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Pentagon’s Nuclear Doctrine – Retrograde and Reckless
Pentagon’s Nuclear Doctrine – Retrograde and Reckless
In its latest Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the American Pentagon declares at one point in the document that the Cold War is long over. Apart from that fleeting mention, however, one would think from reading the entire review that the Cold War, for Washington, has never been so palpable.
It is a fear-laden document, relentlessly portraying the world as fraught with existential danger to US national security.
Russia and China, as with two other recent strategic policy papers out of Washington, are again painted as adversaries who must be confronted with ever-greater US military power.
The latest NPR asserts that since the last such review in 2010, “America confronts an international security situation that is more complex and demanding than any since the end of the Cold War.”
It is clear from reading the 74-page document that Russia and China are the main source of security concern for the Pentagon – albeit the reasons for the concern are far from convincing. Indeed one might say downright alarmist.
Washington accuses Russia and China of pursuing nuclear weapons development which is threatening. It accuses Russia in particular of violating arms controls treaties and threatening American allies with its nuclear arsenal. There are several other such unsubstantiated claims made by the Pentagon in the document.
Russia and China responded by condemning the aggressive nature of the Pentagon’s latest doctrine, as they have done with regard to two other recent strategic papers published by the Trump administration.
It is deplorable that Washington seems to go out of its way to portray the world in such bellicose terms. The corollary of this attitude is the repudiation of diplomacy and multilateralism.
Washington, it seems, is a hostage to its own imperative need to generate a world of hostile relations in order to justify its rampant militarism, which is, in turn, fundamental to its capitalist economy.
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Turkey’s Offensive in Syria: the US Falls into a Trap of Its Own Making
Turkey’s Offensive in Syria: the US Falls into a Trap of Its Own Making
In the heat of the battle for Afrin, Turkey has warned it will go farther to establish control over vast swathes of land in northern Syria. The offensive is supposed to take Turkish forces as far as Syria’s border with Iraq. On Jan. 28, Ankara called on Washington to withdraw its military from Manbij (100 km from Afrin) before it launches an operation to clear that area of Kurdish militias. It’s important to note that the US had provoked Turkey’s action by announcing its decision to set up a new border security force in the areas under Kurdish control. So Washington has created this situation all by itself – a trap of its own making. Having sown the wind, it reaps the whirlwind.
A push to the east will potentially force a confrontation between Turkish troops and the US-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Kurdish combat units in Afrin missed their opportunity to avoid a worst-case scenario.
Some Pro-Kurdish sources say Russia had betrayed the Afrin Kurds by pulling its peacekeepers out before the Turkish attack began. This is a very misleading statement. Let’s look at the facts. Moscow believes all regions west of the Euphrates should be under the control of the regular Syrian army, because these areas belong to Syria – a territorially cohesive country with a legitimate government. Russia had asked the Kurds in Afrin to interact with Damascus and allow its regular army into the area. They refused. Moscow is still ready to act as a mediator to broker talks on autonomy within Syria. So far that initiative has been rejected. The Kurds have preferred the US as their protector. Now they are on their own. They’ve made their bed, now they must lie in it.”.
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Trump Administration Planning Pinochet-type Coup in Venezuela
Trump Administration Planning Pinochet-type Coup in Venezuela
The retrograde Donald Trump administration is planning a military coup in Venezuela to oust the socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, speaking at the University of Texas prior to embarking on a multi-nation tour throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, said the military in Latin America has often intervened in Latin American politics during times of serious crises.
Tillerson’s remarks conjured up scenes from America’s dark past in Latin America. To make matters worse, Tillerson invoked the imperialistic Monroe Doctrine of 1823, stressing that it is as “relevant today as it was the day it was written.” The Monroe Doctrine, throughout American history, has been used by the United States to justify military interventions in Latin America, often with the aim of establishing “banana republics” subservient to Washington’s whims.
According to a BBC report, Tillerson prefaced his augmented his remarks by stating that he was “not advocating regime change and that he had no intelligence on any planned action.” Richard Nixon’s National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger made similar remarks before the bloody September 11, 1973 Central Intelligence Agency-backed coup against Chile’s Socialist President Salvador Allende. While publicly rejecting any U.S. involvement in the destabilization of Chile’s democratically-elected government, Kissinger was working behind the scenes with Chile’s armed forces to overthrow and assassinate Allende. Eleven days after the Chilean coup, Kissinger was rewarded by Nixon by being named Secretary of State, along with keeping his National Security Adviser portfolio.
