How Close Are We to Nuclear Annihilation?

I'm seeing more and more commentary opining that we are well and truly into WWIII, the War some were claiming Hillary was going to start with her no-fly zone suggestion over Syria c. 2016.

She explained, perhaps inartfully, that a no-fly zone over Syria would only happen via negotiation with Russia, and she was not proposing a unilateral declaration. But of course, as is the way with political campaigns, her clarification was ignored, as was, interestingly, Trump's proposal for a refugee "safety-zone" -- essentially a no-fly zone by another name. Oh well, water under the bridge.

The point, I think, about Hillary was that she was belligerent toward Russia. Trump was anything but.

Anti-Russia belligerence was part of US government foreign policy from way back, at least tracing to the depths of the Cold War, intensifying rather remarkably during the Obama regime. It was painfully obvious that Obama and Putin did not get along, but why was never entirely clear. At times it seemed like there was a deep seated racist component, one I may have noticed and written about at the time but I'm too lazy to look it up right now. 

For what it's worth, there has long been a foreign policy outline that involves the dismemberment of the Russian Federation -- already much smaller and weaker than the Soviet Union -- and essentially remaking the parts into Western satrapies for easy exploitation and control. Russia has resources, after all, and according to our rulers or those who rule our rulers, those resources are "ours."

An independent Russia must be destroyed. 

China would be next.

This plan goes back decades, and you can bet the Kremlin has been well aware of it. 

It wasn't implemented -- at least not fully -- because Russia is armed with nuclear weapons and was believed to be skilled and ready to use them if the Motherland was existentially threatened.

Well here we are.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February was quite a surprise to practically everyone. Many simply didn't think Putin was that stupid. Even Zelensky and his backers in Kiev didn't think it would happen, and when it did, they were caught on the back foot. That's putting it mildly.

I said at the outset that either Kiev would capitulate quickly, or Russia would "go Grozny" on their asses. Grozny is the Chechen capital that was leveled and its defenders annihilated by Russia in two Chechen Wars in the '90s. Tens of thousands are said to have perished. 

Kiev did not capitulate but become even more belligerent as the invasion proceeded. There is considerable evidence that Russia has experienced significant losses while inflicting considerable damage on Ukrainian targets. Large parts of several cities have been reduced to ruin, mullions have been displaced -- about 10% of the population has become refugees in other parts of Europe -- and in essence, the Ukrainian economy, which wasn't much to begin with except for the looting by Ukrainian oligarchs, has ground to a halt.

Nuclear saber rattling has been going on since the outset of the invasion; threats from Moscow, retaliatory threats from the US and Nato. 

Of course those of us who remember the history of Cold War saber rattling are aware that we came very close to nuclear war with the Soviet Union several times during the era, and the whole routine of preparing for and (possibly) surviving if the button should be pushed was part of conditioning the population "just in case." I still have a Civil Defense pamphlet, "Surviving Nuclear War," and there are a couple of old radios around the place with CONELRAD emblems ("tune to 640 or 1240 on your AM radio dial for news and information in the event of an emergency..."). Together with Duck and Cover drills, air raid siren tests, and the location of public shelters and the building of backyard shelters this was what people of a Certain Age lived with for decades of their childhood and adolescence. 

I remember calculating how far from likely Bomb targets I lived, and it was never more than a few miles. 

Most of that conditioning faded as the Cold War ended -- or we thought it did. 

The various invasions and attacks since 2001, however, revived some of the terrifying images of the past, and the relentless marches to war the US and Nato have engaged in against enemies real and imagined, far and near have been deeply troubling to many of us.

Why this constant drumbeat of War and More War?

And why war against Russia?

Of course, it's been the Plan All Along. One day it had to happen. 

And here it is.

So how close are we to nuclear annihilation? I'd say very.

