In the latest NPR one quote (page 30) stands out: "Russia is not the Soviet Union and the Cold War is long over. However, despite our best efforts to sustain a positive relationship, Russia now perceives the United States and NATO as its principal opponent and impediment to realizing its destabilizing geopolitical goals in Eurasia."
Aside from the flagrant deceit over US and NATO encirclement of Russia, again it is noteworthy how vague accusations are somehow made into a sinister threat. The NPR surely ought to say what Russia's supposedly "destabilizing geopolitical goals in Eurasia" are, but doesn't.
So are we to believe that Russia's economic integration with China and other Eurasian neighbors is an illegitimate ambition? Is Russia's move towards replacing the American dollar in bilateral trade with China immoral? Arguably, such moves are threatening to US hegemony. But they are not acts of war in any reasonable definition.
That's the thing. It is obvious that Washington is construing political and economic changes in the world -- the tendency toward a multipolar order -- as a mortal threat to its unipolar ambitions. For Washington, this threat is being transposed into military terms. The problem is not foreign "enemies;" the problem is Washington's warmongering.
The second perplexing theme in the US NPR is how it conflates conventional and nuclear war. Repeatedly throughout the document, it states that American nuclear forces are to be "tailored and more flexible" as "deterrents" (one could argue "offensives") against conventional and nuclear threats."
With regard to Russia, the Pentagon reiterates the litany of allegations against Moscow that it is acting aggressively in Ukraine and against American allies in Europe, including with "new forms of aggression from cyberattacks."
Provocatively, the Pentagon declares that "Russian aggression" will "trigger incalculable and intolerable costs for Moscow."
This is disturbing, to say the least, because the military chiefs in Washington are accusing Russia of what it perceives as "aggression," while at the same time Washington is saying that it is moving toward "nuclear deterrence" to confront it.
A third area of concern is the explicit go-ahead by Washington for the development of so-called "low-yield nuclear warheads." The concept of "mini-nukes" has been around for several years, but now the Pentagon is declaring it will pursue development of these weapons. The NPR specified submarine-launched missiles as the sector where the mini-nukes will be deployed.
The dangerous consequence is the notion that a limited nuclear war may be feasible. Thus, a greater risk of "low-yield" nuclear weapons being deployed in action. But the real danger is that the threshold will then be lowered for escalation to strategic weapons of mass destruction.
Taken together, the latest US Nuclear Posture Review presents an alarming deterioration in global security. In stark contrast to the Pentagon's claims of "raising the threshold" for nuclear war, the latest policy formulation entails a reckless lowering of that threshold.
During the height of the Cold War, the renowned American sociologist C. Wright Mills coined the phrase "Crackpot Realists" to refer to Pentagon war planners and their relentless depiction of world threats as justification for stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
It is evident from the latest NPR that the Cold War is still being waged, and Crackpot Realists are ever-present in the Pentagon.
As Mills wrote back in 1958: "The absence of an American program for peace is a major cause of the thrust and drift toward World War III."
Think about that. The risk of world annihilation and the grotesque waste of human resources could easily be solved, if only Washington would engage in peaceful diplomacy with the rest of the world.
The underlying reason for why this does not happen -- American-desired hegemony -- is why Washington stands condemned.
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