US Switching to Ukraine as Location to Start World War III
Eric Zuesse
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko visited a U.S. Coast Guard base in Baltimore, Maryland, on Sept. 27 to accept the gift of two Island-class cutters. The ships will stay in America, however, pending $10 million in renovations that Ukraine will pay for. (Source here)
The United States Government is now treating Ukraine as if it were a NATO member, and on September 27th donated to Ukraine two warships for use against Russia. This is the latest indication that the U.S. is switching to Ukraine as the locale to start World War III, and from which the nuclear war is to be sparked against Russia, which borders Ukraine.
Here is why Syria is no longer the U.S. alliance’s preferred choice as a place to start WW III:
On September 4th, U.S. President Donald Trump publicly threatened Syria, Iran and Russia that if they exterminated the jihadists in Syria’s only remaining jihadist-controlled province, Idlib, then the U.S. might launch a full-scale invasion against Syria, Iran and Russia in Syria. Either the U.S. or Russia would then quickly escalate to nuclear war so as not to lose in Syria — that would be the conventional-war start to World War III.
The leaders of Russia, Iran, Turkey, and Syria (Putin, Rouhani, Erdogan, and Assad), agreed in two meetings, one on September 7th and the other on September 17th, to (as I had recommended on September 10th) transfer control of Syria’s only remaining jihadist-controlled province, Idlib, to NATO-member Turkey. This action effectively prevents the U.S. alliance from going to war against Russia if Russia’s alliance (which includes Syria) obliterates all the jihadist groups in the Al-Qaeda-led Syrian province Idlib. For the U.S. to war against Russia there would also be war against fellow-NATO-member Turkey — out of the question.
The U.S. has been using Al Qaeda in Syria to train and lead the jihadist groups which have been trying to overthrow Syria’s Government and to replace it with a government that has been selected by the Saud family who own Saudi Arabia. Ever since 1949 the U.S. Government has been trying to do this (to place the Saud family in charge of Syria). That plan is now being placed on-hold if not blocked altogether, because of the Russia, Turkey, Iran, Syria, agreement. As I reported on September 25th, “Turkey Now Contols Syria’s Jihadists”. The U.S. would no longer be able to save them, but Turkey would, if Erdogan wants to. “Turkey is thus now balanced on a knife’s edge, between the US and its allies (representing the Saud family) on the one side, versus Russia and its allies (representing the anti-Saud alliance) on the other.”
During the same period in which the U.S. Government was setting Syria up as the place to start WWIII, it was also setting up Ukraine as an alternative possibility to do that. U.S. President Obama, in a very bloody February 2014 coup which he had started planning by no later than 2011, overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected President, and replaced him by a rabidly anti-Russian racist-fascist regime whose Ukrainian tradition went back to ideologically nazi Ukrainian organizations that had supported Hitler during World War II. Though communism is gone from Russia ever since 1991, the U.S. aristocracy never ended its goal of conquering Russia; the Cold War was secretly continued on the U.S.-NATO side. Ukraine’s nazis (meaning its racist-fascists) are now the U.S. and UK aristocracies’ chief hope to achieve this ambition of a U.S.-and-allied global conquest. Here are the recent steps toward WW III regarding the U.S. alliance’s new (since 2014) prize, Ukraine:
On September 28th, John Siciliano at the Washington Examiner bannered “Ryan Zinke: Naval blockade is an option for dealing with Russia” and he reported that Trump’s Interior Secretary Zinke had said “There is the military option, which I would rather not. And there is the economic option. … The economic option on Iran and Russia is, more or less, leveraging and replacing fuels.” He was saying that in order for the U.S. to get its and its allies’ (mainly the Sauds’) oil and gas into Europe replacing some of Russia’s dominant market-share in that — the world’s largest energy-consuming — market (and also shrink Iran’s market-share there), a military blockade against Russia and Iran would be an option. Currently, most of Russia’s oil and gas into Europe goes via pipelines through Ukraine, which the U.S. already controls. Siciliano’s news-break received a follow-up on September 30th from Zero Hedge.
On October 1st, George Eliason, the great investigative journalist who happens to live in Donbass, the southeastern part of Ukraine that broke off from Ukraine when Obama’s coup overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian President who had received over 90% of the votes in Donbass, reported at The Saker’s site, that Ukraine’s war against Donbass was now returning in full force. Headlining “War Crimes in LNR and DNR [Donbass] —The Unannounced War”, he opened:
On September 28th, Lugansk Peoples Republic (LNR)Deputy Foreign Minister Anna Soroka and Andrey Chernov gave a presentation unveiling a photo album entitled Unannounced war. This collection of 150 images details the war crimes by the Ukrainian government during the war from 2014-2018.
Over the last 4 years, many journalists including myself reported on the war crimes committed by Ukrainian punisher battalions and sometimes the Ukrainian army. These war crimes are privately funded by Ukrainian Diaspora groups led primarily by US and Canadian citizens.
The Ukrainian punisher battalions and Ukrainian volunteer battalions take pride in the fact there is no need to hide any of Ukraine’s crimes from the West’s prying eyes.
