The following article from the current EIR,
although it was addressed initially to the German people, is a warning to
the world about how close we are to world war, whether started in Europe or in
Asia - closer than anytime in recent history. Analysts around the world are
pointing to 1914 as a parallel. It can only be prevented by urgent actions to
impose new leadership in Washington, and forge cooperation between Russia,
China, and the US under that new leadership, for Glass Steagall reform of
the banking system and credit for physical development on earth and in
space. Mike Billington
Is Europe
Sleepwalking Its Way To World War, as in 1914?
Jan. 3—It is
high time for people in Germany to wake up. The situation would be grotesque,
were it not so dangerous. Dozens of historians, authors, and columnists are
warning about the parallels to 1914, and describing how the people of that time
marched like sleepwalkers into the great catastrophe of the war—and yet we are
in principle doing exactly the same thing today—with the crucial difference that
the Third World War would be thermonuclear and humanity would be wiped
out.
The Russian
state-owned foreign radio broadcasting service Voice
of Russia warned on Jan. 2 that the world is closer today to nuclear war
than it was even at the height of the Cold War, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The article however then argues, in a kind of subterfuge, that this is the
result of erosion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In addition to the
original Nuclear Club—i.e., the states that had detonated a nuclear weapon
before Jan. 1, 1967—India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea today possess such
weapons, others are very close to having them, and a total of 30 to 40 states
are striving to become nuclear states, according to the article.
The truth is
even worse. Anne Applebaum, a Polish-American historian and the wife of Polish
Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, wrote on Dec. 25 in the Washington
Post about the sudden return of Cold War tactics, but she confuses
cause and effect. Russia's deployment of missiles on its western border was not
the beginning of the Cold War tactics, as she suggests, but rather a response to
the construction of the U.S. missile defense system in Poland and the Czech
Republic. China's establishment of an Air Defense Zone is a reaction to the
American doctrine of "Air-Sea Battle," whose stated intention is to penetrate
the defenses of the Chinese mainland.
Global
Empire
Behind the
eastward expansion of NATO (and the EU) as well as the Obama Administration's
so-called "Asia Pivot," stands the attempt—first by the senior Bush and Margaret
Thatcher, then by Bush, Jr. and Tony Blair, and now by Obama and David
Cameron—to erect a new world empire based on the Anglo-American "special
relationship." The EU acts as the regional junior partner of this
empire.
This policy
has been causing a new global arms race for quite some time. There are also
various U.S. and NATO offensive military doctrines, which must be seen as part
of an overall strategy. One is the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P),
which rejects the sovereignty of nations guaranteed by the UN Charter, in favor
of "humanitarian" intervention. No less dangerous is the repeated blurring of
the distinction between nuclear and conventional weapons, as for example, in the
doctrine of "Conventional Prompt Global Strike" (CPGS) or the so-called
pre-emptive use of "small" nuclear weapons, the "bunker-busters."
In relevant
military publications such as the official journal of the U.S. Air Force, the
end of NATO'S MAD [Mutual Assured Destruction] doctrine is announced, and the
claim is made that it is now possible to neutralize the nuclear capabilities of
any country without creating radioactive fallout.[1]
In the Yale Journal of International Affairs, Prof. Amitai Etzioni
calls for a public debate on the question of who in the Pentagon authorized the
preparation for war against China.[2]
In response
to all these developments, both Russia and China have now made unmistakably
clear that they are each very well equipped with a nuclear second-strike
capability, and will use it with full force if they are attacked. Various
representatives of the Russian government have also stressed that they will not
wait until the West has achieved the technical superiority it desires, but if
necessary they will launch a nuclear first strike.[3]
Anyone who
thinks through this whole situation must realize that the chessboard for World
War III, this time a thermonuclear war of extermination of mankind, is being
prepared today much more meticulously than was World War I before the shots at
Sarajevo were fired. We would all be losing sleep if we realized how quickly a
stupid accident or a provocation by a third party could bring about the
destruction of mankind.
