MOSCOW – The Russian Foreign Ministry on Saturday expressed disappointment with the confrontational and anti-Russian stance in the recently issued US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and outlined intentions to take the policies, revealed in the document, into account in ensuring its own security.
The NRP, published on Friday, claims a stronger US nuclear deterrent is needed to discourage Russia, China, Iran and North Korea from either developing new weapons or expanding existing arsenals. The US doctrine envisages short-term plans to modify existing submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warheads to provide a low-yield option and pursue a modern nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM) in the long run. The NPR notes that these activities are not intended at being employed in a nuclear warfare, however they are aimed at raising the US nuclear threshold to ensure that the country’s potential adversaries perceive no possible advantage in nuclear escalation.
Moreover, in its nuclear doctrine the United States accuses Russia of repeated violations of several international arms control treaties and commitments, particularly the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov was the first to react to the release of the NPR. The diplomat suggested on Friday that Washington used alleged Russian threats to justify a hike in military spending and nuclear buildup. Antonov noted that the document raised questions and did not encourage practical work.
Moscow Will Have to Take US Policies into Account
“The content of the new nuclear doctrine (the so-called Nuclear Posture Review) released by the United States on February 2 has provoked our deep disappointment. The confrontational and anti-Russian nature of this document strikes the eye. We can state with regret that the United States explains its policies for large-scale boost of nuclear weapons by referring to modernization of the nuclear forces in Russia and alleged increasing role of nuclear weapons in the Russian doctrine statements. We are accused of lowering the nuclear threshold and of conducting some ‘aggressive’ behavior,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a Saturday statement on the NPR.
Moscow suggested that the NPR questioned Russia’s right to self-defense when countering aggression in situations critical for the country’s existence.
“Of course, we will have to take into account the approaches introduced by Washington and take all necessary measures to ensure own security,” the statement pointed out.
The projects on creation of low-yield weapons for sea-based cruise missiles and low-yield warhead for ballistic missiles carried by Trident II submarines, mentioned in the new US nuclear doctrine, represent the most danger, the Russian Foreign Ministry noted, adding that nuclear weapons with such characteristics are designed as “battlefield weapons.”
The ministry also suggested that the United States was misleading the global community by saying that the new NPR would not lower the threshold of nuclear weapons use.
“Even more dangerous is the belief of the US military experts and other specialists in the sphere of national security, emerging from the pages of the nuclear doctrine, in their ability to reliably simulate the development of conflicts, in which they allow usage of ‘low-yield’ nuclear warheads. For us, the opposite is clear: significantly lowered ‘threshold conditions’ may lead to a missile-nuclear war even during low-intensity conflicts,” the Russian ministry stressed.
Moscow expressed deep concern over the fact that in its NPR, the United States allowed for the possibility of using nuclear weapons in “extreme circumstances,” which, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, are not limited to military scenarios.
“Washington’s practically ‘adjustable’ approach to the use of nuclear weapons is concerning. The possibility of its use in the case of ‘extreme circumstances’ is declared, which the doctrine’s authors do not limit to military scenarios,” the statement read.
The US Nuclear Posture Review describes military scenarios in a rather unclear manner, thus allowing the United States to consider practically any case of military force use as a reason for carrying out a nuclear strike on those who it calls “aggressors,” the document continued.
“If all this is not an increase of the nuclear weapons factor in the doctrine, then what does the United States mean when it uses this notion about Russia?” the statement pointed out, referring to the US statement on the increasing role of nuclear weapons in the Russian military doctrine.
Groundless Accusations
The Russian Foreign Ministry categorically refuted all the allegations against it, made in the US nuclear doctrine.
According to the ministerial statement, “the US document is overfilled with different anti-Russia cliches starting from far-fetched accusations of ‘aggressive behavior’ and different kinds of ‘meddling’ and finishing with baseless accusations of ‘violations’ of a whole range of arrangements in the sphere of arms control.”
“Such peremptory cliches have recently been replicated by Washington without a pause. We consider this as an unfair attempt to shift on others the responsibility for the degradation of the situation in the field of international and regional security and the imbalance of arms control mechanisms, resulting from a series of irresponsible steps taken by the United States itself,” the ministry added.
The Russian Foreign Ministry called Washington’s statements saying that Moscow refuses to further decrease its nuclear capabilities yet another “falsification.”
The US nuclear doctrine said that Russia allegedly demonstrates lowering threshold for its first-use of nuclear weapons through statements of the country’s officials.
Reacting to this statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry noted that these accusations against Russia had nothing to do with reality.
“The military doctrine of the Russian Federation clearly limits the use of nuclear weapons to two hypothetical and purely defensive scenarios: only in response to aggression with the use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction against Russia and (or) our allies, and also — the second scenario – in case of use of conventional weapons, but only when the very existence of our state is threatened,” the ministerial statement read.
The Russian ministry emphasized Moscow’s openness for discussion of various issues, related to strengthening international security.
“We have directed the attention [of various players] including the United States to the fact, that settling key strategic stability problems, such as unilateral and unrestricted deployment of the US global missile defense system, implementation of the ‘global strike’ concept, the US denial to ratify the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and refusal to rule out possibility of deploying weapons in space, would contribute to creating the needed conditions for moving on the path of nuclear disarmament,” the statement pointed out.
Moreover, Moscow reiterated its commitment to obligations under various international treaties.
“Russia strictly complies with its obligations under all the international agreements. We fully implement the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Treaty on Open Skies,” the statement read.
The statement also noted that Moscow had not in any way violated its obligations under the 2011 Vienna Document of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on increasing security and confidence-building measures, and the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances.
“As for the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe [CFE], Russia could not have violated this document, because it had suspended its participation in the agreement back in 2007. This has been done because the Treaty, created during the era of confrontation between two military and political blocs, the Warsaw Treaty Organization and NATO [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization], does not fit in today’s reality, because one of the blocs was dismissed long ago, while the other one, on the contrary, has been increasing its potential and expanding its ‘geography,'” the document pointed out.
This new reality has been reflected in the Agreement on Adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE-II), which NATO allies led by the United States refused to ratify, the statement noted.
See Also:
New US Nuclear Posture Review Spurs Outrage Among Atomic Bomb Victims in Japan
US Keeps and Modernizes Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Europe, Placing Them Near Russia’s Borders – Russian Foreign Ministry
February 4, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Russia, United States |
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China has expressed firm opposition to a recent US government report describing Beijing as a potential nuclear rival, also calling on Washington to reduce its much larger nuclear arsenal and join in efforts to promote regional stability.
