The following is an edited transcript of the May 28, 2025 Schiller Institute dialogue between Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, and Dr. Theodore Postol. Dr. Postol is professor emeritus of Science, Technology and National Security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and one of the world’s leading experts on nuclear weapons and the effects of their use. Subheads have been added. The video is available here.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Hello, all of you, I greet all of you, but I’m very happy to greet especially Prof. Ted Postol, who is formerly a professor at MIT, and probably one of the world’s most famous, competent experts on nuclear weapons, and he will discuss with me his view about the dangers of the “Golden Dome” proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump. But before I ask you some questions—and hello to you, first—I want to very briefly situate this topic, in the very dramatic developments of the recent days. And I want to really call all of you, our viewers, to the highest degree of attention, because we are seeing a very rapid, dramatic worsening of the strategic situation, even in the last week.
To start off with, Chancellor of Germany Friedrich Merz made an ominous statement, saying that Germany, France, Great Britain, and the United States, all, supposedly, have lifted any restrictions concerning the range of weapons delivered to Ukraine; how far they can strike deep into the territory of Russia. That has caused a very sharp, immediate response by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said that this statement and subsequent actions have moved the world several steps closer to a direct confrontation. [Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson] Maria Zakharova said that since Merz had already named very concrete targets in Russia, like the Kerch Bridge, that one could expect appropriate counter reactions from Russia, targeting appropriate goals in Germany, if such weapons would be used.
In the TV program in Moscow, “60 Minutes,” there was a discussion where some experts were mooting the possibility that, if the Taurus missiles would be delivered to the Ukrainians and used, that Russia could destroy the factory where the Tauruses are produced, which is a little place, a little city in Bavaria, 40 kilometers north of Munich, called Schrobenhausen. And I’m sure that the citizens of Schrobenhausen will not be very happy to hear that, because if they are hit by Oreshnik missiles, which cannot be stopped, that would forebode a great horror for not only Schrobenhausen, but, subsequently, probably all of Germany and Europe.
That, unfortunately, is not the only thing which happened over the last several days. You have also on the strategic front, between the United States and Russia, a dramatic worsening, after the very hopeful discussion which Russian President Vladimir Putin had with President Trump; over the last, I would say six or seven days or so, there was a huge attack on Russian territory with many Ukrainian drones and other vehicles—I think altogether 1,100 drones, mainly targeting Moscow. They had to close down four airports in Moscow, and apparently also the helicopter of President Putin could have been hit. If this was a targeted operation—an assassination attempt—or not, I cannot say, but it is a very serious matter.
Naturally, Russia answered that with a very heavy drone attack on Ukraine. As usual, only the Russian drone attack is being reported by the Western media, but not that it was in reaction to the increased drone attacks by the Ukrainians into Moscow. When President Trump was asked at an airport about this, he was obviously extremely frustrated. He had already posted on his Truth Social that Putin must be crazy. Naturally, the international media jumped all over this statement, and Trump in this interview at the airport was asked, “Are you aware of the attack on the helicopter of Putin?” And Trump said, “No.” I mean, this is quite unbelievable that the President of the United States would not know, in this extremely tense situation, that such an attack had occurred.
He said, in answering this reporter, that very bad things could happen to Russia, if things did not improve, or something like that. So, I think that the promising discussions which Putin and Trump had, obviously, were very much to the dismay of the so-called “Coalition of the Willing,” the Europeans who want to prolong the war in Ukraine by all possible means. And one can be sure that there are many forces inside the United States, with the previous administration, who also were extremely angry about the Putin-Trump discussion, and they would do quite a bit to derail them.
This is a situation in which now we have not only the threat that the Taurus missiles will be used, but also the announcement that the United States will build this Golden Dome. So, I would like you, Ted, please tell us what your views on all of these matters are.
Intelligence Matters
Postol: [laughs] Let me just make a quick comment, because something I learned from you, in your introductory remarks, President Trump was apparently not made aware of the drone attack on President Putin. Did I understand that correctly, according to this?
Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, yes.
Postol: Well, this is a rather important insight into the lack of proper intelligence support for political leaders in the West in general, and in the United States in particular. One of the problems that I think many people who have not had a lot of personal contact with people in politically significant roles are not aware of, is that these people are not kept well informed by our intelligence services. There are multiple reasons for this. It has to do, not only with the bureaucracy—you know, you have somebody who knows that this has gone on; I’m sure that there are people in our intelligence community who are aware of this right away, but this information never got provided to people who brief the President about the ongoing situation in Ukraine.
I have observed this kind of phenomena multiple times in my career, where I was talking to high-level people either at the White House at some time, or was talking to people with the Chief of Naval Operations, who I was an advisor to, and one of the themes that I will constantly bring up in some of our discussions, when appropriate, is to remind people that our intelligence community is not providing adequate information to our political leadership. Some of it has to do with the responsibility of political leadership: They should be curious enough to ask about it. Of course, if you don’t know something’s going on, you don’t know to ask about it. But there should be somebody at the appropriate level to make sure that the President is aware of this kind of thing. This is supposedly why we have a Director of National Intelligence.
