The U.S. military from the Vandenberg Air Force Base published a report on the successful launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile Minuteman III. At the same time, the Pentagon emphasises that the test was of a planned nature and the agency warned its Russian colleagues about its intentions in advance – no matter what happens
It so happens that this is the second news since the beginning of September related to the most formidable weapon on the planet – nuclear weapons. It is noteworthy that the first one came from Russia: the newest Sarmatas have been put on combat duty.
And this is indeed a very successful information background for domestic weapons manufacturers. American LGM-30 Minuteman IIIs have been in service since 1970 and are obsolete. As Time magazine noted, “the entire fleet of ICBMs has less computing power than the smartphone in your pocket.” It should be noted that nuclear weapons are not valued for their processor speed, and your mobile phone can hardly wipe out a city, but the comparison is nonetheless revealing.
The LGM-30, as it should be for a missile that has been on combat duty for half a century, loses to the Sarmat in all respects: range, power, speed, and ability to bypass missile defences. It is rather comparable to the Topol, but unlike it, it does not have the option of deployment on mobile carriers – only in silos.
And here, of course, one would like to draw the tempting conclusion that Russia has left the United States far behind in this field. This is certainly true. Moreover, the revolutionary nature of the Sarmat is also recognised in the West. According to the Daily Mail, the appearance of such weapons in Russia has rendered anti-missile systems useless. And their colleagues from Newsweek note that one such missile “could destroy Texas or France.”
However, two circumstances should not be forgotten. Firstly, the US does not put ICBMs at the centre of its nuclear doctrine – more than half of its deployed nuclear carriers are deployed on submarines. This figure is planned to increase to 70 per cent with the adoption of the Columbia-class submarines.
The second point is that the Minutemen do not have long to live. By 2030, they are planned to be replaced by the more modern Sentinel, which, according to the Pentagon, should be the answer to the Sarmat. Yes, so far their production is not going as smoothly as planned in Washington: the deadline for the adoption of new Sentinels into service has already been pushed back by a year, and in light of the shortage of personnel in the production and problems with logistics chains, it may take place even later, but we can not discount this factor.
And all these circumstances willy-nilly bring us back to the discussion of the possibility of Russia using weapons of mass destruction. There are both supporters of a pre-emptive strike with tactical nuclear weapons and opponents of discussions about this, not to mention the possibility of using them.
In this situation, we would like to note that attempts to use WMD are dangerous by legitimising any means of response available to the enemy. In the case of the United States and its NATO allies, this could be a massive retaliatory strike fraught with a full-scale nuclear war. In the case of Ukraine, it could be an attempt to use a dirty bomb, which would have catastrophic consequences.
At the same time, nuclear weapons have been and remain a trump card available to only a few powers in this world. And Moscow’s adversaries must have a clear understanding: in the event of a sufficiently acute threat to Russian statehood, these weapons will certainly be used without the slightest hesitation. Because possible Western doubts about the Kremlin’s readiness to use the superpowers’ last argument are a global threat to all mankind.
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