Even now, when there is supposed to be a ceasefire so the children can go to school, Kiev is shelling cities and towns across Donbass. On September 29th, in just 24 hours Ukrainian army units shelled DNR (Donetsk Peoples Republic) over 300 times violating the ceasefire.
The U.S. Government is trying to bully Russia and its allies, and now is overtly threatening to go to a naval blockade against Russia. Those two warships that the U.S. just donated to Ukraine could be helpful in such a blockade. Alternatively, Ukraine’s re-invasion of Donbass might become Trump’s opportunity to ‘aid a NATO ally’ and precipitate WW III from a conventional war in Donbass.
Either way would likely produce from Russia a nuclear blitz-attack to eliminate as many of America’s retaliatory weapons as possible, so as to beat the U.S. to the punch. In military terms, the side that suffers the less damage ‘wins’, even if it’s a nuclear war that destroys the planet. The side that would strike first in a nuclear war would almost certainly suffer the less damage, because most of the opponent’s retaliatory weaponry would be destroyed in that attack. Trump is playing nuclear “chicken” against Putin. He is sorely trying Putin’s patience.
If the U.S. regime uses any of these entry-points to a conventional war, Russia would simply be waiting for the U.S. to nuclear blitz-attack Russia, which the U.S. regime has long been intending to do. Regardless which side goes nuclear first, the blockade and/or re-invasion of Donbass (repeating there such things as this and this) will have started WW III. And, clearly, any survivors would likely view the U.S. in the way that most of today’s world views the fascist powers in WW II: as having been the aggressors.
Consequently, if the American people cannot first overthrow the U.S. regime and establish an authentic democracy here, then WWIII seems likely to result, which would be an outcome far worse, for the entire world, than an overthrow of the government that the entire world considers to be by far the most dangerous on Earth.
Originally posted at strategic-culture.org
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
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I’ve said about a hundred times in the last four years that everything that happened in Ukraine after mid-2014 is a hundred percent Putin’s fault. I realise that this won’t go down well with the Putinites on any response column, so let me explain.
In February 2014, an openly Amerikastani organised Nazi coup took place in Ukraine, throwing out the legitimate, democratically elected president. It took place in full public view over many days, and the results were obviously going to be horrendous, right? Apart from bringing in a Nazi regime on the doorstep of Russia? Which country in a similar position would tolerate this, even without the history that Russia has with Nazis?
So what did Putin do? Nothing. He was too busy with the Sochi Olympics to bother.
Right, so the Nazis are in power and Ukraine is already beginning to collapse into dysfunction, protestors are being burned alive, the east is in turmoil, the Duma has given Putin the authority to take military action….and what does Putin do?
Well, nothing. He tells the Duma to take back its authorisation. The Russian military does nothing (except maybe sending a few infantry weapons to the Donbass revolutionary republics). There is no “invasion”….but Amerikastan and the EU blame Russia for “invading”, and sanction it anyway. The Donbass republics are stuck in a low grade war, their best leaders have been murdered one by one, and they haven’t even been recognised by Russia as independent republics like Transnistria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia, let alone permitted to rejoin the Russian Federation as they have repeatedly asked for. Their morale must be suffering, no matter what they claim in public. Their fighting ability has not significantly increased since 2015 (it couldn’t, without infusions of heavy weapons from Russia, which would immediately be pounced on as proof of a “Russian invasion” by Amerikastan). Meanwhile the Nazi-oligarch regime is being armed, trained, funded by, and all but functions as part of, NATO. It is getting stronger as the Donbass is getting relatively weaker. And after watching Putinite “restraint” in Syria, what assurance do the Novorossiyan republics have that Russia will protect them when (not if) Poroshenko invades to destroy them once and for all?
What else could Putin have done, the Putinite backers ask? Let’s see!
Imagine it’s March 2014. The Nazis have just couped Yanukovych, who’s fled to Russia. Ukraine is in turmoil, Putin has Duma authority to wage war, and Amerikastan has no military forces on Ukrainian soil. Putin sends in two battalions of Spetsnaz, overthrows the Nazi regime with barely a shot (Amerikastan wouldn’t have dared intervene any more than it dared in Georgia in 2008 even though Russia was much weaker then), reinstates Yanukovych*, and withdraws immediately with the clear statement that if there are any more coups Russia will be back and this time to stay. The status quo ante is restored, Russia avoids any financial responsibility for what happens afterwards, and things are back to what they were before Nuland’s coup.
Instead, now, an emboldened Poroshenko (desperate in any case to deflect attention from his collapsing economy and rampant corruption) is poised to invade Novorossiya. What will Putin do when that happens? Is he going to stand back and watch, as the Nazi regime massacres Russians and advances even closer to the Russian heartland? That will be political suicide for him at the least, and treason to his country. What else can he do, invade Ukraine, as he could have in 2014? Only this time it’ll take two armies, not two Spetsnaz battalions, it can’t stop until Russian armour is rolling through the streets of Kiev and Lvov, the presence of NATO war criminals (effectively Nazi human shields) will have to be dealt with, and afterwards Yanukovych can’t be just reinstated and Russia leave – no, now Russia will own the mess and have to administer Ukraine for years if not decades to come.
