The nuclear-powered submarine Kazan arrives in Havana (YAMIL LAGE / AFP)

Lorsqu’une flottille russe de quatre navires est entrée dans le port de La Havane mercredi, les autorités américaines ont rapidement minimisé l’importance de l’événement. On nous a rappelé que les déploiements de la Russie faisaient partie des activités navales de routine et qu’il n’était pas rare que la marine russe fasse naviguer des navires de guerre dans l’hémisphère occidental. ‘Rien à voir ici’, disait la note.
Pourtant, nous ne sommes clairement pas en des temps ordinaires, et il ne s’agissait pas d’un convoi ordinaire. La flottille arrivée à Cuba était la plus grande depuis des années. Elle comprend la frégate lance-missiles Amiral Gorshkov, l’un des navires les plus modernes de la marine russe, armé de missiles hypersoniques, et le sous-marin de croisière à propulsion nucléaire Kazan, l’un des sous-marins russes les plus avancés en service aujourd’hui — et le premier sous-marin de ce type à être déployé dans un port étranger. En route vers Cuba, les quatre navires russes ont effectué des exercices d’entraînement aux armes à missiles de ‘haute précision’ dans l’océan Atlantique, qui consistaient à tirer des missiles sur des cibles ennemies simulées à une distance de plus de 370 miles. Les navires russes devraient rester dans la région tout au long de l’été pour une série d’exercices militaires prévus dans les Caraïbes, et éventuellement faire escale au Venezuela.
Aussi ‘routinier’ que puisse être ce déploiement, le symbolisme d’un sous-marin russe à propulsion nucléaire — et capable de transporter des armes nucléaires — glissant à la surface de l’eau à seulement 90 miles de la Floride n’a échappé à personne. Les autorités américaines ont précédemment décrit ces sous-marins comme étant ‘capables de présenter une menace persistante et proche pour le territoire américain’. « Les navires de guerre sont un rappel à Washington qu’il est désagréable qu’un adversaire s’immisce dans votre voisinage », a déclaré Benjamin Gedan, directeur du programme pour l’Amérique latine au Wilson Center de Washington, DC, à l’AP, faisant référence à l’implication occidentale dans la guerre de la Russie en Ukraine.
Bien que nous n’en soyons pas encore à une deuxième crise des missiles cubains — les responsables de Cuba, de la Russie et des États-Unis se sont efforcés de clarifier que des armes nucléaires ne sont pas déployées sur le Kazan ou l’Amiral Gorshkov — il est difficile de ne pas voir cela comme une réponse russe à l’intensification récente de la guerre par procuration entre les États-Unis et l’OTAN contre la Russie. Au cours des dernières semaines, les États-Unis et plusieurs autres pays de l’OTAN ont, pour la première fois, autorisé formellement l’Ukraine à utiliser des armes longue portée fournies par l’Occident — et même des F-16 occidentaux — pour attaquer le territoire russe, ce que l’Ukraine a immédiatement fait. Pendant ce temps, l’Ukraine a mené, presque certainement avec l’approbation de l’Occident, des frappes de drones à longue portée sur deux stations radar russes qui font partie du système radar de détection précoce du pays conçu pour détecter les missiles nucléaires intercontinentaux entrants. Divers pays de l’OTAN, notamment la France, ont également commencé à parler ouvertement de l’envoi de troupes en Ukraine.
En réponse à l’autorisation de l’Occident permettant à l’Ukraine d’utiliser ses armes contre des cibles sur le territoire russe, Poutine a averti que la Russie envisageait de faire de même — c’est-à-dire de fournir des armes longue portée à des pays alliés pour frapper des cibles occidentales. Il a répondu : « Si quelqu’un pense qu’il est possible de fournir de telles armes à une zone de guerre pour attaquer notre territoire et nous causer des problèmes, pourquoi n’aurions-nous pas le droit de fournir des armes de la même classe à des régions du monde dont les installations sensibles seraient ciblées ? » La Russie a également commencé, pour la première fois depuis l’invasion, une série de exercices nucléaires impliquant des armes nucléaires tactiques, y compris des exercices au Bélarus, qui a accepté d’accueillir des armes nucléaires tactiques russes, avec des déclarations explicites selon lesquelles il s’agit d’une réponse aux ‘déclarations provocatrices et aux menaces de certains responsables occidentaux concernant la Fédération de Russie’.
