Iran vows to sink US ships
Tehran has issued yet another loud statement about the US presence in the Persian Gulf.
Gen. Ali Fadavi, the naval commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards, has warned that his forces would sink American warships should they pose the slightest territorial threat to the country.
“Wherever the Americans look in the Persian Gulf, they will see us,” the Admiral said on Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (IRINN) on Monday night.
“They know that if they commit the slightest mistake, we will sink their vessels in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, or the Sea of Oman,” he added.
The naval commander further called the US presence in the Persian Gulf “an absolute evil.”
“Today, there are around 60 foreign military vessels in the Persian Gulf, most of which belong to the US, France and Britain. The vessels are monitored by the IRGC every hour,” said the official.
Fadavi also criticized a recent resolution in the US Congress against Iran’s activity in the Persian Gulf, saying neither the US administration nor other international players are in the position to meddle in this issue.
Earlier this month, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei rebuffed the US government’s demands that Iran withhold from staging military drills in the Persian Gulf, according to a Press TV report.
“The Persian Gulf coast and much of the coasts of the Sea of Oman belong to this powerful nation; therefore we have to be present in this region, [stage] maneuvers and show off our power,” the leader then said.
Fadavi explained that the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman are important strategic areas for the whole world and especially for Iran, as it has a longer maritime border than any other coastal state in the region.
The official added that the world’s future depends on the Persian Gulf as it is the center of the world’s energy resources.
Russia’s New Missile Means the Nuclear Arms Race Is Back On
DailyBeast: Russia has a new nuclear missile—one that Zvezda, a Russian government-owned TV network, claimed can wipe out an area “the size of Texas or France.”
Actually, no, a single SS-30 rocket with a standard payload of 12 independent warheads, most certainly could not destroy Texas or France. Not immediately. And not by itself.
Each of the SS-30’s multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle warheads, or MIRVs, could devastate a single city. But Texas alone has no fewer than 35 cities of 100,000 people or more.
Which is not to say the instantaneous destruction of a dozen cities and the deaths of millions of people in a single U.S. state wouldn’t mean the end of the world as we know it.
Nobody nukes just Texas. And if Russia is disintegrating Texan cities, that means Russia is also blasting cities all over the United States and allied countries—while America and its allies nuke Russia right back.
Moscow’s arsenal of roughly 7,000 atomic weapons—1,800 of which are on high alert—and America’s own, slightly smaller arsenal—again, only 1,800 of which are ready to fire at any given time—plus the approximately 1,000 warheads that the rest of the world’s nuclear powers possess are, together, more than adequate to kill every human being on Earth as well as most other forms of life.
One new Russian rocket doesn’t significantly alter that terrible calculus.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be alarmed. The SS-30 is only the latest manifestation of a worrying trend. After decades of steady disarmament, the United States and Russia are pouring tens of billions of dollars into building new and more capable nuclear weaponry that experts agree neither country needs, nor can afford.
The SS-30 by itself is just slightly more destructive than older Russian missiles. It’s what the new weapon represents that’s frightening. The post-Cold War nuclear holiday is over. And apocalyptic weaponry such as Russia’s new SS-30 are back at work making the world a very, very scary place.
Moscow approved development of the SS-30 in 2009 as a replacement for the Cold War-vintage SS-18. Seven years later, the first rockets are reportedly ready for testing. The Kremlin wants the new missiles to be ready for possible wartime use as early as 2018.
Details about the new weapon are hard to come by. Sputnik, a Russian state-owned news website, described the SS-30 as a two-stage rocket with a mass of 100 tons and a range of 6,200 miles. Launching from underground silos in sparsely-populated eastern Russia, SS-30s could fly over the North Pole and rain down their dozen MIRVs on cities and military bases all over North America.
Incidentally, America’s own nuclear attack plans more or less mirror Russian’s plans. U.S. rockets would cross the North Pole headed in the opposite direction and deploy their own MIRVs to smash Russian cities and bases.
Those plans haven’t changed much in 50 years. Nor have the nuclear missiles themselves changed very much. The older SS-18 is actually slightly heavier than the SS-30 and boasts a similar range while carrying 10 MIRVs. One difference between the two missiles is that, being newer, the SS-30 will undoubtedly be easier to maintain.
And then there are the countemeasures. The SS-30 reportedly comes equipped with what Sputnik described as “an array of advanced anti-missile countermeasures” that, in concept, could distract U.S. defenses and ensure that the warheads strike their targets.
But no country—neither the United States nor anyone else—possesses a working missile shield able to intercept a heavy, intercontinental ballistic missile traveling at 20 times the speed of sound. America’s costly missile-defense systems, including ship- and land-based interceptors, are designed to knock down relatively slow-flying, medium-range ballistic missiles fired by, say, Iran or North Korea. Read more here from the Daily Beast.
