US military analyst: Nuclear superiority, not parity, is the goal

12.03.2018, Washington.

US should strive not towards the nuclear balance of power in the world, but towards the nuclear superiority over other states, Matthew Kroenig, a military analyst, said on March 9 during a U.S. nuclear strategy discussion in the Center for Strategic and International Studies, according to a Youtube video published by the analytical center.

In his report, Kroenig has questioned the classical concept of mutually assured nuclear destruction and parity of power, which was ought to secure world stability and prevent the nuclear war.

Nuclear weapons are used as an argument to advance foreign policy interests for a long time, and many states are playing their game on an edge of a nuclear war, according to the expert. There were 49 threats of nuclear weapons use since 1945, according to Kroenig’s statistics. In all these cases, the threat arose either between states having equal nuclear potential, or the threat was made by a state having obvious nuclear superiority.

 “The goal really is, and has been, and should be superiority. I mean the superiority we (the U.S. – Rossa Primavera comment) had over Japan at the end of World War II”, Matthew Kroenig said.

In his speech, the US analyst outlined a victory formula of political games played on an edge of a nuclear war: resolve and nuclear superiority are required. Kroenig defines modern nuclear superiority as the ability to conduct the preemtive strike, destroying most of the adversary’s nuclear arms, and having an effective anti-missile system, capable of taking down the rest of missiles launched in retaliation. Such superiority, according to the expert, the U.S. has over North Korea, but not over China.

Matthew Kroenig worked as a military analyst in the CIA, as a strategy advisor in the Pentagon, as a special advisor on Iran policy in the Pentagon, as an advisor of Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio during their presidential campaigns.

The mutually assured nuclear destruction is a Cold War-era concept. The essence of it is to have the nuclear potential of adversary states as high as it is required to make all attempts to make a first strike pointless, as it will be inevitably followed by unacceptable damage.

Editorial comment

The West blames Putin for starting another round of arms race by introducing new weapons recently. But the base of the arms race lies in the first strike concept. Russia is forced to develop its nuclear weapons and missile defense systems because Pentagon still dreams to create a weapon that would enable the U.S. to have the same superiority over the whole world that the States had over Japan upon making a nuclear strike against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Source: Rossa Primavera news agency

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