Tag Archives: Nuclear war

Will 2023 be Worse Than 2022? By Philip Giraldi

Any detonation of a nuclear weapon this year would probably make 2023 worse than 2022. From Philip Giraldi at unz.com:

Even though one has become accustomed to seeing the United States government behaving irrationally on an epic scale with no concern for what happens to the average citizen who is not a member of one of the freak show constituencies of the Democratic Party, it is still possible to be surprised or even shocked. Shortly before year’s end 2022 an article appeared in the mainstream media and was quite widely circulated. The headline that it was featured under in the original Business Insider version read “A nuclear attack would most likely target one of these 6 US cities — but an expert says none of them are prepared.” The cities were New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and San Francisco.

The article seeks to provide information and tips that would allow one to survive a nuclear attack, repeating commentary from several “experts” in emergency management and “public health” suggesting that a nuclear war would be catastrophic but not necessarily the end of the world. One should be prepared. It observes that “those cities would struggle to provide emergency services to the wounded. The cities also no longer have designated fallout shelters to protect people from radiation.” It is full of sage advice and off-the-cuff observations, including “Can you imagine a public official keeping buildings intact for fallout shelters when the real-estate market is so tight?” Or even better the advice from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s “nuclear detonation planning guide” that for everyday citizens in a city that has been nuked: “Get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned.” Dr. Ron Paul asks “Are they insane? They act as if a nuclear attack on the United States is just another inconvenience to plan for, like an ice storm or a hurricane.”

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The most important question, by The Saker

Will there be nuclear war in 2023? From The Saker at thesaker.is:

Looks like we will make it to Dec 31, 2022. Will we make it to December 31, 2023?

This question is not hyperbole.  I would even argue that this is the single most important question for at least the entire northern hemisphere.

I have been warning that Russia is preparing for a fullscale war since at least 2014.  Putin basically said just that in his recent speech before the Russian Defense Ministry Board.  If you have not seen this video, you really should watch it, it it will give you a direct insight into how the Kremlin thinks and what it is preparing for.  Here is that video again:

The most important question

Looks like we will make it to Dec 31, 2022. Will we make it to December 31, 2023?

This question is not hyperbole.  I would even argue that this is the single most important question for at least the entire northern hemisphere.

I have been warning that Russia is preparing for a fullscale war since at least 2014.  Putin basically said just that in his recent speech before the Russian Defense Ministry Board.  If you have not seen this video, you really should watch it, it it will give you a direct insight into how the Kremlin thinks and what it is preparing for.  Here is that video again:

I will assume that you have watched that video and that I don’t need to prove to you that Russia is gearing out for a massive war, including a nuclear one.

Foreign Minister Lavrov has publicly declared that “unnamed officials from the Pentagon actually threatened to conduct a ‘decapitation strike’ on the Kremlin…What we are talking about is the threat of the physical elimination of the head of the Russian state, (…)  If such ideas are actually being nourished by someone, this someone should think very carefully about the possible consequences of such plans.

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Peace Is Not Our Profession, by William J. Astore

There is a significant contingent in the U.S. government that really wants to see what a nuclear war would be like. From William J. Astore at tomdispatch.com:

The Madness of Nuclear Warfare, Alive and Well in America

Hey, cheer up because it truly is a beauty! I’m talking about this country’s latest “stealth bomber,” the B-21 Raider, just revealed by Northrop Grumman, the company that makes it, in all its glory. With its striking bat-winged shape and its ability to deliver a very big bang (as in nuclear weapons), it’s our very own “bomber of the future.” As Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin put it at its explosive debut, it will “fortify America’s ability to deter aggression, today and into the future.” Now, that truly makes me proud to be an American.

And while you’re at it, on this MAD (as in mutually assured destruction) world of ours, let that scene, that peculiar form of madness, involving the potential end of everything on Planet Earth, sink in. As a retired Air Force officer, it reminded me all too vividly of my former service and brought to mind the old motto of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), “Peace Is Our Profession.” Headed in its proudest years by the notorious General Curtis LeMay, it promised “peace” via the threat of the total nuclear annihilation of America’s enemies. 

SAC long controlled two “legs” of this country’s nuclear triad: its land-based bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs. During the Cold War, those Titans, Minutemen, and MX “Peacekeepers” were kept on constant alert, ready to pulverize much of the planet at a moment’s notice. It didn’t matter that this country was likely to be pulverized, too, in any war with the Soviet Union. What mattered was remaining atop the nuclear pile. A concomitant benefit was keeping conventional wars from spinning out of control by threatening the nuclear option or, as was said at the time, “going nuclear.” (In the age of Biden, it’s “Armageddon.”)

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Chris Hedges: Stop Worrying & Love the Bomb

The only thing we have to fear is thermonuclear annihilation itself. From Chris Hedges at consortiumnews.com:

The longer the proxy war in Ukraine continues, the closer the U.S. comes to a direct confrontation with Russia. Once that happens, the Dr. Strangeloves running the show will reach for the nukes.

