This is an experiment on my part. Will our well informed and erudite readership be willing to look at several articles, most of them fairly short that tie together a larger theme (horrific wars and the survival of humanity no less). I will watch with interest to see how this works out.
“The US is already preparing for its next war: on China”, Jan 16, 2023, Danny Haiphong, Geopolitical Economy(dot)com,< The US is already preparing for the next war on China>
“US military preparing for war on China - and soon”, Feb 1, 2023, Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy Report, Youtube video duration, 24:57, at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy5FALVrULM >
“The U.S. and Europe are running out of weapons to send to Ukraine”, Sep 28 2022, Natasha Turak, CNBC, at < https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/28/the-us-and-europe-are-running-out-of-weapons-to-send-to-ukraine.html >
“Latest US Arms Shipment to Ukraine Cannot Solve Kiev's Fundamental Problem”, Jan 7, 2023, Brian Berletic, The New Atlas, Duration of Video 35:42, at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XOSoGQcc4k >.
“B61-12: new US nuclear warheads coming to Europe in December: In December, the United States is bringing new nuclear warheads to Europe. The B61-12 warhead is a more advanced warhead from the ones currently deployed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey”, Dec 22, 2022, Anon, The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), at <https://www.icanw.org/b61-12_new_us_nuclear_warheads_coming_to_europe_in_december>
“The C-17A Has Been Cleared To Transport B61-12 Nuclear Bomb To Europe”, January 9, 2023, Hans Kristensen, Federation of American Scientists, at < https://fas.org/blogs/security/2023/01/c17-cleared-to-transport-b61-12/ >
“$10 Trillion for Nuclear War: Racing to the Nuclear Cliff”, Jan 10, 2023, The Socialist Program with Brian Becker, Brian Becker conducts an Interview of Greg Mello, co-founder and Executive Director of the Los Alamos Study Group. Duration of interview 53:38, Becker and Mello discuss the $10 trillion that the U.S. has spent on nuclear weaponry, at < https://anchor.fm/thesocialistprogram/episodes/10-Trillion-for-Nuclear-War-Racing-to-the-Nuclear-Cliff-e1t9ucp >
Introduction by dmorsta:
There is significant evidence, even now being discussed in the Corporate Controlled Media that, in the wake of the Proxy War against Russia in Ukraine, that the U.S. ruling class wants to start a war with China. This is discussed relatively thoroughly in the article “The US is already preparing for its next war: on China”, and in the video discussion of those issues “US military preparing for war on China - and soon”. The article was written by Danny Haiphong, and Ben Norton, who planned to write an article on the subject instead produced a video to accompany Haiphong’s article.
The U.S. ruling class is now reaping the rewards of their profitable hollowing out of the United States over the last 40 years. No less than 70,000 factories were either closed and had their machinery and skills moved to China, or were merely closed while the production was moved to China. The American Ruling Classes of the 1980s onward lived in a fool’s paradise. They were born into a social class that stood athwart the socioeconomic order of the Globe, like a gigantic Hercules standing across the Straits of Gibraltar. But now the bill for 40+ years of profiteering, while undermining their own power, has come due. The U.S. rulers now face a sobering new reality that has become painfully apparent: after squandering what remained of their Global Hegemony chasing Muslim Radicals across Eurasia and pulling Israel’s Chestnuts out of the fire in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, and aiding Saudi Arabia in their campaign against Yemen. Now the latest gambit, the Proxy War on Russia being conducted in Ukraine has run up on the shoals of reality. The hollowed out U.S. industrial capacity cannot supply Ukraine with enough weapons to continue to prosecute the Proxy War there into the future.