I’m surprised that Tulsi Gabbard did not make sure that the President was made aware of this. I don’t want to suggest that she’s not doing her job. I think she has a terribly difficult job to do, but if the President was not made aware of this, Tulsi Gabbard may not have been aware that the people who are supposed to brief the President were not keeping him up to date. So, if for some reason, somebody who works with Gabbard, who I consider very capable—I want to be clear that my experience with Tulsi Gabbard is, she is very capable—if anybody who works with her happens to see this, I would urge you to make Gabbard aware of the fact that the President was not told about this extremely critical piece of information, so she can go fix the system that’s not properly keeping him informed. But that’s my reaction to your statement.
Unfortunately, the situation that Trump is up against, is, he is facing major political pressures from two groups that he has been allied with in the past, in fact that he is allied with. One of them is this group that’s been headed by Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is lobbying to keep the Ukraine war going. He has been lobbying in the Senate and elsewhere; he’s been lobbying with members of the Senate and also conspiring with political leaders in Western Europe, mainly the political leaders of the UK, France, and Germany—[Prime Minister Keir] Starmer, [President Emmanuel] Macron and [Chancellor Friedrich] Merz—to try to keep this war going. These people do not believe that it’s in their interests to have a peaceful ending to this thing, this war, that is now killing people for no reason.
I want to underscore that the war is over, in terms of the predictable consequences. The Russians are completely dominating militarily. They have not brought to bear nearly the level of force that they are able to bring to bear. We’re going to see this in the next weeks or a month or so, when they start a full-scale offensive, on a scale that’s even higher than what they’re already doing. But who knows what’s going to happen there; how fast things can crumble for Ukraine. And the war is lost, so people, Ukrainians are dying and Russians are dying for no reason, because the political leaders in Ukraine do not want to acknowledge that they are defeated!
And by making believe that they can command that the Russians surrender, in spite of the fact that the Russians have won the war, all they are doing is causing more death and destruction to Ukrainian society. Ukrainian society has already suffered extraordinary losses of young men and also young women, at the most productive ages, so the demography of Ukraine is indelibly altered already, for the next 40 years, because the loss of these people—they will not be having families, they will not be producing intellectual wealth, they will not be producing material wealth. They will be a hole in the demographic make-up of Ukrainian society, and that hole is only getting wider and deeper, as these people insist on killing their own people for no reason. So, I must say, I am beside myself over this situation. Of course, there’s nothing to do, other than point it out, it seems—at least from my point of view. And I think President Trump is aware of this, and he seems to be also very upset about the situation.
But the bottom line is that the ball is in the court of the Ukrainians at this point. It is very clear that the Ukrainians were told in the meeting in Istanbul, which occurred, I think it was around May 18, where the Russians had a meeting with the Ukrainians—finally had a meeting with the Ukrainians. Keep in mind that prior to this, [acting Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky had a law passed that Ukrainians cannot negotiate with Russia. But for reasons I think were essentially forced on them by Trump, which was a good thing he did, he forced the Ukrainians to go into a room and sit with the Russians. So, they violated their own law, which was good! They actually sat together.
Ukraine Has Been Warned
What the Ukrainians were told was that we want—we, Russians, have this proposal: The proposal is well known at this point. They want the Ukrainians to surrender the four eastern provinces that are about to be taken by force. Those provinces are lost. They will be taken, probably, in a matter of weeks, if not sooner. We want you to surrender, stop contesting our control over those four provinces, oblasts, and Crimea, and stop persecuting Ukrainian citizens of Russian descent; agree not to join NATO; and agree not to allow foreign troops and military equipment on your soil that will be used against us. That’s what the Russians have been asking for.
The Russians have taken the position that we, the Russians and Ukrainians, had an agreement in 2022, and in March and April of 2022 that agreement was signed, was initialed by the Ukrainian and Russian sides, and that was much more favorable than what is now being offered to the Ukrainians. But the Ukrainians withdrew from that agreement, in spite of the fact that they had signed it, because the American government at that time, President Joe Biden’s administration, and the Brits demanded that the Ukrainians withdraw, or they would withdraw support for Ukraine. And very unwisely, Zelensky followed the orders of the United States and Great Britain. The consequence of that, was that the Russians suffered a significant military setback, because the Russians were willingly withdrawing troops that had already occupied areas around Kiev, as a show of goodwill. These forces were not being driven from their locations; they were being moved willfully by the Russians, to show that the Russians were willing to show goodwill, because this treaty was already being signed.
And what then happened, is, these forces were attacked. And the Russian military was not happy with that outcome, and I’m sure Putin suffered some internal criticism from the Russian military over this, which is why the Russian military sat at the planning for the negotiations that just happened in mid-May. The leaders of the Russian southern, central, and northern fighting groups were all at the negotiation discussions that the Russian Security Council had before the Russians went to the meeting in Istanbul.
What the Ukrainians were told in Istanbul—which I think was a result of the meeting that had occurred in Moscow before, this meeting of the National Security Council and the Russian Security Council in Moscow—they were told the following: They were told that if there isn’t an agreement reached, along the lines of what the Russians have been demanding, then the Russians will assume that they are going to have to take this war to an end. And that the end-point is going to look as follows: The Russians are going to take the Sumy area, to the north and west of Kiev; they’re going to take Kharkiv, they’re going to take the Kharkiv area; and they’re going to take Nikolayev and Odessa. That’s what appears to have been told to the Ukrainians.