And this is all Putin’s fault. Prove me wrong.
*If Saudi Barbaria can invade Yemen to reinstate Hadi, who resigned, Russia could do the same in Ukraine to reinstate Yanukovych, who didn’t. What’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose.
“Too busy to be bothered” is plain daft
All righty, then, “too incompetent to see what’s going on in plain view”. Happy now?
No! Russia was and is unable to simply swallow the bait of a provocation. You imagine some sort of equality in forces which doesn’t exist. Russia has an economy half the size of the UK’s. It has a nuclear arsenal but it is a nation that has been forced into a defensive position over the last 30 years. An invasion of Ukraine by Russia was just what the Americans needed.
“An economy half the size of the UK’s”…..which is dependent on harbouring foreign financial criminals and their I’ll gotten gains. Even if we believe your statement, that still puts Russia at approximately No 10 in the world. Besides, did you even read my comment? A quick countercoup in 2014 would have cost Russia almost nothing.
Also, did Amerikastan do anything except blow hot air when Russia struck back against Georgia in 2008? Even though Amerikastan had greenlighted Saakashvili’s invasion of South Ossetia?
Really, the reflexive Putin worship of some people is as absurd as that of the Obamapologists and Trumpets. The man isn’t a god. He isn’t even an admirable person. He’s just a politician of slightly above average ability, who was lucky enough to be handpicked by the criminal Boris Yeltsin as his successor, and whose first act was to give that traitor immunity fur all his offences.
Russia neither invaded Ukraine, nor annexed Crimea. (Nor started the conflict in Georgia.) Even so, western MSM parrots all these allegations as fact and the US and its vassal states have piled sanction upon sanction on Russia. Not to mention all the nonsense about the Skripals and athlete doping. If Russia had genuinely used force in Ukraine, no matter how provoked by Nuland et al, Hillary Clinton would have pushed Obama to act much ‘tougher’ and either try to sanction everything against Russia, etc. etc. It is easy to be an armchair warrior but Putin treads a fine line by being as least aggressive as possible, while building up defences for the inevitable war. Back in the 19th century, Bismark remarked ‘Russia is slow to saddle but fast to ride”. Putin is taking things slowly, but when things kick off, I would rather be east facing west than vice versa.
Putin has created a mortal threat to Russia by “taking things slowly”. Russia didn’t invade Ukraine, didn’t get the benefits of invading Ukraine, but is getting all the backlash for an invasion it didn’t carry out. What’s Putin’s “taking things slowly” going to achieve when Poroshenko’s Azov Nazis are washing the streets of Donetsk and Lugansk with the blood of ethnic Russians?
You should talk to actual Russian soldiers and see what they think of Putin’s “taking things slowly”. You’ll probably need help to unpin your ears from where they they tack them back.
Dear Rag Head the Fiendly Terrorist,
Last time I looked, Ukraine was supposed to be an independent country. Is it Russia’s responsibility to jump into Ukrainian territory, throw out the Nazis and put Viktor Yanukovych back into power as President?
There is supposed to be an international principle that a nation’s territory and borders should be respected by other nations and that those other nations should not interfere in that nation’s domestic affairs. This principle arose during peace negotiations at Westphalia in the late 1640s after the Thirty Years’ War concluded. That other nations ignore this principle and that the Soviet Union ignored it in the past as well, is no reason for Russia to ignore it now as well.
If Russia had invaded Ukraine to restore Yanukovych, the Russians could very well have walked into a trap set by the Americans, and ended up being bogged down in a war in which NATO secretly aids Ukraine with weapons, equipment and fighters to exhaust the Russians militarily and financially. The Soviet Union fell for that trick in Afghanistan in December 1979; the Russians are not going to fall for it again.
By the way, how is that war in Yemen going for the Sordid Barbarians? They are still fighting the Yemenis, taking hits and losing massive amounts of money, equipment and troops, aren’t they?
There’s a comparison between the Ukranazis and the Yemenis? A Ukranazi couldn’t fight its way out of a paper bag without Amerikastani help. Nor did they have any kind of backing. As for Russia, exactly how did “obeying international law” work out? Will Putin sit back and obey international law when Poroshenko’s Azov Nazis massacre ethnic Russians and roll over Donetsk and Lugansk? What will he do when Amerikastan incorporates Banderastan into NATO?
Putinite propaganda is ludicrous.
Nat South’s impressive article on The New Silk Railroad from China to Europe via Russia gives yet another reason for Uncle $cam to start WW3:
“This all leaves the US out in cold instead.”
And what bloody hope the brainwashed masses in the United States, U.K, Australia, Canada, etc will wake from their zombified slumber and realise what’s actually going on? Zero to Buckley’s in my opinion. Eric, read this article of yours on another couple sites I go on, didn’t realise it was posted here also. In Australia, all I hear from passersby in the streets, and people on Public Transport is boasting about their next overseas holiday, or how they’ve just got back from 4 weeks in France, or the new outfit they’re buying or their next shopping binge at Chadstone (largest shopping mall in Australia) or going to the Pub to get pissed, or going on about their football team. Blinded and consumed by mass consumerism; narcissistic pleasure, and completely oblivious to what’s happening right now. Its F****n depressing as hell. Friends of mine sarcastically joke if my nuclear bunker is finished yet. They have absolutely no idea. Its just surreal. I appreciate your work by the way, and I think creatures like John Bolton and Nikki Haley are stark raving bonkers.
