OMNI
WORLD WAR III anthology #3
February 3, 2025
COMPILED BY dICK BENNETT FOR A CULTURE
OF PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY.
What’s at Stake: On January 24, 2023, The Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock was moved to 90 seconds (1 minute, 30 seconds) before midnight, the closest it has ever been set to midnight since
its inception in 1947. This adjustment was largely attributed to the risk of
nuclear escalation that arose from the US/NATO/Ukraine vs. Russia War. Only the threatening chaos of the climate
emergency poses an equal or greater danger to our evolution. Now “. .
.The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has officially reset the Clock to 89 seconds
to midnight.[1] In the face of the climate crisis,
nuclear war, and the potential misuse of biological science and artificial
intelligence, humanity is the closest we’ve EVER been to the apocalypse.” “Closer than ever: It is now 89 seconds to
midnight”
Contents
Win Without War. “The Doomsday Clock….”
Solomon Hughes. “…Meet the U.S.’s Real Dr. Strangelove.”
A Sample of 3 from Google:
“Everything You Wanted to Know about
World War III.”
“Is the US Really Preparing for WWIII?”
“The War of 2026.”
Long-Range NATO Missiles Threaten Global War.
Annie Jacobsen. Nuclear War: A Scenario.
Paul Gilk. “Picking Fights
with the Gods.”
John B. Foster. “Imperialism in the Indo-Pacific.”
Kathy Kelly.
“Afghanistan’s Rehabilitation Museum and Dr. Seuss’ The Butter Battle
Book.”
Barnes and Sanger. US Nuclear
Arsenal Expanding.
Eugene Doyle.
The Armavir Incident and WWIII.
John Zavales.
Congress Should Question Biden.
Ted Snider.
Rogue US v. World.
Yougov Poll.
Most US Public Expects War.
Tom Engelhardt. “A Slow-Motion WWIII” (is scarcely reported).
David Bromwich Urges Peace Treaty.
Jeremy Kuzmarov. “We’re at a 1914 Moment.”
Rev. Robert Moore. Diplomacy and De-Escalation
Urgently Needed.
David Shearman. World Preparing for WWIII while Climate
Threatens All Life.
Contents WWIII #2 (14 essays)
TEXTS
“The
Doomsday Clock is ticking, Dick.” 
The Win Without War Team. Feb 2, 2025.
. . .The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has
officially reset the Clock to 89 seconds to midnight.[1] In
the face of the climate crisis, nuclear war, and the potential misuse of
biological science and artificial intelligence, humanity is the closest we’ve
EVER been to the apocalypse.
The
threats we face are coming from all directions. Trump has already left the
Paris Agreement and World Health Organization, hamstringing our ability to
respond to global threats like climate change and pandemics. There’s Russia’s
continued military aggression in Ukraine, China’s rapid expansion of its armed
forces and growing stockpile of nuclear weapons, and amidst fragile ceasefires
in Gaza and Lebanon, violence continues to simmer in the Middle East.
Last year, Congress did its part to push us closer toward
midnight by continuing to expand the already massive U.S. arsenal with
unnecessary nuclear-armed submarines, more missiles, and new warheads.
It’s
a huge reason why, leading scientists have declared our entire planet has
inched even closer to nuclear armageddon than at any other time.
Closer
than during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
Closer than the height of the Cold War in the 1980s.
Closer than at the start of the nuclear arms race in 1953.
Building more nuclear weapons has only deepened a global arms
race that makes us all less safe. But if we join together, we can still turn
back the clock. Because it’s happened before: In 1991, after
the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction
Treaty and committed to scaling down their nuclear stockpiles, the Bulletin
moved a full seven minutes backward. Every second counts, and with the war lobby
once again jumping to monetize crises and conflicts, working against peace to
expand the U.S. war machine, Win Without War’s work at pausing the clock
is more crucial than ever. We’re
pulling out all the stops to keep the pressure on Congress and push them away
from reckless nuclear weapons spending increases that bring us closer to
doomsday in 2025. It won’t be
easy, and that’s why we need you with us, Dick. As Trump unveils his ‘shock and
awe’ plans to gut our government, there is no shortage of things to worry
about, and avoiding apocalypse can’t be put on the back burner. Please donate
$27 now and power our massive push to turn back the clock.
“89 seconds to midnight” is a stark
reminder that governments pouring TRILLIONS of dollars into nuclear weapons
over the years has done little to make the world safer.
Unfortunately — and despite every signal imaginable
reminding us that this is one more moment where reducing nuclear stockpiles
would’ve created pathways to peace, and with massive public support for
disarmament — Congress could allow Trump to push us even closer toward
doomsday. But not if we have anything to say about it.
Every second counts. Let's turn back the clock
together. Thank you for working for
peace, The Win Without War team. 1. Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists, “Closer than
ever: It is now 89 seconds to midnight”
Solomon
Hughes. “Sixty years after Kubrick’s film, meet
the U.S.’s real Dr. Strangelove.”
Editor.
mronline.org (10-8-24).
SOLOMON HUGHES looks at the
sorry career of Brett McGurk.
