The Prophecy is much more than seeing into the future. For the Prophecy sees without the element of time. For the Prophecy sees what is, what was, and what always shall be. 11:11 LLC
Russian President Vladimir Putin with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the Russian military’s General Staff, September 13, 2021.
Senior US officials told the publication that the group of Russian military leaders had discussed how and when Russia might deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
The report said that Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has ultimate authority over their deployment, was not part of the conversations, the Times reported.
But US officials did tell the Times that there was no sign that nuclear weapons were being readied for use by Russia.
And National Security Council official John F. Kirby told the Times that “We continue to monitor this as best we can, and we see no indications that Russia is making preparations for such use.”
It is not clear when exactly these Russian military conversations took place, but the Times reported that the US government got intelligence about them in mid-October.
Tactical nuclear weapons are designed for use on the battlefield, and even though they have a lower destructive capacity than those designed to destroy whole cities, they could still kill thousands and render parts of Ukraine uninhabitable.
According to the Times, it was unclear what specific situations might lead to a nuclear strike by Russia.
CIA Director William Burns has previously said that Putin’s “potential desperation” to achieve victory in Ukraine, and the failures of the Russian military, could prompt the use of a nuclear weapon.
In recent weeks, the Ukrainian military has pushed Russia back across a swath of territory in east Ukraine.
Reports have spread of hastily mobilized Russian civilians sent into battle with little to no training or equipment in response to high battlefield casualties.
Hussein al-Sheikh meets with the EU representative in the PA (Hussein al-Sheikh’s Twitter account, October 27, 2022).
The scene of one of the attacks (Shehab Twitter account October 30, 2022).
Festive process in Hebron after the shooting attack at Kiryat Arba (Paldf Twitter account, October 29, 2022).
Baghdadi wearing a Lion’s Den uniform (Shehab Twitter account, October 25, 2022).
Isma’il Haniyeh meets with a spokesman of the Taliban government (Hamas website, October 25, 2022).
Sign from the ceremony. At the right and left are smell pictures of terrorists Qais Shejaiya and Tamer al-Kilani (ministry of the interior in Gaza, October 25, 2022)
The deputy secretary of the interior gives a speech at the ceremony (ministry of the interior in Gaza website, October 25, 2022).
Muhammad Awda al-Talbani (Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades website, October 27, 2022)
Shakr Dabour (al-Qassam website, October 29, 2022).
Mahmoud Abbas meets with the Mufti in Jerusalem (Wafa, October 27, 2022).
Muhammad Shtayyeh meets with the president of Singapore (Muhammad Shtayyeh’s Facebook page, October 27, 2022).
Muhammad Shtayyeh meets with the president of Indonesia (Muhammad Shtayyeh’s Facebook page, October 24, 2022).
Muhammad Shtayyeh meets with the vice president of the World Bank for the Middle East and North Africa (Wafa, October 30, 2022).
Hussein al-Sheikh meets with the EU representative in the PA (Hussein al-Sheikh’s Twitter account, October 27, 2022).
The scene of one of the attacks (Shehab Twitter account October 30, 2022).
Festive process in Hebron after the shooting attack at Kiryat Arba (Paldf Twitter account, October 29, 2022).
Baghdadi wearing a Lion’s Den uniform (Shehab Twitter account, October 25, 2022).
Mourning notice issued by the AAMB for the death of Mashal Baghdadi (AAMB Telegram channel, October 25, 2022).
Isma’il Haniyeh meets with a spokesman of the Taliban government (Hamas website, October 25, 2022).
Sign from the ceremony. At the right and left are smell pictures of terrorists Qais Shejaiya and Tamer al-Kilani (ministry of the interior in Gaza, October 25, 2022)
The deputy secretary of the interior gives a speech at the ceremony (ministry of the interior in Gaza website, October 25, 2022).
Muhammad Awda al-Talbani (Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades website, October 27, 2022)
Shakr Dabour (al-Qassam website, October 29, 2022).
Mahmoud Abbas meets with the Mufti in Jerusalem (Wafa, October 27, 2022).
Muhammad Shtayyeh meets with the president of Singapore (Muhammad Shtayyeh’s Facebook page, October 27, 2022).