Ever since Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, came to power in 1999, the CIA has attempted at least one military coup — a putsch that was quickly reversed – in 2002, several “color revolution”-style street protests and disruptions, economic warfare, and CIA-initiated general strikes to force both Chavez and Maduro from power.
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US Foreign Policies Remain Unchanged Since 1948
US Foreign Policies Remain Unchanged Since 1948
Ever since 1948, the US Government’s foreign policies have been consistently focused upon breaking up the Soviet Union and turning its Warsaw Pact allies against the Soviet Union; and, then, once that would be (and was) accomplished, turning any remaining allies of Russia against Russia; and, then, once that will have been accomplished, conquering Russia. Since at least 2006, US ‘defense’ policy has been that nuclear war will be an acceptable way to conquer Russia if lesser measures fail to do the job. (Since 2006, the concept that a nuclear war between the US and Russia would result in “mutually assured destruction,” or “MAD” — a war that both parties to it would lose — has been rejected at the highest levels of the US Government, but continues unchanged as being the policy at the highest levels of Russia’s Government, which are terrified of the US Government’s attempts to develop anti-ballistic missiles and other systems that would eliminate Russia’s defenses — i.e., ability to retaliate — against a US nuclear first-strike attack — terrified at the US Government’s preparations to win a nuclear war.)
When the Republican US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on 26 March 2012 that, “Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe”, he was actually stating publicly something that US President Barack Obama secretly agreed with and had been working since day-one of his Presidency to implement — and his State Department had secretly already been drawing up plans since 2011 to overthrow the Moscow-friendly leaders of two nations: Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovych. But Obama (who was the most gifted liar in US Presidential history, and really understood how to use truths to demolish even lies that his own policies were secretly based upon — simultaneously criticising bad polices while secretly implementing them) responded to Romney’s statement of March 26th, by saying on 22 October 2012, “Gov. Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that al-Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not al-Qaida.
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Can the Impending Collapse of Russiagate Halt the Slide Toward a Nuclear 1914?
Can the Impending Collapse of Russiagate Halt the Slide Toward a Nuclear 1914?
In the period preceding the World War I how many Europeans suspected that their lives would soon be forever changed – and, for millions of them, ended? Who in the years, say, 1910 to 1913, could have imagined that the decades of peace, progress, and civilization in which they had grown up, and which seemingly would continue indefinitely, instead would soon descend into a horror of industrial-scale slaughter, revolution, and brutal ideologies?
The answer is, probably very few, just as few people today care much about the details of international and security affairs. Normal folk have better things to do with their lives.
To be sure, in that bygone era of smug jingosim, there was always the entertainment aspect that “our” side had forced “theirs” to back down in some exotic locale, as in the Fashoda incident (1898) or the Moroccan crises (1906, 1911). Even the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 seemed less a harbinger of the cataclysm to come than local dustups on the edge of the continent where the general peace had not been disturbed even by the much more disruptive Crimean or Franco-Prussian wars.
Besides, no doubt level-headed statesmen were in charge in the various capitals, ensuring that things wouldn’t get out of hand.
Until they did.
A notable exception to the prevailing mood of business-as-usual, nothing-to-see-here-folks was Pyotr Durnovo, whose remarkable February 1914 memorandum to Tsar Nicholas II laid out not only what the great powers would do in the approaching general war but the behavior of the minor countries as well. Moreover, he anticipated that in the event of defeat, Russia, destabilized by unchecked socialist “agitation” amid wartime hardships, would “be flung into hopeless anarchy, the issue of which cannot be foreseen.” Germany, likewise, was “destined to suffer, in case of defeat, no lesser social upheavals” and “take a purely revolutionary path” of a nationalist hue.
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Economic Collapse: Will Cryptocurrency Save the Financial System?
Economic Collapse: Will Cryptocurrency Save the Financial System?
In the second article of my three part series, I addressed how we got to the current state of this financial chaos. In this last article, I explain where we are heading and how cryptocurrency could be the last chance to create a sustainable economic system.
Where to go from here?
If trust and sustainability were the two conditions that allowed for the transition from physical gold to paper currency, it is from this basis that we must start to analyze where we are going and what effects the next economic crisis could have.
In 2008, confidence in central banks saved the global economy. But as Mario Draghi said, the bazooka of quantitative easing was fired and a second hit during a crisis would have proved ineffective. The reason is complex and must be clearly explained. Most people are paid in a currency deposited in the bank, because that is where one keeps one’s currency, able to withdraw it at any time. But in the event of an economic crisis, priority is given to the banks, whatever remaining liquidity being for the customers. The reason why there was no bank run in 2008, which would have led to the collapse of the global banking system, lies in the trust that ordinary people continued to place in the financial system, courtesy of what the corporate-controlled media told them.
