US Strategic Command, the branch of the US military responsible for America’s nuclear arsenal, tweeted the following on Tuesday:

“The spectrum of conflict today is neither linear nor predictable. We must account for the possibility of conflict leading to conditions which could very rapidly drive an adversary to consider nuclear use as their least bad option.”

The statement, which STRATCOM called a “preview” of the Posture Statement it submits to US Congress every year, was a bit intense for Twitter and sparked a lot of alarmed responses. This alarm was due not to any inaccuracy in STRATCOM’s frank statement, but due to the bizarre fact that our world’s increasing risk of nuclear war barely features in mainstream discourse.

STRATCOM has been preparing not just to use its nuclear arsenal for deterrence but also to “win” a nuclear war should one arise from the (entirely US-created) “conditions” which are “neither linear nor predictable”. And it’s looking increasingly likely that one will as the prevailing orthodoxy among western imperialists that US unipolar hegemony must be preserved at all cost rushes headlong toward America’s plunge into post-primacy.

The US has been ramping up aggressions with Russia in a way that has terrified experts, and it looks likely to continue doing so. These aggressions are further complicated on increasingly tense fronts like Ukraine, which is threatening to obtain nuclear weapons if it isn’t granted membership to NATO, either of which would increase the risk of conflict. Aggressions against nuclear-armed China are escalating on what seems like a daily basis at this point, with potential flashpoints in the China Seas, Taiwan, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, India, and any number of other possible fronts.

STRATCOM commander Charles Richard told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that China’s nuclear capabilities are advancing so rapidly that they’re not even bothering with intelligence vetted more than a month ago in their briefings because it’s probably already out of date, urging an upgrade in America’s nuclear infrastructure. Richard reportedly testified that a portion of China’s nuclear arsenal has been recently primed for ready use.

The fact that those in charge of US nuclear weapons now see both Russia and China as a major nuclear threat, and the fact that US cold warriors are escalating against both of them, is horrifying. The fact that they’re again playing with “low-yield” nukes designed to actually be used on the battlefield makes it even more so. This is to say nothing of tensions between nuclear-armed Pakistan and nuclear-armed India, between nuclear-armed Israel and its neighbors, and between nuclear-armed North Korea and the western empire.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has the 2021 Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight, citing the rising threat of nuclear war:

“Accelerating nuclear programs in multiple countries moved the world into less stable and manageable territory last year. Development of hypersonic glide vehicles, ballistic missile defenses, and weapons-delivery systems that can flexibly use conventional or nuclear warheads may raise the probability of miscalculation in times of tension. Events like the deadly assault earlier this month on the US Capitol renewed legitimate concerns about national leaders who have sole control of the use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear nations, however, have ignored or undermined practical and available diplomatic and security tools for managing nuclear risks. By our estimation, the potential for the world to stumble into nuclear war—an ever-present danger over the last 75 years—increased in 2020. An extremely dangerous global failure to address existential threats—what we called ‘the new abnormal’ in 2019—tightened its grip in the nuclear realm in the past year, increasing the likelihood of catastrophe.”

In a recent interview with Phoenix Media Co-op‘s Slava Zilber, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft nuclear policy specialist Joe Cirincione described a ramp-up in weapons technology among all nuclear-armed nations in the world, the future of which he described as “bleak”:

“We right now have a global nuclear arms race. Each of the nine nuclear-armed nations are building new weapons. Some are replacing weapons that are getting old. Others are expanding their arsenals. But all of these new weapons represent new capabilities for these countries. So you’re seeing a qualitative and a quantitative arms race that is completely unchecked.

 

“If you look at the data that’s collected by the Federation of American Scientists, for example, you see that – since the 1980s at the height of the Cold War – we have slashed the global nuclear arsenals. We went from a world in 1986 where there were almost 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world down to where we are now where there’s just about 13,500 nuclear weapons. Tremendous progress. 85% reduction in the stockpile…

 

“But it’s flattened out. There really haven’t been significant reductions for years. The 2010 New START agreement was the last successful arms control agreement. That was 11 years ago. There’s been no reduction agreement since then. There’ve been no talks about new reductions agreements. Now I think the future of arms control is bleak. It’s bleak. And I see no interest really in a new round of arms control either from the United States or from Russia. So I’m pessimistic about our prospects.”

As I all too frequently find myself having to remind people, the primary risk here is not that anyone will choose to have a nuclear war, it’s that a nuke will be deployed amid heightening tensions as a result of miscommunication, miscalculation, misfire, or malfunction, as nearly happened many times during the last cold war, thereby setting off everyone’s nukes as per Mutually Assured Destruction.

The more tense things get, the likelier such an event becomes. This new cold war is happening along two fronts, with a bunch of proxy conflicts complicating things even further. There are so very many small moving parts, and it’s impossible to remain in control of all of them.

People like to think every nuclear-armed country has one “The Button” with which they can consciously choose to start a nuclear war after careful deliberation, but it doesn’t work that way. There are thousands of people in the world controlling different parts of different nuclear arsenals who could independently initiate a nuclear war. Thousands of “The Buttons”. It only takes one. The arrogance of believing anyone can control such a conflict safely, for years, is astounding.

2014 report published in the journal Earth’s Future found that it would only take the detonation of 100 nuclear warheads to throw 5 teragrams of black soot into the earth’s stratosphere for decades, blocking out the sun and making the photosynthesis of plants impossible. This could easily starve every terrestrial organism to death that didn’t die of radiation or climate chaos first. China has hundreds of nuclear weapons; Russia and the United States have thousands.

This should be the main thing everyone talks about. There is literally no more urgent matter on earth than the looming possibility that everyone might die in a nuclear war.

But people don’t see it.

