This may be of comfort to those who worry at the prospect of war. Yet the threat inflation that keeps the wheels turning can carry us toward catastrophe. Among the token vessels deployed to reassure Eastern European NATO countries have been one or two Aegis Destroyers, sent to patrol the Baltic and Black Seas. The missiles they carry are for air defense. Yet the launchers can just as easily carry nuclear or conventional cruise missiles, without any observer being able to tell the difference.Bruce Blair, who spent years deep underground waiting to launch nuclear missiles and now works to abolish them, foresees frightening consequences. As he told me, “Those destroyers could launch quite a few Tomahawk cruise missiles that can reach all the way to Moscow. You could lay down a pretty severe attack on Russian command-and-control from just a couple of destroyers.” This, he explained, is why the Russians have been aggressively shadowing the ships and buzzing them with fighter planes at very close quarters.[1]
Notes
[1] "The New Red Scare. Reviving the art of threat inflation." By Andrew Cockburn, Harper's Magazine, December 2016.
2 comments:
blah, blah, blah freakin' blah already. Russian 'spy ships' have been off the coast of the US since about the start of the Cold War. Nothing new here. Except the tiresome LSM is trying anything they can think of to scare monger and try to make Trump look bad.
I hope someday they behave like a normal child and stop the tantrum when they realize no adults are watching.
Oh.. and we have and use 'spy ships' as well.. but those are 'good' spy ships, right?
Excellent point. That there is the back story to the hysteria of these modern times. A few years ago, the Chinese forced down a U.S. surveillance plane over international waters. I don't recall the press referring to that as a "provocation" of China. Don't count on the accursed MSM to have THAT degree of recollection. If Sarah Palin burned the toast at breakfast in 1982, however, well, it's instant recall for those swine.
Nor were past Chinese, Soviet, N. Korean, and Israeli attacks on U.S. surveillance assets treated as provocations. We cowered like bitch dogs rather than retaliate. LBJ even called back fighters launched to protect the U.S.S. Liberty.
The murder of MAJ Nicholson in E. Germany comes to my mind too, and he was an approved observer.
Post a Comment