The Military Industrial Complex is hungry for money and power and is more than willing to increase the risk of Armageddon to achieve it.

[size=18pt]The Warsaw Summit and NATO’s Reckless Bluff[/size]


Alexander Mercouris
ALEXANDER MERCOURIS

NATO troop deployments to Poland and the Baltic States are a dangerous public relations move which is already backfiring.

NATO’s decision to deploy four battalions of troops on a supposedly rotating basis to Poland and the Baltic States is the worst sort of decision. However we need to stay calm. It does not mean war is coming.


The four battalions NATO is deploying to Poland and the Baltic States cannot threaten Russia. There’s been some wild talk of how German tanks have for the first time since the end of the Second World War moved closer to St. Petersburg. I recently visited St. Petersburg. Any idea that NATO could capture or even seriously threaten St. Petersburg with just four battalions – around 3,000 men – when Hitler’s Army Group North with 23 divisions backed by a Finnish army consisting of a further 7 divisions couldn’t capture it, is simply silly.

Not only is the force NATO is deploying to Poland and the Baltic States incapable of seriously threatening Russia but in the event of a Russian attack it wouldn’t even be able to defend itself. Media commentary in the West admits as much. It says the NATO troops are simply intended to be a “trip-wire” to deter a Russian attack on Poland and the Baltic States.

No Russian attack is planned or threatened against either Poland or the Baltic States. No one is seriously claiming there is the slightest possibility of such an attack. If NATO leaders genuinely feared such an attack they would not deploy troops to the Baltic States on what would in effect be a suicide mission, where they would be immediately overrun by the overwhelmingly stronger armies the Russians could immediately deploy to the area. Even NATO generals are not that stupid.

As for saying that the deployments are intended to reinforce the message that NATO will stand by its Article 5 commitment to defend the Baltic States in the event of a Russian attack, what that does is the exact opposite: show that the Article 5 commitment is not really cast iron and that neither NATO nor the Russians really believe it is. If it was why would there be any need to reinforce it?

So why is NATO deploying such a force to Poland and the Baltic States? Is it perhaps part of a larger plan to build up over time more forces in the area to threaten Russia eventually?

Hardly! The reality – as every serious military analyst knows – is that the US military, which is the core of NATO, is seriously overextended and has no reserves to carry out further deployments in this region, whilst the capabilities and commitment of the US’s NATO allies are now so poor it is doubtful they could seriously threaten anybody. If the British and French militaries working together could not defeat Gaddafi’s military without calling on US support during their 2011 Libyan adventure then they are in no position to take on Russia, and nor is the German army which today bares no resemblance to the force it was in the Second World War.

The true reason why NATO is deploying troops to Poland and the Baltic States has nothing to do with any of the reasons that are being said. It is because NATO is looking for some way to demonstrate publicly that it once more considers Russia an enemy and these highly provocative and illegal deployments are the way to do it. That way it hopes to mobilise European opinion behind its latest anti-Russian campaign.

This is both reckless and stupid. It effectively scraps yet another agreement and promise NATO made to Russia at the end of the Cold War, which was not to deploy Western militaries in the territories of the former Warsaw Pact. It tells the people and government of Russia – by far the most powerful country in Europe – that NATO considers them an enemy. And it does so with an outrageous bluff that any serious military analyst – of which Russia has any number – will immediately see through.

As for mobilising European opinion behind NATO’s anti Russian campaign, the effect is the diametric opposite. All that the talk of war and of military deployments is doing is alarming the Western public leading to more and more questions about where NATO is going. The leaders of Italy and France in order to reassure their publics have had to state publicly that they do not consider Russia an enemy, which is simply opening them up to more questions of why in that case they are agreeing to the deployments at all. In Germany there is now an open split between Merkel – who supports the policy as she made clear in a hardline speech to the Bundestag – and her SPD and CSU coalition partners, who have made it clear they don’t.

A policy that manages to alarm, provoke and bluff all at the same time has clearly not been thought through. The Chilcot Inquiry Report into the handling of the Iraq war lambasted the lack of basic honesty, hard thinking and serious planning behind that war. In relation to Russia – a nuclear superpower – NATO is behaving in exactly the same way.