Muhammad Shtayyeh meets with the president of Indonesia (Muhammad Shtayyeh’s Facebook page, October 24, 2022).
Muhammad Shtayyeh meets with the vice president of the World Bank for the Middle East and North Africa (Wafa, October 30, 2022).
Hussein al-Sheikh meets with the EU representative in the PA (Hussein al-Sheikh’s Twitter account, October 27, 2022).
This past week Palestinians carried out five terrorist attacks: a double vehicular ramming attack at the Nebi Musa and the Almog Junctions in the Jordan Valley, in which five IDF soldiers were wounded; a shooting attack near Kiryat Arba, in which one civilian was killed and three were wounded; a shooting attack near Bani Na’im, no Israeli casualties reported; a shooting attack in Hawwara (near Nablus), no Israeli casualties reported; and a stabbing attack near al-Funduq (east of Qalqilya), in which one civilian was injured. Palestinians continued throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli vehicles on the roads in Judea and Samaria.
In the meantime, the Israeli security forces continued counterterrorism activities in Judea and Samaria. Four operatives of the Lion’s Den terrorist network, including a commander, surrendered to the Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces. The Lion’s Den claimed they had surrendered of their own accord and that the network’s operations were unaffected.
The Gaza Strip was relatively quiet. The funds from Qatar were distributed to 100,000 needy families. The Hamas administration monitoring committee allotted funds for the development of a reception hall for workers at the Beit Hanoun roadblock (the Palestinian side of the Erez Crossing) to facilitate the crossing of local residents.
Senior Hamas figures met with a Taliban delegation from Afghanistan to discuss the possibility of increased cooperation.
Mahmoud Abbas met with the Mufti of the PA and Jerusalem. PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh conducted official visits in Indonesia and Singapore.
Living on the Fault Line A major earthquake isn’t likely here, but if it comes, watch out. Posted June 15, 2010 by Wayne J. Guglielmo This chart shows the location of the Ramapo Fault System, the longest and one of the oldest systems of cracks in the earth’s crust in the Northeast. It also shows the location of all earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or greater in New Jersey during the last 50 years. The circle in blue indicates the largest known Jersey quake. The couple checked with Burns’s parents, who live in nearby Basking Ridge, and they, too, had heard and felt something, which they thought might have been an earthquake. A call by Burns some 20 minutes later to the Bernardsville Police Department—one of many curious and occasionally panicky inquiries that Sunday morning, according to the officer in charge, Sergeant John Remian—confirmed their suspicion: A magnitude 2.6 earthquake, its epicenter in Peapack/Gladstone, about seven miles from Bernardsville, had hit the area. A smaller aftershock followed about two and a half hours later. After this year’s epic earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, Mexico, Indonesia, and China, the 2.6 quake and aftershock that shook parts of New Jersey in February may seem minor league, even to the Somerset County residents who experienced them. On the exponential Richter Scale, a magnitude 7.0 quake like the one that hit Haiti in January is almost 4 million times stronger than a quake of 2.6 magnitude. But comparisons of magnitude don’t tell the whole story. Northern New Jersey straddles the Ramapo Fault, a significant ancient crack in the earth’s crust. The longest fault in the Northeast, it begins in Pennsylvania and moves into New Jersey, trending northeast through Hunterdon, Somerset, Morris, Passaic, and Bergen counties before terminating in New York’s Westchester County, not far from the Indian Point Energy Center, a nuclear power plant. And though scientists dispute how active this roughly 200 million-year-old fault really is, many earthquakes in the state’s surprisingly varied seismic history are believed to have occurred on or near it. The fault line is visible at ground level and likely extends as deep as nine miles below the surface. During the past 230 years or so, New Jersey has been at the epicenter of nearly 170 earthquakes, according to data compiled by the New Jersey Geological Survey, part of the United States Department of Environmental Protection. The largest known quake struck in 1783, somewhere west of New York City, perhaps in Sussex County. It’s typically listed as 5.3 in magnitude, though that’s an estimate by seismologists who are quick to point out that the concept of magnitude—measuring the relative size of an earthquake—was not introduced until 1935 by Charles Richter and Beno Gutenberg. Still, for quakes prior to that, scientists are not just guessing. “We can figure out the damage at the time by going back to old records and newspaper accounts,” says Won-Young Kim, a senior research scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, directly across the New Jersey border. “Once the amount and extent of contemporary damage has