Russia being smarter than the average bear most likely realise that a strategically placed missile into the Yellowstone caldera will do the job just fine. Let the dead hand of nature do the rest.. god forbid. You might have thought the dumb ass Americans might have realised that?
Instead we get increasingly deranged stories at the Guardian and today’s editorial at the Observer proving as they no longer agree on what truth is, there is no need for verifiable facts on anything…
The good news is that large swathes of the population don’t believe their nonsense about the Skripal charade or the moderate rebels in Syria Jihading for freedom. The bad news is that they do – while ever they pay cheques keep rolling in. And of course the political classes who can see no further than their last intelligence briefing via the heavily pay-rolled “post truth” media.
Russia still has the Deadman’s switch don’t they? If so enough ICBM’s will be launched to ensure MAD, and some dolts in Washington will find out that it is still relevant. Either way, nuclear winter will take care of the rest. Hey, the up side, no more worries about global warming. /sarc
It is called the Dead Hand, and also Perimeter:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand
Published on 31 Aug 2016
System Perimeter – “Judgement Day machine” or the “Dead Hand” – will take revenge on the USA in case the latter attacks Russia and destroy Russian military and political nation`s leadership by the first nuclear attack.
It has been regularly maintained and even upgraded:
Published on 27 Mar 2018
Russia UPGRADING its dreaded Doomsday device ‘Dead Hand’ which fires ALL its nukes AT ONCE
RUSSIA is upgrading its nuclear final defence system which automatically launches it entire arsenal in a doomsday-like barrage, it is claimed.
The Ultimate Doomsday Device – Perimeter (Deadhand)
Published on 28 Feb 2018
Behind the scenes of the USSR, and now Russia’s nuclear strategy in the face of WWIII.
For sure there’s tensions between these nations and agendas and desires for global dominance, but i sense there’s a lot of wild speculation in this article, in that the US is ready to start WWIII in the Ukraine and blitz Russia with nukes…
I’m sure there are a few crazy military folk who entertain such fantasies here and there, but the reality is much different…
We’ll just have to wait and see but i see no point in allowing the imagination to run riot about these matters and spoil the richness of this moment…
Biggest load of crap i have ever read
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American military and intelligence leadership has been bat-shit crazy throughout my lifetime. It appears that a total detachment from reality is the “entry point” for joining the elite level in these services. Kennedy had to be killed in part because he refused the Joint Chiefs of our military’s plan to first strike the Soviet Union back in the early 1960’s. We are not dealing with rational, moral, humane human beings in this matter. The level of narcissism, sociopathy, and grandiosity common among U.S. leadership makes it collectively – “THE” – most clear and dangerous threat to human survival. It would appear that we in the U.S. are ready to sacrifice all life on earth rather than lose our grip on controlling the entire planet. It would seem that only Europe recognizing this and joining Russia, China, and the rest of humanity in opposing the U.S. military’s insane misadventures can offer any hope of our collective survival. I’m not holding my breath in expectation.
This is total bullshit also how can a country invade a renegade part of its own territory??? Poor journalism
Neither Donbass or Crimea are renegade parts of Ukraine. They are no more renegade than Kosovo in Serbia. Remember how the US started a war to allow Kosovo to exit the Serbian association? Nothing like being grossly hypocritical is there?
I would suggest you look up the first battle of Bull Run.
The First Battle of Bull Run (the name used by Union forces), also known as the First Battle of Manassas[1] (the name used by Confederate forces), was fought on July 21, 1861 in Prince William County, Virginia, just north of the city of Manassas and about 25 miles west-southwest of Washington, D.C. It was the first major battle of the American Civil War. There were other battles to follow.
The ruling US elites, and their Zionazi friends, and the elites in the stooge regimes of the West, are clearly the greatest force for Evil ever to have existed. And many are ‘Christian’ fundamentalist lunatics who wish to provoke the ‘End Times’, by one means or another. I’m pretty convinced that our fate is sealed. There is NO chance of the US Empire ever becoming rational and humane.
The Guardian is full of shit and a typical leftest newspaper . The people that write this crap are the same people who fund groups like ANTIFA and the UAF . You people will belive anything these reds print
Regarding everyone that works for this rag. You push fake news and scare mongers. Your writers are all full of shit.
CB you are right (by error) and wrong totally otherwise.
The GUARDIAN is certainly full of SHIT.
THE Guardian is NOT ‘leftist’, whatever you think that means.
The OFF-guardian is a partial antidote to the guardian.
Now wipe off that froth from your gob and go lay down, it’ll do you good.
It’s remarkable really, considering we’re on a trajectory that leads to war with Russia, that the Guardian, as but one example, is full of stories about… sex crimes! Just compare the space given to the allegations about the awful judge Cavanaugh and articles about the military build-up in Ukraine. Is this merely a coincidence? The UK’s relations with Russia are boiled down to the absurd Skripal Affair, which trivialises everything. The Guardian, which might have stood out as a beacon of reason amid all the cold war darkness, has been emphatically neutered and now actually leads the stampede towards conflict and war, regardless of the terrible consequences.
