"Pentagon Papers"-Leaker Warns, US Is "Close To Nuclear Armageddon"

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon papers which exposed the government’s lies during the Vietnam war is vocalizing a warning. He says the United States is really close to a nuclear Armageddon.

Ellsberg, now 86-years-old, leaked the Pentagon papers back in 1969 and he’s now got a new book out which serves a warning to those who care to listen.

According to the Daily Mail, Ellsberg’s 7,000-page report was the WikiLeaks disclosure of its time, a sensational breach of government confidentiality that shook Richard Nixon’s presidency and prompted a Supreme Court fight that was supposed to advance press freedom.

In his new book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, Ellsberg details how easy nuclear bombs can be triggered and shot off on a false alarm – and that the president isn’t the only who can launch the nukes, as we are often told. 

Low-level military commanders are capable of launching nuclear weapons too...

“All out-nuclear war - an irreversible, unprecedented and almost unimaginable calamity for civilization and most life on earth  - has been, like the disasters of Chernobyl, Katrina, the Gulf oil spill, Fukushima Daiichi, and before these, World War I, a catastrophe waiting to happen, on a scale infinitely greater than any of these,” writes Ellsberg in his new book.

Adding to fears of a nuclear armageddon is North Korea’s insistence on building a nuclear weapon.  This has created a mass panic in nations all around the globe.  Not to mention, last month, President Donald Trump put North Korea back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation that allows the US to impose more sanctions and risks inflaming tension over North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.

North Korea then denounced Trump’s decision to relist it as a state sponsor of terrorism, calling the move a “serious provocation and violent infringement,” as the rogue nation sentenced the US president to death, saying he “hurt the dignity” of the “supreme leadership.” All of this is alarming, according to Ellsberg, who believes a nuclear war can be started simply by a false alarm.

Nuclear bombs “are susceptible to being triggered on a false alarm, a terrorist action, unauthorized launch or a desperate decision to escalate,” Ellsberg wrote in his book.

 

“They would kill billions of humans, perhaps ending complex life on earth. This is true even though the Cold War that rationalized their existence and hair-trigger status - and their supposed necessity to national security - ended 30 years ago.”

Many US citizens falsely believe that only the US president, in this case, Donald Trump can order the use of nuclear weapons. But Trump isn’t the only military commander authorized to launch nuclear weapons, according to the New York Post.

“There has to be a delegation of authority and capability to launch retaliatory strikes, not only to officials outside the Oval Office but outside Washington too,” Ellsberg wrote.

Ellsberg says that the only way to avoid a nuclear holocaust is full disarmament by the United States and Russia.

“The risk that one city will be destroyed by a single (perhaps terrorist) weapon in the next year or the next decade cannot, unfortunately, be reduced to zero,” Ellsberg writes.

 

“But the danger of near-extinction of humanity - a continuous possibility for the past 65 years - can be reduced to zero by the dismantlement of most existing weapons in both the United States and Russia.”

The Boy Genius Tackling Energy"s Toughest Problem

Authored by Haley Zaremba via OilPrice.com,

In the past year or so an unorthodox think-tank called Helena has been quietly bringing together an eclectic cross-section of brilliant individuals (mostly bright-eyed millennials) with ambitious goals. They’re focusing on the world’s biggest and most insurmountable problems: climate change and global security issues such as artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, and nuclear proliferation.

The elite and edgy group includes Nobel laureates, Hollywood stars, technology entrepreneurs, human rights activists, Fortune-list executives, a North Korean refugee, and more, but one of Helena’s most unique members is undoubtedly the 23-year old nuclear physicist Taylor Wilson, once known as “the boy who played with fusion”.

Taylor Wilson garnered international attention from the science world in 2008 when he became the youngest person in history to produce nuclear fusion at just 14 years old, building a reactor capable of smashing atoms in a plasma core at over 500 million degrees Fahrenheit - 40 times hotter than the core of the sun - in his parents’ garage. And this all happened after he built a bomb at the age of 10. As a child in Texarkana, Arkansas, Taylor became infatuated with nuclear science after trysts with biology, genetics and chemistry. At age 11, while his classmates were playing with Easy-Bake Ovens, Wilson was taking his crack at building a particle accelerator in an effort to makes homemade radioisotopes.

Soon after he created a mini-sun in his garage, the wunderkind won $50,000 at a science fair for building a counterterrorism device that has the ability to detect nuclear materials in cargo containers, an invention which he later presented to Barack Obama in another science fair, this one sponsored by the White House.

In addition to counterterrorism and nuclear fusion, Wilson has also focused his optimistic virtuosity on solving some of the major shortcomings of our health industry. In his teenage years, Wilson also created a production system for medical isotopes that can be injected into patients and used to diagnose and treat cancer. His design costs less than $100,000 and can be wheeled directly into a hospital room, with the hope to replace multimillion-dollar, warehouse-size facilities that serve the same function.

Before he was even legally able to drink a beer, Wilson had already racked up 4 million views between his two (yes, two) TED Talks (Yup, I Built A Nuclear Fusion Reactor and My Radical Plan For Small Nuclear Fission Reactors). He has a published biography written by author Tom Clynes as well as biopic in development to be directed by Jeff Nichols.

At 18, technically no longer a boy wonder but a legally-adult genius, Wilson skipped college and, armed with a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship, went straight to work trying to solve the same seemingly insurmountable problem that has had nuclear scientists scratching their heads for generation: how to translate the awesome power of nuclear fusion into harnessable energy that would change the future of this planet.