been established,” Kim says, “we’re then able to gauge the pattern of ground shaking or intensity of the event—and from there extrapolate its probable magnitude.” Other earthquakes of magnitude 5 or higher have been felt in New Jersey, although their epicenters laying near New York City. One—which took place in 1737 and was said to have been felt as far north as Boston and as far south as northern Delaware—was probably in the 5 to 5.5 range. In 1884, an earthquake of similar magnitude occurred off New York’s Rockaway Beach. This well-documented event pulled houses off their foundations and caused steeples to topple as far west as Rahway. The shock wave, scientists believe, was felt over 70,000 square miles, from Vermont to Maryland. Among the largest sub-5 magnitude earthquakes with epicenters in New Jersey, two (a 3.8 and a 4.0) took place on the same day in 1938 in the Lakehurst area in Ocean County. On August 26, 2003, a 3.5 magnitude quake shook the Frenchtown/Milford area in Hunterdon County. On February 3 of last year, a 3.0 magnitude quake occurred in the Morris County town of Mendham. “A lot of people felt this one because of the intense shaking, although the area of intensity wasn’t very wide,” says Lamont-Doherty’s Kim, who visited the site after the event. After examining the known historical and geological record, Kim and other seismologists have found no clear evidence that an earthquake of greater than 5.3 to 5.5 magnitude has taken place in this area going back to 1737. This doesn’t mean, of course, that one did not take place in the more remote past or that one will not occur in the future; it simply means that a very large quake is less likely to occur here than in other places in the east where the seismic hazard is greater, including areas in South Carolina and northeastern New York State. But no area on the East Coast is as densely populated or as heavily built-up as parts of New Jersey and its neighbors. For this reason, scientists refer to the Greater New York City-Philadelphia area, which includes New Jersey’s biggest cities, as one of “low earthquake hazard but high vulnerability.” Put simply, the Big One isn’t likely here—but if it comes, especially in certain locations, watch out. Given this low-hazard, high-vulnerability scenario, how far along are scientists in their efforts to predict larger magnitude earthquakes in the New Jersey area? The answer is complex, complicated by the state’s geographical position, its unique geological history, the state of seismology itself, and the continuing debate over the exact nature and activity of the Ramapo Fault. Over millions of years, New Jersey developed four distinct physiographic provinces or regions, which divide the state into a series of diagonal slices, each with its own terrain, rock type, and geological landforms. The northernmost slice is the Valley and Ridge, comprising major portions of Sussex and Warren counties. The southernmost slice is the Coastal Plain, a huge expanse that covers some three-fifths of the state, including all of the Shore counties. Dividing the rest of the state are the Highlands, an area for the most part of solid but brittle rock right below the Valley and Ridge, and the lower lands of the Piedmont, which occupy all of Essex, Hudson, and Union counties, most of Bergen, Hunterdon, and Somerset, and parts of Middlesex, Morris, and Passaic. For earthquake monitors and scientists, the formation of these last two provinces—the Highlands and the Piedmont—are of special interest. To understand why, consider that prior to the appearance of the Atlantic Ocean, today’s Africa was snuggled cozily up against North America and surrounded by a single enormous ocean. “At that point, you could have had exits off the New Jersey Turnpike for Morocco,” says Alexander Gates, professor of geology and chair of the department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Rutgers-Newark. Under the pressure of circulating material within the Earth’s super-hot middle layer, or mantle, what was once a single continent—one that is thought to have included today’s other continents as well—began to stretch and eventually break, producing numerous cracks or faults and ultimately separating to form what became the Atlantic Ocean. In our area, the longest and most active of these many cracks was the Ramapo Fault, which, through a process known as normal faulting, caused one side of the earth’s crust to slip lower—the Piedmont—relative to the other side—the Highlands. “All this occurred about 225 million years ago,” says Gates. “Back then, you were talking about thousands of feet between the Highlands and the Piedmont and a very active Ramapo Fault.” The Earth’s crust, which is 20 to 25 miles thick, is not a single, solid shell, but is broken into seven vast tectonic plates, which drift atop the soft, underlying mantle. Although the northeast-trending Ramapo Fault neatly divides two of New Jersey’s four physiographic provinces, it does not form a so-called plate boundary, as does California’s infamous San Andreas Fault. As many Californians know all too well, this giant fault forms the boundary between two plates—to the west, the Pacific