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US Military Casualties in Vietnam

BY LARRY ROMANOFF • UNZ REVIEW • OCTOBER 9, 2022

When considering war fatalities, we tend to construct a simple framework in our minds, of the form: “50,000 soldiers were sent into battle; 40,000 returned; fatalities 10,000. End of story.” But things are not so simple as this, for reasons both valid and fraudulent.

For one, the US government and military inevitably understate all the bad parts of their wars. It may be true that all governments and militaries do this, but here we are discussing the US. A few examples:

For the fire-bombing of Tokyo, any estimate of deaths less than one million is not even remotely plausible, yet I can recall that for many years the “official” US military estimate was 35,000.[1] The generally-accepted death totals for the Vietnam war (including Laos and Cambodia) is around five million; the US adamantly states the totals at only one million on the grounds that “Vietnamese statistics are notoriously unreliable”. Bonnie Triyana, an Indonesian historian, has documented the death toll during the American “pacification” of her country, of at least three million, while the NYT ran an article headlined “U.S. Stood By as Indonesia Killed a Half-Million People, Papers Show”,[2] reducing the death total by 85% and blaming the deaths on Indonesians rather than the US CIA and military. It is more or less an axiom that the greater the atrocities and the more horrific the war crimes, the greater the understatement, and also the more extensive the media censorship on the topic.

It is also an axiom that whenever the US inflicts its military (and other) atrocities on other nations, the victim is almost inevitably blamed, in one way or another. The NYT article above is one example; there are many others. When the US released the swine flu in Cuba in 1971, necessitating the killing of Cuba’s 500,000 pigs,[3] [4] the tragedy was immediately engulfed in US media accusations of Cuba having a biological weapons program that was a threat to the world.

The topic of this essay is US casualties in Vietnam, but let’s first examine the landscape to see the kinds of troubles we have in making determinations with any semblance of accuracy. We will look at Iraq, since it is more current and we have more details readily at hand.

First, civilian deaths. The US military claims about 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq. The US Senate clams 115,000[5], using numbers from the Brookings Institution. The Lancet claimed more than 650,000, with Fox News immediately challenging this “controversial new study” with its “disputed” results.[6] According to Fox, “one respected group” made a “rough estimate at closer to 50,000”, and “one expert” was “skeptical” of the new findings. The Guardian,[7] on the other hand, supported the study, stating that it had been “examined and validated by four separate independent experts”, stating also that the US military’s lower estimate was “was hugely controversial”. One UN estimate for Iraqi civilian casualties was over one million, and dozens of other “reports” and “studies” have been all over the map. Meanwhile, the US military remains silent and lets everyone speculate. If accurate figures are indeed available – and they may not be – those who have the data will never release it. Thus, we will never know the truth.

Then, US military casualties and casualty rate in Iraq. To determine this, we need to know the number of deployed soldiers and the number of fatalities. As to deployment, the US military says that about 775,000 troops “participated” in the Iraq war,[8] while the Council on Foreign Relations says a total of 340,000 US troops were deployed to Iraq. On the other hand, the US Senate tells us, in a “definitive” study,[9] that “More than 1.5 million Americans served in Iraq”. To make the picture even more clear, other sources state that these numbers do not include the “hundreds of thousands” of Blackwater and other mercenaries. To further increase the clarity, the US Military often either forgets or remembers (whichever is most convenient) to identify or differentiate between Army (active and reserve), National Guardsmen, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and other categories, sometimes including totals of all branches for deployment but casualties for the Army only. And so on.

Increasing the clarity yet further, the DOD tell us things like “there is a total of “260,000 US Troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria”, with no way to separate them by country. Another source tells us the US has deployed more than 2,000,000 troops to Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11, again without separation.[10] If the Afghanistan figure of about 750,000 is accurate, that leaves about 1.25 million for Iraq, but we can’t be sure. Then we enter a huge cloud with statements like “More than 775,000 U.S. service members have deployed to Afghanistan at least once”, with no way to know how many have been double- or triple-counted. The military claim some have been deployed five times. At one point, the Pentagon stated there were 132,000 US troops deployed in Iraq, while the Congressional Research Service (CRS) said it was double that number at 260,000.

Further, on close examination of the data, we discover that the time periods are by no means consistent from one claim to another, with dates like: March 2003 to April 2009, March 2003 to June 2006, July 2004 to February 2013. Then, US military deaths and other casualties in Iraq. The US Senate’s “definitive study”, and the number most often presented, tells us about 4,500 US soldiers died in Iraq.[11] But then another report that appeared credible in its other data, stated that US casualties were in excess of 20,000 and climbing.[12]

Then we have a report in the Huffington Post that “The death count is accurate but the figure for combat injuries (of 35,000) wildly understates the number,” claiming the total may well be over 500,000, and that the Pentagon reports nearly 230,000 cases of . . . traumatic brain injury alone.[13]

Then we have some very strange reports, typified by an article in the WSWS,[14] detailing a distinction between “combat deaths” and “non-combat deaths”, with very wide variations between the two, the latter category being ignored by the DOD and the media, with some observers claiming the military deliberately pushes all possible casualties into the “non-combat” category. And here we enter The Twilight Zone: Lt. Col. Scott D. Ross of the US military’s Transportation Command stated his outfit had evacuated around 3,000 battle-injured casualties and nearly 19,000 non-battle injuries (both dead and wounded).[15] How is that even possible? For every soldier injured or killed in battle, another six were injured or killed in “non-battle” situations. And these injuries were apparently so severe they required emergency evacuation to Germany or elsewhere. Where did these “non-battle” injuries take place? In the mess tents? At the poker table? To add to the confusion, these deaths, injuries and evacuations apparently did not include “contractors” or Blackwater’s mercenaries.

