The War on Russia
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
Bertrand Russell
The Day Deterrence Died
The “foundational” Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty used to be considered by all as a “cornerstone of strategic stability”. Which it was.
WWIII started on June 13th, 2002, that’s the day when ‘Bush’ tore up the ABM Treaty because that’s the day the race to American nuclear primacy began in earnest. ABMs are inherently destabilising because if IRBMs, and ICBMs can be shot down, then Mutual Assured Destruction fails. And, if MAD fails then all bets are off—nuclear war becomes not just thinkable, but doable, and inevitable.
About that Propaganda . . .
My whole life I have been told that the USSR was The Enemy; that they were literally evil, and of course, “Russia is bent on world domination!”. It was received wisdom, ‘Everyone knows!’. More recently as part of the growing war fever in the West, we have also have been led to believe that if you don’t see Russia as an enemy, or war as a solution, well that means that you are a “bot”, or a “Putin tool”. You will then be dismissed as crazy or evil and “reported”—just as it was under McCarthyism; just as it is on social media like Twitter, and soon enough, here.
Who told you and I this? That, “Russia is evil and must be destroyed”? The US, British and Canadian governments, their militaries, their intelligence organisations, the pundits, the TV, the radio, the newspapers, the magazines, and now course the internet. Anti-Russian propaganda is everywhere, and always was. We used to be told the threat was communism. Today the threat is not from a competing economic system; today the danger comes from a comic book caricature of an evil dictator named “Putin”.
All of that propaganda is aimed at maintaining and expanding an empire, an empire unlike any in history, but an empire nonetheless. To that end America, The Empire, has “invaded or fought in 84 of the 193 countries recognized by the United Nations and has been militarily involved with 191 of 193 – a staggering 98 percent”. They have assassinated leaders, interfered in at least 80 foreign elections, they’ve built 750 bases in at least 80 countries, and toppled “regimes” aplenty. All of that was not just applauded but supported by their media, and by Hollywood. Hollywood— who just might be their greatest weapon because it is Hollywood/Pentagon propaganda and disinfo that has convinced most people in the West that when The Empire killed literally 10’s of millions of people following WWII, well that was done in “self defence”, and of course, for “Freedom”.
"Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — 20 percent of the population," Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay about his genocidal bombing campaign in North Korea
But hey, “Russia is the problem”, not an empire rampant.
And now that most of the world is under American domination, there are only two islands of resistance, one in China, and one in Russia. The only real question for the deep and enduring powers in America is which one to ‘do’ first. The answer seems to be, “Russia”.
"The policy of the Reagan administration has to be seen as adventurous and serving the goal of world domination," Soviet marshal Nikolai Ogarkov to a gathering of the Warsaw Pact chiefs of staff in September 1982
Little has changed since the Reagan days, as Reagan was only following the lead of the MIC, and the US Deep State—just as Obama did, just as Trump did, as does barely there President Placeholder; the old man formerly known as ‘biden’.
Here in the Canadas, where our media and our narratives are essentially American controlled—most people completely buy into the evidence-free Clinton/CIA story that Putin was somehow instrumental in helping Trump “steal the election”. They believe that Putin then went on to “control” Trump with weaponised pee tapes, ‘kompromat’, and the like. And so they hate him and by extension, “Russia”. Never mind that that narrative has been debunked; because it was only debunked outside of the mainstream/corporate media matrix in alternative outlets by rogue journalists that struggle to reach a mass audience; journalists like: Max Blumenthal, Aaron Maté, or the Greenwald. Never mind that given all the imaginary power that “Putin” (now a mythological figure) had over Trump, Putin never really did anything with that ‘power’. Go figure.
Now ‘biden’, a broken and demented wraith of a man, is theoretically “in charge”; it seems that is now time to “confront Russia” over “Ukraine”. Here in client state Canada, Trudeau, a small man of no real intellect or principle, is down with all this aggression (as are the ludicrously named Canadian ‘opposition’ parties). In fact, Trudeau sent 1100 Canadian troops to the Russian border in 2015 after Obama “asked” him too during a visit his Ottawa. There was no debate in client state Canada about that, and even if there had been, it would have come down to the opposition parties demanding that he send even more. Most Canadians are not even aware that we have troops right on the Russian border or what their purpose is—troops whose role, according to a NATO General, is to, “act as tripwires”. It’s the same in the UK, France, and Germany; as well as in the Scandinavian countries where millions are now convinced (again) that Russians are coming!
And so here we are today. On the brink of war. Russia has a swaggering, bellicose NATO on their borders, their country is ringed with troops, tanks, artillery, bases, and anti-ballistic missiles. Bases, and missiles that the Americans (there is no “NATO” just Empire client states) that have been put there. This despite the fact that James Baker told Gorbachev that NATO would not move “one inch Eastward”. As I write this, America is getting ready to deploy some 8500 soldiers to the ‘Russian Front’. You know, to “defend democracy”, and to “teach Putin a lesson”.