Plate, and to the east, the North American Plate; these rub up against each other, producing huge stresses and a regularly repeating pattern of larger earthquakes. The Ramapo Fault sits on the North American Plate, which extends past the East Coast to the middle of the Atlantic, where it meets the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an underwater mountain range in constant flux. The consequences of this intraplate setting are huge: First, as Gates points out, “The predictability of bigger earthquakes on…[such] settings is exceedingly poor, because they don’t occur very often.” Second, the intraplate setting makes it more difficult to link our earthquakes to a major cause or fault, as monitors in California can often do. This second bit of uncertainty is especially troubling for some people, including some in the media who want a neat story. To get around it, they ignore the differences between plate settings and link all of New Jersey’s earthquakes, either directly or implicitly, to the Ramapo Fault. In effect, such people want the Ramapo Fault “to look like the San Andreas Fault,” says Gates. “They want to be able to point to one big fault that’s causing all of our earthquakes.” Gates does not think that’s the case, and he has been working with colleagues for a number of years to prove it. “What we have found is that there are smaller faults that generally cut from east to west across the northeast-trending Ramapo Fault,” he explains. “These much smaller faults are all over the place, and they’re actually the ones that are the active faults in the area.” But what mechanisms are responsible for the formation of these apparently active auxiliary faults? One such mechanism, say scientists, is the westward pressure the Atlantic Ocean exerts on the North American Plate, which for the most part resists any movement. “I think we are in an equilibrium state most of the time,” says Lamont-Doherty’s Kim. Still, that continuous pressure on the plate we sit on causes stress, and when that stress builds up sufficiently, the earth’s crust has a tendency to break around any weak zones. In our area, the major weak zone is the Ramapo Fault—“an ancient zone of weakness,” as Kim calls it. That zone of weakness exacerbates the formation of auxiliary faults, and thereby the series of minor earthquakes the state has experienced over the years. All this presupposes, of course, that any intraplate stress in this area will continue to be released gradually, in a series of relatively minor earthquakes or releases of energy. But what if that were not the case? What if the stress continued to build up, and the release of large amounts of energy came all at once? In crude terms, that’s part of the story behind the giant earthquakes that rocked what is now New Madrid, Missouri, between 1811 and 1812. Although estimates of their magnitude have been revised downward in recent years to less than magnitude 8, these earthquakes are generally regarded as among the largest intraplate events to have occurred in the continental United States. For a number of reasons—including the relatively low odds that the kind of stored energy that unleashed the New Madrid events could ever build up here—earthquakes of plus-6 magnitude are probably not in our future. Still, says Kim, even a magnitude 6 earthquake in certain areas of the state could do considerable damage, especially if its intensity or ground shaking was of sufficient strength. In a state as geologically diverse and densely populated as New Jersey, this is a crucial wild card. Part of the job of the experts at the New Jersey Geological Survey is to assess the seismic hazards in different parts of the state. To do this, they use a computer-simulation model developed under the direction of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, known as HAZUS, for Hazards US. To assess the amount of ground shaking likely to occur in a given county during events ranging in magnitude from 5 to 7 on the Richter Scale, NJGS scientists enter three features of a county’s surface geology into their computer model. Two of these features relate to the tendency of soil in a given area to lose strength, liquefy, or slide downhill when shaken. The third and most crucial feature has to do with the depth and density of the soil itself and the type of bedrock lying below it; this is a key component in determining a region’s susceptibility to ground shaking and, therefore, in estimating the amount of building and structural damage that’s likely to occur in that region. Estimates for the various counties—nine to date have been studied—are sent to the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management, which provided partial funding for the project. To appreciate why this element of ground geology is so crucial to earthquake modelers, consider the following: An earthquake’s intensity—which is measured on something called the Modified Mercalli Scale—is related to a number of factors. The amount of energy released or the magnitude of an event is clearly a big factor. But two earthquakes of the same magnitude can have very different levels of intensity; in fact, it’s quite possible for a