What can tame America?

Why the propaganda against Russian president, Vladmir Putin, that he is a dangerous expansionist makes no sense

THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | I have just finished reading a book by Anne Jacobsen titled Nuclear War: A Scenario. It is a chilling account of the way nuclear war could breakout and then escalate. She paints of a scenario where North Korea attacks the US with an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Moving at a speed of 24,000km per hour, it takes about 26 minutes for such a missile to hit Washington DC. The nuclear missile is detected within two minutes of its launch. And within another eight minutes, it is possible for US satellites to determine its trajectory and therefore its target.

The US president has only six minutes to decide to strike back. But to strike North Korea, US missiles must fly over Russia. Moscow can detect a nuclear launch within two minutes. But its system for determining its trajectory is not as accurate as the US’s. Hence, Moscow would see hundreds of missiles flying her way and retaliate. Russia has about 7,000 nuclear missiles around 1,700 of which are armed.

The two nuclear superpowers have a TRIAD, three-ways nuclear war weapons are used: ICBMs hidden in underground silos, Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBM) buried deep under the sea and undetectable, and nuclear missiles on planes that would be dropped by gravity. It is almost impossible, even with a surprise first-strike, to decapitate all the nuclear weapons of an adversary. Each of the nuclear superpowers has a survivable quantity of nuclear missiles to strike back and destroy the adversary.

America, like Russia, has no nuclear defense capability of any heft. It has only 44 anti-ballistic missiles to shoot down an ICBM. In all war games, their performance has been poor, the success rate is below 40%. Each nuclear war head can carry between five and ten nuclear missiles in its nose cone. If Russia launched a nuclear attack, its 1,700 war heads would have up to 10,000 missiles raining down on the US and her European allies.

For her book, Jacobsen interviewed 47 of America’s leading nuclear scientists, government officials of high rank, like former secretaries of defense, former top nuclear war commanders etc. The names and titles of these officials and scientists are published at the beginning of the book. Why did the book come out immediately after the Ukraine war began? And why did so many scientists and officials speak to her on record? Clearly many people inside the American system are seriously worried about the lunacy of its leaders. We are made [by US media] to think that it is Donald Trump who is crazy. In fact, Jo Biden and the cabal around him are lunatics. The book is therefore a warning of the risks US foreign policy is posing.

Nuclear war cannot be won. It can only lead to the end of most life on earth, except for small insects. According to Jacobsen, a nuclear war between America and Russia would last 72 minutes and have more than 5 billion people dead. It would also be the end of human civilization. It is a war where survivors would envy the dead. Why? Because after a nuclear exchange, the resulting nuclear mushroom-cloud would cover our planet. Sun rays would cease to reach the earth. We would enter another ice age. Agriculture would fail; people would starve to death. The few survivors of this nuclear holocaust would be forced to live underground.

The nuclear weapons of today are more devasting than the two atomic bombs dropped at Nagasaki and Hiroshima in August 1945. Those bombs had only ten kilotons of explosives. Today’s thermonuclear weapons have megatons of explosive capacity, each one’s explosion equivalent to 1,500 or even 3,800 (for the Russian Tsar bomber) times the destructiveness of the bombs thrown against Japan. As Jacobsen says, one megaton of a thermonuclear weapon detonation begins with a flash of light and heat so tremendous is it impossible for the human mind to comprehend: “180m degrees Fahrenheit, it is four or five times hotter than the center of the earth’s sun.” Once it hits its target, it releases a fireball that burns everything within a diameter of more than 100 square miles.

One wonders what possesses American leaders to keep provoking Russia especially with NATO expansion onto her borders. The reasons given are as spurious as they are reckless. They claim to be protecting Russia’s neighbors from this expansionist empire ruled by a reckless dictator. But even a first-year student of international relations at a third-rate university knows that security, especially global security, is indivisible. Security for Ukraine may be (and clearly is) insecurity for Russia.

If Ukraine builds military capabilities backed by NATO, Moscow will see it as a threat to her own security. Therefore, the best way to ensure security in Europe is to integrate Russia into a European security architecture. But Europe cannot do this because it is a protectorate of America and thus lacks independence of action. The US decides what it wants, and the Europeans repeatedly follow their master’s dictates with little or no resistance.

The lesson I drew from Jacobsen’s book is that Russian president, Vladmir Putin, must be very calm and reflective, or very timid, or a very rich man who really loves and enjoys life. If I were in his shoes, I would not allow an adversary to keep encircling my country. This is especially when I have capacity to destroy him as he does to destroy me. I am very fatalistic and suicidal. My country cannot be the only one responsible for the continued existence of life on earth. This must be a shared responsibility. Therefore, if you are reckless enough to keep provoking me, I would not hesitate to also be reckless enough to destroy the world.

I have read adventurous leaders like Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, Mao Tse Tung, Fidel Castrol etc. Any of these men would easily destroy the world to make a point. I watched a documentary titled Fog of War where former US secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, tells a story meeting Castrol in 1992. The Cuban leader tells McNamara that during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, he (Castrol) advised Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, to attack the USA with nuclear weapons. Castrol tells McNamara that he knew the US would retaliate and incinerate Cuba. He was ready to cause the end of the world to make his point. I would do the same. America would do the same. Putin must be a very special human being.

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amwenda@ugindependent.co.ug