Starting from the presidency of George W. Bush to that of Trump, the U.S. has made some missteps that not only reduce its influence in strategic regions of the world but also its ability to project power and thus impose its will on those unwilling to genuflect appropriately.

Some examples from the recent past will suffice to show how a series of strategic errors have only accelerated the U.S.’s hegemonic decline.

ABM + INF = Hypersonic Supremacy

The decision to invade Afghanistan following the events of September 11, 2001, while declaring an “axis of evil” to be confronted that included nuclear-armed North Korea and budding regional hegemon Iran, can be said to be the reason for many of the most significant strategic problems besetting the U.S..

The U.S. often prefers to disguise its medium- to long-term objectives by focusing on supposedly more immediate and short-term threats. Thus, the U.S.’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) and its deployment of the Aegis Combat System (both sea- and land-based) as part of the NATO missile defense system, was explained as being for the purposes of defending European allies from the threat of Iranian ballistic missiles. This argument held little water as the Iranians had neither the capability nor intent to launch such missiles.

As was immediately clear to most independent analysts as well as to President Putin, the deployment of such offensive systems are only for the purposes of nullifying the Russian Federation’s nuclear-deterrence capability. Obama and Trump faithfully followed in the steps of George W. Bush in placing ABM systems on Russia’s borders, including in Romania and Poland.

Following from Trump’s momentous decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), it is also likely that the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) will also be abandoned, creating more global insecurity with regard to nuclear proliferation.

Moscow was forced to pull out all stops to develop new weapons that would restore the strategic balance, Putin revealing to the world in a speech in 2018 the introduction of hypersonic weapons and other technological breakthroughs that would serve to disabuse Washington of its first-strike fantasies.

Even as Washington’s propaganda refuses to acknowledge the tectonic shifts on the global chessboard occasioned by these technological breakthroughs, sober military assessments acknowledge that the game has fundamentally changed.

There is no defense against such Russian systems as the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, which serves to restore the deterrence doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), which in turn serves to ensure that nuclear weapons can never be employed so long as this “balance of terror” exists. Moscow is thus able to ensure peace through strength by showing that it is capable of inflicting a devastating second strike with regard regard for Washington’s vaunted ABM systems.

In addition to ensuring its nuclear second-strike capability, Russia has been forced to develop the most advanced ABM system in the world to fend off Washington’s aggression. This ABM system is integrated into a defensive network that includes the Pantsir, Tor, Buk, S-400 and shortly the devastating S-500 and A-235 missile systems. This combined system is designed to intercept ICBMs as well as any future U.S. hypersonic weapons

The wars of aggression prosecuted by George W. Bush, Obama and Trump have only ended up leaving the U.S. in a position of nuclear inferiority vis-a-vis Russia and China. Moscow has obviously shared some of its technological innovations with its strategic partner, allowing Beijing to also have hypersonic weapons together with ABM systems like the Russian S-400.

No JCPOA? Here Comes Nuclear Iran

In addition to the continued economic and military pressure placed on Iran, one of the most immediate consequences of the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, better known as the Iran nuclear deal) has been Tehran being forced to examine all options. Although the country’s leaders and political figures have always claimed that they do not want to develop a nuclear weapon, stating that it is prohibited by Islamic law, I should think that their best course of action would be to follow Pyongyang’s example and acquire a nuclear deterrent to protect themselves from U.S. aggression.

While this suggestion of mine may not correspond with the intentions of leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the protection North Korea enjoys from U.S. aggression as a result of its deterrence capacity may oblige the Iranian leadership to carefully consider the pros and cons of following suit, perhaps choosing to adopt the Israeli stance of nuclear ambiguity or nuclear opacity, where the possession of nuclear weapons is neither confirmed nor denied. While a world free of nuclear weapons would be ideal, their deterrence value cannot be denied, as North Korea’s experience attests.

While Iran does not want war, any pursuit of a nuclear arsenal may guarantee a conflagration in the Middle East. But I have long maintained that the risk of a nuclear war (once nuclear weapons have been acquired) does not exist, with them having a stabilizing rather than destabilizing effect, particularly in a multipolar environment.

Once again, Washington has ended up shooting itself in the foot by inadvertently encouraging one of its geopolitical opponents to behave in the opposite manner intended. Instead of stopping nuclear proliferation in the region, the U.S., by scuppering of the JCPOA, has only encouraged the prospect of nuclear proliferation.

Trump’s short-sightedness in withdrawing from the JCPOA is reminiscent of George W. Bush’s withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. By triggering necessary responses from Moscow and Tehran, Washington’s actions have only ended up leaving it at a disadvantage in certain critical areas relative to its competitors.

The death of Soleimani punctures the myth of the U.S. invincibility

I wrote a couple of articles in the wake of General Soleimani’s death that examined the incident and then considered the profound ramifications of the event in the region.

What seems evident is that Washington appears incapable of appreciating the consequences of its reckless actions. Killing Soleimani was bound to invite an Iranian response; and even if we assume that Trump was not looking for war (I explained why some months ago), it was obvious to any observer that there would be a response from Iran to the U.S.’s terrorist actions.

The response came a few nights later where, for the first time since the Second World War, a U.S. military base was subjected to a rain of missiles (22 missiles each with a 700kg payload). Tehran thereby showed that it possessed the necessary technical, operational and strategic means to obliterate thousands of U.S. and allied personnel within the space of a few minutes if it so wished, with the U.S. would be powerless to stop it.

U.S. Patriot air-defense systems yet again failed to do their job, reprising their failure to defend Saudi oil and gas facilities against a missile attack conducted by Houthis a few months ago.

We thus have confirmation, within the space of a few months, of the inability of the U.S. to protect its troops or allies from Houthi, Hezbollah and Iranian missiles. Trump and his generals would have been reluctant to respond to the Iranian missile attack knowing that any Iranian response would bring about uncontrollable regional conflagration that would devastate U.S. bases as well as oil infrastructure and such cities of U.S. allies as Tel Aviv, Haifa and Dubai.

After demonstrating to the world that U.S. allies in the region are defenseless against missile attacks from even the likes of the Houthis, Iran drove home the point by conducting surgical strikes on two U.S. bases that only highlights the disconnect between the perception of U.S. military invincibility and the reality that would come in the form of a multilayered missile conflict.

Conclusion

Washington’s diplomatic and military decisions in recent years have only brought about a world world that is more hostile to Washington and less inclined to accept its diktats, often being driven instead to acquire the military means to counter Washington’s bullying. Even as the U.S. remains the paramount military power, its ineptitude has resulted in Russia and China surpassing it in some critical areas, such that the U.S. has no chance of defending itself against a nuclear second strike, with even Iran having the means to successfully retaliate against the U.S. in the region.

As I continue to say, Washington’s power largely rests on perception management helped by the make-believe world of Hollywood. The recent missile attacks by Houthis on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities and the Iranian missile attack a few days ago on U.S. military bases in Iraq (none of which were intercepted) are like Toto drawing back the curtain to reveal Washington’s military vulnerability. No amount of entreaties by Washington to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain will help.

The more aggressive the U.S. becomes, the more it reveals its tactical, operational and strategic limits, which in turn only serves to accelerate its loss of hegemony.

If the U.S. could deliver a nuclear first strike without having to worry about a retaliatory second strike thanks to its ABM systems, then its quest for perpetual unipolarity could possibly be realistic. But Washington’s peer competitors have shown that they have the means to defend themselves against a nuclear first strike by being able to deliver an unstoppable second strike, thereby communicating that the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD) is here to stay. With that, Washington’s efforts to maintain its status as uncontested global hegemon are futile.

