World Affairs Brief, November 17, 2017 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.

Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).

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RUSSIAN AND CHINESE MILITARY TECHNOLOGY THREATEN US SUPERIORITY

Since 2013, China has been in active development of hypersonic weapons that cannot be hit by our current anti-ballistic missile technology. They have conducted seven successful tests of its hypersonic glider which is capable of speeds of up to Mach 10 (10 times the speed of sound).

Russia is also developing hypersonic ballistic missile warheads in order to defeat US Anti-ballistic missile interceptors—which is not hard to do given that our ABMs don’t have explosive warheads. A former US intelligence analyst who goes by the pseudonym of “The Saker,” filed this disturbing report on the latest Russian missile developments:

There are two myths which are deeply imprinted in the minds of most US Americans which are extremely dangerous and which can result in a war with Russia.

The first myth is the myth of the US military superiority.

The second myth is the myth about the US invulnerability.

First, The aircraft carriers myth: I have to confess that even during the Cold War I always saw US aircraft carriers as sitting ducks which the Soviets would have rather easily destroyed. I formed that opinion on the basis of my study of Soviet anti-carrier tactics and on the basis of conversations with friends (fellow students) who actually served on US aircraft carriers.

I will say is that it would involved swarms of heavy air and sea launched missiles coming from different directions, some skimming the waves, others dropping down from very high altitude, all at tremendous speeds, combined with more underwater-launched missiles and even torpedoes. All of these missiles would be “intelligent” and networked with each other: they would be sharing sensor data, allocating targets (to avoid duplication), using countermeasures, receiving course corrections, etc. These missiles would be launched at standoff distances by supersonic bombers or by submerged submarines. The targeting would involve space-based satellites and advanced naval reconnaissance technologies.

So here is the ugly truth: carriers are designed to enforce the rule of the AngloZionist Empire [it’s actually a globalist agenda] on small and basically defenseless nations (like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq). Nobody in the USN, at least not in the late 1980s, seriously considered forward deploying aircraft carrier battlegroups near the Kola Peninsula to “bring the war to the Russians”. That was pure propaganda. The public did not know that, but USN personnel all knew the truth.

What was true then is even more true today and I can’t imagine anybody at the Pentagon seriously making plans to attack Russia with carrier based aviation. But even if the USN has no intention of using its carriers against Russia, that does not mean that the Russians cannot actively seek out US carriers and destroy them, even very far from Russia.

Introducing the Zircon 3M22 hypersonic missile: First, some basic data about this missile (from English and Russian Wikipedia):

Low level range: 135 to 270 nautical miles (155 to 311mi; 250 to 500km).

High level range: 400nmi (460mi; 740km) in a semi-ballistic trajectory.

Max range: 540nmi (620mi; 1,000km)

Max altitude: 40km (130’000 feet)

Average range is around 400km (250mi; 220nmi)/450 km.

Speed: Mach 5–Mach 6 (3,806–4,567mph; 6,125–7,350km/h; 1.7015–2.0417km/s).

Max speed: Mach 8 (6,090mph; 9,800km/h; 2.7223km/s) during a test.

Warhead: 300-400kg (high explosive or nuclear)

Shape: low-RCS with radar absorbing coating.

Cost per missile: 1-2 million dollars (depending on configuration)

All this is already very impressive, but here comes the single most important fact about this missile: it can be launched from pretty much *any* platform: cruisers, of course, but also frigates and even small corvettes. It can be launched by nuclear and diesel-electric attack submarines. It can also be launched from long range bombers (Tu-160), medium-range bombers (Tu-22m3), medium-range fighter-bomber/strike aircraft (SU-34) and even, according to some reports, from multi-role air superiority fighter[s] (SU-35). Finally, this missile can also be shore-based. In fact, this missile can be launched from any platform capable of launching the now famous Kalibr cruise missile and that means that even a merchant marine or fishing ship could carry a container with the Zircon missile hidden inside.

The US has no comparable weapons deployed, although I suspect they have them under development as part of US secret weapons programs.

Let me repeat this again: pretty much any Russian ship and pretty much any Russian aircraft from now on will have the potential capability of sinking a US aircraft carrier. From now on a swarm of Zircon 3M22 could appear anywhere on the planet at any moment and with no warning time (5000 miles per hour incoming speed does not leave the target anything remotely comparable to even a short reaction time). In fact, the attack could be so rapid that it might not even leave the target the time needed to indicate that it is under attack.

