Gina George/
Military authorities in the West have switched on the alert button following recent activities by Russia and North Korea that clearly suggest the two communist nations are preparing for another round of global warfare.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia has ordered an increase in the intensity of “snap readiness combat checks” for military forces on his “western enclave” of Kaliningrad – which is only 200 miles from the Swedish coast.
Russia’s latest actions have reportedly prompted the Sweedish government to reintroduce conscription. It has also stationed permanent troops on the Baltic Sea island of Gotland.
Defence Minister, Peter Hultqvist, described the move as sending a signal after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and its “increasing pressure” on the neighboring Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Russia also recently announced it is working on a new range of laser, plasma and electromagnetic weapons as well as hypersonic missiles, which would be able to hit a US aircraft carrier before the Pentagon even realised it had been fired.
Analysts have also alerted that North Korea may have successfully developed a missile system with a range of thousands of miles, which would mean Washington and London are within striking distance.
The 6,000 square mile area south of Lithuania is Russia’s only port in the Baltic which remains ice free around the year.
Last year, Putin deployed his feared SA-21 Growler anti-aircraft missile system to the enclave – covering his naval base.
Putin’s military build-up in the region is being carried out under the umbrella of the Growler missile system – which he calls the S-400 Triumf.
The Growler is one of the most advanced air defence missile systems in the world
Russian troops have been increasing the frequency and intensity of its readiness drills, prompting fear in the west
Putin even ordered a Russian flotilla through the English Channel last October for a brief deployment to the Mediterranean
Putin has also sent his strategic bomber fleet on missions, testing UK and NATO response times to the sorties
Last month, Putin ordered a massive readiness exercise to prepare the area for air attack.
Roman Martov of the Baltic Fleet’s air defence arm told the Tass news agency: “Under the drills’ plan, the fleet’s radar reconnaissance has practiced detecting a notional enemy’s air attack in the designated area of responsibility and aiming the S-400 Triumf anti-aircraft missile system to destroy the targets detected. The combat crews of the Pantsyr-S1 anti-aircraft missile/gun system provided cover for the S-400 complexes.”
Putin has deployed his Growlers from an area covering his Northern fleet, down along Russia’s western border and into the Crimea.
He also has Growlers based in Syria, covering much of the Mediterranean – including RAF Akrotiri.
NATO too has begun deploying troops to Estonia as a response to the increasingly hostile actions of the Russians.
More than 1,000 troops from Britain, France and Denmark will arrive this month. NATO has also deployed reinforcements to Poland on its eastern flank.
To herald the era of hypersonic weapons, Russia’s Deputy Defence Minister Yuri Borisov said, recently: “Coming next are hypersonic weapons, which require the use of principally new materials and control systems that operate in a completely different medium, in plasma.”
A hypersonic weapon is a missile which travels at Mach 5 – five times the speed of sound – and it would enable the Russians to strike a target thousands of miles away within minutes.
Tass reported that Borisov also told journalists at the Russian Academy of Sciences: “We expect an especially serious breakthrough in the field of laser issues, electromagnetic weapons and so on.”
The US and China are also believed to be working on laser weapons, which have the advantage of not running out of ammunition.
In 2010 the American arms giant, Raytheon, demonstrated a laser weapon which was able to shoot four drones out of the sky and in 2014 the US Navy carried out several laser tests in the Persian Gulf.
But Borisov said Russian scientists were also working on future weapons which were “based on physical principles never used before in this field”.
He said: “Coming next are completely new principles of troop operations’ control, because today one who learns to detect the enemy quicker and give the target designation – and all this has to be done in real time – is the one who actually wins.”
Painting a picture of a computer games-style world where the winner of a military conflict was the country who could operate complex weapons systems quickest, he said war decisions which previously took hours or even days were now down to minutes and “soon these will be seconds”.
He said: “We have mapped out a plan of action. On the one hand, our officers are learning in the direct meaning of this word – special courses are being organised for them. On the other hand, we have kindled academic institutes with our ideas to some extent and they are beginning to think about new approaches to modelling serious operations.”