And many of the NATO allies are in the same boat. They have sent their stocks of the various weapons systems to Ukraine and now the barrels are empty. Capitalists in most of the West have closed domestic factories and moved production to China and other low-wage low-regulation locales. The U.S. military high command has dug in their heels, no more first-class supplies for Ukraine. What is being sent now are frequently obsolete and much less capable weapons systems. The Ukrainians, who had significant success when they were using the state-of-art NATO weaponry will have a much harder time prevailing using obsolete second-tier weapons. Just one example of this situation is the U.S. production of 155 mm artillery shells. The U.S. Military Industrial Complex (MIC) produces about 30,000 155 mm shells per year. The Ukrainian forces have been using 15,000 155 mm shells per week.
The U.S. would need anywhere from 1 - 4 years to ramp up production of the various weapons and ammunition that they have supplied to Ukraine. The Russian MIC is not as flashy (or as profitable) as the American version, but it appears that it is capable of producing needed munitions and weaponry replacements without a major expansion of production capacity. Russia is also backed up, quietly but effectively, by China that has the greatest industrial capability on Earth, much like the U.S. had during the WW 1 and WW 2 period. These issues are competently discussed in “The U.S. and Europe are running out of weapons to send to Ukraine” and in “Latest US Arms Shipment to Ukraine Cannot Solve Kiev's Fundamental Problem”.
What is particularly disturbing is the likelihood that, to make up for the lack of depth in munitions and weaponry and their replacement, the U.S. ruling class might resort to the use of nuclear weapons. The last 3 entries address the nuclear bomb issue. They include 2 articles about the B61-12 nuclear bomb “B61-12: new US nuclear warheads coming to Europe in December: …” and its movement to European bases over the past couple of months in “The C-17A Has Been Cleared To Transport B61-12 Nuclear Bomb To Europe”, Thered is also an audio presentation, “$10 Trillion for Nuclear War: Racing to the Nuclear Cliff”, that address this issue to some degree and in historical and present day context. The chance of American Rulers resorting to using nuclear weapons against Russia and/or China is a horrifying prospect. But we should never forget that among the various ruling class villains on Earth it was only the American rulers who ever used nuclear weapons on human targets.
I have posted the text from the 4 articles below. The Audio and video presentations are listed above
“The US is already preparing for its next war: on China”, Jan 16, 2023, Danny Haiphong, Geopolitical Economy(dot)com, at < https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/01/16/us-preparing-war-china/ >
(Caption: The US and Japan in the joint Noble Fusion military exercise in February 2022)
Russia’s military operation in Ukraine is approaching its first birthday, in February 2023. Top military brass in Russia have long declared that the conflict is not between Russia and Ukraine, but rather Russia and NATO. Simply put, Ukraine is a pawn in another U.S. war.
Europe’s economy and military have been sacrificed on the altar of U.S. warmongering toward Russia. Winter is here, and Ukraine’s prospects for getting out of the conflict with anything resembling “victory” have dissipated, if they ever really existed at all.
Such has been admitted by two of the foreign-policy establishment’s most criminal members: Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates. In an op-ed with the Washington Post, Rice and Gates argue that time is not on Ukraine’s side. The U.S. must act fast or watch Ukraine suffer eventual defeat.
Of course, for neoconservative hawks like Rice and Gates, a negotiated settlement is simply out of the question. The only option for the U.S. political and military establishment is to fortify Ukraine with the heaviest military equipment such as armored tanks to ensure victory on the battlefield.
As geopolitical analyst Brian Berletic has noted, a major problem stands in the way of Rice and Gates’s demand: NATO is running out of weapons.
The U.S. produces about 30,000 rounds per year for its 155 mm Howitzer long-range systems, a number that Ukraine uses in just two weeks of fighting Russia on the front lines.
Russian missile strikes have made quick work of heavier equipment such as the vaunted HIMARS systems.
Only larger NATO states like the U.S. and Germany have anything left to provide.
So when Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky came to Congress begging for more weapons, he was likely disappointed in Joe Biden’s remark that the U.S. was not going to make promises to arm Ukraine with anything that could possibly lead to a World War III scenario between NATO and Russia.
