USA’s planned small nuclear reactors must have special uranium fuel – from Russia!
Putin holds the key to Biden’s nuclear dreams as Russian fuel needed for
new US plants. The West has been scrambling to wean itself off Russian
energy amid the war in Ukraine, but a Kremlin-controlled firm has a tight
grip on a crucial part of the nuclear industry.
The US is vying to roll out its new small nuclear power plants amid the global energy crisis as it weans
itself off fossil fuels, but Russia is the only country which has the fuel
needed to power the next-generation reactors. Now, the US is scrambling to
use some of its stockpile of weapons-grade uranium, (uranium is the fuel
widely used in nuclear plants) as an alternative as it hopes to kickstart
the nuclear revolution.
Express 20th Oct 2022
Biden’s diplomatic nuclear faux pas regarding Pakistan
US President brought up Pakistan’s nuclear programme with shockingly undiplomatic language
Express Tribune Ozer Khalid October 21, 2022
At a Congressional Campaign Committee reception in Los Angeles on October 14, US President Joe Biden brought up Pakistan’s nuclear programme with shockingly undiplomatic language. He mentioned Pakistan twice at the public form first vis-à-vis China, then stating that Pakistan is “one of the most dangerous nations in the world” which has “nuclear weapons without any cohesion”.
Tragically, these were not off-the-cuff remarks and ramblings, as an official White House transcript indicated President Biden meant what he said, leading to strong rebuttals from PM Shehbaz Sharif and FM Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and a demarche by the Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Biden’s remarks lacked explanation, context and coherence. Ely Ratner, US Assistant Secretary of Defense, last month reminded that “US interests associated with defense partnership with Pakistan were primarily focused on counterterrorism and nuclear security”.
Given Washington’s mounting rivalry vis-à-vis Russia and China, it could be that Biden’s comment was a veiled threat at isolating Pakistan if it continued to pursue rapprochement with Moscow and Beijing. If so, it would be déjà vu of the ‘either you are with us or against us’ ultimatum issued by George W Bush post-9/11. Whatever his intentions, it was irresponsible of Biden to leverage regional-bloc politics to make unsubstantiated remarks about Pakistan’s secure nukes…………………..
Pakistan ill-deserves such unwarranted remarks given its impeccable nuclear stewardship with the Strategic Plans Division and diligent adherence to international IAEA best practices.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) report ranked Pakistan as the most “improved country” on Safety and Security of Nuclear Assets, ahead of India. Pakistan demonstrated exemplary restraint and sangfroid in response to India’s “accidental” firing of a BrahMos cruise missile that landed across the border in March, 2022. The BrahMos incident was a clear violation of global nuclear safeguards for which India faced no accountability.
In March 2022, an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission confirmed that Pakistan’s updated nuclear safety regulations by the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority strengthened its nuclear and radiation safety. This includes the modernisation of Pakistan’s National Radiation Emergency Coordination Centre (NRECC) which strengthens Pakistan’s ability to respond to a nuclear or radiological emergency.
At the request of the Government of Pakistan, the IAEA’s Integrated Regulatory Review Service confirmed the country’s strengthening arrangements for regulatory inspections, authorisations, emergency preparedness and response, occupational radiation protection and environmental radiation monitoring.
The IAEA confirmed safety of Pakistan’s five civilian operating nuclear power reactors and that the country successfully implemented all 13 recommendations adequately addressing 29 out of 31 suggestions.
For President Biden to single out a responsible nuclear steward like Pakistan, with resilient nuclear safeguards, commands and controls in place with no reported incidents, while remaining conspicuously silent on serious incidents from India raises consternation……………………………………………………………… more https://tribune.com.pk/story/2382629/bidens-diplomatic-nuclear-faux-pas
Russia says U.S. blocked its participation in nuclear conference
MOSCOW, Oct 21 (Reuters) – The Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom said on Friday that the United States had effectively blocked Russia’s participation in a nuclear energy conference in Washington by failing to issue entry visas.
Relations between the United States and Russia have sunk to their lowest level since the depths of the Cold War after Moscow sent its armed forces troops into Ukraine in February.
Rosatom and Russia’s industrial safety watchdog, Rostekhnadzor, planned to attend the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) ministerial conference in Washington on Oct. 26-28 but have yet to receive visas, Rosatom said in a statement………………………………. more https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-says-us-blocked-its-participation-nuclear-conference-2022-10-21/
A US billionaire proposes peace plan for Ukraine and Russia
https://www.rt.com/news/564960-bill-ackman-ukraine-peace/ 17 Oct 22,
Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman says Kiev should make concessions to Moscow.
