In the strategic vision of the U.S., Russia should be disarmed to become part of Europe as a "sidekick" and a bridgehead to contain China, the "more dangerous enemy" as Kissinger described it.
Kroenig finally put nuclear weapons on the table. “Relying more on nuclear weapons to offset our adversary’s local conventional advantage [is necessary]”, he states. He goes on to explain that “The U.S. can rely on threatening non-strategic nuclear strikes as a deterrent and as a last resort to thwart China’s amphibious invasion of Taiwan or Russia’s tank invasion of Europe”.
A thing that is mentioned even less than the past 8 years (plus) of U.S./NATO history with Ukraine is the fact that the demands Russia published a little while ago for NATO to pull back was at least in part due to U.S./NATO openly talking about the use of "flexible" nuclear first strikes (and doing practice runs in large military exercises) and refusing to even acknowledge challenges to that doctrine. It's funny how people are still talking "deterrent" and "last resort" when the U.S. itself is waaaaay past that consideration and possibly verging right into the "IDK maybe we'll nuke them just because" territory.
Plus the standard neoliberal programs, which cut back the Russian economy by some huge amount, maybe 50 percent, led to millions of deaths — the number of deaths probably wasn’t all that different from Stalin’s purges, there are various estimates — devastated the country, and enriched the leadership, which is what they wanted. That was their goal. We’ll become rich while increasing the security threats by expanding NATO to the east.
All of this is described as if it were benign. Strobe Talbott, who was the highest official in the Clinton administration responsible for Eastern Europe and an honest, authentic liberal, recently described this on NPR, in which he said that it was a difficult decision, but we concluded that it was a benign thing to do because NATO is not a military alliance, it’s just a friendly alliance. So, for example, if the Warsaw Pact had survived and they were bringing in Canada and Mexico, we would think that it’s just a Quaker meeting, so what do we care.
Bush II came along and extended it. The so-called missile defense systems, which have nothing to do with missile defense — they’re understood on both sides to be essentially first-strike weapons, not as they now stand but as they potentially might develop. They’re a strategic threat to Russia. Strategic analysts on the U.S. side recognize that and have written about it. Step after step was taken to show the Russians: We’re just going to kick you in the face. We won. Your problem. Now we’re going to kick you in the face and take everything.
Finally, as Matlock (Reagan’s and Bush’s ambassador) pointed out, the Russians just decided they’re not going to take any more and they put their foot down. That’s what happened in Georgia.
When the Commander of NATO says he is a fan of flexible first strike at the same time that NATO is flexing its military muscle on Russia’s border, the risk of inadvertent nuclear war is real....
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Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister stated that “We note with concern that Washington’s new doctrinal guidelines considerably lower the threshold of nuclear weapons use.” Lavrov added that this doctrine had to be viewed in the light “of the persistent deployment of US nuclear weapons on the territory of some NATO allies and the continued practice of the so-called joint nuclear missions.”
Rather than embracing a policy of “flexible first strike,” Lavrov suggested that the US work with Russia to reconfirm “the Gorbachev-Reagan formula, which says that there can be no winners in a nuclear war and it should never be unleashed.” This proposal was made 18 months ago, Lavrov noted, and yet the US has failed to respond.
Complicating matters further are the “Defender 2020” NATO military exercises underway in Europe, involving tens of thousands of US troops in one of the largest training operations since the end of the Cold War. The fact that these exercises are taking place at a time when the issue of US nuclear weapons and NATO’s doctrine regarding their employment against Russia is being actively tracked by senior Russian authorities only highlights the danger posed.
Washington has threatened economic and diplomatic sanctions against Russia over the conflict with Ukraine and has raised the possibility of military action. In an interview with Fox News Dec. 7, Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker even discussed U.S. troop intervention and a nuclear first strike!
Moscow countered with a series of demands on the U.S. government and the NATO military alliance. These demands would prevent NATO’s further military penetration toward the Russian border and stop NATO from absorbing other states in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region. Some of these countries border Russia or were part of the Soviet Union before 1991.
NATO is an aggressive military alliance under U.S. leadership. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in the early 1990s, the U.S. has mobilized its imperialist allies within NATO behind its attempt to reconquer former colonial countries worldwide. These countries had won some sovereignty when the Soviet Union existed; examples include Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya.
During the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, senior members of the George H.W. Bush administration promised to keep NATO troops and equipment away from the Russian border in exchange for Russian agreement that the reintegrated East and West Germany would fall within NATO’s sphere.
After (Bill) Clinton unilaterally abandoned the promise, Russia began rebuilding its short and intermediate range nuclear arsenal to counter the NATO threat being amassed on its borders. This was followed by an American sponsored coup in Ukraine that threatened the annexation of the Russian naval port at Sevastopol, Crimea.
In response, Barack Obama proposed a trillion dollar ‘modernization’ program that shifted emphasis toward battlefield nuclear weapons of the type NATO might use against Russia in a ‘conventional’ war. Largely hidden is that this emphasis on ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons is taking place with the American Cold War weapons and plans for total nuclear annihilation still in place.
U.S. Army Europe and Africa successfully organized and helped execute a massive and complex multinational exercise at the largest training area in Ukraine, the International Peacekeeping and Security Centre near Yavoriv.
To strengthen allied and partner nations’ capacities to more effectively defend themselves, about 300 U.S. Soldiers worked tactically alongside about 6,000 multinational troops from 15 nations under the banner of Partnership for Peace, a cooperative program for NATO and Euro-Atlantic partner countries, Sept. 20 - Oct. 1.
A thing that is mentioned even less than the past 8 years (plus) of U.S./NATO history with Ukraine is the fact that the demands Russia published a little while ago for NATO to pull back was at least in part due to U.S./NATO openly talking about the use of "flexible" nuclear first strikes (and doing practice runs in large military exercises) and refusing to even acknowledge challenges to that doctrine. It's funny how people are still talking "deterrent" and "last resort" when the U.S. itself is waaaaay past that consideration and possibly verging right into the "IDK maybe we'll nuke them just because" territory.
Wars, Bailouts, and Elections - Noam Chomsky interviewed by David Barsamian, 2008-09-08
Threat of a US and Russian Nuclear War Is Now at Its Greatest Since 1983 by Scott Ritter, 2020-03-03
U.S./NATO threats heighten tension with Russia by John Catalinotto, 2021-12-22
Nuclear Weapons are a Nightmare Made in America by Rob Urie, 2018-11-16
Large-scale Ukrainian-American military exercise strengthens cooperation by Sgt. 1st Class Chad Menegay (U.S. Army), 2021-10-04
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Strobe Talbott