-Caveat Lector- The imbalance of power by J.R.Nyquist ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- +AKk- 1999 WorldNetDaily.com The United States has tremendous military power. But this power has been compromised in recent years. In 1985, under President Reagan, the United States Army had 27 divisions. Today, we have 10 divisions. In 1985, we had 37 Air Force wings. Today, we are down to 13 wings. In 1985, we had 546 ships in the United States Navy. Today, we have 339. How does America's current strength match up with Russia's? Despite its supposed dilapidation, Russia itself has large ground, air, and naval forces. Since the crisis in the Balkans erupted on March 24, Russian troop strength has increased significantly. Over 169,000 Russians were recruited in a special call-up in April. In the last twelve weeks close to 100,000 Russians have volunteered for military service. Add this to the normal Russian draft, which inducts half a million annually. We also know that Russia called up marine and naval reservists, who engaged in huge naval amphibious exercises in the Pacific and Black Seas. If this were not enough for a dramatic reappraisal of Russia's existing strength, it should be noted that Moscow often extends enlistments, retaining large numbers of soldiers who would otherwise be demobilized. As everyone knows, the crisis in Kosovo was the perfect pretext for such extensions. What is most fascinating, in this context, is something Col. Stanislav Lunev told me last August. Lunev is the highest-ranking defector from the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff. Lunev told me that Russia retains the same number of generals as during the Cold War, even though the troop numbers are smaller. Lunev stated that it only takes eight weeks to make a soldier, but two years to make a division commander. Even more time was required to train corps commanders, army commanders, and military district commanders. Why did Russia retain so many generals? Lunev thought the Russian generals were being kept so that Russia could put its Soviet-era armed forces back together in a matter of weeks, while the United States would take years to rebuild its divisions, air wings, and fleets. Thinking back on Lunev's statements of last August, and now looking at the huge Russian recruitments of 1999, Lunev's concerns have been justified. Russia may be on the way to reestablishing its once formidable conventional military strength. Given the fact that U.S. intelligence underestimated the size of Serb forces in Kosovo, and U.S. forces mistook hundreds of dummy tanks for real tanks, Russian strength is not going to be easy to estimate. In fact, Serb forces escaped destruction during the recent NATO air campaign by using Russian concealment techniques. But more significant than the increased or hidden Russian conventional strength is the unprecedented strength of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, which gives every indication of being allied to the Russian military. The Chinese armed forces have approximately 4.5 million men. This is the world's largest military establishment. In recent days the Chinese held remarkable war exercises in Tibet, involving large numbers of paratroops and motorized hang glider units. These troops are said to have remarkable qualities. They can cross impassable mountain terrain, making attacks far behind enemy lines. They can strike at isolated mountain bases, or bypass strong points. In addition to the Chinese conventional threat, there is the North Korean army. Approximately one million strong, the North Korean People's Army is currently poised to attack American and South Korean units. Add to this the armies of other rogue states and it quickly becomes evident that America's 10 divisions and 13 air wings are overextended. Conventional forces, however, are only one measure of the balance of power. Weapons of mass destruction are another measure. According to official sources, the United States and the Russian Federation each have approximately 7,000 strategic nuclear weapons. But this estimate of Russia's nuclear strength assumes that American spy satellites can keep an accurate count. Giving U.S. intelligence the benefit of the doubt, strategic nuclear weapons may be too large to hide. But tactical nuclear weapons are another matter altogether. According to intelligence sources, the United States cannot track Russian tactical nuclear weapons. Various means exist for masking the distinctive radioactive signature of these weapons. For example, tactical nuclear weapons can be stored near nuclear waste disposal areas, nuclear power plants, or near stockpiles of plutonium or uranium. This masks them from detection. There are other, more sophisticated techniques for concealing such weapons. In this context, I had the opportunity to talk to an American strategic missile expert. He told me that the Russians had developed the ability to pack large numbers of tactical nuclear warheads onto intercontinental ballistic missiles. Sixty tactical warheads might be packed into one missile. Using special technology, these warheads would break apart shortly before reaching an urban target area and explode at set distances from one another, blanketing a sizable area with small nuclear explosions. This, he explained, was more destructive than an attack with several large nuclear weapons. Sixty tactical nukes, he said, were more effective than 10 larger bombs. They could deliver greater destruction to a wider area at less cost. Since the Russians do not allow arms control inspectors to visit key sites inside Russia (like Yamantau Mountain, a deep underground military facility the size of metropolitan Washington), there is reason to believe they have something to hide. Russian treaty violations are common. Often the Russians simply state that they are unable to comply with treaties they have signed. The greatest Russian treaty-breaking has been in the area of chemical and biological weapons. According to Yevgenia Albats, the courageous Russian journalist, Russia diverted Western aid to build a chemical weapons plant. This plant was a clear violation of a chemical warfare agreement made with the United States. It was also discovered, in 1996, that Russia was developing a new binary chemical weapon. +ACI-Binary+ACI- means that the weapon consists of two elements which are harmless until brought together in a warhead. Stored in separate locations, these +ACI-harmless+ACI- materials can be passed off as industrial chemicals or fertilizers. This is the ideal type of weapon for concealment. Between 1988 and 1992, Dr. Ken Alibek was first deputy chief of Biopreparat, the Russian state pharmaceutical agency responsible for developing and manufacturing Russia's biological weapons. Biopreparat is described by Alibek as a +ACI-clandestine empire of research, testing, and manufacturing ... spread out over more than 40 sites in Russia and Kazakhstan.+ACI- In 1992, after Yeltsin came to power in Russia, Alibek defected. He told the U.S. that Russia had been stockpiling hundreds of tons of anthrax, dozens of tons of plague and smallpox. The ultimate target of these illicit arms? The United States of America. +ACI-If I had stayed in Russia,+ACI- wrote Alibek last week, +ACI-I would have been a major general by now and you would never have heard my name.+ACI- Biopreparat was created about the same time Moscow signed the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972. The Russians agreed to stop making biological weapons. But, as Alibek's testimony shows, Russia was determined to develop a devastating biological warfare capability. The Czechoslovak Communist defector Jan Sejna, who was familiar with Soviet bloc strategy, said that Kremlin leaders always emphasized that as the arms control process developed nuclear weapons would be reduced. In that event Russia would rely on secret stockpiles of biological material as a substitute for nuclear weapons. Reading Alibek's work, I believe he is mistaken when he assumes that Russia's biological warfare program was abandoned at the time of his defection in 1992. As it turns out, the Russians merely moved shop, created a new cover, and kept making newer and better biological weapons. Two years after Alibek defected to the West, The Sunday Times of London reported that Russia had developed a new germ-warfare agent. The article said that 440 pounds of this material could kill half a million people, and the West had no antidote for it. Although Alibek thought the Russians had terminated their secret biological warfare project, The Sunday Times stated that Russia maintained such a project in total secrecy. This secret was compromised when two Russians associated with the project defected to England. Russia's deceptiveness -- especially during Yeltsin's presidency -- is well documented. Russia is way ahead of America in lethal biological and chemical weapons. In terms of the overall balance of power, Russia purposefully depicts itself as weak and helpless. But the reality is very different. America's military superiority ought to be questioned. We are without lethal biological weapons. We have closed down our chemical weapons plants. Our nuclear stockpiles are seriously diminished, and we no longer manufacture the tritium that our nuclear weapons need to maintain their full explosive potential. I fear that the balance of power is no longer in balance. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- J.R. Nyquist is a WorldNetDaily contributing editor and author of 'Origins of the Fourth World War.' DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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