Originally published: Morning Star Online on October 4, 2024 by
Solomon Hughes (more by Morning
Star Online) | (Posted Oct
07, 2024). Culture, Empire, Imperialism, StrategyAmericas, United StatesNewswireBrett McGurk, Dr. Strangelove, Henry Kissinger, Herman Kahn, Stanley Kubrick
STANLEY KUBRICK made
Dr Strangelove sixty years ago. This
black comedy is old enough to be filmed in black and white, but remains a
compelling film because the characters seem to recur in real life: like
Strangelove himself, the sinister adviser who pushes a horrible, heartless plan
of war and death on a hapless president. Or General Ripper, the macho military
man who goes a bit “funny in the head.” And, of course, Group Captain Lionel
Mandrake, representing the British, who flap about in a vague, posh way while
being dragged along by U.S. military adventures.
It’s fairly common for
U.S. presidents to have a “Strangelove” figure: many thought he was based on Henry
Kissinger, who “Strangeloved” for successive presidents, although he was
actually drawn from earlier characters including Cold War “intellectual” Herman
Kahn. President George “Dubya” Bush
was so hapless that he had several “Strangelove” type figures to dream up the
Iraq War, including Dick “shot his own best friend in the face” Cheney and Don
“known unknowns” Rumsfeld.
Joe
Biden has a kind of
low-wattage Dr Strangelove figure, Brett McGurk, who helped persuade the
president to back Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.
McGurk was just a lawyer who got into U.S. politics by being a judicial
clerk. He has no direct military experience, but he became a military adviser
to George “Dubya” Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and now Biden, showing
that the Strangelove-y military bureaucracy transcends supposed political
divisions. Bombing foreigners is bipartisan in the States. McGurk grew his career as a military
bureaucrat via the Iraq war–that is to say he climbed a ladder of disasters,
although it was Iraqis who suffered while he raised himself higher. McGurk was a legal adviser to the Coalition
Provisional Authority in Iraq from 2004 on. The Coalition Provisional Authority
was the colonial-style administration the U.S. imposed on Iraqis after
“liberating” them from Saddam. The
“laws” McGurk advised on were frankly disgusting, like “Coalition Provisional
Authority Order 17” which exempted all the U.S. and British mercenaries from
any Iraqi laws, so they could kill without consequence. Other laws gave the Authority a huge sum of
Iraqi cash, known as the Development Fund for Iraq, or pushed privatisation so
Western contractors could come and take over Iraqi services. These laws helped
U.S. firms squeeze vast sums out of Iraq, while leaving the “liberated”
population powerless. McGurk then
drafted Iraq’s “interim constitution” which used a “divide and rule” tactic of
institutionalising sectarian Shia-Sunni splits into Iraqi politics. This
exacerbated a violent civil war, leading to many deaths, but the U.S. thought
this a price worth paying: As long as Iraqis didn’t unite against the U.S.
occupier, they were happy. McGurk was
then one of the advisers behind [Obama’s] 2007 “Surge,” one last attempt to
flood Iraq with more U.S. troops to try control the multiple insurgencies faced
by the occupation-backed government. Many
U.S. politicians patted themselves on the back claiming the Surge “stabilised”
Iraq, but the continued attempt to shape Iraq with U.S. firepower rather than
handing over actual power to Iraq’s own people just led to new, and more
nihilistic reactions in the region, like Isis.
[SUMMARY] McGurk’s
career was formed by the failures in Iraq, as the U.S. tried to impose its will
on Iraq’s people. He was part of repeated attempts to shape the country by U.S.
firepower in favour of U.S. corporations, leading to years of chaos and
bloodshed.
So it is no surprise
that as Biden’s “ National Security Council co-ordinator for the Middle East
and North Africa,” he is backing Israel’s attempts to impose its will on the
Palestinian, and now Lebanese, people using U.S.-supplied firepower. I think understanding McGurk’s role will also
help clear up a fairly common misunderstanding about the U.S. relationship with
Israel. McGurk’s general advice is that
Biden should rely on “partnerships” in the Middle East, both with Israel and
with authoritarian regimes including Saudi Arabia and Egypt: the U.S. is not
always strong enough to permanently “project power” into the region–as the Iraq
war ultimately showed. So instead it
must rely on local strong powers and “regional strong men.” Broadly speaking,
the United States wants to press down their main regional challenger, Iran,
and make sure the people of the “Arab Street” don’t give them a load of
trouble.
So the U.S. does deals
with, sells (or gives) arms to, and occasionally sends U.S. fighter planes to
support, their “partners” in the region–which could be Saudi, or Egypt or
Israel. It is for this reason McGurk
reportedly privately told Israel that the U.S. would support Israel’s missile
attacks and invasion of Lebanon against Hezbollah targets: the U.S. is
enthusiastic about Israel going to war with a group they see as a proxy for the
U.S. regional enemy, Iran.
At the same time,
McGurk has been promoting a “peace deal” for Gaza, where Israel joins up with
the Saudis to impose a peace on the Palestinians, one where the war ends and
the Palestinians get a sort of well-funded “reconstruction” but settle for a
subordinate territory under heavy Saudi-Israeli influence. The former, the war in Lebanon, is
happening. The latter might be a bit of a U.S. pipe dream. But what this does show is the U.S. is
genuinely enthusiastic about Israel fighting their joint enemies–“Iran and
Iranian proxies”–but is not super happy about Israel killing loads of
Palestinians; although they can definitely put up with it, or might even
cynically hope the IDF “gets it done sooner rather than later.”