There is the further problem of the apparently credible reports of the US military burying thousands of body bags in mass graves in the Iraq desert, with all those then listed as “Missing in Action” (MIA) and therefore excluded from the death toll.[16] These were apparently bodies of American servicemen and Blackwater’s mercenaries, who would now not be listed as war dead. This was not a single event but appeared to be a continuing program of some considerable size. The reporter cataloguing this was told that by classifying all those men as MIA, the US military could avoid many family, media, and financial difficulties, and that recruiting for both the military and Blackwater’s mercenaries would be much eased with smaller death tolls. The man was killed by a military sniper before he could release his videos and photos, which disappeared after his death.

The LA Times joined this parade with an article written by a former Air Force Captain employed by the US State Department in Iraq, who said that “95% of injured soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen were not reported as casualties due to what he refers to as the Pentagon’s ‘fudging the numbers’ in a bid to win funding from American lawmakers to finance the wars.”[17]

And where does this leave us? Exactly no place. Given all the smoke, there is no way to know the real numbers for Iraq. According to the Guardian,[18] “a bitter war of numbers is raging. Trying to cut one’s way through the statistical jungle quickly becomes a battle over methodology, and sometimes over motives. Critics even raise the specter of fraud . . .” To ensure this state of affairs, according to Lt. General Tommy Franks, who led the invasion of Iraq: “We don’t do body counts.”

Lastly, Slate carried an article stating that “A comparative analysis of U.S. casualty statistics from Iraq tells a different story. After factoring in medical, doctrinal, and technological improvements, infantry duty in Iraq circa 2004 comes out just as intense as infantry duty in Vietnam circa 1966 – and in some cases more lethal.”[19] For your information, the “official” numbers for Vietnam were about 7 times higher than those for Iraq.

We would like to know the total deaths and the casualty rate for US servicemen in Iraq, but there seems no way to accurately determine either the actual number deployed to Iraq, nor the number of deaths and injuries. It seems reasonably clear that the official numbers are incorrect – some would say fraudulent – but the information necessary for firm knowledge isn’t available or accessible.

To return to the beginning, the US government and military inevitably understate all the bad parts of their wars. It isn’t a secret that they also lie about all portions of their military adventures. There were multiple media reports that George Bush told 900 separate lies about Iraq, leading up to and during the war. I don’t know if the statement was true, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were, and the military, the State Department and the media told their share of hundreds of more lies about Iraq.

If we take the US Senate at their word for 1.5 million deployed in Iraq and a total of about 2 million for both Iraq and Afghanistan, with the “official” death toll at about 6,000 for both, we are left with 3 deaths per 1,000 or about 1/3 of 1%, a number that seems a bit implausible for about 20 years of war in both places. Given this, given the “95% are not reported”, given the “we don’t do body counts”, given the “injuries were not 35,000 but more than 500,000”, why would we choose to believe the “official” casualty statistics about Iraq?

Turning to Vietnam

The situation with Vietnam is not better than that in Iraq, but is actually much worse. This is true for no other reason than the powerful political constraints on Vietnam. For Iraq, the US population appeared to be more or less onside, with few street protests and other signs of strenuous objection. Vietnam was very different. You may recall the Kent State Massacre where protesting students were shot in the back on Nixon’s orders, and you may recall Daniel Ellsberg copying and releasing all the documents from the RAND corporation where he worked – the “Pentagon Papers”. The American public were so inflamed by the lies and the illegality, to say nothing of the brutality, of the Vietnam war that much of the nation was in anarchy and becoming ungovernable, with serious concerns of a nationwide public uprising that could easily have overthrown the government. It was in this climate that the US military rescinded the draft, primarily because almost no one was showing up for it.

No government wants to report bad news during a war, especially deaths and injuries, but Vietnam was a special case for the American military and for the government. Bear in mind that the US authorities lied about everything leading up to and during the war in Vietnam until the bad news escaped confinement. The false-flag Gulf of Tonkin incident was only the beginning. The US military lied about the existence of Project Phoenix, the massive torture-to-death program, about the use of Agent Orange – “The Vietnamese government asked us to spray some of their forests”. They lied about the false partition of Vietnam, about the bombing of Laos and Cambodia, about the total death tolls of Vietnamese, about the hideous deformed births, about the use of napalm on civilians, and scores of other items large and small. They also lied about the American POWs abandoned in Vietnam.

I have read through numerous files from that time and I cannot identify any item of consequence where the US military, government or media told the truth – essentially the same as Iraq.

Robert McNamara’s Project 100,000

Readers may recall my article on Robert McNamara’s Infamous “Project 100,000”,[20] where around 500,000 severely-retarded young men, combed from the ghettos of America, were pushed into military service and sent to Vietnam. These were men who were unable and had to be taught how to tie their own shoelaces, whose reading comprehension was so low the military had to make little comic books to explain the most basic of military protocol and procedures.

Many researchers have claimed that an overwhelming majority of these men, especially blacks, received combat assignments, and “comprised an overwhelming majority of … battle deaths”, and were also generally posted to “what were considered dangerous military occupations”. These men were provided with special ‘dog tags’ that began with “US67…” so they could be quickly identified by other soldiers. By all accounts, the regular troops did not want to be associated with these men, certainly not in a battle situation, because their lack of intelligence and training simply jeopardised the lives of all around them. Many have reported that when battlefield decisions were being made, given that these men were unable to learn anything much more complicated than pulling a trigger, they were just sent to their deaths. One Vietnam veteran reported that a common order issued to these young men ‘salvaged from the blight of poverty’ was to “Go over there and see if there’s a sniper in that tree”. According to Colonel David Hackworth, who fought in both the Korean and Vietnam wars and became one of the most highly decorated warriors in American history,

”Project 100,000 was implemented to produce more grunts for the killing fields of Vietnam. It took unfit recruits from the bottom of the barrel and rushed them to Vietnam. The result was human applesauce.”[21]

US casualty figures mushroomed after the introduction of this program, the victims of which were simply cannon-fodder and, for this and other reasons, I remain convinced there is a high probability that American deaths in Vietnam were grossly under-reported. The subject of war fatalities is always open to claims of manipulation by all sides, but more than a few people seem surprisingly eager to accept the US military’s Vietnam numbers, with what would appear to be unexamined opinions at best. Consider:

2.5 million US soldiers were sent to Vietnam. Officially, around 60,000 died, so a death rate of about 2.25%. “McNamara’s Morons” were reported to have been sent to Vietnam in total numbers ranging from 350,000 to about 500,000, depending on the source you choose. Their deaths are reported to be about 5,500. At the highest deployment numbers that would be a death rate of only 1%.