In a region vital to U.S. interests, Washington does not have the operational capacity to stand in the way of Syria’s liberation. When it has attempted to directly impose its will militarily, it has seen as many as 80% of its cruise missiles knocked down or deflected, once again highlighting the divergence between Washington’s Hollywood propaganda and the harsh military reality.

The actions of George W. Bush, Obama and Trump have only served to inadvertently accelerate the world’s transition away from a unipolar world to a multipolar one. As Trump follows in the steps of his predecessors by being aggressive towards Iran, he only serves to weaken the U.S. global position and strengthen that of his opponents.

The move represents a grave assault on existing treaties forbidding the weaponization of space. The NATO announcement is doubly insidious because it gives the appearance of a multilateral acceptance of US attempts to open up the “final frontier” for militarization. A move which is far from acceptable. In fact, illegal, under international law.

Earlier this year, Donald Trump unveiled a new branch of the US armed forces, Space Command, separate from the Air Force. “Spacecom will defend America’s vital interests in space, the next war-fighting domain, and I think that’s pretty obvious to everybody. It’s all about space,” said Trump at a White House ceremony.

It is the first time that a new branch of the US armed forces has been created since 1947 when US Air Force was created out of the Army. The other existing armed services are the Marine Corps, Navy and Coast Guard. Legislation is currently going through Congress which will authorize the president’s order for setting up the new branch, to be known henceforth as Space Force.

All this is happening with barely any public debate or scrutiny. Even though it represents a dramatic escalation of military dimensions. To the existing domains of land, air and sea the United States under Trump is pushing ahead for weaponization of space. As the “war-fighting” rationale of the president makes clear, the development is explicitly about leveraging new military strike potential.

US weaponization of space has been underway for decades, going back to the “star wars” initiative of the Reagan administration in the 1980s and during the GW Bush presidency in the 2000s. However, Trump is taking the program to a whole new level by implementing a separate dedicated Space Force.

This is in spite of the existing UN-ratified 1967 Outer Space Treaty which prohibits any introduction of weapons, including nuclear weapons, into space.

“States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner,” reads the treaty, which provides the basic legal framework for international space law.

Russia and China have been consistently strong advocates for upholding the treaty.

Yet proponents of the US Space Force routinely claim that America is being threatened by Russian and Chinese advances in space military technology. It is not clear on what basis these American claims are made.

Republican Alabama Representative Mike Rogers is quoted by Space News as saying: “We have allowed China and Russia to become our peers, not our near peers and that’s unacceptable.”

But like so many other US claims about Russia and China supposedly threatening American interests, there is little or no evidence presented. The claims rely on ideological prejudice and/or a cynical lobbying service for the military-industrial complex. Going into space will convey billion-dollar contracts to US aerospace corporations.

Indeed, there is a resonance with US claims made in the 1950s and 60s of a “missile gap” which alleged back then that the Soviet Union was outpacing America’s arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons. The putative missile gap was invoked as a pretext for greatly expanding the US arsenal, thereby creating an international arms race, only for the so-called missile gap to be found out years later to be a fiction of American scaremongering. Cynically, that fiction was deliberately propagated to the American public in order to provide a tax-payer-funded pork-barrel production line for the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex.

The same process seems to be underway with Trump’s much-vaunted Space Force.

There is another strategic aspect to this American “weaponization of the heavens”. That is, to force Russia and China into an arms race which Washington calculates would be economically ruinous for Moscow and Beijing. What’s at stake here is a pivotal struggle between Russia and China’s vision of a multipolar world and Washington’s desire to be the globe’s hegemonic uni-power. If the US can break Russia and China economically then it wins this era-defining struggle. Launching an arms race is Washington’s gambit for taking down Russia and China.

The precedent is the arms race in the 1980s under Reagan which brought the Soviet Union to collapse. Because of Washington’s presumed right to print endless amounts of dollars and rack up seemingly limitless national debt, the US is waging that it will be the last man standing in an arms race with Russia and China.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that Russia will not fall into the trap of unleashing an arms race. At a recent meeting in Sochi with his top defense officials, Putin emphasized the imperative need to focus on efficiency in weapon systems. Russia’s latest-generation of hypersonic missiles which apparently can evade any US defense shield – despite the latter costing trillions of dollars to develop – is one example.

Nevertheless, if – and it is a big if – the US manages to develop space weaponry, the pressure will be on Russia and China to respond in kind to counter a whole new threat level. That would mean both nations diverting resources into another realm of weaponry instead of developing their economies.

The US Space Force has to be seen in the wider context of Washington unravelling the entire system of global arms controls. The US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2002 was followed by its withdrawal from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty last year. The Trump administration is moving towards scrapping New START in 2021, the third and last nuclear-arms control treaty.

There is an unconscionable effort by US governments over many years to incite a new arms race. Going into outer space is part of that effort. It is a gross violation of international law and the United Nations by the US to open up a new frontier for military dominance. And the US has utilized the 29-nation NATO alliance to rubber-stamp its criminal weaponization of space.

Washington launched a ground-based cruise missile off the coast of California. It was reportedly a Tomahawk-type nuclear-capable warhead, but the Pentagon said it was conventionally armed. The projectile apparently succeeded in hitting its target after more than 500 kilometers of flight. The testing of such a missile would have been banned by the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty which the US officially withdrew from on August 2.

The INF, first signed in 1987, banned the testing and deployment of missiles within the range of 500-5,500 kms.

It is inconceivable that the latest weapon could not have been in the long-term works for development prior to the three-week period since the INF was abandoned. In others words, the abrogation of the treaty was long-anticipated by Washington, which belies US claims over recent months that it was crashing out of the INF due to alleged Russian violations. The US wanted out of the treaty. Now that it is freed from restriction, the prompt deployment of the cruise weapon off California seems to confirm the ulterior agenda.

Previously, Pentagon chief Mark Esper indirectly admitted this ulterior agenda when he told Senate hearings that the purpose for scrapping the INF was for the US to be able to confront China.

This week Esper said the missile testing was aimed at sending Beijing a message that the “US is capable of deterring China’s bad behavior”.

So, let’s have some honesty here. Washington just ripped up an important arms-control treaty for global security, not because of alleged Russian violations, but rather because the US wants to give itself a free hand to expand its short and medium-range arsenal to challenge China.

Indeed, Esper also remarked during a recent trip to Australia that the US intends to deploy INF-type ground-based missiles in Asia.

Admittedly, China is reckoned to have an arsenal of short and medium-range missiles. Beijing was not a party to the INF, so technically it is not in breach of its restrictions. But a crucial distinction is that such Chinese weapons do not pose a threat to the US mainland. Whereas US intentions of moving similar ballistic warheads to land bases in Asia do pose an imminent threat to China, as well as to Russia.

The US and its NATO allies claim they do not want to start a new global arms race. Washington says it is not planning to deploy INF-type warheads in Europe. However, the type of launcher used this week and which is already deployed in Romania and, it is believed, in Poland as well, could be used sometime in the near future to fire nuclear-capable missiles at Russia.

Washington is thus recklessly shifting the balance of power and undermining the global architecture for security against nuclear war.

Both Russia and China have deplored the risk of a new arms race being incited by the US.

Perhaps this kind of arms race is exactly what Washington is seeking, despite claims to the contrary. The nefarious calculation is that Russia and China will be diverted from economic development by being forced into responding in kind to new threats from the US.

After all, with its presumed license to rack up never-ending national debt, American strategic planners may feel that they can impose crippling economic costs on geopolitical rivals Russia and China.

The Chinese government said it best this week when it commented that the US “must give up its Cold War mentality”.

The endemic premise in Washington is that Russia, China and other states are mortal threats to the US. The official American view of the world is relentlessly paranoid about enemy states, which are allegedly harboring malign designs to the destroy the US.