Wilson has said that despite this  - or perhaps because of this - assimilating into the science community was no cakewalk. In a profile for the Atlantic in 2012, Wilson said, “These days, the scientific community accepts me. But getting to that point was tremendously hard... when people have dedicated their lives to something—and spent eight years in college—they just expect that a kid wouldn’t be up to doing it.” However, Wilson thinks his greenness is exactly what makes him a forward-thinker and therefore a great scientist.

“Kids have a certain predisposition to do things differently and see the world differently, and that’s helpful... I think that we get a lot of scientists now who are bent into a system, and we lose some of their boldness.”

It’s exactly this young, optimistic, and daring energy that likely brought Wilson to the Helena think tank this year. In this meeting of the millennial minds, from backgrounds as diverse as Texarkana and Pyongyang, from disciplines as far-flung as nuclear fusion and human rights activism, and a whole lot of hopeful energy, it’s hard to think that something incredible won’t come out of it.

For The First Time In 26 Years, US To Put Nuclear Bombers On 24 Hour Alert

The unexpected decision by President Trump to amend an emergency Sept 11 order signed by George W Bush, allowing the Air Force to recall up to 1,000 retired air force pilots to address what the Pentagon has decribed as "an acute shortage of pilots" caught us by surprise. After all, this was the first time we have heard of this particular labor shortage - perhaps there was more to this executive order than meets the eye. Indeed, a just released report may help explain the reasoning behind this presidential decision.

According to Defense One, the US Air Force is preparing to put nuclear-armed bombers back on 24-hour ready alert, a status not seen since the Cold War ended in 1991.

 That means the long-dormant concrete pads at the ends of Barksdale Air Force Base"s 11,000-foot runway — dubbed the “Christmas tree” for their angular markings — could once again find several B-52s parked on them, laden with nuclear weapons and set to take off at a moment’s notice.

“This is yet one more step in ensuring that we’re prepared,” Gen. David Goldfein, Air Force chief of staff, told the publication in an interview during his six-day tour of Barksdale and other U.S. Air Force bases that support the nuclear mission. “I look at it more as not planning for any specific event, but more for the reality of the global situation we find ourselves in and how we ensure we’re prepared going forward.”

Quoted by Defense One, Goldfein and other senior defense officials stressed that the alert order had not been given, but that preparations were under way in anticipation that it might come. That decision would be made by Gen. John Hyten, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, or Gen. Lori Robinson, the head of U.S. Northern Command. STRATCOM is in charge of the military’s nuclear forces and NORTHCOM is in charge of defending North America.

Putting the B-52s back on alert is just one of many decisions facing the Air Force as the U.S. military responds to a changing geopolitical environment that includes North Korea’s rapidly advancing nuclear arsenal, President Trump’s confrontational approach to Pyongyang, and Russia’s increasingly potent and active armed forces.

Goldfein, who is the Air Force’s top officer and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is asking his force to think about new ways that nuclear weapons could be used for deterrence, or even combat.

Quoted by Def One, he said that “the world is a dangerous place and we’ve got folks that are talking openly about use of nuclear weapons. It’s no longer a bipolar world where it’s just us and the Soviet Union. We’ve got other players out there who have nuclear capability. It’s never been more important to make sure that we get this mission right.” During his trip across the country last week, Goldfein encouraged airmen to think beyond Cold War uses for ICBMs, bombers and nuclear cruise missiles.

“I’ve challenged…Air Force Global Strike Command to help lead the dialog, help with this discussion about ‘What does conventional conflict look like with a nuclear element?’ and ‘Do we respond as a global force if that were to occur?’ and ‘What are the options?’” he said. “How do we think about it — how do we think about deterrence in that environment?”

Asked if placing B-52s back on alert — as they were for decades — would help with deterrence, Goldfein said it’s hard to say.

“Really it depends on who, what kind of behavior are we talking about, and whether they’re paying attention to our readiness status,” he said.

Meanwhile, various improvements have already been made to prepare Barksdale — home to the 2d Bomb Wing and Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees the service’s nuclear forces — to return B-52s to an alert posture. Near the alert pads, an old concrete building — where B-52 crews during the Cold War would sleep, ready to run to their aircraft and take off at a moment’s notice — is being renovated.

Inside, beds are being installed for more than 100 crew members, more than enough room for the crews that would man bombers positioned on the nine alert pads outside. There’s a recreation room, with a pool table, TVs and a shuffleboard table. Large paintings of the patches for each squadron at Barksdale adorn the walls of a large stairway.

 

One painting — a symbol of the Cold War — depicts a silhouette of a B-52 with the words “Peace The Old Fashioned Way,” written underneath. At the bottom of the stairwell, there is a Strategic Air Command logo, yet another reminder of the Cold War days when American B-52s sat at the ready on the runway outside.

 

Those long-empty B-52 parking spaces will soon get visits by two nuclear command planes, the E-4B Nightwatch and E-6B Mercury, both which will occasionally sit alert there. During a nuclear war, the planes would become the flying command posts of the defense secretary and STRATCOM commander, respectively. If a strike order is given by the president, the planes would be used to transmit launch codes to bombers, ICBMs and submarines. At least one of the four nuclear-hardened E-4Bs — formally called the National Airborne Operations Center, but commonly known as the Doomsday Plane — is always on 24-hour alert.

Barksdale and other bases with nuclear bombers are preparing to build storage facilities for a new nuclear cruise missile that is under development. During his trip, Goldfein received updates on the preliminary work for a proposed replacement for the 400-plus Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the new long-range cruise missile.

“Our job is options,” Goldfein told Defense One"s Marcus Weisgerber. “We provide best military advice and options for the commander and chief and the secretary of defense. Should the STRATCOM commander require or the NORTHCOM commander require us to [be on] a higher state of readiness to defend the homeland, then we have to have a place to put those forces."