So, they have been warned. They have a choice that they’ve been given: You can either accept what we’re asking for now, or you’re going to have a much worse situation. You already have a much worse situation than you had in March 2022, when you had a treaty and the Russians were basically going to withdraw. So, what the Ukrainian government is demonstrating to the Russian government, is that the political leadership is not concerned about the wellbeing of its own population in its own country. They are simply trying, because of their ideological, ultranationalist views, which are totally unsupportable, to fight to the end, just like Hitler fought to the end—and would have caused even more damage to Germany if Albert Speer had carried out Hitler’s orders to Speer, to destroy the rest of Germany, rather than let it fall into the hands of the Allies. This is the kind of Götterdämmerung, kind of ending to the Ukraine war that is coming about because of Ukrainian political leadership. And this is not a good thing, these consequences are horrifying!
Deadly Hallucinations in the West
Zepp-LaRouche: It’s very worrisome, because all the reports one picks up from different sources, is that the continuous lying on the side of the Western forces— First of all, you had a revanchist re-writing of history going on. I mean, I remember very well what happened at the Maidan in 2014: [U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Europe] Victoria Nuland handing out cookies to the demonstrators, the telephone call between her and U.S. Ambassador [to Ukraine Geoffrey] Pyatt. But the Western media and the Western politicians pretend that you don’t have a memory, you don’t remember these facts, and they’re re-writing the history of what this war was all about in the first place.
Then, naturally, you had the admission of [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel and [French President François] Hollande, that they just kept the Minsk II agreement in order to gain time for the Ukrainians to be trained on the NATO level, and on and on. So, the result of all of that is that now, basically, the mood—these are the reports we are getting from different sources—that the mood in Russia has shifted. That, sort of the patience—maybe not with Putin, fortunately, who seems to be a very patient person—but the mood of the Russians, including the population, has really run out, because they have come to the conclusion that you can’t trust anybody in the West, and that this whole conflict, therefore, has to be settled in military terms.
And the West is continuously having the delusion that they can keep the war going. And I think that mixture, between, on the one side the complete frustration and disappointment on the side of the Russians, and the continuous delusion that you can still ruin Russia somehow, when you clearly can’t—I think that creates a very explosive mixture.
Postol: I would probably choose a different word than “delusion”: I would call it “hallucination.” Because, what’s going on now, is, you have a leadership in the West that is literally hallucinating, and when you hallucinate, and you jump from one branch to the other of a tree, and you jump to a branch that isn’t there, you don’t survive.
Zepp-LaRouche: Tell me, what should we tell the people in Germany? Because we just had the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, and I know that for Russia, the whole memory of the Second World War, what they call the “Great Patriotic War,” is so alive that many leaders in Russia, including Lavrov and others, basically say that with Merz now deploying the army against Russia—a new battalion has been put into Lithuania—this brings forth the memory of 80 years ago. And they use quite harsh words about what is the mindset of these Germans, but also other European leaders who are doing that. So, what should we tell—
Ted Postol: I may be wrong. I’m typically in Germany at least twice a year, because I have an adopted daughter there, and her son, and you tend to meet people who are friends of theirs, rather than the full, broad population. But my impression, overwhelmingly, is that the German people do remember what happened to Germany in World War II! And, unfortunately, the political leadership is completely out of touch with what I understand the German public understands. At least, maybe I’m wrong; you may need to correct me. You’re immersed in this society, you see a wider sample of people than I do. But it seems to me, the German people are very, very aware of the consequences of what happened in World War II, and what happened in the follow-up period of the Cold War.
And, unfortunately, the political leadership is completely out of touch. Merz—I don’t think Merz can sit and talk to the average person on the street. He must live in a cocoon. Macron is the same kind of thing. This guy, Starmer, in the UK is completely out of touch as well. If you look at how out of touch these political leaders are—and let’s just focus, since you’re concerned about Germany, as am I, incidentally, because I love Germany, and I love going to Germany. I think it’s a wonderful country.
If you look at the leadership of Germany, and in particular, Merz, there is no higher obligation for a leader, but to do what’s best for their people. What’s best for your people is your goal as a leader. And to destroy the economy of your country, like is now going on in Germany, where the gross domestic product is essentially frozen and is going to diminish over time; where Germany is being deindustrialized at a fantastic rate; where the loss of skilled jobs is not only happening, but will accelerate; all because of a mythology that you’re telling yourself, that the Russians are somehow an enemy, who is shortly going to be at the gates—the Russians cannot be at the gates! They don’t have the military capability to be at the gates! Nor do they have the desire.
I think you’re correct about the mood in Russia. The mood in Russia is, “Leave us the hell alone! You’ve been coming after us now for 30 years. You know, you’ve lied to us for 30 years; you have tried to do damage for 30 years now, and now we have formed an unbreakable alliance with China, which is working out very well for both Russia and China, and we are not going to put up with it anymore!” And that’s the attitude of the Russians.