Russia’s critical victory in the city of Soledar has only intensified concerns among a major faction in the foreign policy establishment that Ukraine is depleting the U.S.’s capacity to wage war elsewhere.
In this regard, no other matter of U.S. “national security” is more important than China.
The RAND Corporation, a research arm of the Pentagon, has called China a “peer” competitor and the U.S.’s greatest long-term threat.
Joe Biden’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has also called China the greatest threat to the U.S.’s “security.”
NATO labeled China a “malicious actor” in the alliance’s latest Strategic Concept document, and pledged to play a larger role in curbing the so-called “threats” presented by its rise.
A series published just after the new year in Foreign Policy, however, has blown the lid off of any subtleties to the U.S.’s preparations for a war with China.
Titled “Lessons for the Next War,” the series features 12 essays from all corners of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment. Contributors include former Obama-era CIA director and US army commander David Petraeus, former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and former Under Secretary of State and Trump-era NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller.
Also included are representatives from a litany of hawkish think tanks, such as the US government-funded Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
Their essays cover 12 areas of economic, cyber, military, diplomatic, and propaganda warfare. An important thread runs through each contribution: Russia has failed in Ukraine (a fabrication mixed with imperial hubris), making the present moment a perfect opportunity to prepare for an upcoming war in Taiwan against China.
Foreign Policy’s chief editor Stefan Theil makes the aim of the series quite clear:
Drawing the right lessons from the first 10 months of the Russian invasion, then, not only matters for the survival of Ukraine. It is also vital for deterring and preventing a future conflict—and, if necessary, fighting one. The most obvious potential hot spot and one that involves even greater stakes is, of course, Taiwan.
Beyond repetitive lip service to “deterrence,” contributors make concrete suggestions on the best means to wage war with China. David Petraeus’s co-authored piece asserts that (all emphasis added):
Ukraine points to the imperative for the United States and its Indo-Pacific allies to prioritize the near-term ability to field large numbers of relatively inexpensive, highly mobile anti-ship and anti-air missiles that can be dispersed and maneuvered throughout the first and second island chains against Beijing’s increasingly formidable naval and air forces. Large quantities of unmanned air, sea, and ground systems can amplify these missiles in the U.S. order of battle.
In other words, the U.S.’s record $858 billion military budget needs to grow even larger to meet the challenge of China.
Petraeus was directly responsible for targeting weddings and civilian areas during his time leading U.S. forces in Afghanistan, giving him first-hand knowledge of the capabilities of the U.S.’s military arsenal.
Former Obama-era NATO Secretary Anders Fogh Rasmussen backs up Petraeus’s emphasis on pumping weapons into Taiwan, stating:
weapons are what counts . . . With the help of its partners [Taiwan] must become a porcupine bristling with armaments to deter any possible attempt to take it by force. China must calculate that the cost of an invasion is simply too high to bear.
However, Foreign Policy’s war stenographers clarify that preparing for war with China is about much more than weapons.
Maria Shagina, research fellow on sanctions at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a bellicose think tank funded by the weapons industry and State Department, argues that the U.S. and its allies should devise a coherent plan of “economic statecraft” against China as soon as possible.
Elisabeth Braw of the Carlyle Group-funded right-wing American Enterprise Institute proposes that the U.S. and its allies secure control over the information airwaves to ensure citizens “know exactly what to look for” from so-called “subversive” state and non-state actors that counter U.S. and NATO talking points.
Of course, these so-called “preparations” are already underway. The U.S. spends hundreds of millions in its information war against China, and it recently banned Chinese semiconductor exports to compliment an already wide-ranging economic war on China.
Foreign Policy’s “Lessons for the Next War” was part of a flurry indications that the U.S. foreign policy establishment is preparing for war with China.
Two days following Foreign Policy’s series, top U.S. General in Japan James Bierman made the stunning admission in the Financial Times that U.S. is “setting the theater of war” by goading China into a Ukraine-style war over Taiwan.