Many on the left think
Israel has lobbied and pushed the U.S. political system to the point where
Israel has “captured” the U.S. And while this lobbying is real, the bigger
truth is that the U.S. political establishment really sees Israel as a kind of
“regional strongman,” a cat’s paw they can rely on to fight their perceived
enemies.
[SUMMARY US PRIMARY
POWER] The deal is that the U.S. arms
Israel to do the US’s bidding, rather than because the U.S. is doing Israel’s
bidding. https://mronline.org/2024/10/07/sixty-years-after-kubricks-film-meet-the-u-s-s-real-dr-strangelove/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sixty-years-after-kubricks-film-meet-the-u-s-s-real-dr-strangelove&mc_cid=66ba87c57b&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e
Everything You Wanted to
Know About World War III but ...
The American Prospect Https://prospect.org › world › 2024-09-18-everything-y...
Sep 18, 2024 — America is going to spend a
trillion dollars over the next 20 years building new missile silos and new nuclear weapons. The DOD is
in the ...
Is the US really preparing for World War III?
Youtube · Sandboxx Let's address a question we get asked just about every week: Is
the U.S. fielding all these new aircraft,
weapon systems, and other Defense ...
The War of 2026: Phase III Scenario |
Proceedings
U.S.
Naval Institute Https://www.usni.org › proceedings › december › war-2...
The War of 2026 scenario
outlined here provides a point of departure for broadened thinking about the
naval aspects of a future great power war.
[For sober reading,
google World War III (3). –D]
“Plan to use long-range NATO missiles against Russia
threatens uncontrolled escalation of global war.”
Editor. Mronline.org (9-29-24).
After high-ranking NATO
officials publicly called for Ukraine to use NATO weapons to attack deep inside
Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally presented a proposed update
to Russia’s nuclear policy that would expand the conditions under which Moscow
would use nuclear weapons.
Originally published: World Socialist Web Site
(WSWS) on September 26, 2024 by
Statement of the WSWS Editorial Board (more by World Socialist Web Site (WSWS)) | (Posted Sep
28, 2024). Strategy, WarAmericas,
Europe,
Russia,
Ukraine,
United Kingdom, United
StatesNewswire
Speaking before a
meeting of the Russian Security Council on Wednesday, Putin declared: aggression against Russia by any
non-nuclear-weapon state, but with the participation or support of a
nuclear-weapon state, should be considered as a joint attack on the Russian
Federation. He added, We reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of
aggression against Russia and Belarus.
This is the most blunt
and concrete threat to date by Putin to use Russia’s nuclear arsenal, one of
the two largest in the world, to respond to ongoing and ever- expanding strikes
by Ukraine, with the backing of the NATO powers, on Russian cities and
infrastructure.
Earlier this month, US
Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kiev, where he heavily implied that
the US would move forward with the plan to allow Ukraine to use long-range NATO
weapons against Russia. “We have adjusted and adapted as needs have changed, as
the battlefield has changed,” he said in response to questions about the plan.
. . .
The Chilling Truth About Nuclear War
The riveting, minute-by-minute account of our future, from nuclear
launch to nuclear winter. THE INSTANT NEW
YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Annie
Jacobsen. Nuclear War: A Scenario.
In only one scenario could the world as we know it end in a matter
of hours: nuclear war. And one of the triggers for that war would be a nuclear
missile inbound towards the United States.
Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of
the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the
plans, and the risks. These projects are vital to how we understand the world
we really live in: where one nuclear missile begets one in return; where the
choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on
seconds-notice, with information that is only as good as the intelligence we
have. Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking clock
scenario, based on dozens of new interviews with military and civilian experts
who have built the weapons; created the response plans; and been responsible
for those decisions should they need to have been made.
Nuclear War: A Scenario Book Club. Aug 5, 2024. [This
opportunity has passed, but its inspiration continues.–D]
Dialogue and education are
critical to preventing nuclear war and shaping policies that will reduce nuclear
risks. Do you have civic-minded friends, family members, or co-workers who like
to read, learn, and discuss?
This August and September, Back
from the Brink (bftb) and Dutton
Publishing invite individuals and
communities to come together and take part in a national reading and
community-based dialogue about Annie
Jacobsen’s book, Nuclear
War: A Scenario, U.S. nuclear weapons and policies, and ways to make a difference.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Published in March 2024, Nuclear
War: A Scenario by investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen, is a
harrowing, non-fiction account that examines the origins of U.S. nuclear war
fighting strategy and one plausible scenario and timeline for how a
catastrophic nuclear war could unfold based on current policies.
Based on interviews with scores
of experts and former military and nuclear planning officials, the New York
Times bestselling book offers an opportunity for civic-minded, concerned
individuals to read and learn more and engage in important, non-partisan
dialogue about U.S. nuclear weapons and policies.
Picking Fights with the Gods: A Spiritual Psychoanalysis of Civilization’s
Superego by Paul
Gilk. Wipf and Stock, 2016.
