SC265-15

https://scheerpost.com/2022/10/20/scott-ritter-were-in-a-moment-when-one-mistake-could-start-a-nuclear-war/

We’re in a Moment When One Mistake Could Start a Nuclear War

....MF: It’s just mind-boggling to me that the United States would do this. It’s an attack on infrastructure outside of Ukraine. The message that it sends to the EU is that the US is willing to do anything in this conflict and to that end, there’s NATO military exercises that are scheduled to begin on October 17. What are your thoughts on those exercises? What are the risks of this?

SR: Well, these aren’t just exercises. These are exercises of NATO’s nuclear deterrence. This is an exercise where NATO is going to take aircraft that are designated as nuclear-capable and they’re going to simulate putting a B61 nuclear bomb on it. The B61 is an American nuclear weapon that we store in Europe in various locations and they are earmarked to be turned over to various NATO countries whose airplanes are capable of handling it. Their pilots are trained for one purpose only, dropping nuclear bombs on the Russians and that’s it. There’s no other reason for them to exist. So, we’re going to be carrying out a nuclear exercise using nuclear capable aircraft simulating a nuclear attack on Russia. Now in normal circumstances, one would be insane to do this because it just sends the completely wrong signal. But a week ago, we had the Ukrainian president begging NATO to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Russia.

When Russia started sending the cruise missiles against the Ukrainian infrastructure targets, a panicked Zelensky did his broadcast and was begging NATO to launch a preemptive strike against Russia, a nuclear strike. That alone creates optics problems. I mean, so you have the Ukrainian president, an ally of the West and the West is committed to supporting him, begging for a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the Russians. And now, NATO’s running an exercise where they are preparing to carry out a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Russia. I mean, what is the other purpose of this exercise? So, optics alone dictate that mature people in NATO should shut this exercise down and say this is not a good time to run this exercise. We don’t want to create any potential for misunderstanding.

And there isn’t just the theory of this potential. One only needs to look back to 1983. There was a similar NATO exercise called Able Archer 83 where after surging American troops into Europe as part of the ReForGer exercise, return of forces to Germany, where we fly in tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of troops who marry up pre-positioned equipment to be prepared to stand up against a Soviet attack. We then said we’re going to exercise, NATO’s ability to employ nuclear weapons. The Soviets were monitoring this and they interpret this as NATO’s already got all the troops they need and now they’re going to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against us and use these troops to attack us. So, Russia elevated its nuclear posture to the very highest levels, put their nuclear forces on standby. One mistake, one misunderstanding could have resulted in a globe-destroying nuclear Holocaust. That’s how dangerous Able Archer 83 was.

It was so bad that Ronald Reagan, Mr. Evil Empire, when briefed on this a year later by the CIA, he said wait a minute, the Soviets actually thought we were going to launch a preemptive nuclear strike and the CIA said yes, they thought that was the case. Ronald Reagan said this is insane and he began the process of moving towards nuclear disarmament that manifested itself in the signing of the intermediate nuclear forces treaty in December, 1987 and the implementation of the treaty in June of 1988.

That’s the treaty that I was involved in. I was one of the first inspectors on the ground in the Soviet Union to get rid of these nuclear weapons. That’s how important and how dangerous Able Archer 83 was. We’re doing the same thing today in a circumstance where a leader of a European nation is begging NATO to carry out a pre-emptive nuclear strike and we’re exercising the very means to do that.

This is a dangerous situation. This is foolhardy and it’s even made more so by General Stoltenberg’s statement. The Secretary General of NATO got up and said, and remember NATO has been denying that they’re playing a role there, they’re not a party to this conflict even though they’re supplying weapons. He said a Russian victory in Ukraine would be a defeat for NATO and that therefore it’s imperative that NATO flex its muscles and carry out this exercise.

So, this is literally as if the children have taken over the kindergarten, the adults have fled and the children are in charge and just ridiculous things are happening. That’s what’s happened to NATO. Where is the adult leadership? This is a very dangerous period of time in not just American history, but world history because there’s accusations going both ways. People are talking about a Russian nuclear attack, even though the Russians aren’t getting ready to carry out a nuclear attack. The Russians are concerned about an overreaction by NATO, concerns that will be even more hyped up now because of this nuclear exercise. One mistake, one misunderstanding could lead to an exchange of nuclear weapons that ends the world as we know it.

