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Top Russia Expert: Ukraine Joining Nato Would Provoke Nuclear War
Stephen Cohen is one of America’s top experts on Russia. Cohen is professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University, and the author of a number of books on Russia and the Soviet Union.
Cohen says that the West is mainly to blame for the crisis in Ukraine:
This is a horrific, tragic, completely unnecessary war in eastern Ukraine. In my own judgment, we have contributed mightily to this tragedy. I would say that historians one day will look back and say that America has blood on its hands. Three thousand people have died, most of them civilians who couldn’t move quickly. That’s women with small children, older women. A million refugees.
Cohen joins other American experts on Russia – such as former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock – in this assessment.
Cohen also says that if Ukraine joins NATO, it will lead to nuclear war:
[Interviewer:] The possibility of Ukraine in NATO and what that means and what—
STEPHEN COHEN: Nuclear war.
[Interviewer:] Explain.
STEPHEN COHEN: Next question. I mean, it’s clear. It’s clear. First of all, by NATO’s own rules, Ukraine cannot join NATO, a country that does not control its own territory. In this case, Kiev controls less and less by the day. It’s lost Crimea. It’s losing the Donbas—I just described why—to the war. A country that does not control its own territory cannot join Ukraine [sic]. Those are the rules.
[Interviewer:] Cannot join—
STEPHEN COHEN: I mean, NATO. Secondly, you have to meet certain economic, political and military criteria to join NATO.
Ukraine meets none of them. Thirdly, and most importantly, Ukraine is linked to Russia not only in terms of being Russia’s essential security zone, but it’s linked conjugally, so to speak, intermarriage. There are millions, if not tens of millions, of Russian and Ukrainians married together. Put it in NATO, and you’re going to put a barricade through millions of families. Russia will react militarily.
In fact, Russia is already reacting militarily, because look what they’re doing in Wales today. They’re going to create a so-called rapid deployment force of 4,000 fighters. What is 4,000 fighters? Fifteen thousand or less rebels in Ukraine are crushing a 50,000-member Ukrainian army. Four thousand against a million-man Russian army, it’s nonsense. The real reason for creating the so-called rapid deployment force is they say it needs infrastructure. And the infrastructure—that is, in plain language is military bases—need to be on Russia’s borders. And they’ve said where they’re going to put them: in the Baltic republic, Poland and Romania.
Now, why is this important? Because NATO has expanded for 20 years, but it’s been primarily a political expansion, bringing these countries of eastern Europe into our sphere of political influence; now it’s becoming a military expansion. So, within a short period of time, we will have a new—well, we have a new Cold War, but here’s the difference. The last Cold War, the military confrontation was in Berlin, far from Russia. Now it will be, if they go ahead with this NATO decision, right plunk on Russia’s borders. Russia will then leave the historic nuclear agreement that Reagan and Gorbachev signed in 1987 to abolish short-range nuclear missiles. It was the first time nuclear—a category of nuclear weapons had ever been abolished. Where are, by the way, the nuclear abolitionists today? Where is the grassroots movement, you know, FREEZE, SANE? Where have these people gone to? Because we’re looking at a new nuclear arms race. Russia moves these intermediate missiles now to protect its own borders, as the West comes toward Russia. And the tripwire for using these weapons is enormous.
One other thing. Russia has about, I think, 10,000 tactical nuclear weapons, sometimes called battlefield nuclear weapons. You use these for short distances. They can be fired; you don’t need an airplane or a missile to fly them. They can be fired from artillery. But they’re nuclear. They’re radioactive. They’ve never been used. Russia has about 10,000. We have about 500. Russia’s military doctrine clearly says that if Russia is threatened by overwhelming conventional forces, we will use tactical nuclear weapons. So when Obama boasts, as he has on two occasions, that our conventional weapons are vastly superior to Russia, he’s feeding into this argument by the Russian hawks that we have to get our tactical nuclear weapons ready.