Lors d’un discours au Forum économique international de Saint-Pétersbourg, qui s’est tenu la semaine dernière, Poutine a clarifié qu’il ne voit actuellement aucune menace pour la souveraineté de la Russie qui justifierait l’utilisation d’armes nucléaires. Cependant, il a réitéré que la Russie riposterait si quelqu’un menaçait la souveraineté et l’intégrité territoriale de l’État russe — ce qui, du point de vue de la Russie, inclut la Crimée et le Donbass. Il a également saisi l’occasion pour rappeler au monde que bon nombre des armes nucléaires tactiques de la Russie contiennent 70 à 75 kilotonnes de puissance explosive — environ cinq fois la taille de la bombe nucléaire américaine larguée sur Hiroshima en août 1945.
On pourrait penser que de telles déclarations, associées aux exercices de la Russie impliquant des armes nucléaires tactiques, donneraient au moins matière à réflexion aux dirigeants occidentaux, non seulement en Europe, mais aussi aux États-Unis — surtout à la lumière de la présence renforcée de la Russie juste au large des côtes américaines. Pourtant, il est devenu courant dans les cercles occidentaux de rejeter les menaces nucléaires de la Russie comme de simples ruses. « Il est temps de mettre Poutine au défi », a déclaré l’ancien député républicain Adam Kinzinger dans un article de CNN le mois dernier. Pendant ce temps, le général à la retraite Philip Breedlove, l’ancien ambassadeur Michael McFaul, le professeur de Stanford Francis Fukuyama et des dizaines d’anciens responsables américains ont écrit dans une lettre à la Maison-Blanche que les menaces de la Russie étaient ‘manifestement vides’ — et que les États-Unis devraient simplement les ignorer.
Il y a quelques jours à peine, le secrétaire général de l’OTAN, Jens Stoltenberg, a minimisé l’avertissement de Poutine, déclarant que ‘ce n’est rien de nouveau’. L’argument est que puisque la Russie n’a pas répondu aux provocations américaines par le passé, l’OTAN peut continuer à franchir les ‘lignes rouges’ de la Russie sans conséquences. Mais cela néglige quelque chose d’important. Il y a de très bonnes raisons pour lesquelles Poutine a jusqu’à présent évité d’utiliser des armes nucléaires et, en général, de répondre à l’escalade occidentale de manière similaire : après tout, si Poutine avait choisi de répondre de manière plus agressive aux provocations occidentales, il aurait offert à l’OTAN la justification d’entrer directement dans le conflit, avec des conséquences potentiellement inimaginables. Au lieu de cela, Poutine a opté pour une guerre d’usure de basse intensité dans laquelle la Russie avait clairement l’avantage, compte tenu de son avantage en effectifs et de sa capacité à produire plus d’artillerie et de munitions que l’Ukraine et l’Occident réunis — la raison pour laquelle la Russie est en train de gagner la guerre.
Cependant, cela ne signifie pas que Poutine bluffe cette fois-ci. Au contraire, les évolutions dans la rhétorique, les capacités et l’attitude sous-tendant les menaces nucléaires russes — la plus grande emphase sur les armes nucléaires tactiques dans la planification militaire et une baisse apparente des barrières à leur utilisation — ‘indiquent que Moscou travaille lentement mais sûrement à saper la stabilité stratégique et à accroître la crédibilité de ses menaces’, comme l’a récemment écrit Giles David Arceneaux, un collègue de l’Académie de l’armée de l’air des États-Unis. Le risque d’escalade nucléaire est faible mais ‘très réel’, a-t-il ajouté. En effet, dans la mesure où la retenue relative de la Russie face à l’escalade occidentale continue d’être interprétée par l’OTAN comme un signe qu’elle peut continuer à escalader en toute impunité, il semble raisonnable de supposer qu’à un moment donné, la Russie pourrait être contrainte d’agir pour rétablir la crédibilité de la dissuasion.
