Signs United States International Power Is Declining by Eric Zuesse!
(2020-07-01 at 13:42:30 )

Signs United States International Power Is Declining by Eric Zuesse!

On June 15th, Breaking Defense headlined "Japan Halts $2.1B Aegis Ashore Work; New Black Eye For Struggling Program" and reported that Japans defense minister, Taro Kono, announced: "Due to considerations of cost and timing, we have stopped the process of introducing the Aegis Ashore system." This is the Lockheed Martin anti-ballistic-missile system that the United States is installing at many places surrounding Russia in order to be able to eliminate or at least greatly reduce Russias ability to strike back effectively against the United States and its allies if and when the United States decides to culminate its United States strategic objective called "Nuclear Primacy," which is for America to achieve and execute the ability to "win" a nuclear war against Russia by eliminating or neutralizing Russias ability to strike back effectively against a sudden blitzkrieg nuclear first-strike attack by the United States. Eliminating the ability of Russias nuclear weapons to leave Russian airspace (this Aegis Ashore "missile shield" destroying the retaliatory weapons) is a crucial aspect of Americas Nuclear Primacy plan, in order to use Americas nuclear arsenal for the purpose of winning a nuclear war against Russia, instead of for any purpose of preventing a nuclear war against Russia.

In 2006, the mega-strategy of Nuclear Primacy was announced in Americas two most influential journals of international relations: Foreign Affairs, from the Council on Foreign Relations, and International Security, from the Belfer Center at the John F. Kennedy School of Goverment at Harvard University. This meta-strategy is a replacement of the long-standing "Mutually Assured Destruction" or "MAD" meta-strategy that the concept of "nuclear deterrence" was based upon.

Nuclear Primacy aims for victory, not for peace. It was presented in both journals as being not only a realistic goal but a desirable goal, though the authors did acknowledge that this meta-strategy would require bold American leadership in order to culminate (i.e., to conquer Russia and subsequently control the entire world without any possibility of resistance).

Japans reversal of its commitment to be part of this plan is significant, and not only because Japans cancellation would negatively affect decisions of Americas other allies to stay with the United States in its plan to conquer Russia, but also because Japan actually has more reason to protect itself against North Korea than to protect itself against Russia. In fact, if the United States nuclear-blitzes Russia, then both North Korea and China might be very unpredictable, and maybe Japan would be safer as a neutral nation.

Furthermore, on 1 March 2017, three of Americas leading physicists and experts on nuclear weapons, Hans Kristensen, Matthew McKinzie, and Theodore Postol, published a study in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which concluded that.

This vast increase in United States nuclear targeting capability, which has largely been concealed from the general public, has serious implications for strategic stability and perceptions of United States nuclear strategy and intentions.

Russian planners will almost surely see the advance in fuzing capability as empowering an increasingly feasible United States preemptive nuclear strike capability - a capability that would require Russia to undertake countermeasures that would further increase the already dangerously high readiness of Russian nuclear forces. .. [And this technological capability that the United States has] creates exactly what one would expect to see, if a nuclear-armed state were planning to have the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike.

What was remarkable is that this statement came from Americas experts, not from Russias.

Moreover, since that time, the United States of America has unilaterally terminated almost every nuclear arms control agreement it had had with Russia and its predecessor Soviet Union. This too is consistent with Americas objective being to develop a crushing nuclear advantage against Russia so as to place itself in a position to dictate terms of surrender.

The Breaking Defense article noted that, "The $2.1 billion program had been sputtering even before Konos announcement, after Tokyo said last month it would scrap the Akita [Prefecture] system in the wake of sustained local protests against it," and stated that two other planned sites for the Aegis Ashore systems, the ones in Poland and Romania, were running behind schedule and over budget.

Americas adoption of the Nuclear Primacy meta-strategy (aiming for nuclear-weapons victory) replacing its prior MAD meta-strategy (aiming for nuclear-weapons balance and international peace) might even be an extension of Americas actual meta-strategic intention regarding nuclear weapons during the pre-1991 overt and "ideological" (communism versus capitalism) Cold War against the Soviet Union. For example, an indication of this intention was Americas public refusal to accept as being anything other than "communist tricks" the repeated efforts by the Soviets to restore the United States-U.S.S.R. joint national-security cooperation that had existed when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was Americas President.