MF: I don’t think people are grasping the seriousness of the situation. You also had a recent piece in Consortium news where you wrote about the nuclear doctrine of both Russia and the United States and how it is the United States that has first strike capability written into its doctrine. Can you talk about that?

SR: One of the things right now that people are talking about, the big fear in the West, is that Russia will use a nuclear weapon against Ukraine, a tactical nuke. There is no Russian Doctrine for using tactical nuclear weapons preemptively. And moreover, we come back to the special military operation, Russia is not going to nuke Ukraine. Ukraine is family. If Russia is going to use a nuke, they’re going to use it against Europe, not Ukraine, but they would never do that preemptively. Russia has two conditions under which they can use nuclear weapons. The first is if they’ve been attacked with nuclear weapons, and then they will retaliate with everything they have. The second is if a conventional combat capability is brought together that threatens the survival of the Russian State, then Russia can use all the means at its disposal, including nuclear weapons, to resolve that threat.

But here we’re being told by so-called experts that Russia has a third doctrine, and they even acknowledge that it’s not in writing, so they say it’s an unspoken doctrine. No such thing, but that is to escalate to deescalate, that Russia when confronted with its impending defeat in Ukraine will choose to use a nuclear weapon against Ukraine to escalate the conflict in order to get the West, confronted with the horrific reality of nuclear conflict, to deescalate.

The only people that have an escalate to deescalate strategy is the United States and we’ve exercised it. We built a nuclear weapon just for this, it’s called the W76-2 low-yield nuclear weapon, a warhead that’s put on the Trident missile operated in the Ohio-class submarine, ballistic, missile, submarine. And in 2019, we actually did an exercise where the Secretary of Defense in the Omaha, Nebraska headquarters of the United States strategic command practiced issuing the release orders for the W76-2 Warhead in a scenario that involves Russian troops advancing on the Baltics.

So, our goal was to escalate to get the Russians to deescalate. We have that doctrine. We’ve exercised that doctrine. And now, we’re mirror imaging that doctrine onto Russians, but the Russians don’t have that doctrine. So once again, when we talk about miscalculations based upon ignorance, if we believe the Russians have an escalate to deescalate strategy and then we’re acting in response to that using our own escalate to deescalate strategy, I think you can figure out that this could lead to a rapid misunderstanding and the release of nuclear weapons.

If you use a nuclear weapon, the world ends. There’s no such thing as a limited nuclear war. No such thing. One nuclear weapon and the world ends. And here we have people in the United States and NATO believing they can use that one nuclear weapon to escalate to deescalate, but the Russian Doctrine clearly says, you hit us with one nuclear weapon, we release everything. Putin has said that yes that means we will be martyrs, but you’ll be going to hell as the perpetrators of a global annihilation.

MF: How do you see this ending? Is there any likelihood that there could be peace negotiations? The US and NATO seem like they’ve done everything to thwart that. It feels like this is really a battle for the future of NATO, for the future of the US and Western domination of the world and its resources.

SR: Well, I believe that this is going to end in a Russian military victory in Ukraine. I think that’s inevitable. I also think that one of the reasons why the Russians are pacing this conflict the way they are is they are alert to the fact that they don’t want to panic NATO and the United States into overreacting If you rapidly win and you confront somebody with the immediacy of their defeat, in their decline you can you can precipitate an overreaction on their part.

For instance, NATO moving into Western Ukraine, NATO seeking to put a no-fly zone over Ukraine – something that creates a direct conflict between Russia and NATO. But if you slow roll your victory, even at a tremendous cost to yourself, and you gradually introduce the reality of defeat to NATO, then NATO, recognizing that they have no other viable response to this, will back away and that’s what we see happening now.