And now that the US is preparing for immediate nuclear war readiness, all it needs is a provocation, one which a world which has never been more on edge over a stray tweet, may have little difficulty in finding...

Fearful Californians Prepare For A Nuclear Attack: "A Lot Of People Will Be Killed"

With each passing day and each new ICBM launch from a seemingly unhinged North Korean dictator, the fears of an attack on the U.S. mainland, though faint, increasingly weigh on the hearts and minds of Americans, particularly those in California.  As The Guardian points out today, those fears have even prompted a group of California public health officials and emergency responders to gather for a strategy session with Hal Kempfer, a retired marine lieutenant colonel, to discuss which areas are the most likely targets and how citizens should respond to an attack.

Hal Kempfer, a noted international security expert, is getting a roomful of California public health officials and emergency responders to think about the unthinkable – a nuclear bomb exploding at the port of Long Beach, about four miles away.

“A lot of people will be killed,” he said, “but a large percentage of the population will survive. They will be at risk and they will need help.”

“If you want to mess up southern California, if you want to mess up the west coast, if you want to mess up our country – where do you attack?” Kempfer asks. “If I’m sitting in North Korea and looking at possible targets, I’m going to be looking at Long Beach very closely.”

He talks about the port and downtown Long Beach being “toast” – no exaggeration, since the blast wave is likely to vaporize everything in its immediate path. But the city health department, the Long Beach airport and fire department might not be; they are all somewhat protected by a hilly area that is likely to halt the initial blast wave. And so the city can, tentatively, think about setting up a center of emergency operations.

Of course, the radioactive fallout created as the explosion gathers up tremendous quantities of dust and ocean water and spits them into the atmosphere would represent a secondary grave risk, especially in the first hours after an attack.

Not to mention the electromagnetic pulse that is likely to knock out electronic systems including phones and computers, the pile-ups expected on the freeways as drivers are blinded by the flash of the explosion, the rush for food, water and gasoline as millions of Angelenos attempt to drive out of the region, and the terror triggered by even the idea of a second, follow-up attack.

Meanwhile, lest you think this was all just a creative way for some public employees to skip work for a day, Ventura County, located just northwest of Los Angeles, has even taken the unusual step of prepping a 250-page plan on how to respond to the humanitarian crisis that would result from a nuclear attack in Los Angeles. 

In fact, their efforts even include this truly bizarre public service announcement that instructs folks to shelter in place and cover windows with plastic.

Of course, as we pointed out back in August, while a global nuclear confrontation is generally viewed as a bad thing, for Ron Hubbard, President of Atlas Survival Shelters in Los Angeles, it has resulted in an economic windfall as a staggering number of Californians have suddenly turned into doomsday preppers.

“It’s crazy, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Ron Hubbard, president of Atlas Survival Shelters, told Fox11. “It’s all over the country. I sold shelters today in North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, California.”

The company, based in Montebello in eastern Los Angeles, sells shelters priced from $10,000 to $100,000. Hubbard told the station that the shelters are designed to be buried 20 feet below ground and can sustain survivors for up to one year, depending on the size and model.

He told the station he had sold more than 30 units in recent days, including to customers in Japan.

All that said, Kempfer points out that there is a silver lining here because any attack from North Korea likely wouldn"t result in "your traditional nuclear apocalypse scenario" because Kim Jong-Un probably only has weapons capable of destroying about 1 square mile at a time.

Rather, it’s likely to be a Hiroshima-sized bomb – large enough to obliterate everything within a square-mile radius and kill tens of thousands of people, either immediately or through the lingering effects of radiation. But still leaving millions of survivors across the region who would need help.

“We’re talking about smaller North Korean things,” Kempfer emphasized, though the word “smaller” sounds very far from reassuring. “This is not your traditional nuclear apocalypse scenario.”

So, Californians at least have that going for them, which is nice.

Chechnya's Leader Claims "Russian Doomsday Device" Is Activated

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya, gave a rare interview to a media outlet in the United States that aired Tuesday, and what he said is taking many aback...

While speaking to HBO’s Real Sports, Kadyrov denied that gay people are humans, that they exist in his region, and that his government regularly detains or tortures them, despite ample reports to the contrary. But that isn’t the news that’s riling up the masses, even though it is concerning that Kadyrov is more than likely committing human rights violations. He also made a troubling comment about his country’s nuclear arsenal and a Russian doomsday device.

Kadyrov said,

“America is not really a strong enough state for us to regard it as an enemy of Russia. We have a strong government and are a nuclear state.

Even if our government was completely destroyed, our nuclear missiles would be automatically deployed. We will put the whole world on its knees and screw it from behind.”

That comment certainly puts the left’s insistence on a war with Russia in perspective.  And Kadyrov is probably being more accurate than not in that statement.

According to The New York Times, Russia built a system in the 1980s that could do what Kadyrov described, known as the Perimeter System. Bruce Blair, the former US nuclear officer who broke the story of the Perimeter System for The New York Times in 1993, told Business Insider that the system works when it detects nuclear explosions. Only a small crew, deep in a bunker, has a hand in the otherwise automated system, according to Blair.

Essentially, if another country conducted a nuclear attack that would destroy the government of Russia or anything a 1980s-era system would perceive as a nuclear attack, an automated system would empty Russia’s missile silos in an immediate counterattack. Blaire’s concern is the automation of such a system. 

“One concern is that it’s highly automated, and cyber attacks, for example, or other phenomena, natural or man-made, could set it off,” Blair said. “It poses a risk of accidental nuclear attack by Russia.”

But there has yet to be an accidental nuclear attack and it’s been over 30 years since the system was first activated. But could the 1980’s technology pose a problem and cause an all out nuclear war? It’s hard to say, and experts are not sure either. “This was designed to retaliate massively against the US. What the specific targets are in this plan no one really knows, but it can be safely assumed it’s large-scale,” Blair said, adding that it would destroy most Americans and most large US cities.