The problem concerns the next financial crisis and how the world population will react. The path already seems to be traced, especially in geopolitical terms. Countries like China and Russia have created their own alternative banking and financial system to escape dollar sanctions; but they have also begun to de-dollarize by accumulating gold and using different payment methods to the US currency.
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Lament for Canada
Lament for Canada
I immigrated to Canada in 1967, not quite fifty-one years ago. At the time I was young, naïve and did not know much. Well, I knew a little since I was caught up in 1960s America, then roiled with opposition to segregation and Jim Crow and to the US war of aggression in Southeast Asia. Americans did not call it that of course; for them it was the “Vietnam War”. I walked on the last day of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. We travelled in a train from Washington, DC to Montgomery and back, with the shades drawn, so crackers would not have good targets to shoot at. It was the year after Ku Klux Klansmen murdered Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in Mississippi. It was dangerous to be black in America, and it still is. It was dangerous too for naïve young whites to stick their nose into business that did not concern them. But of course when you are young, you don’t see the danger, or think that it could come looking for you. Death was still a rather abstract thing. Then we “graduated”, so to speak, to opposition to “the Vietnam War”. That was more personal because you had to decide whether—and I put this politely—you were going to fight in a war in which you did not believe.
It was the year after Ku Klux Klansmen murdered Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in Mississippi
I headed to Canada. At the time it was a pretty quiet place compared to the United States. Sure, there was Expo ’67, and there were demonstrations and campus sit-ins for this and against that. Many Canadians opposed the US war of aggression in Southeast Asia, and I remember there was an underground railway to help deserters and “resisters”, or “draft dodgers” (if you did not like them), get into Canada.
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The Doomsday Weapon
The Doomsday Weapon
While we agonize over such life and death questions as clumsy men groping women and the crucial need for gender and racial ‘inclusion,’ let me spare a few seconds thought to something really important and scary: Russia’s doomsday nuclear torpedo.
Code-named by NATO ‘Kanyon,’ it’s reportedly something new and terrifying, a ‘third strike’ weapon designed to obliterate the US east and west coasts in a nuclear war. US intelligence seems to think this doomsday weapon is very real indeed.
I just re-watched for the umpteenth time the wonderful, 1964 Kubrick film, ‘Dr. Strangelove’ and marveled anew at how prescient this razor-sharp satire was. In the film, the Soviets admit they ran out of money to keep up the nuclear arms race with the United States. Their answer was to create a secret, automated doomsday nuclear device that would destroy the entire planet in the event of a major war.
Now, the Russians appear to have responded to a new, trillion dollar US program to develop and deploy an anti-missile system that would negate their ballistic missile system: the ‘Kanyon.’ Fact imitates fiction.
This revelation comes just after the Trump administration has also embarked on new programs to deploy an entire new generation of lower yield nuclear weapons that can be used for tactical war-fighting purposes. North Korea and Iran are the evident targets, as well as Afghanistan. But there is now talk aplenty in Pentagon circles about waging a limited tactical nuclear war against Russia. New US bomber and drone programs are being speeded up. War talk is in the air. Military stocks are booming.
‘Kanyon,’ according to the right-wing Heritage Foundation, a cheerleader for military spending, is a mammoth 100-megaton nuclear device carried by an unmanned submarine.
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America’s National Defense Is Really Offense
America’s National Defense Is Really Offense
On Friday, the Pentagon released an unclassified summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy report. On the same day, Secretary of Defense James Mattis delivered prepared remarks relating to the document.
Reading the summary is illuminating, to say the least, and somewhat disturbing, as it focuses very little on actual defense of the realm and relates much more to offensive military action that might be employed to further certain debatable national interests. Occasionally, it is actually delusional, as when it refers to consolidating “gains we have made in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.”
At times Mattis’ supplementary “remarks” were more bombastic than reassuring, as when he warned “…those who would threaten America’s experiment in democracy: if you challenge us, it will be your longest and worst day.” He did not exactly go into what the military response to hacking a politician’s emails might be and one can only speculate, which is precisely the problem.
One of the most bizarre aspects of the report is its breathtaking assumption that “competitors” should be subjected to a potential military response if it is determined that they are in conflict with the strategic goals of the U.S. government. It is far removed from the old-fashioned Constitutional concept that one has armed forces to defend the country against an actual threat involving an attack by hostile forces and instead embraces preventive war, which is clearly an excuse for serial interventions overseas.