[Here is] the political and strategic consequence from the deployment of the Zircon: from now on Russia will have an easy and very high value US target she can destroy anytime she wants. You can think of the US carrier fleet like 10 US hostages which the Russians can shoot at any time. And what is crucial is this: an attack on a US carrier would not be an attack on the US homeland, nor would it be a nuclear attack, but the psychological shock resulting from such an attack could well be comparable to a (limited) nuclear strike on the US homeland.

… advanced Russian missiles are now providing Russia with a very cheap way to threaten even fantastically expensive US assets. Worse, Russia is willing (eager, in fact) to export these (relatively cheap) missiles to other countries. I find it amusing to see how US politicians are in a state of constant hysteria about the risk of nuclear proliferation, but fail to realize that conventional anti-ship missiles are a formidable, and much more likely, threat. Sure, there are missile export limiting treaties, such as the MTCR, but they only apply to missile[s] with a range of over 300km. With modern ballistic and cruise missiles becoming smaller, deadlier and easier to conceal and with ranges which are (relatively) easy to extend, treaties such as the MTCR are becoming increasingly outdated.

The bottom line is this: as long as deterrences holds, attacking US carriers makes no sense whatsoever for Russia; however, as soon as deterrence fails, attacking US carriers, anywhere on the planet, gives Russia an extremely flexible and powerful escalation dominance capability which the US cannot counter in kind.

US Vulnerability on the US “homeland:” But for US Americans who are used to mete out violence and death far away from their own peaceful towns and cities, the notion of a devastating strike against the US homeland is pretty much unthinkable. On 9/11 the loss of 3000 innocent people placed the vast majority of US Americans into a total state of shock which resulted in a massive over-reaction at all levels (which was, of course, exactly the purpose of this false flag operation by the US and Israeli deep states). Just as with carriers, the dangers of a US over-reaction should serve as a deterrent to any attacks on the US homeland.

But, just as with the carriers, that is only true as long as deterrence holds. If the Russian territory becomes the object of a US attack this would clearly indicate that deterrence has failed and that the Russian armed forces should now switch from a deterrence mode to a war-fighting mode. At this point, the US American over-reaction to begin attacked or taking casualties could, paradoxically, result in a last-minute wake-up call indicating to everybody that what will come next will be truly devastating.

Introducing the RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM): Though officially very little is know about the Sarmat and the Yu-71, the reality is that the Internet has been full of educated guesses which give us a pretty clear idea of what kind of systems we are dealing here.

You can think of the RS-28 Sarmat as a successor of the already formidable RS-36 Voevoda (SS-18 Satan in US classification) missile: it is a heavy, very powerful, intercontinental ballistic missile with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (warheads):

Weight: 100 tons

Payload: 10 tons

Warheads: 10 to 15

Hypersonic glide vehicles: 3-24 (that’s the Yu-71 we will discuss below)

Range: 10’000km

Guidance: Inertial , satellite, astrocelestial

Trajectory: FOBS-capable

That last line, about being FOBS-capable, is crucial as it means that, unlike most Soviet/Russian ICMBs, the Sarmat does not have to fly over the North Pole to strike at the United States. In fact, the Sarmat could fly over the South Pole or, for that matter, in any direction and still reach any target in the USA. Right there this capability is, by itself, is more than enough to defeat any current and foreseeable US anti-ballistic missile technology. But it gets better, or worse, depending on your perspective: the Sarmat’s reentry vehicles/warheads are capable of flying in low orbit, maneuver, and then suddenly plunge towards their targets. The only way to defeat such an attack would be to protect the USA by a 3600 coverage capable ABM system, something which the USA is decades away from deploying. And just to add to these already formidable characteristics, each Sarmat can carry up to 3-24 (depending on who you ask) Yu-71 hypersonic glide vehicles.

Introducing The Yu-71 (aka “Object 4202) hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV)

Yet again, this is hardly a topic not covered in the media [actually it has never been covered in the real mainstream media, only in specialized media on the Left] and you can find numerous articles describing what a hypersonic glide vehicle is and how it can be used. (the best article I could find in English was by Global Security, it is entitled “Objekt 4202 / Yu-71 / Yu-74”).

