Hattix

The military doctrine during the Cold War and continuing today is MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction. It states that were one side to attack the other, overwhelming and immediate retaliation would result. It was MAD which kept an uneasy peace in the post-WWII years and continues to keep Russia and the US from blowing each other up to this day.

However, the US are tired of keeping the peace and want to achieve something which destroys the concept of MAD: A first strike capability. First strike capacity means that one side is able to launch a strike on the other without fear of crippling retaliation. It makes war all the more likely. The side lacking first strike would feel extremely threatened and the side with first strike would feel they could attack with impunity. The end result is a massive breakdown in stability.

It’s exactly this that the US is seeking to achieve. Under the pretense of defending against missiles from Iran (what missiles?), the US are building missile interception installations in Czech Republic and Poland. Which, I may remind the reader, are nowhere near Iran (nor on a ballistic flightpath from Iran to the US, should Iran ever have that capability) but very much near Russia.

For their part, the Russians are very annoyed and correctly state that the goal is to undermine the global balance of power and global stability. Of course, claims like this need some justification, so let’s give it.

The US counts among its enemies Iran, North Korea and a few others. Iran have missiles with a rough 1,000km range, not enough to even threaten Turkey, let alone Poland. North Korea’s missiles have a greater range but still only regional. They could threaten South Korea and Japan, but that’s about it. North Korea are also entirely in the wrong hemisphere. Iran’s threat is very real, Israel and the US have been trash talking them for the last five years. However, Iran lacks ballistic missiles and the expertise to produce them. The only power in the vicinity with the expertise, the resources and the hardware to warrant anti-missile defences is Russia.

I’m no fan of Moscow, but I find it very hard to disagree with the Russian president when he says “The deployment of new anti-missile forces in Europe has the Russian federation as its aim”