lower magnitude event to generate more ground shaking than a higher magnitude one. In addition to magnitude, other factors that affect intensity are the distance of the observer or structure from the epicenter, where intensity is the greatest; the depth beneath the surface of the initial rupture, with shallower ruptures producing more ground shaking than deeper ones; and, most significantly, the ground geology or material that the shock wave generated by the earthquake must pass through. As a rule, softer materials like sand and gravel shake much more intensely than harder materials, because the softer materials are comparatively inefficient energy conductors, so whatever energy is released by the quake tends to be trapped, dispersing much more slowly. (Think of a bowl of Jell-O on a table that’s shaking.) In contrast, harder materials, like the solid rock found widely in the Highlands, are brittle and break under pressure, but conduct energy well, so that even big shock waves disperse much more rapidly through them, thereby weakening the amount of ground shaking. “If you’ve read any stories about the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, you know the most intense damage was in those flat, low areas by the Bay, where the soil is soft, and not in the hilly, rocky areas above,” says Karl Muessig, state geologist and NJGS head. The map that accompanies the online version of the NJGS’s Earthquake Loss Estimation Study divides the state’s surface geology into five seismic soil classes, ranging from Class A, or hard rock, to Class E, or soft soil (state.nj.us/dep/njgs/enviroed/hazus.htm). Although the weakest soils are scattered throughout the state, including the Highlands, which besides harder rock also contains areas of glacial lakes, clays, and wetlands, they are most evident in the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain. “The largest expanses of them are in coastal areas where you have salt marshes or large glacial lakes, as in parts of the Passaic River basin,” says Scott Stanford, a research scientist with NJGS and lead author of the estimate. Some of the very weakest soils, Stanford adds, are in areas of filled marshland, including places along the Hudson waterfront, around Newark Bay and the Meadowlands, and along the Arthur Kill. Faults in these areas—and in the coastal plain generally—are far below the ground, perhaps several hundred to a thousand feet down, making identification difficult. “There are numerous faults upon which you might get earthquake movement that we can’t see, because they’re covered by younger sediments,” Stanford says. This combination of hidden faults and weak soils worries scientists, who are all too aware that parts of the coastal plain and Piedmont are among the most densely populated and developed areas in the state. (The HAZUS computer model also has a “built environment” component, which summarizes, among other things, types of buildings in a given area.) For this reason, such areas would be in the most jeopardy in the event of a large earthquake. “Any vulnerable structure on these weak soils would have a higher failure hazard,” Stanford says. And the scary truth is that many structures in New Jersey’s largest cities, not to mention New York City, would be vulnerable, since they’re older and built before anyone gave much thought to earthquake-related engineering and construction codes. For example, in the study’s loss estimate for Essex County, which includes Newark, the state’s largest city, a magnitude 6 event would result in damage to 81,600 buildings, including almost 10,000 extensively or completely; 36,000 people either displaced from their homes or forced to seek short-term shelter; almost $9 million in economic losses from property damage and business interruption; and close to 3,300 injuries and 50 fatalities. (The New York City Area Consortium for Earthquake Loss Mitigation has conducted a similar assessment for New York City, at nycem.org.) All of this suggests the central irony of New Jersey geology: The upland areas that are most prone to earthquakes—the counties in or around the Ramapo Fault, which has spawned a network of splays, or auxiliary faults—are much less densely populated and sit, for the most part, on good bedrock. These areas are not invulnerable, certainly, but, by almost all measures, they would not sustain very severe damage, even in the event of a higher magnitude earthquake. The same can’t be said for other parts of the state, where the earthquake hazard is lower but the vulnerability far greater. Here, the best we can do is to prepare—both in terms of better building codes and a constantly improving emergency response. Meanwhile, scientists like Rutgers’s Gates struggle to understand the Earth’s quirky seismic timetable: “The big thing with earthquakes is that you can commonly predict where they are going to occur,” Gates says. “When they’re going to come, well, we’re nowhere near being able to figure that out.” *********************** Planning for the Big One For the men and women of the state police who manage and support the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management (OEM), the response to