Ukraine should recognize Crimea as part of Russia and renounce its bid to join NATO for the sake of peace, US billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman has said. As with SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk before him, Ackman was immediately criticized online for suggesting that Kiev should be ready to make concessions in order to end the hostilities.
“Crimea was part of Russia until 1954 and is largely comprised of ethnic Russians, which was apparently why the world did little when Russia annexed it back in 2014,” Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, tweeted on Monday.
He added that the borders should return to where they were prior to February 24, when Russia launched its military operation in the neighboring country and before four former Ukrainian regions voted to join Russia. He added that the West should then help Kiev with its recovery, while the country should stay outside NATO.
“Thousands of lives will be saved and resources can be invested to rebuild [Ukraine] rather than in a war that will only lead to more destruction and death,” the billionaire wrote. “If there is a viable path to peace, we should pursue it. Each day the conflict continues, the risk to the world rises.”
After receiving criticism online, Ackman clarified his stance on Tuesday. “Yesterday, I suggested that a reasonable peace settlement might be a return to the borders as of [February 24], a Marshall Plan to rebuild [Ukraine], and [Ukraine’s] decision to not join NATO. Then the knives came out. I was accused of being an appeaser and worse,” he wrote.
I ask: is [Ukraine] better off in a continued prolonged war that leads to 1,000s more [Ukrainian] deaths and the leveling of the country or does some kind of negotiated settlement make sense? … I am by no means an expert. It just saddens me to see death and destruction with no apparent end date or opportunity for resolution.
I”n a negotiated settlement, both parties must concede something or there is no opportunity for resolution. What is the least that both parties can concede that is acceptable for both? What am I missing in my analysis? What better ideas do you have?” Ackman argued.
Ackman’s comments came as more public figures in the West have been making suggestions for a possible peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Venture capitalist and tech entrepreneur David Sacks tweeted on Sunday that the US should propose a ceasefire based on the February 23 lines and guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO.
Musk offered his own vision of a peace settlement this month, which includes Ukraine recognizing Crimea as Russian territory. Kiev and Western officials quickly blasted Musk for what they considered to be a plan that heavily favors Moscow.
Elon Musk supports Russia keeping Crimea—because he’s worried about nuclear escalation and World War III
Fortune, BY TRISTAN BOVE, October 18, 2022
The world’s richest man wants the West to more seriously consider the risk of nuclear conflict and World War III breaking out over Ukraine, as Russia’s hold over Crimea—illegally annexed by Russia in 2014—is thrown into question.
“If Russia is faced with the choice of losing Crimea or using battlefield nukes, they will choose the latter,” Elon Musk wrote in a tweet on Monday.
He continued: “We’ve already sanctioned/cutoff Russia in every possible way, so what more do they have left to lose? If we nuke Russia back, they will nuke us and then we have WW3.”…………………………….
Musk and Ukraine
Earlier this month, Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, made waves when he suggested that the two sides reach a compromise before the use of nuclear weapons escalates the conflict into World War III.
He did so by sharing his view on what a peaceful resolution in Ukraine would look like, including Ukraine remaining neutral and permanently ceding control of Crimea to Russia.
In his proposal, Musk wrote that this outcome was “highly likely,” and the only question was “how many die before then.” He noted at the time that a nuclear escalation was a “possible, albeit unlikely” outcome……………
In his tweet on Monday predicting World War III, Musk emphasized the strategic and symbolic importance of Crimea to Russia, equating its potential loss to the “USA losing Hawaii and Pearl Harbor.”
Global war threats
If Putin was holding back on nuclear threats in the first few months of the war, he certainly isn’t now. At the end of September, Putin announced he would employ “all means available to us” to defend the four eastern Ukrainian regions Russia had recently annexed, a threat many took to be nuclear in nature. …………………………………………………. more https://fortune.com/2022/10/17/elon-musk-world-war-3-could-happen-russia-nuclear-response-crimea-putin/
Biden’s National Security Strategy Is a Defense of US Domination, Not Democracy
In the new National Security Strategy, Biden also lays out an ambitious plan to adapt the U.S. military to confront China in the Asia Pacific and Russia in Eastern Europe. These entail massive new investments in both conventional and nuclear weaponry. The president’s military budget for 2022 is already about $750 billion, with further increases expected in coming years.
Biden’s National Security Strategy Is a Defense of US Domination, Not Democracy, Ashley Smith, Truthout 17 Oct 22.
