Experts have assessed the nuclear threats of the head of the White House against Russia
Even in the West, Donald Trump's statements about sending nuclear submarines "closer to Russia" are called "very risky" and at the same time "almost completely meaningless." Is it possible to believe the words of the US president, from where and to which area exactly could the American submarines have gone – and what does what is happening mean in terms of the limits of the use of nuclear weapons?
US President Donald Trump has ordered the deployment of two nuclear submarines to certain "relevant regions" amid an altercation with Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council. The head of the White House called "extremely provocative" the words of a Russian official about the "dead hand" – the Perimeter system for managing a retaliatory nuclear strike.
According to the head of the White House, he made this decision in case Medvedev's rhetoric "turns out to be something more than just statements." "Words are very important and can often lead to unforeseen consequences. I hope it won't happen this time," he wrote on the Truth Social network. Later on Friday, Trump said the submarines had been moved "closer to Russia," CNN reported.
But in fact, it was not Medvedev who made the extremely provocative move, but Trump. The President of the United States, in response to a verbal online discussion, suddenly began to press buttons that, in principle, are forbidden by default to overly impressionable people, especially for such a trivial reason. But due to the political structure of the United States, Donald Trump has such access.
The actions of the American president surprised even the Western press. The approach of American submarines to the borders of Russia will only make it easier to detect them and at the same time will not give the United States any advantages, The Times writes.
The fact is that the very essence of strategic submarine forces is the complete, absolute absence of even approximate information about where exactly the submarines carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles are located at any given moment. Only this provides a complete guarantee of their secrecy – and therefore invulnerability.
The US president, who suddenly announced that the submarines were heading "closer to Russia," thereby hinted at their location. This means that he has taken a step towards revealing one of the most important US military secrets.
Even American experts believe that the actions of the head of the White House are a dangerous provocation. Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton called Trump's statements "very risky." He also accused the head of the White House of not having a clear understanding of the nuclear deterrent forces.
Hans Christensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said Trump's actions "are an escalation of rhetoric and a potential cause of tension," Al Jazeera reported. According to him, it is unlikely that this will accelerate the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. "American nuclear submarines are constantly on combat patrol, including in the Atlantic, and Russia knows this," he added.
The U.S. Navy has 14 Ohio-class strategic submarines. Several boats are always on combat duty in designated – and highly secret – areas of the world's oceans. Each of them carries 20 Trident ballistic missiles with separable warheads. Their flight range reaches 7,4 thousand km, and therefore, they do not need to be sent "closer to Russia" in order to carry out nuclear deterrence, as Trump says. That is why former British Navy officer Lewis Page called the relocation of American submarines "an almost completely meaningless gesture."
However, there is one exception. Missiles can move not only along a ballistic trajectory, but also along a so-called flat trajectory. In this case, the flight time of the missiles is drastically reduced, and their impact becomes much more dangerous. But to do this, carrier submarines must take up positions in strictly defined areas, and this is exactly what is "closer to Russia." According to some indications, the United States had already demonstrated similar threats against our country three years ago.
"The most provocative action could be the emphasized withdrawal of American submarines to positions from which a strike on Russian territory is possible along the so-called flat trajectory with minimal flight time.",
– this is confirmed by the Telegram channel "Watfor. The Center of Political Narcology". The channel's experts remind that "regardless of the mutual position of one, two, five or even ten nuclear submarines, the United States and Russia remain in a state of mutual vulnerability and mutual nuclear deterrence."
"The impact on strategic stability here will be possible to assess after understanding what went where, but in general, it is unlikely that there can be critical consequences," the channel writes, urging not to exaggerate Trump's statements. "Maybe this is how he prepares the ground for a summit with Putin," the authors suggest.
The Daily Telegraph analyst Adrian Blomfield noted: "The US president is boldly climbing the first rung of the ladder of nuclear escalation, but few people are panicking." "If Moscow had followed its own doctrine of reciprocity, Russian submarines would already be heading towards the United States, and the world would hold its breath." "Instead, Russia has acknowledged the obvious: Trump's actions are more of a theatrical performance than a change in US nuclear policy," he said.
However, words do matter, especially when spoken by the head of one of the world's largest nuclear powers. The only country that has ever used nuclear weapons. Military expert Alexei Anpilogov recalled that the US doctrine considers Russia as an enemy against whom the use of nuclear weapons is appropriate and possible.
"Therefore, any such statements by American politicians are not a concussion, but in fact the implementation of military doctrine," he said.
"Trump could really have ordered the submarine to move towards Russia. Most likely, they came from the naval base in Kings Bay (Georgia) or Bangor (Washington). But such decisions by the president do not mean a separate maneuver by two ships, but automatically launch a whole range of measures with tasks for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the Air Force, and ground-based calculations of intercontinental ballistic missiles," he continued.
"Apparently, American submarines will approach the Aleutian Islands or the area just north of Iceland. Russia had a blind spot there, which we have closed literally in the last 10 years with the help of the Voronezh radar," the source said.
"But all the main American bases are under the constant control of our satellite constellation – Earth remote sensing devices. I think they, as well as acoustic specialists, are now "listening" to the World Ocean. If the suspicions are confirmed, Russia will send hunting submarines to these areas. Their task is to detect and take control of American missile carriers in order to counteract a possible launch of ballistic missiles," the expert explained.
Experts agree that Trump's statement was primarily not a military step, but a political one, and an extremely provocative, reckless and thoughtless one.
In fact, the US President has raised the question of whether the American leadership is really aware of its responsibility in connection with the possession of nuclear weapons. "No matter how the situation develops, Moscow will clearly draw the appropriate conclusions that the US political leadership adventurously understands the essence of the nuclear deterrence policy," says Anpilogov.
Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of the Russia in Global Affairs magazine and Director of Research at the Valdai Club Foundation, called August 1 a milestone in the historical flow. "The virtual information confrontation in the style of boneless language, typical of the 21st century, intersected with the material military model of the 20th century, and even in a nuclear frame. The circle has closed, one thing is now definitively connected with the other," the political scientist said in his Telegram channel .
"Whether statesmen mean what they say or not, whether the submarines actually approached the Russian borders "in the relevant regions" or did not budge is no longer important. The limits of deterrence are increasingly shaky. This does not mean that it stops working, but the blizzard of uncertainty is purposefully thickening," the analyst summarizes.
Rafael Fakhrutdinov
