How Dumb Was It To Drone Strike Russia's Nuke Radars?

Dr. Theodore Postol says it was the dumbest thing ever. Who is Ted Postol?

Theodore Postol is Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. He did his undergraduate work in physics and his graduate work in nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Postol joined the staff of Argonne National Laboratory, where he studied the microscopic dynamics and structure of liquids and disordered solids using neutron, x-ray and light scattering, along with computer molecular dynamics techniques. Subsequently he went to the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment to study methods of basing the MX Missile, and later worked as a scientific adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations. After leaving the Pentagon, Dr. Postol helped to build a program at Stanford University to train mid-career scientists to study developments in weapons technology of relevance to defense and arms control policy. In 1990 Dr. Postol was awarded the Leo Szilard Prize from the American Physical Society. In 1995 he received the Hilliard Roderick Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and in 2001 he received the Norbert Wiener Award from Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility for uncovering numerous and important false claims about missile defenses.

You get the idea. Postol knows a thing or two when it comes to Science, Technology and National Security Policy. So when he says it was the dumbest thing ever, you want to pay attention. And he’s written an article in which he shares his concerns about the US—well, he says Ukraine did it, but—doing the dumbest thing ever: Striking at Russia’s early warning radars, which are supposed to warn against incoming ICBMs, basically from the US. Because who else really is going to launch a nuclear first strike against Russia? Who else talks about “winning” a nuclear war? So, obviously, if one of Russia’s key early warning radars—yes, I know, they’re all key—gets shut down by a drone strike, do we really want Russia reacting to being blinded by assuming they’re about to undergo a decapitating first strike? They might actually decide to launch their own counterstrike immediately!

Droning Russia’s nuke radars is the dumbest thing Ukraine can do

Attacks on the early warning system actually highlights the fragility of peace between the world's nuclear powers

This was a really big deal, and even people who seriously think this was a “rogue” act by the Ukro-Nazi Kiev regime should be asking themselves: What are we doing supporting these crazies? Here’s why this was such a big deal—and if you don’t believe me, just read Postol’s article.

The US knows—and Russia knows that we know—that Russia does not have a space based early warning system. In practical terms, that means there’s no backup to the type of ground based radars that were attacked. These ground based radars are totally irrelevant to anything going on in Ukraine:

For example, it is not possible for the radar to observe aircraft flying over Ukraine. Even ATACM missiles launched from the Ukrainian Black Sea coasts, which rise to altitudes of no more than 40km before they start gliding to their targets, cannot be reliably detected by these radars.

Thus, the radars at Armavir pose no surveillance threat to Ukrainian aircraft, cruise missiles, drones or ATACM missiles. The real threat to Ukrainian aircraft and missiles is from Russian airborne radar systems that are tightly queued into Russian ground-based surface-to-air missile systems.

With no space based system, Russian warning time for a Trident sub launched attack could be as little as 20 minutes under normal circumstances—or less. Not much time for the Russian leadership to beat feet out of Moscow, so you can imagine that they might decide to make their last act a retaliatory strike against the people who launched a first strike at Russia.

The Ukrainian attack at Armavir was a big deal. It shut down both Russian radars immediately. And it’s likely that within minutes of the attack, an emergency meeting took place with the commander of the Russian strategic rocket forces along with his highest-level officers.

This article will clue you in to why this was such a big deal:

The US Navy sends a message to adversaries with a rare submarine port visit in Indian Ocean.

Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine USS West Virginia is pictured conducting a port visit at U.S. Navy Support Facility Diego Garcia.

This means that the US had stationed sub launched ICBMs in the Indian Ocean as of that article—December, 2022. The Voronezh radar that was temporarily damaged is designed to warn of precisely the event of sub launched nukes incoming from the Indian Ocean. This high profile message to the entire world that the US was stationing “boomers” in the Indian Ocean undoubtedly got Russia’s attention. The Trident missiles can be launched at a “depressed” trajectory—and, yes, I saw that actually discussed at the time. That means they can reach Moscow from the Indian Ocean in 18-19 minutes.

BUT, now suppose that the Voronezh radars have been taken down by a drone strike.

If the Armavir radar was not operating it would take eight to nine minutes from breakwater before the Russian radars in Moscow would indicate they were under attack.

The radar in Moscow would have to observe the incoming missile payloads for one or two minutes before it would have enough data to issue an alert — which means maximum decision-making time that might be available to Russian leaders would be about six or seven minutes!

So you can see why the Russians would be incensed over the Ukraine attacks, which would literally cut their already limited time in which to respond to a nuclear attack.

C’mon. Who thinks that these drone strikes on the radars were launched for any other reason than to scare the living sh*t out of Putin? Who thinks that was a smart thing to do? These jerks—whoever they were—were playing with our lives and, possibly, with the continued existence of life on this planet as we know it.

… it’s likely that within minutes of the attack, an emergency meeting took place with the commander of the Russian strategic rocket forces along with his highest-level officers.

In the rest of the article—and Postol provides more detail—Postol explains that during his time consulting the US government, as far back as the Clinton regime, he proposed providing Russia with the ability to set up a space based early warning system, to lower the risk of catastrophic misunderstandings.

I have sought to warn the U.S. government leadership of this serious problem, which could have been solved 30 years ago by the U.S. “lending” certain technologies to the Russians. My proposals involved providing the Russians with specialized space-qualified infrared arrays and electronics that would allow them to build their own systems.

This technology would not give the Russians any sensitive military secrets. There would be no way for the Russians to “reverse engineer” these implementing components. Just like the most advanced computer chips, only a vast technical enterprise could achieve such an end.

Instead of recognizing that it is in the interest of the entire world for both Russia and the United States to have reliable and capable early warning systems, at that time, the Clinton administration largely ignored this serious problem, which I believe threatens the survival of civilization even today. Other administrations that followed did no better.

Now, as it happens, Postol himself was the person who figured out that the Russians lacked this critical capability, which—until 1996—the US had assumed they possessed. He states that he can only speculate as to why Russia has been unable to figure out how to launch such a system, but can’t know the reason for sure. Only the fact. He discusses this and many other related issues in a must listen/view video with Danny Davis today. Teaser: Among other interesting observations, Postol states that Hillary Clinton and her coterie of acolytes are one of the biggest threats on the geopolitical scene in the history of the world.

Ukraine Strikes on Russian Nuke Radars Backfires w/MIT Prof. Ted Postol

In a related but more general video Postol offers more observations on US Russian relations and the war against Russia:

Putin & China Drop Bombshell on U.S. Military Strategy as Ukraine Collapsing | MIT Prof. Ted Postol