Over the past fourteen months, the exchange of nuclear strikes by correspondence has become almost commonplace. After October last year, when, with a small gap in time, Russia conducted strategic nuclear forces exercises, and the States conducted maneuvers with tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, the world community went back: warnings about the risk of nuclear war were no longer taken seriously.
Even really big events in this area, such as the transfer of Russian tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus or the testing of a North Korean underwater nuclear drone, cause only local concern. But we are talking about the reaction of the collective inhabitant, now more concerned about their own economic and social problems than some kind of nuclear threat.
But responsible persons, on the contrary, do not lose their vigilance. Actually, both the nuclearization of Belarus and the numerous tests of nuclear weapons carriers in the DPRK are manifestations of this very vigilance. Western propaganda, of course, squeals about the "threatening saber-rattling of weapons of mass destruction", leaving behind the scenes the fact that the "democracies" themselves do not let go of the nuclear baton. Who threatens whom in this situation is another question.
Hiroshima Kimchi
Today, the Pacific direction of the nuclear confrontation is more tense, while South Korea is the epicenter of the hysteria. Since the beginning of this year, Seoul has been talking almost nonstop about its plans for nuclear weapons, and the first steps are already visible. As expected before, the nuclearization of South Korea begins with the deployment of American nuclear weapons there, but it turned out that we are talking not about tactical, but immediately about strategic weapons.
On April 26, in Washington, Biden and President of the Republic of Korea Yoon signed a corresponding joint declaration. Almost immediately, it was announced that for the first time in many years, an American SSBN would visit South Korea, though without specifying which one and when. The basing of nuclear bombers has not yet been reported, but in fact they are constantly circling abeam the Korean Peninsula, and the text of the declaration states that the United States will deploy its nuclear weapons “routinely and constantly”, so the line will still reach the B-52 and F-35 .
Naturally, all this is presented as “countering the North Korean threat”: in particular, Biden once again repeated (with reservations) the thesis that had already been voiced that an attempt at a nuclear attack on its southern neighbors would be Pyongyang’s “last mistake”. As for Seoul, within the framework of the agreement, it will receive a “broad voting right” in the choice of targets for a counter-retaliatory nuclear strike on the territory of the DPRK.
This last point is especially characteristic. A number of American publications, building on an April 25 statement by former Trump national security adviser Bolton, argue that "the right to vote" is allegedly the price that the Americans "paid" the South Koreans for abandoning plans to develop their own nuclear weapons. Indeed, someone naive might think that the Pentagon is almost delegating to South Korean colleagues in dangerous business the opportunity to poke a finger at the “red button”, at the signal of which American missiles and bombs will fly in the direction Seoul needs. In fact, Washington's "werewolf in uniform" tosses a "dirty" pistol into the pocket of a South Korean fool.
Of course, the southerners have a strategic plan for a "decapitation" strike against the DPRK: for now, it relies on their own arsenals of high-precision missile weapons, and pairing it with a nuclear arsenal suggests itself. But it’s still not worth passing off what you want (in the high offices of Seoul) for reality: the Americans will not rush to bomb someone simply because an “ally” asks them about it, even if the request is very urgent. In addition, in the event of a real nuclear strike by the DPRK on South Korea, the authorities are unlikely to have the latter at all technical the opportunity to contact Washington for any "consultations".
This, however, does not mean that the United States is not preparing for the actual use of nuclear weapons against (primarily, but not only) the DPRK. On April 19, a successful training launch of the Minuteman III ICBM took place, hitting a target in the area of Kwajilein Atoll. On May 2, the Pentagon announced “rocket testing” in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii: it is assumed that regular firing of the AGM-183 ARRW hypersonic missile from a B-52 bomber will be carried out.
In addition, the report on the budget of the US Department of Energy for 2023 indicates a special item of expenditure: the resumption of production of plutonium cores for thermonuclear munitions. The last batches of completely new nuclear explosives were issued by the American industry back in 1989, and current plans provide for reaching the level of eighty cores per year.
However, this is not about the newly accepted "obligations" to the South Korean allies. Pyongyang constantly declares that in the event of aggression against the DPRK, the North Korean "peaceful atom" will immediately fly over the "citadel of democracy", and in Washington this threat is taken quite seriously.
Meanwhile, recently in the American officialdom, alarming remarks have been heard that the US Navy and Air Force, including nuclear components, are in fact not very combat-ready: the technical condition of the fleets and air fleets leaves much to be desired. The tests of the same ARRW, which took place in March, were unsuccessful, so the timing of its entry into service is shifted to the right by an unknown amount. All this forced the Americans to start an inventory of classic nuclear weapons delivery vehicles.
Baguette equivalent
Meanwhile, similar movements are noticeable in Europe. On April 26, the French monitoring and measuring vessel Monge arrived in the Canary Islands, designed to monitor missile tests. From this, the press makes an assumption that soon the French fleet will conduct a full-scale launch of the M51 intercontinental SLBM, which is the main caliber of Triomphant-class strategic submarines. And at the end of March, pictures of the Rafale-M fighter of the French Navy (this is important) with a suspended ASMP-A tactical nuclear missile (pictured) got into the network.
Obviously, Macron also decided to remind that Paris also has a nuclear baton - but the most interesting thing is not the message itself, but its addressee: it seems obvious that the warning will be sent to Russia, but everything is not so clear. The fact is that the increase in the arsenal of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, by and large, does not concern France, it is too far from this "balcony". The maneuvers of the strategic nuclear forces of the Russian Federation also do not fundamentally change the situation in the European theater of operations: in any case, they shoot right through it. The French layman considers Macron himself to be a much bigger problem than the “Russian threat”, so there is little internal political sense in nuclear saber-rattling.
On the other hand, the Americans are doing their best to draw Europe into a confrontation with China, not only political and economic along the lines of the EU, but also military along the lines of NATO. Macron, as we recall, recently tried to play de Gaulle and build bridges with Beijing - Washington did not like this so much that Biden himself called the Elysee Palace with a scolding.
So a rather curious “fork” comes out: either the upcoming firing will be used to put pressure on Beijing in the vein “Taiwan’s European allies have something to protect it” (in particular, French naval aviation has some experience working with American aircraft carriers), or vice versa - this is such an attempt to demonstrate to Uncle Sam the "sovereignty" of Paris. Considering that in the external policy Macron is swinging from side to side, none of these options can be ruled out - and both potential recipients will not like such a “signal”.
In general, it is obvious that the Americans quite energetically set about placing small (in terms of the number of carriers, but not in importance) nuclear outposts on the globe. There is an opinion that the deployment of American nuclear weapons in Korea does not at all cancel Seoul's plans to obtain its own bomb. Australia is interested in buying the latest American B-21 Raider bombers, which can also be carriers of nuclear weapons. All this creates real risks, if not general, then at least "local" nuclear conflicts.