Former Polish president – and famed anti-communist activist – Lech Walesa agrees that the U.S. and Nato’s arming of Ukraine could lead to a nuclear war
Cohen also notes that the West has entered into an agreement to cover-up what happened to Malaysian airlines flight 17, because Russia was not responsible:
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Putin's not the nicest guy in the world but let's review. NATO and Russia signed a pact in 1997 that NATO would not expand any more into Eastern Europe. Since the Cold War ended you have NATO sitting there trying to figure out who the enemy is, members have pledged a minimum of 2% of GDP to belong, $900 billion over 10 years, better find an enemy quick. Anyone who knows Russian history knows they must have a warm water port, Vladivostok is too far and St. Petersburg is bottled in at the Helgoland Bight. The fist-fighting Ukrainian Parliament nearly voted to take away the Crimea lease, the Crimean people voted to secede from Ukraine and Putin managed that with not one single death. The US installed a new Ukrainian PM who outlawed the speaking of the Russian language, and the eastern Ukrainians, who are 65% ethnic Russian, objected. The Ukrainian economy was a basket case so the IMF stepped up with a $19 billion gift, to be repaid with oil, gas, and farm concessions and by slashing Grandma's pension. Oops the money went from Frankfurt and Paris and New York, only to go immediately back to Frankfurt, Paris, and New York (and Moscow!) to pay debts, Now Grandma's broke and the fracking can commence.
So Obomba gets his secret wish, a nice new war. The Ukrainian military sends fighter jets to hide behind commercial aircraft, dip down and shoot rebels, then back up to leave the area. They know it's a win/win strategy: if the rebels fire a missile it will likely hit the commercial aicraft, which is exactly what happened. The MH-17 "investigation" has gotten pretty quiet, no? Oops, releasing the cockpit tapes would reveal the above. Yes the rebels probably fired the missile but the key facts are concealed.
So let's review: Ho Chi Minh BAD MUST BOMB. Noriega BAD MUST BOMB. Saddam BAD MUST BOMB. Taliban BAD MUST BOMB. Gaddafi BAD MUST BOMB. Ayatollah BAD MUST BOMB. Yemen BAD MUST BOMB. Somalia BAD MUST BOMB. Assad BAD MUST BOMB. Oops ISIS (Assad's enemy) BAD MUST BOMB. And now Putin BAD MUST BOMB.
The strategy of McCain and the screechers: WE MUST INVADEINVADEINVADE and BOMBBOMBBOMB until all those people don't hate us so much. 2 million homeless students in the richest country on Earth but unlimited funds to manufacture hatred and guarantee Permanent War.
Along the way we get to borrow from our grandchildren to build a $1 billion embassy in Afghanistan, soon to be abandoned. In our quest to feed the warmoney machine we are today building a $25 million health club for American troops in Niger. Not Nigeria, Niger. I defy you to find it on a map, or explain how it is in any strategic interest of the US, people in Great Falls and Spokane and Memphis, and ANYBODY except the military carpetbaggers who have destroyed the standing of this great country in the world.
America should go to war reluctantly as a last resort when declared by Congress and when our country is threatened. Not our interests, our country. We did this in WWII when we saved the world from Hitler and Tojo's maniacs, and built a generation of goodwill and admiration around the world. Manufacturing new enemies and new conflicts to funnel taxpayer borrowings to defense contractors should called what it is: treasonous.
" Open", I wish I could give you and your writing more than one up-arrow. Well put and right on. Thank you!
"We did thids in WWII whne we saved the world form Hitler...."
Russia saved the world from Hitler, not the US.
The Russians lost 25 MM people, the US 244,000.
Do some research before making preposterous claims.
The Russians defeated Germany in WW2, not the Americans.
No, that's a little unfair. The US did more than it's fair share of the heavy lifting. Job would have been easier if US and UK banksters hadn't been financing both sides of the war, of course.
After Stalingrad and Kursk, there simply was not enough left of the Wehrmacht to succeed.
Eisenhower, much to the chagrin of Stalin, waited until well after Stalingrad (Feb. 1943) to invade France in June 1944. Germany didn't have the resources left to effectively resist the invasion and therefor it didn't take long for the European war to be over in April 1945.
Germany's loss of a million or so men and most of her irreplaceable tanks and heavy artillery on the eastern front was the major turning point in the war. In a speech on 9 November 1944, Hitler himself blamed this decisive battle for Germany's impending doom.