One of the things I always tried to do, when I was in the Pentagon, is put myself in the mindset of potential adversaries. And those potential adversaries might be people I abhorred. When I looked at what was going on in Kosovo, I put myself in the mindset of, yeah, you’re going to kill as many civilians as you can, because you’re fighting a powerful enemy, and if you can cause the West to kill a bunch of innocent farmers, by setting up a trap, where the farmers are made to look like they’re a military target, you’re going to do it, because you don’t have any ethical standards.
So, you put yourself in the mindset— If I put myself in the mindset of the Russians, which, incidentally, I do not compare to people who set up traps for killing civilians; the Russians have conducted this war in—there’s no such thing as a “civilized war”—but they’ve conducted it in accordance to the rules of war much more so than Ukrainians have; they have tried to minimize the unnecessary damage, or killing of civilians, which I would say, that is certainly not the case with the Ukrainians, when we look at what they’ve been doing. They—
Zepp-LaRouche: In the German media, you get exactly the opposite story, every day. I mean, it’s unbelievable!
Postol: Yes, I understand. Well, that’s a hallucination. That’s a lie that is, in fact, promoting a hallucination that can cause, if enough people believe it, decisions that will cause unbelievable and irreversible damage to Germany in the future. Because—
Zepp-LaRouche: That’s why I’m so thankful that you are talking with me here. Because the situation in Germany, I would say, there is a certain portion of people who remember World War II, and what happened in ’45, the reconstruction, the rubble field, the terror bombing. There is a certain portion of the population for whom that is still either a live memory, or they have been told by their parents or grandparents. But, unfortunately, the absolutely massive promotion of “narratives”—they’re no longer talking about historic facts, but narratives. Everything is an interpretation, designed in such a way to reach a certain audience; to convince them to adopt a certain opinion. It has nothing to do with facts, or— There is unfortunately a big effect of that in Germany, and in all of Europe, you have right now a tremendous effort to control that narrative. I mean, there are—
Pray for Putin’s Health
Postol: Well, if people understand the real situation—I’m not saying they don’t—but if people understand the real situation, they better pray for Putin’s health! Because, let me tell you, go and look at what Dmitry Medvedev is now saying. He could be the President of Russia, if Putin is killed or assassinated. And if he comes close to doing what he actually says he would do, we’re going to have a world war! I mean, this preoccupation, which I find— I know that under the hammer, that someone’s going to try to pick this statement out as somehow, “pray for Putin,” you know, but let me tell you, look at Dmitry Medvedev; look at [Kremlin spokesman] Peskov. These guys are foaming at the mouth to come at the West. Putin has been the only one showing real restraint. Between Putin and [Chinese President] Xi Jinping, they are the only adults in the room with regard to these terrible, provocative situations that are being posed by the West, to both Russia and China. And thank God that these people are behaving like adults and mature political leaders! Because if they were behaving like Biden, we’d all be dead! We’d already be dead.
And I think it’s about time for people to confront this situation! We are dealing with a hallucinating leadership in the West, and they are trying to force decisions—they have not yet succeeded—that could precipitate a global nuclear war that would essentially end civilization, and possibly human life on the planet. It’s incredible to me that people can talk about Putin the way they talk about him, when you look at how restrained and careful he has been.
So, I’m not quite as alarmed as you are. Hopefully, I’m correct—it doesn’t mean I am—because Putin, as you said earlier, is a man that will not allow himself to be provoked into doing something that will be escalatory and damaging to both Russia’s and the world’s overall wellbeing. He will keep his eye on the ball, and he will keep turning the screws in Ukraine, as long as nobody kills him. If somebody kills him successfully, I mean, God help us!
Zepp-LaRouche: I hope that you are right and I’m wrong. But the thing one has to wonder about is, after Biden, there are now many people admitting that we were close to World War III toward the end of the Biden administration, and even in the Pentagon there was an estimate that if these long-range missiles were delivered to the Ukrainians, that it would mean a 50% chance that it could lead to a nuclear war—and that 50% chance was apparently accepted!
Then you have a situation where, if Trump and Putin are trying to normalize the relations between the two largest nuclear weapons powers in the world, you would think that every sane person would be happy about it. But what you see, instead, is the so-called “Coalition of the Willing,” they are trying to prolong the war, to keep the war going, until ’29, or even ’30, or longer—
Postol: They can’t prolong the war. There are a couple of armies, Russian armies, that have not yet been involved, yet, sitting, waiting for the offensive, waiting for their orders for the offensive that’s going to start in weeks or a month or so. I mean, all hell is going to break loose in Ukraine, beyond the hell that’s already moving forward in Ukraine. This place is going to come apart in the next few weeks to months! There’s not going to be a war. At the end of the year, I can’t imagine, by the end of the year, given the forces available to the Russians, that—
Zepp-LaRouche: I’m not saying that they will be correct, but you see the intention is there. Because they have timed their political careers so much to the narrative which is now being acted out, that they don’t want to— If they would be realistic, they would say, this was all a big failure. The West lost all these wars, from Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, now Ukraine; if they would be rational, they would say, maybe to keep these wars is not such a good idea. But there’s no sign of such a reflection at all, and I think, what I mentioned in the beginning about the unfortunate shift in Trump’s view points to an environment, a global environment, where the forces of the West seem to still want to keep a global dominance, in one way or another, and that has not changed.