Let see how things unfold in the coming weeks. But the US and NATO are biting off more than they can chew.

Russia has the best air defence technology and North Korea is their ally so is China, because Russia don't bark doesn't mean she can't bite.

I feel the US is poking a sleeping Leopard, what are they doing in the south China sea?

Hmm, the effect will be catastrophic bearing in mind Russia has a very large cache of Nuclear Warheads.

Just like I said to missy some couple of days ago; the only way Amerika will be “brought to her senses” is how Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan were brought to theirs: to suffer a massive defeat in which the entire state apparatus was terminated & even national borders fundamentally altered.

What would happen if an 800-kiloton nuclear warhead is detonated above midtown Manhattan?

Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles are believed to carry a total of approximately 1,000 strategic nuclear warheads that can hit Amerika in less than 30 minutes after being launched. Of this total, about 700 warheads are rated at 800 kilotons; that is, each has the explosive power of 800,000 tons of TNT.

What follows is a description of the consequences of the detonation of a single such warhead over midtown Manhattan, in the heart of New York City.


The initial fireball. The warhead would probably be detonated slightly more than a mile above the city, to maximize the damage created by its blast wave. Within a few tenths of millionths of a second after detonation, the center of the warhead would reach a temperature of roughly 200 million degrees Fahrenheit (about 100 million degrees Celsius), or about four to five times the temperature at the center of the sun. 

A ball of superheated air would form, initially expanding outward at millions of miles per hour. It would act like a fast-moving piston on the surrounding air, compressing it at the edge of the fireball and creating a shockwave of vast size and power.

After one second, the fireball would be roughly a mile in diameter. It would have cooled from its initial temperature of many millions of degrees to about 16,000 degrees Fahrenheit, roughly 4,000 degrees hotter than the surface of the sun. 

On a clear day with average weather conditions, the enormous heat and light from the fireball would almost instantly ignite fires over a total area of about 100 square miles.


Hurricane of fire. Within seconds after the detonation, fires set within a few miles of the fireball would burn violently. These fires would force gigantic masses of heated air to rise, drawing cooler air from surrounding areas toward the center of the fire zone from all directions.

As the massive winds drove flames into areas where fires had not yet fully developed, the fires set by the detonation would begin to merge within tens of minutes of the detonation, fires from near and far would join to form a single, gigantic fire. The energy released by this mass fire would be 15 to 50 times greater than the energy produced by the nuclear detonation.

The mass fire, or firestorm, would quickly increase in intensity, heating enormous volumes of air that would rise at speeds approaching 300 miles per hour. This chimney effect would pull cool air from outside the fire zone towards the center of the fire at speeds of hundreds of miles per hour. These superheated ground winds of more than hurricane force would further intensify the fire. At the edge of the fire zone, the winds would be powerful enough to uproot trees three feet in diameter and suck people from outside the fire into it.

The inrushing winds would drive the flames from burning buildings horizontally along the ground, filling city streets with flames and firebrands, breaking in doors and windows, and causing the fire to jump, sometimes hundreds of feet, swallowing anything not already violently combusting. These above-hurricane-force ground winds would have average air temperatures well above the boiling point of water. The targeted area would be transformed into a huge hurricane of fire, producing a lethal environment throughout the entire fire zone.


No survivors. Within tens of minutes, everything within approximately five to seven miles of Midtown Manhattan would be engulfed by a gigantic firestorm. The fire zone would cover a total area of 90 to 152 square miles (230 to 389 square kilometers).

Wait! You do not understand. This is more than the distance between Lagos and Ilorin in Kwara State.

The firestorm would rage for three to six hours. Air temperatures in the fire zone would likely average 400 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit (200 to 260 Celsius).

After the fire burned out, the street pavement would be so hot that even tracked vehicles could not pass over it for days. Buried, unburned material from collapsed buildings throughout the fire zone could burst into flames when exposed to air—months after the firestorm had ended.

Those who tried to escape through the streets would have been incinerated by the hurricane-force winds filled with firebrands and flames. Even those able to find shelter in the lower-level sub-basements of massive buildings would likely suffocate from fire-generated gases or be cooked alive as their shelters heated to oven-like conditions.

