Every time nuclear weapons are mentioned, it is always a very serious topic.
Since the atomic bombs were detonated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki decades ago, the world has gained a profound understanding of the horrific destructive power of these weapons.
However, in early February this year, CCTV cited a report from British media that shocked us: the U.S. plans to redeploy nuclear weapons in the UK.
It has been 15 years since the last time the U.S. deployed nuclear weapons in the UK, and the re-emergence of this news has sparked widespread attention and discussion.
Some media outlets have begun to express increasingly serious concerns about the possibility of a nuclear conflict in Europe in the future.
In fact, news about the U.S. planning to redeploy nuclear weapons in the UK surfaced as early as last year, with British media reporting on it at that time.
According to reports, the U.S. Congress will allocate $50 million to support the construction of facilities at U.S. Air Force bases in the UK.
Some media analyses suggest that the "potential security mission" mentioned by the British media may refer to another code name for replacing the original nuclear weapons maintenance personnel.
The deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe is not a first.
As early as the 1950s, the U.S. was the first to deploy nuclear weapons in the UK, a strategy that lasted for a decade and also involved countries like France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium, with more than twenty different models.
By 1971, the number of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe exceeded 7,000, reaching its peak.
Subsequent U.S.-Soviet negotiations led to many treaties we are familiar with, including the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which was reached during this period.
As U.S.-Soviet relations eased, the U.S. began to gradually reduce its overseas nuclear weapon deployments.
At the same time, then-President George H.W. Bush, in order to showcase his diplomatic posture, started to withdraw some tactical nuclear weapons from Europe.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, although Russia inherited some of the Soviet assets, its overall strength was far from that of the former Soviet Union and could not compete with the U.S.
As a result, the U.S. once again reduced its nuclear weapon deployments.
Until the end of 2000, President Clinton signed a document to maintain the deployment of 480 nuclear bombs in Europe.
Over time, the U.S. gradually withdrew its nuclear warheads from Europe, until in 2008, 110 British nuclear warheads were also withdrawn, marking the end of this deployment that lasted for more than half a century.
In addition to the possibility of the U.S. restarting its long-suspended nuclear weapon deployment in the UK, some Western media have also begun to exaggerate U.S. military capabilities.
Recently, two British professors publicly claimed that the U.S. is making significant progress in missile technology against China and Russia.
They even asserted that the U.S. could destroy China and Russia's nuclear retaliatory capabilities within just two hours using conventional missiles.
These two professors mentioned that Russia has only 150 nuclear launch sites, while China has even fewer, with only 70.
These launch sites are about 2,500 kilometers from the border, while the U.S. and its allies possess 7,500 cruise missiles that can strike the launch sites in China and Russia within two hours.
Moreover, they believe that only silos buried deep underground and mobile launch platforms possess nuclear retaliatory capabilities, but these platforms have very weak defenses.
Based on this, these two professors concluded that people underestimate the U.S. conventional strike capabilities.
To prove their point, they cited examples of U.S. transport planes dropping large numbers of missiles, believing this could effectively strike China's and Russia's nuclear facilities.
However, the range of the "JASSM" missile they mentioned is only 500 kilometers, and the improved version has a range of only 1,000 kilometers.
It is worth noting that how far are the Chinese and Russian launch platforms from the border?
2,500 kilometers! Even if U.S. transport planes carry improved "JASSM" missiles, they would need to fly 1,500 kilometers within China and Russia to launch them.
Some media have questioned that such statements are tantamount to assuming that China and Russia would be inactive in the face of U.S. strikes, which seems extremely absurd.
Meanwhile, the rhetoric from foreign media is not mere chatter from military enthusiasts or ignorant individuals, but comes from established British think tank scholars whose comments are regarded as serious academic analysis.
It is evident that if the U.S. C-17 transport planes truly possess such powerful capabilities, why would the U.S. still invest heavily in developing stealth bombers?
And regarding the issue of the U.S. redeploying nuclear warheads in the UK that we mentioned at the beginning, if conventional weapons can destroy China and Russia's nuclear capabilities, why does the U.S. need to redeploy nuclear weapons in the UK?
Today, many media point out that despite the U.S. repeatedly claiming to support regional peace, it continuously provokes geopolitical conflicts on the other hand.
Although many people still view the U.S. military strength as formidable, if we follow the assertions of the British media, believing that a non-stealth transport plane can easily destroy China's and Russia's nuclear launch sites, this clearly underestimates China's and Russia's air defense capabilities.
After all, decades ago, we shot down U.S. reconnaissance planes that violated our airspace multiple times, and now China's air defense forces are even more advanced. Can the combat scenarios imagined by these two professors really succeed?
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