[Everything that can be done must done to avert global nuclear
annihilation.]
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NO COUNTRY FOR NUCLEAR MADMEN  
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Norman Solomon
March 27, 2023
Common Dreams
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_ Everything that can be done must done to avert global nuclear
annihilation. _

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, says he struck a deal with
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko to deploy tactical nuclear
weapons in the neighbouring country, Vladimir
Astapkovich/Sputnik/Kremlin via Reuters

 

The announcement by President Vladimir Putin over the weekend that
Russia will deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus marked a
further escalation of potentially cataclysmic tensions over the war in
neighboring Ukraine. As the _Associated Press _reported
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"Putin said the move was triggered by Britain's decision this past
week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted
uranium."

There's always an excuse for nuclear madness, and the United States
has certainly provided ample rationales for the Russian leader's
display of it. American nuclear warheads have been deployed in Europe
since the mid-1950s, and current best estimates
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say 100 are there now—in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,
and Turkey.

Count on U.S. corporate media to (appropriately) condemn Putin's
announcement while dodging key realities of how the USA, for decades,
has been pushing the nuclear envelope toward conflagration. The U.S.
government's breaking of its pledge not to expand NATO eastward
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after the fall of the Berlin Wall—instead expanding into 10 Eastern
European countries—was only one aspect of official Washington's
reckless approach.

During this century, the runaway motor of nuclear irresponsibility has
been mostly revved by the United States. In 2002, President George W.
Bush withdrew the U.S. from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
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that had been in effect for 30 years. Negotiated by the Nixon
administration and the Soviet Union, the treaty declared
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would be a "substantial factor in curbing the race in strategic
offensive arms."

His lofty rhetoric aside, President Barack Obama launched a $1.7
trillion program for further developing U.S. nuclear forces under the
euphemism of "modernization." To make matters worse, President Trump
pulled the United States out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
Treaty
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a crucial pact between Washington and Moscow that had eliminated an
entire category of missiles from Europe since 1988.

The madness has remained resolutely bipartisan. President Joe Biden
quickly dashed hopes that he would be a more enlightened leader about
nuclear weapons. Far from pushing to reinstate the canceled treaties,
from the outset of his presidency Biden boosted measures like placing
ABM systems in Poland and Romania. Calling them "defensive" does not
change the fact that those systems can be retrofitted
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with offensive cruise missiles. A quick look at a map would underscore
why such moves were so ominous when viewed through Kremlin windows.

Contrary to his 2020 campaign platform, President Biden has insisted
that the United States must retain the option of first use of nuclear
weapons. His administration's landmark Nuclear Posture Review, issued
a year ago, reaffirmed
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rather than renounced that option. A leader of the organization Global
Zero put it this way
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distancing himself from the nuclear coercion and brinkmanship of thugs
like Putin and Trump, Biden is following their lead. There's no
plausible scenario in which a nuclear first strike by the U.S. makes
any sense whatsoever. We need smarter strategies."

Daniel Ellsberg—whose book _The Doomsday Machine_ truly should be
required reading in the White House and the Kremlin—summed up
humanity's extremely dire predicament and imperative when he told
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the _New York Times_ days ago: "For 70 years, the U.S. has frequently
made the kind of wrongful first-use threats of nuclear weapons that
Putin is making now in Ukraine. We should never have done that, nor
should Putin be doing it now. I'm worried that his monstrous threat of
nuclear war to retain Russian control of Crimea is not a bluff.
President Biden campaigned in 2020 on a promise to declare a policy of
no first use of nuclear weapons. He should keep that promise, and the
world should demand the same commitment from Putin."

We can make a difference [[link removed]]—maybe
even_ the_ difference—to avert global nuclear annihilation. This
week, TV viewers will be reminded of such possibilities by the new
documentary _The Movement and the "Madman"_ on PBS
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The film "shows how two antiwar protests in the fall of 1969—the
largest the country had ever seen—pressured President Nixon to
cancel what he called his 'madman' plans for a massive escalation of
the U.S. war in Vietnam, including a threat to use nuclear weapons. At
the time, protestors had no idea how influential they could be and how
many lives they may have saved."

In 2023, we have no idea how influential we can be and how many lives
we might save—if we're really willing to try.

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Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel
free to republish and share widely.

 

Norman Solomon [[link removed]]
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and
executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

* Nuclear Weapons; Nuclear weapons in Belarus; War in Ukraine;
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