LAND-BASED NUCLEAR MISSILES SHOULD BE ELIMINATED ACCORDING TO A WATCHDOG REPORT

The Late Daniel Ellsberg And Norman Solomon Noted That Eliminating ICBMs Was The Easiest And Fastest Way To Reduce “The Overall Danger Of Nuclear War.”

Nuclear weapons are back in style in official Washington. The Pentagon is in the midst of a $2 trillion, three-decade-long effort to build a new generation of nuclear-armed bombers, missiles, and submarines, and the weapons lobby and its allies in Congress are pressing to spend even more.

Thankfully, a new report from the government watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) offers a refreshing counterpoint to this rush towards a new nuclear arms race, explaining in persuasive detail why the centerpiece of the Pentagon’s new buildup, the Sentinel ICBM, is dangerous, unaffordable, and unnecessary. The late Daniel Ellsberg and Norman Solomon made this point forcefully in an October 2021 piece in The Nation, noting that eliminating ICBMs was the easiest and fastest way to reduce “the overall danger of nuclear war.

Being the good taxpayer protection group that it is, TCS starts by pointing out the immense cost of the Sentinel program, which is now estimated to be at least $315 billion over the lifetime of the system, including an astonishing 37 percent increase in projected acquisition costs over just the past two years. The cost overrun is so large that it has triggered a reevaluation of the program under the Nunn-McCurdy Act, which serves as a sort of early warning system regarding runaway weapons costs. A Pentagon report on the issue is due early next month. This is a perfect moment to think twice about whether to build a new ICBM, or whether ICBMs are needed at all. The TCS report does just that.

The bottom line of the new analysis is that nuclear warheads deployed on bombers and submarine-based ballistic missiles are more than sufficient to deter any nation from attacking the United States. Steve Ellis, the president of TCS, underscored this point upon the release of the organization’s new report: “We have over 1,300 nuclear warheads deployed on ballistic missile submarines, bombers, and fighters, many of which are more powerful than the warheads planned for deployment on the Sentinel. At a projected cost of $315 billion over its lifecycle, the Sentinel is a redundancy we don’t need at a price we can’t afford.”

Not only are land-based missiles redundant but, as former secretary of defense William Perry has noted, they are “among the most dangerous weapons we have,” because a president would have only a matter of minutes to decide whether to launch them upon warning of attack, greatly increasing the risk of an accidental nuclear conflict based on a false alarm.

Eliminating ICBMs makes good sense in terms of the future security of the planet, but it faces a tough political environment in Washington. The ICBM lobby—spearheaded by contractors like Northrop Grumman working with senators from states like North Dakota, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming that have major ICBM bases or substantial work on the Sentinel program—has been a powerful force for decades in shielding land-based missiles from reductions in numbers or funding. Given the serious security challenges facing the United States in the decades to come, many of which do not have military solutions, the time to break the stranglehold of special interests over our nuclear weapons policy is now. Canceling the Sentinel program would be an excellent place to start.

Some arms control advocates, while acknowledging the costs and risks associated with maintaining an ICBM force, have limited their demands, for the moment, to a call for canceling the Sentinel while extending the service lives of existing ICBMs. While this would certainly save many billions of dollars, it would not address the destabilizing effects of ICBMs themselves. By contrast, if the new ICBM is canceled but the old ones remain in place, the risk of an accidental launch would remain, and any possible timeline for substantial reductions in the American arsenal—with the ultimate goal of eliminating nuclear weapons altogether in line with global norms established by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons—would recede far, far into the future.

The question is whether it is possible to generate a potent enough political counterforce to defeat the ICBM lobby and overcome the mythology that holds that a “nuclear triad” of land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear weapons is an essential pillar of American defense. Although many residents of states that host ICBM bases, like North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming, welcome the economic benefits they bring, there is a history of opposition to ICBMs going back to the 1980s campaign against the MX missile (officially and ironically named “The Peacekeeper”) that was supported by everyone from conservative ranchers to the Mormon Church. The MX was ultimately deployed for almost two decades until it was deactivated under the administration of George W. Bush, but the opposition to it was part of a larger surge in favor of nuclear arms reductions that led to a sharp scaling back of the American Cold War arsenal. Huge cost growth on the new ICBM, noted above, has brought increased scrutiny in Congress and energized efforts by a wide array of local and national arms control and disarmament organizations to cancel the system and reconsider whether to retain ICBMs at all.

At a time when the country and the Congress are deeply divided about everything from the future of democracy to the appropriate approach to current wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and a possible future conflict with China, coming to consensus around a major shift in American nuclear policy and spending will be no small challenge. But the alternative—a nuclear arms race on autopilot, with a rising risk of a nuclear confrontation—is too dangerous to ignore.

Past changes in American nuclear policy, from the end of atmospheric nuclear testing to the sharp reductions in the size of the American arsenal since the end of the Cold War, have had their roots in citizen activism, from the ban-the-bomb movement of the 1950s to the Nuclear Freeze campaign of the 1980s. We are far from a 1980s-level of concern about nuclear weapons at the moment, but the debate over the issue has grown in line with developments like the success of the biopic Oppenheimer, stepped-up activity to compensate the victims of radiation from past nuclear testing, and continued efforts to sound the alarm about the nuclear danger through vehicles like the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock, which now stands at a frightening 90 seconds to midnight. The Bulletin’s most recent statement about the risks we face could not be more clear:

Ominous trends continue to point the world toward global catastrophe. The war in Ukraine and the widespread and growing reliance on nuclear weapons increase the risk of nuclear escalation. China, Russia, and the United States are all spending huge sums to expand or modernize their nuclear arsenals, adding to the ever-present danger of nuclear war through mistake or miscalculation.