Alors, pourquoi les dirigeants occidentaux écartent-ils avec tant d’assurance la possibilité d’une escalade nucléaire ? Une explication possible est que les dirigeants occidentaux actuels manquent tout simplement de la sophistication intellectuelle, stratégique et morale qui caractérisait les décideurs politiques pendant la guerre froide. À l’époque, on comprenait que tout scénario impliquant une possibilité que l’autre partie utilise des armes nucléaires devait être évité à tout prix — et que, par conséquent, en ce qui concerne les armes nucléaires, on ne bluffe pas et on ne suppose pas que l’autre partie bluffe.
‘Pourquoi les dirigeants occidentaux écartent-ils avec tant d’assurance la possibilité d’une escalade nucléaire ?’
Le leadership occidental d’aujourd’hui, caractérisé par un mélange volatile et changeant d’ignorance, d’arrogance, de nihilisme moral et de désespoir, semble avoir oublié ces principes de base. Et associé à l’obsession des élites occidentales de maintenir un ordre hégémonique qui n’existe plus, cela a entraîné un tel détachement de la réalité que certains continuent d’argumenter que l’Occident doit ‘endosser de manière univoque les objectifs de guerre de l’Ukraine’, y compris ‘la reconstitution territoriale totale aux frontières de la nation en 1991’ — un scénario qui entraînerait presque certainement le recours de la Russie à des armes nucléaires tactiques. C’est presque comme si de tels analystes essayaient délibérément de provoquer Poutine à faire cela — peut-être en croyant que cela transformerait la Russie en un État paria et aboutirait à une victoire géopolitique pour l’Occident.
De telles considérations ont probablement influencé la réticence de la Russie à entreprendre une telle action. Mais face à l’escalade constante de l’Occident, combien de temps Poutine pourra-t-il résister aux appels croissants en faveur d’une réponse ferme émanant des factions les plus belliqueuses des cercles de politique étrangère de la Russie ? Un membre senior d’un groupe de réflexion influent russe, par exemple, a récemment suggéré que Moscou envisage une explosion nucléaire ‘démonstrative’ pour intimider l’Occident et l’empêcher de permettre à l’Ukraine d’utiliser ses armes contre des cibles à l’intérieur de la Russie. « Pour confirmer la gravité des intentions de la Russie et convaincre nos adversaires de la volonté de Moscou d’escalader, il vaut la peine de considérer une explosion nucléaire démonstrative (c’est-à-dire non combattante) », a écrit son directeur Dmitry Suslov dans le magazine économique Profil.
Sans aucun doute, les dirigeants occidentaux affirmeront publiquement que c’est encore un bluff. Mais et si ils avaient tort ? Avons-nous vraiment atteint le point où un champignon nucléaire est nécessaire pour percer notre complaisance ?
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SubscribeExcellent article. So sad to see Ron de Santis drop out of the presidential race. The last sentence in the article about lockdowns possibly being inevitable in the future sent shivers down my spine!
I disagree with the title and conclusion of this analysis…which may be based on the assumption that Kennedy, Jr. is not a contender. That is not to say I think Kennedy is sure to be one…but I do hold on to Hope. There is an unfairly steep amount of work that RFK, Jr. must pay for and enact that neither established party’s leading contenders must …but he continues to plod through the necessary steps…maintaining a positive attitude and refraining from feeling sorry for himself and thereby becoming embittered. He disciplines himself, daily, to avoid negativities toward Biden (a long-time family friend) and Trump, who he generously gives credit to for a number of policies Kennedy feels were justified.
I think RFK, Jr. is uniquely best qualified to be able to deal, in the aftermath of a botched pandemic response, with the reckoning of the mess, having litigated so many of the organizations implicated, thereby understanding them and those involved in a way that no one else does.
That said, if not for RFK, Jr.’s campaign, I would agree with Bhattacharya’s analysis of the loss of DeSantis’ presence in the 2024 presidential campaign.
Much as I like Trump, I agree that DeSantis deserves great credit for standing up to the lockdown loons. Conversely, I don’t think intellectual dishonesty about reevaluating the hysteria is confined to the Republican establishment.
