Discussion about this post

User's avatar
dornoch altbinhax's avatar

Thanks Karl, I find the logic highly plausible. The elites in the US will use any WMD to maintain their hegemony over the global majority. I think you covered the decline of US nuclear weapons in an earlier piece, and seeing UK trident test fails that too is plausible.

Now it looks like a race towards outright fascist dictatorship and disintegration of the Union. And possibly a bit of both meaning civil war. And why not? Most of the European states are under economic strain that can spread into sectarian violence, and once that path is opened (even if manipulated) outcomes become uncertain.

Russia could be an example of how a multi-ethnic state can function when the Russian core is strong. The west has become vacuous, it's core is neoliberalism having completely subsumed all other values to "money" and profit.

Expand full comment
richardstevenhack's avatar

"withdrawal of the nuclear arsenal from the United States"

That whole concept rendered his entire article useless. But then he has zero military background, so it surprises me that Martyanov takes him seriously (apparently because the guy has a physics degree, whoop-de-do.)

US nukes may be "ossified", but they still work. It may be possible for Russia to survive a US nuclear attack and be able to rebuild (China certainly could given its size and population), but I'm sure no one in Russia wants to find out.

This relates to Scott Ritter losing it completely about how we were "all going to die on Saturday" if the US military hadn't advised Biden to drop the long-range Ukraine missile idea. Putin isn't going to nuke the US because a couple Storm Shadow missiles land in Moscow. Putin is not an idiot and doesn't want WWIII any more than anyone else outside of the US neocon crazies. What Putin would do is bring the hammer down on Ukraine (finally), and possibly take out some airfields in Poland and Romania - and if he's smart, use the opportunity to take out the Aegis Ashore installations there, too.

I notice this guy suggests that Russia doesn't want western Ukraine. He's like Martyanov in that respect: western Ukrainians hate Russia, so he hates western Ukrainians, and he assumes the Russian military planners don't want western Ukraine. None of that follows. It's not a question of what Russia "wants" - it's a question of military necessity. But again, this guy has no military background so understanding why it's important to put your air defenses as close to the enemy's launch points escapes him.

This is what happens one allows emotional issues to cloud one's analysis - as it did with Ritter.

Expand full comment
46 more comments...

No posts