The map below is old, and out-of-date, but it still gives a pretty good picture of the current balance of power
Before I was banned on Twitter forever, “suspended” as their Orwellian phraseology goes, I used to talk about the “War on Russia” a lot. That’s because I see the coming war on Russia as the greatest threat extant to humanity. Nuclear war, not pronouns, not Trump, not Maduro, nor Assange; or any of the many ‘issues’ that fill our minds. Anthropogenic climate change will for sure destroy civilisation, but that will take decades. A war on Russia could do that, will do that, in just a few hours. Yet there is no debate war about a possible war with or on Russia that I can see, people seem unconcerned, and unafraid, it’s simply not an issue. Back in the 80s the fear of a global nuclear war was palpable, real, top-of-mind. Today? Hardly at all.
In most postures that do not involve automatic mutual annihilation there will be an advantage in striking first.
Herman Kahn
Because of all the propaganda many people believe that. . .
the deliberate encirclement of Russia
the development of more accurate thermonuclear weapons
the development of anti-ballistic missiles
the vast expansion of NATO
Obama’s $1.2 trillion dollar “nuclear upgrade”
are all about “containing Russia”, defending America, and Europe. A common explanation for all the never-ending aggressions are, “it’s about weapons sales, it’s a new arms race”. The USSR, as ‘bad’ as they were was never trying to take Europe, let alone the world. Poland, Czechoslovakia, these were not conquests in the classical sense but mere ‘buffer states’ against yet another invasion from the West. Those days are now over. No one is going to drive tanks to Moscow. Buffer states make no strategic sense in the age of space weapons. No one wants Poland. That aside, the USSR is long gone, and this. is. Russia. A new country.
Fortunately there was never was a time in the past when, despite the very best efforts of the maniacs, and their captured Nazi rocket scientists, to get the cowboy ‘drop’ on the Sovs; nuclear primacy never was achieved. MAD - Mutual Assured Destruction, was always the order-of-the-day. No matter what scenario was envisioned, what new missile was developed—any attack on Russia was, “the end of the world”. Everyone agreed on that much at least. And, so we lived.
It’s no good asking a thoroughly propagandised Canuck, Brit, or Yank, “We sent troops to the Russian border. What if Putin had sent troops to the Mexican border?”. At best you’ll get some TIME or CBC argument about “Russian aggression”, or the always cogent, “That’s different!”. Of course it’s different, because to them, ‘we’ are the ‘good guys’, just as the TV, and the films say. We live, and will die in a cartoon, a Hollywood film.
By means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms— elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts, and all the rest—will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy, and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast, and editorial—but democracy, and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy, and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers, and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited
1. Between 1947 and 1989, the United States tried to change other nations’ governments 72 times
That’s a remarkable number. It includes 66 covert operations and six overt ones.
Of course, that doesn’t excuse Russia’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Why now?
American power now believes that they finally have “Nuclear Primacy”; that their dark dream of a “pre-emptive first strike” on Russia could neutralise Russia’s ability to retaliate with nuclear weapons—that “Soviet” bombers, ICBMs, SLBMs, and IRBMs can be destroyed in their silos, and subs using super-accurate ICBMs. Any missiles that are not destroyed in the initial attack will be destroyed during the boost stage or they can be destroyed on re-entry. Millions will die in Russia, and with any ‘luck’, The Empire might only lose a city or two. No big deal.
“Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.
General "Buck" Turgidson
The maniac’s have a term for that, they call it “acceptable losses” IOW twenty or so megadeaths would be totally “worth it” to them; safe as they will be in their deep underground bunkers.
And because the Pentagon arguably has strategic superiority, they believe that Putin will not dare “climb the escalation ladder”, and use nuclear weapons if he is losing a conventional war. Russia will climb any ladder you throw at them; bet on it. America never understands its enemies, and they always underestimate them. Just ask Victor Charlie.
Sadly for The Empire, the “Sovs” have not been idle, and they are as usual, developing weapons systems to counter NATO ABMs, most notably hypersonic missiles that, so far at least, cannot be intercepted. They have also deployed Poseidon, a nuclear powered, nuclear armed drone that can be launched from a submarine. Poseidon’s nuclear warhead could annihilate entire flotillas, or it could start a coast destroying tsunami. Poseidon is almost certainly invulnerable to detection or to counter-measures.
What this all means is that in the next few years, that brief and shining moment of strategic superiourity will be gone, ‘so better to hit them now, before they get too strong.’. - The Maniacs
(It’s a given in some circles that war with Russia is an utter inevitability)
New developments in weapon systems during the 1950s, and early 1960s created a situation that was most dangerous, and even conducive to accidental war.
Herman Kahn
Game Theory, and Herman Kahn
“The Cold Equations”
Herman Kahn was a genius, a maniac, and a true believer in the logical, practical diktats of Game Theory. Kahn was one of the leading lights at RAND Corporation, and as such was the intellectual father of much of American nuclear doctrine.