Casting China as “a major challenge to US interests in Asia,” the 74-page US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) report said the US strategy for China was designed to prevent Beijing from mistakenly concluding that any use of nuclear weapons, however limited, was acceptable.
Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang condemned the US report on Sunday and said his country exercised utmost restraint in developing nuclear capabilities and kept its nuclear arsenal at the “minimum level” required for national security.
The official Xinhua news agency cited Ren as saying that Beijing would resolutely stick to the peaceful development of nuclear weapons and pursue a national defense policy that was defensive in nature. It also added that under no circumstances would China use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones.
The Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman called on the US — which possesses the world’s largest nuclear weapons arsenal — to conform to the irreversible world trend of peace and development rather than run in the opposite direction.
“We hope the US will abandon a Cold War mentality and earnestly shoulder its special and primary responsibility for its own nuclear disarmament, understand correctly China’s strategic intentions, and take a fair view on China’s national defense and military development,” Ren added.
China has the world’s fifth-largest nuclear arsenal, with 300 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The US and Russia each possess about 7,000 warheads, or about 20 times as many as Beijing.
Before he became US president, Donald Trump did a lot of China-bashing particularly in matters of trade; but since assuming office, Trump has taken a softer line on China and tried to cultivate a relationship with the Chinese leadership.
February 4, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | China, United States |
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A one-line decree signed by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on 30th January merely assigned a dual civilian-military role to the newly operational airport on the island of Iturop in the disputed Kurile chain. But its strategic content is unmistakable – Moscow is taking a big step forward in the militarization of the Kuriles by deploying warplanes, drones and command systems at the facility. The airport has a 2.3 milometer runway and can handle giant aircraft.
The Iturop island is one of four seized by Soviet forces in the final days of World War Two and is located off the north-east coast of Hokkaido, Japan’s biggest prefecture. The dispute over the islands (known as the Kuriles in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan) has prevented the signing of a formal peace treaty between Russia and Japan to mark the end of the war.
Tokyo has lost no time to express concern over the Russian military deployment to Iturop. Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said, “We’ve conveyed through diplomatic channels that it goes against our country’s position. We’re gathering information on the Russian military’s behavior in the Northern Territories.”
Moscow’s decision can be seen in the context of the U.S.-built Aegis land-based missile defense system getting deployed in Japan. In December, Japanese government approved a record $46 billion defense budget and funds to survey potential sites for two Aegis ground interceptor batteries. A ship-based version of the Aegis system (made by Lockheed Martin) is already installed on Japanese warships. Japan is expected to deploy the Aegis Ashore system by 2023.
Moscow refused to accept the contention by Japan that the Aegis Ashore system is meant to defend against enemy missile attacks such as North Korean ballistic missiles. The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on December 28,
- The recent decision by the Japanese government to deploy US Aegis Ashore missile defence systems on its territory causes deep regret and serious concern. Whatever arguments and motives behind it, it is clear that the deployment of these systems is yet another step towards building a full-fledged Asian-Pacific regional segment of the global US missile defence system. It should be kept in mind that these systems are equipped with universal missile launchers capable of using strike weapons. In practice, it means another violation of the INF Treaty by the United States with Japan’s assistance.
- We consider Japan’s step as going against the efforts to establish peace and stability in the region. In addition, these actions by Tokyo directly contradict the priority task of fostering trust between Russia and Japan in the military-political area and will affect the general atmosphere of bilateral relations, including talks on a peace treaty.
Last November, Russian President Vladimir Putin had publicly voiced the expectation that Japan should review its alliance with the US as a condition for a peace treaty. Medvedev’s decree on January 30 is a snub to Japan, coming ahead of a scheduled meeting between the deputy foreign ministers of the two countries to discuss cooperation on the disputed territory of Kuriles. Russia seems to have given up hope since then that Japan can be encouraged to pursue independent foreign policies.
Meanwhile, the growing tensions over North Korea, the US military build-up in the Far East and the New Cold War between the US and Russia become added compulsions for Moscow to strengthen its defence lines in the Sakhalin Oblast. By the way, Moscow is also working on plans to create a new naval base in the region for submarines.
Clearly, under these circumstances, a Russo-Japanese peace treaty becomes an even more remote prospect. The ‘charm diplomacy’ by Japanese PM Shinzo Abe is not getting anywhere; Russia is not a pushover, as he’d have thought. This has serious implications for the power dynamic in East Asia in the near term, putting Japan at a disadvantage in the Russia-China-Japan triangular diplomacy.
February 3, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | China, Japan, Lockheed Martin, Russia |
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MOSCOW – Frants Klintsevich, first deputy chairman of the Russian upper house’s Committee on Defense and Security, believes that the 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) allows for another mass murder of civilians with the use of nuclear weapons similar to the atomic bombings of Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States in 1945.
“The whole world remembers Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US nuclear doctrine does not taboo the repetition of such things, and this is the most concerning thing,” Klintsevich said in a statement on Saturday, as quoted by his press service.
The recently issued Nuclear Posture Review significantly boosts the confrontation aspect of the US foreign policy, basing its policies not on cooperation with Russia in this area, but on the rivalry with Moscow, the lawmaker pointed out.
By endorsing this nuclear doctrine, including multiple “ideological injections,” the United States stakes on undermining global strategic balance for its own benefit, at the same time trying to depict Russia as the main reason for modernizing US nuclear forces, Klintsevich added.
The lawmaker noted that the United States had halted the strategic dialogue on nuclear risks with Russia using the Crimea referendum as a pretext, and had switched subsequently to groundless accusations against Moscow, as well as violations of various agreements.
The new US Nuclear Posture Review has become Washington’s reaction to the changing global environments, Klintsevich suggested. The situation on the Korean peninsula has shown that the United States cannot feel its full dominance even in the conflict with Pyongyang, the lawmaker pointed out.
The 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review also envisages short-term plans to modify existing submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warheads to provide a low-yield option pursue a modern nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM) in the long run.
Oleg Morozov, a member of the Russian upper house’s International Affairs Committee, called the US nuclear doctrine “demagogic” as on the one hand, the United States demonstrated peacefulness while accusing Russia of preparing for a nuclear strike, on the other hand.
Morozov also called the US Nuclear Posture Review a declaration of “a new round of the Cold War.”
