The Pentagon has announced that on 18 August, it carried out a test of a
ground-based cruise missile in the Pacific. Launched from a mobile platform on
the island of San Nicolas in California, it hit its target at a distance of 500
kilometres. The data gathered from the test – declares the Pentagon – will serve
for the “development of the future capacities of intermediate-range missiles”.
Having withdrawn from the 1987 INF Treaty
- which had outlawed all US and Soviet ground-based intermediate-range
nuclear missiles (between 500 and 5,500 kilometres), including the cruise
missiles based in Comiso (Sicily) – the USA have now opened the door for a new
and dangerous nuclear arms race.
The launching of the first missile from the category previously forbidden by the INF Treaty took place only 16 days after the definitive withdrawal of the United States from the Treaty, which was announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on 2 August. This confirms that while the Treaty was still in effect, the United States carried out a test of the first missile from the category forbidden by the Treaty.
In 2014, the Obama administration accused Russia, without the slightest proof, of having tested a cruise missile (mark 9M729) of the category forbidden by the Treaty, and, in 2015, it announced that “faced with the violation of the INF Treaty by Russia, the United States are considering the deployment in Europe of ground-based missiles”. The plan was confirmed by the Trump administration : in 2018, Congress authorised the financing of a “research and development programme for a cruise missile launched from a mobile ground-based platform”.
The images of the test released by the Pentagon show that the missile is fired from a vertical launcher, of the type used by the US Aegis “missile defence system”, already installed in the NATO missile sites at Deveselu in Romania (and also next year in Poland) and on four ships of the US Navy which are deployed in the Spanish base of Rota, and cruise in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. It is the weapons manufacturer who invented the Aegis system, Lockheed Martin, which declares that the system “is designed to install any type of missile in any type of launcher”, and is therefore adapted for any sort of war mission”, including “attacks on terrestrial objectives”.
Since it is unable to determine which missiles are installed in the vertical ramps close to its own territory, Russia takes it as read that nuclear missiles will also be present, and therefore acts in consequence.
Once the new nuclear missiles (and also cruise and ballistic missiles) of the category forbidden by the INF Treaty have been installed, the USA will ask its European allies to “house” them, and therefore find themselves in the front line of a nuclear confrontation with Russia.
What will be the response of the new Italian government?
The launching of the first missile from the category previously forbidden by the INF Treaty took place only 16 days after the definitive withdrawal of the United States from the Treaty, which was announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on 2 August. This confirms that while the Treaty was still in effect, the United States carried out a test of the first missile from the category forbidden by the Treaty.
In 2014, the Obama administration accused Russia, without the slightest proof, of having tested a cruise missile (mark 9M729) of the category forbidden by the Treaty, and, in 2015, it announced that “faced with the violation of the INF Treaty by Russia, the United States are considering the deployment in Europe of ground-based missiles”. The plan was confirmed by the Trump administration : in 2018, Congress authorised the financing of a “research and development programme for a cruise missile launched from a mobile ground-based platform”.
The images of the test released by the Pentagon show that the missile is fired from a vertical launcher, of the type used by the US Aegis “missile defence system”, already installed in the NATO missile sites at Deveselu in Romania (and also next year in Poland) and on four ships of the US Navy which are deployed in the Spanish base of Rota, and cruise in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. It is the weapons manufacturer who invented the Aegis system, Lockheed Martin, which declares that the system “is designed to install any type of missile in any type of launcher”, and is therefore adapted for any sort of war mission”, including “attacks on terrestrial objectives”.
Since it is unable to determine which missiles are installed in the vertical ramps close to its own territory, Russia takes it as read that nuclear missiles will also be present, and therefore acts in consequence.
Once the new nuclear missiles (and also cruise and ballistic missiles) of the category forbidden by the INF Treaty have been installed, the USA will ask its European allies to “house” them, and therefore find themselves in the front line of a nuclear confrontation with Russia.
What will be the response of the new Italian government?
il manifesto, 21 August 2019
Translator: Pete Kimberley
DECLARATION OF FLORENCE
FOR AN INTERNATIONAL FRONT NATO EXIT
DANSK DEUTSCH ENGLISH ESPAÑOL FRANÇAIS ITALIANO NEDERLANDS
PORTUGUÊS ROMÎNA SLOVENSKÝ SVENSKA TÜRKÇE РУССКИЙ
Manlio Dinucci
Geographer and geopolitical scientist. His latest books are Laboratorio di geografia, Zanichelli 2014 ; Diario di viaggio, Zanichelli 2017 ; L’arte della guerra / Annali della strategia Usa/Nato 1990-2016, Zambon 2016, Guerra Nucleare. Il Giorno Prima 2017; Diario di guerra Asterios Editores 2018, Premio internazionale per l'analisi geostrategica assegnato il 7 giugno 2019 dal Club dei giornalisti del Messico, A.C.
DANSK DEUTSCH ENGLISH ESPAÑOL FRANÇAIS ITALIANO NEDERLANDS
PORTUGUÊS ROMÎNA SLOVENSKÝ SVENSKA TÜRKÇE РУССКИЙ
Manlio Dinucci
Geographer and geopolitical scientist. His latest books are Laboratorio di geografia, Zanichelli 2014 ; Diario di viaggio, Zanichelli 2017 ; L’arte della guerra / Annali della strategia Usa/Nato 1990-2016, Zambon 2016, Guerra Nucleare. Il Giorno Prima 2017; Diario di guerra Asterios Editores 2018, Premio internazionale per l'analisi geostrategica assegnato il 7 giugno 2019 dal Club dei giornalisti del Messico, A.C.
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