Description Contributors Praise
The common understanding
of "apocalypse" suggests End Times, Armageddon, and the end of the
world. But the Greek word apokalypsis means none of these things. What it does
mean is uncovering, disclosing, and revelatory. That "apocalypse" is
so widely misunderstood as predestined disaster isn't due to natural evolution
in meaning. To penetrate the misuse of apokalypsis is to discover mythic
misrepresentation. That is, "apocalypse" doesn't generate End Times
but--just the opposite--End Times compels apokalypsis. The actual threat of End
Times--explicitly so with weapons of mass destruction and Anthropocene climate
change--forces thoughtful people into a search for fundamental causes: Where do
these destructive energies originate? Why are we so reluctant to recognize the
obvious consequences and resistant to embrace available remedies? Why do we
persist in denial and indifference? In these essays, Paul Gilk explores the
underlying cultural and religious conventions (both "conservative"
and "liberal") that constitute our resistance and refusal. To
disclose and uncover those conventions, to dissolve our oblivion, is to awaken
to apokalypsis and to realize the depth of our captivity within prevailing
mythology, both religious and civilizational. If End Times is the disease,
apokalypsis is the cure.
John
Bellamy Foster. “Imperialism in the Indo-Pacific—An
Introduction.” The Monthly Review (July 1, July-August, 2024).
John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark introduce this summer’s
special issue on “Imperialism in the Indo-Pacific,” exploring how the
super-region came to be conceptualized among geopolitical strategists and its
present-day role in U.S military strategy. “The United States,” they write,
“facing the demise of its global hegemonic imperialism, is not only preparing
for a Third World War; it is actively provoking it.” | more…
Kathy
Kelly. “Museum of Unnatural
History.” The Catholic Worker
(August-September 2012). A distinctive
meditation on Kabul, Afghanistan’s Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghan
Rehabilitation Museum (OMAR) and Dr. Seuss’ The Butter Battle Book. The Museum contains ordnance and land mines
used in Afghanistan over four decades of warfare and photographs of maimed
people. The Butter Battle Book is
a parable of the Cold War and its fragile, dangerous nuclear stalemate, with
only MAD “holding off attempts by either side to exterminate the other” in
WWIII. “…in many ways World War III is
starting, is already under way.” Kelly’s indefatigable, practical work for
peace around the world combined with her thoughtful writings on war and peace
like this essay will surely eventuate in her being named a saint by the
Catholic Church. –Dick https://thecatholicnewsarchive.org/?A=d&d=CW20120801-01.1.4&
[Here’s a sample
of this saint’s encompassing mind: ] “And it's a cliché, but in many ways World
War III is starting, is already underway. It's happening now. The crises in
climate stability and global health that international cooperation might have
delayed or prevented - incurable TB appearing as predicted in the slums of
India, uncontainable in the absence of anything resembling a healthcare system
and destined for worldwide spread; global warming data exceeding our former
worst-case scenarios. These were crises we ignored in order to fight our butter
battle. And our resource wars brought us the chain of escalating economic
detonations that seems far from over.
And what wars,
what cycles of violence and despair and with what weapons used, will follow the
next economic tragedy, engulfing a world already poverty-maddened past the
point of desperation?
It's too late
for a children's book to teach us truths we should have learned back when we
were children, and the grim lesson of the weapons in the museum, for many, were
they to visit, would be the nonsense-lesson of the savagery of all the other
nations whose weapons are on exhibit. The walls seem to have gotten so much
higher since the last time we were drawn to look over them and decide, with a
clear mind and searching conscience, how many children we're actually willing
to kill.”
JULIAN E. BARNES AND DAVID E. SANGER. US
nuclear arsenal on course to expand. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Jun 09, 2024. Read
more... Forwarded by Pat Snyder.
PROVOKING NUCLEAR WAR
“Are you ready for WWIII?” (The Armavir Incident).
Editor. Mronline.org
(6-9-24)
The Armavir Incident–the
destruction on 23 May of a key part of Russia’s nuclear defence–means the
Doomsday clock is ticking closer to midnight.
Originally published: Pearls and
Irritations on June 7, 2024 by
Eugene Doyle (more by Pearls and Irritations) (Posted Jun 08, 2024). WarAmericas,
Europe,
Russia,
Ukraine,
United StatesNewswire.
. . .Most people don’t
even know that a long-distance Ukrainian/NATO drone attack on the Armavir radar
station north of Georgia knocked out a Voronezh-DM radar which is designed to
detect incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles from as far as 6,000 kilometres
away. It is one of three similar attacks in recent weeks.
The strike, trumpeted
by Newsweek as a great success, may have robbed the Russians of a couple of
minutes of warning time, in the event of a strike coming up from the south.
“Map Shows Ukraine’s
Record-Breaking Hits on Russian Nuclear Warning Sites” Newsweek reports. The
article, triumphalist in tone, fails to address the central issue: how crazy do
you have to be to compress Russia’s decision-making window before it must decide
whether to launch nuclear weapons at you? And who thought this was a good idea
at the very time that nuclear-capable F16s are about to arrive in Ukraine and
the U.S., along with a clutch of client states, has announced their missiles
will strike mainland Russia in the coming days or weeks? Never in history has a
nuclear power been attacked in this way. Even at the height of the Cold War
neither side was brainless enough to do what the Western countries are doing
now: attack detection facilities and launch missile strikes on a nuclear power.