Of course such cynical, nihilistic thinking is necessitated by the fundamental operating need of US capitalism and its addiction to the military-industrial complex. War is good, peace is bad, so goes the Orwellian American credo, albeit never outrightly stated as such. If the US were to somehow make peace with the world and enter into normal friendly international relations, then its $700-billion-plus annual spending on military would cease to exist from lack of “justification”, and with that would follow the calamitous implosion of its militarized capitalist economy.

An arms race for the US state planners is like finding a drug-fix for a junkie. It is damnable that Washington is tearing up arms control treaties and jeopardizing global security in order to gratify its dysfunctional systematic dependence on insecurity, tension, conflict and ultimately war.

The undoing of arms controls treaties by the US, first the ABM in 2002, then the INF this year, next perhaps the New Start treaty expiring in 2021, is reprehensible. But what is more reprehensible is the underlying ideology that impels that. American citizens have to address that root ideological disease, otherwise the world will continually be in peril of war.

– RT, 22 December 2017

It’s easy to forget it today, but the USSR was, in its time, an “exceptionalist” country. It was the world’s first socialist country – the “bright future“; it set an example for all to follow, it was destined by History. It had a mission and was required by History to assist any country that called itself “socialist”. The USSR had bases and interests all over the world. As the 1977 USSR Constitution said:

the Soviet state, a new type of state, the basic instrument for defending the gains of the revolution and for building socialism and communism. Humanity thereby began the epoch-making turn from capitalist to socialism.

A novus ordo seclorum indeed.

Russia, however, is just Russia. There is no feeling in Moscow that Russia must take the lead any place but Russia itself. One of the reasons, indeed, why Putin is always talking about the primacy of the UN, the independence of nation states, the impermissibility to interfere in internal activities – the so-called “Westphalian” position – is that he remembers the exceptionalist past and knows that it led to a dead end. Moscow has no interest in going abroad in search of internationalist causes.

Internationalism/exceptionalism and nationalism: the two have completely different approaches to constructing a military. The first is obsessed with “power projection“, “full spectrum superiority“, it imagines that its hypertrophied interests are challenged all over the planet. Its wants are expensive, indeterminate, unbounded. The other is only concerned with dealing with enemies in its neighbourhood. Its wants are affordable, exact, finite. The exceptionalist/interventionist has everything to defend everywhere; the nationalist has one thing to defend in one place. It is much easier and much cheaper to be a nationalist: the exceptionalist/interventionist USA spends much more than anyone else but always needs more; nationalist Russia can cut its expenditure.

The USSR’s desire to match or exceed the USA in all military areas was a contributing factor to the collapse of its alliance system and the USSR itself. Estimates are always a matter for debate, especially in a command economy that hid its numbers (even when they were calculable), but a common estimate is a minimum of 15% of the USSR’s production went to the military. But the true effort was probably higher. The USSR was involved all over the world shoring up socialism’s  “bright future” and that cost it at home.

Putin & Co’s “bright future” is for Russia only and the world may do as it wants about any example or counterexample it may imagine there. While Putin may occasionally indulge himself by offering opinions about liberalism and oped writers gas on about the Putin/Trump populism threat,  Putin & Co are just trying to do what they think best for Russia with, as their trust ratings suggest (in contrast with those of the rulers of the “liberal” West), the support and agreement of most Russians.

The military stance of the former exceptionalist country is all gone. As the USSR has faded away, so have its overseas bases and commitments: the Warsaw Pact is gone together with the forward deployment of Soviet armies; there are no advisors in Vietnam or Mozambique; Moscow awaits with bemusement the day next January when the surviving exceptionalist power and its minions will have been in Afghanistan twice as long as the USSR was. The United States, still exceptionalist, still imagining it is spreading freedom and democracy, preventing war and creating stability, has bases everywhere and thinks that it must protect “freedom of navigation” to and from China in the South China Sea. It has yet to learn the futility of seeing oneself as The World’s Example.

Putin & Co have learned: Russia has no World-Historical purpose and its military is just for Russia. They understand what this means for Russia’s Armed Forces:

Moscow doesn’t have to match the US military; it just has to checkmate it.

And it doesn’t have to checkmate it everywhere, only at home. The US Air Force can rampage anywhere but not in Russia’s airspace; the US Navy can go anywhere but not in Russia’s waters. It’s a much simpler job and it costs much less than what Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev were attempting; it’s much easier to achieve; it’s easier to plan and carry out. The exceptionalist/interventionist has to plan for Everything; the nationalist for One Thing.

Study the enemy, learn what he takes for granted and block it. And the two must haves of American conventional military power as it affects Russia are 1) air superiority and 2) assured, reliable communications; counter those and it’s checkmated: Russia doesn’t have to equal or surpass the US military across the board, just counter its must haves.

Russia’s comprehensive and interlocking air defence weaponry is well known and well respected: it covers the spectrum from defences against ballistic missiles to small RPVs, from complex missile/radar sets to MANPADS; all of it coordinated, interlocking with many redundancies. We hear US generals complaining about air defence bubbles and studies referring to Russia’s “anti-access/area-denial (A2AD) exclusion zones“. Russian air defence has not been put to the full-scale test but we have two good indications of its effectiveness. The first was the coordinated RPV attack on Russian bases in Syria last year in which seven were shot down and six taken over, three of them landed intact. Then, in the FUKUS attack of April 2018, the Russians say the Syrian AD system (most of which is old but has benefited from Russian coordination) shot down a large number of the cruise missiles. (FUKUS’ claims are not believable).

The other area, about which even less is known are Russian electronic warfare capabilities: “eye-watering” says a US general; “Right now in Syria we are operating in the most aggressive EW environment on the planet from our adversaries. They are testing us everyday, knocking our communications down, disabling our EC-130s, etcetera.” Of course, what the Americans know is only what Russia wants them to know. There is speculation about an ability to spoof GPS signals. AEGIS-equipped warships seem to have trouble locating themselves (HNoMS Helge Ingstad) or avoiding being run into (USS Lake Champlain, USS John McCain, USS Fitzgerald). Bad seamanship may, of course, be the cause and that’s what the US investigations claim. So more rumour than fact but a lot of rumour.

In the past two or three decades US air power has operated with impunity; it has assumed that all GPS-based systems (and there are many) will operate as planned and that communications will be free and clear. Not against Russia. With those certainties removed, the American war fighting doctrine will be left scrabbling.

But AD and EW are not the only Russian counters. When President Bush pulled the USA out of the ABM Treaty in 2001, Putin warned that Russia would have to respond. Mutual Assured Destruction may sound crazy but there’s a stability to it: neither side, under any circumstance, can get away with a first strike; therefore neither will try it. Last year we met the response: a new ICBM, a hypersonic re-entry vehicle, a nuclear-powered cruise missile with enormous flight time and a similar underwater cruise missile. No defence will stop them and so MAD returns. A hypersonic anti-shipping missile will keep the US Navy out of Russian waters. And, to deal with the US Army’s risible ground forces in Europe, with or without NATO’s other feeble forces, Russia has re-created the First Guards Tank Army. Checkmate again.

No free pass for US air power, strained and uncertain communications, a defeated ground attack and no defence against Russian nuclear weapons. That’s all and that’s enough.

And that is how Moscow does it while spending much less money than Washington. It studies Washington’s strengths and counters them: “smart decisions”. Washington is starting to realise Russia’s military power but it is blinded and can only see its reflection in the mirror: the so-called “rising threat from Russia” would be no threat to a Washington that stayed at home.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

– Sun Tzu

Whether the Arctic will become a platform for cooperation or warfare has been a question often posed throughout the past 150 years.