This is troublesome to many Americans, considering the US president is supposed to sign off on any nuclear attack to prevent accidental strikes, and the left is continuing to push the former Soviet Union increasing tensions with Russia. If Washington were incapacitated by a nuclear strike, it’s unclear whether it could respond at all. The US’s nuclear weapons are code-locked and absent the president and a backup in the Pentagon, the US may not be able to respond. Moscow code-locks its weapons as well, but this system would allow it to retaliate even after a nuclear decapitation.

The Government's Plan To Survive Nuclear War Doesn't Include You

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Once again this week, the United States teetered a little closer towards war with the Russians. On Sunday, the US military shot down a Syrian jet that was allegedly targeting US backed forces. The Russians have since claimed that the aircraft was engaging ISIS, and have revealed that their air defense systems will now track any of our aircraft that happen to fly over Western Syria. They also suspended a hotline between the US and Russia that was in place to prevent mid-air collisions over the crowded skies of Syria.

Amid incidents like this, you have to wonder what our government is thinking. For most Americans, Syria must seem inconsequential. Why is our military involved in a country, where we are brushing shoulders with a nuclear armed nation? If it’s to fight ISIS, then we could easily sit back and let Russian and Syrian forces wipe them out. If it’s to affect regime change, then clearly our government hasn’t learned anything from Iraq or Afghanistan. Why are we risking a war with the Russians just to influence the outcome of a regional civil war that has little bearing on the daily lives of most Americans?

The answer to that question could probably fill a novel, but there is one reason that the elites in Washington will never admit to. They can afford to make careless decisions because they are insulated from the results. If there is a war with Russia, which could easily turn into a nuclear war, they’ll have plenty of spacious bunkers to hide out in while the rest of America burns. And that’s been our government’s plan in regards to nuclear war since the beginning of the Cold War.

That’s the main takeaway from a new book called Raven Rock: The Story of the US Government’s Plan to Save Itself. Our government has spent decades building sprawling bunkers, like Raven Rock, that high ranking officials can flee to in the event of a nuclear war.

The idea for Raven Rock was to have a military base that would function as an alternative to the Pentagon and would be dug out of a mountain and deep enough to survive any Russian attack.

 

A site was chosen six miles from Camp David, the Presidential retreat in Maryland, and work began in 1951 on the $17 million project

 

Some 300 men worked round the clock in three shifts to carve a 3,100ft tunnel out of the granite; engineers invented technology as they went along including blast doors and blast valves.

 

Inside the facility there was 100,000sq/ft of office space in five parallel caverns big enough to hold a three story building in each.

 

The entire facility could fit 1,400 people and was placed on giant springs to reduce the impact of a blast.

Via Daily Mail

Meanwhile, as they were building these bunkers and trying to convince Americans that nuclear war could be easily survivable, behind the scenes they knew it would be a bloodbath for civilians.

At the end of the 1950s, the FCDA created ‘Battleground USA’, a grim 120-page report on how cities should manage civil defense operations in the event of an attack.

 

It said that the area should be divided into ‘mortuary zones’ with ‘collection teams’ in charge of identifying bodies.

Post Office mail trucks would ferry the wounded to one of 900 improvised hospitals set up near attack sites in places like federal prisons.

 

In Kansas officials planned to confiscate household vitamins for use by the general population.

 

Planners estimated they could assemble two million pounds of food after an attack from their own reserves and from stores.

They could also could find 11 million ‘man-days’ of food in the forests and plains in rabbit meat, 10 million ‘man-days of wild birds and five million ‘man-days’ of fish.

 

Most chillingly they budgeted nearly 20 million ‘man-days’ of meat in residential pets.

 

It was disturbing reading and a view of the world that summed up by Eisenhower in one meeting: ‘The destruction might be such that we might ultimately have to go back to bows and arrows’

 

During another meeting Eisenhower admitted that nation didn’t have ‘enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the street’ in the event of a nuclear strike’.

And as we all know, our government didn’t take many measures to protect civilians from the potential carnage that would be inflicted by a nuclear war. They didn’t build many bunkers for the rest of us.

At first glance that may sound like an impossible task, but it’s not. Take Switzerland for instance. Despite not having any nuclear weapons, they’ve built enough fallout shelters to house every Swiss citizen. You might say that we could never afford that many shelters, but it’s not a question of cost. Switzerland’s GDP per capita is similar to America’s.

The truth of the matter, is that our leaders don’t give a damn about what happens to American civilians. As long as they have their bunkers, they feel safe while antagonizing nuclear armed nations like Russia. They know that if there’s a war, they’ll survive while the rest of us burn and starve.

Make no mistake, if there’s ever a war with Russia, you’ll be on your own. Whether or not you survive depends entirely on your willingness and ability to prepare now.

Putin Warns Of "Hot War" And Nuclear Holocaust: "I Don't Think Anyone Would Survive"

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

With tensions among the world’s super powers mounting in places like Ukraine, Syria, North Korea and  most recently Qatar and Iran, it may only be a matter of time before someone pushes the red button.

When they do, all bets are off, and as we’ve learned from the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in June of 1914, once the trigger is pulled there’s no going back and hundreds of millions of lives, perhaps billions, will hang in the balance.

Considering that Russia is closely allied with Syrian President Assad, has a direct interest in maintaining control of Ukraine’s former Crimea region, and its ties to Iran, ignoring the possibility of a global war in coming years could be a devastating oversight.

