Yesterday, this website published an item regarding the Trump Executive Order requiring a total review and updated summary of the U.S. nuclear posture. Countless media outlets along with liberal think tanks wrote stinging critical articles on this review, mostly promoting the full elimination of nuclear weapons by the United States. This was the clear position of the Obama administration.
As this article is being published, the United Nations is holding a session on nuclear proliferation. Further, President Trump is at the Pentagon as this is being typed.
Trump and his national security team receives intelligence briefings and the summary below will likely explain why President Trump is right.
Popular Mechanics explains: Pentagon Document Confirms Existence of Russian Doomsday Torpedo
Kanyon is designed to wipe out the enemy’s coastlines and make them unlivable for generations.
A key U.S. nuclear weapons document confirms that the Russian government is developing the most powerful nuclear weapon in more than a half century. A leaked copy of the Pentagon’s Nuclear Posture Review states that Russia is developing a “new intercontinental, nuclear-armed undersea autonomous torpedo.”
The existence of the weapon, known as Kanyon to the Pentagon and “Ocean Multipurpose System Status-6” to Russia, was first leaked by Russian television in November 2015. A test involving the Sarov-class submarine mothership was leaked in December 2016. The Nuclear Posture Review report, dated January 2018, lists the weapon as part of Russia’s underwater nuclear arsenal. Here’s a screen capture, with Kanyon circled in red:
Kanyon is reportedly a very long range autonomous underwater vehicle that has a range 6,200 miles, a maximum depth of 3,280 feet, and a speed of 100 knots according to claims in leaked Russian documents.
But what really makes Kanyon nightmare fuel is the drone torpedo’s payload: a 100-megaton thermonuclear weapon. By way of comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 16 kilotons, or the equivalent of 16,000 tons of TNT. Kanyon’s nuke would be the equivalent of 100,000,000 tons of TNT. That’s twice as powerful as Tsar Bomba, the most powerful thermonuclear weapon ever tested. Dropped on New York City, a 100-megaton bomb would kill 8 million people outright and injure 6 million more.
Kanyon is designed to attack coastal areas, destroying cities, naval bases, and ports. The mega-bomb would also generate an artificial tsunami that would surge inland, spreading radioactive contamination with the advancing water. To make matters worse there are reports the warhead is “salted” with the radioactive isotope Cobalt-60. Contaminated areas would be off-limits to humanity for up to 100 years.
Kanyon is designed to get around American ballistic missile defenses, primarily the Ground-Based Interceptor missiles based in Alaska and California. Although GBI is meant to counter small numbers of intercontinental ballistic missiles from rogue countries such as Iran and North Korea, Russia wants to make it abundantly clear that it could still penetrate U.S. defenses even if they were scaled up to deal with larger, more powerful nuclear arsenals. More here.
The Pentagon writes:
In addition to modernizing ‘legacy’ Soviet systems, Russia is developing and deploying new nuclear warheads and launchers. These efforts include multiple upgrades for every leg of the Russian nuclear triad of strategic bombers, sea-based missiles, and land-based missiles. Russia is also developing at least two new intercontinental range systems, a hypersonic glide vehicle, and a new intercontinental, nuclear-armed, undersea autonomous torpedo. Link
The Pentagon report notes the Russians plan attacks from the erroneous position that a coercive nuclear “first use” policy might allow Russia to then negotiate terms favorable to itself (this is referred to as the escalate-to-de-escalate doctrine). The Pentagon writes:
Effective U.S. deterrence of Russian nuclear attack and non-nuclear strategic attack now requires ensuring that the Russian leadership does not miscalculate regarding the consequence of limited nuclear first use, either regionally or against the United States itself. Russia must instead understand that nuclear first-use, however limited, will fail to achieve its objectives, fundamentally alter the nature of a conflict, and trigger incalculable and intolerable costs for Moscow. Our strategy will ensure Russia understands that any use of nuclear weapons, however limited, is unacceptable. More here.
The full 64 page document is here.
