Opinion : Letter to the Editor: On the Threshold of WWIII

Dear Editor,

At the beginning of this week Sweden, Finland and Norway told their people to prepare for war. Sweden has not been to war in over 200 years. The pamphlets passed out talked about how to survive a nuclear attack. It had advice about how to build shelters and store food. That brought back memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis - the infamous advice of "duck and cover" . . . under your desk . . . to protect you from a nuclear explosion. Uh-huh . . . Science fairs in those years were filled with examples of fallout shelters constructed out of sugar cubes. Info on the thickness of shelter walls, the amount of food and water required, likely impact zones. We were between Saginaw and Flint, Michigan - big red targets over both cities ensured that we wouldn't need to worry about shelter construction.

This concern on the part of these three countries stems from President Biden possibly granting permission to the Ukrainians to use US Long Range missiles to attack deep into Russia. That said, those missiles depend on advanced US satellite technology for guidance to their final target. Putin has stated numerous times that should such an attack take place, he would consider it to be an attack by the NATO countries since they support the technology to guide the missiles. Russia's Foreign Minister - Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov - has clearly stated that his recommendation would be a nuclear response directed at NATO countries - including the US.

I saw a video of Biden wandering around the G20 this week in Rio de Janeiro. The vacant face, shuffling gait and seeming inability to do something as simple as showing up on time for the "family photo" implies that his cognitive decline continues - causing me to wonder - could this man even respond to a nuclear attack? I think we all know the answer.

Long ago, far away I "filled the square" of an NBC - Nuclear, Biological and Chemical - warfare officer. My slot was that of "Disaster Preparedness Officer". My job was to make sure our guys could continue combat operations as soon as possible after such an attack. Long days in MOP gear, rotating in and out of fallout shelters, going through chemical decontamination - all the while refueling, reloading and launching fighter aircraft goes a long way towards understanding just how hopeless such an operation would be. And the pace of escalation is breathtakingly fast.

Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen describes a single strike against the Pentagon and the ensuing steps that, ultimately, leads to the elimination of two-thirds of all life on the planet. Biden would have 6 minutes from the detection of the first missiles to launch our response. Current military doctrine requires launch on detection - NOT launch on first impact. The estimated quantity of our response would be just over 80 nuclear tipped missiles. We currently are estimated to have 400 Land Based ICBMS, each with 10 warheads for a total yield in excess of 1 Mega-tons. The estimated yield of the Nagasaki bomb was 23 Kilo-tons. So, each missile yield would be just over 40 times larger . . . times 80 launched missiles . . . a TEOTWAWKI event. This does not include sub-based weapons or airborne weapons.

Six minutes to decide whether to launch. A true and genuine test of the MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction - policy. One other thing to keep in mind as well as we wander towards this particular threshold . . . the only individual on the face of the earth that can launch our missiles is the sitting President - Joe Biden. And he has 6 minutes to decide and respond. Simply put - there is no way Joe Biden has the mental acuity to handle this responsibility. So, one would hope that, for the good of the nation and the world - he would deny the use of US Long Range missiles to Ukraine so they could not fire them into Russia - and perhaps setting off the exchange of nuclear tipped missiles.

And yet . . . he gave such permission to Ukraine . . .

This morning at around 6:30 AM on November 19th the Ukraine fired 6 missiles into Russia - 5 were shot down - one did minor damage at a military facility.

And now it would seem the world's future depends on Putin . . . and Joe's response.

Thanks Joe.

Respectfully,

Bill Keller