The Biden administration just released its new National Security Strategy. It is designed to restore and enforce Washington’s domination over global capitalism and the international state system against pretenders to its throne as the imperial hegemon.
As the document puts it, the world order is at an “inflection point;” “the post-Cold War era is definitely over, and a competition is underway between the major powers to shape what comes next.” This is a new predicament for the U.S.
After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Washington resembled a modern-day Rome with unrivaled geopolitical, economic, and military power to enforce free trade globalization and its attendant inequalities within and between nation states.
Over the last two decades, however, the U.S. has suffered relative decline and now confronts imperial rivals like China and Russia as well as regional ones like Iran among others. Beijing and Moscow are developing their own strategies to pursue their respective imperialist and local assertions of power, most dramatically demonstrated by Beijing’s threat to annex Taiwan and Russia’s horrific colonial war on Ukraine……………………………………………………………….
The New Asymmetric Multipolar World Order
Over the past two decades several developments have cracked this unipolar moment, led to the relative decline of the U.S., and ushered in today’s new asymmetric multipolar world order. The long neoliberal boom from the early 1980s to 2008 led to the rise of new centers of capital accumulation like China, Russia, Brazil, India and South Africa.
Washington’s attempt to lock in its dominance through wars to control the Middle East and its strategic energy reserves blew up in its face. Its defeat in Iraq led retired General William Odom to call the war “the greatest strategic disaster in United States history.”……………………………………………….
Biden’s New Imperial Strategy
Recognizing this new order, the Biden administration has abandoned the post-Cold War strategy of integrating all states under its umbrella in favor of great power rivalry with China, Russia, and regional adversaries. The president aims to refurbish the U.S. empire to outcompete, contain, confront and weaken these rivals.
Biden’s National Security Strategy disguises a nationalist strategy as a U.S.-led global contest of democracies against autocracies. It includes a new industrial policy meant to increase the competitiveness and security of U.S. corporations. The Biden administration has issued a “Buy American” executive order, pushed to secure supply chains by onshoring manufacturing or “friend shoring” it to strategic allies, and poured money into the high tech industry through the $280 billion CHIPS Act.
Biden wants to pressure states in both the Global North and Global South to fall into line by joining proposed new trade pacts. His administration is currently pushing a new trade agreement in Asia, as well as a “Build Back Better World” plan for development in the Global South — an explicit attempt to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Washington is also cajoling U.S. allies to follow it in banning sales of high end microchips to China and Russia, barring Chinese companies from supplying hardware for their 5G systems, and restricting Chinese access to strategic research and development.
In the new National Security Strategy, Biden also lays out an ambitious plan to adapt the U.S. military to confront China in the Asia Pacific and Russia in Eastern Europe. These entail massive new investments in both conventional and nuclear weaponry. The president’s military budget for 2022 is already about $750 billion, with further increases expected in coming years.
Biden intends to maintain and expand the U.S.’s imperial reach through existing and new military alliances. Thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he has been able revitalize NATO and add both Sweden and Finland to its membership, consolidating Washington’s dominion over Europe.
In the Asia Pacific, the U.S. established a new pact, AUKUS, with Australia and the U.K. to facilitate sales of nuclear submarines to Canberra. Biden has doubled down on pre-existing formations like the QUAD, which in addition to the U.S. includes Australia, India, Japan, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the so-called Five Eyes Intelligence Oversight and Review Council made up of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain, and the U.S. He even convinced the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to confront China in Asia.
The U.S. versus China and Russia…………………………………………………….
Biden’s main preoccupation, however, is not Russia, but China. The National Security Strategy declares that China is “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to advance that objective.” Biden cynically exploits China’s imperial and repressive record in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Taiwan to rally the world behind Washington’s trade pacts, development plans and military alliances.
The key flashpoint in the U.S. conflict with China is Taiwan. Beijing threatens to seize the country, while Washington promises to arm it to the teeth and defend it against any invasion. Lost in this imperial battle is the Taiwanese people and their struggle for self-determination free of both powers…………………………………..
Biden’s “Democratic Despotism”
Biden’s new imperial plan is riddled with lies, hypocrisy and contradictions, all characteristics of what W. E. B. Du Bois long ago denounced as the “democratic despotism” of U.S. imperialism. These falsehoods undermine Biden’s claim that his plan is in the interests of the world’s people.