We actually need the
Russians to have really good missile detection systems; it keeps us safe. .
. .
John Zavales. “Congress Needs Answers before sending more
aid to Ukraine.” American Committee for US-Russia
Accord. April
8, 2024.
The Biden administration needs to tell the American people what it really
thinks Kiev can actually achieve. Read in browser »
“At the UN it is a rogue U.S. against the
rest of the world.”
ditor. Mronline.org (3-31-24).
Ted Snider asks: "Is
America a Rogue Superpower?"
Originally published: Moon of Alabama on March 28. 2024 by B (more by Moon of Alabama) (Posted Mar 30, 2024). EmpireAmericas,
United StatesNewswire
Ted Snider asks: Is America a Rogue Superpower? “Unipolar” used to mean that the United States was, at least in
theory, alone in leading the world. Now “unipolar” means that the United States
is alone and isolated in opposition to the world. Snider refers to the recent UN Security Council resolution 2728 which
“demands” a ceasefire in Gaza and “demands” a release of hostages and “demands”
the unhindered supply of food and other items to Gaza.
The U.S. has claimed, falsely, that the resolution is not binding. . . .
Yougov Poll: Most
Americans think there will be another world war within the next decade. American Committee for US-Russia
Accord. April
9, 2024.
A new yougov survey asked Americans about the possibility of another world war,
the role that other countries might play, the roles they themselves might play,
and how the U.S. should respond to hypothetical nuclear attacks abroad and at
home. The majority of Americans believe that another world war is at least
somewhat likely to […]
Read in browser »
Most Americans believe U.S. will be in
world war within next decade.
“ Editor. Mronline.org
(3-31-24).
A growing divide in the
world economy is further adding to global tensions. A rising number of
countries, including Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela,
Nicaragua, Syria, Yemen, and Zimbabwe, face significant U.S. sanctions.
Economic warfare has led to a growing number of countries forming blocs
outside of Washington’s control.
Originally published: Defend Democracy
Press on March 24, 2024 by Kyle Anzalone (more by Defend Democracy Press) | (Posted Mar
30, 2024)
WarAmericas,
Asia,
China,
Europe,
Global,
Middle
East, North Korea, Russia,
United StatesNewswireWorld
War, World War 3
. . . The majority of
Americans believe it is likely that the U.S. will be involved in a world war
during the coming decade. Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. is preparing for
great power wars with Russia and China, engaged in multiple Middle East
conflicts, and posturing for a confrontation with Iran and North Korea.
According to a new
YouGov poll, 61% of Americans responded that it is very or
somewhat likely that a world war would break out in the next five to ten years.
About two-thirds of people responding to the poll said they believe the war
will turn into a nuclear conflict.
When asked what
countries would be aligned against the U.S., a majority of Americans said that
North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Russia, and China. Americans identified NATO members
such as France and the UK, as well as Israel and Ukraine, as allies in the
coming world war.
Americans are not
overly optimistic about the potential conflict. A slight majority believe the
U.S. and its allies would defeat Russia. While under half of respondents said
the U.S. would lose a war with Russia or against an alliance between Moscow and
Beijing.
While most Americans
believe a global conflict is on the horizon, they are not interested in
fighting the war. More than twice as many respondents said they would refuse
service even if drafted than stated, they would volunteer if the war broke out.
Americans responded that they were more likely to serve in non-combat roles or
if the homeland was threatened. [=widespread
ignorance of nuclear war!]
The survey was
conducted as President Biden embroiled the U.S. in multiple conflicts. . . .
CEASELESS WEAPONS WARS AND CLIMATE WAR FOR STARTERS, PLUS
ECONOMIC WARS, PANDEMICS, AI,
“A Slow-Motion World War III?” BY TOM ENGELHARDT. tomdispatch. MARCH 27, 2024. Facebooktwitterredditemail
I’ve
been describing this world of ours, such as it is, for almost 23 years at tomdispatch.
I’ve written my way through three-and-a-half presidencies — god save us, it
could be four in November! I’ve viewed from a grave (and I mean that word!) Distance
America’s endlessly disastrous wars of this century. I’ve watched the latest
military budget hit almost $900 billion, undoubtedly on its way toward
a cool trillion in
the years to come, while years ago the whole “national security” budget (though
“insecurity” would be a better word) soared to well
over the
trillion-dollar mark.
I’ve
lived my whole life in an imperial power. Once, in the wake of the collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1991, it was even “the lone superpower,” the last great
power on planet Earth, or so its leaders believed. I then watched how, in a
world without great-power dangers, it continued to invest ever more of our tax
dollars in our military. A “peace
dividend“?
Who needed that? And yet, in the decades that followed, by far the most expensive military on planet Earth couldn’t manage
to win a single war, no less its Global War on Terror. In fact, in this
century, while fighting vain or losing conflicts across significant parts of
the planet, it slowly but all too obviously began to go down the tubes, or
perhaps I mean (if you don’t mind a few mixed metaphors) come apart at the
seams?