East-West
Cooperation
The First
World War would never have happened if Germany's Chancellor Otto von Bismarck
had remained in power, since the pre-history of the war began with his ouster.
What lessons can we learn today, in this moment of great danger, from Bismarck's
policy?
Instead of
media campaigns to build up an enemy image of Russia and China and thus
contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy, ending up once again, as in the case
of Syria, on the side of the terrorists, we need to declare our full solidarity
with Russia, in light of the terrorist attacks in Volgograd and other locations
in southern Russia. Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck should
give practical expression to this solidarity by attending the Olympic Games in
Sochi, with a prestigious delegation.
The nations
of Europe should respond promptly to the repeated offers by President Vladimir
Putin and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin for the development and
deployment of a joint missile-defense system. The problem of erosion of the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the risk that these weapons could
end up in the hands of terrorists, can only be dealt with by effective
cooperation between East and West.
Viktor
Ivanov, the head of the Russian Drug Enforcement Administration, has repeatedly
offered Russia's cooperation with NATO, the U.S., and the EU in the fight
against drug cultivation in Afghanistan and against drug-money laundering. But
with no response to this offer, drug production has increased 40-fold under the
aegis of NATO in the 12 years of the Afghanistan War! As a result, a large part
of the population in Russia, China, Central Asia, and also of European youth, is
being destroyed. The European nations should promptly take up the "Rainbow 2"
proposal of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to destroy drug
production in Afghanistan, which includes an economic reconstruction program.
Alexander Rahr, a German expert on Russia, recently supported this idea, as well
as a proposal that the BüSo[4]
has circulated for years, namely to integrate Afghanistan into an economic union
with all its neighbors and thereby stabilize it.
The nations
of Europe should respond immediately to the proposal of Ukrainian Prime Minister
Mykola Azarov and Russian presidential advisor Sergei Glazyev for tripartite
negotiations, in which Ukraine and Russia would work for a common economic
development perspective.
This economic
cooperation could be part of the expansion of the Eurasian Land-Bridge, which was
declared a priority by Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazakstan recently, in
the form of a New Silk Road. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang detailed this
perspective during his recent tour of Eastern and Central Europe, with a
groundbreaking agreement among Romania, Hungary, and Serbia for the development
of a Chinese high-speed rail system in those countries. All the European nations
are currently suffering from an enormous backlog of needed infrastructure
investment and could hugely benefit from such cooperation. Joint development of
the World-Land Bridge would also be a solid basis for peace in the 21st
Century.
Cooperation in
Space
The asteroid
impact over Chelyabinsk in Russia on Feb. 15, 2013 once again starkly reminded
the world that we currently have no defense mechanisms to protect our planet
from the impact of asteroids, meteorites, and comets. In the worst case, the
impact of one these objects, of which there are millions traveling through
space, and of which NASA and the European Space Agency have so far been able to
identify only a fraction, would wipe out the human race, just as happened 65
million years ago with the dinosaurs. The common defense of our planet can only
be achieved through international cooperation in research and development of
defense systems.
China has
proven, with the landing of its rover Chang'e-3 on the Moon—the first Moon
landing in 40 years (!)—that it is well on its way to becoming the leading
spacefaring nation. International cooperation in space and the conquest of new
frontier areas of science are among the common aims of mankind, which will allow
us to leave behind Earthly strife and supposed geostrategic conflicts of
interest and to launch a better era of mankind.
So it is high
time to wake up and contribute to making sure that mankind has any future at
all, and that this future is a great one. There are wonderful alternatives to a
Third World War, and the above-mentioned areas of cooperation could be expanded
in many important areas, such as development of a fusion power-based global
economy or exchanges in areas of Classical culture, and the design of a
completely new era of mankind, appropriate to the dignity and the nature of
mankind as the only creative species.
Translated from German
by Susan Welsh
[4]
The Civil Rights Solidarity Movement (BüSo)
is the political party that the author heads in
Germany
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