In a new report, the Pentagon proposes increasing the military's "tactical nukes" to counter Russian threats. The Kremlin slammed the proposal, calling it "bellicose" and "anti-Russian," and vowed to defend itself.
Image: Wkipedia/U.S. Air Force
Advertisement
Moscow on Saturday sharply criticized Washington's new plan to upgrade its nuclear arsenal, and said it risked provoking a renewed nuclear arms race.
The foreign ministry issued a statement, saying, "The bellicose and anti-Russian nature of this document is obvious," adding that it was "deeply disappointed."
The Kremlin said Russia would respond in order to ensure its own security.
"We must take into account the approaches that are now circulating in Washington and take necessary measures to ensure our security," the ministry said.
The US currently has at least 150 nuclear warheads in Europe, but the new proposal would eliminate the need to stockpile the weapons there. Instead, the arsenal would be moved offshore and mounted on US submarines and ships.
A reorganization of the United States' nuclear arsenal would also include the development of new low-yield atomic bombs with an eye toward Russia, according to a Pentagon statement released Friday.
The renewed enthusiasm for nuclear weapons in Washington is a shift from the presidency of Barack Obama, who called for the elimination of nuclear arms in a landmark speech in Prague in 2009, but nonetheless moved to modernize the arsenal.
State of the Union address: Donald Trump on nuclear weapons
00:39
This browser does not support the video element.
What the Pentagon's nuclear posture review says:
US concerns about Russia overshadow worries about North Korea, Iran and China.
Russia believes America is unlikely to use its regular, large-yield nuclear weapons to avoid large-scale retaliation.
The US and NATO require a wider range of low-yield nuclear weapons to counter that Russian belief.
The US should continue the nuclear modernization program ordered by Obama, including ground-based intercontinental ballistic weapons, submarine-launched rockets and bombs delivered by plane.
Artificial intelligence (AI) experts have warned about the dangerous "revolution" that would occur if lethal autonomous weapons were developed. But what are some of the other inventions that revolutionized warfare?
Image: Getty Images/E. Gooch/Hulton Archive
Artificial Intelligence: 'Third revolution in warfare'
More than 100 AI experts have written to the UN asking them to ban lethal autonomous weapons — those that use AI to act independently. No so-called "killer robots" currently exist, but advances in artificial intelligence have made them a real possibility. Experts said these weapons could be "the third revolution in warfare," after gunpowder and nuclear arms.
Image: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images
Gunpowder
The "first revolution in warfare" was invented by the Chinese, who started using the explosive black substance between the 10th and 12th centuries to propel projectiles in simple guns. It gradually spread to the Middle East and Europe in the following two centuries. Once perfected, firearms using gunpowder proved to be far more lethal than the traditional bow and arrow.
Image: Getty Images/E. Gooch/Hulton Archive
Artillery
The invention of gunpowder also introduced artillery pieces to the battlefield. Armies started using basic cannons in the 16th century to fire heavy metal balls at opposing infantrymen and breach defensive walls around cities and fortresses. Far more destructive field guns were invented in the 19th century and went on to wreak havoc in the battlefields of World War I.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Machine guns
Guns that fire multiple rounds in rapid succession were invented in the late 19th century and immediately transformed the battlefield. Machine guns, as they came to be known, allowed soldiers to mow down the enemy from a protected position. The weapon's grisly effectiveness became all too clear in WWI as both sides used machine guns to wipe out soldiers charging across no man's land.
Image: Imperial War Museums
Warplanes
Military thinkers did not ignore the invention of the first airplane in 1903. Six years later, the US military bought the first unarmed military aircraft, the 1909 Wright Military Flyer. Inventors experimented with more advanced fighter and bomber aircraft in the following years. Both became standard features in many of the national air forces established by the end of WWI.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/dpaweb/U.S. Airforce
Mechanization
Armies had traditionally used soldiers and horses to fight and transport military equipment. But around WWI, they started using more machines such as tanks and armored vehicles. Faster and more destructive armies were the result. Nazi Germany put this new form of "mechanized warfare" to destructive effect in WWII using an attack strategy known as "Blitzkrieg" ("lightning war").
Image: ullstein bild - SV-Bilderdienst
Missiles
Although artillery was effective, it had a relatively limited range. The missile's invention in WWII suddenly allowed an army to strike a target hundreds of kilometers away. The first missile — the German V-2 — was relatively primitive, but it laid the foundation for the development of guided cruise missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Jet engine
Jet aircraft first saw action alongside traditional propeller airplanes at the end of WWII. Jet engines dramatically increased an aircraft's speed, allowing it to reach a target quicker and making it far harder for an adversary to shoot it down. After WWII, military reconnaissance planes were developed that could fly higher than 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) and faster than the speed of sound.
Image: picture-alliance
Nuclear weapons
The "second revolution in warfare" announced its horrific arrival on August 6, 1945, when the US dropped the first nuclear bomb — "Little Boy" — on the city of Hiroshima in Japan, killing between 60,000 and 80,000 people instantly. In the Cold War that followed, the US and Soviet Union developed thousands of even more destructive warheads that raised the specter of a devastating nuclear war.
Image: Getty Images/AFP
Digitization
Recent decades have witnessed the ever more prevalent use of computers to conduct war. The devices made military communication quicker and easier and radically improved the precision and efficiency of many weapons. Armed forces have recently focused on developing cyber warfare capabilities to defend national infrastructure and attack foreign adversaries in cyberspace.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
10 images1 | 10
'Anti-Russian cliches'
The Kremlin also slammed the new Pentagon report for its language and tone, which it said cast Russia in a negative light.
The document is filled "with all sorts of anti-Russian cliches" and "ends with unfounded allegations" that Moscow has breached past agreements on arms control.
The foreign ministry said Russia would "strictly respect its obligations in respect to all the international accords."
The US has accused Russia of violating a 1987 agreement between Washington and the Soviet Union by deploying an intermediate-range missile system. Moscow maintains that it has not violated the accord.
"We are on the cusp of a new era of nuclear proliferation," warned Barry Blechman, co-founder of the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan anti-nuclear proliferation think tank in Washington. "This is the great nuclear danger raised by the new nuclear policy."
Shifting priorities: The Pentagon is shifting its priorities from the fight against Islamist militants to a great power competition with Moscow and Beijing, according to a new national defense strategy unveiled in January, and this nuclear strategy forms part of that shift.
What are low-yield nuclear weapons? They typically have a strength of less than 20 kilotons. This is still devastating and comparable to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II. The new weapons would be launchable from submarines or ships and could supposedly avoid air defenses more easily.
Is this a complete reversal? Barack Obama undertook a modernization of the nuclear arsenal, and the new Pentagon document is largely in line with the previous review in 2010.
What does Russia's stockpile look like? US officials argue Russia has expanded and modernized its low-yield weapons since 2010.
What happens next? According to the recommendations, the US would first reduce the payload of "a small number" of existing long-range ballistic missiles carried by Trident strategic submarines and in the long term, develop a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile.