The fire would extinguish all life and destroy almost everything else. Tens of miles downwind of the area of immediate destruction, radioactive fallout would begin to arrive within a few hours of the detonation.

But that is another story.

My response to another pathetic and laughable gathering of HAC Kremlin clowns is- LOL

Zoharariel:
Just like I said to missy some couple of days ago; the only way Amerika will be “brought to her senses” is how Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan were brought to theirs: to suffer a massive defeat in which the entire state apparatus was terminated & even national borders fundamentally altered.

What would happen if an 800-kiloton nuclear warhead is detonated above midtown Manhattan?

Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles are believed to carry a total of approximately 1,000 strategic nuclear warheads that can hit Amerika in less than 30 minutes after being launched. Of this total, about 700 warheads are rated at 800 kilotons; that is, each has the explosive power of 800,000 tons of TNT.

What follows is a description of the consequences of the detonation of a single such warhead over midtown Manhattan, in the heart of New York City.


The initial fireball. The warhead would probably be detonated slightly more than a mile above the city, to maximize the damage created by its blast wave. Within a few tenths of millionths of a second after detonation, the center of the warhead would reach a temperature of roughly 200 million degrees Fahrenheit (about 100 million degrees Celsius), or about four to five times the temperature at the center of the sun. 

A ball of superheated air would form, initially expanding outward at millions of miles per hour. It would act like a fast-moving piston on the surrounding air, compressing it at the edge of the fireball and creating a shockwave of vast size and power.

After one second, the fireball would be roughly a mile in diameter. It would have cooled from its initial temperature of many millions of degrees to about 16,000 degrees Fahrenheit, roughly 4,000 degrees hotter than the surface of the sun. 

On a clear day with average weather conditions, the enormous heat and light from the fireball would almost instantly ignite fires over a total area of about 100 square miles.


Hurricane of fire. Within seconds after the detonation, fires set within a few miles of the fireball would burn violently. These fires would force gigantic masses of heated air to rise, drawing cooler air from surrounding areas toward the center of the fire zone from all directions.

As the massive winds drove flames into areas where fires had not yet fully developed, the fires set by the detonation would begin to merge within tens of minutes of the detonation, fires from near and far would join to form a single, gigantic fire. The energy released by this mass fire would be 15 to 50 times greater than the energy produced by the nuclear detonation.

The mass fire, or firestorm, would quickly increase in intensity, heating enormous volumes of air that would rise at speeds approaching 300 miles per hour. This chimney effect would pull cool air from outside the fire zone towards the center of the fire at speeds of hundreds of miles per hour. These superheated ground winds of more than hurricane force would further intensify the fire. At the edge of the fire zone, the winds would be powerful enough to uproot trees three feet in diameter and suck people from outside the fire into it.

The inrushing winds would drive the flames from burning buildings horizontally along the ground, filling city streets with flames and firebrands, breaking in doors and windows, and causing the fire to jump, sometimes hundreds of feet, swallowing anything not already violently combusting. These above-hurricane-force ground winds would have average air temperatures well above the boiling point of water. The targeted area would be transformed into a huge hurricane of fire, producing a lethal environment throughout the entire fire zone.


No survivors. Within tens of minutes, everything within approximately five to seven miles of Midtown Manhattan would be engulfed by a gigantic firestorm. The fire zone would cover a total area of 90 to 152 square miles (230 to 389 square kilometers).

Wait! You do not understand. This is more than the distance between Lagos and Ilorin in Kwara State.

The firestorm would rage for three to six hours. Air temperatures in the fire zone would likely average 400 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit (200 to 260 Celsius).

After the fire burned out, the street pavement would be so hot that even tracked vehicles could not pass over it for days. Buried, unburned material from collapsed buildings throughout the fire zone could burst into flames when exposed to air—months after the firestorm had ended.

Those who tried to escape through the streets would have been incinerated by the hurricane-force winds filled with firebrands and flames. Even those able to find shelter in the lower-level sub-basements of massive buildings would likely suffocate from fire-generated gases or be cooked alive as their shelters heated to oven-like conditions.

The fire would extinguish all life and destroy almost everything else. Tens of miles downwind of the area of immediate destruction, radioactive fallout would begin to arrive within a few hours of the detonation.

