Nuclear Alert: Another 32 US Bases in Europe Close to Russia

Sweden will join NATO under US command next July. Meanwhile, the United States has already entered Sweden. An agreement was signed last December, that gives them unrestricted access to 17 Swedish military bases. Here the United States can deploy its forces and pre-position weapons. Nuclear weapons are not mentioned in the Agreement, but the United States will have exclusive control over pre-positioned weapons, therefore there is the possibility of deploying nuclear weapons in Sweden also.

The USA signed a similar agreement with Finland last December, which joined NATO under US command last April. Finland grants the United States unrestricted access to 15 military bases, including the prepositioning of weapons and the entry of US planes, ships, and military vehicles. Since the United States has exclusive control over these forces, it can deploy both nuclear weapons and carriers at Finnish bases. Five of the 15 bases are located in Lapland on the Russian border.

At the same time, the United States is deploying the new B61-12 nuclear bombs in Europe. They are deployed in Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Turkey to replace the B61 nuclear bombs. The B61-12s may also be secretly located in Poland and other European countries. While their deployment is underway, the Pentagon announced the decision to develop a further variant of the bomb, called B61-13. It will have a power output of 360 kilotons, much higher than the B61-12’s maximum output of 50 kilotons.

The Pentagon reports that “the B61-13 will provide the President of the United States with additional options against more resistant military targets and targets over large areas”. In other words, the United States is deploying first-strike nuclear bombs in Europe, clearly aimed at Russia, to destroy command centre bunkers and large areas of strategic importance. Russia’s response is inevitable: it has completed the deployment in Belarus of tactical nuclear weapons capable of hitting US-NATO nuclear bases in Europe. At the same time, the risk of nuclear war is growing in the Middle East, where Israel – the only nuclear power in the region – is preparing, with US support, to attack Iran.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.