U.S. Deploys Nuclear Sensors To Ukraine - The Lemmings Prepare To Run Over The Cliff

Lemmings are small rodents. They are reported to panic, rush around in large groups heedless of danger and even charge over cliffs to their doom without questioning why they are doing it. There is some significant question about the extent to which lemmings actually do this. They may be smarter than we think.

There is no question however about the willingness of this administration to continue to pursue self-destructive policies and continue to charge off in directions, which may well lead to very dire consequences.

The New York Times recently reported that the United States is now deploying radiation sensors to Ukraine. These sensors “can detect‌‌ bursts of radiation from a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb and can confirm the identity of the attacker.”  The goal is apparently to make sure that when nuclear weapons are used on Ukrainian soil we can positively identify the device used and prevent the Russians from claiming someone else did it.

We are, in short, so worried about the possible impending use of nuclear weapons by Russia in Ukraine that we are setting up sensors to identify the distinctive signatures left behind by Russian nuclear weapons. After everybody is dead in other words we want to make sure we can pin the blame on the right nation.

In response to an inquiry by the Times, the official U.S. government response was that a network of atomic sensors was being deployed “throughout the region” and would have the ability “to characterize the size, location, and effects of any nuclear explosion.” The deployment of the sensors would deny Russia “any opportunity to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine without attribution.”

“If a nuclear emergency were to occur in Ukraine, whether a radiation release from a nuclear reactor or a nuclear weapon detonation scientific analyses would be rapidly provided to U.S. government authorities and decision-making centers in Ukraine and the region to make actionable, technically informed decisions to protect public health and safety.”

U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration chief Jill Hruby confirmed in congressional testimony recently that her agency, along with the National Security Agency (NSA), had installed sensors in Ukraine to detect radiological activity and had already started training people in Ukraine on how to respond in case of a nuclear blast.

So, the conflict in Ukraine has escalated to the point where the United States Government is taking serious steps to prepare to identify the source of the nuclear weapons it expects to be used. Perhaps that suggests we ought to be doing something to head off the use of nukes rather than testing the debris they leave behind in the rubble that used to be Ukraine.

Putin’s goal in Ukraine was to overrun it and turn it into a client state before the West could react. He failed. His blitzkrieg has turned into trench warfare. His army is bleeding to death, and he is pulling tanks out of mothballs that were obsolete when I was an Armor officer forty years ago. Vlad got what he deserved.

That does not change the fact that at the root of causes for the Russian invasion of Ukraine are concerns that any leader in Moscow would have had. NATO, which began as a defensive alliance when the line of confrontation between East and West ran through the middle of what is now a united Germany has morphed into an ever-expanding empire that is coming perilously close to Moscow itself.  Instead of pouring jet fuel on this fire and waiting to identify the distinctive radioactive signatures of the nuclear weapons that will inevitably be used, we ought to be talking this situation down, getting all parties to the negotiating table, and preventing Armageddon.

We are not. Even as this war rages we are stoking the fires. The U.S. recently announced that it was shifting nineteen air refueling tankers from Germany to Poland. These aircraft support the actions of U.S. fighter and bomber aircraft. Moving them several hundred miles closer to Russia dramatically increases the operational range and loiter time of American aircraft. It is an offensive move that suggests preparation for offensive action.

Virtually simultaneously, the U.S. announced that it had signed a bilateral agreement with Finland to allow for the deployment of U.S. military forces to that nation. The agreement also provides for the U.S. to build bases on Finnish soil. Finland shares a long border with Russia.

Meanwhile, the British Ministry of Defense recently reported Russia has constructed one of the world’s “most extensive systems of military defensive works” in areas it occupies in Ukraine. The ministry says that Russia has constructed a multi-layered defensive zone on the northern border of annexed Crimea and dug hundreds of kilometers of trenches in Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions bordering Ukraine.

These are not the actions of an enemy preparing to renew offensive action. This is what you do when you are hanging on by your fingernails and anticipating an attack by the enemy. It suggests the Russian goal at this point has shifted from overrunning Ukraine to holding the ground they have taken to date.

National security is not about posturing, chest-thumping, and charging off into ill-considered foreign adventures. We have had enough of that in the last twenty years.

National security is about clear-eyed, rational thinking with a laser focus on what keeps Americans safe in their beds at night. Escalating the conflict in Ukraine does not advance the national security interests of the United States. It increases the danger to this nation and to the whole world.

It is time for cool, rational minds to start looking for off-ramps, pushing the warring parties to the negotiating table, and bringing this war to a close. The alternative is unthinkable. The alternative is to follow the lemmings over the cliff.