US arms control negotiator Marshall Billingslea, far from focusing on avoiding an arms race, saying that the US “sure would like to avoid it” but is also willing to spend Russia and China “into oblivion” to win a nuclear arms race.
“The president has made clear that we have a tried and truce practice here. We know how to win these races and we know how to spend the adversary into oblivion.” This was the go-to US strategy in the Cold War, where the US vastly outpsent the Soviet Union.
With the US scrapping the INF and Open Skies treaties, it seems unlikely to extend New START, making a costly arms race an increasing risk. Since the US vastly outspends everyone on the military, there seems to be an assumption they can win by just keeping up the spending.
Whether that is practical going forward, however, is another matter. With the US engaged in a costly battle with coronavirus, there was already talk the US would have to slash spending, particularly on arms, to deal with the deficit. A huge arms race is just not affordable.
What this means — anyone being US ally will finance it. Their economies will become the batteries fueling the growth of dollar bubble and the lavish military spending. Will they do it willingly is another matter.
Bring US ally is deadly. Taiwan the current poster child. Its flagship chip production industry producing Huawei chips, presently better then Qualcom’s, can be wiped out. Taiwan, being good US friend purchased US equipment for its chip making factories. Ops! That being American equipment in their factories, they will not be allowed to continue making Huawei brand chips!
US has already spent itself into oblivion without a nuke arms race, trillions in debt , Fed bailouts & stimulus checks.
I’d suggest that Marshall become one of our used-to-be-famous one dollar a year men in Government service (Boy! where did those guys disappear to?) to help pay for that crap. We don’t need some jerk making a couple of hundred K$ per year talking expensive nonsense.
Are you suggesting that Trump should take a buck a year instead of donating his entire salary?
Mr. Knapp,
You may choose to believe that the Trump Clan is slaving away serving the American Republic at their own expense, and some may believe as you do – but millions won’t
I don’t choose to believe any such thing of the Trump clan.
Or any of the fairy tales you’ve apparently bought about the Trump clan’s predecessors.
Mr. Knapp, My personal opinion is that the Trump Clan is every bit as corrupt as the Obama Bunch, but can not be as crooked as the Clintons – now there is a pair of true dirt-bags that; hopefully, this country will never allow again to be near to one dime of taxpayer money.
Econ 101; How much must US warmongers borrow from China to spend China and Russia into oblivion?
They first pan to spend UK, France, Germany and Japan into oblivion with their dollar based economies and currencies that are dollar derivatives. And any other country that gets sucked up into process. They, however may be seeing the light except New Yorker, Johnson.
You are funny and also see possible reasoning.
To my surprise, the method was naked the two days in March when NY Fed poured about 1.5 TRILLION to calm markets. With tock market falling — investors globally were in need of cash, and were selling US Treasuries — not because they wanted to, but because they had to. The net result was the demand for cash, and as the instruments were presented for payment, system froze. It is the remedy that stomped me.
Apparently, the trillion or so was used to give credit to banks (Bank if Japan, European Bank, etc), to pay out the seller of Treasuries, and now the banks are owners of US debt. Technically, the banks could turn the Treasuries to US fed, and credit extinguished. But is it? I do not know. Not knowing the outcome is a disadvantage — but I am starting to think that the Fed genuinely believes that the debt is expandable ad infinitem. Otherwise, cannot see how can this work.
Don’t forget Canada…
How could I forget. Canada is already being used for various unsavory operations, even though it costs Canadian economy dearly. Canada gets retribution — and US does not plan to compensate. So far lost a great deal in taking up US quarrels with China, Saudi Arabia, and others.
No worries. Like the porcine Pomp-pay-yo and the Orange One, this guy is talking from the wrong orifice.
On the other hand, we love the idea of the rockets red glare and nukes bursting in air. Sweet Jesus told us to say that 🙁
Except that a few boatloads of Russian sub-launched nukes are worth just as much as the whole US arsenal when it comes to defence. So the sole purpose of the outspending strategy is global Great Game-type dominance. A waste, as it always has been.
And this is the key. Those that plan for defense have clarity of goals. Thus clarity of scientific and technological investments. Great Game-type dominance was always a waste of resources. It wants ALL — thus power of technology for its own sake is sought.
This thinking bankrupted UK in the end even though at one point UK dominated world trade, and the wealth fueled industrial revolution, furthering the trade frenzy. But the temptation to keep others down, using political/military means created the debt twice its GDP already by the end of Napoleonic wars (1815).. The debt was not fully paid off by WWI, and adding to it WWI costs, Germany’s reparations were insufficient. Gains from Ottoman’s dissolution were also not sufficient to sustain UK empire.