Yet all sources, including official US military reports, claim that these mentally-handicapped young men suffered fatalities at rates far higher than that of regular soldiers, many claiming death rates of “five to ten times” higher, most sources unanimous in claiming a death rate of around five times higher. I found only one original source claiming “three times higher”. But the mentally-retarded young men who were mostly infantry and confirmed as having been sent into combat at a rate “at least several times that” of regular soldiers, and who suffered death rates “at least several times higher’, apparently experienced a fatality rate only 40% or 50% that of regular soldiers. How does any of this make sense?

This is the problem that military researchers have in determining the truth of Vietnam even today, claiming that the US military provides only incomplete, contradictory, and confusing data, and stonewalls all attempts to ascertain the truth. In particular, researchers state the US military refuses to release any records on “McNamara’s Morons”, so there appears to be no way to know how many died. I do not know how many of these young men survived to return home. My estimate of “few returned” was gleaned from personal testimony of other soldiers who were in Vietnam and served with these men.

None of the official claimed numbers make any sense, either statistically or logically. The Vietnam war was one of the most bitterly-fought wars in recent history, one that the US lost and was in fact driven out of Vietnam, yet the total official death toll is a minuscule 2%+ for ordinary soldiers and a vanishingly-small 1% for hundreds of thousands of young men with an IQ as low as 60 and none above 80.

But perhaps a simpler question is this: The US government and military lied about almost every single element related to the war in Vietnam, and they did so – necessarily, I would suggest – in a political climate so incendiary that it might have sparked a popular revolution. Yet there appear to be many who inexplicably choose to believe that, out of literally hundreds of areas where the US government and military provably lied about US involvement in Vietnam, in this one single instance – the military death count – they magically are telling the truth. You are of course free to form whatever opinion you deem appropriate. For my part, I harbor grave doubts.

Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 32 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chapt. 2 — Dealing with Demons).

His full archive can be seen at

https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/ + https://www.moonofshanghai.com/

He can be contacted at:

2186604556@qq.com

Notes

[1] Japan – Ending a War and Saving Lives?
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/460/

[2] U.S. Stood By as Indonesia Killed a Half-Million People, Papers Show
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/world/asia/indonesia-cables-communist-massacres.html

[3] New Evidence Implicates CIA in 1971 Attack on Cuba with African Swine Fever Virus
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2020/10/05/new-evidence-implicates-cia-in-1971-attack-on-cuba-with-african-swine-fever-virus/

[4] Report: CIA Attacked Cuba with Swine Flu in 1971
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/10/30/report-cia-attacked-cuba-with-swine-flu-in1971/

[5] Iraq by the Numbers
https://www.dpc.senate.gov/docs/fs-112-1-36.pdf

[6] Disputed Study: Over 650,000 Civilians Killed in Iraq War
https://www.foxnews.com/story/disputed-study-over-650000-civilians-killed-in-iraq-war

[7] ‘655,000 Iraqis killed since invasion’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/oct/11/iraq.iraq

[8] How 775,000 U.S. troops fought in one war: Afghanistan military deployments by the numbers.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2019/09/11/how-us-troops-fought-one-war-afghanistan-military-deployments-by-numbers/

[9] Iraq by the Numbers
https://www.dpc.senate.gov/docs/fs-112-1-36.pdf
Number of Americans who served in Iraq throughout the course of the war – More than 1.5 million

[10] United for Peace of Pierce County
https://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9235-background-us-has-deployed-more-than-2000000-troops-to-iraq-and-afghanistan-since-911.html

[11] Iraq by the Numbers
https://www.dpc.senate.gov/docs/fs-112-1-36.pdf
Number of U.S. servicemembers who died while serving in Iraq – 4,474

[12] IRAQ: US casualties top 20,000
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/iraq-us-casualties-top-20000

[13] How Many U.S. Soldiers Were Wounded in Iraq? Guess Again.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/iraq-soldiers-wounded_b_1176276

[14] Washington conceals US casualties in Iraq
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2004/02/woun-f04.html

[15] Washington conceals US casualties in Iraq
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2004/02/woun-f04.html

[16] Information Blockades – How and Why?
https://www.unz.com/lromanoff/information-blockades-how-and-why/

[17] IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN: American casualties total 500,000, counting injury and disease, writer claims
https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/babylon-beyond/story/2010-06-24/iraq-afghanistan-american-casualties-total-500-000-counting-injury-and-disease-writer-claims

[18] What is the real death toll in Iraq?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/mar/19/iraq

[19] Iraq 2004 Looks Like Vietnam 1966
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/12/body-counts-in-iraq-and-vietnam.html

[20] Robert McNamara’s Infamous “Project 100,000” and the Vietnam War. A Premeditated Crime Against Humanity
https://www.unz.com/lromanoff/robert-mcnamaras-infamous-project-100000-and-the-vietnam-war-a-premeditated-crime-against-humanity/

[21] McNamara’s Folly
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/McNamaras-Folly.pdf

October 9, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

U.S. Stockpiles $290 Million in NIH-Funded Radiation Sickness Drug

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 7, 2022

In what pharmaceutical industry publication Fierce Pharma called “a troubling sign of the times,” the Biden administration this week purchased $290 million in anti-radiation drugs.

In an Oct. 4 press release, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS)  Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) announced the purchase of Nplate, a drug used to treat acute radiation syndrome.

ASPR — the federal agency tasked with preparing for disasters and public health emergencies — said the purchase was made “as part of long-standing, ongoing efforts to be better prepared to save lives following radiological and nuclear emergencies.”

HHS did not clarify why it bolstered the government’s Nplate stockpile, other than describing it as “part of our ongoing work for preparedness and radiological security.”

