The US military from the Vandenberg Air Force Base published a message about the successful launch of the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile. At the same time, the Pentagon emphasizes that the tests were planned and that the department warned Russian colleagues in advance about its intentions — no matter what happened.
It so happened that this is the second news since the beginning of September related to the most formidable weapon on the planet — nuclear. It is noteworthy that the first came from Russia: the newest Sarmatians took up combat duty.
And this is indeed a very good informational background for domestic gunsmiths. The American LGM-30 Minuteman III has been in service since 1970 and is obsolete. As Time magazine noted, «the entire fleet of ICBMs has less processing power than the smartphone in your pocket.» It should be noted that nuclear weapons are not valued for the speed of the processor, and your mobile phone will hardly be able to wipe out the city, but the comparison is nonetheless significant.
LGM-30, as befits a missile that has been on combat duty for half a century, loses to Sarmat in all respects: range, power, speed, ability to bypass missile defenses. It is rather comparable to Topol, but, unlike it, it does not have the option of being placed on mobile media — only in mines.
And here, of course, I would like to draw a tempting conclusion that Russia has left the United States far behind in this field. This is certainly true. Moreover, the revolutionary nature of «Sarmat» is recognized in the West. According to the Daily Mail, the appearance of such weapons in Russia has made anti-missile systems useless. And their colleagues at Newsweek note that one such missile «is capable of destroying Texas or France.» ://ria.ru/20230904/bayden-1893951836.html» data->
However, two things should not be forgotten. First, the United States does not put ICBMs at the head of its nuclear doctrine — the Americans place more than half of the deployed nuclear carriers on submarines. This figure is planned to be increased to 70 percent with the commissioning of Columbia-class submarines.
Second point: The Minutemen won't have long to go. By 2030, they plan to replace them with more modern Sentinels, which, according to the Pentagon, should be the answer to the Sarmatians. Yes, while their production is not going as smoothly as planned in Washington: the timing of the adoption of the new «Guardians» into service has already been shifted by a year, and in light of the lack of personnel in production and problems with supply chains, it may take place even later, but discount this factor is impossible.
And all these circumstances willy-nilly bring us back to the discussion about the possibility of Russia using weapons of mass destruction. There are enough supporters of a preemptive strike with tactical nuclear weapons, as well as opponents of the discussions about it, not to mention the possibility of using them.
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In this situation, I would like to note that attempts to use WMD are dangerous by legitimizing any means of response available to the enemy. In the case of the United States and its NATO allies, this could be a massive retaliatory strike, fraught with a full-scale nuclear war. In the case of Ukraine, it is an attempt to use a dirty bomb, which will entail catastrophic consequences.
At the same time, nuclear weapons have been and remain a trump card available to only a few powers in this world. And Moscow's opponents should have a clear understanding: in the event of a sufficiently acute threat to Russian statehood, this weapon will certainly be used without the slightest hesitation. Because the possible doubts of the West about the readiness of the Kremlin to use the last argument of the superpowers is a global threat to all mankind.