'US test-fires ICBMs to silence GOP, support terrorists in Syria'

The US military’s test-firing of two intercontinental ballistic missiles this week is intended at silencing Republican critics who accuse President Barack Obama of being weak, an American writer and retired professor says.

The ICBMs were also an attempt to prop up support for Saudi Arabia and Turkey who are supporting militants fighting the Syrian government, said James Petras, a professor emeritus of sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York, and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada.

“This is a dangerous game because once the US begins to escalate its military potential, it could trigger some reciprocal action on the part of Russia,” Petras told Press TV on Monday.

The US military test-fired its second ICBM in a week on Thursday, seeking to demonstrate its nuclear arms capacity at a time of rising strategic tensions with Russia and China.

The blastoff of the unarmed Minuteman III missile from a silo at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California was meant to demonstrate the ability of American nuclear arms, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said.

Robert Work, who witnessed the launch, said the US tests, conducted at least 15 times since January 2011, send a message to strategic rivals like Russia, China and North Korea that Washington has an effective nuclear arsenal.

"We and the Russians and the Chinese routinely do test shots to prove that the operational missiles that we have are reliable. And that is a signal ... that we are prepared to use nuclear weapons in defense of our country if necessary."

The US Defense Department has poured billions of dollars into improving conditions for troops responsible for staffing and maintaining the country’s aging nuclear arsenal.

President Barack Obama’s final defense budget unveiled this month calls for a $1.8 billion hike in nuclear arms spending to overhaul the country's nuclear bombers, missiles, submarines and other systems.

The nuclear spending boost is an ironic twist for Obama who made reducing US dependence on nuclear weapons a cornerstone of his political agenda during his first years in office.

In April, 2009, the US president called for a world eventually free of nuclear arms in a speech in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.

He later reached a new strategic weapons treaty with Russia and received the Nobel Peace Prize in part based on his stance on reducing atomic arms.

"He was going to de-emphasize the role of nuclear weapons in US national security policy ... but in fact in the last few years he has emphasized new spending," said John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World, an arms control advocacy group.

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