The next day, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a war simulation between the U.S. and China over Taiwan. Predictably, the U.S. government concluded that Chinese efforts to invade the island would fail at a great cost to the militaries of all parties.
In May 2022, The Center for New American Security (CNAS), which is principally funded by military contractors, showcased its own war simulation on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Back in February 2022, the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force joined the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force in conducting joint military exercises, known as Noble Fusion, in the Philippine Sea.
The US and Japan in the Noble Fusion military exercise in the Philippine Sea in February 2022
It’s important to note that U.S. war preparations with China have little do with Taiwan specifically. They’re a response to imperial decline and the rise of China and Russia.
Beijing and Moscow both present their own specific challenges to Washington’s hegemony.
Russia’s growing sovereignty and political independence from the U.S.-led West has undermined the Wolfowitz Doctrine of full-spectrum dominance over all territory of the former Soviet Union.
China’s massive socialist-led market economy is set to surpass the U.S.’s stagnant finance capitalist system in GDP terms by 2035.
Worse for the U.S. is that Russia and China have grown closer together.
In economic terms, the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership has grown by leaps and bounds since the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation was established in 2001. Bilateral trade is expected to increase by 25% and reach a total volume of $200 billion ahead of the 2024 target date.
Surging economic ties with China have given Russia further protection from U.S.-E.U. sanctions, with agricultural and energy exports to China increasing by the month.
China and Russia have also increased coordination on matters of military coordination, color revolutions, and diplomacy in the face of a common threat: U.S. imperialism.
But perhaps the biggest threat to U.S. hegemony resides in China and Russia’s leadership in the global movement for integration and de-dollarization.
China and Russia are the principle leaders of multilateral institutions such as BRICS+ mechanism and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
These multilateral institutions set out to strengthen investment in all sectors of economic and social development between participating countries, especially in the realm of finance.
In response to starvation sanctions imposed by the U.S. and E.U., and predatory loans from Western financial institutions, BRICS+ has united the largest Global South economies, uniting Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa in an effort to develop an alternative to the U.S. dollar-dominated neoliberal economic system.
The strength of BRICS+ grew immensely in 2022. Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Iran, Argentina, and several other countries expressed interest in or applied to join BRICS+.
BRICS+ is complimented by China and Russia’s own integration projects which aim to develop the infrastructure necessary to break free from the petrodollar.
The “virtual group photo” taken at the 14th BRICS summit in 2022
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) sports major cooperation agreements with more than 140 countries and consists of at least 2,000 development initiatives, many of which are completed or under construction.
Talks of possibly merging the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the BRI are already underway.
The same forces preparing for war with China have expressed deep concern about the future of the dollar amid growing Eurasian integration.
Foreign Policy admitted in its marathon 12-essay series that U.S. sanctions have led China to pursue alternatives to the dollar with its trading partners.
Zoltan Pozsar, an economist and former strategist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, recently sounded the alarm about what he termed “BRICSpansion” and the potential of China, Russia, Iran, and the Global South uniting around a new currency system backed by the wealth of commodities in their possession.
Pozsar warns of “commodity encumbrance,” or the growing possibility that resource-rich nations like Russia will use their commodities as collateral to increase reserves of credit and financing.
The interest that China and Saudi Arabia have shown in trading oil in Chinese yuan, Russia’s pursuit of an international reserve currency, and the idea of “BRICS coin” are presented as major threats to Western financial dominance.
The U.S.’s answer to fading imperial hegemony is war – and more of it.
War is an inherent feature of predatory neoliberalism, where corporations seek favorable conditions to exploit and plunder the planet’s laboring classes and resources.
War is also a permanent, and very profitable, industry dominated by a tiny few military contractors.
The ruling elite has calculated that U.S. imperialism cannot compete with China and Russia, making the rise of both an existential threat to the future of U.S.-led neoliberalism and imperialism.