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States during the final stage of World War II remains the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history. The bombings left over 100,000 people killed and thousands of others injured.
After the end of the Cold War, the United States has seen a decrease in its weapons arsenal, particularly, due to the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty between Washington and Moscow. US President Donald Trump, however, has repeatedly vowed to build up the US nuclear arsenal.
SEE ALSO:
US to Equip Future F-35 Fighters with Nuke Capabilities – Nuclear Posture Review
February 3, 2018
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Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | United States |
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Qatar’s defense minister says Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had planned a military invasion of his country at the beginning of a diplomatic crisis that erupted last year when several states cut off diplomatic relations with Doha.
In an interview with The Washington Post on Friday, Khalid bin Mohammad Al Attiyah said Riyadh and Abu Dhabi had “tried everything” to destabilize Qatar, but “we have diffused this intention.”
“They have intentions to intervene militarily,” said Attiyah.
“They tried to provoke the tribes. They used mosques against us. Then they tried to get some puppets to bring in and replace our leaders,” he added.
Attiyah, who traveled to the United States last week and held talks with his US counterpart Jim Mattis, described the beginning of the crisis by the Saudi-led bloc as an “ambush” that was “miscalculated.”
Asked about Qatar’s relations with Iran, Attiyah said that Qatar maintained “friendly relations with everyone.”
The Qatari defense minister said that the Saudi-led bloc had “failed” in its attempt to replace Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani with a new leader.
“They put their puppet, [Sheikh Abdullah bin Ali Al Thani, a relative of a former Qatari emir], on TV,” he said.
“They can’t do anything. The Qatari people love their emir,” he noted.
Back in June, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, and the UAE imposed a trade and diplomatic embargo on Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism, an allegation strongly denied by Doha.
The Saudi-led quartet presented Qatar with a list of demands and gave it an ultimatum to comply with them or face consequences.
The demands included closing the Al Jazeera broadcaster, removing Turkish troops from Qatar’s soil, scaling back ties with Iran, and ending relations with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood movement.
Doha, however, refused to meet the demands and denounced them as unreasonable.
Amid the diplomatic crisis, Abu Dhabi has taken an especially tough line towards Doha.
The Qatari former deputy prime minister, Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, told Spanish daily ABC last October that the UAE had planned a military invasion of Qatar with thousands of US-trained mercenaries, but it failed to secure the support of Washington.
A series of leaked documents revealed in November 2017 that the UAE had a stunning detailed plot to launch an economic war on Qatar.
Dubai security chief Dhahi Khalfan also once called on the Saudi-led coalition involved in a deadly military campaign against Yemen to bomb Al Jazeera.
February 3, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular | Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE |
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The US has deployed military forces to the Israeli-occupied territories ahead of a joint war game with Tel Aviv as the regime ramps up its threats of a new war against Lebanon.
Israeli media outlets announced the arrival of the American troops on Thursday in preparation for the so-called Juniper Cobra biennial military drills, which will start next week.
The last edition of the drills enlisted more than 3,000 forces from the two sides.
The sources said the maneuvers simulate engagement with the countries lying to the north and south of the occupied territories, including Lebanon.
Israel and Lebanon are technically at war since 1967 when the regime occupied the country’s Shebaa Farms.
Israel staged two wholesale wars against Lebanon in 2000 and 2006 to defeat the country’s resistance movement of Hezbollah, which is Lebanon’s de facto military power.
Tel Aviv fell short of the ambition in both cases in the face of strong resistance by Hezbollah, backed by the national army, and instead saw its myth of invincibility being dealt a serious blow.
On Wednesday, the Israeli minister for military affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, renewed the threat of a new war against Lebanon, saying Beirut would “pay the full price” for its ties with Tehran in a future military offensive.
Lieberman also warned companies not to engage in oil and gas exploration activities with Lebanon.
Hezbollah responded by saying the group would “decisively confront any assault on our oil and gas rights.”
Prime Minister Sa’ad al-Hariri and other Lebanese statesmen also reacted, with Hariri saying Lieberman’s remarks were one of several “threatening messages” from Israel over the previous days.
Hariri had on January 25 called Israel the greatest threat to Lebanon’s stability amid similar indications that the regime could be contemplating new military offensive against his nation.
“The only threat I see is Israel taking some kind of action against Lebanon, out of a miscalculation,” Hariri told an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “And this is the real threat, I believe. I think the other issues are challenges, yes … But when Israel decides to launch a war against Lebanon, this is something that is unexplainable,” he added.
Lieberman suggested that a war with Lebanon would also likely involve Syria.
“Israel’s northern front extends to Syria; it is not just Lebanon. I am not sure that the Syrian government can resist Hezbollah’s attempts to drag them into a war with Israel,” he said.
Hezbollah and Syria enjoy years-long experience of counter-terrorism cooperation. Hezbollah has been successfully lending battleground support to Syria during the latter’s operations against Takfiri militants.
February 2, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Militarism | Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Syria, United States |
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In the period preceding WWI how many Europeans suspected that their lives would soon be forever changed – and, for millions of them, ended? Who in the years, say, 1910 to 1913, could have imagined that the decades of peace, progress, and civilization in which they had grown up, and which seemingly would continue indefinitely, instead would soon descend into a horror of industrial-scale slaughter, revolution, and brutal ideologies?
The answer is, probably very few, just as few people today care much about the details of international and security affairs. Normal folk have better things to do with their lives.
To be sure, in that bygone era of smug jingoism, there was always the entertainment aspect that “our” side had forced “theirs” to back down in some exotic locale, as in the Fashoda incident (1898) or the Moroccan crises (1906, 1911). Even the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 seemed less a harbinger of the cataclysm to come than local dustups on the edge of the continent where the general peace had not been disturbed even by the much more disruptive Crimean or Franco-Prussian wars.
Besides, no doubt level-headed statesmen were in charge in the various capitals, ensuring that things wouldn’t get out of hand.
Until they did.
A notable exception to the prevailing mood of business-as-usual, nothing-to-see-here-folks was Pyotr Durnovo, whose remarkable February 1914 memorandum to Tsar Nicholas II laid out not only what the great powers would do in the approaching general war but the behavior of the minor countries as well. Moreover, he anticipated that in the event of defeat, Russia, destabilized by unchecked socialist “agitation” amid wartime hardships, would “be flung into hopeless anarchy, the issue of which cannot be foreseen.” Germany, likewise, was “destined to suffer, in case of defeat, no lesser social upheavals” and “take a purely revolutionary path” of a nationalist hue.