Some of the remarks by Mattis relate to China and Russia. He said that “We face growing threats from revisionist powers as different as China and Russia, nations that seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models – pursuing veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic and security decisions.”
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Economic Collapse and Dollar Hegemony – How Did This Start?
Economic Collapse and Dollar Hegemony – How Did This Start?
In the previous article I explained why bitcoin should be considered a reaction to US dollar hegemony and how other nations and central banks are facing the crisis of the dollar brought on by de-dollarization. In this article I will go into how we came to this point and what mechanisms helped to bring about a debt-based society. In the third and last article we will examine the nature of the future geopolitical and geo-financial transition as well as the signals we need look out for in the immediate future.
From Gold to Paper
To understand what is happening today we must look back to simpler times, back when people bartered with each other. The utility and availability of commodities determined their value. Gold in particular represented a finite good that was difficult to find and was useful in various fields. For this reason gold has always been considered the highest example of a valuable good, together with diamonds, platinum, silver and other elements that are difficult to find but have a common or daily use. For example, the importance of utility transformed uranium, an otherwise worthless element, into a valuable commodity following the discovery of atomic energy. Returning to gold, one can understand how in the era of barter, gold was the reference element with which to price the value of everything. Little by little, gold was joined by silver and then bronze in simplifying the exchange of goods and increasing convenience of use.
Gold had its own intrinsic value and was valid in every empire around the world; the same with silver and bronze. Gold had become not only a means of exchange and a measure of value but also a reservoir of value to be bequeathed to heirs. Above all it was a means of payment.
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Mike Pence’s Middle East Tour: Outright Pressure and Threats as Foreign Policy Tools
Mike Pence’s Middle East Tour: Outright Pressure and Threats as Foreign Policy Tools
Jordan’s King Abdullah II wants Washington to “rebuild trust “after US President Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The king believes that East Jerusalem must be the capital of Palestine. According to him, from now on the US has a “major challenge to overcome”. “Friends occasionally have disagreements,” Mike Pence said ruefully in his comments on the outcome of the talks. The disagreement came into the open.
The vice president was making his Middle East trip (Jan.19-23) to include three states: Egypt, Jordan and Israel. The Palestinian Autonomy leaders refused to meet him. Egypt was the first country he arrived in to hear that Cairo does not support the US move.
Jordan and Egypt are a special case. They are the only Arab nations to have diplomatic ties and peace accords with Israel. Both are threatened by Islamist militants and would be potential key mediators if peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians were ever revived.
Despite the fact that Jordan is a key member of the US-led coalition formally created to fight the Islamic State (IS), the kingdom has strongly opposed the US administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel announced by President Trump on Dec. 6. Protests have been held in front of the US embassy in Amman ever since. King Abdullah has led intensive diplomatic efforts to build a stronger Arab front and rally international support behind it.
According to Debka, the vice president warned Egyptian and Jordanian leaders of painful times ahead if they don’t stop opposing the US policy. Washington can revise its plans to continue providing economic and military assistance. Besides, Vice President Pence asked them to convey a message to Palestinians that Washington “would block Palestinian Authority access to funding from Western and international institutions”.
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Trump Officially Restores Cold War
Trump Officially Restores Cold War
On January 20th, CBS News bannered “Terrorism no longer the military’s top priority, Mattis says” and opened: “There is a major change in US military strategy. On Friday, more than 16 years after the 9/11 attacks, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said terrorism is no longer the No. 1 priority.” The report said, “Maintaining a military advantage over China and Russia is now Defense Secretary Mattis’ top priority.”
On January 18th, the Trump Administration had issued its crucial document about how it will implement America’s national defense from now on. This document, the National Defense Strategy 2018, represents a continuation of US President Barack Obama’s vision and intentions, but extends Obama’s hostility toward Russia, by adding Trump’s hostility toward China.
In December 2017, US President Donald Trump had issued his National Security Strategy 2018 (the NSS2018); but, in keeping with his prior commitment to leaving to the generals the implementation of his national security policy, the Pentagon has now issued this National Defense Strategy 2018 (the NDS2018), which is signed only by Trump’s minister for war (Secretary of ‘Defense’), “Jim Mattis”; and it’s considerably more informative on what the practical meaning of NSS2018 will be. The meaning is: the replacement of hostility against “radical Islamic terrorism,” by hostility against Russia and China — this, the building upon Obama’s imperial vision, is now Trump’s ‘Defense’ policy. Trump’s campaign talk against ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ was merely bumper-sticker stuff, to win votes.
