Are The United States & Russia Preparing For a Nuclear War?

Are the United States & Russia making preparations for escalations toward a global geothermal nuclear war? Recent geopolitical developments may suggest just that.

On December 2nd, U.S Marines with the 2nd Transport Support Battalion conducted a full scale chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear (CBRN) defense training exercise at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.

Cpl. Tanner Watson, a CBRN training instructor for the exercise commented that “at the end of the day, I want these Marines to be as knowledgeable as they can be about these types of threats. If Marines know how to detect and counteract a threat, then I’m confident we can be ready for anything”

The Marine core ran similar drills in November & September at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan, and Gunha-Ri South Korea, as part of a large scale initiative to promote CBRN preparedness amongst U.S. Pacific military forces.

In Russia, the Defense Ministry announced plans to field the Ilyushin Il-80 Maxdome aircraft, the Russian equivalent to Air Force 1, by the end of the year.

According to Global Security the Ilyushin Il-80 is designed to be used when command infrastructure is disrupted due to nuclear conflict and will be, “permanently staffed with senior generals, operational commanders and technicians.”

In addition to the permanent fielding of their doom’s day plane, the Russians recently accidentally leaked a purported classified document revealing an unmanned drone submarine, capable of delivering a cobalt nuclear warhead to the U.S. coastline.

Rose Gottemoeller, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, told a House hearing that “I know we are concerned about it; of course we are concerned about it as threat to the United States,” when answering questions from Rep. Mike Turner regarding the nuclear drone.

This and other assessments by the State Department, regarding the rising global tensions between the United States and Russia, are further reaffirmed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s remarks in his inaugural presidential address today.

With all of this taken into consideration, It may be naive to assume Putin was simply referring to Turkey when he stated  “if someone thinks they can commit a heinous war crime, kill our people and get away with it, suffering nothing but a ban on tomato imports, or a few restrictions in construction or other industries, they’re delusional. We’ll remind them of what they did, more than once. They’ll regret it. We know what to do.”

Putin also stated “this means that the terrorists must not be given refuge anywhere. There must be no double standards. No contacts with terrorist organizations. No attempts to use them for self-seeking goals. No criminal business with terrorists.”

Vladimir Putin was likely indirectly referencing nations like the United States, and other NATO powers, who have been directly implicated in the financial support and creation of ISIS as a geopolitical destabilization tool.