We are, in fact, at war right now. But just as was the case from the 1960’s through the end of the 1980’s, it is a “cold war.” There have been no direct troop engagements that we know of between the Russians and the United States. But look to cyber space and it should be clear that there is a battle taking place on a daily basis. Moreover, as we’ve previously reported, nuclear war may well be on the horizon, because the confrontations taking place on the geo-political stage are no longer just talk.

Action has already been taken by both sides:

Putin and the Russian people believe the U.S.’s actions are going to lead to a nuclear conflict initiated by the United States.  The leadership of the U.S. is made up of politicians who began their careers as Marxist-Socialists.  Traitors now have their fingers on the triggers of the nuclear warheads, aided by “yes-men” of the general staffs who will not remember their oaths to the Constitution of the United States and the American people.  They will ignore that these charges take precedence above any orders given by a petty, dope-smoking, Marxist community organizer of dubious citizenship who was “emplaced” into office to destroy the country.

Instead of statesmen and diplomats, we now have self-interested, politically-motivated belligerents backing Russia and other nations into corners and pushing them toward war.  How long the war of words will be continued is unknown; however, when the missiles begin to fly you can be certain of something.  You can rest assured that the men who spoke those words will be in bunkers and other safe places and out of harm’s way…paid for by the American taxpayer.

Full Report: Nuclear War Is On The Horizon: “This Is Not Just Talk… Action Has Been Taken”

Indeed, those who push the buttons will likely be in bunkers well before the missiles hit their targets. That’ll likely be the case on both sides.

For the rest of us?

Vladimir Putin has made clear how it will play out:

The Putin Interviews between the Russian leader and the Oscar-winning director, which will be screened on Showtime, were shot between summer 2015 and February this year and give an extraordinary insight into one of the most powerful men in the world.

 

Stone asked Putin whether the US would be ‘dominant’ in the event of a ‘hot war’ between the two nuclear powers.

 

‘I don’t think anyone would survive such a conflict,’ Putin said.

Earlier this year the hacking collective Anonymous issued a frightening warning about World War III, highlighting the fact that while we are all busy enjoying the good times, elite Deep State insiders are planning for what comes next:

All the signs of a looming war on the Korean Peninsula are surfacing… we’re watching as each country moves strategic pieces into place… but unlike past world wars… although there will be ground troops the battle is likely to be fierce, brutal and quick.

It will also be globally devastating on the environmental and economic levels.

…

This is a real war with real global consequences… With three super powers drawn into the mix… Other nations will be coerced into choosing sides.

…

The citizen will be the last to know…

Video

And because the citizen will be the last to know, now may be a good time to review your nuclear war preparedness strategies and stock up on survival essentials that should include FDA approved anti-radiation pills and NBC rated tactical gas masks.

The elite will have plenty to go around in their bunkers, but you can be 100% assured that none of the supplies they’ve been stockpiling for the last decade will ever make their way to the general population.

Prepare accordingly.

U.S. Test Fires Missile Off Calif. Coast; Can Carry Nuclear Weapons, Travel 8,000 Miles

Image source: Vandenberg Air Force Base

The U.S. Air Force Wednesday morning successfully test fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that is capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

The test – the second one in the past week — came as the crisis with North Korea continued to escalate.

Both missiles were fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and flew more than 4,000 miles across the Pacific before splashing down in the ocean. The tests came days after North Korea tested its own missile.

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Each U.S. missile is capable of traveling more than 8,000 miles.

“These Minuteman launches are essential to verify the status of our national nuclear force and to demonstrate our national nuclear capabilities,” Colonel John Moss, the commander of the 30^th Space Wing, told the Associated Press.

Air Force officials said the test had been planned for months.

The missiles, which carried no payload, splashed down in the Pacific near Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, about 2,500 miles south of Hawaii.

The missile was a Minuteman III.

The U.S. has about 450 such missiles.

What is your reaction? Share it in the section below:

Russian Senator Warns UK "Risks Being Wiped Off The Face Of The Earth"

It would appear that British defense minister Michael Fallon"s comments that The UK could launch a preemptive nuclear strike "in the most extreme circumstances," was not an implicit threat that the deputy head of the Russian Federation Council’s Committee for Defense and Security took lightly.

In a terse Facebook posted response, Frants Klintsevich raged:

"I think that the statement by the minister of defence of Britain"s Michael Fallon deserves a harsh response, and I"m not afraid to push him over the edge.

At best this statement should be seen as a certain element of psychological warfare, which looks especially revolting in this context.

There is a quite natural question then: what country could be primitively targeted by the UK?

If against nuclear power, the United Kingdom, which doesn"t have the greatest of territories, will literally be erased from the face of the earth with a retaliatory strike.

But if it is targeting a non-nuclear power, this will remind of the US nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But that time has long passed, as has the time of the former greatness of the British empire."

As RT reports, Klintsevich"s comment comes after Fallon on Monday said that the UK is prepared to carry out a preemptive nuclear strike against any enemies, even if Britain is not under attack.

“In the most extreme circumstances we have made it very clear that you can’t rule out the use of nuclear weapons as a first strike,” Fallon said on the BBC’s Today program, however not specifying what “most extreme circumstances” imply.

“The whole point about the deterrent is that you have got to leave uncertainty in the mind of anyone who might be thinking of using weapons against this country,” he said.

With North Korea and now US test-launching their nukes, and Thaad being deployed uncomfortably close to China and Russian borders, it is no surprise that a recent report by the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) showed that the threat of a “nuclear weapon detonation event,” accidental or deliberate, is “arguably at its highest in the 26 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union,” as relations between nuclear powers continue to deteriorate.