As early as 1875, a vision for Eurasian-American cooperation was becoming realized as leading Americans and Russians alike foresaw the construction of telegraph and even rail lines across the 100 km Bering Strait crossing separating Russia from Alaska. Proponents of this policy on the American side included Lincoln-ally and Colorado’s 1^st governor William Gilpin, whose book The Cosmopolitan Railway was published in 1890 showcasing a “post-imperial world” where mutual development was driven by rail lines across all the continents and featured the Bering Strait rail connection as its keystone. Many of Gilpin’s co-thinkers in Russia grew in influence and even convinced Tsar Nicholas II to endorse the project in 1905. The fact that the newly completed Trans-Siberian Railway was modelled on Lincoln’s Trans-Continental Railway and carried train cars built in Philadelphia made this concept very feasible in the minds of many people in those days… not excluding a British Empire that desperately wished to see this potential destroyed.

Although a few assassinations, a Russian revolution and Wall Street/London-funded wars disturbed this paradigm of cooperation from unfolding as it should have, hopes again ran high as Franklin Roosevelt and Stalin recognized that they had much more in common with each other than either did with the British Empire’s Winston Churchill. This partnership re-opened discussion for a Bering Strait rail connection during World War II after decades of dormancy. When FDR prematurely passed away in office and his leading American co-thinkers began to be targeted by the FBI-led “red scare”, Stalin ruminated that “the great dream had died”. Churchill’s Iron Curtain ushered in a new age of Mutual Assured Destruction whereby all talk of the Arctic as a domain of cooperation perished.

Despite efforts of certain leading figures such as John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert in America, or Enrico Mattei of Italy and Charles De Gaulle in France to establish cooperation between east and west, the growth of what has today come to be known as the “deep state” continued apace, with the creation of NATO, and technocratic infiltration of all western governments… often over the dead bodies of nationalist leaders.

While the west celebrated the collapse of Communism, and puppets like Sir Henry Kissinger and Sir George Bush ushered in the New World Order of NAFTA, NATO, the Eurozone, and WTO during the 1990s, a new alliance was forming, and soon the emergence of such institutions as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS, APEC, and later Eurasian Economic Union occurred.

With these new institutions, the designs for a Bering Strait rail tunnel were once again revived when Russia signaled its willingness to construct the century-old project in 2011 offering over $65 billion towards its funding, which only required the cooperation of the United States and Canada.

As China began to emerge as a global force, it not only petitioned to become an observer in the Arctic Council in 2012, but also soon unleashed the Belt and Road Initiative in September 2013. A year later, in May 2014, China too gave its support to the construction of the Bering Strait Tunnel. Until this period the only serious discussion of the program was found in the work of the Schiller Institute, whose founders had publicized the New Silk Road and Bering Strait rail line through thousands of conferences and publications since 1993.

While the period of 2014-present has been tense at the best of times, and close to world war at the worst of times, the potential of the Arctic as a platform for international dialogue has continued un-abated and has served as the theme of this year’s fifth International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg from April 9-10, 2019. The theme of the conference which saw the involvement of 3600 representatives of Russian, and international sectors both private and public was “Arctic: Territory of Dialogue”.

Russia’s Arctic: Territory of Dialogue

The keynote speech at the forum’s plenary session was given by Vladimir Putin whereby the Russian leader discussed the plans for Russia’s Arctic development for the coming decades stating: “This year we are going to draft and adopt a new strategy for the development of the Russian Arctic up to 2035. It is to combine measures stipulated in our national projects and state programmes, the investment plans of infrastructure companies and programmes for developing Arctic regions and cities. All Arctic regions should be brought to the level of at least the national average in key socioeconomic indicators and living standards.”

In attendance were the heads of every Arctic Council nation (except Canada and the USA) who listened to Putin describe the upgrading of a global transportation corridor involving the Northern Sea Route, the Northern Latitudinal Railway connecting western Siberia to ports on the Arctic Ocean, a boost of freight traffic to 80 million tons by 2025 (from its 20 million tons today), and the creation of new nuclear powered ice breakers. Vast programs for resource development of LNG, oil and other minerals were announced throughout the conference and a new federal law to offer a special system of preferences for Arctic zone investments was publicized. Over 100 oil and gas extraction, infrastructure and tourism projects were finalized totalling over $164 billion.

Most importantly, a vision for this growth process was tied to the creative spirit of scientific discovery that distinguishes the human species as unique among the biosphere, as scientific and educational centers to integrate universities, research institutions and the private sector with the productive industrial processes underlying the “real economy” were announced. This last component of an Arctic vision brought into focus Russia’s partnership with China brilliantly, as a strategic agreement on scientific cooperation was signed between the two allies

The Russia-China Silk Road on Ice

China’s Belt and Road Initiative has already spread across Eurasia and Africa uplifting standards of living, cognitive potential and building mega projects along the way. The grand design is a fluid concept driven by rail development and city building on its land (road) component, with ports and shipping lanes on its sea (belt) component. A philosophical commitment to scientific and technological progress (aka: creative reason) which once animated western society is its driving power.

In January 2018, a Chinese white paper announced China’s northern vision with Russia “will bring opportunities for parties concerned to jointly build a ‘Polar Silk Road’, and facilitate connectivity and sustainable economic and social development of the Arctic.”

In its press release announcing the creation of the China-Russia Arctic Research Center (CRARC) on April 10, 2019, the Russian government announced: “Joint efforts will be made in Arctic marine science research, which will promote the construction of ‘Silk Road on Ice’. In future, QNLM looks forward to more fruitful and efficient partnerships worldwide to contribute to the sustainable development of the world oceans and a shared future for mankind.”

NATO hawks Freak Out

NATO hawks have reacted to these incredible developments as if the Cold war had never ended, with James Stravridis (former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO) penning an op-ed on April 16 stating China’s polar silk road is only an “aggressive program of building influence” and that the melting arctic ice “will create shipping routes that could be geopolitically central for China’s One Belt, One Road global development strategy.” Citing the recent China-Russia joint military exercises such as the Vostok 2018 China-Russia-Mongolia maneuvers of September 11-17, 2018 that involved over 300 000 military personnel, Stravridis said “they [Russia and China] see working together as a hedge against the US and their cooperation will create significant challenges for the NATO nations with Arctic territory”. The cold warrior called on the USA and Canada to respond with their own joint military maneuvers and collaboration with NATO.

Stravridis’ words echoed those of NORAD chief US General Terrance O’Shaughnessy who spoke in Ottawa earlier calling for joint military cooperation in the Arctic saying “we must acknowledge the reality that our adversaries currently hold our citizens, our way of life and national interests at risk… we are at risk in ways we haven’t been in decades”.

While fear-mongering headlines documenting Russia’s Arctic Summit with such titles as “Putin Bolsters Arctic Presence with Anti-Aircraft Missiles” are the norm in the western press, a major Canadian Foreign Affairs Committee report published on April 11 features a valuable insight into the powerful effects of which the New Silk Road paradigm is creating even among pro-NATO countries as hostile to the BRI and Russia as Canada has proven itself to be over recent years.

The New Paradigm inspires potential change in Canadian Artic Strategy

In the report begun in June 2018 entitled “Nation Building at Home, Vigilance Beyond: Preparing for the Coming Decades in the Arctic”, a non-partisan effort was released to call for a complete reversal on the Arctic policy which has governed Canada since the Deep State-led ouster of Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in 1963, whose “Northern Vision” was killed with his position as Prime Minister.

