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US keeps target list for N-strikes in several countries
Washington, May 25: The US strategic air command maintains a `target list` for nuclear strikes in contingency planning against several countries, including Russia, China and North Korea, a defence expert has claimed.
Washington, May 25: The US strategic air command
maintains a 'target list' for nuclear strikes in contingency
planning against several countries, including Russia, China
and North Korea, a defence expert has claimed.
Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya and Algeria also figure among
the countries, Bruce G Blair, president of Centre for Defence
Information, a Washington-based non-governmental think tank,
said.
He links contingency planning against deeply buried
targets, especially those in Russia, with recent interest in
developing "mini-nukes," with explosive power of below five
kilotons. Congress has authorised research in these weapons
but development and production would need their approval.
President George W Bush has "a notion that US nuclear
weapons can, and should, be adapted for use against a growing
list of enemy weapons in a widening array of circumstances,"
Blair said adding the "top two candidates" for inclusion in
the nuclear target list are located inside the Yamantau and
Kosvinsky mountains in the central and southern Urals.
Blair said the Yamantau command centre is a wartime
relocation facility for the top Russian leadership while
Kosvinsky is a wartime nuclear command system, that can
communicate through the granite mountain to far-flung Russian
strategic forces using very-low-frequency radio signals which
can burn through a nuclear war environment.
Kosvinsky came on line recently, "which could be one explanation for the US interest in a new nuclear bunker buster," he said adding, though logical in the cold war-era nuclear planning, building a new weapon to threaten these mountain redoubts would not increase US security.
Bureau Report
Kosvinsky came on line recently, "which could be one explanation for the US interest in a new nuclear bunker buster," he said adding, though logical in the cold war-era nuclear planning, building a new weapon to threaten these mountain redoubts would not increase US security.
Bureau Report