This sentiment has been expressed by NATO’s Atlantic Council think tank, and in the U.S.’s successive national security strategies of “Great Power” and “Strategic” Competition.
That U.S. foreign-policy strategists and experts are planning for the next war should come as no surprise.
U.S. imperialism does not target singular “enemies”; it targets alternative development models and the nations attempting to build them.
As Henry Kissinger said, the United States “has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.”
The Ukraine proxy war is thus a testing ground for the larger U.S. agenda of imperial expansion.
A common condition of peace and prosperity for humanity will depend in large part on undermining of this agenda, particularly within the citadel of imperialism: the United States.
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“US military preparing for war on China - and soon”, Feb 1, 2023, Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy Report, Youtube video duration, 24:57, at < https://fas.org/blogs/security/2023/01/c17-cleared-to-transport-b61-12/>
“The U.S. and Europe are running out of weapons to send to Ukraine”, Sep 28 2022, Natasha Turak, CNBC, at < https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/28/the-us-and-europe-are-running-out-of-weapons-to-send-to-ukraine.html >
Key Points
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg held a special meeting of the alliance’s arms directors to discuss ways to refill member nations’ weapons stockpiles.
But ramping up defense production is no quick or easy feat.
The U.S. has been by far the largest supplier of military aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia, providing $15.2 billion in weapons packages to date since Moscow invaded its neighbor in late February.
(Caption: Ukrainian servicemen fire an M777 howitzer, Kharkiv Region, northeastern Ukraine. This photo cannot be distributed in the Russian Federation. Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy | Future Publishing | Getty Images)
In the U.S. weapons industry, the normal production level for artillery rounds for the 155 millimeter howitzer — a long-range heavy artillery weapon currently used on the battlefields of Ukraine — is about 30,000 rounds per year in peacetime.
The Ukrainian soldiers fighting invading Russian forces go through that amount in roughly two weeks.
That’s according to Dave Des Roches, an associate professor and senior military fellow at the U.S. National Defense University. And he’s worried.
“I’m greatly concerned. Unless we have new production, which takes months to ramp up, we’re not going to have the ability to supply the Ukrainians,” Des Roches told CNBC.
Europe is running low, too. “The military stocks of most [European NATO] member states have been, I wouldn’t say exhausted, but depleted in a high proportion, because we have been providing a lot of capacity to the Ukrainians,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said earlier this month.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg held a special meeting of the alliance’s arms directors on Tuesday to discuss ways to refill member nations’ weapons stockpiles.
Military analysts point to a root issue: Western nations have been producing arms at much smaller volumes during peacetime, with governments opting to slim down very expensive manufacturing and only producing weapons as needed. Some of the weapons that are running low are no longer being produced, and highly skilled labor and experience are required for their production — things that have been in short supply across the U.S. manufacturing sector for years.
A US M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) firing salvoes during a military exercise on June 30, 2022. The U.S. Department of Defense has announced that the U.S. will be sending Ukraine another $270 million in security assistance, a package which will include high mobility artillery rocket systems and a significant number of tactical drones.
Fadel Senna | Afp | Getty Images
Indeed, Stoltenberg said during last week’s U.N. General Assembly that NATO members need to reinvest in their industrial bases in the arms sector.
“We are now working with industry to increase production of weapons and ammunition,” Stoltenberg told The New York Times, adding that countries needed to encourage arms makers to expand their capacity longer term by putting in more weapons orders.
But ramping up defense production is no quick or easy feat.
Is the U.S. ability to defend itself at risk?
The short answer: no.
The U.S. has been by far the largest supplier of military aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia, providing $15.2 billion in weapons packages to date since Moscow invaded its neighbor in late February. Several of the American-made weapons have been game changers for the Ukrainians; particularly the 155 mm howitzers and long-range heavy artillery like the Lockheed Martin
-made HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System). And the Biden administration has said it will support its ally Ukraine for “as long as it takes” to defeat Russia.
