Aim Points in the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal | Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Aim Points in the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal | Center for Strategic and International Studies
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Tag Archives: wrath
Ukraine, Russia, and NATO… World War Three in the Making
On February 9 a massive explosion, rumored to be a tactical nuke, detonated in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk. There are conflicting reports, with officials stating that an artillery shell hit a chemical plant, while others claim that it was a munitions factory. Witnesses report that the blast shattered windows and shook houses miles away. It is interesting that the media in the U.S. did not pick this story up, especially given their penchant for explosions. Here’s a video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuQ5EPnSE_4
Maybe it was a tactical nuclear device, and maybe it wasn’t, but either way, the conflict in the Ukraine shows no signs of letting up, and as the U.S. gets more involved, the stakes are getting higher by the minute. Russian convoys move into Eastern Ukraine with impunity, bringing relief supplies to civilians, and also heavy weapons, armored vehicles, and special forces ground troops. Russian-made rockets and mortars are smashing civilian areas in the Ukraine, killing innocent people, while Ukrainian forces shell rebel-held strongholds like Donetsk, with rounds dropping on schools and hospitals. It’s a bloody, terrible conflict, and not quite as black and white as many here in the States would like to believe.
Many Eastern Ukrainians do in fact feel allegiance to Russia, and remember the days of the Soviet Union with fondness; they speak Russian and have more in common with them than their own countrymen. They are rebels who desire closer ties to Russia than the western Europe. Both sides are waging a bloody war, trying to gain ground ahead of peace talks which seem unlikely to resolve the issue, with rebel forces currently on the offensive to seize key rail yards and rail lines.
On December 23, 2014 the Ukraine renounced its non-aligned status with NATO, which makes the current debacle all the more dangerous, and outright involvement by the United States a frightening and somewhat hypocritical possibility. Here’s why.
In 1823 the U.S. adopted the Monroe Doctrine, which simply put, stated that interference by European powers in South America would be considered an act of aggression. The U.S. doesn’t tolerate other countries bashing around in our back yard. The Truman Doctrine, which became the bedrock of American foreign policy for decades, dictated that the U.S. would pursue containment of Soviet expansion, and this led to proxy wars in South America and Eastern Europe. As the cold war has begun anew and tensions with Russia have reached new heights, the Ukraine conflict threatens to become a new battleground between nuclear superpowers. I for one, would rather avoid that!
There is a compelling argument that appeasement does not work, and that Russian aggression needs to be stopped now. Various pundits compare Russian president Vladimir Putin to Hitler at the start of World War II, when Europe wrung its hands in the face of the Nazi advance. Russian armored divisions are poised to move into Ukraine, and NATO is woefully unprepared to halt the attack, should the Russians choose to roll in. Most of the Abrams tanks are gone,Western Europe is largely toothless. NATO relies on air power and the United States to deter further incursions.Should peace talks fail, it is easily conceivable that Putin will order Russian forces into the Eastern Ukraine. The only way to stop them would be with the use of tactical nuclear weapons, targeting the armor and infantry divisions. That’s how the end of the world begins.
So, here’s to hoping that clear heads prevail. Perhaps a peace can be brokered, one which appeases the rebel forces who wish to align themselves with Russia, but also keeps the Ukraine intact.
What does it look like after a global nuclear war? Check out the WRATH trilogy.
Sneak Peek… Children of Wrath
Being a hero in the eyes of my children was far more important to me than the adulation I’ve received over the years for getting shot and stabbed and being any sort of a leader. The memories that keep me warm on snowy winter nights here in Yellowstone are of times when I was a real hero. I remember my son Ryder and his little sister Grace on Christmas morning gazing with wide eyed wonder at the presents under the tree while a fire cracked and popped in a log cabin steeped to the roof in drifts. I hold those perfect moments close to me, those fleeting times that were really gifts my children gave to me. I can now open them like a book, and I turn back the years to see that look of amazement they rewarded me with when I lifted a heavy log, carved a bow, or brought home a wolf cub. I wrap myself in those precious memories like a warm bison blanket to keep the cold at bay and stave off the lingering chill of things I would rather forget.
The winter Ryder turned nine, Grace was six, and the cold was bitter and long. Maybe with the telling of it, these many years later, forgiveness will find me and I can draw close and smile.
The Fall obliterated humanity about sixteen years before that season; the bombs and pestilence that followed The Fall pushed us to the brink of the abyss, but we managed to survive. In the nine years we had been in the west, the scattered groups of survivors inhabiting the region enjoyed relative peace and security. It was a time of rebirth and renewal, and my best memories live there still. The weaponized fungus we had come to call Tarantula still thrived in the warmer regions, but the cold of the north kept it at bay. We were full of hope, though we bore the wounds of the past. We believed we had made it through the worst of it.
I was then not yet thirty, and still very much in my prime, my hair dark and short, with not a hint of the white beard and long mane I now wear. “You look like Noah,” Crystal jokes these days. “What happened to my sculpted David, my Greek hero?” She laughs and there is no malice in it; the gray is earned and I wear it with the cantankerousness of an old Grizzly baring his yellowed fangs over a kill, long of tooth and the gold fading, but still dangerous. I was much more dangerous then. I stood six feet four inches, was broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, and I was strong. Hazel eyes, still bright with hope then, before they were faded and dimmed by sadness, which still burned with a zest for life.
“You’re old beyond your years,” I recall Crystal saying back then. “Such an old soul.” But really, I think that was all of us.
The Next American Civil War
My fourth novel, The Tears of Abraham is speculative fiction, and I pray it stays that way. The first American Civil War cost more than six hundred thousand lives. The next one will be far worse.
I’ve been kicking this idea around for about six months, while working on the final book in my Wrath series. I read some articles about Texas wanting to secede from the Union, and at first I chuckled to myself. Folks in Texas are tough, and they’re already just about a country to themselves. They have the agricultural base, heavy industry, military assets, and fiercely independent mindset to make themselves a Republic, should the general population actually be in favor of it. What I dismissed at first as pure apocalyptic nightmare began to seem possible, though no less insane.
But what if the recession does not end? What if the cultural, racial, economic, and religious divides within the United States get worse with time?
What if the Republican Party does not heal itself, and the schism within the Party of Lincoln leads to an even more powerful Tea Party? With both sides gerrymandering districts to protect their power bases, there would be small incentive for moderation.. But on a national level, the Democratic Party would command more of the general vote, and maintain control of the White House, and probably gain seats in the House of Representatives. Much of the country would continue to feel the Federal Government did not truly represent their interests. The shrill rhetoric from the media on both sides of the political isle would increase, finding conflict and scandal to sell advertising.
The war will be about money, race, religion, and a deep difference of opinion of what government exists to do. The seeds have been planted already.
What would happen if Texas really left the Union? Much of the South might follow suit, along with chunks of the far West. To what lengths would the Federal government go to preserve the sanctity of our country? I love America, and the idea of a civil war terrifies me. The more I’ve researched the topic, the more worried I get. There are a whole bunch of angry people out there. Some of them seem to actually yearn for war. I don’t think it will come to that. I have faith, not in politicians, but in the innate common sense of the American people. I hope that in the coming decade, this decency wins out over hatred.
Lincoln was willing to fight to preserve the Union. I wonder what will happen the next time. I don’t know yet, but there will be tears. Of that, I am certain.
Author Sean T. Smith 