not see a way out even in a medium-term perspective.
Recently, a lot has been said about so-called "sixth-generation wars" and high-precision long-range weapons that should ensure victory over enemy without coming into direct contact with its armed forces. This concept is highly questionable (The US failed to achieve victory in such a way both in Iraq and Afghanistan). Yet, this is the point, where Russia enters the parity line as well. The proof is long-range cruise missiles of a new generation that will soon be deployed on submarines of the Black Sea Fleet and missile ships of the Caspian Flotilla.
In today's Russia, many find this hard to believe. This is a common belief for many of those, who still enthusiastically remain in captivity of the myths about the absolute "weakness" of Russia and the absolute "superiority" of the West. The myth was made up in the 90′s under the influence of Boris Yeltsin and his betrayal of Russian national interests. One has to admit that during that time, the myth was real, if one may say so.
Times have changed. One can easily understand the new state of affairs.
For example, let's consider the potential of conventional weapons of Russia and the West in the European Theater of Operations (ETO). In this area, it is generally believed that NATO is a lot stronger than Russia. Yet, a first encounter with reality smashes this misbelief into pieces.
As is known, the main striking force, the core of combat power of the ground forces is tanks. By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Armed Forces had about 20,000 tanks in the ETO.
The Americans, in turn, deployed 6,000 heavy Abrams tanks on the territory of the allied group. Despite this, the combined potential of NATO forces in Europe was still significantly inferior to the Soviet potential. To compensate this imbalance, NATO strategists were forced to resort to tactical nuclear weapons (TNW).
In the first half of the 1950s, NATO conducted a research about what kind of forces the bloc should have to show reliable resistance to large-scale ground offensive of superior forces of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. The calculations showed then that one required at least 96 full-fledged divisions for the purpose. Yet, the cost of armament for one of such divisions exceeded $1 billion. Plus, one required two or three more billion to maintain such a large group of troops and build appropriate infrastructure. This burden was clearly beyond the power of the economy of the West.
The solution was found in a move to deploy a group of US tactical nuclear weapons on the continent, and that was done soon. By early 1970s, the US arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons counted about 7,000 units of ammunition. The highest achievement in the area was the creation of weapons of selective action – neutron warheads (for guns of 203-mm and 155-mm caliber, and for Lance missiles) with a capacity from 1 to 10 kilotons. The warheads were seen as the key in combating land forces personnel, particularly Soviet tank crews.
Given the nuclear factor, to reflect "Soviet aggression," NATO required to deploy only 30, rather than 96 divisions, and so they were deployed.
How do things work in this area now? In early 2013, the Americans withdrew the last group of heavy Abrams tanks from Europe. In NATO countries, over the last 20 years, one new tank would replace 10-15 old, yet still capable, tanks. At the same time, Russia was not decommissioning its tanks.
As a result, today Russia is the absolute leader in this regard. In mid-2014, the balance of the Defense Ministry had as many as 18,177 tanks (T-90 – 400 pcs., T-72B – 7,144 pcs., T-80 – 4,744 pcs, T-64 – 4,000 pcs, T-62 – 689 pcs, and T-55 – 1200 pcs.).
Of course, only a few thousand tanks are deployed in permanent readiness units, and most of them remain at storage bases. Yet, NATO has the same picture. Therefore, the decisive superiority of Russian tanks has not gone anywhere since the times of the USSR.
Here is another surprise. As for tactical nuclear weapons, the superiority of modern-day Russia over NATO is even stronger.
The Americans are well aware of this. They were convinced before that Russia would never rise again. Now it's too late.
To date, NATO countries have only 260 tactical nuclear weapons in the ETO. The United States has 200 bombs with a total capacity of 18 megatons. They are located on six air bases in Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey. France has 60 more atomic bombs. That is pretty much it. Russia, according to conservative estimates, has 5,000 pieces of different classes of TNW – from Iskander warheads to torpedo, aerial and artillery warheads! The US has 300 tactical B-61 bombs on its own territory, but this does not change the situation against the backdrop of such imbalance. The US is unable to improve it either, as it has destroyed the "Cold War legacy" – tactical nuclear missiles, land-based missiles and nuclear warheads of sea-based Tomahawk cruise missiles.
How can Russia - the country that lost the Cold War - be ahead of NATO in terms of military power? One should look into the history of the problem to try to understand.
It is believed that by the beginning of 1991, the USSR had about 20-22,000 units of tactical nuclear weapons. They are nuclear warheads of air bombs, warheads for tactical missiles "Luna", "Tochka", "Oka", nuclear warheads of antisubmarine weapons of the fleet, special warheads of air defense system missiles, nuclear mines and nuclear artillery shells of the Ground Forces.
This impressive arsenal was the result of forty years of an intensive arms race. Noteworthy, it was not the "totalitarian" USSR that started the arms race, but the liberal and democratic USA, which began developing and testing various types of tactical nuclear weapons in the early 1950s. The first example of a warhead of this class was the warhead for a 280-mm gun with the capacity of 15 kilotons. The warhead was tested in May 1953. Afterwards, nuclear warheads would be produced smaller in size, thus leading to the creation of warheads for self-propelled howitzers of 203-mm and 155-mm caliber that had a capacity from one to ten kilotons. Until recently, they were remaining in the arsenal of US troops in Europe.