Officials downplayed any connection to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, adding that the purchase “was not accelerated by the situation in Ukraine.”

However, two days after the announcement, amid growing tensions related to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, President Biden said the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is at its highest since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

The U.S. government in recent months has made several moves signaling a growing level of nuclear preparedness.

For instance, in late September, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity launched a new program, — Targeted Evaluation of Ionizing Radiation Exposure — which will investigate methods to detect low doses of ionizing radiation.

According to The Register, the investigation will work to “build a new understanding of the effects of low-dose radiation” through the use of technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, biomarker discovery and analytical biography.

The Ohio State University, the University of Washington, Areté Associates and Signature Science received grants to conduct the research over a three-and-a-half year period. The research will occur at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Lab and the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute.

Earlier this summer, New York City authorities raised eyebrows with the release of a 90-second nuclear preparedness public service announcement (PSA), which the New York Times described as “bizarre” and as “well watched,” but “not well received.”

At the time, NPR reported that New York City’s emergency management department “wants residents to be prepared if [a nuclear attack] does occur,” but that the PSA left many of the city’s residents “confused.”

Outside the U.S., countries neighboring Ukraine, such as Poland, reportedly began distributing iodine tablets in response to the threat of nuclear fallout related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict as a result of shelling around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

Developed under Project BioShield, with funding from numerous government agencies

Nplate is the trade name for the drug romiplostim, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in January 2021 for the treatment of blood cell injuries that result from acute radiation syndrome.

The drug is an artificial protein that promotes the production of platelets — or blood-clotting cells — in the human body.

The drug first received FDA approval in 2008, for the treatment of immune thrombocytopenia, an autoimmune disorder that causes serious bleeding.

Amgen, the drug’s manufacturer, developed Nplate in conjunction with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, under the auspices of Project BioShield, signed into law in July 2004 by then-president George W. Bush.

Project BioShield, which incentivizes private companies to develop vaccines and countermeasures for biological, chemical, nuclear and radiological threats, provided funding for the latest $290 million purchase by the HHS.

BARDA — another arm of HHS — garnered attention in recent years for its extensive deals with COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers and for its promotion of COVID-19 countermeasures.

In 2020, BARDA promised Moderna up to $483 million to “shepherd” its COVID-19 vaccine through the FDA approval process.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) — headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci — also contributed to the development of Nplate.

For instance, during an April 2018 oversight hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, Fauci described NIAID’s involvement in the development and promotion of “radiation/nuclear countermeasure candidates,” including Nplate, for FDA approval under the Animal Rule.

According to the FDA, Animal Rule regulations “allow for the approval of drugs and licensure of biological products when human efficacy studies are not ethical and field trials to study the effectiveness of drugs or biological products are not feasible.”

In the case of Nplate, drugs.com states that the effectiveness of the drug for the purposes of treating radiation exposure “was only studied in animals, because it could not be studied in people.”

Also according to drugs.com, Nplate also is associated with several serious potential side effects, including the increased risk of a blood clot or stroke, an increased risk of developing blood cancers and “harmful effects on your bone marrow that may result in serious blood cell disorders.”

The site states that it is “unknown” if Nplate will cause harm to unborn babies.

Amgen, based in Thousand Oaks, California, describes itself as “A worldwide pioneer in biotechnology.”

The company’s board of directors includes members from The Aerospace Corporation, the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Northrop Grumman, Phillips 66, the University of California and Walmart.

The newly purchased stockpile will remain in vendor-controlled inventory, HHS said.

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Athens, Greece.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

October 8, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Nuclear Power | | Leave a comment

Kiev amasses troops on Donbass border – official

Samizdat | October 8, 2022

Kiev has deployed some 40,000 troops to the border with the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), which recently became part of Russia, the LPR’s top representative in Moscow, Rodion Miroshnik, has said.

“In the areas where attempts of a breakthrough are being made [by Kiev’s forces], large quantities of manpower and hardware have been concentrated on the Ukrainian side,” Miroshnik said during an appearance on the Soloviev Live program on YouTube on Friday.

According to estimates by the LPR’s forces, “we’re talking about 40,000 men,” the official added.

Kiev’s troops have been gathering to the north and northwest of the LPR, as well as in the area around the town of Krasny Liman in the Donetsk People’s Republic, from where Russian forces withdrew a week ago amid a Ukrainian offensive, Miroshnik added.

On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin signed into law unification treaties with the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, officially making them part of Russia. The four territories overwhelmingly supported the move during referendums in late September.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

October 8, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Clinton Tried to Push Hungary’s Orban Into Invading Yugoslavia During 1999 NATO War, Vucic Reveals

By Ilya Tsukanov – Samizdat – 08.10.2022

On March 12, 1999, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland became the first members of the defunct Warsaw Pact alliance to be incorporated into NATO after Washington broke its commitments to Moscow not to expand the bloc eastward. Two weeks later, NATO kicked off a massive 78-day aerial bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

US President Bill Clinton attempted to prod Hungary into invading its Yugoslav neighbors during the alliance’s 1999 aerial campaign of aggression against Belgrade, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has revealed.

“In 1999, Hungary was supposed to attack Serbia with ground forces. [Hungarian Prime Minister] Viktor Orban confirmed this to me and allowed me to inform the public about it. US President Bill Clinton and the British demanded from Orban that the Hungarians attack Serbia from the north to stretch our forces to Vojvodina, something Orban refused to do, putting him under great pressure,” Vucic said in an address to the nation on Saturday.

According to the Serbian president, then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder helped Budapest withstand the pressure from Washington.

Orban received further criticism for rejecting a ground invasion from the British during his trip to the UK, Vucic said, with former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher telling the Hungarian leader that she was greatly “bothered” by Budapest’s refusal to attack its neighbor, because it would mean that “more British soldiers will die.”

Vucic said the episode demonstrates the disconnect between the Western military alliance’s efforts to build “trust” with Belgrade, and the reality that the bloc plotted to invade his country.