That means a whole lot more weapons.
The U.S. has essentially run out of the 155 mm howitzers to give to Ukraine; to send any more, it would have to dip into its own stocks reserved for U.S. military units that use them for training and readiness. But that’s a no-go for the Pentagon, military analysts say, meaning the supplies reserved for U.S. operations are highly unlikely to be affected.
We need to put our defense industrial base on a wartime footing. And I don’t see any indication that we have.
Dave Des Roches
Senior military fellow, U.S. National Defense University
“There are a number of systems where I think the Department of Defense has reached the levels where it’s not willing to provide more of that particular system to Ukraine,” said Mark Cancian, a former U.S. Marine Corps colonel and a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
That’s because “the United States needs to maintain stockpiles to support war plans,” Cancian said. “For some munitions, the driving war plan would be a conflict with China over Taiwan or in the South China Sea; for others, particularly ground systems, the driving war plan would be North Korea or Europe.”
Javelins, HIMARs and howitzers
What this means for Ukrainian forces is that some of their most crucial battlefield equipment – like the 155 mm howitzer – is having to be replaced with older and less optimum weaponry like the 105 mm howitzer, which has a smaller payload and a shorter range.
“And that’s a problem for the Ukrainians,” Des Roches says, because “range is critical in this war. This is an artillery war.”
A boy walks past a graffiti on a wall depicting a Ukrainian serviceman making a shot with a US-made Javelin portable anti-tank missile system, in Kyiv, on July 29, 2022.
Sergei Supinsky | AFP | Getty Images
Other weapons Ukraine relies on that are now classified as “limited” in the U.S. inventory include HIMARS launchers, Javelin missiles, Stinger missiles, the M777 Howitzer and 155 mm ammunition.
The Javelin, produced by Raytheon
and Lockheed Martin, has gained an iconic role in Ukraine — the shoulder-fired, precision-guided anti-tank missile has been indispensable in combating Russian tanks. But production in the U.S. is low at a rate of around 800 per year, and Washington has now sent some 8,500 to Ukraine, according to the CSIS — more than a decades’ worth of production.
Ukrainian soldiers take pictures of a mural titled ‘Saint Javelin’ dedicated to the U.S.-made portable surface-to-air missile has been unveiled on the side of a Kyiv apartment block on May 25, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. The artwork by illustrator and artist Chris Shaw is in reference to the Javelin missile donated to Ukrainian troops to battle against the Russian invasion.
Christopher Furlong | Getty Images
President Joe Biden visited a Javelin plant in Alabama in May, saying he would “make sure the United States and our allies can replenish our own stocks of weapons to replace what we’ve sent to Ukraine.” But, he added, “this fight is not going to be cheap.”
The Pentagon has ordered hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of new Javelins, but ramping up takes time — the numerous suppliers that provide the chemicals and computer chips for each missile can’t all be sufficiently sped up. And hiring, vetting and training people to build the technology also takes time. It could take between one and four years for the U.S. to boost overall weapons production significantly, Cancian said.
“We need to put our defense industrial base on a wartime footing,” Des Roches said. “And I don’t see any indication that we have.”
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Defense stocks still have more upside, says RBC Capital Markets’ Ken Herbert
The U.S. Department of Defense disputed the suggestion that the U.S. is running low on its weapons stockpiles for Ukraine.
“The Department has provided a mix of capabilities to Ukraine – we, and they, are not over-reliant on any one system,” DOD spokesperson Jessica Maxwell told CNBC in an email. “We have been able to transfer equipment from U.S. stocks to Ukraine while managing risks to military readiness.”
The Pentagon is “working with industry to replenish depleted stocks on an accelerated basis,” Maxwell said. “This includes providing funding to buy more equipment, set up new production lines, and support additional worker shifts. We still have the necessary inventory for our needs.”
The DOD’s latest military assistance package, she added, “underscores the lasting nature of our commitment and represents a sustainable, multi-year investment in critical capabilities for Ukraine.”