While paying lip service to the “danger of Russian and Chinese interest in the Arctic”, the 140 page committee report broke with the tradition of treating the Canada’s Arctic Sovereign as somehow “threatened by outside forces” as has been the trend for decades and instead stated that “the Committee is of the view that the challenges Canada faces in the Arctic are those of security, national defence, stewardship, well-being, and prosperity. With that in mind, it seems unproductive to continue approaching these issues from the perspective of determining whether Canada is somehow losing sovereignty over land and waters that are Canadian.” Expressing an awareness that a new global system was rising the paper stated “the government must … ensure that it is not caught unprepared if the geopolitical reality changes.”

While other similar white papers published over the years have taken more aggressive stances against Russia and China’s BRI, this committee report stated “The Arctic situation now goes beyond its original inter-Arctic States or regional nature, having a vital bearing on the interests of States outside the region and the interests of the international community as a whole, as well as on the survival, the development, and the shared future for mankind.”

Ultimately, the report called for Canada to break the British-steered zero growth/post-industrial policy of the past 60 years and instead create a new federal program for Arctic infrastructure investment, cooperation with China on the Polar Silk Road, involve natives trapped in suicide-laden under-developed reservations with the opportunity to participate in growth programs, mapping of northern resources (which Canada has failed to do unlike their Russian counterparts), and importantly provide for the social integration of natives with the rest of Canada.

Of extreme importance was the call to reverse the 2016 Trudeau-Obama ban on Arctic drilling which was done to protect the ecosystem while excluding all natives who live in said ecosystems with any opportunity to have a say. The report stated “The manner in which that decision was carried out was not described warmly by the people with whom the Committee met in the North. There was a feeling that the decision had been made without consideration for the interests of the people who live and work there. One Indigenous organization received 20 minutes’ notice.”

Rather than call for confrontation, or joining NATO’s ABM encirclement of Russia as previous reports had done, the committee called for discussion, science diplomacy, dialogue and a return to an Arctic growth policy not seen in over 70 years.

While discussions of the Bering Strait rail connection between Eurasia and the Americas was absent, as was all discussion of nuclear energy, whose development is instrumental for the Arctic, it is relevant that no mention was made of “green energy” like windmills and solar panels which would serve no use in any serious national development strategy.

The fact is that the polar Silk Road is a reality. The ports and shipping lines opening up along the Northwest Passage express only the beginning phases of it, but as Russia continues to develop rail and scientific capabilities with China’s assistance across its Arctic, the rail will follow and the dream of Governor Gilpin and Tsar Nicholas II to unite both worlds new and old with rail will occur, as long as the west chooses to take history seriously and not sleepwalk into world war once more.

US President Donald Trump surprised many observers when he recently lamented excessive military spending by the US, Russia and China.

He reportedly wants all three nations to scale back military budgets and renew arms controls for world peace and security. Trump made his comments while hosting China’s Vice Premier Liu He in the Oval Office last week amid ongoing wrangling over bilateral trade relations.

“As you know China is spending a lot of money on military, so are we, so is Russia and those three countries I think can come together and stop the spending and spend on things that maybe are more productive towards long-term peace,” Trump said.

“It think it’s much better if we all got together and we didn’t make these weapons,” he added. His remarks were endorsed by the Chinese dignitary.

However, Trump’s belated rhetoric hailing the benefits of arms controls is contradicted by relentless US moves to undermine existing treaties, as well as by Trump’s ramping up of American military spending – which is already multiples of what China or Russia expends.

US military spending has been substantially increased during Trump’s past two years in office, from an already colossal level, to well over $700 billion annually. This figure is some three times what China spends and more than 10 times what Russia allocates for its military budget. Indeed, the US military budget alone is equivalent to the next 14 biggest military nations combined, including China, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea and India.

Trump’s purported concern about excessive military spending is well placed. The total global allocation is estimated to be around $1.7 trillion annually. That figure is more than enough to solve problems of world hunger, drinking-water and sanitation needs, supply of life-saving medicines and education for every child on the planet – if the resources were redirected.

The objective financial data shows that it is the US upon which the onus lies to drastically reduce military spending. Arguably, it is because of America’s gargantuan arms industry and arsenal of weapons that the rest of the globe is obliged to follow suit out of nations’ concern to maintain a commensurate level of defense. If the globe is wasting crucial resources on war machines and armies it is largely because of the US and its distorted, inordinate build-up of weaponry. The excessive American military forces are bound to be seen by the other nations, including supposed allies, as a latent threat of aggression.

So Trump’s lamenting of excessive military financing is, on the face of it, laudable – but such lamenting is superficial, if not cynical. The president needs to put his money where his mouth is, and show true global leadership by, first and foremost, slashing US military profligacy. If Washington were to take that step, then all other nations would likely follow suit and begin scaling back their expenditures on defense. The world would hence be a lot safer and more secure too.

Of course, Trump’s aspirations for peace are somewhat naive. The entire American corporate capitalist economy is addicted to monstrous military splurging. The Pentagon’s military-industrial complex has since the Second World War become a chronic “fix” for propping up the US economy, which would otherwise tank if not for the annual subsidizing through byzantine military contracts.

Trump may, in a moment of seeming clarity, bemoan the chronic spending, but he perhaps does not understand that what he is bemoaning is the systematic, pernicious nature of American capitalism. In other words, if the world were to scale back military spending and redirect to more productive, humane projects, the shift would require a new paradigm for the American economy – one that is arguably more democratic and rational, rather than the chronic militarism that has prevailed for more than seven decades.

Another illustration of Trump’s naivety, or facile understanding, is that the US has in recent years steadfastly refused to enter into normal diplomatic negotiations with Russia and China validating arms controls.

Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the US, recently remarked on how Washington has rebuffed all attempts by Moscow to engage in constructive dialogue to restore the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. It was under the Trump administration that the US has now cancelled the INF based on dubious claims of Russia violating the pact. The third remaining arms control treaty, the New START is due to expire in 2021, and so far the US has shown no sign of reciprocating with Russia to maintain that accord.

The US has thus unilaterally spurned dialogue with Russia in upholding arms controls. It has unilaterally acted aggressively towards Moscow and Beijing with relentless build-up of military forces around each country. Indeed, it is Washington that is inciting a new arms races globally and, in doing so, gravely putting world peace and security at risk.

The American president may therefore pronounce words of peace, security and arms reductions. But his words are rather meaningless given the systematic and insatiable militaristic condition of American capitalism and its concomitant conduct of aggression. Actions speak louder than words.

The New York Times accused the Russian leader of “nuclear saber-rattling” while Radio Free Europe headlined: ‘Putin threatens to target the US with missiles’. Many other news outlets conveyed the same depiction of Russia somehow escalating bellicose tensions, based on Putin’s annual state-of-the-nation address this week.

Buried beneath the sensational headlines was a little more context that hints at the gross distortion being propagated by the Western media.

The New York Times disdained Putin was speaking with an “aggressive tone” and “doubling down on threats against the United States”.

The Times then went on to report: “President Vladimir Putin used his state-of-the-nation address to make some of his most explicit threats yet to start a nuclear arms race with the US after [sic] the Trump administration said this month that America was withdrawing from a landmark arms control treaty.”

Obliquely, but crucially, what the Western media coyly admit is that Putin’s remarks this week on deploying new missiles systems are in response to Washington’s decision to unilaterally abandon the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

In other words, decisions have consequences. But for the Western media, they seem to be only preoccupied by consequences.

Furthermore, the Washington Post added somewhere lurking in the bowels of its coverage: “Putin emphasized that Russia will only respond if the United States makes the first move.”

That is, if the US instals short- and medium-range missiles in Europe then Russia will take symmetrical measures to target America territory and that of its NATO allies.