On the domestic front, Biden has prioritized corporate profit and the military over social programs to benefit working class and oppressed people. While he boasts of investing in social reforms, the truth is that aside from stimulus checks most of those promised in the original version of “Build Back Better” fell by the wayside as his administration poured money into the Infrastructure Act and Inflation Reduction Act, both of which will benefit big business and do little to mitigate let alone reverse climate change.
Globally, Biden’s pretension to building a capitalist international of democracies against autocracies is even less convincing. The U.S. itself has a system of elections in which corporate money largely dictates the results, a government that nakedly serves big business, an unelected Supreme Court controlled by far-right appointees…………………
Abroad, Washington’s “democratic” track record includes everything from toppling elected governments in countries like Iran and Guatemala to brutal imperialist wars …………………………………………………more https://truthout.org/articles/bidens-national-security-strategy-is-a-defense-of-us-domination-not-democracy/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=8eb908cc-5486-4a82-9789-c8d5359afc8f
60 years of luck -why did the nuclear arms race escalate?
Why didn’t the Cuban Missile Crisis save us?
60 years of luck — Beyond Nuclear International By Linda Pentz Gunter https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2022/10/16/60-years-of-luck/
When you are a medical professional, relying on luck is not the preferred option. But for 87-year old retired radiologist, Dr. Murray Watnick, there are some circumstances when, if luck comes your way, you readily embrace it.
One such moment was the Cuban Missile Crisis, 13 tense days in October 1962, now being remembered 60 years on. Watnick was serving as a medical officer at the time, assigned to the US Strategic Air Command base at High Wycombe in the UK, headquarters base for the 7th Air Division and also home to a “nuclear bunker”.
The Cuban Missile Crisis is still believed, today, to be the closest the world ever came to nuclear war between two superpowers.
It lasted from October 16-28, 1962, although officially it was finally resolved on November 20. The phrase, ‘thirteen days in October’, remains synonymous with our narrowest of escapes from a nuclear apocalypse.
“We were on edge for 13 days,” recounted Watnick in a conversation last month as he recalled the rising tension among troops when the base was placed on DEFCON 2, the highest alert level before all-out war.
“Fortunately cooler heads prevailed and war was averted,” he said. “We were very lucky to have Nikita Khrushchev and John Kennedy in charge. Theirs were measured responses and a careful analysis of the situation.”
That measured response included a letter written by Khrushchev to President Kennedy on October 26, 1962 that is hard to imagine being replicated today. In part, it said:
“Mr. President, we and you ought not now to pull on the ends of the rope in which you have tied the knot of war, because the more the two of us pull, the tighter that knot will be tied. And a moment may come when that knot will be tied so tight that even he who tied it will not have the strength to untie it, and then it will be necessary to cut that knot, and what that would mean is not for me to explain to you, because you yourself understand perfectly of what terrible forces our countries dispose.
“Consequently, if there is no intention to tighten that knot and thereby to doom the world to the catastrophe of thermonuclear war, then let us not only relax the forces pulling on the ends of the rope, let us take measures to untie that knot. We are ready for this.”
And yet, despite that realization as the bullet of Armageddon was dodged, the Cold War continued and the nuclear arms race between the two super powers escalated to obscene heights. There was a failure to recognize then, and still now, that nuclear weapons are a madness and we need to get rid of them completely. Instead, the world’s collective atomic arsenal ballooned to a high of more than 64,000 by the late 1980s.
Part of the problem, contends Watnick, was once again one of leadership. He recalled a conversation with Dr. Helen Caldicott as she recounted her December 1982 meeting with then US president, Ronald Reagan. Watnick remembered Caldicott telling him how Reagan “was very uneducated about nuclear weapons,” and that “he believed that if you sent a missile towards Russia it could be called back.”
Caldicott, a pediatrician, activist, author and leading light in the nuclear weapons abolition movement, had been invited to the meeting by the president’s activist daughter, Patti Davis. And Caldicott was indeed shocked by Reagan’s profound level of ignorance:
“I wanted to talk to him about the medical effects of nuclear war. He was not interested. He just wanted to talk about numbers of missiles,” Caldicott recounted in a later talk. “I was really shocked to find that everything he said to me was factually inaccurate. To give you an indication of his lack of knowledge, he said he thought submarine-launched ballistic missiles were recallable after they were launched. That’s analogous to recalling a bullet once you’ve shot it from a gun.”
As Caldicott concluded, Reagan “had no background knowledge to debate any point with me at all.”