On a recent Tucker Carlson Tonight appearance, former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard did a solid job describing the horrors of nuclear war and the very real possibility that it could be inflicted upon us due to America’s insane brinkmanship with Russia. She spoke earnestly about how “such a war would come at a cost beyond anything we can really imagine,” painting an entirely accurate picture of “hundreds of millions of people dying and suffering, seeing their flesh being burned from their bones.”

Gabbard is correct, and was right to give such a confrontational account of what we are looking at right now. But if you read the replies to Gabbard’s tweet in which she shared a clip from the interview, you’ll see a deluge of commenters accusing her of “hyperbole”, saying she’s being soft on Putin, and admonishing her for appearing on Tucker Carlson. It’s like they can’t even hear what she’s saying, how real it is, how significant it is.

People’s failure to wrap their minds around this issue is a testament to the power of normalcy bias, a cognitive glitch which causes us to assume that because something bad hasn’t happened in the past, it won’t happen in the future. We survived the last cold war by the skin of our teeth, entirely by sheer, dumb luck; the only reason people are around to bleat “hyperbole” is because we got lucky. There’s no reason to believe we’ll get lucky in this new cold war environment; only normalcy bias says we will. Believing we’ll survive this cold war just because we survived the last one is as sane as believing Russian roulette is safe because the guy passing you the gun didn’t die.

It’s also a testament to the power of plain old psychological compartmentalization. People can’t handle the idea of everything ending, of everyone they know and love dying, of watching their loved ones die in flames or from radiation poisoning right in front of them, all because someone made a mistake at the wrong time after a bunch of imperialists decided that US planetary domination was worth rolling the dice on the life of every terrestrial organism for.

But mostly it’s a testament to the ubiquitous malpractice of the western media. It’s inconvenient to the agendas of the imperial war machine to have people protesting these insane cold war games of nuclear brinkmanship, so their media stenographers barely touch on this issue. If mainstream journalism actually existed, this flirtation with nuclear war would be front and center in everyone’s awareness and people would be flooding the streets in protest against their lives being toyed with as casino chips in an insane all-or-nothing gamble.

This is so much bigger than any of the petty little things we spend our mental energy on from day to day. It’s bigger than whatever your number one pet issue is. It’s bigger than your disdain for Moscow or Beijing. It’s bigger than my disdain for the US empire. It’s bigger than our political opinions. It’s bigger than whatever argument we might be having on the internet. It’s bigger than whether or not we’ve got a problem with Tulsi Gabbard appearing on Tucker Carlson.

Because once the nukes start flying, none of that will matter. None of it. All that will matter is the fact that this is all ending. If you open the door and see a mushroom cloud growing on the horizon, all of your mental priorities will rearrange themselves real quick.

We should not be in this situation. There is no good reason governments should be playing these games with these weapons. There is no good reason we can’t just get along with each other and collaborate toward a healthy world together. Only the psychopathic agendas of power-hungry imperialists perpetuate this insane balancing act, and it benefits none of us ordinary people in any way.

The rising threat of nuclear war is the most urgent matter in the world, and it’s absolute madness that we’re not talking about it all the time.

Let’s do what we can to change that.

_______________________________

New book: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix.

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63 responses to “The Rising Threat Of Nuclear War Is The Most Urgent Matter In The World”

  1. Mkay, 3 things:
    1) You left out “death cult”, which, in addition to being reasonably accurate, sounds cool.
    2) You failed to mention the fundies, who actually want nuclear war. Hm. A whole new spin on “preaching to the choir”.
    3) I’m not trying to discourage you, but there’s a certain logical pointlessness to trying to explain the negative side of nuclear war to a species that actually needs this explained to it.

    And the fourth thing in the trilogy is Truman’s official public take on the atomic bombings of Japan, which was so counterfactual, quietly accepted, and insane as to reasonably establish that humanity is doomed. But at least we told them so.

    OK, here’s one to throw at them- radiation poisoning is bad for your complexion. Ruins it, in fact. On the other hand, radiation doesn’t discriminate on the basis of skin color or gender preference, so it has that going for it. And factory farming will end. Hey I’m on a roll. All the politicians will fry like big sides of bacon, except for the ones that make it down into the bunker, where they’ll have to live in a politician zombie world I can scarce imagine, though maybe they would like it. So if nuclear war is going to happen then I think we should at least make sure politicians don’t have a place to flee to. So that’s at least a realistic objective.

    But seriously. Let’s shift the debate toward a solution that doesn’t involve mass reason.

    Maybe you should try writing an experimental piece dealing with the next use of nuclear weapons, say a single detonation in NY/DC/Tel Aviv/Moscow/etc. or a limited exchange of some sort. Parse through the predicted press releases and media spin. Try to imagine the public making the jump out of hypothetical and see where it goes. It’s kind of an insanity squared exercise, but you have a lot of imagination, and maybe instead of trying to stop nuclear war we should accept that it’s going to happen and start trying to keep it limited and use it as a starting point.

  2. The people who are pushing America into a war with Russia do so because their brothers have either been kicked out of Russia or ended up in prison. organizations such as the ADL and AIPAC along with others of their ilk, the chews, are the ones responsible for pressuring Washington into a war with Russia.
    The chews loath and despise Russia and especially Putin, for kicking their buts out. They want revenge.
    Furthermore they openly state, they will trick western nations into fighting and destroying each other as they hate us for what we are: the Goyim. They have openly boasted they will get the Christians to kill each other off as they have in the two world wars. It is their goal.
    These people are despicable, rotten, evil and satanic. Their religion is based entirely on lies and fairy tales. There is no lie so terrible they won’t utter. There is nothing so underhanded and evil they won’t resort to.
    They are not to be neither believed nor trusted. The truth is foreign to them.