Radio Free Europe even breezily reported Putin as saying, “we don’t want confrontation” and added: “Putin said Russia wanted friendly relations with the United States and remained open for arms control talks with Washington.”

So, Western media are correctly – albeit coyly – noting that the Russian leader is acting in response to actions taken by Washington, and that he is explicitly appealing for friendly relations instead of confrontation. And yet the headlines were all screaming that Putin was “threatening the US”.

This willful distortion is reprehensibly adding to already dangerous international tensions. It is also a baleful failure to accurately determine which party is actually responsible for the brooding confrontational climate. Russia is being blamed for “threatening” the US and its allies when the reality is the reverse: it is the US that is unleashing the dangers of nuclear conflict, as even the Western media obliquely admit.

The Trump administration’s decision to walk away – unilaterally – from the 1987 INF Treaty is the key here. The US side claims that Russia has violated the treaty with its development of a land-launched cruise missile within the banned range of 500-5,500 kilometers. Moscow counters that the 9M729 (also known as SSC-8) missile has an operating range below the lower limit banned by the INF. Last month, in an unprecedented move, the Russian ministry of defense publicly disclosed the missile’s flight specifications at a press conference. Moscow points out that the US has not provided substantiating details to back up its claims that Russia is in breach of the treaty.

For its part, Russia accuses the US side of violating the INF treaty by already installing missile systems in Romania and Poland which can deploy offensive cruise warheads as well as performing as anti-missile systems. The US says its Aegis Ashore system is solely defensive.

However, rather than negotiating through the claims and counter-claims, it is the US side which decided to terminate its participation in the INF Treaty – just like it did with the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty back in 2002 under President GW Bush.

The abandonment of a second major arms control accord is solely the responsibility of the US. The third remaining treaty, New START, is also at risk from redundancy by Washington.

With the INF now being trashed, the US has freed itself to potentially deploy additional missile systems in Europe right on Russia’s borders. The eastward expansion of NATO over the past three decades means that US nuclear weapons could be deployed with a strike capability on Moscow within 10-12 minutes, not hours as with strategic warheads.

President Putin this week noted that Washington has not indicated if it will refrain from installing medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe.

But the Russian leader emphatically specified the condition that “if” the US does embark on such a threatening deployment then Russia will take “symmetrical measures”. He warned that new hypersonic and submarine-launched missiles will be deployed to match the 10-12 minute flight time that the US could poise against Moscow. The Russian weapons will target European launch sites for the US missiles as well as “decision-making centers” in American territory.

Of course, such a dramatic proximity of nuclear capability is extremely alarming and deplorable. The risk of error is manifold greater in such a scenario in a way that far exceeds the Cold War decades. Putin noted that the scenario recalls the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 when the world almost witnessed a nuclear war. The reference point is apt for today’s predicament. The Soviet Union deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962 after the US installed ballistic missiles in Turkey the year before in 1961. Again, as now, it is the US side that is initiating the dynamics of provocation.

Any objective observer can see that it is the US that is continually upping the ante for nuclear war. The jettisoning of the ABM is now followed by the US discarding the INF based on dubious, unverified claims. Russia in fact views the ulterior rationale of the US as covertly wanting to free itself from the arms controls restriction in order to exert threatening pressure on Moscow for geopolitical goals: those goals may include forcing Russia to be compliant with American foreign policy interests, or opening up Russia’s natural resources to American capital exploitation, and so on.

Putin’s remarks this week are clearly consistent with Russia’s defensive doctrine for using nuclear forces. Moscow is patently stating that it will take “reciprocal steps” if Washington follows through on its offensive trajectory. Yet Western media invert the situation to portray Russia as “threatening” the US.

This is analogous to a gang marauding outside a home. Then the mob ringleader announces that projectiles are to be readied to lob over the garden wall. The homeowner shouts out: just try it and we’ll shoot your henchmen. Nobody in their right mind could fault the homeowner. It’s called self-defense.

But in Russia’s case, self-defense is twisted by dutiful, brainwashed Western news media as “unacceptable threat”.

The INF treaty was signed by the US and the USSR in 1987 at the height of negotiations that had begun years earlier and directly involved the leaders of the two countries. The treaty entered into force in 1988, eliminating missiles with a range of 500-1,000 kilometers (short to medium range) and 1,000-5,500 km (intermediate range). The treaty has always concerned land-based launchers and never sea- or air-launched missiles, a legacy of a bygone era where most nuclear warheads were positioned on missiles launched from the mainland. In subsequent years, thanks to technological advances, solutions like submarines, stealth bombers and the possibility of miniaturizing nuclear warheads became increasingly important in the military doctrines of both the US and Russia, nullifying the basis on which the INF treaty was initially signed, which was to avert a direct confrontation between Washington and Moscow on the European continent.

The INF treaty, together with the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks/Treaty (SALT treaty), signed by Washington and Moscow on the issue of long-range missiles, aimed to create a safer global environment by seeking to avoid the prospect of a nuclear exchange. It was also aimed at reducing the number of nuclear warheads owned by the US and the USSR, as well as generally reducing proliferation in line with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In particular, the INF treaty guaranteed a lasting peace on the European continent through Washington not deploying nuclear weapons in Europe aimed at the USSR and Moscow in turn not deploying systems capable of eliminating these European-based US missiles. The initial promoters of an INF agreement were obviously the European countries, who would have found themselves in the middle of a nuclear apocalypse in the event of war between Moscow and Washington.

With 1970s technology, the time between the launch and impact of a missile with a range of 500-5500 km was about 10-12 minutes; that was the amount of time Moscow and Washington’s leaders had during the Cold War to decide whether to retaliate and thereby launch WWIII. With today’s technology, the time to decide would probably be reduced to less than 5 minutes, making it all the more difficult to avert a nuclear exchange in the event of an accident or miscalculation. The INF treaty was thus a life-insurance policy for humanity that decreased the statistical probability of nuclear provocation or of an accident.

During the Cold War, the concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD) was central to the nuclear doctrines of the two great powers. The INF treaty served the purpose of taking concrete steps towards greatly reducing the possibility of mutually assured destruction.

With the unilateral withdrawal from the treaty by the US, all these safeguards and guarantees are lost, with all the consequences that ensue from such a reckless as dangerous act.

The American and European mainstream media have applauded the withdrawal from the INF, in the same way that they have applauded Trump whenever he has been pro-war. Former CIA and military personnel, as well as the former CEO’s of major arms manufacturers, have been eager to share their views as “experts”, literally invading television programs and thereby showing why they are paid lots of money to lobby for the military-industrial complex. They praised Trump’s move, blaming Moscow for the ending of the treaty, but in the end revealing the covert geopolitical reason why Washington decided to end the deal, namely, the fact that China is not bound by the same treaty.

These vaunted experts on MSNBC, CNN and Fox News alluded to the danger of Washington being bound by such a treaty while Beijing was not, thereby limiting Washington's options in the Asia-Pacific. Trump and his staff view the INF treaty as an intolerable imposition that ties America’s hands in its efforts to contain China.

US foreign policy, especially under this administration, sees every kind of agreement, past or future, as a concession, and therefore a sign of weakness. Trump and his generals drafted the National Defense Posture, stating that the time of great-power competition is back and that Washington’s peer competitors were Moscow and Beijing. The return of great-power competition is an excuse to “strengthen the military”, as Trumps loves to say, and his decision is in line with the new defense posture review Trump approved, seeking to confront every adversary in any domain by all means. The newly announced Space Force is a reflection of this, seeking to put weapons in space in violation of all existing treaties. At the same time, the development of tactical nuclear weapons also expands the use of nuclear weapons in certain circumstances, pushing the envelope on the prohibition on the use of nuclear weapons. These new programs will end up draining even more money from taxpayers to fill the coffers of shareholders, CEOs and lobbyists for the big arms manufacturers.

