Second, it is long past time that we rid ourselves of the conceit that we are the most admired nation on earth. Anyone abroad with half a brain and access to a newspaper and the internet is well aware that for the first eight years of this century, the United States was governed by authentic war criminals. They know that we routinely ignore international law when convenient. Millions of widows and orphans from Viet Nam to Iraq to Nicaragua are tragically aware of our indifference to innocent human life when it gets in the way of our international ambitions. Accordingly we should not be surprised to when the Gallup organization poll of 24 countries tells us that the United States is regarded in these countries as the greatest threat to world peace.
Furthermore it is no secret abroad that authentic democracy has disappeared from the United States, that the top one percent of Americans own more than a third of the national wealth, and that the same one percent took for themselves 95% of the national wealth gained since 2008. The government of the United States has, in effect, become the personal property of the oligarchs. As Senator Durbin (D. IL) said: "The bankers own this place" (i.e., the Senate of the United States).
No, we are no longer admired abroad. And the world beyond our shores wants no part of the "gift of freedom" (for the elites) that the neo-cons are attempting to impose upon them.
Finally, there is much more that should unite us with the Russians than that which divides. Time and again throughout history, traditional enemies have united in the face of a common external threat. So it was with the Athenians and Spartans facing the Persians. So it was with the Americans, British and Soviets facing the Nazi regime. So it is again today.
To begin, there is the so-called "global war against terrorism." The Russians arguably have a greater stake in defeating the Islamic militants than we do. About 15% of the Russian population is Muslim. In addition, the former Soviet "Stan" republics to the south of Russia are predominantly Muslim: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan. Like the vast majority of the billion-plus Moslems throughout the world, these Russian and post-Soviet Muslims reject the violent extremism of ISIS and other militant groups. Yet these regions within and immediately outside Russia are fertile seedbeds for the recruitment of extremists
Islamic terrorism is a concern shared by the United States, and Europe, as we are reminded daily by the news reports. Thus the struggle against Islamic extremism should be an international endeavor, including to be sure the Islamic nations which are especially vulnerable to the militants. All nations involved in this struggle must acknowledge that "the enemy" is not a religion, Islam, but rather fanaticism. It is a struggle that can and should unite the United States and Russia.
But there is a still greater over-arching global emergency that is well-suited to unite us all and put our divisive power struggles permanently in the dust bin of history.
I refer, of course, to global climate change. If this is not addressed immediately and forcefully, in the next century there will be no diplomatic game-playing among elites in Washington, London, Beijing, Berlin and Tokyo, because all these cities will then be under water. Ironically, Moscow will then be high and dry. But no matter: the breadbasket steppes of Ukraine and Russia will be parched and sterile deserts.
All of us -- every single nation on this planet -- now face that common enemy, if only we had the eyes to see. And the industrialized nations have caused it. "We have met the enemy and he is us." Climate change is a threat to our children, grandchildren and generations beyond greater than the armies of Xerxes or Hitler. Human civilization must either deal with it head-on or perish on an uninhabitable planet. There is no third alternative. (In November, 1989, during my first trip to Russia, I spoke on this theme at a conference sponsored by the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
IV
The Russians can be essential allies, as we discovered in WWII. They are intelligent, resourceful, and determined. And as I have personally discovered, as friends and colleagues they are loyal, trustworthy and generous.
Russian scientific research is first rate, or at least it was until the cowboy capitalists of the Yeltsin era slashed their funding. The glory days of Russian science can and must be revived. As for technology, think Sputnik and Soyuz, along with the Stormavik and T-34. Even today, American astronauts and their supplies are carried aloft in Russian rockets.
The military-industrial establishments of several countries will resist a demobilization. The answer is to apply judo: redirect their engineering and manufacturing might toward research and development in renewable energy, carbon capture, etc. If our best engineering minds are now attached to the military establishment, then let's direct their attention to planetary survival and renewal. There is precedent: the US demobilized in 1945 and restarted the domestic industrial economy without hardship. Many of the returning veterans, rather than joining the unemployment lines, went to college on the GI Bill to become doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers -- the foundation of the middle class that was, until recently, the envy of the world
This late in the essay, I will not test the reader's patience by presenting a long list of proposals aimed at detente between the United States and Russia. It is not necessary, since I have done so elsewhere (see the final section of my "Letter to my Friends in Russia").
Instead, I close with a plea: Stop the madness -- now! There is nothing to be gained by a new cold war that is remotely worth the risk of devastation that it might bring upon all of us. We earthlings -- all of us -- face a planetary crisis that we must either address collectively and intelligently, or else our posterity will endure unimaginable horror and face the end of civilization.
Where are the leaders that will rescue us from this insanity? None are in evidence at this moment in time. If none, then we the people of the United States, of Russia, and of the entire world must unite and demand:no war! Survival at any cost! If existing political and economic institutions and leaders will not respond, then we must together establish new institutions and find new leaders.
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