And WWII, the last attempt by European powers to rearrange the chessboard, and gain from weak post-revolutionary Russia, ended European centric world — and brought to global scene the new power, US.
Which by all accounts is trying to outdo British Empire, placing faith in new technological advances to succeed at what UK failed. But it will not change outcome — there will not be nor can it be a state of happy global dominance. But the failure can result in a global catastrophe.
It seems that war as a means of economic growth is no longer efficient. Lots of leaders haven’t got the memo.
Back when the UK took over India that stuff paid for itself royally. Today we can’t even take over the most oil rich country in the world and turn a profit.
Absolutely true. East India Company was actually what we would call today a state owned corporation. Even though it was private, State enabled it, and state reaped share of profits. Except that it never trickled down much to the weavers and ironmongers. They also were smart enough to manage the country with very few administrators, preferring not to meddle too much into local affairs of various potentates. What it meant is — India had benefits as well, and utilized its earnings to develop rail and roads. Once the unwise and repressive policies took hold — it was the beginning if the end. We operate from the perspective of enforcer — new societies must be created, gay parades are the litmus test, liberal democracy, liberate women, counter-insurgency tactics, and on and on.
This is a formula for spending money on an army of US and Western NGOs, in Afghanistan alone there were nearly 10,000 various NGO staffers. Not to mention actual US government officials, NATO officials, etc. etc.
I’m fairly certain COVID-19 is a Euro gambit to remake the world. France helped China set up the BSL-4 Lab in Wuhan.
They were falling well behind the U.S. and China, even moreso than China was closing the gap with the U.S..
French imperialism is still a going concern, unlike the British.
I do not get France. It is a going concern, for sure. But it seems it suits US just fine — almost like a wink-nod division of labor. They have successfully shut up any dissenting voices. From right or left. The protests are still going on — so what. Le Pen has been marginalized by scaring away minorities and city-middling-sort, leaving her party boxed in. The manipulation of electoral process is superbe.
As for labs — I wish all labs world wide should be banned, They are mire dangerous than chemical weapons. Let us start with our own Dr. Fauci, and his CDC leadership in “gain of function” labs that restarted operation in 2017. Why would they need to make SARS , MERS and flu viruses MORE lethal? Excuses that they are researching vaccines do not pan out.
France was working with Wuhan lab, then Fauci also contracted with the same lab a research into GOF and paid about 2.5 mil for it. For all that — research into SARS vaccine failed. Chinese published it. Apparently volunteers that received the vaccine — when exposed to SARS virus, ended up with a far more virulent disease then original.
So, if they have used “the gain of function” potency to build vaccine with expectation of stronger immunity — clearly were wrong. Still no vaccine for SARS.
I am wondering if our flu vaccine may be based on same theory — with an unusual flu mortality each year. Do you think we will get the information on the correlation between vaccination and the outrageous flu deaths? Since we know what happened with SARS vaccine and it being trashed — do we know the outcome of flu vaccine?
These labs are catastrophe in the making. But I forgot. We have nobody that represents public interest.
France tapped the U.S. willingly into Vietnam, Libya, and the African Sahel, all areas where French imperialism is or was active. Although eager for battle, none of these ops were in U.S. best interests.
The flu vaccine doesn’t work great, because flus mutate – but slowly enough for a vaccine to keep up with it sometimes.
Coronaviuses are all colds, and we have no cold vaccines because the strains mutate too fast for such a vaccine to work.
Antiviral medications can have the problem of sometimes causing the virus to mutate and migrate just before its destroyed, but at least they seem to work consistently over vaccinations.
SARS was over before the vaccine could be finished; this time steps are being taken to ‘flatten the curve’ – or lengthen the pandemic.
A very dangerous thing to be doing, for sure, whether the virus is natural or tweaked.
France, cone ti think of it, was in Rwanda, and if I remember correctly, we had camps in Uganda consisting of Tutsi militia and Ugandan mercenaries.
Just a few weeks ago, France was talking to Syrian Kurds. What a sad picture — former colonial ruler of Syria talking to the nationality that was privileged during colonial administration. Just stirring the pot.
As for vaccines — I am not holding by breath. I have never taken flu vaccine — even as my doctor berates incessantly. It is a lots of vaccinating for not much protection. And vaccines still have weird preservatives.
