Tag: nuclear war

Nuclear Risks on the Rise

“Nuclear risks are on the rise. The chance of nuclear weapons use [is] higher than at any time in my—and many others in this room’s—lifetime,” said Naomi Zoka at a meeting this week of the Preparatory Committee for the Eleventh Nuclear Non-Proliferation Review Conference.

“The path to a world without nuclear weapons lies through the TPNW [Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons],” said Zoka delivering to diplomats from around the world the statement of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

“Nuclear-armed states are launching threats faster than they are test-launching delivery systems, resulting in a less stable, less secure and more dangerous world,” said Zoka at the meeting June 23rd in Geneva, Switzerland. She is a member of Belgium’s Pax Christi Flanders.

“With Russia’s stationing of weapons in Belarus, and the continued U.S. deployment of [nuclear] weapons in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Türkiye, the NPT [Nuclear Anti-Proliferation Treaty] is failing to meet its first principles,” the ICAN statement continued.

The TPNW was adopted in 2017 by the UN General Assembly with 122 nations in favor. It bans the development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. Some 163 nations have now either formally signed or ratified the TPNW.

“Let’s eliminate these weapons before they eliminate us,” Secretary-General Guterres has said of the TPNW, a treaty “toward our shared goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.”

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Nuclear War Is Imminent

The world is headed toward nuclear war.  The horrific nightmare of global destruction that has haunted humanity ever since Hiroshima and Nagasaki is nearly upon us. For decades, peace activists and nuclear experts have warned about the “growing danger of nuclear war.” The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has moved the hands of their Doomsday Clock all the way to 90 seconds! How much closer can we get? Are these dire warnings being dismissed like the man with the sign shouting “The End Is Near?”

The original nuclear powers, the U.S., Russia, China, France and the UK – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – never followed the commitment they made when they signed and ratified the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which required them to “begin good-faith negotiations for the total elimination of nuclear weapons.” Instead they have poured billions of dollars into “modernizing” nuclear weapons. In the meantime, four more countries have joined the nuclear club – India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.

After the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact military alliance of the Soviet Union, there was an opportunity for a broad peace in Europe. NATO, an anti-Soviet military alliance led by the U.S., should have disbanded at that point. Instead, it pursued an aggressive policy against a weakened Russia, surrounding it with hostile military forces, including nuclear weapons.

In 2002, President George W. Bush unilaterally removed the U.S. from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, while placing a U.S. missile base in Romania. In 2019, President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty that had lowered nuclear tensions in Europe, while placing another U.S. missile base in Poland. What were the Russians to think?  The U.S. is clearly seeking a dominant nuclear position.

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NATO SUMMIT: Alliance’s Endgame Appears to Be Nuclear War

The world is at its most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Back then, however, the fear of total destruction consumed the public; today, few people seem even to be aware of this possibility.

It is easily imaginable that nuclear war could break out between Russia (and perhaps China) and the West, yet politicians continue to escalate tensions, place hundreds of thousands of troops at “high readiness,” and attack military targets inside Russia, even while ordinary citizens blithely go on with their lives.

The situation is without parallel in history.

Consider the following facts. A hostile military alliance, now including even Sweden and Finland, is at the very borders of Russia. How are Russian leaders — whose country was almost destroyed by Western invasion twice in the 20th century — supposed to react to this? How would Washington react if Mexico or Canada belonged to an enormous, expansionist, and highly belligerent anti-U.S. military alliance? 

As if expanding NATO to include Eastern Europe wasn’t provocative enough, Washington began to send billions of dollars’ worth of military aid to Ukraine in 2014, to “improve interoperability with NATO,” in the words of the Defense Department.

Why this Western involvement in Ukraine, which, as Barack Obama said while president, is “a core Russian interest but not an American one?”

One reason was given by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in a recent moment of startling televised candor: Ukraine is “sitting on $10 to $12 trillion of critical minerals… I don’t want to give that money and those assets to Putin to share with China.” 

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Former UN Weapons Inspector Warns About Looming Threat of Nuclear War

“You will die,” Scott Ritter warned Americans on Wednesday morning in a press conference hosted by the Schiller Institute. “The danger is real,” he said, “and Amercians should be scared.”

Ritter noted that, as the war in Ukraine escalates and the U.S. is providing weapons to directly attack Russia, “Anatoly Antonov, the top Russian nuclear weapon expert and lead negotiator on past nuclear treaties with the U.S., is sitting in the Kremlin and his phone is not ringing. We are not even attempting at diplomacy.”

Ritter was joined by Helga Zepp-LaRouche and former intelligence professionals Lawrence Wilkerson and former Republican state senator and Vietnam veteran Richard Black. They urged the people of the United States and the world to awaken to the danger of mutually assured destruction. 