Bold action is required if we are to avert the worst-case scenario outlined by the Bulletin. Canceling the Sentinel program would be a major step in the right direction—a forceful note of sanity in the midst of a nuclear policy debate in Washington that has been far too skewed toward promoting Cold War–style nuclear buildups instead of implementing measures aimed at reducing the risk of a nuclear conflict. Shifting course will require us to go well beyond business as usual in Washington, but given the stakes, it is well worth the effort, and time is of the essence.

WE ARE GETTING WAY TOO CLOSE TO ARMAGEDDON

As Ukraine Loses And Runs Out Of Manpower We’re Starting To See Some Frantic Flailings Throughout The Western Empire On A Front Where Cool Heads Are Of Existential Importance To The Survival Of Our Species.

While the antiwar movement has been quite understandably focused on the genocide in Gaza, over the past few weeks we’ve been seeing some very disturbing reports about empire managers ramping up nuclear brinkmanship escalations in Ukraine that are worth going over.

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp has been doing a great job covering these developments, as usual. Here are a few recent stories from Antiwar which deserve some attention today.

In an article titled “Blinken Pushing To Let Ukraine Hit Russian Territory With US Weapons,” DeCamp goes over a New York Times report about a “vigorous debate” within the Biden administration over whether to let Ukraine use American supplied war machinery to attack targets in the Russian Federation itself. This would risk direct hot war between Russia and NATO, as Moscow already made explicitly clear recently with regard to similar developments in the UK.

“Moscow recently warned the UK that if Ukraine used British weapons on Russian territory, Russian forces would target UK military sites in Ukraine ‘and beyond’,” DeCamp writes. “The warning came after British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Ukraine had the ‘right’ to use British arms in attacks on Russia.”

Obviously Ukraine has the “right” to attack Russia since Russia is attacking Ukraine; nobody disputes this. What is of course disputed is that it is wise or moral to risk the life of every terrestrial organism by tempting hot warfare between Russia and NATO over who controls Kharkiv.

In “Speaker Johnson Thinks Ukraine Should Use US Weapons on Russian Territory,” DeCamp reports on a letter sent by a bipartisan group of House representatives urging the president to lift any restrictions on the Ukrainians using American supplied weapons to strike Russian territory “in the way they see fit.” Which means pressure is mounting both within the White House and on Capitol Hill to escalate nuclear tensions in this way.

In “Estonia Says NATO Countries Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Sending Troops to Ukraine for Training,” we learn of Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’ casual support for openly sending large numbers of NATO forces into Ukraine for training purposes. Small, unofficial special operations forces from NATO powers have long been active in Ukraine, but what the Estonian PM is advocating would be a significant escalation from there. DeCamp notes that “Estonia, Lithuania, and France have all expressed interest in deploying troops” in Ukraine.

All this insanely hawkish rhetoric is already drawing a response from Moscow. In “Russia Begins Nuclear Weapons Drills Near Ukrainian Border,” The Libertarian Institute’s Kyle Anzalone reports on new war games which were announced by the Russian government “in response to Western leaders suggesting NATO troops could enter Ukraine.”

There was a lull in nuclear brinkmanship between NATO and Russia as the uncertainties of the Ukraine war and the influence the hawks would have over it got clearer, and things reached a cruel and bloody semblance of stability. But as Ukraine loses ground and runs out of manpower we’re starting to see some frantic flailings throughout the western empire on a front where cool heads are of existential importance to the survival of our species.

It would feel so unbelievably idiotic if we woke up to learn that nuclear war has begun after a series of reckless escalations and unpredictable developments led to a rapid sequence of events from which there could be no return. But that’s not an unreasonable fear at this point in history, and we are moving much, much too close to that ledge.

THE PENTAGON’S ULTIMATE SUCCESS STORY IS FAILURE

The Pentagon’s Budget Follies Come At A High Price To The American Taxpayer And Potentially To The Actual Survival Of The Entire World.

It’s true that no nuclear weapon has been used (except in tests) since America dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 to end World War II. And yes, we now know that, were there to be a nuclear confrontation on this planet (think: the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 without the diplomacy of President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev), it could quite literally send us all to hell and back. It might leave much of humanity dead and the planet in a version of rubble. (Think: nuclear winter!) So, consider it a cheery thing that, all too recently, two world leaders, President Vladimir Putin of Russia and Kim Jong-un of North Korea, threatened to use just such weaponry in our world right now.

And if that makes you nervous, then let us reassure you this way: the United States, while making no nuclear threats, is putting staggering numbers of your tax dollars into expanding and further enhancing its nuclear arsenal. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), we’re talking about spending a nifty $756 billion between 2023 and 2032. And, hey, to cheer you up a little further, here’s how the CBO breaks that figure down: “$247 billion for modernization of strategic and tactical nuclear delivery systems and the weapons they carry; $108 billion for modernization of facilities and equipment for the nuclear weapons laboratory complex and for modernization of command, control, communications, and early-warning systems; and $96 billion for potential cost growth in excess of projected budgeted amounts.”

