By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com

If there is a hot war between the U.S. and a major power, it will be the result of the U.S. choosing escalation over de-escalation, brinkmanship over detente — not just once but over and over again.

The commander of the U.S. nuclear arsenal has stated unequivocally that the war in Ukraine is just a warmup exercise for a much larger conflict that’s already in the mail.

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp reports:

“The commander that oversees US nuclear forces delivered an ominous warning at a naval conference last week by calling the war in Ukraine a ‘warmup’ for the ‘big one’ that is to come.

‘This Ukraine crisis that we’re in right now, this is just the warmup, said Navy Adm. Charles Richard, the commander of US Strategic command. ‘The big one is coming. And it isn’t going to be very long before we’re going to get tested in ways that we haven’t been tested [in] a long time.’

Richard’s warning came after the US released its new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which reaffirms that the US doctrine allows for the first use of nuclear weapons. The review says that the purpose of the US nuclear arsenal is to ‘deter strategic attacks, assure allies and partners, and achieve US objectives if deterrence fails.'”

Not only does Richard appear to believe that a hot war between major world powers is a foregone conclusion, he has also previously stated that a nuclear war with Russia or China is now “a very real possibility.”

This is not an armchair warrior opining from his desk at a corporate newspaper or D.C. think tank, this is the head of STRATCOM. Richard would be personally overseeing the very warfare he is talking about.

What I find most striking about remarks like these is how passive they always make it sound. Richard talks about “The Big One” the way other people talk about California earthquakes, as though a hot war with China would be some kind of natural disaster that just happened out of nowhere.

This type of rhetoric is becoming more and more common. Describing an Atomic Age world war as something that would happen to the U.S. empire, rather than the direct result of concrete A-or-B decisions made by the empire, is becoming its own genre of foreign policy punditry.

This passive narrative overlay on the U.S. empire’s militarism is nothing new. Back in 2017 Fair.org’s Adam Johnson documented the way Western media are always describing the United States as “stumbling” into wars and getting “sucked in” to military interventions, like a cheating spouse making up bad excuses after getting caught:

“This framing serves to flatter two sensibilities: one right and one vaguely left. It satisfies the right-wing nationalist idea that America only goes to war because it’s compelled to by forces outside of its own control; the reluctant warrior, the gentle giant who will only attack when provoked to do so. But it also plays to a nominally liberal, hipster notion that the US military is actually incompetent and boobish, and is generally bad at war-making.

This is expressed most clearly in the idea that the U.S. is ‘drawn into’ war despite its otherwise unwarlike intentions. ‘Will US Be Drawn Further Into Syrian Civil War?’ asked Fox News (4/7/17). ‘How America Could Stumble Into War With Iran,’ disclosed The Atlantic (2/9/17), ‘What It Would Take to Pull the US Into a War in Asia,’ speculated Quartz (4/29/17). ‘Trump could easily get us sucked into Afghanistan again,” Slate predicted (5/11/17). The U.S. is ‘stumbling into a wider war’ in Syria, the New York Times editorial board (5/2/15) warned. “A Flexing Contest in Syria May Trap the US in an Endless Conflict,” Vice News (6/19/17) added.”

So let’s get real clear about this here and now: if there is a hot war between the U.S. and a major power, it will not be because that war was “stumbled into.” It will not be like an earthquake or other natural disaster. It will not be something that happens to or is inflicted upon the U.S. empire while it just passively stands there in Bambi-eyed innocence.

It will be the result of specific choices made by the managers of empire. It will be the result of the U.S. choosing escalation over de-escalation, brinkmanship over detente — not just once but over and over again, while declining off-ramp after off-ramp. It will be the result of real material decisions made by real material people who live in real material houses while collecting real material paychecks to make the choices they are making.

Another thing that strikes me about comments like those made by Charles Richard is how freakish and insane it is that no one responds with “Okay, well, then let’s change all of the things we are doing, because that’s the worst thing that can possibly happen.”

And make no mistake: that absolutely is an option. The option to turn away from the collision course with potentially the most horrific war of all time is available right now, and it will remain available for some time into the future. This isn’t 1939 when war is already upon us; if anything it’s more like the early 20th century precursors to World War I and all the stupid aggressions and entanglements which ultimately gave rise to both world wars.

One of the many ways our cultural fascination with World War II has made us stupid and crazy is that it has caused us to forget that it was the worst single event in human history. Even if a hot war with Russia and/or China didn’t go nuclear, it would still unleash unspeakable horrors upon this Earth which would reverberate throughout our collective consciousness for generations.

That horror should be turned away from. And the time to start turning away is now.

Caitlin Johnstone’s work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into her tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy her books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at her website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes.  For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, click here. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.

READ MORE:

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/11/09/caitlin-johnstone-blame-the-managers-of-empire/

READ FROM TOP.

see also: https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/43171

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW

BY Oleg Pavlov

In the last few months the USA and its European allies (or de facto satellites), and US-controlled media, have been persistently and even obsessively speculating about Russia’s alleged plans to use tactical nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict.

One of the most recent of these provocations was a story published in Britain’s Daily Mail, which claimed that Russian has already chose the target for a nuclear strike. The article cites a recent conversation between the Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron. The French President was made nervous by statements made by Vladimir Putin, which he saw as a threat aimed at Ukraine.