To justify the withdrawal from the INF, the military-industrial complex, which drives US foreign policy, needed a suitable justification. Of course in a time of anti-Russia hysteria, the choice was obvious. Since 2014, the attention of so-called US experts has been focused on the 9M729 missile in particular, an evolution of the 9M728, used by the Iskander-K weapons system, a Russian technological gem with few equals.

NPO Novator, the company that produces the 9M729, reassures that the missile does not violate the INF treaty and has a range shorter than the 500 km limit (470 km). Moscow even organized an exhibition open to the public, with the missile on display along with its main features, inviting Washington to officially send its experts to view the characteristics of the 9M729. Washington refused, knowing full well that the missile does not violate the the INF, preferring instead to use the 9M729 as an excuse to abandonment the treaty.

Washington will suspend its participation in the treaty within 180 days, and Moscow has responded with an identical measure. With hysteria surrounding Russia (Russiagate) and the impossibility of Trump and Putin engaging in dialogue following the complete sabotaging of relations between Moscow and Washington, it is almost impossible that a fruitful dialogue can be created to seal a new agreement in the remaining 180 days. This, however, is not even the basic objective of the Trump administration. Unofficially, Trump says that he would rather include Beijing in the agreement with Moscow. But knowing that this goal is impossible to achieve, he is pursuing his broader objective of withdrawing the US from all major treaties, including the INF treaty.

In the specific case of withdrawing from the INF, there is little need to raise a big hue and cry as was the case with the Paris Agreement, as the media-intelligence-military apparatus has a lot to gain from this. This just goes to show how the MSM and their rolled-out “experts” thrive on war and the money that is to be made from it. There is a major psyop going on to convince the American public that the withdrawal from the INF treaty, and the resulting arms race with major nuclear-armed countries, is apparently the best way to keep America safe!

The withdrawal from the INF treaty opens the gates for a new nuclear-arms race that will bring great advantages to arms industries, with great returns for shareholders, executives and CEOs, all paid for by the American taxpayer. It is more than probable that the official defense budget in 2020, having to cover for the development of weapons previously prohibited by the INF treaty, could be more than 800 billion dollars, seeing an increase of tens of billions of dollars in the space of 12 months.

Moscow has for several years been accusing the US of malfeasance regarding various aspects of nuclear-weapons agreements. Russia’s defence minister stated to Tass News Agency:

"Two years before making public unfounded accusations against Russia of alleged INF Treaty violations, Washington not only took a decision, but also started preparations to production of missiles of intermediate and shorter range banned by the Treaty. Starting already June 2017, the program of expansion and upgrade of production facilities with the aims of developing intermediate and shorter range missiles banned by the Treaty was launched at Raytheon’s plant in the city of Tucson, Arizona. The plant is a major diversified enterprise of the US aerospace industry that produces almost all types of missile weapons. Over the past two years the space of the plant has increased by 44% – from 55,000 to 79,000 square meters, while the number of employees is going to rise by almost 2,000 people, according to official statements. Almost at the same time as production facilities expanded, on November 2017, Congress provided the first tranche amounting to $58 mln to Pentagon, directly pointing at the development of a land-based missile of intermediate range. Consequently, the nature and time of the works demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that the US administration decided to withdraw from the INF Treaty several years before unfounded accusations against Russia of violating the Treaty were made public.”

The unilateral withdrawal by George W. Bush from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) in 2002, citing the need for the US to protect itself from countries belonging to the Axis of Evil (Iran, Iraq, North Korea), was an excuse to deploy the Aegis system (land- or sea-based) in strategic areas around the Russian Federation, so as to diminish Moscow’s deterrent capacity for a nuclear second strike.

The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System (Aegis BMD) is designed to be able to theoretically intercept Russian missiles in their initial boost phase, the period when they are the most vulnerable. Moscow has been openly questioning the rationale for the Aegis system deployed in Romania. According to Russian military experts, the possibility of reprogramming the system from defensive to offensive, replacing the conventional warheads used for intercepting missiles with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, could be undertaken within an hour, without the Russian Federation possibly being aware of it. Putin has cited this specific case and its technical possibility more than once when pointing out that the US is already in violation of the INF treaty by deploying such systems in Romania.

The US unilaterally withdrew from the ABM treaty in 2002 in order to be able to disguise the deployment of an offensive system under the guise of an ABM system for the purported purposes of defending against Iran, thereby de facto violating the INF treaty, an excess of arrogance and presumption. Such perfidy caused Putin to make his famous 2007 Munich speech, where he warned the US and her allies of the consequences of reneging on such treaties and agreements. Deploying defensive systems close to the Russian border that can easily be converted into offensive ones with a nuclear capacity was a red line that could not be crossed.

At the time the West ignored Putin's warnings, dismissive of the Russian leader. But only a few months ago, the Russian Federation finally showed the world that the warnings issued in 2007 were not empty bluster. Hypersonic weapons, a submarine drone and other cutting-edge systems were presented by Putin in March 2018, shocking Western military planners and analysts who had not taken Putin seriously back in 2007. These new technological breakthroughs provide Russia with the ability to eliminate targets by kinetic, conventional or nuclear means. Such offensive deployments near the Russian border as the ABM systems in Romania can now be eliminated within the space of a few minutes, with no possibility of being intercepted.

Putin recently said:

"The (US) has announced research and development works, and we will do the same. I agree with the Defense Ministry’s proposals to start the work on ‘landing’ Kalibr missiles and developing a new area to create a land-based hypersonic missile with intermediate range.”

Putin has already put his military cards on the table, warning 10 years ago what would happen if Washington continued in its duplicitous direction. As Putin said in March 2018: "They did not listen to us in 2007. They will listen to us now".

The consequences of withdrawing from the INF treaty fall most heavily on the shoulders of the Europeans. Federica Mogherini indicated deep concern over Washington’s decision, as well as the new super-weapons that were either being tested or were already operational in Russia, causing consternation amongst the Western military establishment that had thought that Putin was bluffing in March 2018 when he spoke about hypersonic weapons.

The US military-industrial complex is rejoicing at the prospect of money rained down as a result of this withdrawal from the INF treaty. But in Europe (with the exception of Romania and Poland), nobody is too keen to welcome US missiles that have no defense against Russian hypersonic weapons. NATO's trans-Atlantic arms lobby will try to push as many European countries as possible towards a new Cold War, with US weapons deployed and aimed at Moscow. It will be fun to see the reactions of European citizens facing the prospect of being annihilated by Russian missiles simply to please the CEOs and shareholders of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. No doubt there will be some European politicians in countries like Poland keen to scream about the “Russian threat”, ready to throw tens of billions worth of Polish taxpayers’ money into useless and ineffective projects for the purposes of pleasing their American friends.

Are US generals even aware of how idiotic it is for the US to withdraw from the INF for Washington? Moscow is already ahead in the development of such systems, both land-based but above all sea- and air-launched, without forgetting the hypersonic variants of its conventional or nuclear missiles. Washington has a huge gap to close, exacerbated by the fact that in spite of heavy spending over many years, there is little to show for it as a result of massive corruption in the research-and-development process. This is not to mention the fact that there are few European countries willing to host offensive missile systems aimed at Russia. In reality, there is little real advantage for Washington in withdrawing from the INF treaty, other than to enrich arms manufacturers. It diminishes US military options strategically while expanding those of Beijing and Moscow, even as the latter oppose Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the treaty.

The hope of expanding the INF treaty to include the US, Russia, China and the EU appears slim due to Washington’s intransigence. Washington only aims to increase expenditure for the development of weapons prohibited by the treaty, and in strategic terms, improbably hopes to find some Asian and European countries willing to host these systems aimed against China and Russia.