Bombs Away – by Mr. Fish.

I have covered enough wars to know that once you open that Pandora’s box, the many evils that pour out are beyond anyone’s control. War accelerates the whirlwind of industrial killing. The longer any war continues, the closer and closer each side comes to self-annihilation.  Unless it is stopped, the proxy war between Russia and the U.S. in Ukraine all but guarantees direct confrontation with Russia and, with it, the very real possibility of nuclear war.

U.S. President Joe Biden, who doesn’t always seem to be quite sure where he is or what he is supposed to be saying, is being propped up in the I-am-a-bigger-man-than-you contest with Russian President Vladimir Putin by a coterie of rabid warmongers who have orchestrated over 20 years of military fiascos. They are salivating at the prospect of taking on Russia, and then, if there is any habitation left on the globe, China.

Trapped in the polarizing mindset of the Cold War — where any effort to de-escalate conflicts through diplomacy is considered appeasement, a perfidious Munich moment — they smugly push the human species closer and closer toward obliteration. Unfortunately for us, one of these true believers is Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“Putin is saying he is not bluffing. Well, he cannot afford bluffing, and it has to be clear that the people supporting Ukraine and the European Union and the Member States, and the United States and NATO are not bluffing neither,” E.U. foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned. “Any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian Army will be annihilated.”

Annihilated. Are these people insane?

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On Going Seriously Boom, by Fred Reed

The consequences of nuclear war, which only in fantasy will stay somehow limited, are unimaginably horrible. From Fred Reed at thesaker.is:

Pleasurable excitement ripples through the usual boredom of Washington, and the resident curiosities enjoy exquisite frissons, over the possibility of nuclear war over the Ukraine. Some official of the EU, or maybe it was the mediocrity in the White House with the truculence problem, but anyway one of the geniuses ruling the planet’s fate has said that if Russia used nukes, the Russian army would be destroyed, grrr, bowwow, woof. Exactly how it would be destroyed, the sayer didn’t say. Anyway, the threats and counterthreats swirl around the idea that a nuke war between Russia and the West might occur. Maybe, with tactical nukes in the Ukraine, about which nobody gives a rat’s nether region. The world is full of damned fools.

But:

The general staffs of both Russia and China are, whatever else you may think of them, sane. They know of America’s massive nuclear forces. They are not going to launch an atomic war. Sane behavior cannot be relied on with Washington’s second-rate lawyers, but the generals in the Pentagon are not crazy. They like hobbyist wars and big budgets, but if Biden ordered a nuclear strike, they would be likely to suddenly remember that Congress has to declare war and, seeing that their radar screens were empty of incoming missiles, and say, “Mr. President, we are not authorized to do that.” And recommend a committee.

what would such a war be like? Let’s guess.

America is fragile. We don’t notice because it works smoothly and because when a local catastrophe occurs—earthquake, hurricane, tornado—the rest of the country steps in to remedy things. The country can handle normal and regional catastrophes. But nuclear war is neither normal nor regional.  Very few warheads would serve to wreck the United States beyond recovery for decades. This should be clear to anyone who actually thinks about it.

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The War In Ukraine: Made In Washington Not Moscow, by Mike Whitney

It has to be said: Vladimir Putin is more sinned against than sinning. That doesn’t make him an angel, far from it, but the people who are trying to goad him into a nuclear confrontation are far worse. From Mike Whitney at unz.com:

“Your people do not yet feel an impending sense of danger. That worries me. Can’t you see the world is being pulled in an irreversible direction? Meanwhile, people pretend that nothing is going on. I don’t know how to get through to you anymore.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, You Tube, 12 minute video

“The Russians have put their nuclear weapons on high-alert. This is a really significant development.. They are….sending us a very powerful signal as to how seriously they take this crisis. So, if we start winning, and the Russians start losing, you need to understand that what we’re talking about doing here, is backing a nuclear-armed great power –that sees what’s happening as an existential threat—into a corner. This is really dangerous. Go back to the Cuban Missile Crisis. I don’t think that what happened in the Cuban Missile crisis was as threatening to us as this situation is to the Russians. But if you go back and look at what US decision-makers thought at the time, they were scared stiff.” (Mearsheimer: The risks of “backing Russia into a corner“, Twitter minute 1:19

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15 Seconds Until Nuclear Armageddon, by Robert Koehler

Nuclear armageddon is a non-trivial possibility. From Robert Koehler at antiwar.com:

As war wreaks hell in Ukraine – and the threat of a nuclear confrontation between superpowers continues to intensify – NATO is in the process of prepping for the end of the world.

“When militarism is addressed as a psychosocial disease, the absurd irrationality of its symptoms is clearly exposed.”

These words are from a 1992 essay by N. Arther Coulter published in a journal called Medicine and War. Who would have guessed? They’re as relevant now as they were three decades ago.

God bless Armageddon.