Yep, $96 billion of your tax dollars are carefully included to cover “cost growth in excess of budgeted amounts.” And here’s the even better news: that $756 billion figure is a mere $122 billion more than the last estimate for the period 2021-2030, which, in turn, means, assuming such weapons aren’t ever used, it’s going to take a while to hit the trillion-dollar mark. Still, have faith in our military and count on it! In fact, if you have any doubts on the subject, check out today’s report from Pentagon experts and TomDispatch regulars Julia Gledhill and William Hartung on just how expensive everything involving future American weaponry and our military could get. We hope you’ll feel a deep sense of relief to be reassured that your tax dollars will be stretched so far into a world from which there may be no return.

REDUCING THE RISK OF CYBERATTACK CAUSING NUCLEAR WAR REQUIRES AMERICA TO COOPERATE WITH RUSSIA

“There Is No More Urgent Task Than Understanding And Mitigating The Potential Risks Posed By The Interaction Of Cyber Capabilities With Nuclear Weapons…”

A report published Wednesday by an American nonprofit group recommends cooperation between the United States and Russia aimed at reducing the threat of a nuclear war sparked by cyberattacks on nuclear weapon systems.

“In the modern nuclear age, there is no more urgent task than understanding and mitigating the potential risks posed by the interaction of advancing cyber capabilities and nuclear weapons systems,” the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) asserted in the report, entitled Reducing Cyber Risks to Nuclear Weapons: Proposals From a U.S.-Russia Expert Dialogue.

The publication “highlights the critical need for a global diplomatic approach to address growing cyber risks, including, where possible, through cooperation between the United States and Russia.”

“Despite significant current geopolitical tensions, the United States and Russia have a mutual interest in avoiding the use of nuclear weapons and an obligation to work together to do so based on the understanding that a cyberattack on a nuclear weapons system could trigger catastrophic and unintended conflict and escalation,” the group said in an implied reference to strained relations amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

NTI drew from talks between American and Russian nonproliferation experts that took place in 2020 and 2021 prior to last year’s invasion of Ukraine.

“While acknowledging the challenges posed by an already charged political environment, the dialogue emphasized the importance of maintaining cooperation between the United States and Russia on key nuclear security issues, the value of unilateral risk reduction actions, and the benefit of developing ideas for cooperative steps to be advanced when the political situation improves,” the organization noted.

The talks yielded six recommendations for America and Russia to reduce cyber risks:

• Refrain from cyber interference in nuclear weapons and related systems, including nuclear command, control, communications, delivery, and warning systems;

• Evaluate options to minimize entanglement and/or integration of conventional and nuclear assets;

• Continue to improve the cybersecurity of their respective nuclear systems, including through unilateral “fail-safe” reviews;

• Increase transparency and expand communications during periods of increased tension;

• Adopt procedures to ensure that any cyber, information, or other operation involving information and communications technologies emanating from the United States or Russia with the potential to disrupt another nation’s nuclear deterrence mission be approved at the same level as required for nuclear use; and

• Eliminate policies that threaten a nuclear weapons response to cyberattack.

“Today, the United States and Russia still possess roughly 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons and are also among the most proficient and active developers and users of information and communications technology (ICT),” the report notes. “Nuclear weapons policies, however, have not kept up with these technological advancements.”

“Meanwhile,” the publication continues, “the ubiquity of advanced digital ICT tools, as well as their fulsome functional benefits, have led both countries’ nuclear weapons enterprises to incorporate digital technologies into their nuclear weapons, warning, command, control, and communications systems.”

“With that modernization come vulnerabilities and openness to cyberattacks that could prompt dangerous miscalculations or accidents, leading to nuclear use,” NTI stated, adding that “in the mid- to long-term, cybersecurity can be improved in the context of ongoing nuclear weapons systems modernization.”

“Mutual commitments can be codified through various political or legal formats,” the report states. “Nuclear force modernization in each country presents an opportunity to clarify, isolate, and distinguish which systems are involved in nuclear deterrence missions from civilian infrastructure, critical national assets, and conventional warfighting systems.”

“Modernization also provides opportunities to improve system resiliency and upgrade cybersecurity measures and practices,” the publication adds. “Both the United States and Russia should prioritize cyber-nuclear weapons risk-reduction as they pursue future bilateral and multilateral arms control, confidence-building, and transparency initiatives.”

The new report came a day after the American Department of Defense published an unclassified summary of its 2023 Cyber Strategy, the first update in five years, in which the Pentagon stated it would “use cyberspace operations for the purpose of campaigning, undertaking actions to limit, frustrate, or disrupt adversaries’ activities below the level of armed conflict and to achieve favorable security conditions.”

The Pentagon added that it would “remain closely attuned to adversary perceptions and will manage the risk of unintended escalation.”

Russia’s war and the American regime’s support for Ukrainian efforts to oust Russia have heightened international calls for disarmament, with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres recently warning that nuclear modernization and rising global mistrust is “a recipe for annihilation.”

AS MORE WARMONGERS TAKE CONTROL IN AMERICA THE WORLD IS HEADING TOWARDS WW3

It’s Hardly Breaking News That There Are Numerous Warhawks Among The Political Elites In Washington DC.

