DEFCON 5

There are currently no imminent nuclear threats against the United States at this time, but let us go summarize the today-and-now status quo regarding the main actors on the main stages of a possible WW3

UNITED STATES vs RUSSIA

As the United States continues to consider withdrawing from the intermediate range nuclear weapon treaty, Russia has warned of an “efficient response” if the United States deploys intermediate-range missiles in Europe, implicity threatening any country that hosts U.S. nuclear weapons.

INDIA vs PAKISTAN and CHINA

• India’s first domestically built nuclear-powered submarine has completed its first patrol in a signal to both Pakistan and China and now says its nuclear triad is complete.
• China has begun construction on third aircraft carrier

IRAN

Iran has test-fired a medium range ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple warheads.

NORTH KOREA vs UNITED STATES and SOUTH KOREA

• North Korea has threatens to restart nuclear weapons programme if U.S. does not provide sanctions relief.
• It must be noted that North Korea has continued to expand operations at its main nuclear site and that South Korea spy agency have reported that North Korea is continuing to miniaturize nuclear warheads.
• United States say it may resume large-scale joint military exercises with South Korea if there continues to be no tangible progress on the denuclearization of North Korea.

RUSSIA vs UKRAINE

• Russia has attacked and captured Ukraine vessels in the Sea of Azov.
• While Ukraine makes noises of war, no other country seems to be moving in that direction.
• The United States has stated that the current crises is an European problem, indicating that the U.S. will not get involved.
• Additionally, Germany has refused a request to get involved.
• This does not mean that escalation is not possible.
• This is highly dependent on what Russia will do and how NATO will respond. 

Poland urges NATO

NATO’s 28 members decided in 2010 to create a missile shield based on US technology.

The project is due to be completed in 2020, with significant elements in Romania and Poland. But last monday Poland urged NATO’s new secretary general to push ahead with the missile shield system amid the West’s worst standoff with Russia since the Cold War.

Mr. Jens Stoltenberg, who chose Warsaw for his first foreign visit, said Poland is "a key contributor to our missile defence system.” Stoltenberg, who took over as NATO chief on 1st October, insisted that Russia must reverse course in Ukraine but stressed that the alliance remains open to a constructive relationship with Moscow.

Tension mounted further after Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted last month as saying that “if I wanted, Russian troops could not only be in Kiev in two days, but in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warsaw or Bucharest, too.” The escalation of tensions with Russia since January over its role in the Ukraine crisis has sounded the alarm on NATO’s eastern flank in countries that were under Moscow’s thumb during the Soviet era.

The Western defence alliance insists the role of the planned shield is a “purely defensive” response to external threats, notably from so-called “rogue states”, and is in no way directed against Russia. “We firmly support the creation of this system as a pan-NATO one because only this makes deep sense both politically and in terms of defence,” Poland’s President Bronislaw Komorowski said at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. “Poland is determined to build its missile shield and air defence system — it’s important not only for Poland — and we uphold our obligations for the US portion of this project,” stated.

Russia says dissatisfied

Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov said Russia had voiced concerns over planned U.S. ground-launched arms tests next year in Romania and in 2018 in Poland, which he said the U.S. side assured him would only use anti-rocket defences and would not fall foul of the treaty.

Relations between the two countries are at their lowest since the Cold War because of Russia's role in the crisis in Ukraine, and both Moscow and Washington question the other's commitment to the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty.

Russia argues that Washington's use of drones and other intermediate-range arms amounts to a violation of the treaty and has said that planned U.S. weapons tests in Romania and Poland may also breach the agreement. Also, Russia said on Thursday it was dissatisfied with talks held with U.S. officials to address concerns that Moscow had violated a Cold War-era arms control agreement by testing a ground-launched cruise missile.

About the treaty, Anatoly Antonov said last month Moscow was committed to the treaty but President Vladimir Putin has questioned whether it meets Russia's interests, bearing on mind the INF treaty eliminated nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500-5.500 km (300-3.400 miles).

Russia Fires Nuclear Missile

Russia successfully tested its latest Bulava intercontinental nuclear missile Wednesday amid rising tensions with NATO over the conflict in Ukraine.

The nearly 37-ton missile was launched from Russia’s new submarine, the Vladimir Monomakh, as part of its sea trials. Deputy Defense Minister Yuriy Borisov said a total of five test launches are planned.

The Borei-class Vladimir Monomakh can carry up to 16 Bulava missiles, which can each carry up to 10 nuclear warheads. The Bulava missiles have a range of 5,000 miles and can reportedly cause a blast 100 times larger than the atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

NATO Prepares East Europe Rapid Response

NATO is preparing a rapid response to the Ukraine crisis that would allow it to deploy troops swiftly to reinforce eastern Europe and dissuade Russia from further destabilising the region, the alliance chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Wednesday.

¿Buks and T-72s in Ukraine?

A NATO military officer in Brussels told The Associated Press that “we assess there are over 1,000 Russian troops operating inside Ukraine” now. He said NATO estimates that another 20,000 Russian troops are close by, right over the Russian border. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the material was confidential.

Additionally, Associated Press journalists on the border have seen the rebels with a wide range of unmarked military equipment — including tanks, Buk missile launchers and armored personnel carriers — and have run into many Russians among the rebel fighters. Ukraine also captured 10 soldiers from a Russian paratrooper division Monday around Amvrosiivka, a town 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Russian border.

Joseph Dempsey, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said recent images of a military convoy in eastern Ukraine showed the presence of a variant of the T-72 tank that “is not known to have been exported or operated outside of Russia.”

The leader of the insurgency, Alexander Zakharchenko, said in an interview on Russian state television that 3,000 to 4,000 Russians have fought on the separatist side since the armed conflict began in April. The new southeastern front raised fears that the separatists are seeking to create a land link between Russia and Crimea. If successful, it could give them or Russia control over the entire Sea of Azov and the gas and mineral riches that energy experts believe it contains. Ukraine already lost roughly half its coastline, several major ports and significant Black Sea mineral rights in March when Russia annexed Crimea.

Russia gripes about Korea leaning to U.S.’s Thaad

In a statement Thursday, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that deployment of Washington’s missile defense battery “will inevitably negatively affect the regional strategic situation and may stir up an arms race in Northeast Asia,” as well as complicate resolving the nuclear problem on the Korean Peninsula.

It expressed concern over Washington’s move to bring “an American global missile defense system” to South Korean soil. Korea’s new Minister of National Defense Han Min-koo said in an interview on July 20 that the U.S-led Thaad “if deployed on the Korean Peninsula, will be helpful in controlling North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations and strengthening the security posture” in the region.

Moscow expressed alarm that South Korea seemed to be leaning toward deploying an American antiballistic missile system and indicated such a move may fuel an arms race in the region. Russia has opposed U.S. plans to expand its missile defense shield as relations with Washington have plummeted, especially since the start of the Ukraine crisis and the China-Russia gas deal signed last May.

“Such statements cannot but make us alarmed, as the South Korean leadership had earlier stated repeatedly that the country intended to ward off probable missile threats through their own forces,” said Russia’s Foreign Ministry. But the U.S State Department said that the Thaad system is not aimed at Russia: “We have been very clear that it is not aimed at them,” U.S State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a briefing Thursday, “and we will continue talking to them and being transparent with them about why we are doing what we are doing.”