When the great powers blundered into war in August 1914, each confident of its ability speedily to dispatch its rivals, the price (adding in the toll from the 1939-1945 rematch) was upwards of 70 million lives. But the cost of a comparable mistake today might be literally incalculable – if there’s anyone left to do the tally.
During the first Cold War between the US and the USSR, there was a general sense that a World War III was, in a word, unthinkable. As summed up by Ronald Reagan: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Then, it was understood that all-out war, however it started, meant massed ICBMs over the North Pole and the “end of civilization as we know it.”
Not anymore. What was unthinkable in the old Cold War has become all-too-thinkable in the new one between the US and Russia. As described by veteran arms control inspector Scott Ritter, in analyzing a draft of the 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the US threshold for the use of nuclear weapons has become dangerously low:
‘The 2018 NPR has a vision of nuclear conflict that goes far beyond the traditional imagery of mass missile launches. While ICBMs and manned bombers will be maintained on a day-to-day alert, the tip of the nuclear spear is now what the NPR calls “supplemental” nuclear forces – dual-use aircraft such as the F-35 fighter armed with B-61 gravity bombs capable of delivering a low-yield nuclear payload, a new generation of nuclear-tipped submarine-launched cruise missiles, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles tipped with a new generation of low-yield nuclear warheads. The danger inherent with the integration of these kinds of tactical nuclear weapons into an overall strategy of deterrence is that it fundamentally lowers the threshold for their use. […]
‘Noting that the United States has never adopted a “no first use” policy, the 2018 NPR states that “it remains the policy of the United States to retain some ambiguity regarding the precise circumstances that might lead to a US nuclear response.” In this regard, the NPR states that America could employ nuclear weapons under “extreme circumstances that could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks.” … The issue of “non-nuclear strategic attack technologies” as a potential precursor for nuclear war is a new factor that previously did not exist in American policy. The United States has long held that chemical and biological weapons represent a strategic threat for which America’s nuclear deterrence capability serves as a viable counter. But the threat from cyber attacks is different. If for no other reason than the potential for miscalculation and error in terms of attribution and intent, the nexus of cyber and nuclear weapons should be disconcerting for everyone. […]
‘Even more disturbing is the notion that a cyber intrusion such as the one perpetrated against the Democratic National Committee and attributed to Russia could serve as a trigger for nuclear war. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. The DNC event has been characterized by influential American politicians, such as the Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, as “an act of war.” Moreover, former vice president Joe Biden hinted that, in the aftermath of the DNC breach, the United States was launching a retaliatory cyberattack of its own, targeting Russia. The possibility of a tit-for-tat exchange of cyberattacks that escalates into a nuclear conflict would previously have been dismissed out of hand; today, thanks to the 2018 NPR, it has entered the realm of the possible.’
The idea that a first-strike Schlieffen Plan could knock out the Russians (and no doubt similar contingencies are in place for China) at the outset of hostilities reflects a dangerous illusion of predictability. Truth may be the first casualty of war, but “the plan” is inevitably the second. That’s because war planners generally don’t consult the enemy, which – annoyingly for the planners – also gets a vote.
Recently US Secretary of State James Mattis declared that “great power competition – not terrorism – is now the primary focus of US national security,” specifying Russia and China as nations seeking to “create a world consistent with their authoritarian models, pursuing veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic and security decisions.” At least we can drop the pretense that US policy has been to fight jihad terrorism, not to use it as a policy tool in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere. And of course Washington never, ever meddles in “other nations’ economic, diplomatic and security decisions”. ..
There is much anticipation that release of a House Intelligence Committee memo “naming names” of those in the FBI and elsewhere inside and outside of government to thwart the election of Donald Trump and cripple his administration with a phony Russian “collusion” probe will be a silver bullet that upturns the Mueller probe and cleans the Augean stables of the Deep State. Even in that unlikely case, the damage is already done. The primary purpose of Russiagate was always to ensure Trump could not reach out to Moscow, as seems to be his sincere desire. Even as the narrative began to boomerang against those who launched it, Trump’s defenders (such as fanatical Russophobe Nikki Haley) are as adamant as his detractors that Russia is and will remain the main enemy: Russia was behind the Steele Dossier, Russia tried to “corner the market” on “the foundational material for nuclear weapons” with the Uranium One deal, etc. Hostility toward Russia is not a means to an end – it is the end.
At this point Trump is fastened to the neocons’ and generals’ axle, and all he can do is spin. Echoing Mattis, in his State of the Union speech Trump lumped “rivals like China and Russia” together with “rogue regimes” and “terrorist groups” as “horrible dangers” to the United States. (Note: The word “horrible” does not appear in the posted text. That evidently was Trump’s adlib.) The recently issued “name and shame” list of prominent Russians is a veritable Who’s Who of government and business, ensuring that there’s no American engagement with anyone within screaming distance of the Kremlin.
To be fair, the Russians and Chinese are making their own war preparations. Russia’s “Kanyon,” a doomsday nuclear torpedo carrying a massive warhead, is designed to obliterate the U.S east and west coasts, rendering them inhabitable for generations. (Wait a minute. Is it any coincidence, Comrade, that the coastal cities are just where the Democrats’ electoral strength is? Talk about “collusion!” Somebody call Bob Mueller!) For its part, China is developing means to eliminate our white elephant carrier groups – handy for pummeling Third World backwaters but useless in a war with a major power – with drone swarms and hypersonic missiles.
Just as in 1914, when Durnovo referred to “presence of abundant combustible material in Europe,” there are any number of global flashpoints that could turn Mattis’s “great power competition” into a major conflagration that probably was not desired by anyone. However, if the worst happens, and the lamps go out again – maybe this time forever – Americans will not again be immune from the consequences as we were in the wars of the 20th century. The remainder of our lives, however brief, might turn out very differently from what we had anticipated.
February 2, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | United States |
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In the days since Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency mistakenly issued an emergency alert warning of an inbound ballistic missile to over a million people, many of us in Hawaii have been thinking a lot about weapons and war.
The reaction to the January 13 false alarm has ranged from the deliberative (state legislature hearings) to the deranged (death threats against the unnamed employee who clicked the wrong option and triggered the scare). There has been discussion of the need for a better alert system and a faster response time in case of false alarms.
