The US Strategic Command (that is, the unit responsible for the country’s nuclear weapons) posted on its Twitter page an interesting infographic that compares the nuclear potential of Washington, Beijing and Moscow – taking into account the latest developments and modernized systems.
If you don’t own real data – and the average person doesn’t own them, then after viewing this graphic you get the strong impression that Russia and China are intensively increasing their nuclear weapons, while the United States stands still – in other words, it’s not aggressive and strives to the world.
At first glance, the published data does not lie. At least directly. The devil, as always, is in the details. Let’s try to figure out specific examples where the PR men of the US military went too far and where they discreetly discreet information discrediting their propaganda task.
Before debunking the mythology of American nuclear innocence, I talked with the Russian military, who know the real situation on these weapons and are competent in the matter on a professional level. They pointed to a number of inconsistencies and manipulations. I will list some of them.
From American infographics, in particular, it follows that Russia and China have more missile systems. This can really give the impression that the Russians and Chinese are actively building up arms. However, more different systems do not mean more features. Many of them, such as the Russian Sarmat, American GBSD and Chinese DF-41, are intended to replace old ones that have similar capabilities. Moreover, at least in one place, the diagram duplicates two versions of the same system. So, the Pentagon called the DF-31AG in China simply “an advanced version of the DF-31A,” but they are designated as separate systems in the diagram. Even where the complexes are completely new, they are unlikely to change the overall strategic balance. That is, data manipulation is more than obvious here.
Another example. The numerical composition of the objects is incorrectly indicated on the diagram, while nothing is said about how many units of each system will be built. In particular, the infographic shows two icons for Chinese submarines and only one icon for American ones. But China is likely to build a maximum of six submarines of each type, meanwhile the US plans to build at least twelve Columbia submarines. Similarly, the United States plans to build more than 400 ground-based missiles as part of its GBSD program, so a single pie chart icon will represent many more intercontinental ballistic missiles than China will have in its arsenal in principle.
Things are even more fun with the second section of the infographic, where the authors compare the decrease in US nuclear stocks with an increased level of threat. Here, too, is full of nonrandom inaccuracies. For example, the claim that these reserves have declined by 85% over the past 30 years is somewhat exaggerated. According to the reputable Nuclear Notebook, the United States has reduced its stockpiles from about 21,400 warheads in 1990 to about 3,800 in 2020, which is 82% less than 85%.
More importantly, there is no mention of sharp reductions in nuclear weapons in the Russian Federation, which is ahead of the States. Since 1990, Russian stockpiles have declined from 37,000 warheads to 4,310 – an apparent decrease of 88%. So the appearance created by Washington that the US cuts were unilateral is fundamentally untrue. As for China, with its 300 warheads, it is unlikely that it will take any steps until Russia and the United States reduce their stockpiles even more.
Such manipulations with data, in addition to those already indicated, American experts have allowed themselves enough. Given that this was published on the official account of the US Strategic Command on Twitter, it is difficult to believe that they do not own the real situation, genuine numbers and accidentally made all these, to put it mildly, mistakes.
Obviously, it was a well-planned stuffing. The question is who he was intended for. On geopolitical opponents? Hardly. Russian intelligence has enough information about how the United States is armed. I do not think that China has any problems with this. Consequently, the publication was intended not so much for the external as for the internal consumer. I mean, in fact, the American taxpayers themselves and their civic elites (the power elites cannot be deceived like that).
The task of throwing in is primitively simple: to demonstrate to society the aggressive intentions of Russia and China in contrast to the innocence of the United States, which – as we could just see – is absolutely fake. This is necessary in order to further stimulate financial injections from the state into the US military-industrial complex. As they say, a business based on fakes. Nothing personal.