We just had a very successful conference of the Schiller Institute, in New Jersey. And there, the aim was that we must succeed in overcoming geopolitics, and replace this idea that one nation or a group of nations has to suppress another group or be dominant over another group, with the idea that we have to move to the “one humanity,” where each nation has common aims. Dr. Edward Teller used to talk about the “common aims of mankind,” and I think the idea that we are the one humanity eventually should replace this idea of squabbling interests and ideological controversies.
It’s very clear that the idea of world dominance still exists, and that brings us to the actual topic we wanted to discuss today, and that is your view on the Golden Dome—because that seems to be one expression of such a wish; to dominate, now, even space. So, why don’t you tell us what your views are?
Postol: Let me make one final comment in response, and you may want to come back to that, and then we’ll move on. The best hope we have right now, in my view—and it’s a hope, because I don’t think we have any control over it—is that Putin continues to keep his eye on the ball, and that he not allow himself to get pushed by the powerful political forces that are certainly pushing him, every day, at the Kremlin, and that he keeps his strategic understanding of things and his strategic goals; and if he does, I think he will just simply pursue this war no matter what happens—even if there are long-range strikes against Russia by a reckless German leadership. And what Putin will do, is just take the rest of Ukraine, and then do what needs to be done thereafter.
If that’s what he does, and it keeps us from having a global nuclear war, my hat’s off to him! Because right now, you have a hallucinating political leadership in Germany, and the people are showing in their voting, that they’re upset with the political leadership. But the cycles, the political cycle between people actually being able to move these people from office, and actually getting them removed from office, is long. So they don’t represent the German people as far as I can tell.
But, unfortunately, we’re going to have this very dangerous period where people like Merz are going to be, recklessly, running around, doing things that could get us all into a nuclear war! We just have to hope that the other side is going to continue to show the political maturity that it has so far shown. I don’t know what else to do! You can’t stop ’em.
Trump, I think, may understand the situation better than it’s been reported. I’m not convinced that he’s only blaming Putin for the situation. He may be, but I’m not so sure of that. Remember that the reporting is not very balanced. My understanding is that he also made some pretty sharp comments about the European leadership and Zelensky, and he’s no fan of Zelensky, we know that for sure! Nor is his Vice President.
And so, let’s do what we can to inform people, and let’s hope that the political leadership in Russia and China, and in the United States, that’s well-informed, will keep things from escalating out of control. We don’t know. We just have to hope for the best.
Zepp-LaRouche: That’s why I really want you to know, your words are being heard in Germany as widely as we can spread them. Because Germany is, right now, in a complete vacuum—
Postol: So is the United States!
Zepp-LaRouche: Yes. And voices of complete reason from the outside are maybe the best [solution].
Postol: As it becomes overwhelmingly clear—if it’s not already overwhelmingly clear—that the war is lost, so the public can no longer ignore it, people will start to ask questions. When Sumy falls, when Kharkiv falls, when Odessa falls, when Nikolayev falls, the newspapers will not be able to not report it! And people will then start asking the question: “How did we not know? But this didn’t just happen.” This is going to be an opening for people like you, and hopefully me, to say, “Look! This is no surprise to us! You have been misinformed and misled by your own press! So you don’t have a democratic country, because your democratic press has done a disservice to you, for the last three or four years, at least!”
That’s going to be our opportunity. I’m waiting for it. And I’m just praying that Putin will continue to keep his eye on the goal, and not allow himself to be provoked into doing something that could result in an escalation. We’ll see. That’s all we can say.
Evil Intentions Behind the ‘Golden Dome’
So, maybe we should turn to the other depressing matter [laughs], and that is, the overwhelming danger to international stability that is being caused by the possibility that Trump will go ahead with some kind of implementation of the “Golden Dome” concept that he’s been talking about.
Now, I should say, from the beginning, that the technical possibilities of implementing any of these Golden Dome systems is so daunting, that one way of looking at it is that it’s a technical hallucination; in other words, it’s not going to be possible. The problem is, intent is a big problem. So, when you say you want to do something, you’re revealing your intent, and this kind of intent indicates a global view that cannot be ignored by political leaders elsewhere. For example, the fact that the American missile-defense systems have so far produced nothing of utility—zero, so far, has been produced by missile-defense activities. This includes the sea-based missile defense and the land-based, ground-based missile-defense systems. The fact that these systems have produced nothing has alerted the political leadership of China to the fact that having a minimum nuclear deterrence will not deter the Americans. And this has caused them to start expanding their nuclear forces.
The Chinese showed an extraordinary amount of restraint, with regard to their nuclear forces, for decades, when they could have expanded these forces for a long time, and they chose not to. They chose not to—I want to be clear. The United States broke the camel’s back, I believe, by its final installation of this THAAD system in South Korea, where the United States shoved this defensive system into South Korea. The defensive system was clearly there to produce an extra capability for the American ground-based missile defense system—that’s another discussion—and the Chinese reacted by bringing extreme economic pressure on South Korea.