Perhaps not uncoincidentally, however, what eventually followed was the famous meeting between the US president and then Soviet premier, Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik in Iceland. That summit, on October 11 and 12, 1986, occurred almost exactly 24 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Once again, an opportunity for full nuclear disarmament was lost. While Gorbachev wanted to ban all ballistic missiles, Reagan clung on to his misguided obsession with the Strategic Defense Initiative, also known as “Star Wars.”
Nevertheless, points out Watnick, the Iceland summit still led to the signing, one year later by the US and the Soviet Union, of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and eventually, under subsequent US and Russian administrations, to START.
“You have to give a lot of credit to Dr. Caldicott,” Watnick said. “I think she started the educational process for Ronald Reagan.”
Today there are estimated to be around 13,000 nuclear warheads in the world, with Russia and the United States still in possession of the vast majority (approximately 6,257 and 5,550 respectively).
That’s still 13,000 too many, of course. And once again, averting disaster relies on luck.
“With so many nuclear devices in the world, the law of statistics dictates that these types of events will occur,” said Watnick, reflecting on the narrow escape in Cuba 60 years ago. “Lady Luck intervened,” he said. “Who can predict that this will be the situation for future events?”
Who, indeed.
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and curates Beyond Nuclear International.
Caitlin Johnstone: US Rejects Moscow’s Offer to Talk
“It is time for the United States to supplement its military support for Ukraine with a diplomatic track to manage this crisis before it spirals out of control“
“Would that open the way to negotiations, diplomacy? Can’t be sure. There’s only one way to find out. That’s to try. If you don’t try, of course it won’t happen.”
It’s inexcusable that these direct peace negotiations are not already underway. The recent escalation of this war makes peace talks more necessary, not less
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/10/13/caitlin-johnstone-us-rejects-moscows-offer-to-talk/ By Caitlin Johnstone CaitlinJohnstone.com 14 Oct 22
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow was open to talks with the U.S. or with Turkey on ending the war in Ukraine, claiming that U.S. officials are lying when they say Russia has been refusing peace talks.
Reuters reports:
“Lavrov said officials, including White House national security spokesman John Kirby, had said the United States was open to talks but that Russia had refused.”
“This is a lie,” Lavrov said. “We have not received any serious offers to make contact.”
Lavrov’s claim was given more weight when U.S. State Department Spokesman Ned Price dismissed the offer for peace talks shortly after it was extended, citing Russia’s recent missile strikes on Kyiv.
We see this as posturing,” Price said at a Tuesday press briefing.
“We do not see this as a constructive, legitimate offer to engage in the dialogue and diplomacy that is absolutely necessary to see an end to this brutal war of aggression against the people and the state, the Government of Ukraine.”
This is inexcusable. At a time when our world is at its most perilous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis according to many experts as well as the president of the United States, the U.S. government has no business making the decision not to sit down with Russian officials and work toward de-escalation and peace.
They have no business making that call on behalf of every terrestrial organism on this planet whose life is being risked in these games of nuclear brinkmanship. The fact that this war has escalated with missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital makes peace talks more necessary, not less.
This rejection is made all the more outrageous by new information from The Washington Post that the U.S. government does not believe Ukraine can win this war and refuses to encourage it to negotiate with Moscow.
“Privately, U.S. officials say neither Russia nor Ukraine is capable of winning the war outright, but they have ruled out the idea of pushing or even nudging Ukraine to the negotiating table,” WaPo reports. “They say they do not know what the end of the war looks like, or how it might end or when, insisting that is up to Kyiv.”
These two points taken together lend even more credibility an argument I’ve been making from the very beginning of this war: that the U.S. does not want peace in Ukraine, but rather seeks to create a costly military quagmire for Moscow just as U.S. officials have confessed to trying to do in Afghanistan and in Syria.
Which would explain why U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the U.S. goal in Ukraine is actually to “weaken” Russia, and also why the empire appears to have actively torpedoed a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia in the early days of the conflict.
This proxy war has no exit strategy. And that is entirely by design.
Many have been calling for the U.S. to abandon its policy of actively sustaining this war while avoiding peace talks.
“President Biden’s language, we’re about at the top of the language scale, if you will,” former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen told ABC’s This Week on Sunday regarding the president’s recent remark that this conflict could lead to “Armageddon.”
“I think we need to back off that a little bit and do everything we possibly can to try to get to the table to resolve this thing,” Mullen said, adding, “As is typical in any war, it has got to end and usually there are negotiations associated with that. The sooner the better as far as I’m concerned.”
“One thing the United States can do is… drop the position, the official position, that the war must go on to weaken Russia severely, meaning no negotiations,” Noam Chomsky argued in a recent appearance on Democracy Now.