We see NATO coming out and saying we don’t want a conflict with Russia. We will continue to provide weapons to the Ukrainians but we will not get engaged in any way that has NATO forces fighting with Russian forces in Ukraine. And I think this is a byproduct of the way the Russians are waging this war. So, for all those people out there who are pulling their hairs out saying why isn’t Russia just winning this thing quickly? The Russians are smarter. They are the only adults in the room and they recognize that a rapid decisive victory could actually create more problems than it solves. But Russia must win this war from its perspective because Russia’s goal isn’t the destruction of Ukraine. Russia’s goal, as it stated before, is a new European security framework. They put forward draft treaties to this regard in December of last year. It talks about not the end of NATO, but NATO pulling back away from the Russian border, a sort of a neutral zone where the special interests of both Europe and Russia are respected. And that’s the ultimate goal that Russia has here.

I believe Russia is going to achieve this not because NATO is going to wake up tomorrow and say yeah we believe in that. NATO isn’t going to exist very much longer. I mean Europe is going to go through some very radical transformations this winter. The European Union is falling apart as we speak. NATO is deeply fractured. The G7 is losing its reason for being. It’s supposed to be the seven most dominant economies in the world, but after this winter, are we really going to be able to call the German economy, the Italian economy, the French economy, and the British economy the dominant economies in the world. The G7 is fracturing. NATO, they’re going to be confronted with not only yet another embarrassment. Remember, it was only last year that NATO was humiliated in Afghanistan. Now they’re going to be humiliated by Ukraine and they are going to be confronted with the fact that in order to do what the United States wants, which is to continue to stand up to the Russians, they’re gonna have to spend trillions of Euros that they don’t have.

Their economies are collapsing. The European nations are going to realize that the path out of this problem isn’t turning their back on Russia, but actually asking Russia to re-engage as a provider of energy. The United States is showing itself to be the most horrific friend imaginable. Friends don’t blow up pipelines, but we do. Friends, when a friend is in need, don’t come in and say here’s liquid natural gas but you have to pay 10 to 15 times the market value because we’re exploiting the situation to bring in windfall profits for American companies. Friends don’t behave that way. We do and Europe is going to wake up that United States is not their friend.

Now people say well wait a minute, where is Europe going to get that gas? Putin had a meeting with Turkey’s President Erdogan two days ago where he basically talked about creating a Turkish energy hub. There’s an existing pipeline supplying gas to southern Europe called the Turkstream. It comes from Russia, through the Black Sea to Turkey. Putin’s talking about building the second pipeline and elevating Turkey to the status Germany would have had had they operated both pipelines, becoming an energy hub to supply strategic energy requirements to Europe, to North Africa, and to the Middle East. This will benefit the Turkish economy, but also get Russian gas back into play into Europe.

And I pretty much guarantee you that this time in the spring Europe is going to be begging for this gas and Russia is going to be there to deliver it. So, there’s going to be a new political reality in Europe that might be more conducive to actually listening to the Russians when they say we’d like to talk about a new European security framework. And this is going to result in the retrograde of the United States out of Europe and indeed the world.

The world is turning its back on the United States. Take a look at what Saudi Arabia just did together with Russia. Saudi Arabia, America’s long time guarantor of energy security where they over develop the Saudi oil fields so that Saudi Arabia could on demand either increase or decrease production to suit the needs of the United States. Joe Biden crawled to Saudi Arabia on his knees in July and begged Saudi Arabia to increase oil production by a million barrels a day. Saudi Arabia deferred saying we have to wait to talk to the OPEC cartel plus and that plus is Russia, which means Saudi Arabia went to Russia to see if OPEC would be willing to help America out. Well, the answer was not just no, but hell no. Russia and Saudi Arabia, instead of increasing oil production, recently agreed to decrease oil production by 2 million barrels a day. This is going to put Joe Biden in a very difficult spot coming up the midterm elections with prices now going up at the pump and heating oil as America cools down going up. So, the United States is in trouble.

The world’s turning away from the dollar. The deals that are being done now for oil that used to be done with the petrodollar are being done in national currencies. The United States lost the trust of the world. How can you have the United States dollar as the global reserve currency when on a whim, the United States will seize the sovereign wealth fund of nations that are held in banks around the world. They seized 600 to 700 billion dollars of the Russia’s sovereign wealth fund. How could anybody in the world trust the United States again? They can’t.