  3. As though human extermination would be all that terrible, most of the people that I know are thieves, rapists and murderers and of course they’re all going to heaven because they can do no wrong. Only eternal death will bring eternal happiness

  4. It is not the “Imperialist” that are trying to start a war with the Russian Federation! It is the Neo-Communist Globalist Democrat Party! To say that Trump (who is the one being referred to by the term, “Imperialist”) is the one who was trying to start this war is ludicrous on the face of it! I thought surely the Globalist Obama and Co. would have us in a scorched earth Nuclear war as a last resort to stop Trump from taking office! Many others were saying this! Yes there are what is left of the Neo-Cons, but they are doing n the same page with the Globalist Democrats! As I write this Biden at the behest of the Globalist, thinking they can make Russia just fold, are running toward war with Russia like a horse running into battle! They will get their wish, but the result will be complete destruction!

  5. I seem blocked from commenting on this article on consortiumnews.com, so will try here:

    It is NOT that accidents can happen inadvertently leading to a nuclear holocaust, but that our psychopath leaders believe that nuclear war is winnable. Infamously, George H.W. Bush stated as much in an interview with Robert Scheer, then tried to get the story spiked (is there any chance the ‘news’ media would stand up to an Establishment politician today?)
    Often wonder if the vicious attacks on Tulsi Gabbard by the Hillary Democrats, and the out-of-proportion attacks on Gaetz today, which Glenn Greengard has reviewed, solely reflect their anti-War positions. Speaking out against insane American policies automatically make you a Putin Puppet according to the Establishment media.

  6. Wolfgang Diplombiologe Seidel-Guyenot Avatar
    Wolfgang Diplombiologe Seidel-Guyenot

    Klockan är en liten rund manick som säger tick tack och som går och går… tick…tack…tick…tack…BOOM!!

  7. Robert Edwards Avatar
    Robert Edwards

    Doesn’t the US MIC realize that Russia and China can detect immediately when the silo doors start to open – Even when they open the underground doors. A nuclear war would be total annihilation for us all even those in their nuclear shelters.

  8. Paul Douglas Rackemann Avatar
    Paul Douglas Rackemann

    Caitlin,
    I apoligise in advance if this is going to sound condescending, and it will probably go on for a while.
    I wonder if you are making the mistake of believing what they want you to believe. It is a bit amusing that we all rely on the public news to be more or less true, even while suspecting that parts of it that don’t accord well with our own view of the world may be fake. More important, I get the impression that the people in charge of us have at least two simple devices for controlling our thoughts and attitudes. When they want to fool the men, they say something like: “Those people over there are really strong, really nasty, and they want to push us around. Let’s build some even more expensive gear than we have now to defend ourselves with.” When they want to fool the women, they say: “This is just too terrible to contemplate. Let’s all get together and agree that it must never happen.”
    I have been sceptical about that story of the American president carrying around a button to press, in order to start a nuclear war, since Jimmy Carter’s presidency. I just couldn’t see that any responsible military officer would give such a person that sort of authority. (I know, by the way, that the average military officer is not all that smart, but I think the generals and brigadiers are usually bright enough to be able to reason about grown-up things.) Then Ronald Reagan came along, and although I liked him (tells you about me straight away, of course), I thought that he was a bit old to be carrying something like that about with him. Since then we have had George Bush II and Obama, neither of whom I would have trusted with anything bigger than a large truck. I don’t think the American military would have trusted them with anything bigger than that either.
    We simply don’t know what the arrangements are at the highest levels. I am a fan of Hjalmar Schacht, and in one of his autobiographical books, he writes of visiting the coast of Germany and seeing the wonderful new warships they were building in the very early years of the twentieth century, and he says, “We never dreamed that they would be used in earnest,” as they were only a few years later. So I don’t discount the possibility of a nuclear war between America and China, or between India and Pakistan. But we still have to try to keep clear heads, even when “thinking about the unthinkable.”
    China is a growing power, and if we are to believe the news at all, China is trying to throw its weight around in the South China Sea, building military bases on disputed islands and interfering in coastal waters that under the usual conventions belong to other countries. The Chinese public know perfectly well that China is the centre of the world, and that the Chinese are THE superior race, and however much you may think the Chinese are playing the long game and studying the ‘I Ching,’ the political leaders are constrained by the expectation of their public that China will dictate to its inferiors, not be dictated to by them.
    On the other hand, I think I see the Americans playing a form of the old English “balance of power strategy,” under which England (it was only England in those days, not Great Britain) sided with the weaker power in Europe, in order to make sure that no power became so strong on the mainland as to be able to mount an invasion across the Channel. I frankly don’t understand how trying to force Russia into the arms of China fits into this: I can only speculate that they realise that the interests of these two powers are really so inimical that it will be impossible for them to work well together, as it was when they were both in the Communist Church together. However, you can see the Americans cheerfully allowing the Chinese to insult and intimidate all their neighbours, who will be obliged to turn to the Americans for help. The one big thing that I can see going wrong with this is if the Chinese get convinced enough of their own power and authority that they decide to retake Taiwan, in which case it will be the Americans who will face a terrible choice between real war and backing down.
    I am inclined to accept what you say about luck having been an element in our surviving the first Cold War. Luck is an element in anything, and I think our luck may very well run out one day, when, say, the desperate Saudi monarchy has managed to put together some sort of ramshackle nuclear weapon and are facing an existential crisis thanks to the Persian efforts on behalf of less well-off Arabs. But looking at it ruthlessly from our own point of view, such a conflict may be contained, and may be a valuable object lesson to our leaders and even to the Chinese. I suppose this is an unthinkable suggestion to a woman, but there it is. The world contains men as well as women, and even some of the women get pretty warlike when it is the lives of their own men and children that are at stake.
    There is a lot more that I would like to say, but it would probably be slightly off topic. I like Tulsi Gabbard too, even though she is a not entirely white female politician. In another of your recent posts, you have mentioned people saying that “it’s not about left and right,” but that we are all being led by the nose by the people above. That is one of my own favourite lines. If memory serves me correctly, you then go on to say that we should take the power “away” from those people above. That is the hard bit: they have all the mass media, and whole departments in universities who under the names of subjects like “Social Behiaviour” and “Organisational Behaviour” study nothing else except how a central organisation can deceive the public. I think we can only hope that they will over-reach themselves, as they may do with this “Covid” exercise.

