UK concerned over 'threatening' Russian nuclear strategy

[inanna]

Source: Reuters

MUNICH Fri Feb 6, 2015 3:30pm EST

(Reuters) - Britain's defense minister voiced concern on Friday that Russia may have "lowered the threshold" for using nuclear weapons and said Britain must update its own deterrent in response to Russian modernization of its nuclear forces.

Russia's nuclear strategy in a hypothetical future war is coming under greater scrutiny among NATO members as tensions between the Western alliance and Moscow hit their highest level since the Cold War over the Ukraine conflict.

"There is three-fold concern, first that they (the Russians) may have lowered the threshold for use of nuclear. Secondly, they seem to be integrating nuclear with conventional forces in a rather threatening way and ... at a time of fiscal pressure they are keeping up their expenditure on modernizing their nuclear forces," Defense Secretary Michael Fallon told Reuters in an interview.

"All of that is very worrying," he said during the Munich Security Conference. "The main answer to that is to make sure that we modernize our own deterrent too."

Russia's new military doctrine reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear strike or a conventional attack that endangered the state's existence, but some in the military had been calling for a first strike option.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/06/us-ukraine-crisis-fallon-idUSKBN0LA2CO20150206?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

[forest444]

1. Parliamentary elections are in three months, and Cammy's desperate

He's obviously the only one really interested in an East-West conflagration in Ukraine; being a "war president" worked for Bush, the reasoning goes, so it should somehow work for him.

Expect a lot of red herrings from the Right Honorable Barhopper as the May elections draw nearer.

[Igel]

2. Perhaps.

On the other hand, the claims he's making are fairly accurate. NATO's been billed as the need for modernizing, integrating nuclear forces in ways that go beyond a fall-back ICBM salvo, and an active first-strike doctrine has been called for by some pretty high-ranking politicians and commanders.

One of the most militaristic presses that I can read in the original is the Russian MSM. (Can't read Chinese, alas.)

Hardly a day passes without some article on the virtues and glories of their military complex--new equipment, plans, sales, designs, exercises, promotions, etc., etc. The US MSM has articles, too, but as often negative as positive--the new _______ is behind schedule, unwanted, won't be deployed on time, defective, etc., etc. The Russian military is only positive and triumphant. This has often included nuclear threats hinted at or not so hinted at against the West. These are good things that show Russia's power and prestige. Rah-rah Rahssiya. (And that's without Army Day, and Navy Day, and Air Force Day, and Armed Forces Day, etc., etc., with their parades and celebrations and memorials.)

[lovuian]

3. America's preemptive strike against Iraq

opened the door