So, it isn’t just that the United States has betrayed Europe. The United States has betrayed the world and the world is starting to recognize that. That’s why Putin and the Chinese President Xi, when they met on February 4 of this year in Beijing, signed a 5,000-word joint statement that basically declared an end to the American dominated rules-based international order. And they said, there’s a new multilateral international law-based order that they’re taking the lead in. And that’s the direction the world is gravitating to.

Look, if you’re an American, wake up, guys. You’re living in a moment of history. This is literally, the decade we’re in right now, is going to be studied by historians if we survive and be looked at as one of the critical points of modern history. We’re seeing the end of the American Empire. The rules-based order that has governed this globe since the end of the Second World War has run its course. It’s being replaced by something else and we’re living through that transition period. It’s going to be a tough period for Americans. But every once in a while, just take a pause and understand what’s happening because you are literally living in one of the most important moments of modern history.

MF: That’s something that Alfred McCoy has also written about, calling the 2020s the decade of the end of US Empire. So, what is your recommendation to people in the United States? Is there anything that people here can be doing to call for adults to be in the room on our side as well? 

SR: Well, the important thing is the end of empire doesn’t mean the end of life. America will still exist if we allow ourselves to exist. We will still have the same homes, still be able to drive the same road, send our kids to the same schools. We’re just going to be a lesser nation in terms of the impact we have around the world. We have to learn to work responsibly with nations as opposed to a dictating to nations. And hopefully from the perspective of most Americans, we’re going to live in a world where the American Military isn’t this dominant force, that maybe we don’t have to spend 800 billion dollars a year to build up a military that defends an Empire that’s going away.

But the important thing in here is that we don’t decide to burn down the planet as the planet transitions away from American Empire. We Americans need to be mature enough to understand what is happening and why it’s happening and to guide it as it’s happening in a way that doesn’t result in the death of not just America, but the world. The end of American Empire does not mean the end of America. America can still exist as a prosperous nation state that’s true to its ideals and values.

It’s time that the United States start turning inward and solving the problems here at home, instead of trying to dictate solutions to the world’s problems abroad. In order to do that, we need to elect the right people to office. What’s the most important thing that Americans could do to preserve democracy in America? The answer is really simple. Almost everybody comes up with the same answer – get the money out of politics. If you remove money from politics. If you overturn Citizens United, you literally can begin to populate the House, the Senate and even the White House with people who aren’t owned by special interests, people who are responsive to the American people. And that’s what has to happen.

The solution to America’s problems is American democracy properly implemented. And so people need to wake up, get involved, start moving to create whatever needs to be created to get the right people in office. We need adults to be sitting in the seats of power when the critical decisions about how the world is going to transition away from American Empire are being made, adults who recognize this isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world, that America can survive and prosper if we don’t allow ourselves to overreact and decide to fight everybody as our Empire is disintegrating.

So, the American people need to wake up because otherwise we’re going to give our future over to a political Elite and economic Elite who are going to do everything possible to preserve what they have for as long as possible, even if at the end it means the destruction of everything that they purport to be trying to save.

MF: Thank you so much for all that you’re doing to be the voice of reason out there to clarify all of this for the public. This is a really critical time and I think that we need to be having these discussions more and more about the role of the United States, how things are shifting and how we need to be moving towards more cooperative diplomacy, not military domination of the world. Thank you so much for taking time to speak with me today.

SR: Thanks for having me on.

....

https://stephenlendman.org/2022/10/07/heightened-risk-of-nuclear-war-part-ii/

Heightened Risk of Nuclear War

Official US new millennium policy asserts the unilateral right to use first strike nuclear or conventional weapons against invented enemies anywhere worldwide.

The Pentagon’s 2000 Joint Vision 2020 calls for “full spectrum dominance” over all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air, space, the electromagnetic spectrum and information systems with enough overwhelming power to fight and win global wars against any potential challengers with nuclear, conventional and banned weapons. 

It’s a preemptive anything goes war-making policy at a time when the nation’s only enemies are invented.

No real ones existed throughout the post-WW II period.

The Pentagon’s 2006 Global Strike Command’s strategic nuclear and conventional deterrence mission asserts the right to wage preemptive wars.