  9. Since the beginning of the nuclear age, ‘probability’ of our survival is quite poor. Most of us are hapless observers of the madness of sociopathic leaders — we are mostly ‘along for the ride’. The only ‘rallying point’ for compassion and sanity that I can think of is a photo of a CHILD (or, many individual children). The image of the Earth-from-space has been positive, but it is NOT enough. A child’s image is very potent. Consider the responses in the past of a photo of a child, who has been ‘trapped in a well’. Well … ALL of our children are trapped in one big well … along with ourselves. How might we best make this happen?

  10. Mice master complex thinking with a remarkable capacity for abstraction

    Posted: 21 Apr 2021 09:46 AM PDT

    Categorization is the brain’s tool to organize nearly everything we encounter in our daily lives. Grouping information into categories simplifies our complex world and helps us to react quickly and effectively to new experiences. Scientists have now shown that also mice categorize surprisingly well. The researchers identified neurons encoding learned categories and thereby demonstrated how abstract information is represented at the neuronal level.

  11. The only official candidate for the presidency that I could morally support in the last election was Tulsi Gabbard, and, in fact, I voted for her in the Democratic primary. The obvious reason for me was that she was the only candidate (perhaps besides Rand Paul) on either ticket who was not a raving warmonger. To choose nuclear annihilation for one’s worst enemies, let alone for all humanity–which would be the inevitable outcome–is unimaginable to any sane person, let alone morally justifiable. The magnitude of casualties (dead, wounded, sick, homeless without food, water or other necessities of life, oft times refugees thousands of miles from home) is quite bad enough as practiced in the American style of scorched earth warfare. Ms Gabbard, therefore, was the only true human being with a conscience and sense of morals running for the office, at least in my opinion.
    ~
    Her campaign was effectively ignored by the corporate media and smothered in the crib by ad hoc DNC rule changes enacted specifically to remove her from the televised debates (after she made a fool of the obtuse and bellicose Kamala Harris, effectively ending her campaign). The establishment was not going to allow her to gain any traction in the political process and, in fact, she ended up polling no more than 1% of the electorate. Most Americans choose to accept whatever they are fed by the minions of their unseen rulers and have long ago learned not to protest wars–or virtually anything. They did not miss Tulsi’s words of wisdom; they had Trump to bash, which was ever so much more fun. (Crazy Joe spent the campaign hiding in his basement but ended up winning–somehow–anyway. At least that’s the story supported by the entire establishment.)
    ~
    Of course, calling myself the “Realist,” I have to ask myself whether anything regarding nuclear weapons and American forever wars would have changed a whit had Tulsi pulled off a miracle and actually won the presidency. Had she proposed legislation to phase out, or even significantly cut back, the American nuclear arsenal, tied to corresponding reductions by the Russians, Chinese and other nuclear powers, would the House or Senate have given such a proposal any consideration whatsoever, or would it be DOA, castigated as the ravings of a traitorous mad woman? If she had tried to force the issue with an executive order would she have been immediately impeached and removed from office, allegedly as the very “Russian asset” that the Queen of Warmongers, Hillary Clinton, had repeatedly called her? Or would the intel agencies in the Deep State simply have 86’ed her as they did John Kennedy?
    ~
    Moreover, even if both the executive and legislative branches could agree, pass legislation and sign a bill to eliminate the nuclear arsenal would the American military, which is in possession of that arsenal, have lifted a finger to even start the process? After all, that same military had on multiple occasions simply ignored deals struck between both the Obama and Trump administrations and the Syrians and Russians with respect to troop deployments in that country torn by war of American manufacture. Syrian troops which were supposed to be given access to Syrian territory under agreement with the American State Department were fired upon and massacred in a treacherous deception because the generals would not honor the agreements made by their civilian superiors. I fear that extricating nukes from the uniformed generals would be even more difficult than convincing the general public or their supposed legislative representatives to do the sane and moral thing with these demonic tools. Anybody out there ever hear tales about even one peacenik general? Aside from Smedley Butler who talked the talk, but would he have walked the walk?

    1. What the democrats did to Tulsi Gabbard and what the Republicans did to Ron Paul have provided the impetus for me to never vote for either of these two treasonous, corrupt political hack parties again.
      I’m finished with the lot of them. As far as I’m concerned , they don’t exist. They should drop off the face of the earth and become extinct creatures.
      Both parties belong in a museum as a reminder just how corrupt and degenerate American politics have become.
      Two things I live by to quote George Carlin: “I don’t believe anything the government says and I don’t take very seriously anything the MSM says.”
      ” So On election day….I stay home.F*** em, f***em.
      I believe if you vote, you have no right to complain.

  12. CNG is the future and the US really has NONE – NO export market either !

    All the big NG players hate Americas GUTS !

    CNG refuelling stations have tripled in Europe since 2015 and doubled in Russia – refuelling on average takes 3-4 minutes !

    China already has 25 million CNG cars and trucks !

    It is SO obvious – the ZIO/US tries to overthrow Bolivia – because Bolivia has 50% of the known lithium reserves !!

    Previously it was – ” If you have OIL – you get bombed ” – NOW it is ” If you have LITHIUM you get bombed

    1. Jack, I don’t know where you are located – ie the US, or UK or Australia or wherever – but there’s an excellent documentary being aired on Al Jazeera at the moment entitled ‘The Dark Side of Green Energy’. If you happen to be in the UK it’s on again tonight at 2.00am (Sunday morning that is), and then again on Monday, after which I assume it will be available to watch on their website.

