'We are at a significantly escalated risk of nuclear use,' Nuclear Threat Initiative President Joan Rohlfing told Newsweek.
Postol has worked hands-on with data relating to some of the world's deadliest systems in previous capacities with the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and as an adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations. He recalled a time shortly after the Soviet Union's disintegration in the 1990s, when U.S. and Russian experts worked side-by-side in hopes of building a post-Cold War future for the two nations.
While the failure of arms control treaties, now reduced to one remaining key pact, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty , over the past two decades is well known, one less-publicized development that proved influential in Russia's own bid for bigger, more powerful weapons was the U.S. production of a burst-height compensating super-fuze for submarine-launched warheads, something that Postol said"essentially doubled" the U.S. nuclear strike capability.
Postol said that, at the time, the fact that Moscow and Washington were on relatively good terms played into Russia's calculus in not ordering a quick reaction. Given the current downfall in trust, however, he worried such an incident could bring the world even closer to nuclear destruction. Last month, about a week before Putin announced the beginning of hostilities in Ukraine, threatening outside powers with"such consequences that you have never experienced in your history" should they seek to intervene, Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Mikhail Popov spoke of the difficulties of discerning a threat in the heat of the moment, especially when tensions ran so high.
An Air Force Global Strike Command unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launches during an operational test on August 11, 2021, at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The Pentagon said in March 2022 that a subsequent launch scheduled amid soaring U.S.-Russia tensions over Ukraine was postponed after Russian President Vladimir Putin put his nuclear forces on heightened alert over the crisis.The view from Moscow is bleak as well.
and defense industry leaders was aimed toward improving and accelerating efforts to bring to fruition an array of projects currently in the works. "Well, I suppose if you think you could just print money in perpetuity without any consequences, we could have an arms race, but, to be quite frank, I think we're nearing bankruptcy here," Douglas Macgregor, a retired U.S. Army colonel who served under Trump as senior adviser to then-Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, said in response toHe argued that, with the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio at upwards of 120%,"we're not healthy.
The result thus far has been an unprecedented level of cooperation between Beijing and Moscow, one that includes not only trade pacts capable of dodging Western sanctions but also joint military-technical endeavors that both Putin and Chinese counterpartBeijing has never been a party to the arms control treaties signed between Moscow and Washington, and Chinese officials have expressed vehement resistance to joining such measures, much to U.S. concern.
Given the disintegration of protective measures and the swelling of bad blood between Russia and the U.S.