Viktor Orban served his first tenure as Hungary’s prime minister between 1998 and 2002, and presided over the country’s entry into NATO, which was approved by the previous government. He served as leader of the opposition between 2002 and 2010, before his conservative nationalist Fidesz party returned to power.

The US and its NATO allies spent 78 days bombing the now-dissolved Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the spring and summer of 1999, launching over 2,300 missiles and dropping more than 14,000 bombs, including cluster bombs and depleted uranium munitions which contaminated the Balkans with at least 15 tons of radioactive material. As many as 5,700 people were killed in the bombings, with tens of thousands more diagnosed with cancer thought to be associated with the aggression in the years and decades since. In 2017, Serbian scientist Ljubisa Rakic calculated that the amount of DU dropped on Yugoslavia was equivalent to about 170 Hiroshima bombs. The bombing was also estimated to have caused up to $100 billion in economic damage.

President Joe Biden played a key role in stoking US aggression in Yugoslavia, serving in his capacity as a senator from Delaware as one of the top hawks in Washington pushing for the conflict to be expanded into a full-on ground invasion.

October 8, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Lavrov explains why Russia sees Ukraine as a threat

Samizdat | October 7, 2022

A call by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky for NATO members to deploy nuclear weapons against Russia is a reminder of why Moscow launched military action against his country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

“Yesterday, Zelensky called on his Western masters to deliver a preemptive nuclear strike on Russia,” Moscow’s top diplomat stated during a media conference on Wednesday.

In doing so, the Ukrainian leader “showed to the entire world the latest proof of the threats that come from the Kiev regime.” Lavrov said Russia’s special military operation had been launched to neutralize those threats.

He dismissed as “laughable” an attempt to downplay Zelensky’s words made by his press secretary, Sergey Nikoforov.

“We all remember how [Zelensky] declared in January Ukraine’s intention to acquire nuclear weapons. Apparently, this idea has long been stuck in his mind,” the Russian minister said.

On Thursday, Zelensky told the Australian Lowy Institute that NATO must carry out preemptive strikes against Russia so that it “knows what to expect” if it uses its nuclear arsenal. He claimed that such action would “eliminate the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons,” before recalling how he urged other nations to preemptively punish Russia before it launched its military action against his country.

“I once again appeal to the international community, as it was before February 24: Preemptive strikes so that [the Russians] know what will happen to them if they use it, and not the other way around,” he said.

His spokesman then claimed that people interpreting Zelensky’s words as a call for a preemptive nuclear strike were wrong, and that Ukraine would never use such rhetoric.

October 7, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

A history of US threats to use nuclear weapons

By David North | WSWS | October 5, 2022

The Biden administration and the media present Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons in response to military setbacks as an unprecedented break with long-established and hitherto unquestioned rules of international statecraft. This narrative is a lie.

In fact, the United States and other imperialist powers have not only considered on several critical occasions using nuclear weapons to reverse military defeats. They have directly threatened to drop atom bombs in order to extract concessions from their enemies.

There are the well-documented demands of General Douglas MacArthur for the dropping of nuclear bombs on China, President Eisenhower’s weighing of France’s request for the detonation of nuclear devices at Dien Bien Phu, and President Kennedy’s threats during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Far less known and even more serious were the use of nuclear threats by President Nixon against the USSR and Vietnam. Operation Giant Lance was initiated on October 27, 1969, according to Wikipedia, to force a settlement of the Vietnam War on terms favorable to the US.

According to Wikipedia, Nixon “authorized a squadron of 18 B-52 bombers to patrol the Arctic polar ice caps and escalate the nuclear threat … to coerce both the Soviet Union and North Vietnam to agree on favorable terms with the US, and conclusively end the Vietnam War.”

Nixon made use of what was referred to as the “madman” tactic to convince the Soviet Union that he was capable of ordering a nuclear strike. Another operation, related to Giant Lance, was “Duck Hook.”

Its purpose was to force North Vietnam, using the threat of a massive nuclear strike, to accept US terms for ending the war. Wikipedia states that Duck Hook called for the nuclear bombing of military targets throughout North Vietnam. This included “the saturation bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong, the bombing of dikes to destroy the food supply of much of the population of North Vietnam, air strikes against North Vietnam’s northeast line of communications as well as passes and bridges at the Chinese border …”

Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s criminal accomplice, told the president that the US had to be prepared to use nuclear weapons. In a memo to Nixon, Kissinger wrote: “To achieve its full effect on Hanoi’s thinking, the action must be brutal.”

Eventually, because of doubts about its strategic effectiveness and fear of a violent popular reaction, Duck Hook was not implemented. But Nixon continued to threaten Vietnam and the Soviet Union with nuclear war.

This history proves that 1) the claims that Putin is breaking a previously unquestioned taboo on the use of nuclear weapons are fraudulent; and 2) that the US, if confronted with the prospect of military defeat, would certainly resort to nuclear warfare.

Knowing that the US would use nuclear weapons if confronted with a desperate military situation, the Biden administration’s relentless efforts to push Putin into a corner and force capitulation are totally reckless.

October 7, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

EU must decide where it stands on Ukraine – Kremlin

Samizdat – October 6, 2022

The European Union must decide whether it wants the Ukraine conflict to be resolved diplomatically or in a violent manner, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Thursday.

Asked to comment on Austria’s reported proposal to host de-escalation talks, Zakharova said Moscow could only contemplate such initiatives after the EU figures out what it stands for regarding Ukraine.

“First of all, the EU should make up its mind about itself,” Zakharova said, urging the EU to decide whether it is pursuing a unified foreign policy or if decisions are handled by individual member states.

Russia, she said, has repeatedly heard “contradicting statements” coming from the EU. Zakharova noted that many supposed initiatives had been put forward by member states and were later retracted or never followed-up on because they were not approved by Brussels.

“Secondly, the EU also needs to make up its mind whether they support the talks [on Ukraine], or the battlefield solution, as [EU foreign policy chief Josep] Borrell had put it,” she said.