The entire West (including the public and, especially, the media) had a collective fit of cowardice and irrationality over the WuFlu. They don’t want to be reminded, but they should be – if only for the sake of the children whose lives they blighted.
Dr, Bhattacharya will forever have my gratitude and admiration for his bravery throughout the entire Covid ordeal. What he had to endure in trying to bring common sense to the response is unforgivable.
Dr. B, it was largely because of you and Governor DeSantis that my husband and I moved from New England to Southwest Florida in January 2021. The residents of our former town are still wearing masks!
If Trump wins, he should give de Santis the health portfolio.
DeSantis dropped out of the race for reasons unconnected with COVID. After all, COVID as an issue is rapidly disappearing in the rear-view mirror.
Those of us who suffered under lockdowns and were oppsoed to them in principle, as well as those of us who were treated like dirt for not getting “vaccinated”, will never forget Covid.
I see there is no mention on the page of Dr. Joseph Ladapo, whom DeSantis appointed as Florida’s Surgeon General. While his general views may be sound, it doesn’t seem like he is well equipped to defend them scientifically, and a number of his statements appear more than dubious.
I have the highest regard for Dr. Bhattacharya. His fight during Covid hysteria for common sense public policy grounded in science. An immense amount of grace under pressure from Jay. Similarly Gov. DeSantis exhibited courageous leadership before, during and after Covid. But I have to throw the challenge flag.
Trump made regrettable calls on this. And he certainly won’t champion an inquiry on the campaign trail. But he knows the harm the CDC and NHI caused and will, once in office, wan to clean out the rot. New heads at NHI and CDC will do the job without making it a White House task. Dr. Jay are you interested?
Especially if Vivek is given a prominent place in the administration. My bet is the timing of DeSantis’ withdrawal and his endorsement will have earned him a spot too, so I am much less pessimistic than Bhattacharya (with all the regard I have for him too).
Yep. RFK, Jr. is the remaining American presidential candidate most likely to properly weigh collateral damages of the lockdown/mandate era and avoid a repeat. But of course he has been disparaged and dismissed as “anti-vax” and a conspiracy theorist by the establishment, including mainstream media.
Disparaging and dismissing RFK Jr on those grounds is like taking candy from a baby.
Have you ever actually watched video of any people who tried to debate RFK? He ran rings round them. Please. The MSM is wholly bought and paid for by the censorship industrial complex. They want to take your possessions and keep you in a 15-minute city. You want that? Have another booster.
Wait now: he didn’t run rings around Peter Hotez in that 3-hour debate on the Joe Rogan podcast…
…of course that was because Hotez was too chicken to debate him!
The reason there are such distinct and contradictory visions of the future in general stems from the fact that almost no one seems to be able to avoid applying any principle in two distinct and contradictory ways, anymore.
While DeSantis’ decisions during Covid were generally good, like so many others he lacks consistency – standing up for bodily autonomy in the face of coercive vaccine mandates while failing to extend this principle to abortion bans, which he so vehemently supports.
My hopes will be saved for those who are more truly committed to fundamental rights – wherever they may be.
How does it serve bodily self determination to kill an unborn child who has no possibility to say otherwise ? That’s just cruel. And kind of stupid. Nature has a way to regulate this kind of foolishness all by itself: people with high birthrates prevail and people with low birthrates decline. Abortion is no different than a slowed down genocide.
Much like donating a kidney to a relative who needs one can be a wonderful thing to do – it is your choice to do so, even though it can make the difference as to whether they live or die. That it can be lifesaving does not mean anyone should be forced to do it. There should be no more obligation for me to give a potential relative the use of my uterus than there is for me to give a more fully alive relative my kidney.
No fault power over life and death — even life you’ve created. Because that life must be important to you; hopefully, yours is to someone….
You are confusing who is making the sacrifice: It’s not the woman who carries a child, but the unborn child who is forced to give its life. So tell me, to stay consistent within your argument, why should the unborn child be obliged to die just so the mother doesn’t have to accept responsibility ?
Because, of course, a “fetus” has no rights, right?