A Lockheed Martin spokesman, when contacted for comment, referenced an April interview during which the company’s CEO, Jim Taiclet, told CNBC: “We’ve got to get our supply chain ramped up, we’ve got to have some capacity, which we’re already investing to do. And then the deliveries happen, say, six, 12, 18 months down the road.”
What are Ukraine’s options?
In the meantime, Ukraine can look elsewhere for suppliers — for instance South Korea, which has a formidable weapons sector and in August signed a sale to Poland for $5.7 billion worth of tanks and howitzers. Ukrainian forces will also have to work with replacement weapons that are often less optimal.
A Ukrainian serviceman mans a position in a trench on the front line near Avdiivka, Donetsk region on June 18, 2022 amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Anatolii Stepanov | AFP | Getty Images
Jack Watling, an expert on land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute in London, believes there is still ample scope for Ukraine to supply itself with many of the weapons it needs.
“There is sufficient time to resolve that problem before it becomes critical in terms of stepping up manufacture,” Watling said, noting that Kyiv can source certain ammunition from countries that don’t immediately need theirs, or whose stocks are about to expire.
“So we can continue to supply Ukraine,” Watling said, “but there is a point where especially with certain critical natures, the Ukrainians will need to be cautious about their rate of expenditure and where they prioritize those munitions, because there isn’t an infinite supply.”
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“Latest US Arms Shipment to Ukraine Cannot Solve Kiev's Fundamental Problem”, Jan 7, 2023, Brian Berletic, The New Atlas, Duration of Video 35:42, at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XOSoGQcc4k >.
“B61-12: new US nuclear warheads coming to Europe in December: In December, the United States is bringing new nuclear warheads to Europe. The B61-12 warhead is a more advanced warhead from the ones currently deployed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey”, Dec 22, 2022, Anon, The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), at <https://www.icanw.org/b61-12_new_us_nuclear_warheads_coming_to_europe_in_december>
(This is a graphical image of the Video about the B61-12 Nuclear weapons that are being deployed in Europe by the U.S. Go to the website for this article to view this video at <https://www.icanw.org/b61-12_new_us_nuclear_warheads_coming_to_europe_in_december>)
In December, the United States is bringing new nuclear warheads to Europe. The B61-12 warhead is a more advanced warhead from the ones currently deployed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.
Boeing designed the bomb’s new guided-tailkit, giving it additional maneuverability and the appearance of more precision. But, it’s a nuclear weapon, and has different yields, from 0.3kt to 50kt. These bombs can detonate beneath the Earth’s surface, increasing their destructiveness against underground targets to the equivalent of a surface-burst weapon with a yield of 1,250 kilotons––the equivalent of 83 Hiroshima bombs.
These nuclear weapons are coming to Europe in a time of heightened nuclear tension on the continent, and even as the majority of people in European host countries want to remove nuclear weapons and join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Combined with the lack of transparency around nuclear sharing, this moment raises questions about whether citizens in the host states would agree to be complicit if these weapons are ever used. Even if the bombs are American and the US retains launch authority, they would most likely be dropped by Europeans. If the US decides to use its nuclear weapons located in Germany, the warheads are loaded onto German planes and a German pilot drops them.
Share this video to spread the word about these new nuclear weapons and join the movement to eliminate them.
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“The C-17A Has Been Cleared To Transport B61-12 Nuclear Bomb To Europe”, January 9, 2023, Hans Kristensen, Federation of American Scientists, at < https://fas.org/blogs/security/2023/01/c17-cleared-to-transport-b61-12/ >
(Caption: C-17As of the 62nd Airlift Wing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Seattle have been cleared to transport new B61-12 nuclear bomb.)
In November 2022, the Air Force updated its safety rules for airlift of nuclear weapons to allow the C-17A Globemaster III aircraft to transport the new B61-12 nuclear bomb.
