By Andre Damon
On Thursday, NATO held a summit without precedent. In total secrecy, with not only cameras and phones prohibited but even aides, the leaders of the Western powers met to plan out the unthinkable: A full-scale war between nuclear-armed states.
As the proxy war between NATO and Russia over Ukraine spirals out of control, the use of nuclear weapons that could kill hundreds of millions of people or more is being actively contemplated.
Nuclear war has become part of the daily vocabulary of the US media. In an article published Wednesday, “How the Ukraine war could go nuclear,” Politico wrote, “Not since the Cold War has the specter of nuclear war hung so heavily over a president’s crisis diplomacy.” Politico cited Izumi Nakamitsu, United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, who warned Tuesday about the risk of “mushroom clouds appearing on the battlefield.”
Last week, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, founded by former Senator Sam Nunn, outlined a “hypothetical scenario illustrating just one possible pathway to a global, catastrophic nuclear war” that could be triggered by the Ukraine crisis.
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Crossing the psychological Rubicon: US-NATO risks nuclear war
As NATO continues to recklessly escalate the war in Ukraine, it is high time that President Biden be asked two questions: 1) When in your campaign for the presidency did you state that you would risk a nuclear war with Russia? 2) Based on intelligence information provided to you by Pentagon and CIA advisers, how many hundreds of millions, or billions of people, do you expect will die in the United States, Europe and throughout the world in a nuclear exchange with Russia?
In the media and the discussions among capitalist politicians, it appears that not only a political, but also a psychological Rubicon has been crossed. The real danger that the NATO-Russia war may lead to the use of tactical nuclear weapons and, from there, develop into the firing off of strategic nuclear weapons is now acknowledged widely. But rather than warning that this must be avoided at all costs, the use of nuclear weapons is being openly viewed as a legitimate option.
Nuclear weapons have only been used once, and that was by the United States. In August 1945, President Harry Truman authorized the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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