“Would that open the way to negotiations, diplomacy? Can’t be sure. There’s only one way to find out. That’s to try. If you don’t try, of course it won’t happen.”
“It is time for the United States to supplement its military support for Ukraine with a diplomatic track to manage this crisis before it spirals out of control,” said the Quincy Institute’s George Beebe following the Monday missile strikes on Kyiv, calling it “a major escalation in the war” that was bound to “bring the world closer to a direct military collision between Russia and the United States.”
“The Americans have to come to an agreement with the Russians. And then the war will be over,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at an event on Tuesday, adding that “anyone who thinks that this war will be concluded through Russian-Ukrainian negotiations is not living in this world.”
Cuban Missile Crisis 60th anniversary: How world teetered on nuclear abyss
9News, By Richard Wood • Senior Journalist Oct 15, 2022
“……………………………………… Sixty years ago, the flashpoint was Cuba and the deployment of Russian nuclear missiles to the island – just 180km from the US mainland.
Here is a look at how the dramatic events unfolded over a tense 13 days.
………………………………………………………. On Friday, October 26, 1962, fears of a US invasion were so great that Cuban leader Fidel Castro ordered American reconnaissance planes to be shot down.
The end game came in the form of a public US promise the next day not to invade Cuba and a private – long denied – promise to remove US missiles from Turkey in return for a Soviet pledge to pull out their nuclear missiles from Cuba.
How the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded
October 16: Photos taken by a US spy plane that show nuclear-armed missiles on Cuba are shown to President John F. Kennedy.
October 18: Kennedy receives an assurance from the Soviet government that his country is providing only defensive aid to Fidel Castro’s Cuba.
October 22: In a TV address, Kennedy says the weapons are a “clear and present danger” to the US and its allies.
October 23: US naval forces deploy around Cuba to enforce their blockade
October 25: Russian freighters bound for Cuba turn back.
October 26: Nikita Khrushchev writes to Kennedy offering to remove the missiles if the US lifts the blockade and pledges not to invade Cuba.
October 27: Kennedy receives a second letter from the Soviet government demanding much tougher terms. A US spy plane is shot down over Cuba and its pilot dies.
October 28: Russian state radio announces Khrushchev will withdraw the missiles in exchange for a non-invasion pledge by the US. https://www.9news.com.au/world/cuban-missile-crisis-sixty-years-on/e8c362a8-3971-4067-80b6-5b421ab94a9f
Ukraine has de facto joined NATO says Ukraine’s defense minister
https://www.rt.com/news/564616-ukraine-nato-reznikov-stoltenberg/ 14 Oct 22, Kiev is already making a substantial contribution to the “security of the free world,” Aleksey Reznikov claimed
Ukraine is a de facto member of the NATO alliance, despite not having officially joined the US-led military bloc, Kiev’s Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov has claimed.
He made the statement in a tweet following a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the bloc’s headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday.
“We have come a long way and have de facto joined the alliance,” the minister wrote, while also thanking Stoltenberg for his support for Ukraine amid its ongoing conflict with Russia.
“Ukraine is already making significant contributions to the security of the free world,” the minister added.
Reznikov also expressed confidence that victory over Moscow and “successful reforms” domestically would “open up new horizons” for his country, seemingly a reference to Ukraine officially joining the bloc at some point in the future.
Russia views NATO’s eastward expansion as a major security threat. When Moscow launched its military offensive against Kiev in late February, one of its key demands was for Ukraine to officially declare itself a neutral country that would never join any Western military alliance.
On September 30, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky filed an application to join NATO and called for an accelerated admission procedure for his country.
However, Kiev’s backers in the West have not appeared overly enthusiastic on the issues. Stoltenberg has pointed out that “any decision on membership has to be taken by consensus” by all 30 NATO members and that its top priority right now is to “support Ukraine” militarily and financially during the conflict.
Washington voiced a similar stance, with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan saying earlier this month that the question of Ukraine joining NATO “should be taken up at a different time.”
A statement in support of Kiev’s bid for swift accession has been backed by just nine member states – the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
Russia open to talks with West: Lavrov
Canberra Times, 12 Oct 22, Moscow is open to talks with the West on the war in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Moscow says, which Washington has dismissed as “posturing” because Russia continues to strike Ukrainian cities.
In an interview on state television, Lavrov said Russia was willing to engage with the United States or with Turkey on ways to end the war, now in its eight month, but had yet to receive any serious proposal to negotiate……………………..