There is no need to denigrate the contributions of USSR in order to elevate the contributions of USA leading to the destruction of Nazi Germany. The Russians paid an enormous price in lives lost, exhibiting an amazing degree of endurance and perveverance. The Americans applied overwhelming force at decisive points during the war.
Although the numbers were much less, the 8th Air Force, which lost 25,000 men bombing German factories and transportation lines did more to damage Germany's capacity to wage war than any single Russian Army. In addition to 200,000 trucks, the Americans delivered 24,000 Us-made tanks to the Soviet army, which was equal to more than half of all the tanks Germany produced in the entire war.
When the Americans landed in North Africa, just a few weeks before the Soviet counteroffensive at Stalingrad began, Germany had to divert 300,000 soldiers to Africa that would otherwise have been available to fight on the Russian Front. When the Americans and British landed on Sicily, the battle or Kursk was at its peak. The Germans had to pull 12 mechanized divisions from the battle in order to defend Italy. The Soviet offensive in 1944, which destroyed the German Army Group Center, was launched just a couple of days after Patton's 3rd Army broke out of Normandy. And most important of all, when the USA gave its ultimatum to Imperial japan in September 1941, the Japanese was forced to go to war against the United States. That decision, which was made known through both espionage and diplomatic channels in November to the Soviet leadership, allowed the Soviets to transfer virtually the entire Siberian Army to the battle for Moscow.
I do not believe that either the Soviets or the Americans could have defeated the Germans during World War II on their own.
Er, and if I may make so bold, we Brits (while such a thing still exists!) had rather a big part in it. Overall, that is why we use the term "Allies" today, now much-abused and devalued by the constant misbegotten intrigues and campaigns of the last 20-odd years
And the Russians were lucky that Patton was reined in before he defeated them after Germany fell.
WE KNOW FOR SURE
THIS WILL NOT BE PRETTY
The 2008 NATO Bucharest su mmit’s announcement that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually join the organisation infuriated Putin, who warned NATO leaders that further ex pansion would be a threat to Russia.This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it.
we used to blame Russia for "taking over countries one by one" now WE are doing it by proxy
But what's their plan? Russians don't take a dump without a plan.
For any "rapid deployment force" we share with our NATO allies, let's remember Task Force Smith.
These were the first US troops to exchange fire with the invading North Koreans in 1950. They had been airlifted in from Japan as the 21st regiment (~400 men) of the 24th Division under Col. Branford Smith. Their assignment was to stop the Nork spearhead, anywhere, anyhow,
Their first engagement was at the Battle of Osan where they faced a column of Nork tanks and two infantry regiments in a pass north of the town of Osan, on the road south from Seoul.
The men of Task Force Smith were slaughtered and took 40% casualities the first day. the Norks kept coming.
The lesson is any rapid deployment force had better be good. Following WWII, the Democrats seriously cut military spending. The bazookas in the hands of the men of Task Force Smith were obsolete and couldn't penetrate the latest Russian tanks the Norks had. The men were used to occupation duty and so were barely trained for combat. Still, they stood their ground and earned their manhood honestly - honors to the men of Task Force Smith.
Zbigniew Bryzinski's dream come true. Of course, he is a psychopathic, psychotic megalomaniac.
Nuclear war don't bother me none. I grew up learning how to deal with it. In gradeschool we practiced how to duck and cover in case of a blast. Bring it on bitchez.
You can tell by the down arrows there must be a lot of Dr. Sheldon Coopers reading your post.
Hell ya. And that flash of light? An ICBM sky-burst. now get under your desk.
That flash of light? An ICBM a sky-burst. now get under your desk.
The idea that NATO would invade Russia is frankly ludicrous. The entire alliance would have to agree. In addition, I do not see any country within NATO, with the exception of the US, being able to invade Russia. If the US were to tangle with Russia, especially in an offensive operation, the other countries in NATO would have no obligation to follow.
It's too bad NATO was used for military action in Libya and Kosovo, as these were not defensive actions at all. But Russia is niether Libya or Kosovo. As stated, Russia has lots of nuclear weapons, and NATO has none. Yes, the US, Britain and France has them, but they are not under NATO control. Do not blend NATO wiht the US. They really are not the same thing at all.
