World War on the Agenda?
‘Any War Can Become Nuclear’
by Nancy Spannaus
July 29—Gerd Krumeich, professor at Germany’s Duesseldorf University and honorary chairman of the Military History Working Group, in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio July 25, drew the parallels between the current strategic situation and the events that led, one century ago, to World War I. It’s like 1914 but with nuclear weapons, he said, although he played down the threat by insisting that world leaders have learned the lesson.
The foreign ministers of all countries “know exactly what is at stake,” Krumeich says. “And, of course, we have also the threat, much more massive than at that time, that any war can become a nuclear war and an extinction war. They knew this a little bit also at that time, but they had no nuclear bombs, and we do have them. This is the qualitative difference.”
Dr. Krumeich’s conclusion is axiomatic among sane members of the policy elite and military of the world’s most powerful nations, including the United States. Indeed, the fact that war is no longer an option for resolving disputes among nations has been adopted as an explicit cardinal principle in nations such as China and Russia. Despite that, the British Empire-dominated governments of Western Europe and the United States are, at this very moment, pressing for a showdown confrontation with Russia (and later, China), especially over the alleged “issue” of Ukraine.
In reality, the dramatic strategic tensions currently being raised—inclusive of a vilification campaign against Russian President Putin—have nothing to do with any particular conflict issues, and everything to do with the fact that the British financial empire is totally bankrupt. To preserve its dying system, the British monetarist elite and its lackeys, most emphatically including the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel, are staging provocations, spreading bald-faced lies, and deploying terror tactics and terrorists in strategic hotspots all around the world. They are particularly desperate, because, over the recent period, a clear alternative to their system has emerged—both in the form of the seed-crystal of a new monetary system at the BRICS Summit in Brazil, but also in terms of a reassertion of U.S. Constitutional principles in the United States.
Until that Empire is destroyed, these wars will not stop.
Target: Russia
Using the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 as a pretext, the war party in the West has ratcheted up its lies and aggression against Russia—the facts be damned. Despite consistent demands from the Russian Defense Ministry that the U.S. release its own real-time satellite data on what happened over southeast Ukraine in the downing of the Malaysian plane, and the Russians’ release of their own data, the United States has refused to provide its satellite surveillance intelligence, relying instead on such pathetic “evidence” as tweeted commercial photos.
Malaysians too have expressed shock that the world would buy the Obama Administration (and NATO) line that the Russians were responsible, without a shred of forensic evidence. This is especially the case, given the record of false-flag provocations, such as the alleged use by the Syrian government of chemical weapons, and the “evidence” of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, that have previously come to light (see “Guest Commentary” by Malaysian scholar Chandra Muzaffar, p. 34.)
Washington, London, and Brussels brazenly ignore the fact that their Nazi-installed pet regime in Kiev is carrying out genocidal bombardments of cities in Southeast Ukraine, and is taking military actions that have cut off and perhaps contaminated the plane crash site. No amount of blood shed by the civilian population of Luhansk and Donetsk as a result of Kiev’s bombardment can divert the trans-Atlantic powers’ focus away from their mantra that “Putin is responsible.”
At this point, both expanded economic sanctions and the deployment of military supplies, if not personnel, have been adopted as the next steps in NATO’s war on Russia. Pushed by both Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron, the European Union today announced new sanctions against Russia. The package “will limit access to EU capital markets for Russian State-owned financial institutions, impose an embargo on trade in arms, establish an export ban for dual-use goods for military end users, and curtail Russian access to sensitive technologies particularly in the field of the oil sector,” said an EU statement.
The decision, which is expected to be followed by similar steps by the United States, is a suicidal move for what’s left of the productive sector of European industry, as it will cut an estimated 300,000 jobs in Germany and 100,000 in France, according to industry association sources. Indicative of the crippling boomerang effect on Europe to be expected is the fact that numerous EU nuclear plants depend upon Russian-made parts. Russia will, of course, also suffer supply hardships, and Russian companies will have difficulties accessing credit.
The Russians have responded soberly. In a press conference on July 28, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, “We will overcome any difficulties that may arise in certain areas of the economy, and maybe we will become more independent and more confident in our own strength.” Measures for substitution of necessary military parts are already underway.
Genocide in Southwest Asia
While the process of genocidal warfare in Southwest Asia—both by the Saudi-funded jihadis in Iraq and Syria, and the Israeli assault against the Palestinians in Gaza—does not hold the potential for an immediate confrontation between NATO and Russia, it equally falls within the British Empire’s global plan. The stoking of permanent sectarian warfare in this region makes it a breeding ground for terrorists who can be used by the Empire, or will simply self-deploy, to spread mayhem globally.
Exemplary is the deployment of Uighur terrorist action in China. As EIR has previously reported, and the Chinese media have noted as well, a grouping of Muslim Uighurs has been increasingly pulled into the network of British-Saudi terrorist groups in Southwest Asia, trained in their dark arts, and eventually made their way back into China, to carry out terrorism there.
Over the past months, there has been an increase in such terrorist incidents in China, the latest occurring in Xinjiang province today.
Other models for such a deployment have been evident in terrorist incidents in Russia, and, most famously, in the 9/11 atrocities of 2001 in the United States.
The impact of the wanton genocide being carried out by both the Israelis against Gaza, and ISIS against anyone who refuses to convert to its radical brand of Islam, is not limited to the production of terrorists, of course. The toleration of such barbarism by the world community represents a dehumanization of culture, a descent into a new Dark Age where unspeakable acts of cruelty are accepted with indifference. Such is the pathway which can lead to broader warfare, as people lose all sense of the human qualities of compassion and common aims of mankind, which are the basis for pulling the world back from the brink of disaster.
World War I, which began as a limited conflict, and was thought to be destined to remain so, turned into a barbaric horror. It contributed to the rise of fascism and the horrors of World War II. Now, we stand on the very edge of World War III, with a dynamic underway that to many would appear unstoppable.
This dynamic must be stopped now, by those who can still learn the lessons of history.
