Zero Hedge — Putin Warns “US Has Pushed Russia Back Into Nuclear Arms Race

It's official. Game on.

Having unveiled the first images of its new nuclear missile capable of reaching US soil, Russian President Vladimir Putin is warning today that Washington’s actions are “pushing Russian into a nuclear arms race,” forcing Russia “to develop its nuclear attack systems.”

This will be Obama's legacy. You know, the guy that got the Nobel Peace Prize at the time of his election.

Zero Hedge
Putin Warns “US Has Pushed Russia Back Into Nuclear Arms Race

Tyler Durden

If the worst happens, the world won't have to be concerned with carbon-based global warming anymore.

Abstract

A nuclear war between Russia and the United States, even after the arsenal reductions planned under New START, could produce a nuclear winter. Hence, an attack by either side could be suicidal, resulting in self- assured destruction. Even a ÒsmallÓ nuclear war between India and Pakistan, with each country detonating 50 Hiroshima-size atom bombsÑonly about 0.03 percent of the global nuclear arsenalÕs explosive powerÑas air bursts in urban areas, could produce so much smoke that temperatures would fall below those of the Little Ice Age of the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries, shortening the growing season around the world and threaten- ing the global food supply. Furthermore, there would be massive ozone depletion, allowing more ultraviolet radiation to reach EarthÕs surface. Recent studies predict that agricultural production in parts of the United States and China would decline by about 20 percent for four years, and by 10 percent for a decade. The environmental threat posed by even a small number of nuclear weapons must be considered in nuclear policy deliberations. Military planners now treat the environmental effects as collateral damage, and treaties currently consider only the number of weapons needed to assure destruction of opposing forces. Instead, treaties must call for further reductions in weapons so that the collateral effects do not threaten the continued survival of the bulk of humanity. Proliferation cannot be treated as a regional problem. A regional conflict has the potential to cause mass starvation worldwide through environmental effects.

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
Self-assured destruction: The climate impacts of nuclear war
Alan Robock and Owen Brian Toon