The Guardian plumbed yet new depths of filth today with a vicious lie-fest by the crazy sub-fascist May, appealing to Labour voters to abandon Corbyn and join the Tories. The very first indictment of Corbyn was the filthy lie of ‘antisemitism’, indicating just how close is the collaboration between the Guardian sewer, the UK Zionazi elites and the Blairite Sabbat Goy traitors with the Tories.
Now Trump (who, like Corbyn, succeeded against the Rothschild candidate) is also being attacked as “antisemitic”. Because it is now “antisemitic” to criticize George Soros, Rothschild’s right hand man in the U$A.
https://www.rt.com/usa/440467-trump-soros-elevator-screamers/
I would suspect that Ukraine having been nurtured on Russian armaments all with Russian technology will find that it will take a while to get used to Western technology for the proper use of same.The ships will not be sailing for a while unless Americans came with the ships,which is entirely likely .Blockade away and see what happens ,the ships might end up being entertainment for deep sea divers.
Winning a nuclear world war?
There will be only losers, including the 1%.
The Americans have long argued that with a massive preemptive First Strike they would survive – and flourish.
Even if the Russians would fail to launch a single nuke (very unlikely!!) do remember Chernobyl. Multiply that by 10,000 just from US nukes on Russia and get the (X-ray) picture. Dummies like the May’s UK and Macron’s France on the front row, but continental USA will also get plenty of fall out, not just physically.
Yes, you’d think the Poles and Ukrainians must be wary of egging on the US but they don’t seem to be.
Blinded by stupidity , hate and rage .The only possibility.
That’s a joke, East Coast would be a nuclear wasteland, it would be the first time that the USA has had to fight a WW on its territory, Pearl Harbour was just an isolated attack, wars such as those that hit Europe will totally freak out the uS public who really are misguided enough to believe they are invincible.
Pearl Harbour was a provoked attack. Sanctions against supplying oil to Japan made it inevitable they’d either have to surrender or fight. It’s one example where sanctions have led directly to war. Sanctions are back in fashion now but whether America can keep control of international trade is a moot point. Germany isn’t keen on buying expensive US fracked oil instead of cheap Russian energy. Generally however the EU has been utterly supine, ‘happily’ binning business with Iran because they’re told to stop. There has been talk of an Alliance of Sanctioned countries – Iran, Russia and Syria are in the front line. India and China are in the second line. Such an authoritarian international rule might blow up in America’s face.
@ Paul X
”Such an authoritarian international rule might blow up in America’s face.”
Oh I do hope so. Although I fear for my relatives who are living there. I try to tell them to get out now while they can, but they think the danger is overblown?
Spot on ,your words ! Invincible …as the Bible verse goes, “There will be weeping , wailing and gnashing of teeth” . The minutae distractions and hubris from the President, Congress, and the warmongers leave everyone else , the citizens in a state of total ignorance of what a war on our land could be like. Propaganda
has been perpetual since the end of WW2….. I will say there is a BIG reason as to the start of an early warning system alarm. What do you think about that ? A moribund process that was last used during the Cold War….starting it up again????
”The Americans have long argued that with a massive preemptive First Strike they would survive – and flourish.”
In the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies, ‘Well they would do, wouldn’t they’
I think that it was the Prussian military theorist and soldier Herman von Moltke (the elder) who once said:
‘’No plans of operations extend with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main enemy force.’’
This truism has a long history of serial hare-brained military theories which have come to grief in the heat of battle, based upon deeply flawed stratagems and underestimation of the enemy’s capabilities. The Battle of the Somme (1916), The Maginot Line (1939) the Fall of Singapore (1941), Operation Barbarossa (1941). To quote Hitler on Barbarossa. ‘We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.’ Bit wide of the mark perhaps.
A winnable thermonuclear war is yet another addition to this hubristic military idiocy. William J Perry United States Secretary of Defence from February 3, 1994, to January 23, 1997, under President Bill Clinton writes:
‘’To be effective against an ICBM attack a defence system will need to exact attrition rates well in excess of 90% – the first time! No historical data supports the contentions that such attrition rates could be achieved in any defensive system in real combat situations….
When I think of the forlorn idea of defence against a nuclear attack I am tempted to think that the notion especially typifies Einstein’s grim and painfully realistic observation that ‘the unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our modes of thinking’. It certainly has been normal in history to think of fashioning defences against evolving military threats. But nuclear weapons unleashed in large scale attacks, bring a sure destruction, one so massive as to rule out any successful defence. Defence-in-conflict, a traditional mode of thinking is no longer plausible. In a nuclear war, the long-standing norm of reliance on defence has become a self-deception, a most human and understandable one, and one that is rooted in the aversion of the new reality.’’