They were eggheads in a world of meatheads, and they regarded the uniformed military man in the same way that the baseball statistician Bill James regards Don Zimmer: as a relic of the pre-scientific dark ages, when the wisdom of experience passed for strategic thought.
Herman Kahn also thought that nuclear war was “winnable”. Today’s war planners still do. “Few people differentiate between having 10 million dead, 50 million dead, or 100 million dead. It all seems too horrible.“—Herman Kahn
Few people outside the Pentagon, the Rand Corporation, and Langley, that is.
Dr. Keith Payne, one of the authors of Trump’s Nuclear Posture Review, an old cold warrior, and a Kahn disciple, once wrote an article on nuclear war that he called, “Victory is Possible”, by which he meant that “an intelligent United States offensive [nuclear] strategy, wedded to homeland defenses, should reduce U.S. casualties to approximately 20 million . . . a level compatible with national survival, and recovery.” Victory!
The new Russian weapons are game changers. Hypersonic missiles defeat ABMs. Poseidon drones obviate SOSUS arrays. And so on. Unfortunately new weapons systems, even so-called defensive ones like ABMs, create strategic instability, and that’s a very bad thing.
The easiest way in which one can put unintentional strains on the enemy is to have a force which looks "trigger-happy." The one circumstance under which almost all Soviet experts agree the Russians might strike is the one in which they feel they are anticipating a strike by us. It will be difficult for them to read our intentions. They will doubtless err on the side of caution.
Herman Kahn
And vice versa of course. Game theory again. In times of tension, like today, Russia has to assume that America could launch a decapitation strike. So America has to assume that Russia will attempt to pre-empt by striking first. And so on. . .
Sleepwalking into nuclear war
No matter your beliefs about intentions, two superpowers going toe-to-toe, has certain ramifications. Game theory says . . .
Whose War?
The MIC, and the maniacs of course. War is their reason for being, the love of their life, their dream, and no one, certainly no mere President, not the Congress, and no peacenik (the few that are left) is going to stop them. Even though “the people do not want war”.
That’s true, most of “the people” don’t want war.
Some though, they positively lust for it.
The pitiful mentality, and ethic that can tirelessly banter, threaten, and toy with omnicide cannot be permitted to wield such power… The obvious joy that men like Teller, Kaysen, LeMay, Rostow, Kissinger, Haig, Brzezinski, Allen, and Reagan reflect in wielding such power provides a clear warning of our peril.
We certainly can add the names of Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Netanyahu, and a slew of neoconservatives. While working in a Top Secret war room, I personally witnessed officers planning wars of untold destruction. If necrophilia exudes a tone, then the prevailing mood in that war room was necrophilia. The clear warning is that we have allowed civilization to drift into the hands of necrophiliacs.
former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark
It was never about stopping Russia because they are ‘evil’—(there’s plenty of genuine human evil to go around)—it’s about world hegemony. Russia is in the way! Russia must go! There is no great mystery, no secret conspiracy. They can be quite explicit about it.
“America should write the rules. America should call the shots.”
Obama
As I hope I have demonstrated, it’s a mistake to talk about “what the people want”, (in particular when majorities can be led to want anything), or what the Congress wants, or even what the Commander-in-Chief, demented or not, wants. The only thing that matters is what the deep, and enduring power in America want, and that’s total power, global hegemony.
“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, which poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy, and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”
Paul Wolfowitz, Wolfowitz Doctrine
In 1962, then U.S Secretary of Defence, Robert Strange McNamara, decided that US nuclear weapons should be protected from a maniacal rogue General like Curtis Lemay, or an accidental launch. To that end he ordered every nuclear weapon locked with numerical codes known as “PALs”, Permissive Action Links. In response to that order from a mere civilian, Strategic Air Command obeyed the order but set all the codes to strings of zeros. This fact was not discovered by the civilian leadership until 1977!
American Foreign Policy never changes, governments come, and governments go. Sometimes the Republicans sit in the catbird seat, and sometimes the Democrats. Either way, the wars never end. The Project continues. “World Domination or Bust!”
It was nice knowing you. We had some good times, but those days are over. There’s a big war coming.
Resources and links
New from the great Eric Margolis
STOP THE NEOCONS FROM STARTING A WAR!
This thread, but Aaron Maté in general.
Maté is one of best Russiagate/Russia debunkers.
A typical propaganda victim
U.S. Nuclear War Plan Option Sought Destruction of China and Soviet Union as “Viable” Societies - NSA Archive
The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of U.S. Primacy - Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press
Keith Payne - bio
NSC 68 - The “blueprint” for the cold war
Preview of the War we did not Want, Colliers Magazine
The U.S. Exit From the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty Has Fueled a New Arms Race
“Striving for security” - Extract from memo from Frank Roberts, British Ambassador in Moscow to Ernest Bevin, 17 March 1946
DISGUSTING
TERRIFYING
I want to find this guy and yell at him.
Good on you, Bill! Unsurprisingly, I agree!