Americas responses during the post-World-War-II period were insults, instead of to welcom the Soviet proposals and work behind the scenes with them to obtain progress toward the type of world order, global cooperation, that FDR had intended - a world order which he intended would be policed by the United Nations, not by the United States. For example, on 19 September 1959 at the United Nations General Assembly, the Soviet Representative headlined "Declaration of the Soviet Government on General and Complete Disarmament" and presented a series of proposals including:

"This relevant article and its links are here:"

"Declaration of the Soviet Government on General and Complete Disarmament"

September 19, 1959

P. 14:

The Soviet Government proposes that the programme of general and complete disarmament should be carried out within as short a time-limit as possible - within a period of four years.

The following measures are proposed for the first stage:

The reduction, under appropriate control, of the strength of the armed forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United States of America and the Peoples Republic of China to the level of 1.7 million men, and of the United Kingdom and France to the level of 650,000 men;

The reduction of the armed forces of other states to levels to be agreed upon at a special session of the United Nations General Assembly or at a world conference on general and complete disarmament;

The reduction of the armaments and military equipment at the disposal of the armed forces of States to the extent necessary to ensure that the remaining quantity of armaments corresponds to the level fixed for the armed forces.

The following is proposed for the second stage:

The completion of the disbandment of the armed forces retained by States;

The elimination of all military bases in the territories of foreign States; troops and military personnel shall be withdrawn from the territories of foreign States to within their own national frontiers and shall be disbanded.

The following is for the third stage:

The destruction of all types of nuclear weapons and missiles;

The destruction of air force equipment;

The entry into force of the prohibition on the production, possession and storage of means of chemical and biological weapons in the possession of States shall be removed and destroyed under international supervision;

Scientific research for military purposes and the development of weapons and military equipment shall be prohibited;

War ministries, general staffs and all military and paramilitary establishments and organizations shall be abolished;

All military courses and training shall be terminated. States shall prohibit by law the military education of young people.

In accordance with their respective constitutional procedures, States shall enact legislation abolishing military service in all of its forms - compulsory, voluntary, by recruitment, and so forth. ..

(4) Conclusion of a non-aggression pact between the member States of NATO and the member States of the Warsaw Treaty;

The United States response came a few months later at the "Conference of the Ten Nation Committee on Disarmament":

"This relevant article and its links are here:"

"Conference of the Ten Nation Committee on Disarmament"

22 March 1960

Final Verbatim Record of the Sixth Meeting

Held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva

P. 36:

Mr. Eaton (United States of America): I have no intention of entering into this discussion on foreign bases. I think the discussions that we have had here this morning have indicated that we shall run into political problems at the very earliest stage, problems on which earlier conferences have foundered. I would only say that the forces of my Government are only employed outside my own country and within my own country for the purpose of defending both ourselves and those of our allies who wish to be associated with us, who welcome our troopos as a part of theirs and as a part of the allied defences, and for no other reason. Whenever the time comes when these troops need not be employed, for defensive puroses only, there need be no doubt in the mind of anyone here that those forces will be withdrawn.

"This relevant article and its links are here:"

"Conference of the Ten Nation Committee on Disarmament"

24 June 1960

Final Verbatim Record of the Forty-Sixth Meeting

Held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva

4:

Mr. Nosek (Czechoslovakia): What did Mr. Eaton propose? He proposed the introduction of control measures. .. exclusively with measures of control, that is with the old and well-known requirement of the United States - the introduction of control over armaments. Apparently with a view to misleading world public opinion, which requires a concrete discussion of general and complete disarmament, the United States representatives are beginning to prefer - for tactical reasons - to call those measures not "partial measures" but "initial steps" on the road to general and complete disarmament under effective international control.

"This relevant article and its links are here:"

"The United Nations and Space Security: Conflicting Mandates"

P. 17:

This [obfuscation and evasion by the United States] ultimately led to the USSR, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania not attending the 48th meeting of the Ten-Nation Committee, which signalled the end of these discussions in the Committee.

Who benefited from Americas refusal even to discuss what had been United States President FDRs aim for the post-WW-II world?

The beneficiaries are what President Eisenhower when leaving office on 17 January 1960 called the "military industrial complex" (which he had actually served as President though he publicly condemned it in his Farewell Address) and these beneficiaries are basically Americas hundred largest military contractors, especially the owners of the largest weapons-manufacturing firms such as Lockheed.

So, America is being controlled by its MIC might have long preceded merely 2006.

In any case, the possible withdrawal of Japan from its existing anti-Russian alliance with the United States could turn out to be yet another indication, beyond merely such phenomena as Americas performance regarding the coronavirus challenge and other factors, which might indicate that The American Century is in the process of ending.

"This relevant article and its links are here:"

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