[Woolygimp]

Old news, but I was just reading this stuff for the first time. He's supposedly the highest ranking Russian officer to defect to the United States, with a background with the GRU and former Soviet intelligence.

His claims included that of his task to collect intelligence on military and political leaders in the United States for assassination by Spetsnaz hit squads, with hidden weapon caches, in case of war.
But the most interesting one was that the missing suitcase nukes as stated by General Lebed aren't missing so much as they aren't under the control of the Russian military, but instead are pre-positioned around NATO countries for an instant first strike capability.

All this stuff is pretty worrisome, especially hearing the two dozen occasions in which the world came to the brink of nuclear war.


Really this seems to be a case of standing on one leg. We've avoided a nuclear war this long and will probably be able to do so for the foreseeable future, but eventually we are going to lose our balance so to speak. It's inevitable, and there's no solution for nuclear disarmament... All it is going to take is one war, one event, somewhere, someplace...and god knows we've already dodged the bullet several times already.

...and no I'm not going to go build a bunker, and buy a stockpile of tinfoil for a hat. I think it's entirely reasonable that I can go my entire lifetime without seeing such an exchange take place although it's not a certainty, but I doubt my kids, or my kid's kids will have that luxury.