Will Russia go to nuclear war over Ukraine - doubtful. Really quite doubtful. They have not even overtly invaded it.
I don't think the US intends to invade Russia alone or under a NATO cover. However, the US certainly intends to insulate itself from any successful Russian nuclear retaliation by placing early detection systems and interceptors around the Russian border and then use nuclear blackmail to make Russia bow down to the US diktats.
Ukraine is the symbol of US wishes to do the same. Russia has huge emotional ties to Ukraine and cannot see Ukraine become a Western client state. By challenging Russia over Ukraine, the West is testing Russia's desire to be independent. If the West gobbles Ukraine up into NATO, Russia has to either resign to being dictated to by the West for all foreseeable future or show they refuse to cow down by making the confrontation nuclear and heavily debilitating for the West, especially the US, on their own territories. Of course Russia attacking Western cities with nuclear weapons could instantly escalate it into a war of annihilation, but there is a strong possibility that fearing for their lives, Western people will lynch their governments and sue for peace.
Brave Sir Rpbin
Thanks for a rational post. We should ask the Swedes and the Baltic states what they think. They have a long history of living next door to Russiia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_between_Russia_and_Sweden
Growing up in the US, I thought history started when the Mayflower landed. in 1776 the US gained independance and was free to give away "Indian" land to a flood of iron age immigrants. An "Iron Age" culture overwhelmed a "Stone Age" culture. Obviously, there was a lot of history in Europe before that time.
For the "Cold" War" Sweden sought to prepare for nuclear. They built caverns in the mountains and battery powered subs can come and go from submarine pens in the mountains totally under water.
We tested our big "H" bomb on the Bikini and it is still uninabitable. Putin would know well the results of the very big H-bomb that they tested in the artic. Perhaps Obama should ask Senator Mc Cain to represent US in a dialog considerating the possibilities of this current situation getting out of hand.
NATO ( aka Globalists, bankers, NWO ) are using the USA. Their bombs are NATO's bombs.
Sir Robin is more correct than he knows: the notion of an invasion of Russia is ludicrous to the point of absurdity. First look at your history; even taking winter weather out of it (which you can't really do; materiel breaks down under extreme cold and, frankly, so do people), you have the geographic reality of massive, wide open spaces that would have to be crossed before you could effectively attack infrastructure and attempt to beseige cities. Such open space is a de facto "shooting gallery" for a very large and technical advanced Russian air force that is closer to its bases of operation and thus its re-fuel and re-armament supply lines. NATO and/or US ground forces would be annihilated, and frankly it wouldn't take more than a few weeks.
Second, there is the prevailing US military doctrine that, in order to retain support at home, calls for limited engagement of human forces (i.e., infantry). Put another way, not even a foreign relations boob with no military training like Obama is going to commit the necessary hundreds of thousands of troops. It would raise hell on the home front and very likely get him impeached by a republican-controlled house and soon to be republican controlled senate. He may be a lame duck with no personal concern for the next election cycle, but he is enough of a pragmatist to know he can't follow this particular strategy.
third, Russia would strike pre-emptively once massing of ground forces began in earnest for anything that can be construed as an invasion of Mother Russia (not Ukraine). Draw the line whereever you want--the Ukranian border with Europe, someplace south, the Baltics...it doesn't matter. Troops on the "the border" means nukes in the air, as soon as the first boot cross whatever Moscow and Putin determine to be a line the snow/mud/dirt/farmers' fields.
So let's put aside this hysteria. No land war in Asia is coming. Just ask the ghosts of Napoleon and Hitler.
I think it would not take a large force to destroy the CURRENT Russian army. But to occupy the entire place and keep it oocupied would required a TREMENDOUS army. And if you do not occupy the whole thing, you just give them time to build a massive army and counter attack. It's bassically how they defeated Napolean and Hitler.
I do not think they will resort to nukes if the counter barage of nukes falls on Russian soil. I think they would gladly fight a nuclear war in say Poland or Ukraine if it could be contained there. The US would also, probably. The trick is to contain a nuclear exchange, of course. Very tricky indeed.