Putin has been investing billions in modernising his country’s armed forces in recent years as an increasingly frosty “new Cold War” broke out with America under the Obama administration and its Nato allies, especially Poland and the Baltic states.
Professionals analysing North Korea have used a single propaganda photograph of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, to gauge the rang of the missiles in the pictures and even his standing in the military.
The image, from March 2016, shows the dictator standing around a bomb with a group of men in front of a rocket.
North Korean state media portrayed it as an unveiling of the country’s newest nuclear device, which analysts have described as the disco ball.
Jeffrey Lewis, an analyst at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, told The New York Times it weighs a few hundred kilograms and is roughly as destructive as the bombs the US dropped on Japan.
He said the telling thing to take from the spherical weapon was its ability to fit on their long-range missiles.
Because it is only 60cm in diameter, it means it is small enough to be mounted on the ballistic weapons, meaning a big step forward for their nuclear programme.
With only one angle available, there are conflicting theories on the bomb’s functionality, with some experts saying it could even feature a toxic gas.
Even the coat work by Kim Jong-un is significant.
Historians recognise the coat as the current dictator’s grandfather Kim Il-sung, the nation’s founding leader, who is synonymous with the Korean War.
By donning his grandfather’s coat, experts believe the country is once again on the war path, as it means he is breaking away from the traditions of his father Kim Jong-il – a man who preferred to lead through the military and the Communist Party.
The coat is a symbolic gesture that he and he alone is in charge, which helps the analysts get an idea of the government’s dynamics.
It goes hand-in-hand with the experts’ theory on the carefully-selected gathered crowd.
Michael Madden, who tracks appearances by North Korean officials, picked out the head of the nuclear program and the head of missile forces both wearing civilian clothing.
The meaning behind this, he told The New York Times, was that Kim runs North Korea’s nuclear programme personally.
Fellow expert Joshua Pollack backed the theory up by saying: “This is not rule by the military anymore. This is rule by one man.”
Adding to the message that he was boss is the fact Kim is directing the officials, who are studiously note-taking.
David Schmerler, who works at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, spotted white lettering on the missile behind the crowd, reading “support”.
He told the American paper he could measure the missile’s capabilities and the type of fuel it used.
The result is a harrowing one – it has a range of thousands of miles which would mean Washington and London are within striking distance.
The team of professionals were also able to pinpoint the location of the photograph as being just outside Pyongyang and they regularly use the dictator’s fluctuating weight to determine when a photograph is taken.
Summarising, Pollack said: “This is a deadly serious programme.”
And in a move, which seemed intended to signify the seriousness of its intentions, North Korea, on Monday, launched four unidentified missiles which fell into the Sea of Japan.
According to military sources in South Korea, the missiles flew some 1,000 km (620 miles), and were launched from the area of Tongchang-ri – where a missile base is located – in a possible retaliation by North Korea to joint US and South Korean drills that began last week.
According to local news sites, an unnamed ministry official warned the projectiles could be intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the US mainland.
The missiles were fired from North Pyongan province around 7.36 am South Korean time, the ministry said in a statement, adding they landed in the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan.
And Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tokyo lodged a “strong protest” to North Korea after the reclusive state launched the four ballistic missiles, three of which fell into Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone.
“The latest launches of ballistic missiles clearly demonstrate evidence of a new threat from North Korea,” Abe told reporters at his residence.
Seoul and Washington launched annual joint military exercises last week that regularly infuriate Pyongyang, which condemns them as provocative rehearsals for invasion.
Visiting a North Korean army headquarters unit, Jong-Un ordered the troops to “set up thorough countermeasures of a merciless strike against the enemy’s sudden air assault”, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported.
North Korea fired a ballistic missile last month – its first such launch since October – which Seoul had said was aimed at drawing “global attention” to its nuclear and missile programme and “testing the response from the new US administration” of President Donald Trump.
North Korea is barred under UN resolutions from any use of ballistic missile technology.
But six sets of UN sanctions since Pyongyang’s first nuclear test in 2006 have failed to halt its drive for what it insists are defensive weapons.