Lavrov said officials, including White House national security spokesman John Kirby, had said the United States was open to talks but that Russia had refused.
“This is a lie,” Lavrov said. “We have not received any serious offers to make contact.” https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7938759/russia-open-to-talks-with-west-lavrov/?cs=14264
We Survived The Last Nuclear Standoff Through Compromise And De-Escalation
You and I are alive today because Kennedy backed down from the brink and struck a compromise
as history tells us, it’s not caveman chest-thumping that has allowed us to remain alive on a planet full of stockpiled armageddon weapons. It’s the sensibility to know when to compromise and relent rather than pushing continuously toward the edge.
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/we-survived-the-last-nuclear-standoff Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 6 2022,
Vladimir Putin has signed documents finalizing the Russian annexation of four regions in eastern Ukraine, meaning there’s now a western-backed Ukrainian counteroffensive underway to recapture what Russia officially considers parts of its homeland.
Moscow has made it clear that it will use all weapons systems at its disposal to defend against attacks on territories it claims as its own, which could include nuclear weapons. Depending on if and how that happens and what kind of day all the relevant decision makers are having when it does, there is a distinct possibility that a chain of events could follow which leads to the end of the world.
This happens as Ukraine’s President Zelensky signs a decree officially ruling out the possibility of any peace talks with Putin, who recently publicly requested such talks. The US empire, which has been driving this proxy war from the beginning, is also not currently engaged in peace talks with Moscow. Things are accelerating faster and faster toward the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen, and as far as we know nobody’s got a foot anywhere near the brake pedal.
Meanwhile, everyone has gone insane. The propaganda blanket has been laid on so thick since this war started that it has become the mainstream position that only continual escalation is acceptable. Public calls for de-escalation and detente are met with accusations of Kremlin loyalty, as we just saw with the vitriolic responses to Elon Musk’s online proposal of possible terms to end the war.
There’s a popular post going around Twitter right now by a pro-Kyiv pundit named Thomas Theiner which sums up the delusional sentiments we’ve been seeing on this front.
“I grew up during the Cold War. I studied the Cold War,” Theiner writes. “When the russians/Soviets say: ‘We will use nuclear weapons!’, the only answer must be: ‘Try and die.’ All else is seen as weakness by the kremlin and will lead to the russians using nukes.”
Theiner is wrong, and has made no serious study of the cold war (or to be more precise the last cold war, since we’re in another one now). The only reason we survived the most dangerous part of that era was because of compromise and a sincere commitment to de-escalation, not because anyone was yelling “Try and die” at Moscow.
Back in 2013 The Atlantic published a solid article titled “The Real Cuban Missile Crisis,” subtitled “Everything you think you know about those 13 days is wrong.” Its author Benjamin Schwartz details how the crisis was peacefully resolved not because JFK was on the phone yelling “Try and die” at Nikita Khrushchev, but because he secretly cut a deal to remove the Jupiter missiles the US had stationed in Italy and Turkey which provoked the 1962 incident in the first place.
Back in 2013 The Atlantic published a solid article titled “The Real Cuban Missile Crisis,” subtitled “Everything you think you know about those 13 days is wrong.” Its author Benjamin Schwartz details how the crisis was peacefully resolved not because JFK was on the phone yelling “Try and die” at Nikita Khrushchev, but because he secretly cut a deal to remove the Jupiter missiles the US had stationed in Italy and Turkey which provoked the 1962 incident in the first place.
Moscow perceived that the only reason why that type of midrange weapon would be placed in such a way would be if the US was planning a nuclear first strike to disarm Russia, and Schwartz writes that that suspicion was entirely well-founded: the Kennedy administration had indeed strongly contemplated such a strike during the Berlin crisis of 1961. In response to this threat, as well as the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, Khrushchev moved ballistic missiles to Cuba, whose discovery led to the tense standoff which brought us far closer to nuclear annihilation than most of us care to contemplate. A secret deal was struck whose nature wouldn’t become public knowledge until decades later, resulting in both sides removing their offending missile placements.
You and I are alive today because Kennedy backed down from the brink and struck a compromise (as well as our sheer dumb luck at having one cool-headed Soviet officer on a nuclear-armed submarine refuse to deploy the weapon while being bombarded by the US navy during the standoff between JFK and Khrushchev). Kennedy conditioned his acquiescence to Moscow’s demands on assurances that his doing so would be kept secret, because then, as now, there were tremendous political pressures not to be seen as “backing down” and “looking weak” before the enemy.