These people have been behind every instance of (geo)political instability initiated by the United States, be it illegal coups, civil wars, invasions, etc, all of which resulted in an exponential exacerbation of the supposed “problem” they were seemingly designed to “resolve”. Such warhawks are oftentimes so shamelessly belligerent that they don’t even bother concealing their openly planned war crimes under the guise of the mythical “moral high ground” used by other more subtle Washington DC warmongers.

It’s important to note that their style has always been preying on the weak, as these warmongers mostly focus on bringing the wanton “freedom and democracy” to those unable to retaliate or at least defend themselves. Direct attacks are unmistakably preceded by economic warfare (primarily sanctions) and “isolation” by the so-called “international community”, that is, the political West and its vassals and satellite states. After all, those are the countries “that matter”, the much-touted “garden”, while the rest of the world (or better said, the actual world) is “simply a jungle”, as EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell (in)famously stated.

And yet, in recent years, the warhawks have become so overconfident that they don’t even consider the possibility of engaging in actual diplomacy (unless arm-twisting is considered “diplomatic”), not even with countries that have the means of bringing all the “freedom and democracy” America “exports” back to it. This includes not only “pocket superpowers” such as North Korea, but also geopolitical giants wielding unprecedented military and/or economic might, such as Russia and China, the two only near-peer adversaries to the United States. Such dangerous trends in American politics are only getting worse.

Namely, as if there weren’t enough war criminals in Washington DC, the American government is becoming a virtual hive of such power circles. Infamous neoconservatives such as John Bolton, Michael McCaul and Lindsey Graham, whose political influence has become dangerously powerful, are now getting significant backup that includes rabid Russophobes and Sinophobes such as Victoria Nuland and USAF General Charles Brown. Such warhawks are now gaining even more influence, meaning that America’s foreign policy is set to become more belligerent than ever before (if that’s even imaginable to most people).

In early October last year, John Bolton, former American National Security Advisor, infamous for his insistence on invading Venezuela, Iran and North Korea or escalating the ongoing war of aggression against Syria, Libya, Yemen, etc, openly stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin is on the American target list and threatened he might be assassinated. And while his directly visible political influence may seem to be dwindling, Bolton’s close associates are grabbing more power than ever. Namely, he was one of the most prominent members of the infamous Washington DC-based think tank known as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

PNAC’s main focus was making the already extremely belligerent American foreign policy even more aggressive. One of the original founders of the now-defunct think tank was Robert Kagan, notorious for being one of the strongest proponents of America’s aggression against the world. There’s not a single war Kagan hasn’t supported. Worse yet, he regularly and deliberately spreads disinformation in order to speed up wars, as evidenced by his unadulterated lies in years before the illegal American invasion of Iraq. Kagan is the husband of Victoria Nuland, who was directly involved in the illegal Maidan coup that resulted in the war in Donbass that killed upwards of 15,000 people by early 2022.

She was recently promoted to acting Deputy Secretary of State by President Biden, placing her in one of the most influential positions in the State Department, second only to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. It should be noted that while Nuland was serving in the Obama administration, one of her phone calls with the then American ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt was leaked. In February 2014, she told Pyatt that Arseniy Yatsenyuk will become the new prime minister of Ukraine, which he did that same month. During the call, she also clearly expressed her stance on the significance of the European Union in decision-making when it comes to the political West’s foreign policy.

Nuland was one of the architects of the Neo-Nazi junta’s seizure of power in Ukraine, making her directly responsible for the ongoing hostilities. She also supported both American terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines and the setting up of military biolabs in Ukraine. Her no less aggressive ally Lindsey Graham also actively took part in pushing Ukraine into a bloodbath, while also calling it the “best money we’ve ever spent” because “Russians are dying”. He is also notorious for actively calling for American aggression in Mexico. The strong influence of such warhawks exponentially raises the possibility of a world-ending thermonuclear confrontation.

Unfortunately, this isn’t only limited to the political establishment.

Namely, the Senate Arms Services Committee recently voted to confirm General Charles Brown as the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replacing Mark Milley.

He is adamant that the American confrontation with China in the Asia-Pacific is inevitable and that Washington DC should further militarize the area. Coupled with resurgent Neo-McCarthyism that also includes congressman McCaul’s insistence on direct confrontation for semiconductors, as well as calls for placing Taiwan under the American nuclear umbrella, this is bound to put America on a collision course with China.

THE NEW MOVIE “OPPENHEIMER” SUPPORTS NUKING WHOLE CITIES

Some Would Argue “Oppenheimer” Succeeds In Starting A Conversation, Yet It Really It Actually Falls Victim To Parroting Debunked And Dangerous Sadistic Warmongering Narratives.

The film’s release has seen the emergence of the kind of crowd eager to defend to the death America’s right to nuke cities without remorse, partly justified by an “all is fair in love and war” mentality and partly justified by exhausted arguments that it was the only other option aside from a ground invasion where millions of young men would be sent to die.

First, even if one believes “all is fair” in war, eventually that war will come to an end, with that war’s winners being the judge as to how the losers handled themselves. Such was the case with Germany’s defeat, where genocidal Nazis found themselves noosed up and swinging by their necks, and such may have also been the case had America lost the war after instantaneously vaporizing over a hundred thousand Japanese citizens with atomic weapons in the span of roughly 72 hours. Our “debates” around whether the bombs were necessary – let alone a war crime – are a sick privilege only afforded to us because we came out on top, with minimal credit for that victory owed to the use and development of nuclear weapons.

But the more prominent and overwhelming viewpoint expressed in “Oppenheimer” paints the nukes as a “necessary evil” essential to quickly ending the war, an argument strongly at odds with both historical fact along with some pretty heavy hitters in the World War II scene.

For example, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied commander in Europe during World War II, recalled a meeting with Secretary of War Henry Stimson, where, “I told him I was against it on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.”

Eisenhower’s views were given further credit in 1946 when the Amercan Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that, “based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

Others involved in the war effort expressed similar views. For instance, the personal pilot of General Douglas MacArthur recorded in his diary that MacArthur was “appalled and depressed” by this “Frankenstein” monster. MacArthur believed that Japan would have surrendered as early as May 1945 had America had not insisted upon unconditional surrender, with his biographer, William Manchester, writing that he knew the Japanese “would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it.” He went on to point out that, ironically, when the surrender did come, “it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General’s advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary.”

Admiral Leahy, Truman’s chief military advisor, wrote in his memoirs: “It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.”

Admiral William Halsey, who participated in the American offensive against the Japanese home islands in the final months of the war, publicly stated in 1946 that “the first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment.” The Japanese, he noted, had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia “long before” the bomb was used.

Yet, such peace efforts were ignored, and instead, Japan became a showcase for the United States to demonstrate its new power to the Russians: “If the bomb won the war, then the perception of American military power would be enhanced, American diplomatic influence in Asia and around the world would increase, and American security would be strengthened,” writes Ward Wilson over at Foreign Policy. “The $2 billion spent to build it would not have been wasted. If, on the other hand, the Soviet entry into the war was what caused Japan to surrender, then the Soviets could claim that they were able to do in four days what the United States was unable to do in four years, and the perception of Soviet military power and Soviet diplomatic influence would be enhanced.”

As such, on August 6th, and again on August 9th, the bombs were used against Japanese cities.

“The entire population of Japan is a proper military target,” Colonel Harry F. Cunningham, an intelligence officer in the US Fifth Air Force, said in a July 1945 report. “There are no civilians in Japan.”

Similarly, there were no Japanese civilians featured in “Oppenheimer”, nor any footage of the bombings. Instead, the film lazily regurgitates the tired narrative that these cities had to be nuked to end the war, with director Christopher Nolan perhaps spending more time focusing on creating a nuclear explosion without CGI than effectively demonstrating why using these weapons was entirely unnecessary.

“We intend to demonstrate [the bomb] in the most unambiguous terms – twice,” says Matt Damon in the film, playing the part of Lieutenant General Leslie Groves. “Once to show the weapon’s power, and the second to show that we can keep doing this until Japan surrenders.” James Remar, playing Secretary of War Henry Stimson, then points out America has a list of “twelve cities” to choose from. “Sorry, eleven. I’ve taken Kyoto off the list due to its cultural significance to the Japanese people. Also, my wife and I honeymoon there.” That last line may have been added in for comic relief.

Remar’s character then adds: “According to my intelligence, which I cannot share with you, the Japanese people will not surrender under any circumstances, short of a successful and total invasion of the home islands. Many lives will be lost, American and Japanese. The use of the atomic bombs on Japanese cities will save lives.”

Ultimately, the issue with the film has less to do with getting history wrong and more to do with making sure it isn’t repeated. In the absence of refusing to wholeheartedly condemn the use of nuclear weapons, we are left with moral ambiguity around their use. Sure, these weapons might be terrible, but maybe, sometimes, it’s okay to use them. And if we can be propagandized into believing that using nuclear weapons against cities is sometimes necessary, the limits are truly endless on what else we can be propagandized into supporting.

If we’re not drawing the line at nukes, we’re definitely not drawing the line at wholescale invasions of countries based on false claims, at waterboarding and other forms of torture, and at drone strikes on weddings and funerals. We’re not drawing that line anywhere meaningful if it doesn’t at least start with a refusal to stand behind nuking whole cities, and in a country with a vast biochemical and nuclear arsenal, with military bases on every corner of the planet, and with a long record of brutal coups and interventions, this is truly asking for the absolute bare minimum.

Oppenheimer succeeds in starting a conversation around this topic, yet still ultimately falls victim to parroting narratives that risk leaving viewers not entirely convinced that these weapons should never have been used, and should never be used again.

THE ATTEMPTS TO GET NORTH KOREA TO ELIMINATE ITS NUKES IS A DREAM THAT COULD END IN A NIGHTMARE

Talks Must Begin With The Leverage Of Sanctions. Everything Else Is Not Only Folly; It’s Fantasy.

In July 1953 the war after World War II, often labeled “the forgotten war,” came to an end. Hundreds of thousands had died. Millions had been displaced. The Korean peninsula had been wrecked. The guns finally fell silent.

Although the fighting ended, hostilities did not. The parties agreed to an armistice, but never inked a peace treaty. Today real peace seems as far away as ever. North Korea has ostentatiously rejected talks with America and Republic of Korea. At the same time, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un is speeding up work on both his nuclear and missile programs, with the goal of targeting the American homeland.

Although nothing suggests that he is suicidal, preparing to go out in a blaze of glory atop a radioactive funeral pyre in Pyongyang, adding the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the short list of countries able to set American cities aflame would tie American survival to the state of inter-Korean relations. China’s relations with Taiwan look stable in comparison.

America’s Korean commentary leans hawkish. Few policymakers trust the DPRK to do anything other than commit mischief and contemplate mayhem. Thus, there is a broad assumption that Kim is unlikely to agree to anything — and, more important, fulfill any agreement — that falls short of conquest of the South.

That could be true, of course, but despite Kim’s physical resemblance to his grandfather, they differ greatly in the people they ruled and the way they ruled. Kim’s time in Switzerland evidently did not turn him into a liberal but appeared to whet his interest in economic reform. While exhibiting no interest in abandoning his nation’s nuclear program — after Iraq and Libya, what sane foreign dictator on Washington’s naughty list would? — he has shown a knack for diplomacy and appears to recognize reality.

No doubt, he would like to swallow the ROK. However, nothing suggests that he believes that is possible. Which is one reason he is not interested in striking a deal that leaves him vulnerable to an American attack. But that does not mean he is opposed to making any agreement, so long as North Korea remains a nuclear power. His proffer in Hanoi — to close the Yongbyon nuclear facilities in return for substantial sanctions relief — might have been unacceptable, but so are most initial prices in the bazaar. Negotiations could have yielded something, however limited, that was worthwhile. And America will not know what Kim is prepared to do unless it presses him.

Which Washington should do now. True, the Biden administration has done almost everything but beg to draw the North into negotiations. However, Kim realizes that Washington is offering nothing new. The American regime insists on a promise to denuclearize, which will not be forthcoming. Only South Africa, in unique circumstances, dismantled a small number of existing nuclear weapons. The likelihood of the DPRK following suit is infinitesimal.

Rather than prevent negotiations from beginning, America should pursue more limited arms control accords. Washington need not abandon the hope — or perhaps fantasy — of Pyongyang doing a nuclear full monty. Rather, America should not demand the North’s assent, which would not be forthcoming. Successful arms control would be consistent with denuclearization, and if circumstances changed Washington could revive that objective.

Unfortunately, the question remains: how to get Kim to start talking, even about arms control? He would have to believe that America had changed its position, which might require more than a State Department press release. Moreover, since the failed Hanoi summit his government has strengthened its negotiating position.

Pyongyang launched some 100 missiles last year. It presumably is moving closer to developing not only ICBMs, but also MIRVs, multiple warheads for those intercontinental missiles. The regime’s goals have expanded in tandem: “the development of the new-type ICBM Hwasongpho-18 will extensively reform the strategic deterrence components of the DPRK, radically promote the effectiveness of its nuclear counterattack posture and bring about a change in the practicality of its offensive military strategy.”

Kim is unlikely to sacrifice these plans for the Biden administration’s mess of policy pottage.

American officials should communicate that they are interested in discussing ideas to reduce tensions. This should include consideration of measures to increase personal and official contacts between the two nations and reduce sanctions on commercial dealings.

Washington could offer to suspend some economic restrictions if serious talks got underway. Any up-front benefits should be reversible, to encourage Pyongyang to keep its promises. The initial objective should be to limit the size and reach of the North’s missiles and nukes. With warnings that the Kim regime is on track to accumulate as many as 240 nuclear weapons in the next few years, a verifiable freeze would be worth serious compensation.

Nevertheless, in Washington opposition to engagement is strong. Some hawks see diplomacy as surrender, a foolish position. It is more important to talk with one’s adversaries than one’s allies. A misunderstanding between Washington and Seoul is not likely to lead to war. If the American regime and DPRK continue on their present path, the potential for serious conflict will only grow.

Critics of negotiation insist that the North would cheat on any agreement it might make. If so, then why bother promoting denuclearization? Pyongyang is most likely to cheat on a pact that would leave its security entirely in America’s hands. Enforcement is required for any arrangement. If that is impossible, America should give up on denuclearization.

Others warn of undermining international nonproliferation efforts, fueling South Korean support for building nuclear weapons, and harming American relations with Seoul and Tokyo. However, the problem is North Korea’s status as a nuclear power, with an arsenal that could soon place it firmly among the second-rank nuclear powers. Recognition of this reality would change nothing. Nonproliferation has failed and neither the ROK nor Japan has a better response.

The Biden administration’s approach has been to embrace the South ever more firmly, which means promising that Washington really would sacrifice American cities to save Seoul. Indeed, the recent summit seemed to discuss little else, with Washington concocting all sorts of committees and meetings to convince the Yoon government that it now has an important role in determining when America might use nukes, which it doesn’t.

This is manifestly bad policy for America and South Korea. The former is risking nuclear attack on the homeland. The second is betting that an American president would sacrifice millions of American lives to retaliate against the North for an attack on the South. Far better for both to pursue a policy designed to reduce the likelihood of such a contingency, starting with limiting Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal.

Seven decades have passed since the guns in Korea fell silent. President Donald Trump briefly broke through the hostile status quo on the Korean peninsula. Unfortunately, that effort failed to continue under Biden, and now the North is threatening to greatly expand its nuclear reach. Unless the Biden administration tries something different, the future is only going to become more dangerous.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARSENALS GROWING AS AMERICAN DIPLOMACY SHRINKS

China, Russia, India, Pakistan, And North Korea Each Deployed More Nuclear Weapons Last Year. Do You Wonder Why?

Nuclear-armed states are expanding and modernizing their arsenals as tensions continue to rise between great powers, according to a new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. SIPRI estimates that militaries have deployed an additional 86 warheads over the past year, bringing the total number of active nuclear weapons to 9576.

China added 60 warheads since the start of 2022, giving it a total arsenal of 410 nuclear weapons, according to SIPRI. Russia deployed an additional 12 nukes, with India, Pakistan, and North Korea making up the rest of the increase.

“It is increasingly difficult to square this trend with China’s declared aim of having only the minimum nuclear forces needed to maintain its national security,” argued SIPRI senior fellow Hans M. Kristensen in a press release.

The new data comes from SIPRI’s Yearbook, the organization’s annual report on global trends in weapons stockpiles and disarmament.

Despite China’s notable increase, the United States and Russia continue to dominate all other states when it comes to nuclear stockpiles. Together, the two hold 85 percent of the world’s deployed nuclear weapons, and both plan to invest heavily in efforts to modernize their arsenals.

Chances for renewed disarmament talks have flagged following Russia’s incursion into Ukraine early last year. Washington and Moscow both took steps recently to reduce their compliance with the New START Treaty — the only agreement capping the number of warheads that each country deploys, which expires in 2026.

Notably, the United States announced earlier this month that it is ready to engage in new nuclear talks “without preconditions” with both Russia and China. But it remains unclear whether either state is interested in negotiating with Washington as geopolitical tensions continue to grow.

“This elevated nuclear competition has dramatically increased the risk that nuclear weapons might be used in anger for the first time since World War II,” SIPRI researcher Matt Korda said in a press release.

Meanwhile, some states have taken steps to reduce transparency around their nuclear stockpiles. The United States and United Kingdom “both declined to release information to the public concerning their nuclear forces in 2022, which they had done in previous years,” the report notes. The UK decision is particularly notable given its 2021 announcement that it will increase the limit on its arsenal from 225 to 260 warheads.

Data about the arsenals of other nuclear-armed states is also limited given the secrecy surrounding many countries’ nuclear programs. Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons, but SIPRI estimates that it currently has 90 warheads. North Korea, another secretive nuclear-armed state, has as many as 30 nuclear bombs, according to the report.

AMERICA IS PUSHING THE RUSSIA BEAR INTO THE NUCLEAR CORNER

American Officials Who Want To Inflict A Decisive, Humiliating Defeat On Russia In Its War With Ukraine Remain Oblivious To The Dangers Entailed In Doing That.

Russian leaders consider Ukraine to be the most vital of vital national security interests and they are likely to adopt whatever measures are necessary to prevent such a defeat. Not even the option of using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine is off the table.

So far, the danger of such a potentially catastrophic escalation has remained modest. Deficiencies in Moscow’s lumbering military, combined with recklessly expansive NATO military assistance to Kyiv, have caused the Kremlin’s war effort to be much slower and more costly in blood and treasure than Vladimir Putin and his colleagues anticipated. Nevertheless, Russian forces have seized and retained significant chunks of Ukraine’s territory and inflicted massive casualties on Ukrainian forces. As long as that situation continues, the danger of Moscow resorting to the use of tactical nuclear weapons is not great.

Recent developments, though, indicate that the risk is growing. In an important May 17, 2023, article in Russia Matters, retired Brigadier Gen. Kevin Ryan, a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, lists a number of troubling signs. Among them were Putin’s announcement in late March that he would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus – closer to the territory of several NATO members. Ryan notes that “Putin has also made clear to the Russian people that Moscow’s red lines for the use of nuclear weapons, spelled out in its official documents, have all been crossed in the conflict in Ukraine. These include “aggression with conventional weapons against the Russian Federation, when the very existence of the state is threatened.”

Recent changes in Russia’s military command are another alarming sign. Ryan emphasizes that “under Russian doctrine, the chief of the general staff and the heads of the ground and aerospace forces are the three officers who control all tactical nuclear weapons use in ground operations. Putin has now placed in direct control of the [Ukraine] war the three senior-most officers who have the authority to employ tactical nuclear weapons when he gives the order.”

America’s strategy has been to use Ukraine as a military proxy against Russia while refraining from directly involving NATO forces in the fighting. Unfortunately, the quantity and potency of the weapons systems being transferred to Kyiv have reached the point of posing a major threat not only to Russian forces in occupied Ukraine, but to the Russian homeland itself. There are now reports that the Biden administration has approved the transfer of F-16 fighters from it’s puppet regimes in NATO to Ukraine. If true, such a step would signify yet another dramatic escalation of support. That move comes on the heels of the shipment of heavy battle tanks from the United States and other NATO members and the deployment of Patriot missile batteries around Kyiv. In addition to sending such weapons, British and American intelligence agencies continue to provide Kyiv with vital intelligence data to make Ukrainian forces far more effective than they would be otherwise.

Such actions make a mockery of the official “nonbelligerent” status of the NATO powers. Russian leaders increasingly contend that their country is at war not only – or even primarily – with Ukraine. Instead, Putin and his associates contend that NATO itself is waging war against Russia – and doing so with the goal of eliminating Russia as a relevant power in the international system. Putin has warned repeatedly that the very survival of Russia is now at stake in the Ukraine conflict. At this most recent Victory Day parade marking the end of World War II in Europe, he claimed that the West’s goal is to achieve nothing less than “the collapse and destruction of our country.”

Russian leaders are not wrong. In late April 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin admitted that the Alliance’s goal was not merely to help Ukraine blunt and reverse Russia’s aggression, but to weaken Russia to the point that it could no longer pose a threat to any neighboring state. The West’s goals, both explicit and implicit, have escalated steadily. One objective now includes putting Putin on trial at The Hague for war crimes – a development that could take place only after full-fledged regime change in Moscow. The usual flock of neocon hawks continues to push the goal of inflicting a massive defeat on Russia. Such a maximalist stance gives Putin and other Russian leaders little incentive to avoid using tactical nuclear weapons, if the alternative is Russia’s total defeat and their own fall from power – with prison cells awaiting them.

The surprisingly limited success of Russia’s winter military offensive in Ukraine has intensified the danger. The conquest of the city of Bakhmut, which most Western military experts thought would take only days, is just now concluding after more than two months. Ukraine appears on the brink of launching a counteroffensive that NATO is heavily supporting. An advance that dislodges Russian forces from major portions of southern Ukraine could bring the problems with Russia’s conventional military strategy to a culmination.

An important principle of foreign policy 101 is to leave an adversary a dignified exit from a faltering or failed venture. American and it’s puppep NATO leaders are violating that fundamental requirement. Seeking to inflict an existential defeat on Russia is not only a myopic strategy, it is reckless. Cornered bears are very dangerous, yet Western officials are forcing Russian leaders to choose between utter humiliation for their nation and themselves or using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine despite the obvious, horrific risks. The West’s egregious mismanagement of relations with Russia threatens to culminate in nuclear catastrophe.

AMERICANS DON’T HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN NUCLEAR MADMEN

There’s Always Seems To Be An Excuse For Nuclear Madness, And The United States Has Certainly Provided Ample Rationales For The Russian Leader’s Display Of It.

The announcement by Vladimir Putin over the weekend that Russia will deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus marked a further escalation of potentially cataclysmic tensions over the war in neighboring Ukraine. As the Associated Press reported, “Putin said the move was triggered by Britain’s decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium.”

There’s always an excuse for nuclear madness, and the United States has certainly provided ample rationales for the Russian leader’s display of it. American nuclear warheads have been deployed in Europe since the mid-1950s, and current best estimates say 100 are there now – in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.

Count on the American corporate media to condemn Putin’s announcement while dodging key realities of how the USA, for decades, has been pushing the nuclear envelope toward conflagration. The American government’s breaking of its pledge not to expand NATO eastward after the fall of the Berlin Wall – instead expanding into 10 Eastern European countries – was only one aspect of official Washington’s reckless approach.

During this century, the runaway motor of nuclear irresponsibility has been mostly revved by the United States. In 2002, President George W. Bush withdrew America from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a vital agreement that had been in effect for 30 years. Negotiated by the Nixon administration and the Soviet Union, the treaty declared that its limits would be a “substantial factor in curbing the race in strategic offensive arms.”

His lofty rhetoric aside, President Obama launched a $1.7 trillion program for further developing American nuclear forces under the euphemism of “modernization.” To make matters worse, President Trump pulled the United States out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a crucial pact between Washington and Moscow that had eliminated an entire category of missiles from Europe since 1988.

The madness has remained resolutely bipartisan. Joe Biden quickly dashed hopes that he would be a more enlightened president about nuclear weapons. Far from pushing to reinstate the cancelled treaties, from the outset of his presidency Biden boosted measures like placing ABM systems in Poland and Romania. Calling them “defensive” does not change the fact that those systems can be retrofitted with offensive cruise missiles. A quick look at a map would underscore why such moves were so ominous when viewed through Kremlin windows.

Contrary to his 2020 campaign platform, President Biden has insisted that the United States must retain the option of first use of nuclear weapons. His administration’s landmark Nuclear Posture Review, issued a year ago, reaffirmed rather than renounced that option. A leader of the organization Global Zero put it this way: “Instead of distancing himself from the nuclear coercion and brinkmanship of thugs like Putin and Trump, Biden is following their lead. There’s no plausible scenario in which a nuclear first strike by the U.S. makes any sense whatsoever. We need smarter strategies.”

Daniel Ellsberg – whose book The Doomsday Machine truly should be required reading in the White House and the Kremlin – summed up humanity’s extremely dire predicament and imperative when he told the New York Times days ago: “For 70 years, the U.S. has frequently made the kind of wrongful first-use threats of nuclear weapons that Putin is making now in Ukraine. We should never have done that, nor should Putin be doing it now. I’m worried that his monstrous threat of nuclear war to retain Russian control of Crimea is not a bluff. President Biden campaigned in 2020 on a promise to declare a policy of no first use of nuclear weapons. He should keep that promise, and the world should demand the same commitment from Putin.”

We can make a difference – maybe even the difference – to avert global nuclear annihilation. This week, TV viewers will be reminded of such possibilities by the new documentary The Movement and the “Madman” on PBS. The film “shows how two antiwar protests in the fall of 1969 – the largest the country had ever seen – pressured President Nixon to cancel what he called his ‘madman’ plans for a massive escalation of the American war in Vietnam, including a threat to use nuclear weapons. At the time, protestors had no idea how influential they could be and how many lives they may have saved.”

In 2023, we have no idea how influential we can be and how many lives we might save – if we’re really willing to try.