World War 3: Russian General Wants Preemptive Nuclear Strikes on NATO, US?

An pro-Russian rebel armored personal carrier with an inscription reading: "Russian Orthodox Christian Army" passes through the town of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014. Pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine advanced Wednesday on the government-held airport in Donetsk, pressing to seize the key transportation hub even as the two sides bargained over a troop pullout under a much-violated truce. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

A Russian general has called for the country to draft up a military doctrine to identify the US and NATO as enemies and lay out conditions for Russia to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the nations.

According to Interfax, General Yury Yakubov, who is senior Defense Ministry official, said there needs to be new priorities.

The current military doctrine is being revised in light of threats related to the Syrian civil war, the conflict in Ukraine, and the aftermath of the Arab Spring.

“First and foremost, the likely enemy of Russia should be clearly identified in this strategic document, something absent from the 2010 military doctrine. In my view, our primary enemy is the U.S. and the North Atlantic bloc,” Yakubov told Interfax, according to the Moscow Times.

The doctrine describes NATO expansion as a threat to Russian security, saying it has a right to use nuclear weapons as a form of defense. But the current doctrine does not say that NATO and the US as the primary enemy of Russia and doesn’t call for preemptive nuclear strikes.

He said that NATO’s move to establish a military presence in Eastern Europe as well as accusations that Russia is backing an offensive in Ukraine’s Crimea region reflect earlier fears among officials in Moscow.

“In addition, it is necessary to hash out the conditions under which Russia could carry out a preemptive strike with the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces,” he added.

Meanwhile, on Friday, the former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was imprisoned for a decade in Russia, said that the country could have a 1917-type revolution if Russian President Vladimir Putin keeps course.

“I fear that Putin is going to bring the country to a crisis much more quickly than many would like,” Khodorkovsky said, according to Bloomberg News. He added that it would be “a repeat of 1917 when a person brings the country to an economic crisis, and we are certainly moving right in that direction.”

“All authoritarian regimes, especially ones like this that aren’t based on an ideology but on an individual person, are highly unstable,” Khodorkovsky said. “In order to retain power, such authoritarian leaders are forced to burn the field all around themselves, which is what Putin is doing.”