And
it never seems to end, does it? Imagine that 32 years after the U.S. became the
last superpower on Planet Earth, in a devastating kind of political chaos, this
country might indeed reelect a man who imagines himself running a future
American “dictatorship” — his very word for it! — even if, publicly at least,
just for a single day.
And yes, in 2024, as chaos blooms on the
American political scene, the world itself continues to be remarkably at war —
think of “war,” in fact, as humanity’s middle name — in both Ukraine and Gaza
(with offshoots in Lebanon and Yemen).
Meanwhile, this country’s now 22-year-old war on terror straggles on in its own devastating fashion, with
threats of worse to come in plain sight.
After all, 88 years after two atomic bombs
were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, nukes
seem to be making a comeback (not that they were ever truly gone, of course).
Thank you, Kim and Vlad! I’m thinking of how North Korean leader Kim Jong-un
implicitly threatened to nuke his nonnuclear southern neighbor recently. But
also, far more significantly how, in his own version of a State of the Union
address to his people, Russian President Vladimir Putin very publicly threatened to employ nukes from his country’s vast
arsenal (assumedly “tactical” ones, some of which are more powerful than the
atomic bombs that ended World War II), should any European countries — think France — send their troops into Ukraine.
And don’t forget that, amid all of this, my
own country’s military, eternally hiking its “defense” budget, continues to prepare in a big-time
fashion for a future war with — yes — China! Of course, that country is, in
turn, rushing to upgrade its own nuclear arsenal and the rest of its military
machine as well. Only recently, for instance, the U.S. and Japan held joint
military maneuvers that, as they openly indicated for the first time, were aimed at preparing for just such a
future conflict with China and you can’t get much more obvious than that.
Another World War?
Oh, and when it comes to war, I haven’t even
mentioned, for instance, the devastating civil war in Sudan that has nothing to do with any of the major
powers. Yes, we humans just can’t seem to stop making war while, to the tune of
untold trillions of dollars globally, preparing for ever more of it. And the
truly strange thing is this: it seems to matter not at all that the very world
on which humanity has done so forever and a day is now itself being unsettled
in a devastating way that no military of any sort, armed in any fashion, will
ever be able to deal with.
Let’s admit it: we humans have always had a
deep urge to make war. Of course, logically speaking, we shouldn’t continue to
do so, and not just for all the obvious reasons but because we’re on a planet
that can’t take it anymore. (Yes, making war or simply preparing for it means putting staggering amounts of greenhouse gases into
the atmosphere and so, quite literally, making war on the planet itself.) But —
as both history and the present moment seem to indicate all too decisively — we
just can’t stop ourselves.
In the process, while hardly noticing, it
seems as if we’ve become ever more intent on conducting a global war on this
planet itself. Our weapons in that war — and in their own long-term
fashion, they’re likely to prove no less devastating than nuclear arms — have
been fossil fuels. I’m thinking, of course, of coal, oil, and natural gas and
the greenhouse gases that drilling for them and the use of them emit in
staggering quantities even in what passes for peacetime.
In the previous century, of course, there were
two devastating “world” wars, World War I and World War II. They were global
events that, in total, killed more
than a hundred
million of us and
devastated parts of the planet. But here’s the truly strange thing: while local
and regional wars continue in this century in a striking fashion, few consider
the way we’re loading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and methane while, in the
process, heating this planet disastrously as a new kind of world war. Think
of climate change, in fact, as a kind of slow-motion World War III. After
all, it couldn’t be more global or, in the end, more destructive than a world
war of the worst sort.
And unlike the present wars in Gaza and
Ukraine, which, even thousands of miles away, continue to be headline-making
events, the war on this planet normally gets surprisingly little attention in
much of the media. In fact, in 2023, a year that set striking global heat records month by month from June to December and
was also the hottest year ever recorded, the major TV news programs of ABC,
CBS, NBC, and Fox actually cut their coverage of global warming
significantly, according
to Media Matters
for America.
“If I Don’t Get Elected, It’s Going to Be a Blood Bath”
I live in New York City which, like much of
the rest of the planet, set a heat record for 2023. In addition, the winter we just passed through
was a record one for warmth. And I began writing this piece on a set of
days in early March when the temperature in my city also hit records in the mid-60s, and when, on March 14th (not April 14th,
May 14th, or even June 14th), it clocked 70-plus degrees. I was walking outside that afternoon with my shirtsleeves
rolled up, my sweater in my backpack, and my spring jacket tied around my
waist, feeling uncomfortably hot in my blue jeans even on the shadier side of
the street.
And yes, if, as my wife and I did recently,
you were to walk down to the park near where we live, you’d see that the
daffodils are already blooming wildly as are other flowers, while the first
trees are budding, including a fantastic all-purple one that’s burst out fully,
all of this in a fashion that might once have seemed normal sometime in April.
And yes, some of what I’m describing is certainly quite beautiful in the short
run, but under it lies an increasingly grim reality when it comes to extreme (and
extremely hot) weather.