@ Econolingus
"Such open space is a de facto "shooting gallery" for a very large and technical advanced Russian air force that is closer to its bases of operation and thus its re-fuel and re-armament supply lines."
US air power (let alone all of NATO combined) vastly outclasses Russian. The numbers alone tell the story. By my count, Russia has 1228 3rd generation or later fighter aircraft, whereas the US has 2862 of similar or better quality. So the US alone has more than a 2:1 numerical advantage over Russia in terms of air power. Nor would the Russians have any offsetting logistical advantage, since the US could base its squadrons right across the Russian border (only political considerations stand in the way), and occupy/build new airfields farther into Russia as they extended their zone of air superiority step by step.
That said, I'm not expecting a conventional invasion of Russia by the US/NATO anytime soon. MAD is still in effect (at least until ABM systems are better developed - and after that, they still have tactical nukes to worry about).
nota bene, re nuclear weapons:
The Us already has systems in the field capable of intercepting both strategic and tactical nuclears weapons. The capabilities of the anit-ballistic missile systems are debatable (but there's no reason to think they won't eventually be perfected). The technology for intercepting tactical nuclear missiles (e.g. short range missiles or artillery shells) is time-tested, though not currently used for that purpose - I'm talking about the close-in defense systems used by the US Navy to defend warships from naval gunnery or anti-ship missiles: e.g. the "Goalkeeper" (note: the Army has the PATRIOT, but I believe that's only for missiles, not artillery). There's no reason in principle that this couldn't be put on an armored vehicle attached to an army unit, to protect it from incoming nuclear (or, for that matter, conventional) short range missiles or shells. This probably won't happen though, because it would be too expensive. A handful of these units can defend a big warship, but how many would be required to defend an army stretched out on a 50 miles front? Too many. So, my conclusion is that the effectiveness of Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal is already being undermined by American ABM units being placed around Russia's borders, and will probably be competed nullified in the relatively near future. Tactical nukes, however, will probably remain an obstacle to any ocnventional invasion of Russia for a long time. But the disturbing consequence of this is that, once the US gets its ABM system working, and properly placed around Russia, if it still wants to attack Russia badly enough, it's best option might be a nuclear first strike.
Excellent analysis.
All the reason why Russia would want to escalate a confrontation over Ukraine today into a nuclear war, rather than wait for the US to launch after all of Russia's attack capability has been neutralised.
Tragic wars start because of over-confident assessments of one's own military capability. For example Poland 1939.
Having seen our military from the inside, I have grave doubts about all this chest thumping confidence in our high tech whiz bang technology, particularly at the interface between the human operators and the tech. Any officer or even intelligent NCO will be acutely aware of the myriad things that can unexpectedly go wrong.
Overly optimistic assessments are necessary to keep the funding for MIC flowing so a certain uncertainty discount must be applied when push comes to shove.
And how many men did Obama "surge" into Afghanistan where they have to be airlifted out? Did anyone else think that Afghanistan was "the essential war?"
You make a good case why a WISE MAN would not invade Russia. But is Obama a wise man?
"But is Obama a wise man?"
Does Obama actually make the decisions?
the people making decisions don't care what the outcome is, as long as they sell more of their goods that are designed to kill people.
it is only that simple. and obama does what they say. so a whole lot of fun people will die horrible deaths, families will be destroyed, loved will die in loved arms, or be discovered later, or thet will all die suddenly together. there will be suffering and murder.
so MIC can make money and eat chicken wings and bet on fantasy football.
it's that and nothing else. nothing. this is what mankind has 'progressed' to.
A lot of escalation still ahead. It's gonna be great.
We U.S. Citizens are gonna get killed and we aren’t even sure why??
LOL
Once the exchange begins, I hope I live long enough to visit a few of the Republicans on that list I obtained from the County Clerk's office.
Steven Cohen is a first-born I can believe in. My compliments to him for stating forthrightly his views - no doubt against immense pressure.
Obama is receiving some very bad advice. It is past time to remove the neo-cons from policy making positions.
Obama himself appointed half of those neo-cons. Why do you think he would remove them? Removal would stifle his interventionist agenda.