The update, accompanied by training and certification of the aircraft and crews, cleared the C-17A to transport the newest U.S. nuclear weapon to bases in the United States and Europe.
(Caption: An updated USAF Instruction in November 2022 removed restrictions for C-17A transport of the new B61-12 nuclear bomb to bases in the United States and Europe.)
The C-17As of the 62nd Airlift Wing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord serve as the Prime Nuclear Airlift Force (PNAF), the only airlift wing that is authorized to transport the Air Force’s nuclear warheads.
The updated Air Force instruction does not, as inaccurately suggested by some, confirm that shipping of the weapons began in December. But it documents some of the preparations needed to do so.
Politico reported in October last year that the US had accelerated deployment of the B61-12 from Spring 2023 to December 2022. Two unnamed US officials said the US told NATO about the schedule in October.
But a senior Pentagon official subsequently dismissed the Politico report, saying “nothing has changed on the timeline. There is no speeding up because of any Ukraine crisis, the B61-12 is on the same schedule it’s always been on.”
Although the DOD official denied there had been a change in the schedule, he did not deny that transport would begin in December.
(Caption: Two unarmed B61-12 trainers are loaded on a C-17A during an exercise at Joint Base Lewis-McChord AFB in April 2021. Image: U.S. Air Force.)
The B61-12 production scheduled had slipped repeatedly. Initially, the plan was to begin full-scale production in early-2019. By September 2022, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was still awaiting approval to begin full-scale production. Finally, in October 2022, NNSA confirmed to FAS that the B61-12 was in full-scale production.
The B61-12 is intended as an upgrade and eventual replacement for all current nuclear gravity bombs, including the B61-3, -4, -7, and probably eventually also the B61-11 and B83-1. To that end, it combines and improves upon various aspects of existing bombs: it uses a modified version of the B61-4 warhead with several lower- and medium-yield options (0.3-50 kilotons). It compensates for its smaller explosive yield (relative to the maximum yields of the B61-7 and -11) by including a guided tail-kit to increase accuracy, as well as a limited earth-penetration capability.
At this point in time, it is unknown if B61-12 shipments to Europe have begun. If not, it appears to be imminent. That said, deployment will probably not happen in one move but gradually spread to more and more bases depending on certification and construction at each base.
There are currently six active bases in five European countries with about 100 B61 bombs present in underground Weapons Storage and Security Systems (WS3) inside aircraft shelters. A seventh site in Germany (Ramstein Air Base) is active without weapons present and an eighth site – RAF Lakenheath – has recently been added to the list of WS3 sites being modernized. The revitalization of Lakenheath’s nuclear storage bunkers does not necessarily indicate that US nuclear weapons will return to UK soil, especially since as recently as December 2021, NATO’s Secretary General stated that “we have no plans of stationing any nuclear weapons in any other countries than we already have . . . ” However, the upgrade could be intended to increase NATO’s ability to redistribute the B61 bombs in times of heightened tensions, or to potentially move them out of Turkey in the future. In addition, four other sites have inactive (possibly mothballed) vaults (see map below).
(Caption: This research was carried out with generous contributions from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the New-Land Foundation, the Ploughshares Fund, the Prospect Hill Foundation, the FTX Future Fund and Longview Philanthropy, the Stewart R. Mott Foundation, the Future of Life Institute, Open Philanthropy, and individual donors.)
“$10 Trillion for Nuclear War: Racing to the Nuclear Cliff”, Jan 10, 2023, The Socialist Program with Brian Becker, Brian Becker conducts an Interview of Greg Mello, co-founder and Executive Director of the Los Alamos Study Group. Duration of interview 53:38, Becker and Mello discuss the $10 trillion that the U.S. has spent on nuclear weaponry, at <https://anchor.fm/thesocialistprogram/episodes/10-Trillion-for-Nuclear-War-Racing-to-the-Nuclear-Cliff-e1t9ucp>
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