We have been moved yet another step closer
to planetary destruction.
By Brian Cloughley
May 06, 2021 "Information
Clearing House" - - "Strategic
Culture Foundation"
- On April 29 Tom Engelhardt, a
respected commentator on world affairs, published a
piece examining America’s everlasting wars and
concluded “The question that Americans seldom even
think to ask is this: What if the U.S. were to begin
to dismantle its empire of bases,
repurpose so many of those militarized taxpayer
dollars to our domestic needs, abandon this
country’s focus on permanent war, and forsake the
Pentagon as our holy church? What if, even briefly,
the wars, conflicts, plots, killings, drone
assassinations, all of it stopped? What would our
world actually be like if you simply declared peace
and came home?”
As he well knows, the answer is that the world
would be a better, safer and much more attractive
place in which to live. But, as he laments, there
seems to be little chance of that happening, because
there will be no change of mind or policy on the
part of the Military-Industrial Complex that spreads
its wings from Washington to the furthest part of
the United States, the country that could lead the
world in pursuit of peace.
We are all concerned about climate change because
it is having such an adverse impact on people in so
many countries and is likely to continue to be the
greatest threat to global stability — apart from the
other change that is firmly under control of the
movers and shakers in Washington’s corridors of
power.
The ultimate threat to our very existence is that
of nuclear war, and instead of trying to bend their
undoubtedly gifted minds to devising means to reduce
that menace, the Pentagon’s planners and pushers,
aided to the hilt by politicians and others with
financial interests in weapons’ production, are
intent on extending America’s nuclear clout around
the world and into space.
The U.S. military’s Strategic Command (STRATCOM)
describes itself as a “global warfighting
combatant command” which “delivers a dominant
strategic force and innovative team to maintain our
Nation’s enduring strength, prevent and prevail in
great power conflict, and grow the intellectual
capital to forge 21st century strategic deterrence.”
Given this Mission, STRATCOM considers itself to be
the “ultimate guarantor of national and allied
security” and is ready at a moment’s notice to
deliver a “decisive response” which means it is
ready to destroy the world with nuclear weapons.
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The head of this organisation, Admiral Charles
Richard, addressed the Senate Armed Forces Committee
on April 20 and among other things
declared that “While China’s nuclear stockpile
is currently smaller (but undergoing an
unprecedented expansion) than those fielded by
Russia and the United States, the size of a nation’s
weapons stockpile is a crude measure of its overall
strategic capability.” No doubt this caused as much
mirth in Beijing as in many other world capitals,
but the fact remains that he did not publicly state
the quantities of weapons held by China and the U.S.
— most likely because the disparity is so palpable
as to be ludicrous.
According to the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute (whose information can be
trusted) the U.S. has a
total of 5,800 nuclear weapons, of which 1,750
are deployed. These are, therefore, ready for
instant use, at a moment’s notice. (The others are
“stored or reserve warheads and retired warheads
awaiting dismantlement.”)
On the other hand, China has 320 nuclear weapons
and, as SIPRI
notes, “is in the middle of a significant
modernization of its nuclear arsenal. It is
developing a so-called nuclear triad for the first
time, made up of new land- and sea-based missiles
and nuclear-capable aircraft.”
Admiral Richard, the director of Washington’s
long-existing nuclear triad,
considers China’s development of a nuclear force
to be unwarranted and deplorable. He announced to
the Committee that “China is rapidly improving its
strategic nuclear capability and capacity, with
rapid growth in road mobile production, doubling the
numbers of launchers in some ICBM brigades,
deployment of solid fuel intercontinental ballistic
missile (ICBM) silos on a potentially large-scale,
an added air leg, and are well ahead of
the pace necessary to double their nuclear stockpile
by the end of the decade.” [Emphasis
added.]
If its nuclear holding is doubled in the next ten
years this will mean that China may then have one
third as many nuclear weapons as the United States.
Furthermore, Admiral Richard protested, all this is
taking place “behind a complete lack of
transparency” which is regarded as reprehensible and
indeed unacceptable. It doesn’t matter that the
United States, as
stated by SIPRI, has “ended the practice of
publicly disclosing the size of the U.S. stockpile”,
but it is expected that all other nations should be
absolutely transparent about their nuclear
programmes. (Like Israel, perhaps?)
There is, however, one aspect of nuclear policy
on which Washington is transparent, and this was
made clear when President Biden met with Japanese
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga in the White House on
April 16. Their joint
statement was titled U.S.-Japan Global
Partnership for a New Era and is to date the
most significant indication that Biden has
decisively endorsed Washington’s long-standing
readiness to engage in nuclear war. This chilling
document gives no indication that there can ever be
possibility of compromise with China on any matter
and is confrontational to the ultimate degree
concerning what both Biden and Suga know very well
is a cornerstone of China’s international policy :
its assertion of sovereignty over islands in the
South China Sea.
The position of the U.S. in regard to the South
China Sea is repeatedly stated by Washington to be
based on international law, and the Biden-Suga
pronouncement of confrontation with China emphasises
agreement to “promote shared norms in the maritime
domain, including freedom of navigation and
overflight, as enshrined in the UN Convention on the
Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)” This might be worth heeding
were it not for the fact that the United States of
America has refused to ratify UNCLOS,
along with such states as Iran, Israel, Syria,
North Korea and Libya. Biden is ordering other
nations to conduct their maritime affairs in
accordance with an important international accord
that Washington has rejected.
It would be an absurd and laughable situation
were it not for the fact that Biden has stated he
will commit the U.S. to war in support of Japan, and
that by definition, UNCLOS could be used as
justification for that war. Biden
declared his “ironclad support for U.S./Japanese
Alliance, and for our shared security” and
specifically that Washington and Tokyo are
“committed to working together to take on the
challenges from China and issues like the East China
Sea, the South China Sea, as well as North Korea.”
The crunch came in the joint statement’s
notification of Washington’s “unwavering support for
Japan’s defence under the U.S.-Japan Treaty of
Mutual Cooperation and Security, using its full
range of capabilities, including nuclear.” The
throwaway words are “including nuclear.”
The ultimate sword has been brandished. On April
16 the U.S. president issued a plain unveiled threat
to use nuclear weapons against China and four days
later the head of Strategic Command
insisted to the Senate that it must approve the
95 billion dollar expenditure on the new “Ground
Based Strategic Deterrent” to replace the hundreds
of Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic
Missiles that are on permanent alert to destroy
cities in Russia and China.
It was not surprising to read a (semi-official)
editorial in China’s Global Times
observing that Washington and Tokyo “are
attempting to make confrontation the main theme of
the entire region.” This certainly seems to be the
policy, and Washington’s emphasis on nuclear weapons
has heated up the confrontation climate. We have
been moved yet another step closer to planetary
destruction.
Brian Cloughley: British and Australian
armies’ veteran, former deputy head of the UN
military mission in Kashmir and Australian defense
attaché in Pakistan
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