Japanese Demand For Nuclear Shelters Soars Amid North Korea Tensions

While Hawaiian officials are pushing to re-open fallout shelters, the people of another island (considerably closer, and well within range) are actively preparing for a worst case scenario from North Korea. As Reuters reports, sales of nuclear shelters and radiation-blocking air purifiers have surged in Japan in recent weeks as North Korea has pressed ahead with missile tests in defiance of U.N. sanctions.

Japan is well within range of already-tested North Korean missiles...

And that has prompted aoring demand among the Japanese people...

A small company that specializes in building nuclear shelters, generally under people"s houses, has received eight orders in April alone compared with six orders during a typical year. The company, Oribe Seiki Seisakusho, based in Kobe, western Japan, also has sold out of 50 Swiss-made air purifiers, which are said to keep out radiation and poisonous gas, and is trying to get more, said Nobuko Oribe, the company"s director.

"It takes time and money to build a shelter. But all we hear these days, in this tense atmosphere, is that they want one now," Oribe said. "They ask us to come right away and give them an estimate."

A purifier designed for six people sells for 620,000 yen ($5,630) and one designed for 13 people and usually installed in a family-use shelter costs 1.7 million yen ($15,440).

Some orders for the shelters were placed by owners of small-sized companies for their employees, and others by families, Oribe said.

A nuclear shelter for up to 13 people costs about 25 million yen ($227,210) and takes about four months to build, he said.

The shelter his company offers is a reinforced, air-tight basement with an air purifier that can block radiation as well as poisonous gas. The room is designed to withstand a blast even when a Hiroshima-class nuclear bomb exploded just 660 meters away, Oribe said.

Concerns about a possible gas attack have grown in Japan after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a parliament session this month that North Korea may have the capacity to deliver missiles equipped with sarin nerve gas.

And the Japanese government is now urging local governments to hold evacuation drills in case of a possible missile attack, heightening a sense of urgency among the public.

Tensions Rise: China On ‘High Alert’; North Korea Warns Of Preemptive Strike On U.S.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula continued to escalates this week, as North Korea warned it was considering striking the United States even if the U.S. doesn’t attack first.

“In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only U.S. imperialists’ invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the U.S. mainland and reduce them to ashes,” The Rodong Sinmun, an official state paper, warned.

The statement came merely hours after U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said that an “era of strategic patience” with North Korea was over and the same week that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States would not continue the same strategy from the past.

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“We’re reviewing all the status of North Korea, both in terms of state sponsorship of terrorism as well as the other ways in which we can bring pressure on the regime in Pyongyang to re-engage with us, but re-engage with us on a different footing than past talks have been held,” Tillerson said.

Meanwhile, China’s military has placed its bombers “on high alert” and is prepared to respond to any military activity in North Korea, a U.S. defense official told CNN. The goal likely is to “reduce the time to react to a North Korea contingency,” the official said

China has two concerns: 1) refugees from North Korea fleeing across the border to China, and, 2) North Korea collapsing and reunifying with South Korea.

In 2015, 83 percent of North Korea’s exports and 85 percent of its imports involved China.

It isn’t known how many nuclear weapons North Korea, a very reclusive nation, has. The U.S.-Korea Institute said in a 2016 report that North Korea possesses “enough fissile material to build anywhere from six to about 30 nuclear weapons.” China in 2015 said North Korea has 20 nuclear weapons, and a U.S. Congressional report said between six and 10.

What do you believe the Trump administration’s strategy toward North Korea should be? Share your thoughts in the section below:

Risk Of "Accidental" Nuclear War Growing, UN Research Group Says

Authored by Patrick Turner via DefenseOne.com,

The warning comes as the Pentagon begins an extensive review of its nuclear arsenal.

On Sept., 26, 1983, shortly after midnight, the Soviet Oko nuclear early warning system detected five missiles launched from the United States and headed toward Moscow. Stanislav Petrov, a young lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defense Force, was the duty in the Serpukhov-15 bunker that housed the Oko command center. Petrov was the man in charge of alerting the soviets about a nuclear attack, which would trigger a retaliatory strike. He determined that the Oko had likely malfunctioned and the alarm was false. The Americans would not start World War III with a quintet of missiles (risking total annihilation.) It was a daring judgment call. He was, of course, right. As the U.S. prepares to undertake a new nuclear posture review to determine the future direction of the nation’s nuclear weapons, a report from a United Nations research institute warns that the risks of a catastrophic error — like the one that took place that early morning in 1983 — are growing, not shrinking. Next time, there may be no Lt. Col. Petrov in place to avoid a catastrophe.

On Monday, the U.S. Defense Department commenced a new, massive study into its nuclear weapons arsenal, looking at how weapons are kept, how the U.S. would use them in war and whether they present an intimidating enough threat to other countries not to attack us. The review was mandated by President Trump in a Jan 27, memo.

The Pentagon is scheduled to complete the review by the end of the year, an essential step as the military seeks to modernize different aspects of its nuclear deterrent. But a new report from the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, or UNIDR, argues that as the modern battlefield becomes more technologically complex, crowded with more sensors, satellites, drones, and interconnected networks, the risks of another nuclear accident are on the rise.

“A greater reliance on automated systems can lead to misplaced confidence while introducing new points of vulnerability,” says the report. Those new points of vulnerability include so-called “hidden interactions.” That means a sensor or computer program misinterpreting some bit of data and possibly presenting false information in a way that could cause an accident.

The 1987 incident provides a good case in point. Oko satellites mistook a very unusual sunspot on top of a high altitude cloud as a missile strike, hence the false alarm.

Take those satellites, combine them with sensors on drones and data from other sources as well, including new, perhaps unproven technologies to detect missile launches and the picture becomes much more crowded and murky.

“The complex interactions and tightly coupled systems linked to nuclear arsenals (like those for early warning, and launch command and control) have made ‘accidental war more likely’” the report’s authors say.