It was clear that the economic pressures were not going to work, so the Chinese said, “Okay, if the economic pressure on South Korea’s not going to cause the South Koreans to do a sensible thing, and the South Koreans are going to still do the stupid, aggressive things against China, like for example, selling artillery shells to Ukraine, then we’re going to have to look after our own security.” And one of those measures was to expand their nuclear forces.
If you want to look for someone to thank for the expanding of the Chinese nuclear forces, go look at Biden and Obama. Then, perhaps, Trump as well, Trump one [his presidential first term—ed.].
We’re now seeing expanded Chinese nuclear forces, and that’s a result of the past intent being shown by American activities, even though it produced nothing. So, the worst thing you can do is to show an adversary that you intend to do evil against him, but then produce nothing; you just show your ill will against them, and that’s what we have done.
Now, this Golden Dome is another example of intent to do damage to China and Russia. If I can show you— Let me just describe the space. The system is supposed to be an enhancement of what we’ve been already doing, plus adding a space-based component to our activities. Let me just explain what this space-based component is to your audience, and then we’ll describe some of the consequences of this system.
First of all, let me point out that it would be satellites put into orbit, and these satellites would have interceptors—they would house interceptors. So the satellite might weigh two tons, and it might have a three-quarters-of-a-ton interceptor in it, but the satellite weighs more than that, because the satellite provides station-keeping capability for the satellite, for the interceptor; it provides power, environmental control, support systems of all kinds. So, you’re talking about maybe a two-ton satellite that contains an interceptor.
OK, let me just start by showing you where the satellites would be placed in an orbit (Figure 1).
The satellites would be placed in orbits—the altitude of about 400 km is a good choice in orbit, because you want them low enough in orbit so that the interceptor can reach an area of lower altitudes before the ballistic missile; where you can intercept the ballistic missile before it finishes its powered flight. This yellow area, where the red outline is sort of a disc in space, is where the satellite has its maximum ability, maximum range, to destroy missiles launched from the ground. If you can imagine an interceptor launch from within a 500-km region on the ground, or so, 500 or 600 km would be covered by this satellite.
The way this system would work is, if a missile were launched at a given time, the satellite would be warned about the launch by sensors which are deep in space. And the sensors would tell the satellite, “There is a launch at this location.” And then, there would be a delay, a slight delay, because the sensors in space would have to track enough of the trajectory of the ICBM, of the missile, to know roughly where it’s going to go, so the interceptor could be launched at roughly maybe 20 or 25 seconds after the initial detection of the launch. Then the interceptor is accelerating over time, and within maybe 150 or 170 seconds from the actual detection of the launch, the interceptor would be in a position to destroy an ICBM.
If we want to get a sense of how many satellites we would have to launch, here is a situation where I have postulated 288 satellites (Figure 2). Notice that, to the left, you see the satellites at one time, and 200 seconds later, you see where the satellites are 200 seconds later. And so, if there were [an ICBM] launch from the indicated location 200 seconds earlier, when the satellite was at one location, the interceptor would be moving out from the actual orbital launch location, and it would be able to cover a small area of roughly 500 or 600 km in diameter, where a single ICBM had been launched.
So, in order to shoot down a single ICBM, throughout the entire world, you would need about 2,000 of these satellites. Here you have only 288—so you’d have to launch about 2,000 of these satellites into orbit. If the satellites weigh about two tons (Figure 3), then you would need to launch about 4,200 tons into orbit, and you might need 42 launches of this very-heavy-lift vehicle that SpaceX has been testing—incidentally the last three launches have been failures, but there’s no fundamental reason why that vehicle won’t be eventually successfully working. But it can launch about 100 tons into orbit per launch, and so you’d need 42 Starship launches to launch 2,000 satellites into orbit. That would cost you about $4.2 billion—that’s not, of course, the cost of building each satellite; that’s just launching it. If you assume they cost as much as they do to launch, that’s twice or three times. So that’s a span of $12 billion, and of course, let’s say, $15 or $20 billion to have a satellite constellation that can deal with one ICBM launch anywhere in the world.
Now, the obvious way to defeat this system—let’s say it’s $20 billion—is to launch maybe 10 ICBMs, maybe simultaneously, that are relatively near to each other. It could be tens or 50 or 100 km apart, because the region in which you can engage an ICBM is roughly 500 km in size. So, you’d have to have roughly 10 satellites in a position to engage 10 ICBMs in a relatively clustered launch. That means you would have to have a satellite constellation 10 times larger. If that constellation costs $20 billion for one, it should cost $200 billion for 10. And if you have 100 ICBMs, that could easily be launched from an ICBM field in China or Russia, then you’re going to be talking about a couple of trillion dollars. So, you’re really talking about trillions of dollars to build a system that you could ever hope to be able to put it over. This assumes that you don’t run into any technology problems….
So, basically, the problem you have is that you need thousands—you can see this slide (Figure 4).