The world is certainly more dangerous following Washington's decision, heading in a direction where there are less and less rules while there are more nuclear powers. For decades, the United States has been trying to achieve nuclear supremacy by overcoming the limitations of MAD, whereby Washington would be able to carry out a decapitating nuclear first strike without worrying about an opponent’s ability to launch a retaliatory second strike. It is precisely this type of thinking that is bringing humanity closer to the brink of destruction from a nuclear accident or miscalculation. The miniaturization of nuclear warheads and the apparently limited nature of “tactical nukes” further encourages the justification for using such weapons.

Moscow's decision in 2007 to develop state-of-the-art weapons and focus on new technologies like hypersonic missiles guarantees that Russia and her allies have an effective deterrent against the attempts of the US to alter the nuclear balance of power, which otherwise threatens the future of humanity.

The withdrawal from the INF treaty is another worrying sign of the willingness of the US to push the world to the brink of catastrophe, simply for the purposes of enriching the CEOs and shareholders of it arms manufacturers through a nuclear arms race.

Yet it is Washington that is accusing Russia of violating the global arms control architecture.

Washington has been relentlessly encroaching on Russia’s national security over the past two decades with expansion of NATO forces on Russia’s borders, including the deployment of missiles systems. And yet Washington has the bare face to accuse Moscow of breaching arms controls.

How would the US feel, if say, Russia were to deploy missile systems in Mexico? Yet, the US is doing similar on Russia’s borders and then turning around and accusing Moscow of aggression. The American double-think here betrays a disturbing, stupid arrogance.

This week, US and Russian officials met in Geneva to discuss the INF and problems surrounding the treaty on both sides. But the US side in typical high-handed fashion refused to enter into detailed negotiations about alleged grievances contended by both sides. Washington spurned detailed talks and simply repeated its threats to unilaterally abrogate the INF.

It now seems certain that the US will withdraw from the INF over the next two months. The abrogation of the treaty, in place since 1987 as negotiated by former President Ronald Reagan and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, could mean the return of US medium-range nuclear missiles to Europe targeting Russia.

It is a stupendous retrograde step. Moscow has already warned that if the US abandons the INF, then it will be compelled to respond by installing missiles that will target European allies of the US. This is a lamentable unwinding of arms control and undoing of global security.

But who is responsible? It is the US that is wholly responsible for this retrograde step. No doubt about it. The question has to be asked: which side has continually sought to undermine global security? Any objective observer can see that the US and its cancellation of the ABM in 2002 followed by relentless expansion of NATO offensive forces towards Russia is the malign motive force.

Western accusations against Russia of “aggression” towards Europe are preposterous propaganda and devious projection of its own malign activities, primarily in the support of a violent coup d’état in Ukraine by Neo-Nazis in early 2014. The relentless aggressive expansion of NATO, resembling the Nazi Operation Barbarossa in 1941, is the real context of developments, not the Western media travesty of “Russian aggression”.

What are US and NATO grievances concerning the INF? They claim Russia is in breach of the INF from its development of a land-launched cruise missile, the 9M729 or Novator missile. Russia denies that claim and has repeatedly asked the US for evidence or details of its grievance in order for a negotiated resolution of the matter to take place. Washington has steadfastly refused to provide details, as the cursory and failed negotiations in Geneva this week proved once again.

Meanwhile, it is a patent fact that Washington has deployed missile systems in Romania and Poland which are incontestably in violation of the INF, potentially breaching the treaty in a most brazen manner. Washington calls these missile systems “defensive” and “against rogue regimes like Iran”. Come off it. Nobody in their right mind could buy such a pretext. These missile system directly and promptly put Moscow at risk of an American nuclear attack.

A way to resolve these issues is to hold mutually respectful negotiations within the framework of the INF. But herein is the rub. The US side evidently does not want to negotiate. It is simply blustering ahead with its own speculative claims against Russia.

Washington’s intransigent attitude – which predates Trump – inevitably raises the suspicion that the US side is not in the slightest bit interested in negotiations with Russia on a mutual basis. The US is contriving grievances as an excuse for its own desire to rip up the INF as it did with the ABM.

By falsely claiming that Russia is “violating” the INF, the US is giving itself license to expand its forces and missile systems in Europe to threaten Russia.

This is a deplorable act of lawlessness by the US, but one which is part of a whole pattern of conduct whereby Washington sees itself as above any international law or norms of conduct in its pursuit of hegemonic ambitions.

Washington accuses Moscow? The American regime has been on a decades roll of criminal genocidal wars in the Middle East and beyond, sponsoring terrorism and regime change. And it has the brass neck to accuse Moscow of threatening global security. Its INF violation and desire to put Europe on a hair trigger for nuclear war is totally in keeping with American criminal imperialism. Trying to scapegoat Russia for its own criminal orgy of misconduct is the biggest, foulest joke imaginable.

Fortunately, Russia has the political intelligence and military capability to know how to deal with such American duplicity and, ultimately, imbecility. The American political class think they know it all. They don’t know anything. American stupid arrogance is their own downfall. Bring it on.

Avangard is to be installed on intercontinental missile, such as the 200-ton Sarmat ICBM. Delivered to the desired orbit at an altitude of 100 km from the Earth using a pre-booster, it can glide to its target at a speed of Mach 20 (5-7 km/s) while maneuvering with the help of stabilizers.

This is the first mass-produced weapon with a glider warhead that can travel at such an altitude in the dense layers of the atmosphere. The boost-glider vehicle can also abruptly change course. The system produces signatures, which are quite different from traditional intercontinental systems, to hinder attempts to spot and engage it.

The use of composite materials enables the re-entry vehicle to resist temperatures up to 2,000 degrees Celsius. It can fly within plasma and the glider is also protected from laser irradiation. The system passed its trials with flying colors.

The weapon is perfectly suited for knocking out an enemy’s critical infrastructure and leaving him unable to strike back. Its yield ranges from 150 kilotons to one megaton.

Russia, not the US, has been the first to achieve prompt global strike capability. That’s what makes this weapon especially important. The Russian president wasn’t exaggerating when he described the Kinzhal hypersonic missile. Now another new system is almost ready to go, further shaming those who doubted its existence.

President Putin’s address, in which he described these new ‘super weapons,” had nothing to do with serving the interests of the military-industrial complex. The development of the systems mentioned in this speech was prompted by the US withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty. That agreement had been the cornerstone of strategic stability until Washington pulled out in 2002, a move that was followed by the rollout of NATO missile-defense sites in Romania and Poland (this year). The ABM Treaty was not the only major international agreement the US put an end to. Today it is openly violating the NPT treaty. The Nuclear Posture Review released this year seeks to bury arms control. The announced plan to breach the 1991 presidential nuclear initiatives and arm naval ships with long-range missiles is nothing but an open threat to upset the strategic balance.

The Russian president made no threats; he just wanted to explain the measures his country had to take in response. This is quite a natural thing to do at a time when arms control is in crisis. None of the weapons systems he mentioned violates the New START Treaty. Russia never said it wanted to withdraw from the arms-control agreements still in force. It’s the US, not Russia, who seems to doubt that the New START or INF Treaty is worth preserving. The voices clamoring to tear up the intermediate-forces agreement are getting louder in America. There is a bumpy road ahead, so President Putin is taking steps to protect Russia’s citizens – which is exactly what he has always promised to do. Washington bears full responsibility for having convinced Moscow it needed to strengthen its defenses. Now America lags behind Russia in military technology that makes it possible for super weapons to be produced and added to the active arsenal. Tu l’as voulu, George Dandin!