      The point IS that even with green energy it still amounts to raping and pillaging and polluting the planet, not that the oil/plastic etc companies/producers plan to go away any time soon. Anyway, you as good as made the key point – ie that it’s ALL about resources, and when psychopaths run and control the planet they have to ‘maintain’ their power, and resources = wealth and wealth =s power. The problem is consumerism, because THAT is what creates the wealth, and the PTB can’t think in terms of creating a sustainable world which, apart from anything else, would be FAR too boring for them!

      https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/state-of-the-planet/overuse-of-resources-on-earth/story

  13. It won’t be a leader pressing a button, or making a calculated decision simply because even the craziest one won’t want to be seen as the world’s worst murderer, even if only for the short time it will take to blow everything up.

    It will be a ‘stumble’, a mistake caused by any number of misunderstandings, of which we’ve already had quite a few ‘near misses’. It will be the stupidest way in which mankind will destroy itself.

    We won’t even be able to get our destruction right!

    1. Yes another disaster like Fukushima might be accidently caused by a few nuclear missiles mistakenly launched. But that is not the same as all-out pre-emptive nuclear strike which is what military intelligence talks about, plans for, and guards against. No on wins and massive nuclear strike.

  14. Well, everyone is already in lockdown worldwide. Some things are more clear now. I have no doubt America will attack first as usual followed by UK. Total needless to day that the presence of Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Poland in the conflict but let them dig their own graves based only in a secular stupidity and dull sense of obedience.

  15. HMMM, Tucker Carlson is reminiscent of the Demon in the original exorcist. As Father Marin explains to Father Karras before entry into Regan McNeil’s bedroom to begin the exorcism.

    He says to Father Karras “Beware the Demon Damen, for he lies, but he mixes lies with the truth to confuse. Do not listen” (I paraphrase the dialogue)

  16. The world is too dark for people to see all the evil actively at work, in the dark, hiding behind the efforts and achievements of good people. But there is light at the end of tunnel as Reiner Fuellmich says in this enlightening interview: https://www.bitchute.com/video/J9VgdwhneHiG/

  17. Psychopaths have a long history of being blind to the big picture, to the ramifications of their actions.
    We teeter on the precipice.

    1. Psychopaths are not blind; but good at making most other people blind to their secret agendas

  18. THIS is not Fauci’s first HOAX !!

    AIDS was/is a HOAX as well !

    This documentary is mind blowing – features Kary Mullis as well – NO wonder they got rid of him !

    FAKE AIDS testing – Doctors used the FAKE tests to diagnose people and tell them they had HIV – gave the freaked out people DRUGS – the DRUGS killed them – sound familiar !!

    https://www.brasscheck.com/video/aids-faucis-first-fraud/

  19. US nukes won’t even leave the silos and even if they did – well – there is NO way they could get past Russia OR China’s missile defence systems !

    US has been checkmated and won’t risk the humiliation of DEFEAT !

    I mean – where would that leave their credibility ???

  20. I feel like we keep voting for pro-peace candidates who turn out to be pro-war after they get into office; half-dead old men who want to be in charge but don’t care about the future of humanity. It’s like we’re all in a car heading for the edge of a cliff- we keep changing drivers but are still going the same direction because turning the wheel would lead to socialism.

  21. Michel Bélisle Avatar
    Michel Bélisle

    You are right. There is danger there. Except that the mainstream media don’t talk about it at all. All the information in the West concerns the lowering of our pants to receive a vaccine that will ensure that the West will regain all the vigor and glory of yesteryear according to these same media. What is not said is that our elites want us to be vaccinated in order to be ready to receive the atomic bomb on the head.

    It really is the return of the days of Noah just before Jesus’ return and the end of the world. Decadence is everywhere.

    Keeping my Rosary on hand and also praying to Saint Jude!

  22. Caitlin, some nuclear missiles could be launched and cause the same amount of radiation damage as Fukushima. But these threats of nuclear war are being made to keep the public worried, feeling powerless and engender patriotic dependency of their governments. The Deep State and their elite globalist masters know that no one wins in all-out nuclear exchanges. Even super-wealthy psychopaths who call the tunes do not want to live for a few years in their underground bunkers in New Zealand and Patagonia waiting for nuclear fallout to start diminishing and then come out of their bunkers in lead lined suits to see what survived. Super-wealthy psychopathic globalists are not stupid. They know that most living species will become extinct and that Elon Musk does not yet have a colony on Mars waiting for someone to invent a spacecraft to take them there.

  23. “Imagine no possessions. It’s easy if you do..
    Nothing to kill or die for and no religion too.
    Imagine all the people sharing all the world.”

    We need a lot more people NOW, with the mind of John Lennon.

  24. Ah, the Buddha Ms Caitlin is being quoted for telling it like it is!
    ~
    Although the corporate media dutifully echoed the Times, a few skeptics did get it right.
    ~
    Ray McGovern, an ex-CIA official who now heads a group calling itself Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, called the story “dubious” right off the bat. Scott Ritter, the ex-United Nations weapons inspector who blew the cover off charges that Saddam Husseins Iraq was bristling with weapons of mass destruction, wrote that “there is no corroboration, nothing that would allow this raw “intelligence” to be turned into a product worthy of the name.”
    ~
    Caitlin Johnstone, who covers United States politics from Australia yet still does a better job of it than most stateside reporters, denounced the entire affair as a “malignant psyop,” adding: “It really is funny how the most influential news outlets in the western world will uncritically parrot whatever they are told to say by the most powerful and depraved intelligence agencies on the planet, and then turn around and tell you without a hint of self-awareness that Russia and China are bad because they have state media.”
    ~
    This fine article can be read here:
    Bounties? What Bounties? by Daniel Lazare
    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/04/21/bounties-what-bounties/

  25. It is a simple equation. In a major conflict whoever processes nukes and is losing will use them.

    It’s time to sit down with all the nuke powers and figure out a peace deal that’s beneficial to all.