I'm sorry, but what neo-cons are these? Really. The neo-cons are way out of favor in DC. I'm not saying Obama is not being drawn to intervene and do crazy and stupid things, but he not listing to Krauthammer and Wolfowitz. I'm not sure he listens to anyone at all, actually, but he not listing to neo-cons.
Fuckin' A right. Enough already with the fucking crazy neocon assholes.
The enemy isn't in Ukraine. It is HERE.
Neo-Cons advising Obama... Whaaaat?
Idiots are perhaps advising him, think Kerry, but I seriously doubt Wolfolwitz has Obama's ear.
Let's correctly ID the idiots, so we know who to go after.
There may be a lot of Neo-Con idiots out there, but it does not follow that all idiots are Neo-Cons.
So Ukraine with its partners planned the shooting down of MH17.
From a bought and paid for science shill who might as well have provided NIST's response on what happened to Building 7 in NYC 3 1/2 years after the "official report" forgot about it and had some splainen to do!...
No Stephen it's not a "God particle" that will end life as we know it on our planet or maybe even the universe.
It's always been SATAN that will end it!
Why are we so fucking evil and stupid? Watching this unfold, one is forced to conclude we have a death wish. The U.S. government is behaving like a twisted evil psychopath. One cannot help pray it is defeated in this evil and insane enterprise.
We finally know the reason for our cheap ipads and smart phones...
Well, Gadfly, my interpretation is that the situation is due to the basic mechanism of successful warfare being based on backing up deceits with destruction, which continued to result in civilization being controlled by the people who are the best at being dishonest and backing that up with violence. The ruling classes were the best at wiping out their competition. They did not have to be good at anything else. Hence, civilization has become an insane asylum controlled by the most criminally insane inmates, because that was what the social selection pressures drove to develop, for good reasons, given the realities of natural selection.
From a general energy systems perspective, it makes sense that society is controlled by its most labile components, which are the most dishonest and violent people, and that society flows along the path of least action, or least resistance, which is the human path of least morality.
From my point of view, the deeper problems are that the controlled opposition groups have adapted too well to become co-opted and compromised to stay within the same frame of reference of the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories. Thousands of years of history where success in warfare was based on deceits, and spies were the most important soldiers, have created the kind of social pyramid systems that we live inside. Not only do the worst sociopaths and psychopaths end up in control of civilization, but also the apparent opposition against them ends up just as full of the same bullshit as those running the established systems are.
We live in a Bizarro Mirror World, where everything appears backwards and distorted, from the philosophy of science to politics. By definition, the most important thing that human beings must do is operate their murder systems, and militarism is the supreme ideology. However, since that was most successfully done through the maximum possible deceits, and the controlled opposition was selected to operate within that context of those maximized deceits, we have ended up with an utterly insane and irrational set of death controls, which are pretty well totally impossible to have any coherent public debates about, since all the presumptions being made and thus the language being used is almost totally triumphant bullshit.
The issues of how to operate the death controls better after the development of weapons of mass destruction theoretically take profound paradigm shifts in the basic philosophy of science, which then apply to politics, and especially to the murder systems that back up the money systems. However, that is obviously impossible imagine happening in any politically practical way. Instead, the runaway systems controlled by the most criminally insane people, opposed by people are are just as drowning in bullshit as the established systems are, is the only feasible future.
At the present time the best organized gangs of criminals, the biggest gangsters, the banksters, dominate the governments of all NATO countries, and the successful politicians are all puppets performing for muppets within that context. I regard it important to perceive that within that system the people ruled over are just as insane as their rulers. They are matching bookends to the same system. The only way that the currently combined money/murder systems could be "defeated" is by better organized combined money/murder systems. However, none of the significant controlled opposition groups are presenting anything remotely like that.
In my view, it is WRONG to believe we have anything like "a death wish." What we actually have are death controls operating through the maximum possible deceits, to the degree to which those have become madly self-destructive, which appears to be "a death wish." However, the way that actually worked was through the mechanisms of successful warfare based on deceits, being the foundation for successful economics based on frauds, which are suffering from the paradoxical ways that there is a trend towards final failure from too much of that kind of "success." There was never any "death wish," but only a will to live which drove itself to become too paradoxical, because it became too successful at lying about everything to everyone, including to itself.