Russia and the US have both approx. 1700-1800 each. Russia’s latest addition to its nuclear strike force is the RS-28 Sarmat, also known as Satan 2, a MIRV-equipped, super-heavy thermonuclear armed intercontinental ballistic missile in development by the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau] from 2009, intended to replace the previous R-36 missile. Its large payload would allow for up to 10 heavy warheads or 15 lighter ones or up to 24 hypersonic glide vehicles Yu-71, or a combination of warheads and massive amounts of countermeasures designed to defeat anti-missile systems; it was heralded by the Russian military as a response to the U.S. Prompt Global Strike. If this isn’t enough you Putin’s showcase of new weapons of mass destruction on 1st March ought to have put paid to absurd notions of winning a nuclear war. Do the American strategists really imagine that they are going to eliminate in its entirety the whole Russian nuclear arsenal like sitting ducks in their silos? That takes self-deception and stupidity to a whole new level. Imagine, for example what would be the result of a Satan 2 ICBM penetrating US air space and landing slap bang on Yellowstone Park and/or the San Adreas Faultline?
This more broadly broaches the not insignificant matter of a nuclear winter and global warming which would be vastly accelerated. It would be a fair guess to say that a nuclear war would result in an Extinction Level Event beginning in the northern hemisphere and then spreading inexorably to the southern hemisphere. Think Neville Shute and his dystopian novel – ‘’On the Beach.’’
There are I think two explanations of this latest imbecilic military theory. Firstly, the US leaders have gone completely insane, or secondly, they are trying to convince the rest of the world that they are insane, hoping that those countries threatened actually believe it. I tend to go with the second thesis. It is all one big bluff.
Francis, while quoting the battle of the Somme and Barbarossa you left out Mike Tyson’s worldly wise quote “Everybody has a plan until they get a punch in the mouth. Then, like a rat, they stop in fear and freeze “.
Of course some Americans think that because the US could destroy Russia 10 times over, whereas Russia could only destroy the US 4 times over, they are good odds. Those two draft dodging cowards Trump and Bolton have a good motto ‘walk softly and carry a big mouth’.
I’m sorry to rain on this funeral parade, but I still cannot see any circumstances in which starting World War III would make any sense to any of the Alt States who are driving a concerted campaign to stop Brexit, arm the EU’s new Standing Army and demonise Russia unto Eternity. All they will do is kill all of us, a large majority of their own staffers, any trade in arms ever, the global economy, energy cold wars, foreign bogeymen and US hegemony.
Their aim is global domination by the unelected Giga-Rich. They don’t want domination of a dead planet that isn’t buying anything from corporate America.
Every time I point this out on social media, my view is greeted by obscene insults and then silence. Just somebody please, tell me what the motive is.
https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2018/10/05/at-the-end-of-the-day-866/
I responded to your objection here at Off-Guardian already on 2 January 2017:
https://off-guardian.org/2017/01/02/americas-secret-planned-conquest-of-russia/
America’s aristocracy believe that the concept that nuclear weapons exist in order to prevent war (the concept known as “M.A.D.”) is dead, and that now America’s nuclear weapons exist in order to win a nuclear war against Russia (the concept that their agents at CFR and Harvard and Dartmouth have since 2006 called “Nuclear Primacy”). They announced it in 2006, and have since been acting, by means of all their foreign policies, accordingly. If you were to have clicked onto the links in this present article, you would be shocked at how much they are behaving in accord with the Nuclear Primacy concept.
War games conducted by the Pentagon as far back as the mid-1950s demonstrated conclusively any direct great power conflict would quickly and inevitably expand to a massive nuclear exchange. Accordingly, there has not been direct conflict and most likely such event never will be. The 1% elite live in such luxury, with the ability to traverse the planet in ease and comfort, that reverting to underground bunkers for generations while their stock portfolios become meaningless and their vacation homes are vaporized is both a poor lifestyle choice and a bad business decision. On the other hand, it is a good business decision to employ yapping war hounds and forward deploy troop units to ratchet the tension so as to justify the big-ticket weapons programs, such as new generation nuclear weapons, because that is where the biggest pay-outs reside.
That said, miscalulations by mediocre functionaries could plausibly if unintentionally escalate in a Dr Strangelove way, and the high percentage of mediocre idiots in particularly the NATO countries does not allow for complacency
Furthermore: Why are super-rich people now buying nuclear bunkers, such as
https://www.vice.com/read/this-guy-is-building-doomsday-shelters-for-billionaires-111
&
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-14/doomsday-bunker-billionaires
&
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2015/11/05/billionaire-bunker-inside-the-worlds-largest-private-apocalypse-shelter-the-oppidum/#3218fd0449a2
&
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2015/06/12/billionaire-bunkers-exclusive-look-inside-the-worlds-largest-planned-doomsday-escape/#62c5ba435afb
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/home-property/69604963/have-a-peek-inside-an-inviteonly-billionaires-bunker
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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/billionaires-prepping-armageddon-15million-earthship-9333738
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3123296/The-ultimate-doomsday-escape-California-entrepreneur-builds-1billion-luxury-underground-bunker-tiny-German-village-millionaires-event-apocalypse-survivors-live-year-without-leaving.html
&
http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/8/9684272/this-month-in-luxury-billionaire-doomsday-bunkers
&
https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/1850361/european-super-bunker-to-save-the-mega-rich-in-case-of-nuclear-war-opens-in-germany/
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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-25/there-will-be-those-who-perish-next-crisis-and-those-who-survive-underground-luxury
Are these people investors in ‘defense’ corporations such as Lockheed Martin?