  26. Ms Johnstone I truly hope and pray that the earth is never blown up by the ” idiots – in charge “; but my awareness of the mindsets of our owners and masters doubts that nuclear war can be avoided. Russia and China know that sooner or later either the United States or Israel will start World War III just to prove that they are crazy enough to do so! Russia is going to attack the Ukraine very soon; the United States wants that to happen. The Europeans are not stupid; they have no intention of getting into any kind of war with Russia. The idiots in Washington,D.C. figure that the Russians and the Chinese will have to bomb our allies ( patsies ) before they can bomb the United States. Their reasoning is very flawed! If the Russians or the Chinese are forced into a nuclear war with us; the populations of the United States will be their first targets not the last ones! A global nuclear war will not have any ” winners” at all; everyone will lose; this planet and all of its life will end!!

    1. Probably not all of Earth’s life, if it’s any comfort!
      ~
      “Some 200 to 600 octillion microbes live beneath our continents, suggests an analysis of data from sites all over the world, and even more live beneath the seafloor. Together they weigh the equivalent of up to 200 million blue whales — and far more than all 7.5 billion humans. Subterranean diversity rivals that of the surface, with most underground organisms yet to be discovered or characterized.

      Just as vegetation varies between deserts, rain forests and Arctic tundras, microbial communities vary between habitats — whether buried beneath sediments or sulfuric crust in the seafloor, or encased within granite, basalt, sandstone or clay beneath continents. There are even some fungi and multicellular organisms, like insects and worms, living deep below ground.

      Scientists have discovered microbes thriving three miles below the continental surface, and methane-producing bacteria, like the one pictured here, six miles below the seafloor.”
      Deep Beneath Your Feet, They Live in the Octillions
      https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/science/subsurface-microbes.html
      ~
      It’s hard to imagine anything we could do wiping that lot out any time soon. They’d be happily ignorant of any nuclear winter, and some of them “even breathe uranium and expel the waste as teeny crystals.”

  27. Get off your duffs, everyone, and call, write, sit in at your Congressional offices and DEMAND that this insanity STOP! And for SURE send your Representative this letter – https://bit.ly/propositionone – and your Senators this letter – https://bit.ly/wilpfus-bantreaty !!!!

    It’s time to make Proposition One real! (See http://prop1.org)

  28. Caitlin Johnson, you speak for me. This is the most brilliant editorial I’ve ever read. I’ve shared it on social media and by email with everyone I can think, adding the following:

    “Get off your duffs, everyone, and call, write, sit in at your Congressional offices and DEMAND that this insanity STOP! And for SURE send your Representative this letter – https://bit.ly/propositionone – and your Senators this letter – https://bit.ly/wilpfus-bantreaty !!!! It’s time to make Proposition One real!” (See http://prop1.org)

  29. Super-fuzes

    It’s been suggested that many, including many US government policymakers, don’t understand how these things give the USA a first strike capability, so let me try to give an explanation.

    Russian land-based nuclear missiles and command centres are underground, protected by metres of reinforced concrete. Knocking them out requires a nuclear explosion almost directly above – 50 metres off won’t do it. Olde worlde missiles weren’t accurate enough to get them more than a third of the time.

    Missiles with these new super-fuzes are no more accurate, but the super-fuzes will figure out how much they’re off by, and detonate the warhead when they are directly above.

    US submarine-launched nuclear weapons now have this technology, meaning they can sneak right up to Russia and obliterate any land-based missiles that could be used to counter-attack. (Hence such things as Russia’s Poseidon program, MAD 2.0 – they can’t stop a US first strike, but they can make sure the US suffers in return.)

    That’s somewhat simplified, but not, I hope, mangled! For a more accurate, but longer and perhaps less clear account, try:

    https://fas.org/blogs/security/2017/03/super-fuze/

    https://thebulletin.org/2017/03/how-us-nuclear-force-modernization-is-undermining-strategic-stability-the-burst-height-compensating-super-fuze/

    1. the us never even pretended to adhere to a ‘no first use’ policy. these super-fuzes only heighten the risks. how close would all those subs need to get to eliminate the risk of a significant counter strike? what about the sub-based russian nukes? mad is not just an acronym.

      1. ‘Such a “warfighting attack” would likely begin with the detonation of a nuclear warhead in front of key early-warning radars. An explosion of a 455 kiloton Trident II warhead at an altitude of 1,300 to 1,400 kilometers would create an area of radar “blackout” that would prevent all Russian radars looking toward the United States and into the northern parts of the North Atlantic from observing US ballistic missiles as they rose over the radar horizon.

        US missile launches from the North Atlantic would be coordinated to rise over the radar horizon only after the Russian radars had been blinded. Even if the radars were not rendered ineffective, the Russians could reasonably expect to have no more than seven to 10 minutes of warning before Moscow was destroyed.’
        from “How US nuclear force modernization …”
        So far as I know, Russian missiles have no equivalent systems. Their role would be as a deterrent – try it and the subs’ll retaliate, even if we’re dead and gone. MAD.

  30. Nuclear war would end the problem of race relations.

    Because after it’s all over, All of us will be Black,

    and CRISP!

      1. Big blast at rocket factory jolts central Israel in ‘controlled test’
        https://www.timesofisrael.com/big-blast-at-rocket-factory-jolts-central-israel-in-controlled-test/
        “Government-owned Tomer defense contractor, which manufactures missile motors, says images of explosion are misleading, trial was planned in advance”
        – the picture doesn’t exactly look like a regular planned controlled test

  31. If you want added perspective about just how lucky we have been to have avoided nuclear annihilation, this “List of military nuclear accidents” on Wikipedia should help you put the danger in realistic perspective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents.