While I was working on this piece, the largest
Texas fires ever (yes, ever!), continued to burn, evidently barely contained, with far more than a million acres of that state’s panhandle
already fried to a crisp. Oh, and those record-setting Canadian forest fires
that scorched tens of millions of acres of that country, while turning distant
U.S. cities like New York into smoke hells last
June have, it turns
out, festered underground all winter as “zombie fires.” And they may
burst out again in an even more devastating fashion this spring or summer. In
fact, in 2023, from Hawaii to Chile to Europe, there were record wildfires of all sorts on our increasingly over-heated planet. And
far worse is yet to come, something you could undoubtedly say as well about
more intense flooding, more violent storms, and so on.
We are, in other words, increasingly on a
different planet, though you would hardly know it amid the madness of our
moment. I mean, imagine this: Russia, whose leader, Vladimir Putin,
clearly doesn’t consider climate change a significant issue, is on pace to
achieve an oil-drilling record for the second year in a row. China, despite
installing far more green power than any other country, has also been
using more coal than all other nations combined, and set global records for building new coal-fired power plants.
Meanwhile, the third “great” power on
this planet, despite having a president dedicated to doing something about climate change, is still the largest exporter of natural gas around and continues to produce oil at
a distinctly record pace.
And don’t forget the five giant fossil-fuel
companies, BP, Shell, Chevron, exxonmobil, and totalenergies, which in 2023
produced oil, made profits, and rewarded shareholders at — yes, you guessed it!
— a record pace, while the major petrostates of our world are still, according to the Guardian, “planning expansions that would
blow the planet’s carbon budget twice over.”
In sum, then, this world of ours only grows
more dangerous by the year. And I haven’t even mentioned artificial
intelligence, have I? As Michael Klare has written in an analysis for the Arms Control Association, the dangers of AI and
other emerging military technologies are likely to “expand into the nuclear
realm by running up the escalation ladder or by blurring the distinction
between a conventional and nuclear attack.”
In other words, human war-making could become
both more inhuman and worse at the same time. Now, add just one more factor
into the global equation. America’s European and Asian allies see U.S.
leadership, dominant since 1945, experiencing a potentially epoch-ending,
terminal failure, as the global Pax Americana (that had all
too little to do with “peace”) is crumbling — or do I mean overheating?
What they see, in fact, is two elderly men
locked in an ever more destructive, inward-looking electoral knife fight, with
one of them warning ominously that “if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood
bath… for the country.” And if he isn’t victorious, here’s his further
prediction: “I don’t think you’re going to have another election, or certainly not an
election that’s meaningful.” Of course, were he to be victorious the same could
be true, especially since he’s promised from his first day in office to “drill, drill, drill,” which, at this point in our history, is, by definition, to
declare war on this planet!
Unfortunately, Donald Trump isn’t alone. All
too sadly, we humans clearly have trouble focusing on the world we actually
inhabit. We’d prefer to fight wars instead. Consider that the definition not
just of imperial decline, but of decline period in the age of climate change.
And yet, it’s barely news.
This piece first appeared at tomdispatch.
Tom Engelhardt is a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The United States of Fear as well as a
history of the Cold War, The
End of Victory Culture. He is a fellow of the Nation
Institute and runs tomdispatch.com. His latest book is Shadow
Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a
Single-Superpower World.
STOP THE WAR
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DIPLOMACY, DE-eSCALATION
“Nuclear Saber Rattling & Escalation
Increase--Help CFPA ‘Sound the Alarm’ to De-escalate!” 2024.
Coalition for Peace Action <cfpa@peacecoalition.org>
THE COALITION FOR
PEACE ACTION (CFPA). * 40 Years of Peacemaking *
www.peacecoalition.org
Dear friend,
I'm following up on my April 18 E-alert about the growing danger of nuclear war in Ukraine. Recently, Russia's Foreign Minister said the danger is
"serious, and should not be underestimated."
On top of all this, today's NY Times has
this article about North Korea rattling the nuclear saber. In fact, the US, Russia, China, India, and
Pakistan are all escalating their nuclear arsenals which has
the world teetering toward a new nuclear arms race. The saber rattling and the escalation greatly
increase the chances of nuclear war, which some are calling World War III.
CFPA initiated a Diplomacy, Not War Campaign in 2013 in support of the Iran
Nuclear Agreement, which kept Iran from getting nuclear weapon
capability. We have been partnering this spring with sister groups to
intensively lobbying for re-entering that agreement from which President Trump
withdrew in 2018.
I believe the only viable way out of
this cycle of nuclear saber rattling and escalation is to have a surge
of Nuclear De-Escalation Diplomacy. This would include de-escalation
initiatives, such as those I advocate in my op-ed on De-Escalate NOW to Prevent Nuclear War in
Ukraine that
was published on April 9 on NJ.com, and subsequently ran in The Star
Ledger, New Jersey's largest newspaper. Click here or below to support CFPA's Nuclear De-escalation Organizing!
De-escalation initiatives
have been effective in the history of the nuclear weapons era. President
Kennedy proposed a US-Soviet Atmospheric Nuclear Test Ban in 1963, and
within 50 days the Treaty was concluded. In response to massive pressure from
the Nuclear Freeze Campaign, President Reagan re-entered negotiations with the
USSR in 1983 and that led in 1986 to the first nuclear reduction
treaty in history, banning all medium range nuclear weapons.