In general, people tend to analyze political problems way too much from a sublimely psychological point of view, which does not place that sufficiently into its evolutionary ecology context. Most people are automatically thinking using dualities, and are presuming the same old-fashioned false fundamental dichotomies and related impossible ideals. Therefore, they can perceive the ways that the flows of energy conserves itself in ways where the tangled up social insanities appear to be "a death wish," and they can perceive those who operate the death control systems as being purely psychopaths, without deeper appreciation of how and why that happened.
When powers that were trillions of times greater were pumped into social pyramid systems based on a small minority using dishonesty backed by violence to control a large majority that was thereby kept ignorant and afraid, that social pyramid system became insane, since its structure could not be amplified to such magnitudes without eventually going through psychotic breakdowns and collapses into chaos. However, the masses of mainstream morons are just as much to blame as the ruling classes for the ways that the system as a whole works. Furthermore, the reactionary revolutionaries who denounce the established combined money/murder systems, without proposing how to operate better combined money/murder systems, are just as much a part of the overall problem as those who run the established money/murder systems.
In my view, the main things happening are that the best organized gangs of criminals, which are the "deep state" that controls countries, to advance their "deep state" agenda of propagating their kinds of combined money/murder systems, have become criminally insane. However, there are good reasons how and why that happened. There should be more "sympathy for the devil" in that respect, because only better organized combined money/murder systems could replace the ones that currently exist, while those could only actually emerge out of the opportunities that may arise from the established systems' mad self-destruction.
None of the controlled opposition groups have enough "sympathy for the devil" regarding how and why the human murder systems developed, and why there must necessarily be some murder systems which are central to any future systems, which might become more self-aware in the future. In my view, it is useless, or worse, to blame demons, or aliens, or whatever, for causing the ruling classes to become psychopaths. Similarly, it is useless, or worse, to reply upon psychology that is not connected to evolutionary ecology to "explain" what is happening. In particular, there is NO "death wish," but only a tangled up will to live, which followed through the path of social success based on deceits and frauds, to the point of getting totally entangled in that madness.
Nice analysis and perfect explanation if humans were merely animals and had no concept of morality. Most human beings do fit that description perfectly. However, large stable societies cannot come into existence without a sense of morality that is internalised and doesn't require to be enforced most of the time. Some societies managed to survive and even prosper by adopting moral behaviour only internally and have developed murder systems to plunder outsiders to benefit insiders. But these murder systems always end up overreaching and exceed the capacity of the plundered to support the murderers and then they collapses under their own weight. The current system's reach and comprehensiveness had been much larger than any previous systems' because of the enormous energy unleashed by the fossil fuels and the techonologies to harness them which increased many fold the capacity for murder as well as sustaining vast numbers of human populations.
But this too no different from the previously successful murder systems and has far exceeded its capacity to sustain itself and will collapse under its own weight.
What if Crimea had a river named after it. Please, whoever is in charge of naming rivers (Vlad?), do the right thing and make it happen.
What is to become of us ?
See
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2005/10/safest-place-in-next-century.html
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_archive.html
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2014/09/rogue-swan-superhero.html
Any nuclear exchange in the North hemisphere adding to the Fukushima disaster would radiate beyond use all the arable lands in the north, it leaves us then South America as the only attractive area, saying that and knowing well those lands, with the breakdown of civilization up north, the crimes down south would escalate in an uncontrollable and unbearable violence in most of South America, which leaves PATAGONIA the last place for you to sit and watch this whole thing, until of course you freeze or starve to death, before being overtaken by other desperadoes.
limacon, your first link states "the safest place until 2100 by far will be Mid-Canada."
There is no doubt that almost every way one looks at it, Canada is one of the better off countries at the present time, and in the foreseeable future, EXCEPT that if there was an insane world war that used atomic bombs, then Canada would be in the middle of that line of fire.
Agree RM. And it's cold here. If the grid goes down this will be one spot you don't want to live. I am thinking tropical near an ocean and fresh water waterfalls.