Their dire warning comes as tensions escalate to a point reminiscent of, or even exceeding, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis during the first Cold War period, when the world came within a heartbeat of nuclear war breaking out.

The Western media are simply not covering developments. Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector who exposed the deceit surrounding the WMD and Iraq, urged Americans to take the urgency and sense of danger to the polls in the next election to prevent World War III, and to pressure decision makers every step of the way. 

While the Russian nuclear doctrine is defensive, the American doctrine has been under pressure to miniaturize the nuclear capabilities into conventional use and to develop first strike capabilities in recent years. 

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Campaigners Decry ‘Dangerous Escalation’ as NATO Chief Floats Nuclear Deployment

Nuclear disarmament campaigners on Monday implored NATO and Russia to step back from the brink after the head of the Western military alliance said its members are considering deploying additional atomic weapons to counter Moscow and Beijing.

“This is the dangerous escalation inherent to the deterrence doctrine,” the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) wrote on social media, referring to the notion that the threat of catastrophic nuclear retaliation prevents nations from using atomic weaponry.

The U.S., which spent more on its atomic weapons arsenal than every other nuclear-armed nation combined last year, currently has nukes deployed in five NATO countries—Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Russia, meanwhile, recently deployed nuclear weapons to Belarus, which said earlier this month that it would join Moscow’s nuclear exercises.

ICAN said Monday that “it’s time for both to reverse course.”

“NATO countries hosting U.S. nuclear weapons should admit to their citizens they have weapons of mass destruction on their soil with no public say,” ICAN added. “But neither Belarus nor NATO allies should flaunt being prepared to indiscriminately kill millions of people.”

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Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Seek Justice

On June 8th, 2024, in Hiroshima, Japan, The International People’s Tribunal On The 1945 Atomic Bombings met with the goal of holding the United States accountable for the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This People’s Tribunal focuses on the Korean bomb victims, 100,000 of whom were forcibly taken from their homeland by the Japanese to work in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the war and were subsequently exposed to the A-bomb blasts.

The recent Tribunal gathering in Hiroshima consisted of legal scholars from Germany, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, discussing legal theories to hold the United States accountable for violating international law for the 1945 atomic bombings, and attempting to establish the illegality of current nuclear threats and nuclear weapon states.

The Tribunal and its Korean plaintiffs are also seeking an official apology from the United States to the Korean victims for the dropping of the two atomic bombs. First and second-generation victims of these bombings were present at the conference and gave powerful testimony as to the multigenerational effects from the bomb blasts.

The Tribunal itself will hold its opening gavel proceedings in New York City in May of 2026 to coincide with the United Nations meeting on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

Participants in the June 8th conference were given a tour of the Hiroshima Peace Park and the Hiroshima Peace Museum, which solemnly exhibits the horrific events of August 6th, 1945. Throughout the museum are displays of the burnt and tattered remnants of children’s clothing, charred bicycles, panoramas of the city after detonation, and graphic pictures of atomic bomb victims staggering toward the rivers of Hiroshima in a futile effort to extinguish their pain.

In a single white flash, some 70,000 souls were extinguished at 8:15 in the morning on that August day. Black Rain followed, pouring down on the alive and the barely alive radioactive water. Charred bodies covered the ground and filled the rivers.

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Nuclear War: Why we should be thinking about it now

Almost all of us living today have become conditioned to believe that nuclear war will not occur due to the concept of mutually assured destruction, or MAD.

MAD, put simply, is the guarantee that one country will not use nuclear weapons against another country due to immediate nuclear retaliation and the destruction of both. Not to mention the nuclear winter that would occur and the annihilation of the human population. But what if MAD is obsolete and is no longer protecting us from nuclear war? I believe that to be true, but what does that mean to you and me?

Reconsideration of the reliability of MAD is particularly important at this moment in time. With the current geopolitical circumstances, we’re at a threat level equal to or greater than the Cuban missile crisis. The two most obvious threats emanate from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and China’s intention to invade Taiwan. The situation is exacerbated by the provocation of the United States and its imperialistic and, frankly, arrogant foreign policy.

How have the factors changed that have made MAD obsolete? First, Russia and China have surpassed the Western world’s nuclear capabilities to such a degree that the United States and its NATO allies are no longer considered equals. With hypersonic missile capabilities that our enemies possess and we do not, we’re no longer able to “mutually assure” their destruction. A missile that can travel at speeds faster than 10,000 miles per hour is unstoppable. Our missile defense system is useless against hypersonic nuclear attack, and we’ve allowed our enemies to advance their missile defense system capabilities to well exceed what we possess.

Second, under the Clinton administration, the “fire on warning” protocol was changed. Prior to 1998, the U.S. nuclear response protocol was to fire on warning. The powers that be realized that it was no longer practical to fire on warning. The response took too long, and it put the world at risk over the likelihood that World War III might begin accidentally due to a false warning, which was occurring with some frequency. With the threat of hypersonic missiles, the fire on warning protocol is simply irrelevant. The time from launch to impact of a hypersonic missile launched from a Russian submarine targeting Washington is less than 30 seconds.

