Global
Research, December 27, 2016
Region: USA
Theme: Militarization and WMD
In-depth
Report: Nuclear
War
United
States policy threatens global war with Russia and China
President-elect
Donald Trump in a twitter post raised the specter of an escalation in the
nuclear arms race which could result in a catastrophic war with the Russian
Federation, the People’s Republic of China, among other states.
During
the course of the primary and run-off elections in the United States, the
notion was promoted by the corporate and government-controlled media that a
Trump presidency would have as one of its major objectives the lessening of
tensions with Moscow.
President
Barack Obama spent several billion dollars in efforts to destabilize and
overthrow the government of Ukraine.
Since
the coup nearly three years ago, the situation has created a divided state
where the U.S. utilized the internal resistance to a fascist-installed regime
in Kiev, the objections to Washington’s policy from Russian President Vladimir
Putin and the federation of Crimea with Moscow, to impose draconian sanctions.
These measures by the Obama administration along with the imperialist-backed
war against Syria, has aggravated relations between Russia and the U.S.
Trump
in his tweet indicates that his administration will remain committed to the
total war strategy of the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The president-elect on December 22 said “The United States must greatly
strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes
to its senses regarding nukes.”
This
statement should be viewed within the context of Trump’s appointments of
militarists such as Generals Michael T. Flynn and James “Mad Dog” Mattis. Both
of these former Pentagon officials were instrumental in the U.S. wars against
Afghanistan and Iraq which have created an untenable situation throughout
Central Asia and areas spanning the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Peninsula and North
Africa. Flynn will be the National Security Advisor in the White House while
Mattis is slated to serve as Pentagon chief holding the Secretary of Defense
portfolio.
A
recent article in Fortune magazine responded to the latest Trump utterances by
saying: “On Friday morning, however, Trump himself clarified what he meant in a
phone call with Morning Joe talk-show host Mika Brzezinski—whose announcement
of the news took on a somewhat bizarre tone due to the fact that she and
co-host Joe Scarborough were wearing their pajamas in front of a roaring fire.
Brzezinski said that when he was asked about the tweet during their off-air
phone conversation, Trump said: ‘Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them
at every pass and outlast them all.’”
Russia, China and the
Threat of Global War
Russian
President Putin had no other choice but to respond to such a provocative
comment through an interview with journalists on December 23. Some news reports
suggest that Trump was responding to a presentation made by Russian Minister of
Defense Sergey Shoigu on December 22 which reviewed the status of military
readiness and the modernization of Moscow’s nuclear deterrents.
Putin
placed blame on the U.S. for reigniting the nuclear arms race as early as 2002
when under the administration of the-then President George W. Bush, Jr., the
Americans failed to extend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABMT) signed
by Washington and the Soviet Union under the leaderships of President Richard
M. Nixon and his counterpart Leonid Brezhnev. Russian President Putin told the
media on December 23 that: “When one party unilaterally withdrew from the
treaty and said it was going to create an anti-nuclear umbrella, the other
party has to either create a similar umbrella – the necessity of which we are
not sure about considering its questionable efficiency – or create effective
ways to overcome this anti-ballistic missile system and improve its strike
capabilities.” (Rt.com, Dec. 23)
A
New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was signed in 2010 between
President Barack Obama and then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The
agreement called for the reduction in the deployment of nuclear warheads over
the subsequent years. This framework of limiting deployments continues through
February 2018.
Aggregate
limits in the agreement includes: “700 deployed intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs), deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and
deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments; 1,550 nuclear warheads
on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for
nuclear armaments (each such heavy bomber is counted as one warhead toward this
limit); and 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and
heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.”
Putin
indicated that the modernization of Russia’s nuclear arsenal is in line with
the framework of agreements signed in 2010. However, the Russian leader noted
that the U.S. has its own modernization program even under Obama pointing out
that: “In Turkey, in Britain, in the Netherlands a replacement of American
tactical nuclear weapons is underway. I hope that your program audiences and
internet users know about that.”
The
People’s Republic of China’s Global Times in an editorial published on December
25 appeared to be seeking to diffuse the alarm surrounding the statements of
the Russian and soon to be U.S. leaders claiming that Beijing’s nuclear
capability is geared towards deterrence as the contemporary programs of both
Washington and Moscow. The Viewpoint article did make reference to Trump’s
statements during the presidential campaign suggesting that both Japan and
South Korea, two regional rivals of the PRC, develop their own nuclear
capability.
The
Global Times emphasized that: “Some observers are concerned about the impacts
Trump’s nuclear ambitions may exert on U.S.’ East Asian allies, Japan and South
Korea. There are always voices in Japan and South Korea calling for their
countries to be nuclear states, and it is apparent that the U.S. efforts to enhance
its nuclear capability may exert some effects on the two countries. However, it
should be noted that, unlike the U.S., which is a first tier nuclear state,
Japan and South Korea are just second or even third tier states that have an
advantage in nuclear development. Washington and its East Asian allies are not
closely related in terms of nuclear ambition, and thus, Trump’s and Putin’s
remarks will exert only limited effects on Japan and South Korea.”
The U.S. Was the First and
Only State to Use Nuclear Weapons
What
is often not mentioned by the Western press is the fact that it was the U.S. at
the conclusion of World War II which used the first Atomic weapons against
Japan at Nagasaki and Hiroshima on August 6 and 9, 1945. The bombings were
designed to assert U.S. military dominance internationally since discussions
were underway for a surrender of Japan to U.S. forces. At the time of the
attack on the second city of Nagasaki, the Soviet Red Army had already
intervened in Manchuria, China, under Japanese occupation since 1931, in an
effort to bring about a speedy end to the war.
Since
the conclusion of WWII, there has been a nuclear arms race transforming the
technology from fission to fusion creating the Hydrogen bombs which can be
placed on inter-continental missiles threatening the entire globe. In later
years the Soviet Union, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, the former apartheid
regime in South Africa, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK),
Britain and France have developed these weapons. There are nuclear
weapons sharing states allied with imperialism which include Belgium, Germany,
the Netherlands, Turkey and Italy.
During
the 1970s, the U.S. began to utilize weaponized Depleted Uranium (DU) in an
effort to launch this material on missiles capable of penetrating Soviet-made
armored vehicles. U-235 was deployed in the Iraq war beginning in 2001. Reports
of the usage of these weapons continued during the bombing of Yugoslavia in
1999 along with the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003.
Additional
reports surfaced related to the utilization of DU weapons during the bombing
campaign initiated by the Pentagon and NATO against Libya in 2011. This air
campaign against the North African state was critical in the overthrow of the
government of Col. Muammar Gaddafi leading to his brutal assassination on
October 20 of the same year.
Also
the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons reported in October noting:
“The U.S. has finally confirmed that it has fired DU ammunition in Syria, after
it had earlier stated that the weapons would not be used. U.S. Central Command
(CENTCOM) has acknowledged that DU was fired on two dates – the 18 and 23
November 2015. Between the strikes on the two dates, 5,100 rounds of 30mm DU
ammunition were used by A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft. This equates to 1,524kg
of DU. CENTCOM said that the ammunition was selected because of the ‘nature of
the targets’.”
Consequently,
the statements by Trump during late December have grave implications for world
peace and security. The antiwar and peace movements across Europe and North
America must mobilize to build a campaign to roll back these threats.
The
original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright
© Abayomi Azikiwe, Global Research, 2016
No comments:
Post a Comment