Critics have pointed out a lack of public preparedness, while others argue that it’s a moot point. Still others see the missile scare as a call to load up on guns, iodine tablets, and MREs in preparation for a post-apocalypse Hawaii.
Everyone agrees that the frightening mishap should serve as a wake-up call not just for Hawaii but the entire country. The debate over how much duct tape and Vienna sausage to keep in stock in case of a nuclear attack overlooks the U.S. role in perpetuating a system that terrorizes people around the world.
Hawaii is home to the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), the oldest and largest of America’s unified commands. Under PACOM, soldiers and weapons from every branch of the military are stationed, tested, trained, and cycled through Hawaii to conflicts and flashpoints from Syria and Iraq to Afghanistan, the Philippines, the Korean peninsula, and beyond.
The military’s financial influence over the Aloha State is enormous, accounting for $7.8 billion in spending in 2015 and employing over 64,000 defense personnel plus many thousands more who are economically dependent on the military presence.
In 2014, Hawaii ranked second in the nation (below Virginia) as the state with the highest defense spending as a percentage of its GDP. That same year, Honolulu County was in the top 10 (seventh place) for defense contracts. In 2017, Hawaii maintained its second highest ranking (nearly 10 percent) for defense spending as a portion of GDP.
From the dispatch of battleships to the testing of weapons and training of warriors, Hawaii is central to military operations across the region and around the world. Hawaii is a key test site for ballistic missiles, radar, sonar, fighter jets, drones, bombers, and advanced hypersonic weapons intended to strike anywhere on earth in under an hour.
Hawaii-based troops participate in everything from assault missions in Iraq and fighting insurgents in the Philippines to war games and military training on the Korean peninsula and Japan. It conducts these operations from Singapore to Australia and the Arctic. As such, Hawaii plays an enormous role in U.S. global military operations.
Increased military activities, many of them executed or advanced by the U.S., also leads to heightened tensions, internal conflict, invasions, and occupations and wars with both direct and indirect support for actual bombs dropped on actual people.
Pointing this out however, is not likely to be met with much enthusiasm or support. According to a recent NPR/PBS poll, 87 percent of respondents reported having “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the military compared with confidence in the media (at a tepid 30 percent).
Although members of Congress and the president complain that the Pentagon has been “gutted,” the United States continues to outspend all other countries by a long shot—nearly as much as the next nine largest military budgets (seven of which are close allies or strategic partners) combined.
The United States also remain the world’s largest arms dealer, accounting for roughly one-third of all global arms exports, with sales increasing more than 20 percent between 2007 and 2011.
In Trump’s first year, he unleashed a $60 million Tomahawk missile attack on a Syrian air base, dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal in Afghanistan, and insulted his way to the brink of a nuclear war against North Korea.
Meanwhile Trump is pushing to expand U.S. plans to modernize its nuclear weapons arsenal at a staggering projected cost of $1.2 trillion over the next 30 years. Trump, who reportedly asked, “If we have [nuclear weapons], why can’t we use them,” wants to develop “more usable” nuclear weapons deceptively called “mini-nukes” in order to create a “more credible” deterrent.
The false alarm that Hawaii recently experienced was terrifying, but it pales in comparison to the brutal reality other people experience when actual bombs fall. This militarism, perhaps America’s most destructive addiction, pours money into Hawaii’s coffers—but at a price. The real wake-up call has nothing to do with the lack of preparedness and everything to do with America’s own role in fostering insecurity in the world at large.
January 31, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Hawaii, United States, Virginia |
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A US military SM-3 missile launched from an Aegis test site on Wednesday off the Hawaiian cost failed to intercept a mock incoming missile, according to US officials.
The Missile Defense Agency and US Navy “sailors manning the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex conducted a live-fire missile flight test using a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA missile launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii, Wednesday morning,” the Missile Defense Agency confirmed, without specifying the result of the test.
The Raytheon missile is being developed in conjunction with Japanese counterparts as the threat of a North Korean missile strike hangs overhead.
In July, the SM-3 Block IIA failed to intercept an intermediate range ballistic missile as well. At the time, the Missile Defense Agency blamed the failed mission on human error and not the missile itself. Wednesday’s unsuccessful interception marks the second time the SM-3 Block IIA was unable to hit its target.
Last week, the Defense Department released a report stating that it was confident in its ability to protect the US mainland and Hawaii from “a small number” of North Korean intermediate range or intercontinental ballistic missiles, an improvement on the Government Accountability Office’s previous suggestions that the Ground-based Missile Defense component of the ballistic missile defenses had a “limited capability” to take out incoming missiles.
January 31, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Raytheon, United States |
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James Porteous looks at the deluded and amoral paradigm evinced in Foreign Policy magazine’s ‘analysis’ of the ongoing confrontation with North Korea.
You don’t really have to read either of these Foreign Policy articles mentioned below.
Whether the authors are arguing It’s Time to Bomb North Korea or It is Not Time to Bomb North Korea, the basic narrative is the same: There are pros and cons in using nuclear bombs to ‘stop’ the threat of North Korea.
Both ‘arguments’ are framed in such a way so as to give the ‘impression’ that Serious Debate is taking place.
Indeed, the subtitle for each might be: Be prepared for intelligent discussions on the moral and legal and ethical consequences of using nuclear or other bombs to annihilate a sovereign country. And its people.
But no. Most of the pros and cons are the same. Most are based on the general assumption that this bombing will take place and it will be justified on every level known to man and that it would be silly to waste everyone’s time talking about things that are already completely and totally known and agreed upon.
So let us further agree not to bore each other with threats of moral and ethical and legal discussions. We are done and done. Had enough. We are moving on. Time for action. Are you a man? Are you a bag of sand?
Agreed: Nuclear action will take place.
So now the authors are free to cut right to the core issue and discuss in the most sanitized words possible the fact that people will die. Perhaps many people. Perhaps even millions. Which is a shame. To be sure.
But, fear not. Most of the dead will be ‘over there.’ As in not here. As in ‘my, isn’t that horrible. Too bad they forced us to do that to them.’ As in, ‘if these poor people did not want to die, why didn’t they do something about it!’
The bottom line is that hundreds of thousands of people will die within days of a U.S. attack on North Korea and millions more could perish in the war that will inevitably follow. President Trump owes it to our allies in the region and our troops on the ground to adopt a smarter, more cautious approach.