Add to that the fact that the number of states that have access to nuclear weapons is increasing, and the number of platforms that they might be able to use to deliver those weapons is also going up. Consider the controversial U.S. plans for a long-range standoff weapon, or LRSO, basically a big nuclear cruise missile that can be fired off a fighter jet.  Reports have surfaced that the U.S. is even considering nuclear-armed drones (that would be remotely operated by human pilots and the degree of seriousness in the considerations is up to debate).

Those might sound like awesome capabilities but they increase the chances of a nuclear accident or retaliatory strike, according to the authors of the report, because such weapons essentially turn every jet and drone into a potential nuclear threat in the eyes of an adversary.

“The spread of other systems, such as cruise missiles and drones, and their increasingly frequent use in military conflicts can also add to the complexity of the situation, as can the development of capabilities to detect missiles,” writes Russian arms expert Pavel Podvig in the report.

Rising tensions and eroding trust between the U.S. and Russia don’t bode well stability. “The intensity of interactions between the United States and Russian militaries, although lower than during the height of the Cold War, does not show signs of decreasing,” he notes.

The digital interlinks that will emerge between nuclear weapons and other systems are another threat factor. “The myth that nuclear facilities and platforms are air-gapped — meaning they are not connected to the Internet — is gradually decreasing as nuclear establishments are increasingly informed about cyber threats,” write information security researchers Patricia Lewis and Beyza Unal in the report.

They identify several potential cyber vulnerabilities in nuclear command and control systems — not in nuclear weapons themselves — but in the technologies around them and the methods that operators use to control those weapons or make decisions about using them. The key targets that the researchers identify include: communications between command-and-control centers, targeting information from ground stations, and “robotic autonomous systems within the strategic infrastructure.”

The U.S. and other nations may have closed those portholes, or partially closed them, or not at all. The lack of transparency about the nuclear exercise makes it impossible to know and increases risk.  “Academic and policy analysis on nuclear weapons facilities and nuclear command and control systems is still in its infancy, due to the secrecy surrounding nuclear weapons systems and the underinvestment in research into potential problems until recently,” they write.

But, again, those are just potential vulnerabilities. The U.S. is currently modernizing the communications network it would use in the event of a nuclear conflict, the Minimum Essential Emergency Communications Network, or MEECN, to improve efficiency. That sounds great, however, every new system, center, or device that’s connected to the MEECN is a potential vulnerability.

Today, it’s impossible for an adversary to hack into the current the ICBM arsenal. But that may not be the case forever. Military researchers anticipate that future ICBMs, as well as bombers, will exhibit “some level of connectivity to the rest of the war-fighting system,” Werner J.A. Dahm, the chair of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board told Defense One last December.

Importantly, an adversary does not even have to exploit a cyber vulnerability either in nuclear weapons or the communications lines or data gathering sensors around them in order to create a cyber nuclear crisis. They just have to convince the adversary that they have that ability. “Loss of trust in technology has further implications for attribution and strategic calculus in crisis decision-making and may increase the risk of misperception,"  write Lewis and Unal.

China Warns North Korea Situation Has Hit "Tipping Point", Threatens "Never Before Seen" Measures

After warnings yesterday, and on the heels of a "very good call" with President Trump, China has escalated its threats to North Korea over its nuclear tests. In another Global Times op-ed, China warns "if the North makes another provocative move this month, the Chinese society will be willing to adopt severe restrictive measures that have never been seen before..."

Yesterday"s editorial in the military-focused Global Times tabloid, owned and operated by the Communist Party"s People"s Daily newspaper, said that North Korea’s nuclear activities must not jeopardize northeastern China, and that if the North impacts China with its illicit nuclear tests through either "nuclear leakage or pollution", then China will respond with force.

“China has a bottom line that it will protect at all costs, that is, the security and stability of northeast China... If the bottom line is touched, China will employ all means available including the military means to strike back. By that time, it is not an issue of discussion whether China acquiesces in the US’ blows, but the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will launch attacks to DPRK nuclear facilities on its own."

This, as the editorial puts it, is the "bottom line" for China; should it be crossed China will employ all means available including the military means to strike back," warned the editorial.

Overnight, Trump and Xi held a call, which Trump said went well...

Had a very good call last night with the President of China concerning the menace of North Korea.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2017

And today we see another Global Times editorial somewhat supporting US and increasing its threats to North Korea...

Washington"s latest threat to Pyongyang is more credible given its just launched missile attack at an air base in Syria. The Korean Peninsula has never been so close to a military clash since the North conducted its first nuclear test in 2006.

If Pyongyang conducts its sixth nuclear test in the near future, the possibility of US military action against it will be higher than ever. Not only Washington brimming with confidence and arrogance following the missile attacks on Syria, but Trump is also willing to be regarded as a man who honors his promises.

Now the Trump team seems to have decided to solve the North Korean nuclear crisis. As the discussion runs deeper, a situation of no-solution will not be accepted.

A new nuclear test or an intercontinental ballistic missile test, if conducted by Pyongyang at this time, will be a slap in the face of the US government and will intensify the confrontation between North Korea and the US.

Presumably Beijing will react strongly to Pyongyang"s new nuclear actions. China will not remain indifferent to Pyongyang"s aggravating violation of the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution.

More and more Chinese support the view that the government should enhance sanctions over Pyongyang"s nuclear activities. If the North makes another provocative move this month, the Chinese society will be willing to see the UNSC adopt severe restrictive measures that have never been seen before, such as restricting oil imports to the North. Pyongyang"s nuclear weapons program is intended for securing the regime, however, it is reaching a tipping point. Pyongyang hopes its gamble will work, but all signs point to the opposite direction.