Afterwards, the US Armed Forces received the following tactical missiles outfitted with nuclear warheads: Redstone (range 370 km), Corporal (125 kilometers), Sergeant (140 kilometers), Lance (130 kilometers) and several others. In the middle of the 1960s, the USA finalized the development of tactical missiles Pershing-1 (740 kilometers).
In turn, the Soviet military and political leadership decided that the equipment of American forces in Europe with TNW was creating a fundamentally new balance of forces. The USSR took decisive steps to create and deploy multiple types of Soviet tactical nuclear weapons. Already in the early 1960s, tactical missiles T-5, T-7, "Luna" were passed into service. Later, the non-strategic nuclear arsenal was expanded with medium-range missiles RSD-10, P-12, P-14 medium-range bombers Tu-22 and Tu-16, as well as tactical missiles OTR-22, OTR-23 and tactical ones - P-17, "Tochka", nuclear artillery of 152 mm, 203 mm and 240 mm caliber, tactical aviation aircraft Su-17, Su-24, MiG-21, MiG-23.
Noteworthy, the Soviet leadership had repeatedly offered Western leaders to start negotiations on the reduction of tactical nuclear weapons. Yet, NATO would persistently reject all Soviet proposals on this subject. The situation changed considerably only when the Union started shattering as a result of Gorbachev's "perestroika". It was the time, when Washington decided to take advantage of the moment to weaken and disarm its main geopolitical rival.
In September 1991, US President George H. Bush launched an initiative on the reduction and even elimination of certain types of tactical nuclear weapons. Gorbachev, in turn, also announced plans to radically reduce similar weapons in the USSR. Subsequently, the plans received development in the statement from Russian President Boris Yeltsin "On Russia's policy in the field of arms limitation and reduction" from January 29, 1992. The statement pointed out that Russia stopped producing nuclear artillery shells and warheads for land-based missiles and undertook to destroy a stockpile of such weapons. Russia promised to remove tactical nuclear weapons from surface ships, attack submarines and eliminate one-third of those weapons. A half of warheads for anti-aircraft missiles and aircraft munitions was to be destroyed too.
After such reductions, the arsenals of tactical nuclear weapons of Russia and the United States were to keep 2,500-3,000 tactical nuclear warheads.
However, it turned out otherwise. The illusion of world supremacy played a cruel joke on Washington.
American strategists wrote off the "democratic" Russia after the collapse of the USSR. At the same time, during the Gulf War, US high-precision weapons successfully completed several large-scale combat tasks that had been previously planned for TNW. This prompted Washington to putting all stakes on a technological breakthrough. This led to the creation of "smart" weapons that were becoming more and more expensive. The USA was gradually cutting the production of such weapons, and NATO's high-tech arms proved to be completely inadequate for conducting large-scale combat actions with an enemy that would be at least approximately equal to the West from the point of view of its technological level.
Meanwhile in Russia, experts were quick to agree that against the backdrop of the post-Soviet geostrategic situation, reducing and eliminating tactical nuclear weapons was unacceptable. After all, it is tactical nuclear weapons that serve as a universal equalizer of forces, depriving NATO of its military advantage. In these circumstances, Russia simply borrowed NATO's thesis of the need to compensate enemy superiority in conventional weapons by deploying tactical nuclear arsenal on the European Theater of Operations.
The situation had been developing according to the above-mentioned scenario for over two decades. The West, having discarded Russia, had been cutting its tanks and destroying tactical nuclear weapons. Russia, feeling its own weakness, kept all tanks and tactical nuclear weapons.
As a result, Russia overcome the inertia of collapse and started reviving its power, while the West, being lulled by sweet day-dreams of the liberal "end of history," castrated its armed forces to the point, when they could be good for leading colonial wars with weak and technically backward enemies. The balance of forces in Europe has thus changed in Russia's favor.
When the Americans realized that, it was too late. In December 2010, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, Rose Gottemoeller, sounded the alarm. The Russians had more tactical nuclear systems than the USA, she said. According to her, the reduction of tactical nuclear weapons was to be the next step.
In 2010, the Europeans, in the face of foreign ministers of Poland and Sweden, insolently demanded Russia should single-handedly establish two nuclear-free zones - the Kaliningrad region (enclave) and the Kola Peninsula - the territories of priority deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons. The regions serve as the main bases for the Baltic and Northern Fleets. In case of the Northern Fleet, the region is a base for most of Russian SNF.
Since then, the Americans have repeatedly offered Russia to follow the flawed way of solving the "problem of tactical nuclear weapons." They stubbornly insist on reaching an agreement to eliminate disparities on stocks of tactical nuclear weapons. They even tried to stipulate a condition for the effect of the START-3 Treaty. Thus, in accordance with Senator Lemieux's amendment (Amendment 4/S.AMDN.4908), the START-3 was to come into force after the Russian side agreed to start negotiations on the so-called liquidation of imbalance of tactical nuclear weapons in Russia and the US.
On February 3, 2011, Barack Obama wrote in a letter to several key senators saying that the United States was going to start negotiations with Russia to address disparity between tactical nuclear weapons of the Russian Federation and the United States to reduce the number of tactical nuclear warheads in a verifiable way. Alas, in 2012, Putin returned to the Kremlin, and the hopes of the West to deceive Russia though unilateral disarmament failed.
Pravda.Ru