The war in Europe is creeping beyond Ukraine, and there are growing calls for Ukraine to attack and march to Moscow, burn the Kremlin, hang Putin, blah, blah, blah. It's not likely, but war-fever does strange things to people, and there is some intense war-fever among certain political interests. Ukraine and Zelensky are way over the edge. Bloodlust seems to be their sole animating force these days.

As they say, this can't end well.

We live considerably farther from likely targets now, so there's that, but the prevailing winds will still blow, and we are still downwind. Oh well!

No is no perceptible anti-war/anti-nuke movement today. I think people are just weary of... everything. The pandemic, increasing precarity, inflation, war and rumors of war, climate catastrophe. There seems no end to it all, and no escape either. 

So what's to be done? 

I've said that the nuclear trigger won't necessarily be pulled by either the US and Nato or by Russia. There are other nuclear players in the world, and some of them are getting antsy. If, say, Israel or North Korea (among other players) decide the time is ripe to rock and roll with nukes, how will the major players respond? 

We think of ourselves as the center of the Universe, but things can happen at the margins (the butterfly effect) that can change everything in a twinkling. The US and Nato are playing with fire and gasoline in their proxy war with Russia in the Ukraine, but something might well happen elsewhere that could trigger a global war of annihilation that would actually result in a longed for (by some) population drop. And then...?

This roller coaster ride we've been on may be nearing the end. 

So What's Next?

Wow. I've been going through some of the hundreds of reports and posts I wrote during Occupy -- a decade ago now -- and... wow.

It was a nascent revolution that... fizzled out. Not meant to be? With all the talk about co-opting and infiltration of Movements these days, it is glaringly obvious that Occupy was partially co-opted and heavily infiltrated by informants during its brief lifetime in the public square. In the end it was brutally crushed and dispersed by a nationwide coordinated police action that resulted in thousands of arrests and hundreds injured.

I reported on some of what I witnessed, including the presence of obvious provocateurs, instigators and informers. I also saw public officials openly manipulating the encampments for their own political purposes, police experimenting with new and improved crowd control tactics (it was a game to them), and political party operatives trying to "guide" actions on their own behalf.

It was fascinating and stomach churning to watch. Not so much fun to participate in. 

And I saw and reported on one Occupy encampment after another disintegrate into squabbling factions almost always due to two things: unfamiliarity with anarchist and intentional community principles and practices, and the presence, sometimes by invitation, of mentally disturbed loudmouths who were almost inevitably allowed to take over.

While the public face of Occupy disintegrated and dispersed, the underlying energy has only grown stronger, and we've seen it manifested in a proliferation of intentional communities, many set up as quasi-independent associations for self-sufficiency and sustainability. The anarchist form of governance is still very alien to the US, and black bloc and diversity of tactics scares a lot of people. 

What I saw was that an anarchist intentional community-- as most of the Occupy encampments were set up to be -- is almost impossible to sustain among strangers. It's far too intimate a situation and responsibility for strangers to undertake with one another suddenly. That's how Occupy was organized, and in essence, the encampments were designed to fail. And they did. The brutal destruction and dispersal of the Occupy encampments wasn't necessary from an organizational standpoint, but it seemed to please the Powers That Be immensely.

The millions of people who participated in the Occupy movement in 2011 were followed by many more millions who marched and protested and assembled in the United States and all over the world on behalf of causes like stopping wars, gun control, women's rights, an end to police violence, protecting the environment and so on. Millions have taken to the streets, encampment tactics have been widely adopted, governments have been overthrown, and yet...

What has changed for the better?

A global rightist/fascist reaction has set in. Trumpism is fully a part of it. But it is by no means limited to Trump and his ilk; it's very wide-spread, heavily funded by the billionaires, and so far, it's been successful in taking over governments and largely suppressing dissent. 

From appearances, it aims for permanent dominance.

Barring the unforeseen, it will achieve that within short order. 

There is no vigorous, strenuous and determined counter-movement, let alone a more than flaccid Socialist or Communist ideological movement. 

So what's next?

I don't know. Every time I ponder what might be, I face a blank wall.