Third, the incompetence of our leadership and ineptitude of our military procurement program have created our extreme vulnerability. Generals who decide which weapon systems are funded leave the military and take high-paying positions with federal defense contractors. They essentially accept bribes from companies in exchange for purchasing their inferior products. The F-35 aircraft is a great example. Add to the broken procurement system the woke culture that’s being propagated and destroying our war-fighting capabilities.

With the Ukrainian debacle, Russia has been provoked to the point that Vladimir Putin has recently placed his nuclear forces on high alert. Putin has stated: “If someone decides to intervene in current events from the outside and creates unacceptable strategic threats for Russia, then they must know that our response, our retaliatory strikes, will be lightning fast, quick. We have the tools for this.”

The United States has been sending ever more threatening weaponry to Ukraine such as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, a precision rocket weapon. The Ukrainians have not only begun to fire these weapons at Russian targets, but also have been accused of firing artillery at the largest nuclear energy power plant in all of Europe, located in Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine. At what point does Russia act on Putin’s threat and go nuclear?

Russia has now completely allied with China. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan resulted in China instigating war games in the Taiwan Strait, and the political change within China, where power has been taken from the State Council and given to the Central Military Commission, is a clear move to a war footing.

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Retired US Army Officer: Scary How West Pushing World to Brink of Nuclear War

During a meeting with foreign press, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West against thoughtless conflict escalation, stressing that Moscow could repel NATO attempts to threaten its sovereignty both asymmetrically and directly.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with foreign journalists on June 5 within the framework of the 27th annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

Addressing the Ukraine conflict the Russian president noted that Western weapon deliveries to the Kiev regime, coupled with the approval to hit targets deep inside Russia, is fraught with severe escalation risks.

“How do you respond to this use of weapons and allowing them to attack and basically violate the sovereignty of Russia itself?” Earl Rasmussen, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel and international consultant told Sputnik. “If we look at these attacks, they’re not targeting military targets, or they’re targeting strategic targets. They’re targeting civilians, many of them, or strategic targets as well. It’s essentially, basically authorizing and supporting terrorism.”

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Are They TRYING to Start a Nuclear War?

The steady path toward World War III continues. U.S. and NATO support for Ukraine in the war with Russia has been one long failure, but that hasn’t stopped them from escalating the war with new weapons and tactics.

Russia has met the escalation with its own escalation every step of the way. At what point do rational leaders in the West (if there are any left) pause, consider that the war is lost in Ukraine, deescalate and seek a treaty to end the war?

There’s no sign of that yet. In fact, all of the signs point to further escalation, which is a sure path to nuclear war. What good has escalation accomplished?

The West supplied Ukraine with HIMARS precision-guided artillery, but that largely failed because the Russians quickly learned how to jam the GPS guidance systems, so the missiles went off course.

That doesn’t mean the Russians shoot down or jam every HIMARS rocket Ukraine launches. Some will always get through. But overall, their effectiveness has been limited compared with expectations.

The U.S. and NATO also supplied Ukraine with Abrams, Leopard and Challenger tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles that have been left burning on the battlefield. They also require intensive maintenance Ukraine can’t necessarily provide, and are often unsuited for the battlefield conditions in Ukraine. Many Ukrainian soldiers have actually expressed a preference for Russian-made equipment over NATO’s.

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Presidents Who Gamble With Nuclear Armageddon

The overriding job of any U.S. president is to keep the nation safe. In the nuclear age, that mainly means avoiding nuclear Armageddon. Joe Biden’s reckless and incompetent foreign policy is pushing us closer to annihilation. He joins a long and undistinguished list of presidents who have gambled with Armageddon, including his immediate predecessor and rival, Donald Trump.

Talk of nuclear war is currently everywhere. Leaders of NATO countries call for Russia’s defeat and even dismemberment, while telling us not to worry about Russia’s 6,000 nuclear warheads. Ukraine uses NATO-supplied missiles to knock out parts of Russia’s nuclear-attack early-warning system inside Russia. Russia, in the meantime, engages in nuclear drills near its border with Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg give the green light to Ukraine to use NATO weapons to hit Russian territory as an increasingly desperate and extremist Ukrainian regime sees fit.

These leaders neglect at our greatest peril the most basic lesson of the nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and Soviet Union in the Cuban Missile Crisis, as told by President John F. Kennedy, one of the few American presidents in the nuclear age to take our survival seriously. In the aftermath of the crisis, Kennedy told us, and his successors:

Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy – or of a collective death-wish for the world.

Yet this is exactly what Biden is doing today, carrying out a bankrupt and reckless policy.

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