Which is not to say the US should not make a ‘preemptive’ strike. It is to say the leader should be vigilant as to the effect such a move might have on US business partners throughout the world. He does not owe anything to the millions who could actually do all the perishing. We have agreed: Such deaths are inevitable.
Wikipedia: In nuclear strategy, a first strike is a preemptive surprise attack employing overwhelming force. … The preferred methodology is to attack the opponent’s strategic nuclear weapon facilities (missile silos, submarine bases, bomber airfields), command and control sites, and storage depots first.
FP again:
Even now, casualties could still be drastically reduced by a crash resilience program. This should involve clearing out and hardening with jacks, props, and steel beams the basements of buildings of all sizes; promptly stocking necessities in the 3,257 official shelters and sign-posting them more visibly; and, of course, evacuating as many as possible beforehand (most of the 20 million or so at risk would be quite safe even just 20 miles further to the south). The United States, for its part, should consider adding vigorous counterbattery attacks to any airstrike on North Korea.
And again, the argument is presented as though actually discussing whether the US has any moral responsibility to assist the millions of people in their quest to stay alive should the US take these actions.
Agreed: The US should sell more military equipment to South Korea so that they might better protect themselves in the aftermath of the inevitable attack of North Korea by the US.
Moving forward, we should support and empower the savvy U.S. foreign service officers and civil servants who are working to strangle the Kim regime’s lifelines of money, oil, and contraband.
Well, yes, but could it not be argued that many of those so strangled might be, you know, actual people?
Interesting thought. So in the end we have been presented with not one but two choices, really. To bomb innocent people or to starve them to death.
That is the democratic way! Two choices are always better than one!
But wait! We are human beings! We are not animals. In truth, we have no choice but to pick the more ‘humane’ alternative. Even the UN has agreed. The entire world has agreed. We have to do something and we could simply not bear witness to something as utterly inhumane as forced starvation of an innocent people.
Agreed: Bombing is most certainly preferable to death by starvation.
But, then again, what do ‘ordinary people’ know about mass, premeditated starvation. What do ‘ordinary people’ know about mass, premeditated starvation perpetrated by one regime, in one country after another, for decades and decades?
We can certainly be preemptively sorry for the death and destruction -whether by bombing or starvation- that has been and will be rained down upon millions of innocent people in the world, but Billy’s math marks are in the toilet and we need a certain level of calm if the stock market is to maintain its current levels and gosh if those darn drugs don’t work nearly as well as the used to.’
But clearly we have shown that our hands are not tied. We are making real choices. Indeed we are making humane choices. Indeed we have devoted an enormous amount of time thinking about what is best for the innocent people of Korea. And elsewhere.
Agreed: Nuclear war is not so bad after all.
Or, “Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you.”
Agreed: What about those Oprah for President tweets! Wow. Now that is a story with legs!
January 30, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | United States |
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In a speech at Stanford this month, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared that America intends to keep military troops in Syria indefinitely, in pursuit of the US’s “key end states for Syria,” including “post-Assad leadership,” the marginalization of Iran and the elimination of “weapons of mass destruction” that the US claims Syria has.
Occupying a country without the permission of the host government, as America is doing in Syria, contravenes international law. Nor does the US have a legal right to pursue regime change in Syria. Yet multiple media outlets have praised Tillerson’s remarks.
Newsweek (1/19/18) ran an article from the Atlantic Council’s Frederic Hof that called Tillerson’s speech “a major improvement in the American approach to the crisis in Syria.” The piece concluded that “what Mr. Tillerson has articulated is more than good enough as a starting point for a policy reflecting American values and upholding American interests.”
The Washington Post editorial board (1/22/18) also endorsed American violation of international law, writing that
Tillerson bluntly recognized a truth that both President Trump and President Barack Obama attempted to dodge: that “it is crucial to our national defense to maintain a military and diplomatic presence in Syria, to help bring an end to that conflict, and assist the Syrian people . . . to achieve a new political future.”
The same paper’s Jennifer Rubin (1/23/18) wrote:
Belatedly, Tillerson has recognized (as critics of both Trump and President Barack Obama have long argued) that we do have a national interest in Syria, cannot tolerate the indefinite presence of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and need to recognize that if we mean to check Iranian aggression, we will need to maintain a presence in Syria.
In Rubin’s conception, Iran’s presence in Syria—at the request of the recognized government—is “aggression,” whereas America’s is apparently legitimate.
The Atlantic (1/18/18) published a piece by Kori Schake, a self-identified supporter of “regime change [and] long-term military commitments.” Schake called Tillerson’s speech
both sensible and fanciful. It was sensible in that it gave a history of Syria’s grisly war, stated clearly America’s interest in continued involvement even as ISIS is defeated, and outlined policies consistent with those interests. It was fanciful in that the policies outlined would require a much greater measure of American involvement than has been in evidence by this administration—or were committed in yesterday’s speech—to succeed.
For Schake, the problem isn’t that the goal of America’s Syria policy is to illegally occupy a country and overthrow its government, while ratcheting up already dangerously high levels of hostility towards Iran and Russia. It’s that that the Trump administration isn’t doing enough to achieve this.
Meanwhile, accounts of Tillerson’s speech on CNN (1/18/18) and Buzzfeed (1/18/18) opt not to make any reference to the absence of a legal basis for what he describes. One of the few allusions of any kind to international law was a throwaway line in an AP report (1/24/18): “The Islamic State’s retreat also has forced the US to stretch thinner its legal rationale for operating in Syria.” What that rationale might consist of was not explained.
The Best Way to End War Is More War
Tillerson is proposing a prolongation and escalation of the war in Syria. The Syrian government will not passively allow itself to be removed by the US military, and neither will Syria’s allies from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. So in practice, Tillerson’s policy means a wider, more dangerous conflict.
Yet the Newsweek piece (1/19/18) accepts that the plan is aimed at creating “conditions suitable for the return of refugees and internally displaced persons to their homes”—the opposite of what war produces.
Not only are media outlets failing to address the violence implicit in Tillerson’s policy, they are claiming the opposite and treating it as a plan for peace in Syria. These articles do not explain how a US-led regime change war will achieve that, instead of the years of war and slave markets such policies brought to Libya, or the half million to a million civilians killed in Iraq.
These publications take for granted that the US has a right to decide who governs Syria. For example, an Atlantic article by Paul McLeary (1/18/18) characterizes the US plan to maintain an occupying force in Syria and compel the ouster of its government as “nation-building,” though “nation-destroying” is probably more apt.