    ~

    Some in the UFO community have linked many modern sightings to nuclear weapons, the general idea being that nuclear weapons detonations are so powerful they do damage even in other dimensions populated by other beings. Consequently, those beings are intervening to prevent any additional accidental or intentional use of nuclear weapons.

    ~

    And while this idea may seem wild, reading this list of accidents on Wikipedia does make you wonder if we have already far exceeded the mathematical probability of preventing nuclear catastrophe, and that something more than sheer luck is operating to contain the worst of our human psychopathology.

    1. I think the fact that the world’s Great Leaders and their families are on the front lines with respect to nuclear war — those front lines are now everywhere — has prevented major wars for some time, because — obviously — if they start a mass slaughter, they too will get it. I suppose this little problem has caused great frustration to the many lovers of death and destruction, but there’s not much they can do about it. I suppose eventually some nutjob will come along and give them what they’re asking for. But some of the remoter tribes may survive anyway. The meek will inherit the earth.

  32. Given NATO’s expansion right up to Russia’s border, and the placement of nuclear capable weapons there, if not actual nuclear weapons, the chances of an accidental nuclear exchange have increased dramatically. NATO has put Russia in the situation that it simply will not have time to determine if a threat is real or not, and will have to react as if it is. Meanwhile, the US Psychopaths In Charge are deeply concerned about the private citizen, which is far more likely to be sane, owning simple personal firearms. There is only one government that ever decided that using nuclear weapons was a good idea, and did so. Twice. What’s the argument they won’t do so again? They are after all insane. With the eminent collapse of the US Dollar, how likely they won’t if it appears they will loose their empire? Preferring to go out in a blaze of “glory” rather than surrender their position.

  33. Dear Ms. Johnstone:

    Namaste, Salam, Shalom, Peace!

    Your article is superior. If I may submit that I have a plan for a new global peace movement that is designed to create “trust and respect” between nations and people. It was not my original idea, but I have modernized it to current times and added a twist. It is a Gandhi and King idea. The plan is to implement a Global Movement of Nonviolence, For the Children (GMofNV).

    A GMofNV is one step away from beginning and has nuclear disarmament as one of the main goals!

    The twist is the implementation process and the leadership! It is all about psychology and power. The psychology is that the people in every country do not want war or violence, therefore a GMofNV is designed to enlist and unite the people to create POLITICAL CLOUT! The people in every country want their children to grow up in a safe and healthy environment. The welfare of the children is the motivation for everyone to unite. A goal is the socialization of the children — via the people uniting under one umbrella — nonviolence.

    A GMofNV must be different. A GMofNV will be Led by WOMEN! Women have been uniting and practicing mobilizing as evidenced by the Women’s March on Washington, #MeToo, the women in Jerusalem and India, and many more examples.

    There are obstacles. Gandhi said about nonviolence, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you WIN.” I have experienced all of these and have developed the strategy for the final step.

    I can show why a GMofNV led by women, for the children, promoting trust and respect, can create a “shift in consciousness of the whole world.

    All the mechanisms are in place and the plan falls into direct conjunction with the verdict of the George Floyd killing. Please contact me at your earliest availability.

    Peace and Love,
    Andre Sheldon
    Director, Global Strategy of Nonviolence

  34. Then: Preeminent War: WMD [“entirely US-created”] Bush Doctrine. If they get away with this international crime of Aggression, the trajectory will only eventually end with mushroom clouds.
    Now: “Increasing evidence [‘entirely US-created’] suggests” “China’s [and Russia’s] nuclear capabilities are advancing so rapidly” that we must continue escalating our “Defensive” measures. If they get away with this international crime of Aggression, the trajectory will only eventually end with mushroom clouds.
    Most “Nuclear nations … have [NOT] ignored or undermined practical and available diplomatic and security tools for managing nuclear risks.” It is only those aligned with rewritten Nuremburg Principles who have.
    https://seaclearly.com/2020/02/02/words-of-mass-discernment/

  35. And what about Covid? It has killed 0,03% of the world population (50% of them over 80), which means that 99,97% have survived but it is allegedly the biggest threat to mankind at the time of selling vaccines!
    There won’t be any nuclear war of the Armageddon garden variety because there’s no money in it. What the MIC likes is good long wars where people on both sides need a lot of ammo, like the Iran-Iraq war of the 80’s where it armed both sides with a little help from its friends, in a wild hope of mutual extermination. That was the perfect conflict. You can even dump tons of ammo in the desert which, every time, go ding ding in the cash register.
    India and Pakistan have been hating each other’s guts for over 70 years (hate going back centuries between Hindus and Muslims) and have fought three wars over Kashmir. Both of them have nukes but never used them. This is all gaslighting to increase the military budget through fearmongering, a classic which fits in a treat with people’s natural paranoia rooted in the survival instinct as well as murderous tendencies for some of them, limited for the time being to gun fetishism and mass-shootings. What’s more worrying though is that low-level nukes (like depleted uranium) have already been used, like in bunker busters, and this has led to dramatic increases in cancers, leukemia, kidney, lung and liver diseases, collapse of the immune system and malformations in new-born babies, especially in southern Irak. Some say also in Syria, Ukraine and Yemen. That, to me, is the more immediate and palpable horror of the nuke situation. These nukes can be used anywhere without people even knowing it – nothing spectacular. And they are.

    1. Also in Yugoslavia

  36. The best way to “change that” would have been to vote for Tulsi. (I did, even though I had to write her name in).
    The second best way would be to support her now. She needs to become more visible, more “famous”, so that at least the message will be heard.
    The more famous one is in our society, the more influence one has. With the speed of communication today, it can happen quickly. It better.
    And, hopefully you will also become much more famous Caitlin. Thank you for your efforts.