Zakharova’s comment comes after Borrell signaled on Wednesday that the EU was ready to seek a “diplomatic solution” to the conflict in Ukraine, but vowing that the bloc would continue to provide Kiev with military and financial support while ramping up pressure on Russia through sanctions.

However, in April Borrell issued a much different statement, claiming then that the conflict in Ukraine “will be won on the battlefield.”

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

During referendums that took place in late September, the two Donbass republics, along with Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, overwhelmingly voted to join Russia. On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law unification treaties with former Ukrainian territories, officially making them part of Russia. Prior to this, the Russian leader vowed to use “all means” necessary to defend the country’s territorial integrity in the face of external threats.

October 6, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Roger Waters says he’s on Ukrainian ‘kill list’

Samizdat – October 4, 2022

British rock star Roger Waters, a co-founder of Pink Floyd, has allegedly been placed on a Ukrainian “kill list” after speaking out against Western military meddling and calling on Kiev to make peace with Russia.

In an interview with Rolling Stone published on Tuesday, the 79-year-old pushed back against accusations that he’s been repeating Russian talking points about the conflict in Ukraine. “Don’t forget, I’m on a kill list that is supported by the Ukrainian government. I’m on the fu**ing list, and they’ve killed people recently… When they kill you, they write ‘liquidated’ across your picture. Well, I’m one of those fu**ing pictures.”

Waters gave the example of Darya Dugina, the Russian journalist murdered in August after appearing on the Ukrainian Mirotvorets list. As the musician noted, her entry on the list was marked “liquidated” after she was killed in a car-bombing. Others who have questioned or criticized the Kiev regime, such as photojournalists Andrea Rocchelli of Italy and Andrei Stenin of Russia, have also been killed after appearing on the Mirotvorets list. The site lists personal information on its blacklist targets, which also include politicians and NGO activists.

Mirotvorets, or “Peacemaker,” is an independent database of individuals whom anonymous moderators consider to be threats to Ukrainian national security. The site denies being a kill list; rather, it claims to be a source of information for law-enforcement agencies and “special services” about pro-Russian terrorists, separatists and war criminals, among others. It allegedly has links to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry.

Waters stirred backlash earlier this year, when he suggested that US President Joe Biden was a “war criminal” for fueling the Ukraine crisis and sent an open letter to the wife of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, urging her to help “stop the slaughter” by pushing for a negotiated peace deal with Russia. He later sent an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, asking for guarantees that Russia wouldn’t expand beyond Crimea and the Donbass region.

Pressed by Rolling Stone on why he isn’t supportive of Ukraine’s resistance against Russian forces, Waters said, “Because it’s an unnecessary war, and those people should not be dying. And Russia should not have been encouraged to invade Ukraine.” He also dismissed reports of Russian war crimes in Ukraine as Western propaganda.

Two concerts that Waters had scheduled for next April in Krakow, Poland, may be canceled because of his push for a negotiated peace in Ukraine, the musician said late last month. “Draconian censoring of my work will deny them the opportunity to make up their own minds,” he said of his Polish audiences.

The wide-ranging Mirotvorets kill list also includes Faina Savenkova, a 13-year-old girl in the Lugansk People’s Republic who called for the United Nations to end the fighting that has dragged on in her region since 2014.

October 4, 2022 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Kiev Offers Biden Targeting Control, Seeks Longer Range Weapons

By Kyle Anzalone and Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | October 3, 2022

The Ukrainian government is prepared to give the Joe Biden administration virtual control over its selection of Russian targets. Kiev made the proposal in a bid to receive longer-range weapons from the White House, according to multiple sources speaking with CNN.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will provide a full list of possible targets while allowing the White House to veto any of the potential sites. Kiev is hoping the increased transparency will pave the path to Biden authorizing more weapons transfers. Zelensky made the offer to Washington to alleviate concerns in the Biden administration that new weapons will be used to target Russian territory.

However, Kiev, Washington and Moscow currently have different views on what is Russian versus Ukrainian territory. After a 2014 coup in Ukraine that saw US-backed elements overthrow a democratically elected government, Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula. Last week, Moscow claimed four additional regions of Ukraine as its own.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to defend all of his country’s territory with the full arsenal at his disposal. The Kremlin stated that it considers its newly added regions as it would the rest of Russia. On Sunday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin acknowledged the possibility that Putin could order a nuclear strike in Ukraine, defending these new regions. The Pentagon chief then vowed Washington would support Kiev’s “efforts” for “as long as it takes” to “take back all of the territories” within its “sovereign borders.”

Concurrently, Moscow claims there has been an increase in Ukrainian attacks within Russia proper, encouraged by NATO. During a recent press conference, Putin publicly noted, for the first time, attempted Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s nuclear power plants.

The US has provided Ukraine with 16 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), and authorized sending over a dozen more to Kiev in an arms package last week. So far, the White House has only sent Ukraine with munitions for HIMARS that can travel 50 miles. Kiev is seeking Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) surface-to-surface missiles that can fly around 200 miles by the HIMARS. When the Biden administration began providing HIMARS to Ukraine, it was insisted that Kiev had provided “assurances” that these weapons would not be used to target Russian territory. In June, Antiwar.com contacted the State Department to ask if this condition applied to the Crimean Peninsula, a department spokesman replied “Crimea is Ukraine.”

The White House has made clear that they will not recognize the new Russian territories, and NATO has said they will escalate their support for the proxy war.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has previously said that if the West provides Kiev with longer-range weapons, then the Kremlin would expand its war goals in Ukraine. In July, Lavrov wrote an article claiming NATO was already on the battlefield coordinating attacks on Russian targets using the rocket systems. “NATO instructors and Multiple Launch Rocket Systems aimers are, apparently, already directing the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and nationalist battalions on the ground,” Lavrov said.

In addition to the CIA presence on the ground in Ukraine, NATO commandos from Lithuania, Canada, Britain, and France are also present. Notably, there are several Donald Trump-aligned Republicans in the legislature, including Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) eager to “[go] for the kill” and overtly deploy American military advisors to Ukraine. Former US special operators are already on the ground near the contact line, training Kiev’s forces and developing battle plans.

