White House proclaims 'new era' of nuclear weapons 'without digital constraints'

Lina Portman2 weeks ago

0 5 minutes read

In an interview with the British newspaper Every day Telegraph Published on Monday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made clear that increasing the number of deployed nuclear weapons, in response to both Russia and China, was the central topic of discussions at the summit of NATO defense ministers last week.

U.S. soldiers mount a refurbished nuclear warhead atop a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile. [AP Photo/Eric Draper]

“I won't go into operational details on how many nuclear warheads should be operational and which should be stockpiled, but we need to consult on these issues,” Stoltenberg said. “This is exactly what we do in NATO, for example in the meetings within NATO, of a nuclear planning group as we had in the meeting of defense ministers this this month. [last] week.”

At a White House briefing Monday ahead of Stoltenberg's planned visit for talks with Biden focused on the war against Russia in Ukraine, spokesman John Kirby reiterated his denial of Stoltenberg's statement when asked asked whether “the president had participated in consultations on deploying more nuclear weapons.” .”

In a follow-up question, Kirby was asked, “How can we [Stoltenberg’s statement] is it not perceived as a provocation or an escalation? He responded by saying, “NATO is a defensive alliance,” and since he said those magic words, his actions cannot by definition be “provocation” or “escalation.”

Stoltenberg's statements come ten days after Pranay Vaddi, senior director for arms control at the National Security Council, speaking to the Arms Control Association, proclaimed a “new era” for nuclear weapons in which the United States United States would deploy nuclear weapons “without numerical constraints”.

Condemning “national weakness,” Vaddi said, “we may reach a point in the coming years where an increase in numbers currently deployed will be necessary.” He continued: “We will have no choice…We are modernizing every step of our nuclear triad, updating our nuclear command, control and communications systems, and investing in our nuclear enterprise.”

The US media, in line with the official propaganda of the Biden administration, presented the semi-official decision of the Biden administration to abandon all limits on the deployment of nuclear weapons as a response to the unexpected actions of Russia and China.

It is not so. Rather, it is the culmination of a years-long plan to massively expand the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which U.S. think tanks in 2016 dubbed the “second nuclear age,” language that was echoed six years ago. later in the Biden administration's proclamation of a nuclear. “new era.”

In its editorial published online Monday afternoon, the Washington Post highlighted this impending nuclear escalation, drawing attention to a largely unreported speech by Vaddi. THE Job The editorial board's statement was published under the headline: “If you liked 'Dr. Strangelove, you will find the new arms race exciting.

Vaddi and the Job The editorial sought to present the possibility of a “breakout” from a new nuclear arms race as the product of Russian aggression in Ukraine and Chinese decisions to significantly increase the size of its own nuclear arsenal, although may it still be eclipsed by the destructive power of Russia and America. UNITED STATES.

Stoltenberg's comments after the NATO summit make it clear that nuclear escalation is not empty talk about “the years to come”, but refers to decisions that have already largely been finalized. As is usual in American politics, by the time the public learns that a decision is being “considered”, it has already been made, and all that is needed is an appropriate media message to announce it to the public .

In 2016, the Obama administration and the Republican-controlled Congress launched a bipartisan plan to spend billions of dollars to modernize every aspect of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, from its intercontinental ballistic missiles to its submarines. -missiles, including fighters capable of carrying nuclear bombs and missiles. missiles.

In this “second nuclear age,” one think tank writes, combatants would “consider how they might actually use a nuclear weapon, both early in a conflict and in a discriminatory manner.”

In the eight years since, it has become clear that the nuclear rearmament initiated under Obama, then intensified under Trump and Biden, involves systematic efforts by the United States to bring its nuclear weapons and nuclear capabilities ever closer. missile defense of their targets in Moscow and Beijing.

During this period, NATO built two missile bases in Eastern Europe, Poland and Romania, capable of shooting down Russian ballistic missiles in the event of a nuclear war, as well as theoretically capable of deploying missiles cruise ship with a nuclear warhead.

In 2019, the United States withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which limited its ability to push nuclear weapons to the borders of Russia and China. The United States has worked systematically to encircle China with missiles, facilitating the massive deployment of new long-range weapons in Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Stoltenberg's remarks underscore the extremely dangerous and reckless nature of the upcoming NATO summit in Washington, DC, which is expected to massively expand direct U.S. participation in the war against Russia. In his remarks in Washington after his arrival Monday, Stoltenberg suggested that the current period is analogous to the decisions of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to send American combat troops to Europe during World War I and of Franklin D. Roosevelt to send American troops to Europe and Europe. the Pacific during World War II:

President Wilson…wanted to keep the United States out of the “Great War.” But he eventually changed course, realizing that America could never be secure without a peaceful Europe. Just twenty years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt promised not to send American boys into yet another war in Europe and to maintain America's neutrality. But after Pearl Harbor, he decided otherwise. Thus, on two occasions, when Europe was at war, the United States chose isolationism. And twice, he realized that it didn't work. It was true then, and it is even more true today.

In light of recent developments, these statements are chilling. Last month, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Q. Brown told the New York Times that the NATO military alliance will “eventually” send a significant number of active NATO troops to Ukraine.

This was followed by French President Emmanuel Macron's announcement that he was seeking to form a “coalition” of NATO members to send troops to Ukraine, and by the United States' decision to allow Ukraine to use NATO weapons to strike inside Russia.

The implications of Stoltenberg's remarks, then, are that just as in World War I and World War II, when Democratic U.S. presidents sent hundreds of thousands of American troops to fight in Europe, a similar scenario is looming.

But unlike the previous two world wars, a full-scale war in Europe against Russia and in Asia against China would be waged against countries with significant nuclear arsenals of their own.

In this context, the Biden administration and NATO are making clear that they will do everything in their power to achieve their goals. In his remarks, Stoltenberg was blunt about U.S. goals in the Ukraine war:

Ensuring Ukraine’s victory…serves U.S. security interests. By allocating a small fraction of its defense budget, the United States is helping Ukraine destroy a significant portion of Russia's offensive combat capabilities, without endangering a single American soldier.

This tactic, however, has proven itself. Ukraine was bled dry and NATO, in the words of Senator Lindsey Graham, fought Russia “to the last Ukrainian.” Now, with Russian forces advancing on the front, preventing the collapse of the decade-long imperialist effort to turn Ukraine into a bastion against Russia requires a dramatic escalation of direct U.S. involvement. and NATO in the conflict.

By raising the prospect of direct U.S. and NATO involvement in the war, as well as the implicit threat of using nuclear weapons to achieve U.S. goals, the Biden administration is making clear that there is no limit to the number of lives, whether Ukrainian or Russian. , European or American – which world imperialism is ready to sacrifice to pursue its goals of world domination.

Lina Portman

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