On the Verge of World War III and Nuclear Abyss By James Reed
The warnings of the coming of World War III continue to be given. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Putin's security council has said that the world is on the verge of a global war, which is likely to go nuclear. Putin himself has said the same, and that Russia, now with nukes on the ready, is willing and able to use them to fend off an existential threat. Western leaders have said that the goal is to bring down Putin, but he will not go now without a fight, and they continue to prod the bear with a white-hot rod. And, what a fight, as Russia is putting into place the deadliest weapons the human race has not yet seen, such as nuclear torpedoes that can drown a country like Britain under radioactive water, as detailed below.
“An ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the world was probably on the verge of a new world war and the risks of a nuclear confrontation were rising.
"The world is sick and quite probably is on the verge of a new world war," Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Putin's powerful security council, told a conference in Moscow.
He said such a new world war was not inevitable but the risks of a nuclear confrontation were growing and more serious than concerns about climate change.
Putin says the world faces the most dangerous decade since World War Two. He casts the war in Ukraine as an existential battle with an aggressive and arrogant West, and has said that Russia will use all available means to protect itself against any aggressor.
The United States and its allies have condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine as an imperial land grab. Ukraine has vowed to fight until all Russian troops withdraw from its territory, and says Russian rhetoric on nuclear war is intended to intimidate the West into curbing military aid.”
“Imagine finding yourself on a serene seashore, only to realize that a catastrophic tsunami is imminent. However, this is no ordinary tsunami; this one is radioactive.
In January 2023, the Russian news agency TASS reported that Russia had produced the first set of nuclear-powered, very long range, nuclear-armed torpedoes known as “Poseidon.” Strategic experts are warning that the Poseidon torpedo would have the potential to devastate a coastal city, cause radioactive floods, and result in millions of deaths. Over the past few years, tabloid news outlets have painted a hauntingly vivid picture of a towering, 1,000-foot-tall radioactive tsunami violently crashing onto British shores, pulverizing everything in its path, and transforming whole cities into barren, lifeless lands.
Is Poseidon even real? In ancient Greek mythology, Poseidon was revered as the god of the oceans, protector of sailors and those who worked or traveled at sea. In the current context, “Poseidon” takes on a different meaning, with a destructive weapon capable of causing catastrophic events.
Russia’s Poseidon—also known in the United States as Kanyon, Ocean Multipurpose System, and Status-6—was first revealed by the Russian Navy in 2015 and reportedly tested for the first time in November 2016. The torpedo—a nuclear-powered underwater drone equipped with nuclear weapons—is designed to be launched from submarines. The first Poseidon is expected to be deployed by 2027.
There is buzz that this new weapon is poised to shake the landscape of modern warfare. And this may owe less to its borrowed name than to some unmatched features—at least on paper.
Powered by a compact nuclear reactor, it is believed the Poseidon could travel at unprecedented speeds of 100 knots (185 kilometers per hour), have a range of approximately 10,000 kilometers, and operate at depths of up to 1,000 meters. Designed to evade detection by acoustic tracking devices and other traps, the Poseidon has a diameter of approximately 1.6 to two meters. Particularly riveting is the torpedo’s devastating payload: a nuclear warhead with a likely yield of at least several megatons (with early reports suggesting it could yield up to 100 megatons). For comparison, Russia’s Tsar Bomba—the most powerful nuclear weapon ever tested—had an estimated blast yield of about 50 megatons.
While some reports claim that Russia’s Poseidon may exist only as a propaganda scheme, experts generally agree that the system is “very real” and has received significant resources from the Russian armed forces, although many details remain unknown. Intelligence reports have suggested that Poseidon has undergone many trials, evidenced by the fact that some submarines have been modified and some are being specially built to accommodate for the larger and heavier Poseidon. For instance, the Sarov submarine is believed to have been modified to test Poseidon prototypes. According to TASS, the Russian Navy intends to purchase at least 30 Poseidon torpedoes and deploy them on four submarines.
Poseidon’s origin and roles. The idea of torpedoes fitted with a nuclear warhead was first conceived in the 1950s, when the Soviet Union began two separate programs to develop submarine-launched nuclear torpedoes—the T-5 and the T-15. These programs were part of a broader strategy to expand the Soviet Union’s nuclear capabilities and gain an edge in a nuclear crisis.
In October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Soviet submarine armed with a T-5 nuclear- tipped torpedo came close to launching it against US forces because its commander, Valentin Savitsky, believed that a US-Soviet Union war had already started. It is only because the submarine’s deputy commander, Vasili Arkhipov, convinced other top officers that launching the torpedo would be a fatal mistake that a potential nuclear catastrophe was prevented.
The Poseidon torpedo, however, will have no human onboard to make critical decisions after it has been launched. It will be controlled through a combination of remote communications and onboard automation. These forms of guidance may lead to problems that include hacking by third parties, loss of control because of technical malfunctions, and environmentally caused accidents that may lead to wrong signaling and thus inadvertent escalation.
The Poseidon can be viewed as an evolution in Russia’s nuclear deterrence strategy. Russia currently possesses the Dead Hand, an automated nuclear weapons command system also known as the Perimeter. Established during the Cold War, the Perimeter was created to ensure that, in a crisis, the Soviet Union could respond to a nuclear first strike, even if Russia’s armed forces were destroyed and all its leadership was eliminated. But with the technological advances of US ballistic missile defense systems, the Russian Perimeter system, which concerns intercontinental ballistic missiles only, has lost its preeminence.
Russian authorities describe the Poseidon torpedo as a multi-purpose system, suggesting that it could serve several roles.
It is widely speculated that the Poseidon may have been developed as a reaction to advances in US ballistic missile defense capabilities. In March 2018, Russian President Putin stated that Poseidon and other advanced weapons were developed because of the demise of the 1972 US-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Putin said was “the cornerstone of the international security system.” After the United States pulled out of the treaty in 2002 to build its new national missile defense system, Russia started working on improving their military equipment and weapons to maintain a strong nuclear deterrent capability against US assets.
Besides being touted as a weapon that can circumvent US ballistic missile defenses for use against aircraft carrier groups and coastal targets, Poseidon also reflects Russia’s larger nuclear strategy and doctrine. After the Cold War ended, the United States shifted its focus to de-emphasizing the role of nuclear weapons in its security strategy. But Russia continued to greatly rely on nuclear weapons and even adopted a nuclear doctrine of “escalate to de-escalate,” which consists of using nuclear coercion and messaging tactics to achieve strategic goals. The development and deployment of new nuclear weapons like the Poseidon are considered to contribute to Russia’s broader strategy.”
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