Harry Kazianis wrote in Responsible Statecraft that in multiple war game simulations, Washington sending advanced weapons led to nuclear war.

I have fought more than thirty combat simulations in wargames under my own direction for a private defense contract… In every scenario I tested, the Biden Administration slowly gives Ukraine ever more advanced weapons like ATACMS, F-16s, and other platforms that Russia has consistently warned pose a direct military threat… In fact, in 28 of the thirty scenarios I have run since the war began, some sort of nuclear exchange occurs.

Kazianis does report that in some of the war games, diplomacy, rather than escalation prevailed, and nuclear conflict was averted.

The good news is there is a way out of this crisis — however imperfect it may be. In the two scenarios where nuclear war was averted, direct negotiations led to a ceasefire. The Biden Administration and its NATO allies should be testing Putin’s recent comments about a ceasefire to test his seriousness.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, America’s top diplomat, has declared Washington’s goal is to see Russia suffer a “strategic defeat” in Ukraine. During the war, he spoke to Lavrov once and for only 25 minutes, they merely discussed a potential bilateral prisoner exchange. Likewise, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss has ruled out diplomacy until Moscow is “defeated.”

October 3, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Russian hypersonic missiles superior to anything NATO has: Le Figaro

Samizdat – 02.10.2022

Russian hypersonic missile systems are more advanced than anything being fielded by the North Atlantic Alliance today, France’s Le Figaro has reported, echoing sentiments expressed by Russia’s president in a speech last week.

The French newspaper characterized Russia’s hypersonic weaponry as its main strategic asset, capable of flying at incredible speeds and maneuvering while in flight. It pointed specifically to the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle – a weapon deployable as a part of a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) payload aboard Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles.

“In this specific area, Russia is indeed one step ahead of its NATO adversaries,” the Gaullist newspaper conceded. The paper added that Russia and China proceeded to develop hypersonic missiles in response to NATO’s efforts to construct a missile defense shield.

“Russia undoubtedly has more modern weapons than the NATO countries. The United States has lagged behind in the field of hypersonic missiles, and Moscow’s nuclear arsenal is being replenished with more powerful and destructive projectiles,” Igor Delanoe, deputy director of the Moscow-based Franco-Russian Observatory, said.

In his speech announcing partial mobilization last month, Vladimir Putin accused Western officials of discussing “the possibility and admissibility of using weapons mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.”

“I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff,” Putin said.

The Russian president unveiled five new strategic weapons in a speech to lawmakers in 2018, among them the Kinzhal and the Avangard, plus the Poseidon nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed drone submarine, and the 9M730 Burevestnik (‘Petrel’) nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile.

The Chinese military also possesses hypersonic weapons. In August, Russian-Indian defense joint venture BrahMos announced that it may create a hypersonic missile by 2027 or 2028. North and South Korea, France, Japan, Australia and India are also researching the cutting-edge class of weaponry.

The Pentagon has tasked US defense contractors with developing at least six hypersonic weapons designs for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and DARPA’s Operational Fires program, but to date none have been fielded. The US military has also pitched laser and dust-firing flak guns meant to defeat Russian and Chinese hypersonics, as well as the use of stratospheric balloons to monitor and track their launch.

Russia got a head start on its hypersonics program thanks to Soviet-era research in the field starting in the early 2000s, after the Bush administration unilaterally scrapped of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty – a 1972 Soviet-US agreement which placed severe limitations on the creation of anti-ballistic missile defenses and intended to stop the arms race.

Russia’s military doctrine forbids nuclear weapons from being used unless the country is targeted by enemy nuclear attack first, or a conventional attack so severe that it is deemed to threaten the existence of the state. The United States does not place such restrictions on its nukes, and “reserves the right to use” them on a preemptive basis, even against non-nuclear armed adversaries.

October 2, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

The Democratic Party, Now the Leading Party of War

By John V. Walsh | The Greanville Post | September 27, 2022

Last May a remarkable column by Stephen Kinzer appeared in the Boston Globe. It was headlined: “Republicans Return To Their Roots As The Antiwar Party.”

More significantly, the subheading ran: “Since the Vietnam era, Americans have come to expect antiwar rhetoric from liberal Democrats. Cancel that.” It began:

“With Americans now engulfed in passion for Ukraine, it wasn’t surprising that President Biden proposed sending $33 billion worth of weaponry and other aid to Ukraine’s beleaguered military. Nor was it surprising that Congress raised the number to $40 billion, or that both the Senate and House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor. Hidden within that lopsided vote, though, was a shocker: Every single “no” vote – 11 in the Senate and 57 in the House – came from a Republican.

“Since the Vietnam era, Americans have come to expect antiwar rhetoric from liberal Democrats. Cancel that. This month’s votes in Washington signal a dramatic role reversal. Suddenly it is conservative Republicans who oppose US involvement in foreign wars.”

Strikingly not only did the “conservative” Democrats vote for the $40 billion that included more weapons of death and destruction for Joe Biden’s cruel proxy war against Russia to the last Ukrainian. All the “progressives” did so, including AOC and The Squad, Bernie Sanders, Ro Khanna, Barbara Lee and all the rest. It was a clean sweep.

Second, this was not a one-off event. There is another vote coming up in the next few weeks for another $13.7 billion for Ukraine with over $7 billion for weapons. What is the response of the 100 Democrats to this request by Biden? The answer came during the September 11 Week Of Action called for by Code Pink and the progressive Peace In Ukraine Coalition reported here as follows:

“In the nation’s capital CODEPINK co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, together with Colonel Ann Wright and other activists, kicked off the Week of Action, going door to door to the offices of the House Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), …. While some members of the caucus call for much-needed diplomacy and raise concerns about the risk of nuclear war – either through a miscalculation or an intentional first strike – not one member of the nearly 100-member CPC will commit to voting against more weapons for Ukraine.” (Emphasis, jw)

This was also acknowledged in a very dispiriting interview by The GrayZone with prominent activists after the lobbying effort.

