Part One of Two Parts:
In this blog I have tried to stick to the facts as much as possible and to restrict speculation to the probable extension of what is known backed by good evidence. Today I am going to indulge in a more extended speculation to weave a frightening scenario of a possible path to nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia.
For the past several years, the Russian military has been flying nuclear bombers and fighters in and out of other countries airspace without notification and without transponders which would prevent mid-air collisions. Russian nuclear submarines have been prowling around inside territorial waters of other countries without notification or permission. Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has made speeches and allocated millions of dollars to modernizing and expanding Russian nuclear forces. There was a recent “leak” of plans for a top secret Russia nuclear armed drone submarine that could move rapidly underwater right into the harbors of enemy nations undetected and devastate port cities and surrounding areas.
Russia annexed the Crimea in early 2014 and became involved in the civil war in Ukraine by supplying men and weapons to the rebels. Russia also massed troops and weapons on the Ukrainian border. There were discussions about how the U.S. and NATO should respond. There were calls for supplying weapons and even troops to the Ukrainian government. The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, publicly stated that if Russia were drawn into a ground war in Eastern Europe with NATO forces, he would consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons if he were losing a conventional war. He bragged about how many tactical nuclear weapons Russia had as compared to NATO.
A reporter recently traveled to Moscow and interviewed Russian generals and close advisors of Putin in the Kremlin. He was told that Putin thought that NATO was weak and that if Russian tactical nuclear weapons were unleashed in a war in Eastern Europe, the major Western European nations would abandoned the NATO nations in Eastern Europe rather than face nuclear war with Russia. Some of those interviews said that Putin was considering detonating a single small nuclear device in Eastern Europe to intimidate the world into accept Russia capture of territory from NATO nations.
In 2015, Russia brought planes, weapons, troops and supplies into Syria at the invitation of Syrian President Assad to fight rebels who were opposing his regime. The U.S. has been supplying “moderate” rebels with weapons and supplies in Syria while carrying out many bombing missions against ISIS. The Russians have been bombing the “moderate” rebel positions near the Russian naval base in the Syrian Mediterranean port city of Tartus. They have also been bombing ISIS positions and even sending cruise missiles from submarines in the Caspian sea to hit ISIS positions in eastern Syria. Recently Putin pointed out at a Kremlin military briefing that those cruise missiles could also carry nuclear warheads. He also said that there would be no need for such weapons against ISIS because they could be defeated with conventional weapons.
A couple of weeks ago, Turkey shot down a Russia fighter that they said had strayed into Turkish airspace. The Russians claimed that their fighter never left Syria. The Turks were angry with Russia because Russia planes had been bombing rebels in Syria that were allied with Turkey. Russia was furious and immediately slapped heavy economic sanctions on Turkey with whom they do a lot of trade. They also threatened serious reprisals against any further military actions from Turkey that interfered with their mission in Syria.
Please see Part Two
Russian Tupolev nuclear bomber:
