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When the New Fascists Fully Arrive, It's Not Going to Be Pretty in This World
We face an exceptionally dangerous and demanding period as we are moved into what appears to be a new era of Trump/MAGA fascism and desperate U.S. efforts to maintain its global dominance.
Jul 19, 2024
These are increasingly dangerous times. Several years ago, Walden Bello wrote a book about counterrevolution. With Trump and Vance, two classical fascists, recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and the Heritage Foundation Project 2025, we are approaching the climax of an American counterrevolution.
Bello has also recently reminded us of Antonio Gramsci’s insight about the time that we are living through: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” Like Ulysses, we have to navigate the rapids between Scylla and Charybdis.
It is not going to be pretty.
Clearly President Joe Biden is no gift to the world. Recently a senior arms control diplomat who is close to Ron Klain, Biden’s first Chief of Staff, said that only three people can convince the president to step aside: Jill Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Biden’s sister. There are reports that Pelosi will inform Biden that it’s time to go, but there are no guarantees that she will or that if she does he will step aside, or if he does step aside that the Democrats will be able to come up with a candidate who can beat Trump and his dishonest lackey Vance.
Little noticed here in the United States has been the immensely powerful and dangerous lattice-like network of U.S. military alliances assembled by the Biden Administration in the desperate, probably futile, and multi-faceted U.S campaign to contain China. As the NATO Summit Declaration put it, the threat as seen from Washington is “global and interconnected.” With the passing of the post Cold-War’s unilateral era and the relative decline of U.S. power, Washington has become increasingly dependent on alliances, across the Indo-Pacific and in Europe to contain Chinese and Russian ambitions. Hence the increasing integration of NATO with the array of U.S. Indo-Pacific alliances, some of which date from World War II’s transformation of the Pacific Ocean into an American Lake and others of more recent vintage.
Don’t expect this to change if, as seems likely, Trump regains the Oval Office. Over the last two and a half decades there has been remarkable continuity in U.S. Republican and Democratic administrations. The U.S. elite has understood, as Biden’s National Security Statement put it, that China “is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to advance that objective.” Bush the Lesser planned to focus on China but was distracted by 9/11. Kurt Campbell and Obama gave us the Pivot to Asia. Trump doubled down on the Pivot. And despite the Ukraine and Gaza Wars, the People’s Liberation Army has been Biden’s military pacer, driving us toward what former Australian President Rudd terms “an avoidable war.”
A place to begin is Biden’s statement that the outcome of Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s recent state visit to Washington was “the most significant upgrade in our alliance since it was first established.” You can forget Japan’s Peace Constitution—the Japanese government has!—but do recall that the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty was secretly forced on Tokyo in 1952 as a requirement to end the United States’s post-war occupation of Japan. It didn’t end the occupation. Okinawa remained occupied until reversion in 1972, but even the U.S. Consul General in Naha said several years ago that the entire island remains a U.S. military base. And while U.S. bases are concentrated in Okinawa, they extend across the Japanese archipelago, including a massive U.S. air base in the nation’s capital.
The summit with Kishida was designed in part to Trump-proof the alliance and it deepened military cooperation, including joint development of AI, space technology, and semiconductors. It was formally announced that Tokyo will be purchasing 400 Tomahawk missiles as part of its now preemptive strike doctrine against China and North Korea. In something of a role reversal, Tokyo will now export of weapons to the U.S. to replenish depleted U.S. stocks that have run low because of the Ukraine War. There will also be a “joint operations command,” possibly led by a four-star U.S. general, and plans are afoot to create a NATO office in Tokyo. Meanwhile, the SDF is building up its forces on Okinawan islands in preparation for a possible war for Taiwan.
This alliance expansion is a keystone of the lattice-like alliance network which is not centralized along the model of NATO. The deepening of the U.S.-Japan alliance undergirds the tripartite U.S.-Japanese-South Korean alliance. Not incidentally, in July Washington and Seoul signed a nuclear guideline that provides for US deployment of U.S. nuclear assets in and near South Korea. The April Biden-Kishida-Marcos summit reiterated Washington’s “ironclad commitment” to the Philippines, while also resolving to increase interoperability between the militaries of the three nations as they contest China for dominance in the South China/West Philippine Sea.
With Australia and Britain, we now have AUKUS. It will provide new nuclear powered submarines to augment U.S. naval forces in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and fatten military-industrial complex coffers. It also reinforces “Anglo-Saxon” Indo-Pacific neocolonialism. Not limited to the Five Eyes intelligence gathering network of the U.S. the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the “Anglo-Saxons” are increasingly engaged in joint and collaborative military maneuvers from U.S.-Australia-New Zealand joint exercises to the dispatch of British warships to the Taiwan Strait. To reinforce this network, U.S., Japanese, Australian, and Philippine military chiefs met recently in Honolulu.
Despite the hype when it was first convened, the QUAD, comprised of the U.S., Japan, India, and Australia, is not yet a formal alliance. It remains a forum to develop security and economic strategies in the face of China’s rise. But keeping its options open, India, which has engaged in joint military exercises with the U.S. and Japan, uses QUAD as a hedge against the possibility of finding it necessary to confront China more directly in the future.
There is also deepening integration of Japanese and other U.S. Indo-Pacific allied militaries with NATO. French, Dutch, British, and German warships have all participated in joint naval maneuvers. Japanese Prime Minister Kishida, South Korea's President Yoon, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Luxon, and Australian Deputy Prime and Defense Minister Marles all joined last week’s NATO summit in Washington. France and Japan have begun talks for a reciprocal troops pact. Japan and Italy have declared their ‘strategic partnership.” And Britain, Japan, and Italy have agreed to develop a next generation jet fighter.
And, for another time, there is the other alliance, more accurately an entente, that confronts the lattice-like network: the deepening military integration of China, Russia, North Korea, and Belarus.
Finally, as we face the probability of another catastrophic Trump presidency, I thought it would be helpful to share what Robert O’Brien, Trump’s last national security advisor who is tipped to return to the White House, describes Trump’s past and future foreign and military policy commitments. O’Brien’s pledge to renew nuclear weapons testing garnered the headlines, but there was more: Chillingly, he explained that Trump adheres “to his own instincts.” And, despite doubts about Trump’s commitment to alliances, O’Brien reported that:
- The Trump mantra is “America first is not America alone…” Trump never canceled or postponed a single deployment to NATO. His pressure on NATO governments to spend more on defense made the alliance stronger.”
- Trump’s 2017 “ fire and fury” threat against North Korea brought us closer to nuclear war than is understood
- “Xi is China’s most dangerous leader since the murderous Mao Zedong. “It is “pablum to believe that China is not truly an adversary.”
- NATO and U.S. cooperation with Japan, Israel, and the Arab Gulf States were all militarily strengthened when Trump was president”
- U.S. “should focus its Pacific diplomacy on allies such as Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea…[and]traditional partners such as Singapore and emerging ones such as Indonesia and Vietnam”
- The Navy should move an aircraft carrier from the Atlantic to the Pacific, move the “entire Marine Corps to the Pacific” [later clarified to be operational troops, not admin.] He advocates adding more stealthy Virginia class submarines and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines and all 100 planned B-21bombers.
- “Test new nuclear weapons for reliability…and resume production of uranium 235 and plutonium 239”
- Decouple the US economy from China with a 60% tariff on Chinese goods and tougher export controls on technology
- In the Middle East “maximum pressure” on Iran, the source of Palestine-Israel conflict
- Support lethal aid to Ukraine paid for by Europeans, while keeping the door open for diplomacy with Russia. while NATO rotates ground and air forces in Poland.
Would that it were otherwise. We face an exceptionally dangerous and demanding period as we are moved into what appears to be an era of Trump/MAGA fascism and desperate U.S. efforts to maintain its global dominance. More imaginative and committed organizing for democracy, peace, and climate sustainability are the order of the day. It is also clear that we will need to increase and deepen our international collaborations, among them the current work on a vision for Common Security diplomacy, if the worst is to be prevented.
*This article is based on a talk for the Asia-Europe People’s Forum, July 17, 2024
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Nagasaki Mayor Withholds Israel's Invitation to Peace Ceremony
"Given the critical humanitarian situation in Gaza and international opinion, there is a risk of unpredictable disruption occurring at the ceremony," Mayor Shiro Suzuki said.
Jun 04, 2024
The mayor of Nagasaki said Monday that he is withholding Israel's invitation to the annual peace ceremony commemorating the 1945 U.S. nuclear attack on the Japanese city and will call on the country's far-right government to accept an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.
"Given the critical humanitarian situation in Gaza and international opinion, there is a risk of unpredictable disruption occurring at the ceremony," said Mayor Shirō Suzuki, according to The Asahi Shimbun.
"The situation is changing day by day, so we have put sending an invitation letter on hold," Suzuki explained. "We need to carefully monitor the situation as it develops."
The ceremony is held each year on August 9, when at 11:02 am local time in 1945 a U.S. B-29 bomber dropped a single nuclear bomb over the city, killing tens of thousands of people instantly and dooming many thousands more to slow death by radiation-induced ailments.
Suzuki said he would extend an invitation to Israel once it's clear that doing so won't cause any problems. Palestine's envoy is invited to attend, although Japan is one of a global minority of nations that do not formally recognize a Palestinian state.
Once again, Russia—whose forces have been invading Ukraine since February 2022—and Belarus, which supports the invasion, are not invited.
City officials in Hiroshima are also calling on Israel to stop attacking Gaza. However, Israel is invited to take part in the city's annual commemoration of its August 6, 1945 atomic annihilation by the United States. A group of hibakusha, the Japanese word for atomic bombing survivors, have petitioned city officials to invite all the world's nations to attend.
Israel's 242-day assault on Gaza—which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide investigation—has left more than 130,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing, according to Palestinian and international agencies. Most of those killed are women and children. Around 2 million of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced. Widespread starvation caused by Israel's siege and blockage of aid has become what one top United Nations food official last month called "full-blown famine" in the northern Gaza Strip. Children are starving to death.
A cease-fire remains elusive. Responding to reports of a three-point Israeli proposal to end the war, Japan's Foreign Ministry said Sunday that it "strongly supports" efforts by the United States—which has been accused of complicity in genocide for providing Israel with billions of dollars in military aid as well as diplomatic support—to broker a cease-fire deal.
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Russian Officials Say Wagner Mutineer Prigozhin Was Passenger in Fatal Plane Crash
Suspicions quickly turned to Russian President Vladimir Putin, with U.S. President Joe Biden saying that "there's not much that happens in Russia" without his involvement.
Aug 23, 2023
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the billionaire head of the Wagner Group mercenary firm who recently led an aborted rebellion against Russian President Vladimir Putin—an erstwhile close ally—was on the passenger list of a plane that crashed on Wednesday north of Moscow, according to Russian officials and media.
The Russian Emergencies Ministry said there were no survivors among the 10 passengers aboard the Embraer Legacy 600 private business jet, which reportedly belonged to Prigozhin and was en route from St. Petersburg to Moscow when it crashed in the Tver region more than 60 miles north of Moscow.
Rosaviation, Russia's civil aviation regulator, confirmed that Prigozhin was on the passenger list—but it remains unclear whether he was actually aboard the doomed jet.
The fate of the 61-year-old oligarch—once known as "Putin's chef" because the Russian president ate at his restaurants and contracted his catering business—has confounded observers since he led his Wagner mercenaries in a short-lived mutiny in which they captured and briefly occupied the city of Rostov-on-Don in June.
Prigozhin then ordered his men to march on Moscow to seek "revenge," accusing Russian military leaders of killing his troops during the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Wagner forces played a critical role in Russia's battlefield successes and suffered heavy losses—especially among prisoners who volunteered to fight in exchange for their freedom.
In a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko—a close Putin ally who has allowed Russian troops to invade Ukraine from his country—Prigozhin called off his coup attempt in exchange for safe passage to Belarus. However, Lukashenko said last month that Prigozhin and thousands of his fighters were still in Russia, while brushing off speculation that Putin would try to assassinate him.
"If you think Putin is so malicious and vindictive that he will wipe him out tomorrow... no, this will not happen," Lukashenko said at the time.
Earlier this week, Prigozhin published his first recruitment video since the mutiny, seeking soldiers of fortune to fight in African conflicts, including in Mali—where Wagner fighters, along with U.S.-backed government forces, are accused of committing widespread atrocities.
While the cause of Wednesday's plane crash remains unknown for now, speculation and suspicion of Putin's involvement came quickly, as the president vowed to severely punish what he called Wagner's "internal betrayal" and a "stab in the back of our country and our people."
U.S. President Joe Biden—a staunch supporter of Ukraine's defense against Russia's invasion—told reporters after the crash that "there's not much that happens in Russia that Putin's not behind."
"But I don't know enough to know the answer," he added. "I've been working out for the last hour-and-a-half."
Numerous prominent Putin opponents have suffered mysterious and usually fatal poisonings, falls, and shootings over the years.
In a 2018 interview, Putin was asked if he knew how to forgive. "Yes, but not everything," the Russian leader replied. When asked what he could not forgive, Putin answered with one word: "Betrayal."
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Putin Says 'First Batch' of Russian Nuclear Warheads Deployed in Belarus
"No matter what the political climate, Russia must work with the United States to control the risk that nuclear weapons will be used—and to eliminate them," says Global Zero. "Anything less means disaster for everyone."
Jun 16, 2023
Nearly 16 months into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow has begun deploying "tactical" nuclear weapons in Belarus, confirming recent remarks from Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
In what the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) called an "extremely dangerous escalation" that "risks catastrophic humanitarian consequences," Putin had announced the plan in late March.
"We have missiles and bombs that we have received from Russia, both that are three times more powerful than the ones used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Lukashenko told a Russian state television channel earlier this week, referencing the 1945 U.S. bombing of the Japanese cities. "Up to a million people would die immediately if, God forbid, this weapon were used."
Putin, who has said that Moscow will retain control over the Russian nukes in Belarus, addressed the deployment on Friday while speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.
"As you know, we held talks with our union state, with President Lukashenko on deploying part of these tactical weapons to Belarusian territory," Putin said. "It has happened—the first nuclear warheads have been delivered to Belarusian territory. This is the first batch. We will complete this work by the end of this year."
In response to a question about the deployment, the Russian leader reportedly said that "this is a deterrence measure."
According to the BBC: "When asked by the forum's moderator about the possibility of using those weapons, he replied: 'Why should we threaten the whole world? I have already said that the use of extreme measures is possible in case there is a danger to Russian statehood.'"
Writing Friday for Responsible Statecraft, Greg Lane, a former senior executive in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Operations, argued that "Russia's goals here appear more political than military."
"First, and as it relates to the war in the Ukraine, he wants to again highlight his own unpredictability, specifically his willingness to escalate the conflict if certain red lines are crossed," Lane wrote. "Highlighting the possibility of a nuclear exchange over the war in the Ukraine also serves a second political goal for Moscow, which is to find and exploit wedge issues that can be used to influence European public opinion."
"Perhaps most importantly for the Kremlin, however, is that the re-stationing of nuclear weapons in Belarus marks real and measurable progress in Putin's effort to reconstitute a 'Greater Russia,'" Lane added. "With the debacle of his so-called 'special military operation' and the now extreme improbability that the Ukrainians would ever voluntarily join such a union, the Russian president needs to be able to identify some success in making Russia great again."
TASS reported that Russia's embassy in Washington D.C. said that Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov met with U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy on Friday and "topical issues of the bilateral agenda were discussed."
Asked about Putin's statements on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that "we'll continue to monitor the situation very closely and very carefully. We have no reason to adjust our own nuclear posture. We don't see any indications that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon."
Noting U.S. President Joe Biden's comments earlier this week about the American commitment to defending the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Blinken stressed, "That is our north star and we're very focused on that."
"As for Belarus itself, this is just another example of Lukashenko making irresponsible, provocative choices to cede control of Belarus' sovereignty against the will of the Belarusian people," the top U.S. diplomat said.
Blinken's remarks aligned with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's Thursday response to Lukashenko announcing the arrival of Russian nukes.
According to The Associated Press, Stoltenberg told journalists in Brussels that "we are, of course, closely monitoring what Russia is doing. So far, we haven't seen any changes in the nuclear posture that requires any changes in our posture."
"Russia's nuclear rhetoric and messaging is reckless and dangerous... Russia must know that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought," he added, noting that "Russia has invested heavily in new modern nuclear capabilities and also deployed more nuclear capabilities, including close to NATO borders, for instance, in the high north."
The AP pointed out that "Biden and his NATO counterparts are gathering for a summit on July 11-12 in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Belarus border."
Of the world's nine nuclear-armed nations, Russia has the largest stockpile, followed by the United States; the other seven countries have far fewer. None of them support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
"No matter what the political climate, Russia must work with the United States to control the risk that nuclear weapons will be used—and to eliminate them," Global Zero, a campaign to abolish nukes, tweeted Thursday. "Anything less means disaster for everyone."
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Is This or Isn't This a Photo of a Broken US Nuclear Weapon?
"If the image is indeed from a nuclear weapons accident, it would constitute the first publicly known case of a recent nuclear weapons accident at an air base in Europe," according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Apr 03, 2023
Was a U.S. nuclear bomb damaged in a recent accident at a European air base?
This question is being asked Monday after the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) discovered and published a photo—used in an April 2022 student briefing at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico—that shows four people inspecting what looks like a damaged B61 atomic bomb. The U.S. is set to soon deliver a new generation of this so-called "tactical" nuclear weapon to Europe.
"The document does not identify where the photo was taken or when, but it appears to be from inside a Protective Aircraft Shelter (PAS) at Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands," according to Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at FAS, which analyzed the image in depth. "It must be emphasized up front that there is no official confirmation that the image was taken at Volkel Air Base, that the bent B61 shape is a real weapon (versus a trainer), or that the damage was the result of an accident (versus a training simulation)."
"If the image is indeed from a nuclear weapons accident," Kristensen noted, "it would constitute the first publicly known case of a recent nuclear weapons accident at an air base in Europe."
Kristensen continued:
Most people would describe a nuclear bomb getting bent as an accident, but U.S. Air Force terminology would likely categorize it as a Bent Spear incident, which is defined as "evident damage to a nuclear weapon or nuclear component that requires major rework, replacement, or examination or re-certification by the Department of Energy." The U.S. Air Force reserves "accident" for events that involve the destruction or loss of a weapon.
It is not a secret that the U.S. Air Force deploys nuclear weapons in Europe, but it is a secret where they are deployed. Volkel Air Base has stored B61s for decades. I and others have provided ample documentation for this and two former Dutch prime ministers and a defense minister in 2013 even acknowledged the presence of the weapons. Volkel Air Base is one of six air bases in Europe where the U.S. Air Force currently deploys an estimated 100 B61 nuclear bombs in total.
The United States is modernizing its air-delivered nuclear arsenal including in Europe and Volkel and the other air bases in Europe are scheduled to receive the new B61-12 nuclear bomb in the near future.
Just over a week ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed to the United States' positioning of tactical nukes in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Turkey to justify his plan to station similar weapons in Belarus. Subsequently, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that he is also seeking to store more powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles.
After condemning the Kremlin's "dangerously escalating proposal," Daniel Högsta, acting executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), alluded to arms-sharing among the U.S.-led NATO military alliance and argued that "as long as countries continue their complicity in considering nuclear weapons as anything other than a global problem, this helps give Putin cover to get away with this kind of behavior."
ICAN wrote Monday on social media that news of potential damage to a B61 atomic bomb "is a terrifying reminder of three things."
First, the organization observed, Dutch, Belgian, German, Italian, and Turkish civilians are being put "at risk if anything goes wrong."
Second, "if these weapons were used intentionally, it would be the military pilots from those countries—not the U.S.—dropping the bomb and committing mass murder of civilians," ICAN noted. "No one in these countries voted or consented to have that done in their name."
Finally, "accidents happen," the organization pointed out. "The long history of nuclear weapons mishaps and near-misses shows just how much luck has kept us from nuclear war."
"Luck is not a good security strategy," ICAN added. "Responsible states should join the [United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons] and push to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether."
Russia, the U.S., China, France, and the United Kingdom—the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council who control more than 12,000 atomic warheads combined—have expressed opposition to the body's nuclear ban treaty, which entered into force in January 2021 when it was ratified by 50 governments.
"Luck is not a good security strategy. Responsible states should... push to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether."
Beatrice Fihn, the former executive director of ICAN who led the organization when it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, made the case last week that recent weapon-sharing proposals reveal the dangers of "nuclear deterrence" theory, which asserts that threatening to use atomic bombs dissuades governments from taking certain actions and therefore helps avert nuclear war.
"We have to stop being so stupid by continuing to say nuclear deterrence works," Fihn argued. "We need to urgently stigmatize and delegitimize the use, threat to use, testing, stationing, and possession of nuclear weapons."
For the first time since the 1980s, the world's nuclear arsenal—90% of which is controlled by Moscow and Washington—is projected to expand in the coming years, and the risk of weapons capable of annihilating life on Earth being used is growing.
"We need to use all available methods and tools of the international community to pressure Russia on this," Fihn said last week. "And then we need to urgently work to eliminate nuclear weapons and remove this option from all counties. For Ukraine and also for every other country and person on this planet."
U.S. President Joe Biden warned in October that Russia's war in Ukraine had brought the world closer to "Armageddon" than at any point since the Cuban missile crisis. Just days later, however, his administration published a Nuclear Posture Review that nonproliferation advocates said increases the likelihood of catastrophe, in part because it preserves the option of a nuclear first strike. The U.S. remains the only country to have used nuclear weapons in war, decimating the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs in August 1945.
Izumi Nakamitsu, the U.N. high representative for disarmament affairs, warned Friday in a briefing to the body's Security Council that "the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is currently higher than at any time since the depths of the Cold War."
"The war in Ukraine represents the most acute example of that risk," said Nakamitsu. "The absence of dialogue and the erosion of the disarmament and arms control architecture, combined with dangerous rhetoric and veiled threats, are key drivers of this potentially existential risk."
"States must avoid taking any actions that could lead to escalation, mistake, or miscalculation," she added. "They should return to dialogue to de-escalate tensions urgently and find ways to develop and implement transparency and confidence-building measures."
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Amid Fears Over Russia-Belarus Nuke Deal, UN Official Calls for Talks to Ease Tensions
"The absence of dialogue and the erosion of the disarmament and arms control architecture, combined with dangerous rhetoric and veiled threats, are key drivers of this potentially existential risk."
Mar 31, 2023
The United Nations disarmament chief on Friday called for de-escalatory talks to curb the risk of nuclear war amid global concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin's plan to station so-called "tactical" nuclear weapons in Belarus.
Roughly 13 months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin announced what critics called the "extremely dangerous escalation" last weekend, as United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu noted at the beginning of her briefing to the U.N. Security Council—which Russia, a permanent member, is set to lead for a month starting on Saturday.
Nakamitsu's remarks came as Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, in a speech to his country's Parliament, claimed without evidence that the United States and other Western nations plan to take over both Belarus and neighboring Poland, and vowed that "we will protect our sovereignty and independence by any means necessary."
"States must avoid taking any actions that could lead to escalation, mistake, or miscalculation."
Nakamitsu said that "the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is currently higher than at any time since the depths of the Cold War. The war in Ukraine represents the most acute example of that risk. The absence of dialogue and the erosion of the disarmament and arms control architecture, combined with dangerous rhetoric and veiled threats, are key drivers of this potentially existential risk."
"States must avoid taking any actions that could lead to escalation, mistake, or miscalculation," she continued. "They should return to dialogue to de-escalate tensions urgently and find ways to develop and implement transparency and confidence-building measures."
Putin justified the deployment plan in part by insisting that the weapons will remain under Russian control and pointing to the U.S. nukes that have been stationed in allied European countries for decades. The United States—which has the world's second-largest nuclear arsenal after Russia—is believed to have about 100 such bombs spread across Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey.
Both Russia and the United States are parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Nakamitsu stressed Friday that all parties to the treaty, whether or not they have nukes, "must strictly adhere to the commitments and obligations they have assumed under the treaty."
The issue of a state without its own weapons hosting some from one of the world's nine nuclear-armed nations "has existed for decades, across various regions and under different arrangements. These arrangements pre-date the NPT, with the exception of the recent announcement," Nakamitsu acknowledged. "The issue of so-called 'nuclear sharing' was debated intensely during the negotiation of the NPT" and "has been the subject of subsequent discussions."
After echoing U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres' call for Russia and the United States "to return to full implementation of the New START Treaty and commence negotiations on its successor," Nakamitsu said that "the accelerated implementation of commitments under the NPT can also contribute to undergirding international stability. I therefore appeal to all states parties of the NPT to fully adhere to their obligations to the treaty, and to immediately engage in serious efforts to reduce nuclear risk and de-escalate tensions."
Meanwhile, the U.S. and Russian ambassadors took aim at each other's countries during the U.N. Security Council meeting.
"We are pursuing cooperation with Belarus without violating obligations," argued Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian ambassador, highlighting the U.S. warheads across Europe. "We are not transferring nuclear weapons."
According to U.N. News:
Russia must take "all requisite measures" in response to "provocative steps," [Nebenzia] said, given the fraying global security architecture, dictated exclusively by Washington, along with London's recent decision to deploy armor-piercing ammunition to Ukraine.
"A nuclear war cannot be won," he said.
Russia's suggestion that this intended deployment is justified because of the use of armor-piercing ammunition supplied by Western forces, containing depleted uranium, is "ludicrous," U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood said.
"Armour-piercing ammunition is in no way analogous to tactical nuclear weapons," he said, adding that the Kremlin is attempting to limit and deter Ukraine's efforts to defend itself, and manipulate matters to win the war.
"Any use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine would have severe consequences and would fundamentally change the nature of this war," Wood added, urging Russia to reconsider its decision to deploy nukes in Belarus.
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'Truly Troubling': Claiming Western Invasion Imminent, Lukashenko Says Belarus Seeks Nukes
In addition to tactical nuclear weapons Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week he plans to station in Belarus, Lukashenko said Friday he would seek intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Mar 31, 2023
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday claimed without evidence that his government needs to "safeguard" the Eastern European country from a looming Western invasion, saying he is seeking to station intercontinental nuclear missiles there to defend Belarus against the United States and other countries in the West.
In an hourslong speech to Parliament on the state of the nation, Lukashenko, who has been in office since 1994 and whose 2020 reelection was disputed by hundreds of thousands of Belarusians, said the West is planning to take over both Belarus and its neighboring Poland.
"Take my word for it, I have never deceived you," said Lukashenko. "They are preparing to invade Belarus, to destroy our country."
For this reason, he said, he may use so-called "tactical" nuclear weapons that Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week the Kremlin would deploy in Belarus, if Putin agrees to their use. In addition, Lukashenko said he would seek intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of destroying whole cities from thousands of miles away, on Belarusian soil.
"Putin and I will decide and introduce here, if necessary, strategic weapons, and they must understand this, the scoundrels abroad, who today are trying to blow us up from inside and outside," Lukashenko told lawmakers and his constituents. "We will stop at nothing to protect our countries, our state, and their peoples. "We will protect our sovereignty and independence by any means necessary, including through the nuclear arsenal."
"Don't say we will just be looking after them, and these are not our weapons," he added. "These are our weapons and they will contribute to ensuring sovereignty and independence."
Putin said Saturday that the short-range nuclear weapons he plans to station in Belarus will remain under Russian control.
Belarus relinquished its nuclear arsenal after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Lukashenko noted in his speech that Belarus gave up the weapons under pressure from former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
Russia's announcement last week that it would deploy weapons in Belarus would mark the country's first stationing of nuclear weapons outside its border in more than three decades.
U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the pending deployment is "worrisome."
"Belarus hosting Russian nuclear weapons would mean an irresponsible escalation and threat to European security," said European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell this week. "Belarus can still stop it, it is their choice. The E.U. stands ready to respond with further sanctions."
Lukashenko and Putin have strengthened their cooperation since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with Belarus providing a staging ground for Russian troops.
The Belarusian leader's comments came amid ongoing attacks in Ukraine, with multiple rocket strikes in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, the site of a nuclear power plant, on Friday. Lukashenko included in his speech a call for an immediate ceasefire "without preconditions," warning Ukraine that "it is impossible to defeat a nuclear power" and that Russia will use "the most terrible weapon" if it is threatened.
Thijs Reuten, a Dutch member of the European Parliament, denounced Lukashenko as Putin's "lapdog" and condemned his attempt to "blame the West."
"Truly troubling: Each of these steps brings Belarus closer to full-blown occupation," said Reuten. "The Belarusian people deserve so much better."
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Putin Further Stokes Nuclear Fears With 'Sinister' Training Exercises
Sweden—which, along with Finland, is trying to join NATO—summoned Russia's ambassador after he said that "new members of the hostile bloc will become a legitimate target for Russian retaliatory measures."
Mar 29, 2023
In what was seen around the world as a "menacing" and "sinister" show of Russia's nuclear capabilities, thousands of Russian troops on Wednesday began exercises in Siberia with the nation's Yars intercontinental ballistic missile system.
"In total, more than 3,000 military personnel and about 300 pieces of equipment are involved in the exercises," Russia's Ministry of Defense said just over 13 months into Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The exercises come amid reporting that Putin is prepared for a war without "a foreseeable end," despite the human and economic toll, and after the Russian leader on Sunday revealed plans to station "tactical" nuclear weapons in Belarus, a move he compared to the United States' placing of such arms in allied European countries.
Anti-nuke campaigners said that Putin's "extremely dangerous escalation" on Sunday demonstrates the dangers of "nuclear deterrence" while also warning that the United States—with the world's second-largest nuclear arsenal after Russia—and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) "must resist calls to respond in kind and avoid injecting nuclear weapons deeper into this war."
On Monday, the United States and allies on the United Nations Security Council rejected a Russia-led effort to launch a probe into the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, and a U.S. State Department official said the Biden administration supports creating "an internationalized national court" to help Ukrainian prosecutors bring cases against Russian leaders related to the war.
In an annual report Tuesday, Amnesty International noted that "the West's robust response to Russia's aggression against Ukraine contrasts sharply with a deplorable lack of meaningful action on grave violations by some of their allies including Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt."
The Biden administration also informed Moscow on Monday that in response to Putin announcing last month that Russia "is suspending its participation" in New START, its last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the United States, Washington has cut off biannual updates about the U.S. nuclear stockpile but will keep sharing daily positioning information.
"There is no reason to believe that Russia will be swayed by this," Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists told The Wall Street Journal Tuesday. "We are watching the gradual destruction of the last remaining nuclear arms limitation treaty."
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Wednesday that "all notifications, all kinds of notifications, all activities under the treaty, will be suspended and will not be conducted regardless of what position the U.S. may take."
Ryabkov also said that Putin's Belarus decision is the result of Ukraine's Western allies failing to heed "serious signals" from Moscow because of the "fundamental irresponsibility of Western elites before their people and international security."
"Now they will have to deal with changing realities," the minister added. "We hope that NATO officials will adequately assess the seriousness of the situation."
After months of delay, Hungary on Monday backed a bid by Finland—which borders Russia—to join NATO while continuing to stall on Sweden over "an ample amount of grievances that need to be addressed," according to a Hungarian government spokesperson.
In response to the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, both Scandinavian countries applied to join NATO last May, but their efforts have been blocked by Hungary and Turkey—which is expected to approve Finland's bid on Thursday.
Russia's ambassador to Sweden, Viktor Tatarintsev, said Tuesday that "if anyone still believes that this [NATO membership] in any way will somehow improve Europe's security, you can be sure that the new members of the hostile bloc will become a legitimate target for Russian retaliatory measures, including military ones."
Rather than becoming safer, Sweden would be "taking a step towards the abyss," Tatarintsev warned, noting that "after the accession of Finland and Sweden, the total length of the border between Russia and NATO will almost double."
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström responded Wednesday that "the Ministry for Foreign Affairs will summon the Russian ambassador to make a clear statement against this blatant attempt at influence."
"Sweden's security policy is determined by Sweden—no one else," Billström said.
Adding to regional security concerns on Wednesday, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said during a trip to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine that "it is obvious that military activity is increasing in this whole region, so every possible measure and precautions should be taken so that the plant is not attacked."
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Peace Advocates Say Putin Plan Reveals Dangers of 'Nuclear Deterrence'
"As long as countries continue their complicity in considering nuclear weapons as anything other than a global problem, this helps give Putin cover to get away with this kind of behavior," said one expert.
Mar 27, 2023
In addition to denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin's plan to station so-called "tactical" nuclear weapons in Belarus, anti-war campaigners are calling into question the effectiveness of "nuclear deterrence" and reiterating their demands for global disarmament.
"As long as Putin has nuclear weapons, Europe cannot be safe," Daniel Högsta, acting executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), said Monday in a statement.
But "he has justified this dangerously escalating proposal to move nuclear weapons into Belarus by citing decades of NATO nuclear sharing," said Högsta. "As long as countries continue their complicity in considering nuclear weapons as anything other than a global problem, this helps give Putin cover to get away with this kind of behavior."
When announcing the Kremlin's plan on Saturday, Putin pointed to the United States' positioning of tactical nuclear weapons in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey.
"We're basically doing the same thing they've been doing for a decade," said Putin. "They have allies in certain countries and they train their carriers, they train their crews. We are going to do the same thing."
"We need to urgently stigmatize and delegitimize the use, threat to use, testing, stationing, and possession of nuclear weapons."
Russia "will not hand over" warheads to Belarus, Putin said. He explained that his country has already provided its ally with a nuclear-capable Iskander missile system and ensured that 10 Belarusian aircraft are equipped to use such weapons. According to Putin, Moscow intends to start training crews next week and aims to finish building a special storage facility for the arms by the beginning of July.
Putin's announcement came 13 months into Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Three days after Putin launched the military assault, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko amended the Belarus Constitution to remove its nuclear-free clause. In late 2021, Lukashenko had offered to host Russian nuclear weapons if NATO moved U.S. atomic bombs from Germany to Eastern Europe.
Moscow's deployment decision also came just days after the United Kingdom unveiled its plan to send armor-piercing tank rounds containing depleted uranium to Ukraine—a proposal that has elicited concerns about provoking a nuclear war as well as causing public health and environmental harms.
Putin said the U.K.'s announcement "probably served as a reason" why Lukashenko agreed to Russia's plan, which he argued won't violate the country's obligations under the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
As Reuters explains, the NPT "says that no nuclear power can transfer nuclear weapons or technology to a nonnuclear power, but it does allow for the weapons to be deployed outside its borders but under its control—as with U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe."
ICAN warned Monday that "the deployment of nuclear weapons in additional countries... complicates decision-making and increases the risk of miscalculation, miscommunication, and potentially catastrophic accidents."
Belarusian human rights activist and opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Saturday that "Russia's deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus directly violates the Constitution of Belarus and grossly contradicts the will of the Belarusian people."
"This unacceptable development" makes "Belarus a potential target for preventive or retaliation strikes," she warned, imploring world leaders to demand that Russia "stop this threatening deployment and impose adequate and severe sanctions on the regimes of Lukashenko and Putin as outright threats to international peace and security."
According to Agence France-Presse, "Kyiv is seeking an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council over the move."
The U.S., for its part, "has reacted cautiously," Reuters reported Sunday. An unnamed senior Biden administration official told the news outlet that "we have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture nor any indications Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon."
But a European Union official said Monday that the bloc would respond with fresh sanctions if Russia moves ahead with its plan, according to Anadolu Agency, Turkey's state-run news agency.
"That will be a further escalation and direct threat to European security," said Peter Stano, the European Commission's lead spokesperson on foreign affairs.
E.U. authorities "haven't seen any confirmation from the Belarusian side about this being on the agenda or happening anytime," Stano stressed. But if it happens, "there will be consequences."
The Kremlin, meanwhile, said Monday that Russia won't abandon its plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus because of mounting Western criticism.
In the words of Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, "Such a reaction of course cannot influence Russian plans."
For Beatrice Fihn, the former executive director of ICAN who led the organization when it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, the entire episode underscores the dangerous incoherence of "nuclear deterrence" theory, which asserts that threatening to use atomic bombs dissuades governments from taking certain actions and thus helps avert nuclear war.
In a Twitter thread, Fihn argued that "the way nuclear deterrence has been talked about this past year has been so bizarre."
According to Fihn:
Most proponents of nuclear weapons have spent this past year arguing that we now shouldn't believe in nuclear deterrence. They say, "Don't believe Russia's threats, it doesn't deter us," but also, "Don't worry, Russia will definitely believe and be deterred by our nuclear threats."
This doesn't make any sense. And I genuinely would like to know from pro-nuclear weapons people in the U.S., U.K., France, and NATO, what could Putin do with his nuclear weapons that would deter you?
If your answer is "nothing" then you either admit nuclear deterrence doesn't work or you're basically saying nuclear deterrence only is credible when you do it but it's not when your enemies do it.
"We know Putin is a war criminal who has no problem killing civilians, so how can you be so sure he won't go ahead with this while at the same time [be] so sure that Putin... would be convinced that Biden would?" she asked.
"Nuclear weapons don't seem to deter any real war and conflict situations," said Fihn. "They only possibly deter hypothetical abstract scenarios in people's minds."
She continued:
None of this means that I'm saying Putin won't use nuclear weapons. There is a risk that Putin will use nuclear weapons in this war. We can debate how high it is, but everyone knows that this risk isn't zero and agrees that it has grown this last year.
But the decision to use nuclear weapons doesn't actually have much to do about believing or not believing in nuclear deterrence, it's just a decision by one man—and will be made based on whatever goes through his head at that point.
He makes the decision based on whatever he's thinking at that moment. Are you really that confident he will always think the right thing? That he'll always make the decision you think he should be making?
"We have to stop being so stupid by continuing to say nuclear deterrence works," Fihn added. "We need to urgently stigmatize and delegitimize the use, threat to use, testing, stationing, and possession of nuclear weapons."
For the first time since the Cold War, the global nuclear stockpile—90% of which is controlled by Moscow and Washington—is projected to grow in the coming years, and the risk of weapons capable of annihilating life on Earth being used is rising.
"We need to use all available methods and tools of the international community to pressure Russia on this," said Fihn. "And then we need to urgently work to eliminate nuclear weapons and remove this option from all counties. For Ukraine and also for every other country and person on this planet."
In October, U.S. President Joe Biden warned that the war in Ukraine had brought the world closer to "Armageddon" than at any point since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Just days later, however, his administration released a Nuclear Posture Review that nonproliferation campaigners said increases the likelihood of calamity, in part because it preserves the option of a nuclear first strike. The U.S. remains the only country to have used nuclear weapons in war, destroying the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs in August 1945.
"As we're hurtling straight towards climate disaster, where large parts of our Earth will become inhabitable, the incentives for some leaders to use nuclear threats to grab whatever land and resources they feel they need will only increase," Fihn argued. "Nuclear disarmament and stopping climate change are the two central fights for the fate of humanity. You need to get on the right side of these two issues if you want a chance for us all to survive."
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No Country for Nuclear Madmen
Everything that can be done must done to avert global nuclear annihilation.
Mar 27, 2023
The announcement by President 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 U.S. corporate media to (appropriately) condemn Putin's announcement while dodging key realities of how the USA, for decades, has been pushing the nuclear envelope toward conflagration. The U.S. 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 the U.S. 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 Barack Obama launched a $1.7 trillion program for further developing U.S. 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. President Joe Biden quickly dashed hopes that he would be a more enlightened leader about nuclear weapons. Far from pushing to reinstate the canceled 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 U.S. 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.
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