To address Clementine’s tangent: What about Bodily Autonomy for the victims, over 1 million per year worldwide, murdered by abortion?
( — well over half of whom, BTW, are female, even if <9mo old )
it was desantis’ handling of the pandemic that thrust him onto the stage, and into the fast-lane for the nomination. he fumbled the ball.
there will be further hearings on covid, but the result will be the same: the topic is political, and so will be argued about as if either team has answers.
You make a good point about DeSantis and COVID. Both the current and previous president have shown little scientific curiosity about the subject or for the “solutions”, so long as you set aside political science. Florida did a pretty good job with this, and DeSantis deserves some credit for his leadership on the matter.
It is borderline scandalous that DeSantis is not going to be the nominee (barring any act of God).
He did himself no favours at all with his terrible campaigning. One wonders how he ever got to be Governor of Florida.
I think punishing politicians who botched the Covid response is a waste of time. We need to move forward and develop a rationale strategy for future pandemics.
We had a “rationale strategy” (USA) based on a century of study by innumerable epidemiologists since the Spanish Flu of 1916. The standard was to NOT lock-down and to keep society working, protect the vulnerable, and masking was not that important. The “science” was ignored, as Battacharya has tried to point out, but was censored.
I agree. Though it might be satisfying for people to admit that they were wrong, it would be more useful if they demonstrated it by their actions, rather than forcing any kind of explicit declaration of fault. Pushing “you were wrong” instead of “what can we do better next time” is just more likely to fail, regardless of the situation.
The problem is that all too many politicians and their MSM and bureaucratic supporters are only interested in how they can stick it to their political opponents or avoid any blame falling on themselves. They are not interested in the truth just what serves their purposes.
Then our job as citizens is to vote out these clowns.
The WHO has developed one for us.
I agree with Jim V.
We’re falling behind in so many important projects to improve and secure our lives and cultures. We have a lot of work to do. Pointing fingers doesn’t help; in fact, it makes it harder to move forward.
There is zero prospect of an independent assessment of lockdown here in the UK. Our vast Faux Inquiry is evidently as pro lockdown as it is a legal money guzzling virus. Every political party, the NHS and all public health organisations, the unions and the BBC and media ALL conspired to bully and cajole the nation into the catastrophe of lockdown. Any judgement to the contrary is just too damaging for them. The truth will stay buried .till the next time.
Quite right. The UK enquiry is a sham and political theatre rather than an honest scientific examination of the effects of lockdown compared to alternative approaches. As you say a whole public class is determined to show there was nothing wrong with lockdown apart from Johnson not embracing it quickly enough and dithering. It is no more than an insult to the public and the scientific approach. It should never have got bogged down in emails and politics but have followed the route suggested by the author avoiding all post hoc political point scoring.
The UK inquiry is currently proving highly awkward for the SNP, so it’s not all bad news.
I notice the ever-reliable WHO has published estimates by ‘experts’ (Bill Gates?) that mass vaccination was a resounding success. In the UK apparently it saved nearly half a million lives ( are these the same experts who predicted millions of deaths without ‘tough measures ‘ I wonder ?).
But current excess deaths in the UK are steadily eating away at even that number.
Meanwhile Mr Vaccine promises us shots for everything -the mind boggles.
But the truth is seeping out bit by bit and no doubt they’re really hoping that we’ll all gradually accept that we’ve been had but will be too busy worrying about keeping the lights on and too exhausted to kick up a fuss.
The fact that they know they can say any old rubbish and still be taken seriously by the MSM as if they are the infallible medical gods of the world is extremely worrying. God help us if the pandemic treaty goes forward for we will be herded into accepting rushed out, experimental vaccines and medications in the event of a pandemic – one is already being talked up – like so much cattle
A subject that Unherd has not covered at all is the WHO pandemic treaty which continues to move toward ratification. From my limited understanding, that treaty would place pandemic response authority in the hands of the WHO, and you can bet they’re in favor of lockdowns.
Why isn’t Unherd covering that topic at all?
The WHO is a paper tiger. If Trump is re-elected the US will likely withdrawal again. Any sovereign nation can wave the middle finger at ignore proclamations from the WHO.