All right, so, if we look at satellites that are in low-Earth orbit, that is green, the green satellite in low-Earth orbit, which I’m pointing to, that satellite has an interceptor on it, that can achieve 5 km/second, because it’s designed to be able to reach down to lower altitudes and intercept an ICBM as it’s flying up from the surface of the Earth. What this shows is a trajectory that can be achieved by the same interceptor if it only uses 2 km/second of its 5 km; only uses 40% of its full speed. So this interceptor is able to attack satellites in what are called geosynchronous orbits.
Now, why are geosynchronous orbits extremely important? A geosynchronous orbit is an orbit that’s roughly 36,000 km from the surface of the Earth, or 42,000 km from the center of the Earth. At this altitude, the satellite moves at a rate such that it rotates in its orbit roughly once every 24 hours. As the Earth rotates below, the satellite also rotates at the same rate, so it appears to be stationary above the surface of the Earth. For reasons that are unique to this orbit, critical communications satellites, like military communications, critical early warning systems, critical systems that are used for signals intelligence that would be used in war, are all in geosynchronous orbit.
Geosynchronous orbit is normally not so easy to reach. But if you had thousands of satellites, all of which had interceptors that could suddenly reach geosynchronous orbit, you would have an extraordinary threat to essentially all the satellites of China and Russia, from this system. If you only had a system of 200 satellites, for example, like I showed earlier—which would be completely inadequate; could only intercept a single ICBM, one-tenth of the time—that would be an overwhelming anti-satellite threat to the most important military space assets of Russia and China. Now, no country is going to sit there and allow this situation to go unanswered. So you’re going to have two effects: You’re going to have a defense that will be encouraged to massively launch ICBMs rather than launch single ones, in order to overwhelm the satellite constellation—so you have to build, you have to launch 20,000 or 200,000 satellites; or you’re going to have a major anti-satellite threat—or both!
So, basically, what you’re going to be doing is creating an intolerable threat that probably will be answered by the Russians and the Chinese putting in their own systems into space, to attack the low-Earth satellites, which would definitely not be desirable, because this means you could have the war occurring where one side or the other could preemptively, and would have incentives to preemptively attack the other’s space satellites before the other one could destroy their system. This is an intolerably dangerous situation to have.
If you just contemplate what you could have, if you allowed this system to occur, this situation to occur, just look at the space debris that currently exists in orbit (Figure 5). Each of these white dots—you can see through the white dots, the image of the Earth below, and you see this ring of almost completely solid white area. These are objects that are no longer functioning satellites. These are not functioning satellites, they’re no longer functioning satellites and debris from launches of these satellites that are all in low-Earth orbit, that are there essentially for hundreds of years!
Now, one of the problems that we know can occur—this is not science fiction—is, if you do enough damage to existing satellites, if you attack existing satellites in low-Earth orbit, you could create enough debris in low-Earth orbit that no country can use low-Earth orbits, because if you launch the satellite into low-Earth orbit, it will be hit in a relatively short period of time by a piece of debris, and be destroyed. So, you could not launch satellites and use them. And, in fact, every satellite you launched into this deadly zone that was created by earlier attacks on low-Earth orbit, would create even a worse situation. If you launch satellites, let’s say, every month, knowing that they would only last a month, then the next generation of satellites, the debris would increase and you would only be able to have survivable satellites lasting every week! It would literally be a cascading situation, where you would never be able to use low-Earth orbit again, for the predictable future.
Low-Earth orbit is very important. The damage to commercial and space activities, not to mention the military capabilities of all countries, would be irreparable and irreversible. This is the kind of situation you’re inviting, if you go again into this kind of situation that we’re now seeing.
This is just a diagram (Figure 6) that shows the geosynchronous orbit, and a particular Russian orbit that would also be attacked; I won’t go into it. But that’s basically what would occur, if you had the resources, which I don’t think you would have, to try and build a space-based component of some kind of missile-defense system.
Now, let me also point out that deploying this system will take a long time—years. The system would pose, immediately, a major anti-satellite threat. It would be tempting to attack this anti-satellite threat, right from the beginning, because its period of deployment would be vulnerable to preemptive attacks, and would potentially— One adversary might hope to discourage the other from continuing a launch effort, if a launch effort were ongoing. So this is not a good situation. You would be provoking both sides to take actions against each other that could easily lead to an escalation of war in space, that could then lead to a general, global nuclear war.
Keeping in mind that the doctrinal position of the United States, and China and Russia, is that if you attack a vital military asset for our national survival, like our Early Warning Systems, we would consider that an attack on that space asset, an attack on our sovereign territory, and we will react accordingly. I mean, it’s an idea that, if you could implement it, and I’m not suggesting you can, the costs would be literally astronomical, but if you could implement it, it would be so provocative that you would essentially be preparing the world for its end. It would be so ill-considered, it’s hard to believe that even Mr. Merz would be in support of it, but we don’t know. I mean, you’d have to be totally reckless, beyond belief, to try to deploy such a system—and it wouldn’t work, of course.
So, I think Golden Dome is not such a good idea.
