The Obama Administration is proposing that the United States spend about a billion dollars per week in the fiscal year beginning October 1 to defend Afghanistan, Iraq and other nations against various threats they face. That’s how much money is in the Pentagon’s request for “overseas contingency operations.”
So guess how much money the administration is seeking to defend America’s homeland against an attack from Russia using nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. Russia has about 1,600 missile warheads capable of reaching U.S. territory, and if even a small fraction were launched, they could wipe out our electric grid, our financial networks, and quite possibly the whole U.S. economy.
The answer is that the administration is proposing to spend nothing. Even though we know that most of those Russian warheads are pointed at America. Even though we know relations with Russia are deteriorating. Even though we know that Vladimir Putin’s subordinates have repeatedly threatened the West with nuclear consequences if it seeks to block expansionist moves along the Russian periphery such as last year’s invasion of Ukraine.
The mushroom cloud from a 21-kiloton blast over Nagasaki, Japan in 1945. Strategic warheads in the current Russian arsenal typically have over 20 times the yield of the Nagasaki bomb. (Retrieved from Wikimedia)
The mushroom cloud from a 21-kiloton blast over Nagasaki, Japan in 1945. Strategic warheads in the current Russian arsenal typically have over 20 times the yield of the Nagasaki bomb. (Retrieved from Wikimedia)
Just this week, Putin stated in a documentary commemorating Moscow’s annexation of Crimea that he had considered putting the nuclear arsenal on alert to dissuade the West from pushing back, observing that he was ready for “the worst possible turn of events.” It isn’t so clear what a heightened state of alert would mean, since Russian military officials insist that even in peacetime, most of the country’s missiles are ready to launch within minutes.
But this commentary isn’t about Russian military intentions. It is about the utter absence of U.S. active defenses for repulsing the sole man-made threat capable of wiping out American civilization for the foreseeable future. Imagine every person you know dead, injured, or lacking shelter and sustenance. Not at some dim point in the future, but by this time tomorrow. Russia has that power, because America has no defenses against long-range ballistic missiles.
Source: Forbes
