Vigilant Shield ‘07 - A Nightmare Scenario

While the main focus about nuclear weapons is on the mideast - particularly Iran, Truthdig has published a truly frightening account that brings our attention back to Russia and North Korea.Thankfully it is only this year’s Homeland Defense Exercise, currently being conducted by the U.S. Northern Command, This week, the international crisis that started in September with U.S. discovery of stepped-up uranium enrichment activities in Iran is expected to trigger a nuclear war between Russia and the United States. In the past few weeks, international attempts to defuse the crisis failed, as Russia, supported by China and North Korea, increased the readiness of its armed forces and made several threatening moves. In his address to the citizens of Russia, President Valdimir Putin called the situation “grave” and expelled U.S. diplomats from Moscow. President Bush invoked the War Powers Act. A Russian reconnaissance plane collided in midair with a U.S. plane in the vicinity of U.S. ballistic missile defense installations. It is expected that in the next few days, Russia will launch a strategic nuclear strike at American command centers and armed forces. The U.S. will retaliate. Read on.... An Editor's Note quotes a former arms control expert in the Soviet Union argues that Bush, in his obsession with North Korea and Iran’s relatively minuscule nuclear threat, has effectively ignored the much more perilous threat of Russia’s 10,000-strong nuclear arsenal. That may well be the case, but as Washington Post columnist William Arkin in his blog called "Early Warning", has penned a stunning post that will terrify you, while at the same time infuriate you that these yokels are conducting nuclear war-games instead of concentrating as they should on the next terror attack or natural disaster like Katrina. Both of these are far more probable that a nuclear conflagration with Russia or North Korea. As Arkin correctly points out, this exercise is "particularly childish, a massive waste of money and an insult to the country". The two fears I have of a nuclear conflagration is if King George has allowed safeguards that should be in place become lax, and that this Pretend "Wartime" President is the one with his finger on the button.