Unchecked Militarism is all the Rage (Never Mind the Nukes)
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Punditman says…
The idea of nuclear war being an ever present threat to all life on earth is, in a phrase, out of fashion. It feels kind of retro to even give it a thought, much less raise the topic and put up with all the blank stares.
Take Ukraine. With Russia’s invasion entering its seventh bitter month, amongst the “fog of war” one thing that has become clear is that it’s now okay to gloss over the dangers of a potential nuclear exchange.
In a Toronto Star piece entitled Punishing a schoolyard bully like Vladimir Putin is crazy when he's got nuclear weapons, veteran Canadian journalist Linda McQuaig wrote that she had just witnessed “what struck me as possibly the most foolish remark ever uttered on TV. And I know that’s a high bar.”
She was referencing an MSNBC-TV interview concerning the war in Ukraine in which US political scientist Francis Fukuyama claimed:
“The nuclear threat, I think, is a bogeyman…Of course, everybody is going to be worried about the possibility that you could eventually get there. But there are so many stopping points before you reach that point that, I think, you know, that is not something anyone should be worried about.”
When did it become trendy for “revered experts” to be cavalier about the possibility of nuclear war?
Maybe around the same time as it did on the Russian side. In a recent interview with Izvestia, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, repeated Russian military guidelines when he said “Russia hypothetically allows a nuclear response only in response to aggression using WMD against us or our allies, or aggression using conventional weapons, when the very existence of the state is threatened.”
The Kremlin, he says, would deploy nuclear weapons only in response to an attack "for self-defense in emergency circumstances."
Theoretically this would involve a direct clash between NATO and Russia (or its allies).
Meanwhile, last week, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said there is “no need” for Russia to use nuclear weapons to achieve its goals in Ukraine, adding that “these information attacks” claiming Russia would deploy WMDs “are absolute lies.”
Does Punditman feel better after reading such “reassurances” from opposite ends of this ongoing disaster? Not exactly. It sounds kind of loosey-goosey and open to interpretation.
And there are broader issues at stake.
In an article called Why Is There More Media Talk About Using Nuclear Weapons Than About Banning Them?, Karl Grossman of Fairness in Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) explains that US media is ignoring The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) of 2017 and that a coalition of peace groups say they’re acting like the treaty doesn’t exist:
Indeed, according to a search of the Nexis news database, US newspapers have mentioned “nuclear weapons” 5,243 times between February 24, when Putin began talking about their potential use in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and August 4. Only 43 of those times included a mention of the treaty; the great majority of these were letters to the editor or opinion columns.
This comes against the backdrop of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in 2020 moving its “Doomsday Clock” forward to 100 seconds to midnight, where it has remained through today. It defines midnight as “nuclear annihilation.” This was the closest to midnight the clock has been set at since it was created in 1947 (1/20/22).
Never mind the nuclear arsenals held by the world’s two nuclear superpowers: Russia and the US have around 11,500 nuclear weapons between them. Never mind that when we include the other seven nuclear states — China, France, the UK, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea — it is minimally estimated that the world’s total arsenal contains at least 13,000 nuclear warheads. Never mind that a smidgen of these can incinerate all that you and I hold dear.
But hey, at least disarmament groups still exist. Cool!
Nonetheless, this head-in-the-sand stance is where we’re at — whether it be a Ukraine stalemate leading to perilous escalation or increased tensions over Taiwan leading to yet another crisis (thanks Nancy Pelosi!) — the truth is, hundreds of nuclear-armed missiles remain on “hair-trigger alert,” and both sides have just a few minutes to react if it appears either is under attack.
This all goes hand in hand with an undue veneration of militarism in general, due largely to the forever wars of the post-9/11 order for which every young person knows no other geo-political order.
In a twist of truly Orwellian proportions, weapons manufacturers are now part of the “A list” of experts called upon on the US Sunday news shows. This new low for Western media propaganda is described in the following Democracy Now interview with Bill Hartung, author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex, conducted by Amy Goodman back on June 16:
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to the Lockheed Martin CEO speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation last month.
JIM TAICLET: We’re planning for the long run, and not just in the Javelin, because this situation, the Ukraine conflict, has highlighted a couple of really important things for us. One is that we need to have superior systems in large enough numbers, so, like Javelins, Stingers, advanced cruise missiles, equipment like that. So we know there’s going to be increased demand for those kinds of systems…— from the U.S. and for our allies, as well, and beyond into Asia-Pacific most likely, too.
The second really valuable lesson was control of the airspace is really critical. So, the Ukrainians are managing to control their airspace. The Russian Air Force doesn’t have free rein over the entire country. And the reason that they don’t is because the Ukrainians can still fly their aircraft, and they also have a pretty effective integrated air and missile defense system. So, products and systems like F-16, F-35, Patriot missiles, THAAD missiles, we know that there’s going to be increased demand for those kinds of equipment, too, because the threat between Russia and China is just going to increase even after the Ukraine war, we hope, is over soon. Those two nations and regionally, Iran and North Korea are not going to get less active. Probably they’re going to get more active.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s the CEO of Lockheed Martin…
WILLIAM HARTUNG: Yes, and that was quite extraordinary. That really was a commercial for Lockheed Martin, run as if it was a news interview. And it was grounded in fearmongering about Russia, about China, about Iran, about North Korea, when many of these issues have to be dealt with diplomatically. There’s no way to buy your way out of these challenges militarily.
Dan Froomkin of Responsible Statecraft offered an astute analysis of the same show, whereby he lambasts CBS interviewer Margaret Brennan for “tossing him [Taiclet] questions that weren’t even softballs, they were bouquets":
…what it came down to was a major television network inviting onto its marquee news show the head of the largest weapons manufacturer in the world — the company that profits more from war than any other company worldwide — and not asking a single pointed question.
Watch the entire six-minute segment and ask yourself if state television in a totalitarian country would have done it any differently.
For corporate media outlets to parrot the US national security state in favour of pro-interventionist and pro-military solutions and to rely on hawkish ex-military types, without disclosing their current defense industry ties, is nothing new.
Indeed it’s a new level of servitude to forego even the pretense of being the “fourth estate” civil watchdog altogether (even a tepid version) and pretend nobody notices. By treating a weapons industry CEO who profits directly from the misery of war like a righteous humanitarian, CBS is no longer just another stenographer for the military industrial complex; their assimilation within the beast is now complete.
No wonder we’re not supposed to worry about nuclear war anymore. Wait until the kids find out.
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