Here is a summary of what we think we know about this HGV:

Max Speed: from Mach 5, according to Scott Ritter, to Mach 9, according to a quasi official Russian source, to Mach 15, acccording to Sputnik, to Mach 20 (that’s 15’000mph), according to Global Security.

Hypermaneuverability: Russian sources describe the Yu-71 as a “hypermaneuverable warhead”. What that exactly means in turns of sustained Gs does not really matter as this is not about air-to-air combat, but about the ability to perform sudden course changes making it close to impossible for anti-missile systems to calculate an engagement solution.

Warhead: nuclear and conventional/kinetic.

That last line is very interesting. What it means is that considering the speeds attained by the Yu-71 HGV it is not necessary to equip it with a conventional (high explosive) or nuclear warheard. The kinetic energy generated by its high speed is sufficient to create an explosion similar to what a large conventional or small nuclear warhead could generate.

Bringing it all together now: Did you notice the similarities between the Zircon missile and the Sarmat+Yu-71 combo? In both cases we have:

– an attack which can come from any direction

– speed of attack and maneuver capabilities which make interception impossible

-the capability for Russia to destroy a very high value US target in a very short time

It is amazing to see that while US decision makers were talking about their Prompt Global Strike program, the Russians actually developed their own version of this capability, much faster than the USA and at a fraction of the cost…

Most TV watching Americans will dismiss all of the above by saying that “anybody come mess with us and we will kick their ass” or something equally sophisticated. And there is some truth to that. But what this mindset also indicate is a complete mental inability to operate in a scenario when deterrence has failed and the “other guy” is coming for you.

That mindset is the prerogative of civilians. Those tasked with the defense of their country simply cannot think that way and have to look beyond the “threshold of deterrence”. [Sadly, true] Georges Clemenceau reportedly once said that “War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men”. I believe that the exact opposite is true, that war is too serious a matter to entrust to civilians, especially the US Neocons (the vast majority of whom have never spent any time in uniform) and who always make it sound like the next war will be easy, safe and painless. Remember Ken Adleman and his famous Iraqi “cakewalk”?

The very same kind of scum is in power today and they want us to believe that the next war will also be a cakewalk or that being on a high speed collision course with Russia is something the USA can afford and should therefore engage in. The combined effect of the myth of US military superiority with the myth about the US invulnerability result in a US American sense of detachment, or even impunity, which is not at all supported by fact. I just fervently hope that the people of the USA will not find out how mistaken they are the hard way.

The reason the above analysis is so important is that most media pundits keep trying to project a WWIII scenario similar to WWII—masses of tanks moving across the Russian border into NATO territory. But clearly the Russians and Chinese are planning on using missiles to take down the heart of US military superiority in a first strike. Even if it’s a second strike, it could be devastating, given our lack of ability to either deter or stop a broad missile attack from land, sea or space.
That’s why our civilian disarmament mentality is so deadly. Rather than develop new missiles, we’ve dismantled our most powerful ICBM, the MX, and reduced the number of warheads on our remaining Minuteman III missiles to 1, rather than 3. Sadly, even the politically indoctrinated generals at the highest levels in America have gone along with this.

We stopped producing jet fighters and bombers that were nuclear capable—except for the B-2. The US is talking about retrofitting a few F-16s to be nuclear capable, but that hasn’t happened yet. The US defanged the B-1 bomber by turning it into a conventional weapon only.

Pepe Escobar caustically said the foregoing was “Absolute KILLER military analysis by The Saker. Read it and keep it as reference. The neocons [may or may not] know about these facts but working brains at the Pentagon do – and they are scared to death.”

But you’ll never hear a top military man protest the current suicidal direction. Some will after they retire, but not while on active duty. It has been ingrained into their minds to “follow orders” from above and not to challenge civilian authority. Dave Martin, (Dcdave.com) a very savvy internet commentator on the Washington mentality had this cogent essay on The Look Up Factor It’s a “must read.” His opening paragraph tells the story:

These days I have come to believe that ethical behavior is all too often situational, based on self-preservation or loyalty to a personality at the expense of integrity. Telling the truth or standing on principle can be tantamount to professional suicide…”

Sadly, that’s true in both government and the military.