So does hegemon USA’s 2009 Prompt Global Strike initiative.

It calls for delivering conventional or nuclear weapon strikes against targets worldwide in one hour by land, sea or air.

The US 2005 Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations removes the distinction between defensive and offensive deterrents, saying:

“The new triad (land and sea-based strategic bombers, land-based missiles, and ballistic missile submarines) offers a mix of strategic offensive and defensive capabilities, active and passive defenses, and a robust research development, and industrial infrastructure to develop, build, and maintain offensive forces and defensive systems (in conducting) military options.”

Official US policy calls for use of overwhelming force against invented enemies at its discretion.

It’s a prescription for unthinkable nuclear war, what’s increasingly likely ahead, and if occurs it’ll be made-in-the-USA.

Reading pre-scripted lines for him to recite on Thursday, the Biden reinvented reality about all things Russia, saying the following:

“First time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat of the use (of a) nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path they are going (sic).”

“I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with armageddon (sic).”

“I’m trying to figure out what is Putin’s off ramp (sic)?” 

“Where does he find a way out (sic)?”

“Where does he find himself in a position that he does not not only lose face but lose significant power within Russia (sic)?”

Separately, Pentagon press secretary, general Pat Ryder, said the following on the same day:

“(W)e don’t assess that President Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons at this time.”

Nor at any time, he failed to explain — except in retaliation against nukes used against Russia or if the nation’s security is greatly jeopardized.

Hegemon USA is the only nation ever to use these WMDs — gratuitously against a defeated nation seeking to surrender, but was turned by FDR and HST — and make no mistake.

If or when they’re used again, they’ll be by the empire of lies and forever wars against an invented enemy preemptively, clearly not by Russia or China.

Vladimir Putin’s remarks last month were willfully misinterpreted by hegemon USA and its MSM co-conspirators, saying the following:

“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people.”

“This is not a bluff.”

The above statement asserts the UN Charter right of self-defense, not a first-strike use of nuclear or conventional weapons threat, as falsely claimed by the empire of lies and its MSM press agents.

 Biden lied, claiming:

“He’s not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons (sic) or biological or chemical weapons (sic) because his military is…significantly under-performing (sic).”

The 1962 Cuban missile crisis occurred after Soviet Russia placed nuclear weapons in the country — in retaliation of US deployed nukes in Turkey.

While the risk of nuclear war at the time was real, Jack Kennedy later stressed that he had no intention of using these WMDs.

He called for abolishing these weapons.

Wanting the Cold War and Pax Americana ended, he supported rapprochement with Soviet Russia.

No subsequent US president matched his stature on the world stage — clearly not Clinton, Bush I or II, Obama, Trump or the Biden.

If JFK was US leader today, no hot and sanctions war would be ongoing against Russia, no threatened use of nukes, no possible global war 3.0 able to kill us all.

Yet on Thursday, remarks by US installed puppet Zelensky sounded more unhinged than ever.

Urging “preventive strikes, preventive action,” preemptive war on Russia was a virtual call for WW III with nukes — what only a deranged madman would push for.

In response, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said the following:

“Every single person on this planet should realize that Zelensky, a puppet and an unstable character who has been pumped with weapons, has turned into a monster, who could be used to destroy the planet.”

And Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, accused him of attempting to foment global war — madness that could unleash “unforeseeable disastrous consequences.”

Russia’s Deputy Security Council Chairman, Dmitry Medvedev, also minced no words, saying:

“Zelensky announced the need for preventive nuclear strikes on Russia.”

“Psychiatrists should perform a preemptive craniotomy on this idiot before he causes more trouble for his people and everyone else.”

Separately according to journalist James Risen:

Biden regime “clandestine…operations inside Ukraine are far more extensive” today than months earlier.

Large numbers of CIA and special operations personnel infest its territory covertly.

They’re orchestrating and directing US/NATO aggression against Russia, including target selection and control over use of HIMARS and other sophisticated weapons supplied to the regime.

What’s going on and escalating heightens the risk of nuclear war.

What’s unthinkable is more likely today than ever before since the dawn of the nuclear age.