Former Soviet premiere Gorbachev initiated a
Nuclear Testing Moratorium on underground tests in the mid-1980s which led to
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Former President George H.W. Bush
reduced US nuclear weapons more than any other US President, and it led to the
first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). We urgently need to call
on our elected officials at all levels to take such bold de-escalation steps
again!
We need your help to intensify our organizing in
the face of the dire existential threats above! We have begun raising these proposals to
our elected officials, and to sister anti-nuclear groups, but need your help
to build on our efforts to date and do more!
I urge you to click here or below to support CFPA's intensified organizing with as generous a contribution as
possible. If you haven't yet contributed your 2022 annual CFPA
membership, this would be a critical time to do so. This would also make
you eligible to attend CFPA's Annual Membership Gathering keynoted by Rep. Tom
Malinowski.
If you can upgrade from one time membership
to monthly/quarterly pledger, it's a critical time to do so NOW. If
you haven't yet made your annual donation, do so now to help
us meet the urgent challenges above!
P.S. Click to see a video and other
information on The Ecology of War webinar CFPA co-sponsored on April 24, which many attendees have
raved about!
Sincerely,
The Rev. Robert Moore
Executive Director,
Coalition for Peace Action &
Peace Action Education Fund
40 Witherspoon Street, Princeton, NJ 08542
“World War III and our failure to defend
against climate.” Editor.
Mronline.org (6-14-24).
In World War III the enemy
is not an array of tanks, shells and soldiers, but a collection of beliefs
damaging to the earth’s future. The enemies are the minds and actions of those
with the cult of neo-liberalism and greed acting through the power of huge
industries, the enemy within.
Originally published: Pearls and Irritations on June 11, 2024 by David Shearman (more by Pearls and Irritations) (Posted Jun 12, 2024)
. . .Today conflict
around the world is increasing and deprivation caused by flood, fire, drought
and extreme heat are contributory. Most climate scientists believe humanity
will soon face demise if present climate change and environmental policies
continue.
The dire warnings of
hundreds of scientists and many economic organisations are largely ignored.
Recently Sir David
King, Chair of the Global Climate Crisis Advisory Group wrote: Global prosperity has historically emerged from fossil fuels.
But the stranglehold of fossil fuel giants, generously subsidised by
governments and financially backed by banks, places short-term profits
over the planet’s survival. This entrenched dependency stymies
efforts to transition to a sustainable future, despite the urgent need for
change.
David King also stated
a “4R planet” is now necessary. The 3 of the 4 R’s being reducing
emissions; repairing ecosystems; and strengthening local and global resilience
against inevitable climate impacts.
The fourth R is the
removal of 10-20bn tonnes per annum of carbon dioxide to the end of the century
commencing immediately; expensive and currently not possible to any degree.
Bloomberg New Energy
Finance has abandoned the prospect of limiting global warming to 1.5°C and now
says that if the world wants to avoid a 2.6°C hotter environment, fossil fuel use needs to
peak and start declining from today.
As yet we don’t have
the word(s) to collectively embrace our sphere of defence. At the minimum it
includes actions to urgently reduce greenhouse emissions, stop environmental
degradation and recognise the greatest health issue of our time, climate change.
Let us call them our
three survival needs—which are indivisible
The recent Budget speech
The minds of the
Treasurer and Government would surely be focussed on the cost of our defences
in the recent annual Budget?
Everyone listens to
the Treasurer’s budget speech to see what goodies they will get but did the
budget suggest needed sacrifice in WWIII? Did the budget deliver education on
the greatest security and health threat of our time and its funding needing
now? What an opportunity missed.
Let us consider his 4000 word budget
speech and determine how our three survival needs and their
costs were handled.
Incredibly it fails to
mention the billions of dollars spent subsidising new gas developments as a
budget item.
The word climate is
mentioned once under small business. . . .
CONTENTS WWIII, #2, 2016-2024, From Daniel Ellsberg to
Jeffrey Sachs
Daniel Ellsberg.
The Doomsday Machine.
Dawn Stover.
“Facing Nuclear Reality. . . .”
Garrett Graff. “…US Government’s
Secret Plan[s] to Save Itself….”
John Pilger.
“A World War Has Begun” (is being planned).
Tom Dispatch. Tomgram. “Michael Klare. On the Road to World War III?”
Michael Klare. “The New Global
Tinderbox.”
Rick Wayman. “Tell Your Senators to
Oppose Trump’s War Cabinet.”
John Avery. Nuclear Weapons: An
Absolute Evil.
Tom Engelhardt. “The Slow-Motion
Equivalent of a Nuclear War?”
Jeremy Kuzmarov. “Talk of War with China Is Total Insanity.”
Judith Ehrlich.
“Daniel Ellsberg: A Profound Voice against the Doomsday Machine.”
Elaine Scarry.
Thermonuclear Monarchy. Choice between Democracy and Doom.
Istvan Mészáros.
“Militarism and the Coming Wars.”
Jeffrey Sachs. “One War Party v. Jill
Stein and Green Party.”
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