What the Experts Don’t Understand
Zepp-LaRouche: If the idea of an indivisible security is already valid for affairs on the planet, I think it applies in a double sense for space, because what a waste of resources! We have such an exciting perspective of finding out how the universe works. Already the Hubble Telescope discovered that there are at least 2 trillion galaxies, and we have not even gone outside of our own, let alone 2 trillion. So there is so much to be discovered! And it would be so much more in the interest—
Postol: Fortunately, most of them are too far away for us to attack! [laughs]
Zepp-LaRouche: Yeah, but still, you know, these discoveries still to be made—
Postol: No, the way to think of space, and satellites, and this is something that people don’t understand, including people who are in our military Space Command—these people don’t understand this—but there’s a simple fact about satellites: Satellites are gossamer objects; they are very fragile. They are fragile because it costs so much effort to just launch them into orbit, so you make them as light as you possibly can make them, because you’re paying thousands of dollars per pound to put them into orbit. That excludes the tens of thousands of dollars per pound you’re paying to build this thing that’s costing you thousands of dollars per pound to put into orbit. So, once you have a satellite in orbit, it’s fragile and it’s not defendable.
For example, you could say, blithely, “Well, I’ll defend my satellite. I’ll put interceptors on them.” Well, when you look at the expense of launching those interceptors along with the satellites, it’s prohibitive. It’s not technically possible, affordable, to put interceptors along with all these satellites, to defend them. And those interceptors, of course, if they were able to defend the satellites, would pose an anti-satellite threat to other satellites. So you’d be causing an instability just through that.
The other possibility is, you might try to maneuver, to out-maneuver the interceptors. Well, these interceptors, it’s easy to give the interceptors enough of what’s called “divert capability.” That divert capability of the satellite would have to be enormous, which would cause its weight to go up enormously, because not only would it have to accelerate, be able to accelerate at a very high rate, you would have to reinforce the physical structure of the satellite, so that it wouldn’t break apart if you tried to accelerate it at a rapid enough rate to evade one of these interceptors, because the interceptor is a solid, a very rigidly constructed object, while the satellite is a gossamer object. So, you have a kind of—it’s almost like a nuclear deterrent situation: You have no ability to defend yourself, but you have a substantial ability to attack the other’s satellites.
If one side poses a threat to the other, foolishly, and causes the other side to react, then both sides are going to be in a very dangerous, unstable situation, where the chances of an accident, leading to war, would be greatly amplified! This is why Germany, when certain Germans—look it up—were developing their own nuclear deterrent against Russia, for example, that’s the last thing Germany should want, because if Germany puts nuclear weapons in against Russia, these will be very short-warning weapons, which the Russians will respond to with also very-short-warning weapons—and both sides will have short-warning attack capabilities against the other that will greatly reduce the chances for people recognizing an attack is underway, and greatly increase the chances of an accident that would spark a global nuclear war.
The last thing you want to do is put more nuclear weapons into Europe. You want to get them out of Europe. You want to keep them long-range; if you’re going to have to have them, keep them long-range, and that’s why the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty must be brought back into place! And it should be extended to all these local nuclear forces, like the forces of the UK and France, as well. You do not want these nuclear forces in close proximity to each other. The warning times are already much too short, and the possibility of an irrecoverable accident is already too high, too high.
Zepp-LaRouche: Well, unfortunately, we are running out of time. But—
Postol: Yes! In many ways! [laughs]
Zepp-LaRouche: But I would like to thank you very much for what you said, especially just now, in the end, because that is another thing which bothers me a lot; that in the beginning of the ’80s, when we had the middle-range missile crisis, there were hundreds of thousands of people in the streets, because they knew that this short range meant we had a few minutes’ time, and we were close to World War III. And now, when we are in a much, much more dangerous situation, people are asleep. So, on this question of a nuclear umbrella for Europe, maybe, if I could get your help once again, we could have another program, not too far in the future. Because there is an actual debate right now, and I fully endorse your idea that all nuclear weapons, all American nuclear weapons, should be pulled back to the United States and not be distributed all over Europe. Because it does not contribute to our security.
Postol: Yes. Yes. Absolutely crazy!
Yes, the political doctrine—well, we won’t get into that discussion now, but the political doctrine is distorted; unrealistic. It was put together by a group of people who should have thought better about what they were doing, and for a different time, as well. But we can discuss that in a separate discussion.
Zepp-LaRouche: OK, and thank you very much! This was extremely important, and we will dub this discussion into German and try to get it around.
Postol: Well, let me make a prediction, which could occur in the next year or so, because I don’t think it will occur instantly. But I think in the next year or so, the German public, in spite of the bad press, the irresponsible German press not keeping people informed, will become aware of the danger that occurred in 1983, and in the 1980s, before the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty; that it will be reemerging if the current German government gets its way. And I predict you’re going to see hundreds of thousands of people in the streets again. That’s my guess, but it’s going to take a year. This is going to take the Russians winning enough in Ukraine, that papers can no longer ignore that the war is lost in Ukraine, and forcing the papers to open up a debate on what’s next—and what is next is unacceptable and is a grave danger to the future of humankind.
Zepp-LaRouche: Thank you so much. And let’s try our best to move humanity to a more sane condition.
Postol: Absolutely! Absolutely!
Zepp-LaRouche: So, till next time. Thank you so much.
Postol: Thank you!
