By Caitlin Johnstone
November 11, 2022:
Information Clearing House
-- The commander of the
US nuclear arsenal has stated unequivocally that
the war in Ukraine is just a warmup exercise for
a much larger conflict that’s already in the
mail.
Antiwar’s
Dave DeCamp reports:
The commander that oversees US nuclear
forces delivered an ominous warning at a
naval conference last week by calling the
war in Ukraine a “warmup” for the “big one”
that is to come.
“This Ukraine crisis that we’re in right
now, this is just the warmup,” said Navy
Adm. Charles Richard, the commander of US
Strategic command. “The big one is coming.
And it isn’t going to be very long before
we’re going to get tested in ways that we
haven’t been tested [in] a long time.”
Richard’s warning came after the US
released its new Nuclear Posture Review
(NPR), which
reaffirms that the US doctrine allows for
the first use of nuclear weapons. The
review says that the purpose of the US
nuclear arsenal is to “deter strategic
attacks, assure allies and partners, and
achieve US objectives if deterrence fails.”
Not only does Richard appear to believe that
a hot war between major world powers is a
foregone conclusion, he has
also previously stated that a nuclear war
with Russia or China is now “a very real
possibility.”
Again, this is not some armchair warrior
opining from his desk at a corporate newspaper
or DC think tank, this is the head of STRATCOM.
Richard would be personally overseeing the very
warfare he is talking about.
What I find most striking about remarks like
these is how passive they always make it sound.
Richard talks about “The Big One” like other
people
talk about California earthquakes, as though
a hot war with China would be some kind of
natural disaster that just happened out of
nowhere.
This type of rhetoric is becoming more and
more common. Describing an Atomic Age world war
as something that would happen to
the US empire, rather than the direct result of
concrete A-or-B decisions made by
the empire, is
becoming its own genre of foreign policy
punditry.
This passive, oopsy-poopsy narrative overlay
that’s placed atop the US empire’s militarism is
nothing new. Back in 2017
Fair.org’s Adam Johnson documented the way
western media are always describing the United
States as “stumbling” into wars and getting
“sucked in” to military interventions, like a
cheating spouse making up bad excuses after
getting caught:
This framing serves to flatter two
sensibilities: one right and one vaguely
left. It satisfies the right-wing
nationalist idea that America only goes to
war because it’s compelled to by forces
outside of its own control; the reluctant
warrior, the gentle giant who will only
attack when provoked to do so. But it also
plays to a nominally liberal, hipster notion
that the US military is actually incompetent
and boobish, and is generally bad at
war-making.
This is expressed most clearly in the
idea that the US is “drawn into” war despite
its otherwise unwarlike intentions. “Will US
Be Drawn Further Into Syrian Civil War?”
asked Fox News (4/7/17).
“How America Could Stumble Into War With
Iran,” disclosed The Atlantic (2/9/17),
“What It Would Take to Pull the US Into a
War in Asia,” speculated Quartz (4/29/17).
“Trump could easily get us sucked into
Afghanistan again,” Slate predicted (5/11/17).
The US is “stumbling into a wider war” in
Syria, the New York Times editorial
board (5/2/15)
warned. “A Flexing Contest in Syria May Trap
the US in an Endless Conflict,” Vice News (6/19/17)
added.
So let’s get real clear about this here and
now: if there is a hot war between the US and a
major power, it will not be because that war was
“stumbled into”. It will not be like an
earthquake or other natural disaster. It will
not be something that happens to or is inflicted
upon the US empire while it just passively
stands there in Bambi-eyed innocence.
It will be the result of specific choices
made by the managers of empire. It will be the
result of the US choosing escalation over
de-escalation, brinkmanship over detente — not
just once but over and over again, while
declining off-ramp after off-ramp. It will be
the result of real material decisions made by
real material people who live in real material
houses while collecting real material paychecks
to make the choices they are making.
Another thing that strikes me about comments
like those made by Charles Richard is how
freakish and insane it is that everyone doesn’t
respond to them with, “Okay, well, then let’s
change all of the things we are doing, because
that’s the worst thing that can possibly
happen.”
And make no mistake: that absolutely is an
option. The option to turn away from the
collision course with potentially the most
horrific war of all time is available right now,
and it will remain available for some time into
the future. This isn’t 1939 when war is already
upon us; if anything it’s more like the early
20th century precursors to World War I and all
the stupid aggressions and entanglements which
ultimately gave rise to both world wars.
One of the many ways our cultural fascination
with World War II has made us stupid and crazy
is that it has caused us to forget that it was
the worst single event in human history. Even if
a hot war with Russia and/or China didn’t go
nuclear, it would still unleash unspeakable
horrors upon this Earth which would reverberate
throughout our collective consciousness for
generations.
That horror should be turned away from. And
the time to start turning is now.
Caitlin's articles are entirely
reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece
please consider sharing it around, liking her on
Facebook, following her antics
on
Twitter, checking out her
podcast, throwing some money
into her hat on
Patreon or
Paypal, or buying her book
Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com
Views expressed in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Reader financed- No
Advertising - No Government Grants -
No Algorithm - This
Is Independent
