Former Soviet leader and Nobel prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev warned [9] today that the battle in Ukraine could result in a nuclear war:
“A war of this kind would unavoidably lead to a nuclear war,” the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize winner told Der Spiegel news magazine, according to excerpts released on Friday.
“We won’t survive the coming years if someone loses their nerve in this overheated situation,” added Gorbachev, 83. “This is not something I’m saying thoughtlessly. I am extremely concerned.”
One of America’s top experts on Russia – Steven Cohen – has also warned [10] that failure to negotiate a peace treaty in Ukraine could lead to nuclear war.
Steven Starr [11] - a nuclear arms expert and senior scientist for Physicians for Social Responsibility - warns [12] that proposed U.S. legislation would be a direct path towards nuclear war with Russia.
Former Polish president – and famed anti-communist activist – Lech Walesa also warned [13] that the U.S. and Nato’s arming of Ukraine could lead to a nuclear war.
Leading American political activist Noam Chomsky agrees [14].
Australian doctor and Nobel prize winner Helen Caldicott warns [15]:
The expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders is “very, very dangerous,” Caldicott said. “There is no way a war between the United States and Russia could start and not go nuclear. … The United States and Russia have enormous stockpiles of these weapons. Together they have 94 percent of all the 16,300 nuclear weapons in the world.”
“We are in a very fallible, very dangerous situation operated by mere mortals,” she warned. “The nuclear weapons, are sitting there, thousands of them. They are ready to be used.”
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Caldicott strongly criticized Obama administration policymakers for their actions in forward positioning U.S. and NATO military units in countries of Eastern Europe in response to Russian support of breakaway separatists in the provinces of eastern Ukraine. On –, the U.S. government announced the deployment of the Ironhorse Brigade, an elite armored cavalry unit of the U.S. Army to the former Soviet republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, along the historic invasion route from the West to St. Petersburg.
“Do they really want a nuclear war with Russia?” she asked “The only war that you can have with Russia is a nuclear war. … You don’t provoke paranoid countries armed with nuclear weapons.”
And see this [16], this [17], this [18] and this [19].
Indeed, Eric Zuesse says that the risks are so high – and the American leaders so reckless [20] – that Russia is preparing for an expected nuclear attack [21] by the U.S.
Postscript: In the 1987 [22] book To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon’s Secret War Plans [23], one of the world’s leading physicists – Michio Kaku – revealed declassified plans for the U.S. to launch a first-strike nuclear war against Russia. The forward was written by the former Attorney General of the United States, Ramsey Clarke.
In Towards a World War III Scenario [24], Michel Chossudovsky documents that the U.S. is so enamored with nuclear weapons that it has authorized low-level field commanders to use them in the heat of battle in their sole discretion … without any approval from civilian leaders.
May cooler heads prevail ...