The Washington Post (1/22/18), similarly, echoes Tillerson’s claim that if the US were to “abandon” Syria, it would be “repeat[ing] the mistake the United States made in Iraq,” when “a premature departure . . . allowed Al Qaeda in Iraq to survive and eventually morph into ISIS.” The Post missed the possibility that the US’s “mistake” in Iraq was invading in the first place, one consequence of which was the birth of both Al Qaeda in Iraq and ISIS.
The paper also claims:
Critics predictably charge that Mr. Trump is launching another “endless war” in Syria. In fact, the administration has simply recognized reality: The United States cannot prevent a resurgence of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, prevent Iran from building bases across Syria, or end a civil war that has sent millions of refugees toward Europe without maintaining control over forces and territory inside the country.
The editors go on to write that the Trump administration “has rightly absorbed the lesson that [America’s] way out [of Syria] starts with a serious and sustainable US commitment.”
In other words, the best way for the US to get out of Syria is to stay in Syria, and the best way to end the war in Syria is more war in Syria.
January 30, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | Jennifer Rubin, Syria, United States, Washington Post |
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The day before the Foreign Ministers’ meeting on Security and Stability in Vancouver on January 16, 2018, a forum was held at the University of British Columbia’s Institute of Asian Research entitled “Getting North Korea Right: Canadian Options and Roles”. This was a publicly held event with the “expert” “talking heads” of think-tanks. The moderator was an Asian International Relations expert, Dr. Paul Evans, who is now the head of the Institute of Asian Research.
The five speakers were Eric Walsh: Canadian Ambassador to the Republic of South Korea, Scott Snyder: Senior Fellow and Director of the Program on U.S.-Korea Policy, and New York Council of Foreign Relations, Kyung-Ae Park: Korea Foundation Chair, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs Director, and Canada-DPRK Knowledge Partnership Program, Brian Job: Professor of Political Science, UBC, Brian Gold: Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta. All panel participants were to attend the following days’ Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on North Korea.
The events’ speakers discussed Canada’s role in mediating the “International Community’s” response to North Korea through sanctions, non-proliferation and diplomacy. The stated goal of the pre-meeting was to have public discourse on the crisis in North Korea, a day in advance of the major international diplomatic event being held in Vancouver. The actual purpose of the pre-meeting was to soft sell the major military role that Canada plans to play in open sea interdiction to a Canadian audience on tightening sanctions on North Korea. This soft sell was necessary to back the hard sell for military action being made by Chrystia Freeland to 20 foreign ministers the following day.
Canadians mostly consider themselves non-militaristic, but as intelligence and military officials know around the world, the Canadian Navy are experts at interdictions at sea and are more preferred in interdiction than the U.S. Navy. Canada has had much experience perfecting these capabilities in interdictions off the coast of Africa, as well and in the Persian Gulf during the two Gulf Wars.
Further, what most Canadians and perhaps the general population in the West do not know, is that Canada is an important partner in the NATO/NORAD and UN command and intelligence structures and does most of the top military coordination in exercises and operations between the nations of NATO currently exercising on the border with Russia, and especially in the Ukraine. Most officers in the Canadian military are trained in a comprehensive way that allows them to operate in an integrated manner with US, UK, NATO, and U.N. forces around the globe. Throughout all U.S. global military actions, whether in the Gulf and Afghan wars, or currently all over the world, Canada’s military and military intelligence, considered the best in the world, has worked hand in hand with the U.S. military in special operations and counter intelligence.
Of the five speakers, the presentation by Scott A. Snyder of the NY Council on Foreign Relations was the most revealing of the actual intentions of the following days’ conference organizers. Snyder used the concept of a rheostat to describe the situation. He said, China was holding the rheostat over North Korea, that the U.S. was holding the rheostat over China, and that the “International Community” was holding the rheostat over the U.S. The significance of this is the acknowledgement that pressure on the U.S. is coming from the “collective” global community of extra-governmental, international, and non-national institutions and structures, including NGO’s, civil society, and the international financial community. Canada, as the host nation for this Foreign Minister’s meeting, is leading the “International Community”, which means that Canada is one of the leading countries holding the rheostat over the U.S.
It should be noted that the New York Council on Foreign Relations, where Snyder is a senior fellow, is an outgrowth of the British Liberal Imperialist Fabian Society. Its core thinkers over the last century, especially since WWII, created the unipolar doctrine of the “International Community” which Snyder references. This “International Community” does not include, at its core, Asia, Africa, Latin America, Russia, now Turkey, and possibly France, and India; that is most of the world. In other words, the “International Community” that Scott Snyder references is not international; nor are the Colour Revolutions, the illegal invasions, and the sanctions that are being carried out in the name of the “International Community” International.
These actions are hybrid warfare designed to pressure or break apart countries from within, who may have the potential of working within the new “multipolar” world framework being promoted by Russia and China. This “multipolar” framework is based on the New Paradigm, which is being introduced to the world economically by China via the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI.)
Snyder, in his presentation, said he expected pressure to be placed on North Korea and suggested it be done as a “nut cracker” with the intention to split North Korea internally, especially its elite, in order to open the door for civil society groups (NGO’s, churches etc.) to come in under the guise of humanitarian assistance, and foment internal dissent, hand in hand with the brutal blockade and interdiction being organized by Chrystia Freeland at the Korean Security Conference the following day. Snyder also further elaborated on the need for “maximizing the thresholds of pressure” to bring North Korea to diplomacy, as a “calibrated scalpel, not a blunt instrument like a hammer.”
At the pre-conference meeting, Brian Gold responded to a question about China and Russia not being invited to the Vancouver Summit. He stated that “China and Russia are irrelevant” to the situation, at which Dr. Paul Evans suggested that he should get a job with the Canadian government. [Editor’s Note: The claim that China and Russia had not been invited is itself an obfuscation: both countries condemned the conference as harmful and officially refused the invitation to attend a post-conference meeting on the evening of January 16, as reported by RT here.]
Brian Job said this is a “convening opportunity” for Canada, and that it involves “delicate interdiction.” That is, Canada will proceed “delicately” as a perceived neutral power backed up by the “International Community” to interdict and board ships with cargo for North Korea. Would Canada do so to Chinese or Russian vessels? Would Canada’s involvement in interdiction be perceived as “neutral” interdiction? Canada’s Privy Council and shadowy neo-cons like Chrystia Freeland certainly hope so. But that is not the reality from China and Russia’s perspective, nor was this accepted by the audience attending the pre-meeting.