  37. So many lose the facts behind the endless river of bullshit that flows from CIA/M16-fed agencies in America and the UK. Put bluntly, the Americans have decided that a nuclear sneak attack, a total blitz, is the way they’ll have to deal with Russia and if no one is left but the rich and the well-connected, deep in their bunkers, they still win the relative power game. That’s why they’re spending so much money on strategic weapons — a space force to deal with satellites that could give warning, smaller, more accurate warheads, cyber capabilities to shut down their victims’ defense systems, etc.

    Leaders like Putin and Xi know this, and Putin has apparently –judging by his words if you reference his “a world without Russia” statement– reached a point where he might feet obliged to make a first strike himself if certain red lines are crossed. Ukraine presents the Russian security establishment with what they consider to be an existential threat and any of his ‘red lines’ there could be a trigger.

    Nasty things happen when people get into bed with Nazis.

    1. US submarine-launched ballistic missiles are now equipped with ‘super-fuze’ technology, which “creates exactly what one would expect to see, if a nuclear-armed state were planning to have the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike.”
      https://thebulletin.org/2017/03/how-us-nuclear-force-modernization-is-undermining-strategic-stability-the-burst-height-compensating-super-fuze/

      1. I did not know that. Explains why a country with an economy the size of Italy’s would bother to develop something like this one: The Poseidon also (allegedly) has a cobalt sheath that would leave impacted areas radioactive and uninhabitable for around 100 years.

        “One of the six new weapons unveiled by Russian president Vladimir Putin during his 2018 state address, Poseidon is a nuclear-powered underwater drone armed with a two-megaton atomic payload. The warhead can be detonated “thousands of feet”’ below the surface and is meant to generate a radioactive tsunami capable of contaminating everything within a substantial area of effect. Capable of destroying large coastal cities, Poseidon poses an obvious strategic threat against U.S. infrastructure. Boasting a reported top speed of two hundred kilometers and a maximum depth of one kilometer, the Kremlin believes that Poseidon travels too fast and too deep to be reliably intercepted; it can also execute “three-dimensional” evasive maneuvers to further boost its survivability. Russian military experts have noted that Poseidon could also have battlefield use as a tactical weapon against U.S. carrier strike groups (CSG’s) and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) maritime assets.”

        https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russian-navy-will-soon-have-submarines-armed-nuclear-drones-182113

        1. I’m surprised so few have heard of these super-fuzes. That article was written in 2017, and I believe all the missiles in question have now been ‘upgraded’. It’s hard to imagine why, unless a first strike is being contemplated.

          1. I spent a few years writing and marketing a post-apocalyptic novel. One of the things that I learned was that very few people took nuclear war as a serious threat so a general lack of interest in the nuts and bolts makes sense. I guess I missed it out of dumb luck.

            I’m afraid at this point, all sides are contemplating first strikes. Very sad, didn’t have to be this way but, you know, hegemony.

            1. I’m not sure any other side is contemplating a first strike. Poseidon looks retaliatory, more of a deterrent, and the Pentagon estimates China’s nuclear arsenal to be comparatively small and equally intended as a deterrent – https://media.defense.gov/2020/Sep/01/2002488689/-1/-1/1/2020-DOD-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT-FINAL.PDF#page=110

  38. Don’t worry super duper space force will take care of us all

  39. Never agreed with an article more. Covid, Climate change, race relations, woke culture etc are just a smokescreen by rhe powers at hand while they play world conquest and destruction. While we die, they will be ensconced in shelters with their loved ones, military protection and endless supplies. Their plan is actually to emerge from the ashes to build a brave new world with an albiet much smaller population. I would not be surprised if they have contingency plans to save a few nuclear warheads for future intimidation. Dystopia is upon us.

    1. Nuclear war would end the problem of race relations.

      Because after it’s all over, All of us will be Black,

      and CRISP!

    2. Indeed, we do have a serious problem with prioritizing our problems. If there be a nuclear war, we will most definitely have climate change, and the only Carbon footprint involved will be that contained in the ash cloud that freezes the planet.

  40. When scientists like James Hansen warned the world of the dangers of climate change over thirty years ago, our leaders said oh, that looks serious, we’ll set up a few committees – and we continued increasing the amount of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere most years. Last year was one of the few exceptions, but it seems likely the trend was only temporarily reversed by the COVID pandemic.

    When COVID-19 hit China, Western media reported it as if it was some purely oriental thing, a curiosity that couldn’t affect so-called liberal democracies. When it hit Iran, they gloated over how it would reinforce the damage sanctions were doing. When it hit Europe, the USA still acted like it would be the exceptional nation the virus wouldn’t dare to attack.

    None of which bodes well for taking the threat of nuclear war seriously.

  41. We must learn to wage peace in a multi-polar world. It is our only option for continued existence. People who understand this need to come together. The Libertarians and the Progressives need to band together and and speak this message loud and clear. THE WAR MACHINE MUST BE BROUGHT TO HEEL! Maybe a third party run with this as its core message would attract the 40% of the US electorate that doesn’t currently vote. Tulsi just might be the ticket. She has wide appeal, which would be much wider with sufficient exposure.

  42. I think that the US should just go ahead and nuke the planet before someone really bad does it.

    1. The last news headline: US fires nukes at enemies to prevent them starting a nuclear war

  43. “The rising threat of nuclear war is the most urgent matter in the world, and it’s absolute madness that we’re not talking about it all the time.”
    I’m not so sure about that, these so called adversaries seem to be working in lockstep when it comes to rolling out the vaccines that will lead to compulsory digital certification of vaccination ID’s, one of their building blocks to a global technocracy. Despite all this posturing, these elites are working together against the rest of us.

    1. Whether they’re real adversaries or secretly working together, they’ve been rolling out nuclear weapons for decades. And as Caitlin says, “the primary risk here is not that anyone will choose to have a nuclear war, it’s that a nuke will be deployed amid heightening tensions as a result of miscommunication, miscalculation, misfire, or malfunction.”

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