Nuclear Wars Are Obsolete - Russia's ICBM Strike Against the Ukrainian Factory Changed Defense Strategy And Geopolitics Forever

The paradigm change is beyond measure

Just a few days ago, Russia did a Ballistic Missile strike against a Ukrainian factory.

The strike sent shockwaves across ‘the West’ because it was unexpected and it signaled that Russia would not tolerate the US escalating the war further, but the actual implications of the strike go far beyond anything that is happening at this moment in Ukraine, Russia, the US or the West.

Until now, the strategic paradigm relied on thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles that would deliver multiple nuclear warheads to remote targets on other continents.

The ballistic missiles were known to be not totally accurate, and nuclear warheads were required to both increase their destructive power and also make up for the potential inaccuracy of the missile with the area effect of the nuclear warhead. So the world ended up with 12,000 nuclear warheads distributed across different continents and countries as deterrence.

So when a large-scale war that required the involvement of nuclear weapons happened, it would cause massive destruction through nuclear warheads to accomplish its goal.

But the recent Russian ballistic missile attack changed all that.

The missile was launched from ~800 km away and successfully delivered almost all of its warheads to the target factory without a hitch.

Moreover, the warheads did not carry any explosive charge - they were just lumps of metal or just the reentry vehicles themselves, hitting the target with kinetic force of over ~12,000 km/hour, ~3 km/sec at the point of impact.

And that by itself was enough to take the strategic Ukrainian factory out.

So Russia was able to destroy a factory in a strategic range without even using any explosives at all. Just the missile and inert warheads that don’t explode. Not even any charge in the warheads to increase their kinetic force at the point of impact, like how some kinetic anti-tank mechanisms or missiles have.

This goes beyond even what hypersonic missiles can do. A hypersonic missile carries just one warhead. It hits its target at around ~12,000 km/h speeds. And the kinetic energy of the missile and the explosion of the warhead does major damage.

But hypersonic missiles are still expensive and as impactful as they are, they can still destroy just one target with one warhead. And they are not intercontinental yet - you have to fire them from a submarine if you want to hit a distant continent.

But the new missile technology is different:

Nuclear Wars Are Now Obsolete

With this new missile technology, Russia can now destroy any target anywhere around the world cheaply, accurately and without doing collateral damage.

The technology used for this Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) can be adapted to Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMS).

And Russia can use the same technology to do pinpoint strikes on any remote target cheaply without causing any collateral damage. Want to destroy a factory? There goes one single factory. Want to destroy an ICBM installation? Rain down 50-100 warheads on it. They don’t even need to explode - the kinetic force will be enough. Maybe some explosive kinetic charge if the missile silos are buried too deep or protected well enough.

This means that Russia can now conduct a nuclear-scale strategic war without using nuclear warheads and causing nuclear explosions and with minimal collateral damage, if any.

Nuclear warfare appears like a clunky bludgeon compared to the capability of such precise intercontinental strikes with no collateral damage.

Minimal damage to civilians, the environment, civilian infrastructure and even enemy military personnel. As a result minimal ethical and legal implications per international law.

For the first time, a strategic war is possible without the moral and civilizational implications of a nuclear exchange.

Now, to gain that capability, Russia needs only to manufacture legions of RS-24 IRBMs (this one), transfer the same technology to the ICBMs, and mass-manufacture them. This technology could even be implemented into the existing ICBM stocks without having to manufacture new ones.

Of course, it won’t be only Russia - China, India, Pakistan, Ira,n and every other country took notice of this. And they will go for the same capability. They already have ballistic missiles, some already have ICBMs, and as Russia is willing to help its allies implement this technology, things will change profoundly across the world.

But the paradigm won’t change in the US and US-controlled West despite all of this. They noticed this paradigm change, but they knowingly won’t do anything to adapt to it.

From their perspective, there is a very good reason for them not doing it. I’ll write about that in my next post. If you don’t want to miss it, subscribe to my Substack mailing list below for free (choose the last, free option):