So the rich and well-connected are buying bunkers and fall-out shelters in NZ. But what happens when the groceries run out and they have to come out? Yep, they will have to make their way in a post-nuclear winter wonderland and a mass extinction of homo sapiens. Hmmm, sounds a little unappetising to me. I live in London and I am going to get instantly incinerted – farewell Britannia – phew, thank goodness, I’d rather that than be condemned to radiation sickness, starvation, cannibalism and a new ice age. Have a nice day you survivors.
Of course, in the fullness of time nature will heal itself, and small pockets of humanity will survive in Siberia, Chile, South Africa, Papua and New Guinea, and the vastness of the Pacific. Let’s hope the lessons will be learned.
If this is the way it has to be – so be it. It’s not the end of the world, it’s just the end of this epoch, the triumph of Thanatos.
So the 1% can be clubbed with the “preppers”? Which sane person wants to live in a post apocalyptic world?
But they do want commercial dominance above anything. Sanctions are an excellent way of doing it, effectively controlling trade. India is in trouble for buying Russian arms and everybody is in trouble if they dare trade with Iran. The American Hawks have always believed they would win a nuclear war if they struck first. It’s just a case of provoking Russia to make what can be spun as aggression. It’ll be all over in half a day.
You have a valid point, John, nobody except for the few hotheads in Washington and Kremlin wants WW3, who would enjoy to be a winner in a nuke contaminated world even if the radioactive regions were far removed from the lands of the major protagonists, who knows what the winds and rains can bring.
What your near Panglossian slicing of events misses though is the probability of an escalating regional conflict, we already have a festering blob of one in the ME in Syria, may get another one in the Baltics or Ukraine (they have the presidential election next year, the Rada decided recently to close down two opposition TV stations, not a word about it here).
The Syrian battlefield remains limited in scope but this may change if the American Governing Elite (GE) decides to blockade Russia or China, or pushes the sanction lever to a point where the harmed country will have no option but to either give in to the American GE, or respond militarily by attacking American assets. It’s hard to see (say) Putin or Xi going for the former, it would be the end of them.
Not to lose face, the Americans will have to respond, lob few missiles on the attacker’s targets, the other side may escalate it further, use tactical nukes and before anyone can stop it WW3 will end within days, as will the lives of many of us.
Impossible?
@ Baron
What I don’t understand is WHY does no one call for a boycott of American goods and sanctions against them?
Good thinking Maggie, but the US Dollar is the medium used for trade and Banking worldwide. That means the countries that want to follow what you suggest would have to set up a financial system along with any other countries that want to join them It can be done …but if the EU joined that effort it would be a positive.. Something to consider is the US is not in a good financial position ,largely due to 8+ years of running massive deficits. …we have 20+ Trillion dollars of debt. largely due to about 70% of our yearly budget going towards Defense spending. After all, we have about 800 bases overseas and they all are a drain on that yearly budget. So they’llcut social programs to use for so called defense situations. All a lie because it’s done for Big Oil , and the MIC. Our defense budget has been increased just in the las t 2 years from just over 600B to I believe for 2019 it 719 B. Criminal….and the Republicans along with certain Dems support it.
@ Maggie: ‘Murkans are so busy sanctioning other nations that they’ll end up surrounded by sanctioned neighbours from whom they’re cut off. They’ll have scored an own goal.
It’s a terrific idea. But who would lead it? How could it be done?
I doubt that ANYONE in the Kremlin wants WW3. That is an ‘Exceptionalist’, religious lunatic, desire, of the ruling psychopaths in Thanatopolis DC.
If one side is pushing for “Nuclear Primacy,” then one side wants to blitz-attack the other. In that case, the other side needs to either beat them to the punch or else lose not only the world but the war. The blame belongs to the side that’s seeking to attain Nuclear Primacy, which should be officially declared to be the worst war-crime, and should trigger a total global boycott against all of that nation’s brands, and the severest economic sanctions.
It is not so much that the US wants nuclear war as in they believe that Russia or China would not start a nuclear war no matter how hard they push. They are determined to remain ‘rulers of the world’ and are rightly fearful of the potential for both Russia and China to pull that rug out from under them. They are determined to constrain Russia at any cost as she is poised to match them industrially and technologically and presents the greatest current challenge. In truth WW3 has already started and is ongoing, using economics, propaganda and politics together with disruption via various proxy ‘boots on the ground’, the Ukraine regime, anti-Syrian Jihadis and so on. The US is confident they can keep Russia locked down indefinitely and thus ‘win’ that war.
If a nuclear war kicks off it won’t be a planned act, it will be an accident. In fact there are distinct parallels with WW1 which was itself largely accidental, in that no one involved had actually planned to go to war at that time. Just switch the USA with Great Britain and Russia with Germany in terms of the historical context at the time to see just how similar things are. When you have two sides sabre rattling it only takes a small misjudgement or mistake by a relatively minor player to suddenly cause an escalation which can run completely out of control before anyone truly has a grasp on what happened.