some events, like hurricanes, can be marshalled in advance. But an earthquake is what responders call a no-notice event. In New Jersey, even minor earthquakes—like the one that shook parts of Somerset County in February—attract the notice of local, county, and OEM officials, who continuously monitor events around the state from their Regional Operations and Intelligence Center (The ROIC) in West Trenton, a multimillion dollar command-and-control facility that has been built to withstand 125 mph winds and a 5.5 magnitude earthquake. In the event of a very large earthquake, during which local and county resources are apt to become quickly overwhelmed, command and control authority would almost instantly pass to West Trenton. Here, officials from the state police, representatives of a galaxy of other state agencies, and a variety of communications and other experts would assemble in the cavernous and ultra-high tech Emergency Operations Center to oversee the state’s response. “A high-level earthquake would definitely cause the governor to declare a state of emergency,” says OEM public information officer Nicholas J. Morici. “And once that takes place, our emergency operations plan would be put in motion.” Emergency officials have modeled that plan—one that can be adapted to any no-notice event, including a terrorist attack—on response methodologies developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. At its core is a series of seventeen emergency support functions, ranging from transportation to firefighting, debris removal, search and rescue, public health, and medical services. A high-magnitude event would likely activate all of these functions, says Morici, along with the human and physical resources needed to carry them out—cranes and heavy trucks for debris removal, fire trucks and teams for firefighting, doctors and EMTs for medical services, buses and personnel carriers for transportation, and so on. This is where an expert like Tom Rafferty comes in. Rafferty is a Geographic Information Systems Specialist attached to the OEM. His job during an emergency is to keep track electronically of which resources are where in the state, so they can be deployed quickly to where they are needed. “We have a massive database called the Resource Directory Database in which we have geolocated municipal, county, and state assets to a very detailed map of New Jersey,” Rafferty says. “That way, if there is an emergency like an earthquake going on in one area, the emergency managers can quickly say to me, for instance, ‘We have major debris and damage on this spot of the map. Show us the location of the nearest heavy hauler. Show us the next closest location,’ and so on.” A very large quake, Rafferty says, “could overwhelm resources that we have as a state.” In that event, OEM has the authority to reach out to FEMA for additional resources and assistance. It can also call upon the private sector—the Resource Directory has been expanded to include non-government assets—and to a network of volunteers. “No one has ever said, ‘We don’t want to help,’” Rafferty says. New Jersey officials can also request assistance through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC), an agreement among the states to help each other in times of extreme crisis. “You always plan for the worst,” Rafferty says, “and that way when the worst doesn’t happen, you feel you can handle it if and when it does.” Contributing editor Wayne J. Guglielmo lives in Mahwah, near the Ramapo Fault.
A U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bomber, assigned to the 96th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, deployed from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, lands during exercise Lightning Focus at Royal Australian Air Force Base (RAAF) Darwin, Australia, Dec. 6, 2018.Credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Christopher Quail
Defense Minister Richard Marles said “everyone needs to take a deep breath” after China condemned U.S. plans to deploy up to six of the long-range bombers in Australia.
Australia’s defense minister on Wednesday played down the significance of a major upgrade of B-52 facilities planned for northern Australia that has raised China’s ire, saying the nuclear-capable U.S. bombers have been visiting since the 1980s.
China this week condemned U.S. plans to deploy up to six of the long-range bombers at Royal Australian Air Force Base Tindal in the Northern Territory, arguing the move undermined regional peace and stability. China also warned of a potential arms race in the region.
Asked if the upgrade could prove too provocative, Defense Minister Richard Marles told reporters, “I think everyone needs to take a deep breath here.”
“What we’re talking about is a U.S. investment in the infrastructure at Tindal, which will help make that infrastructure more capable for Australia as well,” Marles said.
“In terms of U.S. bombers, they’ve been coming to Australia since the 1980s. They’ve been training in Australia since 2005. All of this is part of an initiative which was established in 2017,” he said.
Australia would be a “significant beneficiary” of the Tindal upgrade, Marles said.
Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst in defense strategy and capability at the Australian Security Policy Institute think tank, said China and other observers were “hyping” and “over-egging” the significance of what was proposed.
“This is not significant in terms of the hardware side of things. It is significant in terms of the strategic importance of the fact that we are now able to more easily support the U.S. in its operations in the region,” Davis said.
The U.S. Air Force would be able to operate B-52s for longer and with more ease from Tindal with an expanded parking apron, hangars, and fuel storage tanks, Davis said.
“It also means that in a crisis, Australia is then one of the few locations that the B-52s can more easily operate from to support U.S operational requirements,” he said.
Tindal, like the U.S. Pacific military bases in Guam, is within range of Chinese long-range missiles.
But the greater distance the missiles would have to fly makes Tindal an easier target to defend, Davis said.
Speaking during a visit to Thailand, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said governments led by both of Australia’s major parties “have worked to increase coordination and interoperability with the United States and with others.”
She said that contributes to “the strategic equilibrium” in the Asia-Pacific region, and the basing of B-52s “is consistent with the approach Australia has taken over a number of years to increase our capacity to operate with the United States.”
She said Australia welcomes increased U.S. involvement in the region under the Biden administration.
NATO kicked off its annual nuclear exercise, dubbed Steadfast Noon, in mid-October, and Russia launched its scheduled Grom strategic nuclear exercises about a week later. The exercises heightened tensions more than usual this year, as they took place after Russia intensified its brutal assault on Ukraine and once again wielded threats of using nuclear weapons.
A Belgian F-16 jet fighter was among the weapons systems that participated in NATO’s annual nuclear exercise, called Steadfast Noon, in mid-October as tensions with Russia heightened over the war in Ukraine. (Photo by Kenzo Triboulillard/AFP via Getty Images)NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Oct. 11 rejected the prospect of canceling the “routine training” of Steadfast Noon, saying doing so would send “a very wrong signal.”
“If we now created the grounds for any misunderstanding, miscalculation in Moscow about our willingness to protect and defend all allies, we would increase the risk of escalation,” Stoltenberg said.
The Steadfast Noon exercise involved 14 of NATO’s 30 members and up to 60 tactical nuclear fighter jets and surveillance aircraft in Europe, with Belgium’s Kleine Brogel Air Base serving as home base. U.S. officials noted in a very rare disclosure that some B-52H strategic bombers from U.S. Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota also participated.
The flights are intended to practice delivering U.S. B61 nuclear gravity bombs, although the aircraft will fly unarmed. The exercise will include flights over Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the North Sea. In advance of the exercise, Western officials emphasized that Steadfast Noon would not feature a scenario related to Ukraine and would take place more than 600 miles from Russia. The NATO exercise lasted two weeks, starting Oct. 17.
The Grom, or Thunder, exercise began Oct. 26. The last Russian exercise was in February, less than a week before Russia invaded Ukraine, under Russian President Vladimir Putin’s close supervision. (See ACT, March 2022.) The Russian exercises usually feature the deployment of strategic nuclear systems; launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as systems such as new hypersonic weapons; and large-scale military troop maneuvers.
A Western official told Reuters on Oct. 13 that, with Grom occurring alongside the war in Ukraine, “we do have an additional challenge to really be sure that the actions that we see, the things that are occurring, are actually an exercise and not something else.”
But U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Oct. 13 that the United States is aware that “Russian nuclear units train extensively at this time of year,” even though Russia “probably believes this exercise will help it project power.”
Over the course of the war, Putin has issued multiple threats to use nuclear weapons against any country seen as interfering in Ukraine and, more recently, to protect “the territorial integrity of our motherland…by all the systems available to us.” (See ACT, October 2022.)
After Russia’s claimed annexation of four Ukrainian regions in September, which was roundly condemned worldwide as illegal, the Kremlin stressed its view that an attack in those regions equals an attack on Russia. That assertion gives rise to the possibility that Russia may contemplate using nuclear weapons against Ukraine if the Ukrainian military carries out an attack in those regions.
“All these territories are inalienable parts of the Russian Federation,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said on Oct. 18. “Their security is provided for at the same level as [it is for] the rest of Russia’s territory.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov attempted to downplay Putin’s threats on Sept. 23, claiming that Moscow is “not threatening anyone with nuclear weapons.”