But as history tells us, it’s not caveman chest-thumping that has allowed us to remain alive on a planet full of stockpiled armageddon weapons. It’s the sensibility to know when to compromise and relent rather than pushing continuously toward the edge.
Detente used to be a household term. It was a routine subject of mainstream political discourse; mainstream politicians were expected to have a clear and articulate position on the diplomatic easing of tensions with the USSR. Now people don’t even know detente is a thing. I say that word to people and it’s clearly the first time they’ve ever encountered it, and the concept itself is completely alien to them. People I talk to tend to believe the only options on the table are either (A) continuing to escalate this insane game of nuclear chicken with Russia, or (B) giving Putin everything he wants. They’re completely unaware that a third option of negotiation, compromise and de-escalation exists, much less that it has historically been viable and successful.
This is entirely by design. People don’t know that detente is an option because the political/media class virtually never mentions it anymore. The news media are supposedly responsible for helping to create an informed populace, but because their real job is propaganda they generally end up doing the exact opposite. If the public were permitted to become widely aware that these games of nuclear brinkmanship are not a necessity but a choice that is being made on their behalf, and that their leaders are rolling the dice on their lives and the lives of everyone they know and love for no other reason than to work toward securing unipolar planetary hegemony, they would no longer consent to this madness.
If people really understood how much is being risked here, and how little it benefits them, Washington DC would be on fire right now. That’s why their understanding is continually manipulated and obscured by the managers of empire.
US comments on Zelensky’s ‘preemptive strike’ appeal
Washington has no plans to attack Russian forces in Ukraine, the State Department has said
https://www.rt.com/news/564292-us-zelenskys-preemptive-strike-russia/ 8 Oct 22,
The US is not about to get directly involved in the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev, a State Department spokesman said on Friday, after Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had urged the West to conduct “preventive strikes” against Russia.
When asked about the Ukrainian leader’s latest appeal to the West, State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said that the administration of US President Joe Biden has repeatedly stated that it has no intention of taking part in the fighting.
“As long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we are not going to get directly engaged in this conflict either by putting American troops to fight in Ukraine or attacking Russian forces,” he reiterated, adding that Washington’s message on this matter has been “very clear.”
On Thursday, Zelensky, speaking at an online conference at the Australian Lowy Institute, called for “preventive strikes” against Russia so that Moscow knew what to expect should it resort to nuclear weapons.
Later, Zelensky’s press secretary attempted to clarify these remarks, arguing that they should not be interpreted as a request for NATO to attack Russia. The Ukrainian leader himself also stepped in, telling BBC on Friday that he had meant “preventive kicks, not attacks.” The UK outlet also clarified that Zelensky was “referring to sanctions.”
The comments made by the Ukrainian president sparked a backlash from Moscow, which accused him of attempting to spark a world war, which would lead to “unforeseeable disastrous consequences.” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova went so far as to describe him as “a monster, whose hands can destroy the planet.”
Russia has repeatedly stated that a nuclear war should never be fought, while Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu in August made it clear that Moscow is not considering a nuclear strike on Ukraine, given that there are no targets warranting such drastic measures.
Lasting peace in Europe only possible with Russia’s input – Angela Merkel
Rt.com 7 Oct 22,
The Cold War won’t really be over until Russia has contributed to European security architecture, the former German Chancellor said.
Sustainable peace in Europe may only be achieved if Russia is part of it, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday.
Speaking during the 77th anniversary of the German newspaper ‘Suddeutsche Zeitung,’ Merkel explained that while the West has been adamant in its support for Ukraine as the nation remains locked in conflict with Russia, it should also keep its mind open about what might seem as “unthinkable” now – Moscow’s future role in Europe’s affairs.
She stressed that “a future European security architecture within international law will meet the requirements” only if it involves Russia. “As long as we haven’t achieved that, the Cold War is not really over either,” she added.
Merkel described February 24 – the day Russia launched its military campaign in Ukraine – as a “turning point,” adding that statements made by various parties to the conflict should be taken “seriously and not to be classified as a bluff from the start.”………………………..
She also noted that former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, who before his death, was widely regarded as her political mentor, would have kept an open mind about “how relations to and with Russia could one day be redeveloped” after hostilities in Ukraine end.
Such a stance, however, did not sit well with Ukrainian officials. Last week, Andrey Melnik, Kiev’s outgoing ambassador to Berlin, called Merkel’s attitude towards Russia and its role in European security “almost perverse.” https://www.rt.com/news/564203-merkel-peace-europe-ukraine-russia/;/
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26 September – International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
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