“La ricerca, condotta da Washington, della supremazia nucleare, aiuta ad esempio a spiegare la strategia di difesa missilistica. I critici della difesa antimissile argomentano che uno scudo, tipo il prototipo che gli USA hanno realizzato in Alaska e California, sarebbe facilmente sopraffatto da una pioggia di vere e finte testate lanciate dalla Russia o dalla Cina. Hanno ragione: anche un sistema multilivello, con elementi posti a terra, in aria, nel mare e nello spazio, molto probabilmente non saprebbe proteggere gli Stati Uniti da un massiccio attacco nucleare. Ma sbagliano a concludere che un simile sistema di difesa missilistica sia perciò privo di senso; allo stesso modo sbagliano i sostenitori della difesa antimissile secondo cui, per la medesima ragione, un tale sistema preoccuperebbe solo gli Stati canaglia e non le altre grandi potenze nucleari.
Ciò che entrambi gli schieramenti trascurano, è che una difesa antimissile del genere che, presumibilmente, gli Stati Uniti potrebbero dispiegare, andrebbe valutata principalmente in un contesto offensivo, e non in uno difensivo – come una aggiunta alla capacità statunitense di primo colpo, e non come uno scudo a sé stante. Se gli Stati Uniti lanciassero un attacco nucleare contro la Russia (o la Cina), il paese colpito rimarrebbe tutt’al più con un piccolissimo arsenale superstite. A quel punto, anche un sistema di difesa antimissile relativamente modesto o inefficiente potrebbe essere sufficiente a proteggere da attacchi di rappresaglia, perché il nemico devastato si ritroverebbe con pochissime testate (e finte testate).”
Oggi iniziamo a parlare del progetto di scudo antimissilistico che gli Stati Uniti vorrebbero installare in Polonia e Repubblica Ceca, proponendovi lo studio di Daniele Scalea dal quale abbiamo estrapolato la citazione precedente. Esso risulta utile soprattutto per inquadrare la questione dal punto di vista strategico-militare, mentre riguardo la valenza geopolitica diremo più avanti.
Buona lettura.
[La versione aggiornata all'agosto 2009 del testo di Scalea è qui].
In 2006 an article appeared in Foreign Affairs, the magazine of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, called “The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy,” coauthored by Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, which explored in the frankest manner how the U.S. could deal with its Chinese and Russian “challengers.”
As the piece’s title indicates, the focus is on nuclear weapons and America’s superiority in regards to them.
Its basic contention is summarized in this paragraph:
“For four decades, relations among the major nuclear powers have been shaped by their common vulnerability, a condition known as mutual assured destruction. But with the U.S. arsenal growing rapidly while Russia’s decays and China’s stays small, the era of MAD is ending – and the era of U.S. nuclear primacy has begun.”
That appraisal inevitably led to the conclusion that “It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike.”
The authors examine with coldblooded detachment comparative advancements in each of the U.S.’s triad of nuclear weapons delivery systems – ground-based missile, air and submarine – and how in all three instances Washington could launch crippling first strikes on China and Russia alike.
For example, they state “The U.S. Air Force has finished equipping its B-52 bombers with nuclear-armed cruise missiles, which are probably invisible to Russian and Chinese air-defense radar. And the air force has also enhanced the avionics on its B-2 stealth bombers to permit them to fly at extremely low altitudes in order to avoid even the most sophisticated radar.”
And they list both nation’s vulnerabilities in an almost gleeful manner:
“The more Russia’s nuclear arsenal shrinks, the easier it will become for the United States to carry out a first strike.
“The real U.S. war plan may call for first targeting Russia’s command and control, sabotaging Russia’s radar stations, or taking other preemptive measures – all of which would make the actual U.S. force far more lethal than our model assumes.
“According to our model, such a simplified surprise attack would have a good chance of destroying every Russian bomber base, submarine, and ICBM.
“China’s nuclear arsenal is even more vulnerable to a U.S. attack. A U.S. first strike could succeed whether it was launched as a surprise or in the midst of a crisis during a Chinese alert. China has a limited strategic nuclear arsenal.
“According to unclassified U.S. government assessments, China’s entire intercontinental nuclear arsenal consists of 18 stationary single-warhead ICBMs.”
To confirm that their study is indicative of not only their own conviction, the authors add that “The improvements to the U.S. nuclear arsenal offer evidence that the United States is actively seeking primacy…The current and future U.S. nuclear force, in other words, seems designed to carry out a preemptive disarming strike against Russia or China.
“The intentional pursuit of nuclear primacy is, moreover, entirely consistent with the United States’ declared policy of expanding its global dominance.”
In view of what has developed in the interim since its publication, the article provides the unadorned truth about so-called missile defense in stating “the sort of missile defenses that the United States might plausibly deploy would be valuable primarily in an offensive context, not a defensive one – as an adjunct to a U.S. first-strike capability, not as a standalone shield. If the United States launched a nuclear attack against Russia (or China), the targeted country would be left with a tiny surviving arsenal – if any at all.
“At that point, even a relatively modest or inefficient missile-defense system might well be enough to protect against any retaliatory strikes, because the devastated enemy would have so few warheads and decoys left.”
Dangerous Crossroads: U.S. Expands Asian NATO Against China, Russia,
di Rick Rozoff
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15719
traduzione italiana:
http://www.eurasia-rivista.org//1880/crocevia-pericoloso-gli-usa-espandono-la-nato-asiatica-contro-la-cina-e-la-russia