Yet, a week later, Putin issued another nuclear threat. He argued that the United States set a precedent for nuclear use with the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, stating “we will defend our land with all the forces and resources we have, and we will do everything we can to ensure the safety of our people.”
CNN reported on Sept. 28 that U.S. officials have said that the threat of Putin ordering the use of nuclear weapons is more “elevated” now than at any time since the war began.
Nevertheless, U.S. and allied intelligence agencies that closely monitor Russian nuclear forces continue to assess that there are no indications of potential imminent Russian nuclear weapons use. The Pentagon has said repeatedly that it sees no need to adjust the U.S. strategic nuclear force posture.
Analysts have suggested that Russia may consider using nuclear weapons in a strike at a Ukrainian military facility or in a “display,” such as the detonation of a nuclear weapon over the Black Sea or Arctic Ocean.
U.S. President Joe Biden emphasized the seriousness with which the United States and its allies treat Putin’s numerous nuclear threats in Oct. 6 remarks. “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since [U.S. President John F.] Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis” in October 1962, Biden said. “We’re trying to figure out, What is Putin’s off-ramp?”
Biden later commented that he does not think that ultimately Putin will call for the use of Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
The United States and NATO have declined to detail potential responses, whether diplomatic, military, economic, or a combination, to Russian nuclear use.
“We have communicated directly, privately, at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia [and] that the United States [and] our allies will respond decisively,” U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Sept. 25. “We have been clear and specific about what that will entail.”
Sullivan later stressed that the Biden administration maintains its goal “to avoid a direct conflict between nuclear superpowers.”
French President Emmanuel Macron dismissed on Oct. 13 the possibility that Paris would order the use of its nuclear weapons in response to a Russian nuclear strike. France’s vital national security interests, on which its nuclear doctrine rests, “would not be at stake if there was a nuclear ballistic attack in Ukraine or in the region,” Macron said in an interview with TV channel France 2.
Despite the war and the rhetoric, the United States and Russia continue to exchange data on their respective nuclear arsenals, as required by the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). The most recent exchange took place on Sept. 1, with the information released to the public a month later.
According to the exchange, the United States has 1,420 strategic nuclear warheads deployed on 659 delivery vehicles, and Russia has 1,549 strategic nuclear warheads deployed on 540 delivery vehicles.
The treaty limits are 1,550 for the warheads and 700 for the delivery vehicles.
On-site inspections conducted under New START remain paused since Russia prohibited inspections of its nuclear weapons-related facilities in August. (See ACT, September 2022.)
A U.S. State Department spokesperson told Arms Control Today on Oct. 18 that “the United States is working with Russia to schedule a session of New START’s Bilateral Consultative Commission for the purpose of resuming inspections.” The commission is the implementation body of the treaty, intended to serve as a forum in which to discuss any concerns and issues that may arise as the countries carry out treaty activities and procedures.
The U.S. Air Force will provide Australia’s Royal Air Force with up to six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers. Photo courtesy of Master Sgt. Richard P. Ebensberger/U.S. Air Force
Nov. 1 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Defense confirmed Tuesday it will send B-52 bombers capable of carrying nuclear bombs to Australia.
Four Corners, an Australian news program, first reported that the United States would send up to six B-52 bombers on Sunday. The announcement comes amid ongoing turmoil between Australia and China.
China is critical of the United States’ decision to send nuclear capable bombers to the Royal Australian Air Force’s Tindal base in the Northern Territory. China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian addressed the issue during a regular press conference on Monday.
“All countries’ defense and security cooperation needs to contribute to regional peace and stability and must not target any third party or undermine their interests,” he said. “Such a move by the U.S. and Australia escalates regional tensions, gravely undermines regional peace and stability, and may trigger an arms race in the region. China urges parties concerned to abandon the outdated Cold War zero-sum mentality and narrow geopolitical mindset, and do more things that are good for regional peace and stability and mutual trust among all parties.”
Michael Shoebridge, director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said the United States’ help on defense is meant to “complicate” China’s military planning, forcing it to reconsider its actions considering the capabilities of U.S. defenses.
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