But that is another story.

my 7-star general doing what he knows best

My Gen is back
We will be watching from our Odua rep

Zoharariel:
Just like I said to missy some couple of days ago; the only way Amerika will be “brought to her senses” is how Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan were brought to theirs: to suffer a massive defeat in which the entire state apparatus was terminated & even national borders fundamentally altered.

What would happen if an 800-kiloton nuclear warhead is detonated above midtown Manhattan?

Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles are believed to carry a total of approximately 1,000 strategic nuclear warheads that can hit Amerika in less than 30 minutes after being launched. Of this total, about 700 warheads are rated at 800 kilotons; that is, each has the explosive power of 800,000 tons of TNT.

What follows is a description of the consequences of the detonation of a single such warhead over midtown Manhattan, in the heart of New York City.


The initial fireball. The warhead would probably be detonated slightly more than a mile above the city, to maximize the damage created by its blast wave. Within a few tenths of millionths of a second after detonation, the center of the warhead would reach a temperature of roughly 200 million degrees Fahrenheit (about 100 million degrees Celsius), or about four to five times the temperature at the center of the sun. 

A ball of superheated air would form, initially expanding outward at millions of miles per hour. It would act like a fast-moving piston on the surrounding air, compressing it at the edge of the fireball and creating a shockwave of vast size and power.

After one second, the fireball would be roughly a mile in diameter. It would have cooled from its initial temperature of many millions of degrees to about 16,000 degrees Fahrenheit, roughly 4,000 degrees hotter than the surface of the sun. 

On a clear day with average weather conditions, the enormous heat and light from the fireball would almost instantly ignite fires over a total area of about 100 square miles.


Hurricane of fire. Within seconds after the detonation, fires set within a few miles of the fireball would burn violently. These fires would force gigantic masses of heated air to rise, drawing cooler air from surrounding areas toward the center of the fire zone from all directions.

As the massive winds drove flames into areas where fires had not yet fully developed, the fires set by the detonation would begin to merge within tens of minutes of the detonation, fires from near and far would join to form a single, gigantic fire. The energy released by this mass fire would be 15 to 50 times greater than the energy produced by the nuclear detonation.

The mass fire, or firestorm, would quickly increase in intensity, heating enormous volumes of air that would rise at speeds approaching 300 miles per hour. This chimney effect would pull cool air from outside the fire zone towards the center of the fire at speeds of hundreds of miles per hour. These superheated ground winds of more than hurricane force would further intensify the fire. At the edge of the fire zone, the winds would be powerful enough to uproot trees three feet in diameter and suck people from outside the fire into it.

The inrushing winds would drive the flames from burning buildings horizontally along the ground, filling city streets with flames and firebrands, breaking in doors and windows, and causing the fire to jump, sometimes hundreds of feet, swallowing anything not already violently combusting. These above-hurricane-force ground winds would have average air temperatures well above the boiling point of water. The targeted area would be transformed into a huge hurricane of fire, producing a lethal environment throughout the entire fire zone.


No survivors. Within tens of minutes, everything within approximately five to seven miles of Midtown Manhattan would be engulfed by a gigantic firestorm. The fire zone would cover a total area of 90 to 152 square miles (230 to 389 square kilometers).

Wait! You do not understand. This is more than the distance between Lagos and Ilorin in Kwara State.

The firestorm would rage for three to six hours. Air temperatures in the fire zone would likely average 400 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit (200 to 260 Celsius).

After the fire burned out, the street pavement would be so hot that even tracked vehicles could not pass over it for days. Buried, unburned material from collapsed buildings throughout the fire zone could burst into flames when exposed to air—months after the firestorm had ended.

Those who tried to escape through the streets would have been incinerated by the hurricane-force winds filled with firebrands and flames. Even those able to find shelter in the lower-level sub-basements of massive buildings would likely suffocate from fire-generated gases or be cooked alive as their shelters heated to oven-like conditions.

The fire would extinguish all life and destroy almost everything else. Tens of miles downwind of the area of immediate destruction, radioactive fallout would begin to arrive within a few hours of the detonation.

But that is another story.