Soviet union was enclosed by US airbases and nonstop flying bombers, which could hit any city in a few hours. America also developed crazy stuff like Project Pluto...
Anyway there are two reasons for this bomb not mentioned in article:
- Terraforming. Soviets honestly believed they could redirect rivers from north to arid south. They even made artificial valley in mountains as experiment. Larger nukes are cleaner than smaller nukes.
- Doomsday device in form of dirt bomb. Plan was to concentrate all nuclear waste from Soviet countries on single place, and explode massive bomb under it. Explosion would spread nuclear material into atmosphere and most of earth wold become radioactive. This device was not approved by soviet leaders, too dangerous.
There are some good articles that go into a bit more depth on this, specifically on Putin's perceptions of such (or at least his rhetoric to that effect). Here's one from the Jan 31 Economist:
And might be the reason why they are so quick to also help other countries with a similar issue (for example: I am from Brazil, and our navy is crap, when we announced finding one of the largest oil reserves of the world, US immediately announced reactivating their south-atlantic fleet, they don't even tried to hide their intentions... so Russia now patrols our water for us, to keep US ships away from the oil rigs).
The US makes about 8 million barrels a day. The Tupi field discovered off Brazil makes about 100,000 a day and best-case contains a few years of American oil production total.
You think the US Fourth Fleet reactivation was intended to steal that production? And risk war with most of South America?
It's particularly silly when coupled with the "that's why Russia patrols our waters now!" bit. Out of the altruistic goodness of Putin's heart, I suppose?
I was not talking about ONLY the tupi field, but about the entire pre-salt layer, that is sprawled all over our coast (that is too big for our tiny navy to defend).
Geologists (not just brazillian one) expect the pre-salt layer to have 50 billion barrels, that is 4 times Brazil current oilfields, thus why to Brazil it is important.
Also the Tupi field current exploration is more related to a stock market scam than an actual attempt (see Eike Batista and the stunt he pulled...)
The point remains - what are you accusing the US Navy of planning to do along your coast, and what is the Russian navy supposedly doing to prevent it (and why do you assume they have any better motives than the US does)?
The US Navy deactivated the south atlantic fleet decades ago, and then it announced its reactivation shortly after our official announcement of finding lots of oil... Why should we not be suspicious?
And Russia is here because our government invited them, after US announcement, officially it is for "training", but Russian ships can keep US ships away from the oil rigs (ie: when a US ship is in a place the government here disapproves, the government invites Russian ships to do a "training drill" nearby, and push away the US ship, that will retreat to avoid conflict, a sort of psychological dance).
Mind you, US already used its navy to topple our government before (in 1964 it sent a carrier group to support CIA during our military coup), and US was suspected here of having too much interest in our oil company, this later was proved by Snowden (NSA did lots of spying on Petrobras, including of stuff that is more commercial than strategic), so excuse me if we don't trust US, the past behaviour of US toward us here has not been good (while we have nothing but praise for Russia... yes, I know all Russian issues worldwide, but locally to US Russia always had been a great true ally).
That's kind of silly. Fourth Fleet has zero permanently assigned ships, and a peak strength of something like four ships in its area of responsibility, and doesn't, AFAICT, involve any more naval strength typically deployed in the region than US Naval Forces Southern Command had in the region prior to Fourth Fleet being stood up with the same area of responsibility and commander as USNAVSO.
AFAICT, the "intention" of standing up Fourth Fleet as an organization was to bring the naval side of Southern Command HQ structure more in line with that of the rest of the geographical combatant commands (US Naval Forces Africa still doesn't have a numbered fleet or similar command associated, but Africa wasn't yet a full independent unified combatant command at the time Fourth Fleet was stood up in Southern Command.)
Better be safe than sorry... Specially after what US did in 1964 (US sent a carrier group here to support CIA to support a military coup... all that stuff is in declassified files)
In 1964 US forces don't fired a single shot, but they didn't need to, US is so absurdly stronger that they being in our territory is enough to strong-arm us to do anything they want, US and Brazil government know that Brazil government will always yield to US if US is in firing range, precisely for that reason that Brazil government don't like US in firing range, Brazil knows US won't attack out of the blue, and thus this can be used to keep US away (for example keeping Russian ships in firing range instead... US won't suddenly fire on Russian ships, this fact is ALSO known to both governments).
Soviet union was enclosed by US airbases and nonstop flying bombers, which could hit any city in a few hours. America also developed crazy stuff like Project Pluto...
Anyway there are two reasons for this bomb not mentioned in article:
- Terraforming. Soviets honestly believed they could redirect rivers from north to arid south. They even made artificial valley in mountains as experiment. Larger nukes are cleaner than smaller nukes.
- Doomsday device in form of dirt bomb. Plan was to concentrate all nuclear waste from Soviet countries on single place, and explode massive bomb under it. Explosion would spread nuclear material into atmosphere and most of earth wold become radioactive. This device was not approved by soviet leaders, too dangerous.