As war wreaks hell in Ukraine – and the threat of a nuclear confrontation between superpowers continues to intensify – NATO is in the process of prepping for the end of the world. It’s an annual two-week training event called Steadfast Noon – a nuclear practice run that gives European flight crews a chance to practice loading and dropping “non-strategic” nuclear bombs. Russia is expected to conduct its own annual nuclear drill, known as Grom (that is, Thunder), soon as well.

I can’t read about this without summoning what I call “the big why?” from deep within. Endless resources are devoted annually to nuclear deterrence, a.k.a., the big bluff: “If you mess with me, you’re gonna get it.” The point, allegedly, is to prevent war, which is absolutely paradoxical in a global political system based on the psychosocial disease of militarism, i.e., the pursuit of national interest and the maintenance of safety primarily via force and violence.

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SCOTT RITTER: Nuclear High Noon in Europe

Say the U.S. does a false flag nuclear detonation in Ukraine, just a small little bomb. How can the brain trust be sure that Russia will respond proportionately, say another small little bomb? How does the brain trust know that the Russian response won’t take out Washington or New York City? From Scott Ritter at consortiumnews.com:

On Monday, Oct. 17, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization kicked off Operation STEADFAST NOON, its annual exercise of its ability to wage nuclear conflict. Given that NATO’s nuclear umbrella extends exclusively over Europe, the indisputable fact is that STEADFAST NOON is nothing more than NATO training to wage nuclear war against Russia.

Nuclear war against Russia.

The reader should let that sink in for a moment.

Don’t worry, NATO spokesperson Oana Lungscu reassured the rest of the world, the purpose of STEADFAST NOON is to ensure that NATO’s nuclear war-fighting capability “remains safe and effective.” It is a “routine” exercise, not linked to any current world events. Moreover, no “real” nuclear weapons will be used — just “fake” ones.

Nothing to worry about here.

Enter Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary general, stage right in the nuclear theater. In a statement to the press on Oct. 11, Stoltenberg declared that, “Russia’s victory in the war against Ukraine will be a defeat of NATO,” before ominously announcing, “This cannot be allowed.”

To that end, Stoltenberg stated, the STEADFAST NOON nuclear drills would continue as scheduled. These drills, Stoltenberg said, were an important deterrence mechanism in the face of Russian “veiled: nuclear threats.”

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The Profoundly Stupid Narrative That Nuclear Brinkmanship Is Safety And De-Escalation Is Danger, by Caitlin Johnstone

It doesn’t get any more Orwellian than nuclear chicken is safe and peace could wipe out the planet. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

Of all the face-meltingly stupid narratives that have been circulated about the US proxy war in Ukraine, the dumbest so far has got to be the increasingly common claim that aggressively escalating nuclear brinkmanship is safety and de-escalation is danger.

We see a prime example of this self-evidently idiotic narrative in a new Business Insider article titled “Putin’s nuclear threats are pushing people like Trump and Elon Musk to press for a Ukraine peace deal. A nuclear expert warns that’s ‘dangerous.’

“An understandable desire to avoid a nuclear war could actually make the world more dangerous if it means rushing to implement a ‘peace’ in Ukraine that serves Russian interests,” writes reliable empire apologist Charles Davis. “Such a move, which some influential figures have called for, risks setting a precedent that atomic blackmail is the way to win wars and take territory troops can’t otherwise hold, a model that could be copycatted by even the weakest nuclear-armed states, and may only succeed at delaying another war.”

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Doug Casey on the Likelihood of Nuclear War With Russia

Never rule anything out when power-hungry, corrupt, sociopathic politicians are in charge. From Doug Casey at internationalman.com:

Nuclear War With Russia

International Man: Recently, we’ve seen what appears to be an escalation in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

There is an excellent chance the US government was behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, Russia has annexed four regions of Ukraine, and President Zelensky announced an accelerated bid to join NATO.

What do you make of this?

Doug Casey: I’d say that the odds are extremely high, approaching certainty, that the US was complicit in the sabotage. It certainly had the Motive, Means, and Opportunity—the three elements necessary to warrant suspicion in a criminal investigation.

The US has unique capabilities for this kind of mischief—an air-launched drone torpedo or a submarine aren’t available to just any terror group. It was a major operation, not something that a few scuba divers could pull off. Apparently, tons of explosives were used to blow these things up.

Biden and other US officials previously said they didn’t want the Nord Stream to go through and planned to prevent it. A boldly idiotic thing to say since the pipeline is neither its property or business.

The narrative that the Russians did it is completely insane. Putin could simply turn off the gas until it was convenient to be turned back on; now that option is gone. The Russians wouldn’t limit their own options.

If it’s proven that the US did it, then the Russians and/or the Germans will have to engage in a tit-for-tat retaliation to punish the US for this sabotage. That may be tantamount to an act of war, but once the culprit is proven, they have to take action. This thing isn’t over. The culprit will be found.

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