In continuation from Obama’s National Security Strategy 2015, which had accused Russia 18 times of “aggression,” Trump’s National Defense Strategy 2018 (NDS2018) effectively declares at least an economic war against Russia (as if economics were also in General Mattis’s portfolio), but it goes even further to include China as being now also America’s enemy.
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Nobody Cares About ‘the News’
Nobody Cares About ‘the News’
In his mordant novel Scoop, Evelyn Waugh has one of his characters explain what “The News” is:
News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read. And it’s only news until he’s read it. After that it’s dead.
There is a great deal of wisdom in this little remark that I will attempt to unpack. It also, in my opinion, succinctly explains why we, who believe ourselves to be so brilliantly analytical and persuasive on sites like this one, have so little success in changing the opinions of our friends and neighbours (or awakening them as we might prefer to say).
First let us consider the “chap who doesn’t care much about anything”. There are, to be sure, two kinds of these but we’re only interested in the second. The person who really doesn’t care about anything doesn’t pay any attention to “The News”. No newspaper ritual for him, no dutiful watching “The News” at night; maybe he wants the sports news but he doesn’t care about “The News”. There are plenty of people like this. Some never were interested, others have given up pretending; as one has often said to me about political news: “What’s the point? There’s nothing I can do. It’s just depressing”. That’s a perfectly understandable point of view and it can be held by someone who, like the individual I’m thinking of, is generally aware that most of “The News” is propaganda or worse.
I’m not talking about people who don’t care much and don’t even pretend to care. What I am interested in are those people who do read newspapers, who do sit down at the TV: those who do devote a portion of their day to “The News”.
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Cold War Mentality Belies Fear of Democratic World Order
Cold War Mentality Belies Fear of Democratic World Order
This past week saw a spate of international security alarms which underlines the danger of the world stumbling into catastrophic war. Those alarms, which were either false or hyped up, stem from a Cold War mentality.
Such a mentality is not only dangerous, it is also unacceptable in today’s world.
First, we saw the US territory of Hawaii being put on full-scale alert over a supposed incoming ballistic missile. The alarm turned out to be false. There was no such incoming missile, but the entire population on the Pacific island were put through 38 minutes of sheer torment.
A day after that incident, Japan’s air-raid system also put a similar false alert.
In both cases, it was assumed that the non-existent missiles had been fired from North Korea.
Meanwhile in Europe, fighter jets from Belgium, the Netherlands and Britain – all members of the US-led NATO alliance – were scrambled to intercept two Russian warplanes. The Russian Ministry of Defense rejected claims that its aircraft were acting “provocatively”, saying that the pair of Russian Tu-160 bombers had at all times been flying in international airspace on a routine exercise.
The latter type of incident appears to be an increasing occurrence. Over the past two months, British navy frigates have made a point of “escorting” Russian warships navigating “near British territorial waters”. Again, as with the air intercept incident this week, the Russian Ministry said that its warships have at all times adhered to international waters.
It is not Russian aircraft or vessels that are being provocative. It is British and other NATO states who are in effect trying to interdict Russia’s legal right to use international airspace and maritime territory.
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Thinking the Unthinkable: Nuclear War with North Korea
Thinking the Unthinkable: Nuclear War with North Korea
Is the Trump administration prepping the American people – indeed, the world – for a war against North Korea? It certainly seems so. US President Donald Trump is constantly needling North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, comparing the size of their respective “nuclear buttons,” while during a speech to the United Nations in September he promised to “totally destroy North Korea” if it was believed to be a threat to the United States.
Trump’s generals – the only other people he seems to trust, outside of his immediate family – appear to be playing along. The head of the US Marine Corps told his troops that “there’s a war coming.” H R McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, also seems pumped up for conflict. According to recent articles, McMaster feels that traditional deterrence will not work on Kim, and that it is “almost impossible to overstate the threat from a nuclear-armed North Korea.”
In apparent response, the US military seems to be gradually yielding to the idea of war with North Korea. A recent New York Times article ominously suggested that the military is quietly preparing for “a last resort: war with North Korea.” US forces are practicing quick-reaction mobilizations and air-assault exercises, sending Special Operations forces to South Korea, and deploying additional bombers, including B-2s, to Guam.
The US military insists that it just wants to be prepared for any contingency. However, every day it seems more and more conceivable that a US-North Korean war could break out.
Suppose they gave a war…
Admittedly, there is a wide gap between conceiving a war with North Korea and actually undertaking one – and thank goodness for that. However, conceptualizations are often the first step toward action, and this raises two big concerns.
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