This was your answer when I last mentioned the WHO treaty. The WHO is only a paper tiger if you are not a cowardly politician. In the future pandemic no politician will dare to react on his own iniative for fear of being blamed later. So, here comes the WHO charging over the hill. How could you be blamed if everyone was signed up to the same treaty?
That’s exactly my fear.
Well, it is those same national politicians who would have signed up to the Treaty! This sounds to be like an irritation, not anything like on a par with a supposedly liberal British prime minister removing civil liberties for over 2 years
Can you really compare Florida with California when adjusting for age? What if Florida was able to take a more restrained approach because the older population moderated their own behaviour given the much higher risk?
Can you compare economic and educational outcomes when their economies and living circumstances are entirely different?
You might be right. On the other hand, I think it’s hard to argue that Florida’s approach was some kind of disaster. IMO Covid outcomes were largely driven by population density, demographics and overall health of a population. Vaccines were beneficial for the elderly and infirm. Lockdowns did nothing but impoverish people and punish students and young adults.
Re Veenbaas’ comprehensive (and mostly-accurate) comment: Surely what’s gradually becoming biggest issue is the sad fact {which he didn’t include} that, in the long run, due to gradual systemic clotting from most vaccines vs CoVid, on-average they hurt and even kill more than they help, even for the elderly and infirm.
This factor overshadows his rightful condemnation of the harms caused by the lockdowns … which, in-effect, forced a near-equalization of the daily activities of the elderly and infirm with those of all other main sub-populations. {– thus, also settling the previous commenter’s insightful objection. } [ See “*” ] And so,
in sad irony, the lockdowns enabled the age-adjusted analyses to be quite accurate, in showing the above-mentioned average harm of current vaccinations: with their formulas’ adjuvants including aluminum ( causing single-fibril neuronal-tangling [i.e. dementia] ) and PEG ( common antifreeze, much more hepato-toxic when injected ) ; and, even worse, with every single RNA CoViD vaccine sample’s analysis revealing the inclusion of coronavirus DNA, thereby making the vaccinated organism’s [the human’s] cells continue manufacturing spike proteins which of-course eventually cause system-wide clotting which of-course eventually shuts down sections of multiple organs and then the whole organism. [ Sources available, via RepayingKindness at grnall dot com ]
——–
*: From one article (– of a liberal source, at that –) , in 2023 April, re the results, vs lockdowns & vaccines, after age-adjustment of FL’s CoViD stats:
<< .. With an adjustment to show what it would look like if each state had the same age and health profile as the United States as a whole, Florida’s death rate jumped [[up]] to 12th lowest, while California’s fell to 36th. That calculation included the proportion of each state’s residents over age 65 and under age 20, obesity and smoking rates and prevalence of diseases including asthma, cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
For some states, the adjustment made little difference. [Examples] … … For others, the difference was substantial. West Virginia, which had the country’s highest actual death rate, had the 14th lowest when the figures were adjusted to account for its older and unhealthier population. >>
— from https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/why-major-study-argues-floridas-covid-death-rate-compares-favorably-to-californias/
\\
And your “differences”, to me, make the case for variety and choice in any future decisions on what to do in a pandemic. Just a bit different to the WHO ope size fits all approach.
I suppose it’s always possible to do something incredibly stupid (like lockdown) and then question the counterfactual which can never 100% be proven. But the comparison between two sunshine states with large populations and radically different policy choices is as close as we can get to a fair comparison.
And it overwhelmingly shows that lockdowns were the disaster we always knew they would be.
There will never be a reckoning. Because it will not be allowed to happen. The CDC is still pushing Covid boosters against all reason, including for young children. Fauci is pocketing big bucks on the lecture circuit and Congress engages in its usual kabuki theater that leads to nothing.
From what I can tell, as this article suggests, same song in the UK. The people in charge will never admit to being wrong or misjudging events or even being overzealous. Their DNA won’t allow it. They’ll pivot to the next shiny object while giving the appearance of inquiry to mollify the loudest voices. And that’s it. I would love to be proven wrong, but it’s not likely in this case.