'Mr. Putin has previously said that nobody can win a nuclear war, and it is a war that should never be fought. However, behind the scenes Russia had been furiously preparing to survive just such a war, which they hope to avoid.
Russia has developed and deployed the S-500 and S-550 air defenses which are primarily designed to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles in space before they can release their multiple warheads upon re-entry. Each S-500 battery is capable of simultaneously tracking and destroying 10 ICBMs in the early to mid flight stages.
The S-300 and S-400 batteries armed with the new 77N6-N and 77N6-N1 anti-ballistic missiles are also capable of shooting down ICBM warheads after re-entry at shorter ranges than the S-500.
These systems create an onion of defensive rings around key Russian cities and military bases. In the event of a nuclear exchange the S-500 would target the incoming ICBMs while still in space at a range of 600 kilometers, and outside the borders of Russia; and the S-400 and S-300 batteries would target any deployed warheads that managed to get through. Obviously, preventing as many enemy missiles as possible from being launched would improve the chances of successful defense.'
If Russia’s ICBM defenses could take out 90% of 640 incoming missiles, it could survive a nuclear exchange at the cost of absorbing hits from about 50 warheads that got through. Given the smaller modern warheads in NATO’s missile forces, it would do terrible but localized damage. Moscow would probably experience massive damage, but the rest of Russian territory would be fine.
NATO’s nuclear offense forces rely on aging Trident II and Minuteman III ICBMs. The majority of these systems are over thirty years old. This means they will probably have a significant failure rate just to launch. Russia’s modern air defenses and ECM have been designed to defeat these old technologies.
In balance to the effort to perfect defenses against ICBMs, Mr. Putin announced that Russia’s nuclear forces have been 91% modernized. That means that the ICBMs that Russia would fire all have maneuverable hypersonic warheads. US air defenses are currently unable to defend against these.
The spacing of American Minuteman silos was designed for the majority to survive a first strike and launch retaliation. However, Russian maneuverable hypersonic multiple re-entry vehicles nullify this defense if the targeting data is accurate. Russia has to accurately hit 400 ground targets in the first strike to nullify a response.
Thus, if Russia strikes first, it may be able to eliminate the majority of incoming missiles by destroying them on the ground. The 240 submarine launched Trident missiles would be the primary threat to defend against. Thus a first strike could reduce the number of expected retaliation missiles by 62%.
A first strike would make it unlikely that the bombers and refuelers could get off the ground in time to effectively respond.
Russia currently has a window of superiority in both nuclear offense and defense that NATO is rapidly trying to close. It is not in Russia’s interest to allow NATO to close the technology gap in air defense and ICBM offense.
The world is now on the threshold of nuclear war. Russia keeps warning the West. The West keeps ignoring the warnings and doubling down. The immovable object is meeting the unstoppable force.
In the coming weeks Russia’s ally, China, will offer a peace deal which freezes the Ukraine conflict within the current lines of contact, i.e. Ukraine conceding lost territory to Russia.
If the West rejects the offered peace, which seems fairly likely, then all of the conditions for a nuclear war will be in place. All it will take is a new provocation by NATO to trigger a first strike by Russia. Or worse, if both parties realize this is the case, both will have the incentive to strike first.
Link to article:
http://thesaker.is/the-dire-significance-of-putins-feb-21-speech/
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