UBC Professor, Kyung-Ae Park, from South Korea, said that the U.S./North Korea relationship is none of China’s business. Park is head of a South/North Korean educational exchange program operating out of Canada. She had been scheduled to be part of a “civil society” activation meeting with Chrystia Freeland in downtown Vancouver after the pre-conference meeting. How do “civil society” activists penetrate a country like North Korea? Precisely through the well-practiced method of Colour Revolutions, enacted already several times over by the “International Community”. Snyder referenced Egypt, Syria, Georgia, Ukraine, former Yugoslavia as just a few examples.
Many other Colour Revolutions, all of which have been funded by George Soros’ Open Society and Tides Foundations, have been tried and failed. A recent example of this is in Iran. George Soros, a very close friend of Chrystia Freeland, is a Hungarian Jew who worked for the Nazi’s during WWII helping to confiscate his own people’s property. In an interview on 60 Minutes in 1998, Soros openly admits that this was the best time of his life. Chrystia Freeland was commissioned to write George Soros’ biography before running for public office under the Liberal Party. Freeland is also known in Canadian government circles as being the Minister of Everything.
It should be noted that many on the panel spoke of creating the “coalition of the willing” to deal with North Korea. This is the exact same operational language that was used to manipulate the people of the Western world under Bush to agree to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Are we really supposed to fall for this again?
Following the speakers’ presentations, questions were allowed from the audience. The first three questions were technical questions with no substance and were under the general spell of professional decorum. A Director for the Society for the New Humanist Paradigm (SNHP), which represents the New Paradigm in Canada, asked the fourth question.
In that question, the Moon-Putin plan was described for the audience. This plan is the exact opposite of what the panel discussion described was being planned for the next days’ talks at the Foreign Minister’s meeting. The Moon-Putin plan was announced last September at the Vladivostok Eastern Economic Forum. This is a plan agreed to by Russia and South Korea. It is a plan to bring South and North Korea together through physical infrastructure and trade mechanisms, involving the neighbouring countries of Russia and China.
Bridges of cooperation linking South Korea to Russia via North Korea: gas, railroads, ports, electricity, a northern sea route, shipbuilding, jobs, agriculture, and fisheries. Siberian oil and gas pipelines would be extended to Korea, both North and South, as well as to Japan. Both Koreas would be linked up with the vast rail networks of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, including high-speed rail, and the Eurasian Economic Union, which includes the Trans-Siberian Railway. According to Gavan McCormack, “North Korea would accept the security guarantee of the five (Japan included), refrain from any further nuclear or missile testing, shelve (‘freeze’) its existing programs and gain its longed for ‘normalization’ in the form of incorporation in regional groupings, the lifting of sanctions and normalized relations with its neighbour states, without surrender.”
The panel of speakers were also reminded that North Korea has been sanctioned since 1948 and has been suffering ever since at the behest of an illegal UN resolution, 195, and that the Belt and Road and the Moon-Putin plan were for building up their physical economy. As the SNHP director pointed out, in this context, sanctions were the exact opposite. He also pointed out that the January 16 meeting in Vancouver, along with Canada’s new Hard Power Foreign Policy initiatives (announced last year with record military spending for Canada) under Chrystia Freeland, was unprecedented in the history of Canada’s traditional peacekeeping role, and there is no confidence that Canada will play a positive role in this situation, or that Canada is a neutral Middle Power any longer given this shift.
Further, that Canadians deserve to have a national dialogue considering the consequences of such actions. He then went on to address Brian Gold directly, stating that Russia and China, considering the positive resolutions (Sunshine Policy, Olympics, etc.) made with South and North Korea over the last few weeks, were relevant and their absence from these meetings is a mistake. Finally, the SNHP representative asked, “When will Canada wake up to the fact that Freeland is a neo-con war-mongerer?” and “… if the Moon-Putin plan has already been discussed and such positive results are on the horizon, why the Foreign Ministers meeting in Vancouver was taking place at all?”
While the audience clapped, the panel was stunned. Four speakers responded to the intervention with a feeble attempt to change the subject. Most of the questions from the audience that followed the intervention were not questions but denunciations of the war policy that Canada was supporting. After each denunciation there was applause. In response to this, the panel started to back pedal and went limp. Even Brian Gold had to back pedal on Russia and China being irrelevant, and, as he was commenting, had to admit that he was making a case for why Russia and China should have been invited to the Foreign Minister’s meeting even as he was trying to defend his original statement. Subsequently, Brian Gold wrote an article printed in The Hill Times on January 22, 2018.
This article, highlighting Canada’s role as a ‘Middle Power’, serves to deflect attention from the neo-conservative and far-right views of the government of Canada under Chrystia Freeland, especially towards both Russia and China. Contrary to Gold’s article, it is in fact Chrystia Freeland, a frequent contributor to the NY CFR’s policy publication Foreign Affairs, the promoters of the ‘unipolar’ world doctrine, that did not want China and Russia present at the Foreign Minister’s meeting. President Trump has been at war with the likes of the CFR and the neo-liberal/neo-conservative mainstream media outlets that promote their unipolar worldview since before he took office and has consistently promised the American people better relations with Russia and a closer working relationship with China. In recent bold statements, however, Secretary Mattis outlines clearly that Russia and China are the main economic threat to the unipolar world in the National Defense Strategy 2018 policy paper.
Another SNHP Director who attended raised the issue of the THAAD missiles, and asked the panelists how they would not have been seen by North and South Korea as a threat? Snyder responded that the THAAD missiles were for defense and a non-issue, but he did acknowledge that South Korea was against the installation from the beginning. What Snyder should have acknowledged was that massive opposition by South Koreans of the THAAD missile deployment had forced the ouster of President Park Geun-hye in 2017.
What is important to note was the dearth of support from the audience for what the panelists were trying to soft peddal. The reaction by the audience, both in private to the SNHP Directors and following open denunciations to the panel, clearly shows that Canadians are not accepting the pablum they are being fed any more.
Cameron Pike studied Communications and Philosophy at the University of Winnipeg, and has worked in a variety of corporate fields in management before becoming Director at the Society for the New Humanist Paradigm, a Not-For-Profit, in Vancouver, Canada.
January 28, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Canada, Chrystia Freeland, North Korea, United States |
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