The military strategy is to be able to launch nuclear weapons from close enough range to prevent counter-launches. Approximately five minutes instead of 35 minutes. The increasingly fascistic East European regimes are signing up to be launch pads for a US first strike precisely to prevent MAD and a ‘dead planet’. They might portray their preference for this to be an overwhelming threat rather than an actuality, but their motives are crystal clear and in the longterm over-rule the ‘threat posture’ scenario: (i) shut down the gas pipeline from Russia to Europe; (ii) stop the emerging economic powerhouse of Russia and China; (iii) appropriate the vast resources of Russia and Siberia. It would US capitalism a new lease on life.
Interesting points but a bit over the top. I’d hardly classify cutters as warships.
According to the Kyiv Post
http://archive.is/FyYIr
and others, these are warships that will be used against Russia.
The term “cutter” that has been applied to them seems to be inappropriate: the photos show that these are not masted ships but motorized. Perhaps the Coast Guard uses “cutter” in a different way than the standard definition. Anyway, Ukraine treats these as military ships, to defend their coast against Russia. But why is the U.S. taxpayer donating anything to this bankrupt nazi Government?
Iran’s IGRC employs similar vessels in the Gulf. In these times anything robust enough to carry a battery of missiles and swift enough to deliver them is a viable warship. Size, if anything, is, for offensive purposes no advantage.
It always seemed likely that the breakaway East was just what the,US wanted, a bleeding open sore on the Russian border just 90 miles from Moscow. The disinformation and what used to be called the ‘fog of war’ will spin it as Russia ‘invading the Ukraine’ and all those so called progressives will shriek that they had No Choice but use a first strike. Allen Dulles the old CIA Director always said ‘a first strike is the last strikd’. He and the US hawks were constantly recommending nuclear attacks all over the World – Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba etc.
The chilling thing is Dulles May have been right – it might be the ‘last strike’. Unfortunetly the American people have no way of influencing the Hawks, there is no democracy in that out of control Terror State, they just have to lump it.
I think it is several hundreds of miles from Moscow, if it was ninety there would already be hot war.
Yes? I stand corrected.
Don’t know geography but got an opinion on everything, you talk shit empty vessels make most noise, clear to see in your tosh post!
Yes, but the Ukrainian/Russian border is only 100 km from the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don which has a population in excess of one million. There is no way that Russian can tolerate a Ukronazi attack on the Don Bass which would bring the Azov Battalion and other assorted Ukrainian punitive units right up to Russia’s border. An attack on the Don Bass is an attack on Russia. Dereliction of duty would be a de facto surrender to the Anglo-Zionist empire and would not be in Russia’s interests.
@ Francis Lee.
Who knows where the Americans will strike first. They have over 500 places to start from. As identified in this article from 2014.
The Next News Network
Published on 2 Oct 2014
(Subscribers 747K)
Today, we decided to take a quick look at the US Military presence around the world. What we found was rather interesting.
Earlier this week, we told you about the fiercest armoured tank division in the US armed forces, the Ironhorse unit, deploying to Poland. Several thousand US troops are working with the Baltic countries in a massive military exercise. US tanks and warships are crawling all over the old Soviet army bases in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Farther south, US warships are parked in the Mediterranean Sea and American fighter jets are flying over Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Over 12 hundred US soldiers are stationed in and around Baghdad. Plus, CIA operatives and other military forces are controlling drone strikes farther south in Yemen. If that wasn’t enough, Navy ships are currently in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, on both sides of Saudi Arabia. Just to the east, US forces are still setting up shop in Afghanistan, and they’re increasing their presence in Pakistan. Both of those countries share borders with Iran and China, two countries who aren’t on the best of terms with the US. Speaking of China, just this week, the Pentagon announced rebel Islamic forces creating unrest in Myanmar, formerly known Burma. Even farther to the east, the US just finished conducting War Games in the East China Sea with Japan and South Korea. Right now, they’re ALSO training Filipino Armed Forces in the SOUTH China Sea.
When you connect the dots, the US military is currently established in literally almost every other country, surrounding the southern borders of Russia and China
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One thousand places and counting, if all military bases are included, around the planet that the US could start a major war from: the mind boggles at the scale and outreach.
One assumes though that for all these bases to be effective during a hot war, their communications have to be centralised and that central point, wherever it is, makes the decisions as to what role/s these bases must play and what their responsibilities are. How would these bases be co-ordinated during an actual hot war when they are so spread out around the Earth, fighting a multi-headed enemy?
Of course the US has its allies whose systems, technology and weapons are integrated with those of the US. One might assume the allies’ strategies are also well integrated with these systems and strategies to the extent that the separation between the US military and the armed forces of its allies could be now merely formal.
Therein lie potential weaknesses if the US were to try to fight a global war on so many fronts. The temptation to use nuclear warheads as a first resort, obliterating its own troops overseas as well as enemy troops and civilians, over co-ordinating so many bases will be strong.
It might start in the Ukraine, but it will end in HELL.
For every child, woman and man on this precious, blue globe.