The US is making up its mind to stop the North from conducting further nuclear tests, it doesn"t plan to co-exist with a nuclear-armed Pyongyang.

As we concluded yesterday, after China"s initial warning; the most notable part of the oped is the mention in the Global Times editorial that North Korea will not be "not allowed to have a government that is hostile against China on the other side of the Yalu River."  This implies that if and when the US initiate strikes on NK, the Chinese PLA will likely send out troops "to lay the foundation" for a favorable post-war situation.

In other words, China may be just waiting for Trump to "decapitate" the North Korean regime, to pounce and immediately fill the power vacuum.

Here's How The Deep State Is Trying To Lead Trump Into A Nuclear War

Via Daniel Lang of SHTFplan.com,

Before Donald trump took office, he promised to rebuild the US military by diverting a lot more funding into the armed forces. And when he made that promise, he wasn’t just talking about our conventional forces. He also proposed expanding America’s nuclear capability; a position he recently reiterated in an interview with Reuters. He stated that “It would be wonderful, a dream would be that no country would have nukes, but if countries are going to have nukes, we’re going to be at the top of the pack.”

If Trump is really going to reinvigorate our nuclear program (a decision that many experts fear could spark another arms race), then he needs to be very careful about who he listens to. That’s because some of the high ranking officials in our government have some certifiably insane ideas on what a nuclear arsenal should look like. Recently a Pentagon panel known as The Defense Science Board, told the Trump administration that they need to remake our nuclear arsenal into a force that is capable of engaging in a “limited” nuclear war.

According to the report, “The Defense Science Board … urges the president to consider altering existing and planned U.S. armaments to achieve a greater number of lower-yield weapons that could provide a ‘tailored nuclear option for limited use.’”

The strategy behind limited nuclear use sounds deceptively simple. You need to escalate a conflict just enough to end it.

As the theory goes, using low-yield nuclear weapons against an adversary’s conventional forces will demonstrate that you mean serious business and might be crazy enough to launch an all out nuclear attack. This will cause the enemy to “blink” and ultimately back down, rather than risk global thermonuclear war or continue conventional hostilities.

There’s only one problem with the idea of engaging in a limited nuclear war. It simply can’t be done. Any limited nuclear war would eventually lead to a full scale nuclear war.

The lynchpin of a limited nuclear war is the tactical nuke. These are nuclear weapons that have a much smaller yield than a strategic nuke. Whereas a strategic nuke might have a yield of half a megaton or more, a tactical nuke is usually somewhere in the ballpark with the atomic weapons that we used on Japan, but usually smaller than that. They’re for use on the battlefield, possibly within close proximity to friendly forces. And there’s a reason why our government has been slowly phasing them out for decades. Just because they make a smaller crater, doesn’t mean they make a smaller impact.

When you use a tactical nuke, you’re still using a nuke. It doesn’t matter that it’s not large enough to destroy an entire city (though some of them can). By using them, you’re telling the enemy that you’re willing to use nukes. You’re saying that you’re willing to rain radioactive fallout on their territory. You’re willing to engage in total war.

The only appropriate response to that is escalation. The enemy has to show you that they can do the same thing. In war, both parties aren’t thinking “gee, how the heck do I get out of this?” They’re thinking, “how do I win” and “how do I get back at the other guy” and “how do I teach my enemy a lesson he won’t forget.” Limited nuclear war doctrine doesn’t burn the bridge between conventional war and full on nuclear holocaust. It builds that bridge.

This should be common sense. All you have to do is imagine what would happen if Russia dropped a relatively small, 10 kiloton nuke on an American military base in Europe. Would the US government respond with capitulation? Nobody in their right mind believes that.

And let’s pretend for a moment that a limited nuclear war is possible. What would that do? It would normalize nuclear warfare. It would make nukes a viable option in every single war. Every conflict would leave behind a trail of radioactive fallout and mass civilian casualties.

Hopefully brighter minds will prevail, because whoever is proposing this notion of limited nuclear conflict, needs to change out their dress uniform for a freaking straight jacket.

Which Nation Do Americans See As Their Greatest Enemy (Spoiler Alert: It's Not Russia)

Back to work "deep state", neocons, and Clinton apologists, because America is not buying the narrative that Russia is their greatest enemy.

Americans have consistently identified ISIS as the biggest threat to their nation across multiple polls. Traditional foes, such as the countries making up George W. Bush"s infamous "Axis Of Evil", have been pushed into the background by the rise of non-state actors like Al-Qaeda and ISIS. In recent years however, Statista"s Niall McCarthy notes that the threat presented by some of America"s traditional enemies has started to manifest itself once again. Russia"s annexation of Crimea came as a reality check to the Obama administration while as recently as last Saturday, North Korea conducted a ballistic missile test.

YouGov conducted a poll to find out which countries Americans perceive as their nation"s biggest enemies. North Korea has continued to make headlines even after that missile launch with news emerging earlier this week that Kim-Jong-un"s half brother was allegedly poisoned in an airport in Malaysia. Both incidents have illustrated the unpredictability of the nuclear-armed regime in Pyongyang and it comes as little surprise that 57 percent of Americans consider North Korea their enemy.

Some of the entries on the upper portion of the infographic below are surprising. Iraq and Afghanistan were considered U.S. enemies by 29 and 23 percent of respondents respectively, despite their governments being key U.S. allies in the fight against Islamic extremism. Iran was labelled an enemy by 41 percent of Americans, even though a deal was signed last year to prevent Tehran developing nuclear weapons.

This chart shows the percentage of American adults considering these countries an enemy of the U.S.

You will find more statistics at Statista

Finally, we note that "Media" did not make it on the list (yet).