The pro-war mentality among the “progressive” Dem pols is not limited to Biden’s cruel proxy war to the last Ukrainian. It extends to a second proxy war now being ginned up in Taiwan. When Nancy Pelosi recently visited the island to stir up secessionist sentiment, not a single progressive Democrat in Congress made so much as a peep of protest. In fact Rep. Ro Khanna, Co-chair of Bernie Sanders’s 2020 Presidential campaign boosted it in rants on CNN and Twitter.

Both of these proxy wars bring the US into conflict with two other major global nuclear powers. If the progressive pols cannot be against military escalation in cases like this, it is hard to see that they have any claim to be for peace. And yet all too many activists in the progressive antiwar movement are loyal to them. In fact some peace organizations have gone so far as to endorse them for election in 2022, even after their vote for the $40 billion to Ukraine for example here!

Moreover this support for the proxy war in Ukraine shows up among rank and file Democrats as well. By every measure in a recent Ipsos poll taken after 6 months of war, support for intervention in Ukraine was higher among Democrats than among Republicans or Independents. IF the roots of this are partisan in nature, that is deeply disturbing because it means that Democrats will follow warhawks simply because they are Dems. Biden may be a case in point for such misplaced loyalty.

Let me end on a personal note. Working in peace organizations and coalitions, I find many activists who labor mightily for the cause of peace also maintain loyalty to the Democratic Party. And that loyalty extends especially to the “progressive” Democratic politicians. This is most disturbing because on the most important issues of war and peace, these peace activists get nothing in return. And since there is no price to pay for their hawkish votes, these politicians will simply ignore such activists. This is an abusive relationship and ought to be terminated forthwith.

The minimal policy of those who work for peace should be quite simple: no votes for politicians who vote to fund war in Ukraine – no matter the Party. Otherwise those who support war and US unipolarity will continue to ignore those who work for peace.

September 30, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | | Leave a comment

Western withdrawal of citizens from Russia may be a provocation

This act looks like a threat of attack and could generate responses. 

By Lucas Leiroz | September 29, 2022

The US and some other Western countries announced the evacuation of their citizens from the Russian territory. In a context of tensions between Moscow and NATO, this type of attitude sounds like a threat, further worsening the scenario of global security crisis.

The US State Department has asked Russia-based American citizens to leave the country immediately. The appeal was posted on the website of the US Embassy in Russia. The justification for the advice was that Moscow could mobilize citizens who have dual nationality, which is why foreigners based in Russia should flee as quickly as possible, before they are mobilized for combat on Ukrainian soil. The statement also highlights that there are currently a limited number of flights from Russia to other countries, and tickets for the next dates may not be available, so US citizens residing in Russia should hurry to leave.

It is interesting to analyze the communiqué issued by the Embassy when the reality of the mobilization promoted by Russia is not only partial but also absolutely moderate. The call-up of combatants has been promoted in a balanced way, with no urgency for foreign citizens to flee in a hurry to avoid being mobilized. Moscow has shown no interest in forcing foreign nationals with Russian passports to serve in the special military operation, which makes the American narrative weak and unsubstantiated. 

However, some other countries also took measures similar to the one of the US. Poland and Bulgaria, for example, called on their citizens to leave Russia immediately. Commenting on the matter, spokespersons for the Polish Foreign Ministry released a note stating: “In case of a drastic deterioration of the security situation, the closure of borders or other unforeseen circumstances, evacuation may prove significantly impeded or even impossible (…) We recommend that the citizens of the Republic of Poland who remain on the territory of the Russian Federation leave its territory using the available commercial and private means”. 

Also, Poland’s foreign minister Zbigniew Rau was more explicit in his words and stated that if Russia uses nuclear weapons against Ukraine, NATO’s response will be “devastating”, which is why Polish citizens should leave Russian territory as soon as possible. In fact, his words were just an endorsement of what had already been previously announced by the US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who threatened Moscow by stating that “if Russia crosses this line (the use of nuclear weapons], there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia”, adding that “the United States will respond decisively”.

In fact, evacuating citizens is an elementary measure usually taken by states that are planning some kind of attack or invasion. It is the most direct and simplest way to prevent putting the lives of innocent citizens on enemy soil at risk when a war is breaking out. In this sense, any attempt at a massive withdrawal of Western citizens from Russia sounds like a threat to the Eurasian country at this point, as the Western military alliance has constantly warned of “consequences” against Moscow in the event of an escalation in Ukraine.

The problem is that the situation in Ukraine only tends to escalate because of the attitudes of the western countries themselves, which continue with their provocative military programs against Russia, supporting the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev with lethal weapons and large amounts of money. Moscow has already issued communiqués warning of what it considers a “red line” in the Ukrainian conflict, which is Russia’s sovereign territory. Russian forces are unwilling to tolerate attacks on the Federation’s territory and make it clear that they will respond harshly if such attacks occur.

With the positive result for the integration of the liberated territories into Russia, the new oblasts will become part of the Federation and thus will be under direct protection of Moscow, not being tolerable Ukrainian attacks in these regions. The West, however, insists on not recognizing the referendums and encourages Kiev to attack these regions. This is precisely where an eventual nuclear escalation could happen. Russian military doctrine establishes that nuclear weapons should only be used as a last resort in the event of an existential threat to the Russian state. Moscow may consider Western-funded attacks an existential threat if the targets are within the Federation – including the new territories – which is why there is currently a nuclear danger.

So, it is the West itself that fosters the conditions for a nuclear escalation. And it is also the West that threatens to react to such an escalation by directly attacking Russia and starting a third world war. By evacuating its citizens, the US and its allies are once again provoking and threatening Russia, sending “red alerts” that something is “about to happen”. The objective is to act preemptively and justify a Western response.

In fact, the West seems to be acting in an anti-strategic manner. There no longer seems to be any military realism in the thinking of NATO leaders, who are willing to escalate tensions more and more, even though there are no winners in a possible scenario of world war.

Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant. 

September 29, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

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