Although in actual fact the Russian President’s words mean quite the opposite: as he has said on more than one occasion, and not only to Emmanuel Macron, the USA is the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons, and that in doing so it set a precedent.  Russia has also stressed a number of times that there are no political or military reasons why it should use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. The circumstances in which Russian could use nuclear weapons are comprehensively listed in a document issued on June 20, 2020, the Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence. That document clearly states that Russia considers nuclear weapons “exclusively as a means of deterrence, their use being an extreme and compelled measure”. It also states that in the event of a military conflict, Russia’s policy provides for the termination of military actions on conditions that are acceptable for the Russian Federation.

The West has sought to relate the above passages to the war in Ukraine, taking no account either of the very limited circumstances in which Russia could use nuclear weapons or of the undertaking made by Russia and the other nuclear powers in the UN Security Council in a special statement issued on January 3, 2022. In that statement, issued before the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, the five members of the UN Security Council stressed that they “consider the avoidance of war between Nuclear-Weapon States and the reduction of strategic risks as our foremost responsibilities”. The statement goes on to stress that “nuclear weapons—for as long as they continue to exist—should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war”.  In the document the signatories expressly declare that none of their nuclear weapons are targeted at each other or at any other State.

That could hardly be expressed any more clearly. The Russian government has also issued statements affirming this principle, as has the Chinese government, not least during the visit by the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to China, so why, one may ask, is the West persistently and stubbornly promoting nuclear scare stories.

The answer to that question may not be quite as simple as it might appear at first sight. Firstly, no-one in the West has forgotten the speech made by the Ukrainian President, Volodymir Zelensky, in the 58th Munich Security Conference, in which he directly stated that if the guarantors of the Budapest Memorandum did not agree to consultations and Ukraine was not offered any security guarantees, then Ukraine would have every right “to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all package decisions of 1994 have been put under question”. In other words, on February 20 this year, before the beginning of Russia’s special military operation, Ukraine raised the issue of relinquishing its nuclear-free status. It is therefore understandable that Russia was concerned that Ukraine might engage in secret operations to restore its nuclear potential in some way, possibly by making a so-called dirty nuclear bomb which could be used in a false flag operation as a pretext for accusing Russia of breaching its commitment in the UN Security Council statement issued on January 3.

Secondly, while they vary in content, the continuous scare stories about Russia’s alleged plans to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine serve as a cover enabling politicians and the media to probe Moscow’s intentions in relation to the conflict in Ukraine. Russia is continually being forced to deny baseless and far-fetched accusations on its alleged plans to use weapons of mass destruction, and the fact that Moscow is always having to justify itself gives other countries the mistaken impression that it is hiding something and has something up its sleeve. Ironically, it is widely known that after the end of the Second World War the Western powers, especially Britain, drew up detailed potential plans to attack the USSR using nuclear weapons (the now declassified Dropshot and Unthinkable plans).

And now, the unfounded rumors about Russia’s plans to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine are being used as a smokescreen to enable the further modernization of the USA’s nuclear arsenal in Europe and to threaten Russia. Moreover, the media furor is being used to distract attention from the USA’s plans to base nuclear weapons in Russia’s neighbors, including Poland and the NATO membership candidates Finland and Sweden.

Thirdly, well aware that nuclear weapons are a form of deterrent, the USA and its satellited are (or were until recently) genuinely concerned that their aggressive stance against Moscow, including in relation to the Ukrainian conflict (such as by supplying Ukraine with heavy weaponry, including long-range rocket systems, Western-made tanks and fighter aircraft) might be seen by the Russian government as threatening Russia’s security and justifying the use of nuclear weapons. In the last few months, the Russian government has offered many assurances that there is no question of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and as a result the West has concluded that the risk of Russian using weapons of mass destruction in any event is low, as is clear from the decision to base the US 101st Airborne Division in Romania, from where it could potentially be sent to Ukraine.

In response to the alleged risks of Russia using nuclear weapons, the US is working with Ukraine to deploy a force of submarines equipped with nuclear rockets, as well as aircraft carriers, both in the Mediterranean sea and in the waters off the British coast (at present well away from Russia, but still within the striking range of US nuclear rockets). This demonstration of US military force has clearly gone to the heads of Kiev’s politicians, who, emboldened by America’s unlimited military support, are puffing themselves up like male grouse in mating season and repeating their quite unrealistic call for the “total liberation” of Ukraine and its return to its 1991 borders. Volodymir Zelensky and his government have grouped around the slogan of “no negotiations with Moscow” and by cementing this position in law, they have forced themselves into a dead end.

Naturally, Volodymir Zelensky and his team need all the weapons and support from the West that they can get, and they are getting extremely wealthy in the process. He needs to draw out the conflict as long as possible, and is playing games with human lives and human suffering. But these speculations and the stories about Russia’s alleged plans to use nuclear weapons are the last think the people of Russia or Ukraine -especially the people of Ukraine, who are risking a winter without light or heating because of the unrealistic policies of their president and his Western allies.

Moscow’s message remains the same as in the past – we do not need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine and we are open to negotiation. Is it necessary to add anything to that?

Oleg Pavlov, a political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

READ MORE:

https://journal-neo.org/2022/11/09/the-ukrainian-conflict-and-the-nuclear-threat/

READ FROM TOP.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!