I have ZERO understanding why anywhere in the West the number one rule of epidemics — containment — has not been implemented. And instead of containment areas, testing within and without — we have basically invited virus to travel far and wide. And to the extent that we do test, what is the purpose — since we are not quarantining the infected.
Flattening the curve is a monstrous method — even if we discount the future implications. In NY flattening has been achieved by delaying hospitalization, resulting in more deaths at home, by placing responsibility for resuscitations on ambulances, by neglecting contact TESTING. I do not care how are cases tracked — if even the most OBVIOUS contacts were not tested.
No containment, no quarantine, no contact TESTING, no treatment, push back on hospitalization. So, let us see how will this work. States are reopening. If infections flare up — but there is no reporting, do they actually exists?
Prolonging the epidemics does not bode well for economy and will allow for increased mingling of population that will bring virus home to the more vulnerable. Not implementing containment and quarantine may have been cheaper solution — but it may cost us more in lives and treasure in the long run.
People with the virus or officially suspected of carrying are supposed to be quarantined. Anyone coming in from abroad has to quarantine.
Usually its only the confirmed sick and vulnerable that are supposed to be quarantined, not the healthy.
Laws vary so much its hard to give a general answer but what is consistent is harsh penalties including high fines in the thousands of dollars and jail time could result from breaking a bureaucrat’s control-freak rule.
Then some jurisdictions wonder why its so hard to get people to volunteer to be tested… well, given that steep fines and jail terms could result, no thinking person would want to be tested if they’re out and about and doing fine.
France has never forgotten its piece of the Ottoman pie, Syria and Lebanon, allotted to them under Sykes-Picot during WWI.
The U.S. in Syria is again, an intervention into another former French imperial possession, even if the trail looks a few steps removed from France.
The French are better at The Great Game than most could imagine, though not necessarily as expert as their ambitions demand.
https://resources.saylor.org/wwwresources/archived/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/French-Mandate-of-Syria-and-Lebanon.pdf
Yup, we’ll borrow the money to outspend them on nukes. Hallelujah!
… Yup. Can’t foreclose on a nuclear power…
“US will spend Russia and China into oblivion”
More likely the US will spend themselves into oblivion or force US taxpayers into starvation by spending billions of dollars on nuclear arms – to what purpose?
The major nuclear powers already posses weapons to blow our world to oblivion many times over as it is What can we use the extra weapons for? We can not rebuild the world and blow it up again.
These morons actually live in fictional world, and think science fiction is real. Or they can just snap their superior fingers to make it real.
But they do live very well, and ell provided for.
Of course they do. Vast majority live as financial system privileged entities. Product is irrelevant. Money is the only product that counts.
it’s all that matters. we control the world’s money supply.
Corporatists believe their own propaganda and make investments on that propaganda based thinking.
That is what is fascinating — they do believe in their version of reality. And the propaganda reality once set in motion, becomes our reality.
we need to get the leftover nukes into all 80 of our military bases that are nuke fitted which we have imposed on the world for our protection mainly. spreading the wealth so to speak.
What century do you mentally live in?
The US has 800+ military bases around the world….not 80.
720 of them are not nuclear equipped.
Why don’t these stupids ever show up with the threats of outspending enemies into sickness to win the health care delivery ?
Many nations do, not as a competition, as a common sense thing to do.
This from a nation that has a national debt over 100% of GDP! The only ones to benefit from this craziness in the Military Industrial Complex.
Terms like National Debt and GDP are propaganda devices. You can’t realistically discuss such matters without solid definitions.
Two assumed truths here that fail the reality test. 1) the purpose of the US government is to compete with other nations. I guess some people just can’t grasp cooperation, or even live and let live. The default “compete” doctrine is essentially the two year old “if I see it its mine” thought process.
2) the USSR did not collapse because the US outspent them on arms, or because raygun bloviated at a wall.
The guy is just advertising himself as a current and future business agent for the nuke industry. He’ll leave govt, offer GE his resume, and receive his well-earned sinecure. This is a personal career promotion not a public policy pronouncement. Move right along, nothing to see here.
China won’t race. It has an entirely different nuclear policy, and always has.
China’s policy is sufficiency for a second strike.
The Soviets and Americans had fantasies of war winning first strikes. China never imagined that. The Soviets and Americans never attained it either. It may be impossible at any size, which was in fact the Chinese evaluation of the very idea of a nuclear race.
So the US can spend a lot of money on nuclear arms, and make its arms complex happy. It can’t gain what it seeks even if China won’t race, and China has always known that and acted accordingly.
China has only 270 nukes; the temptation to strike first may eventually become overwhelming as improvements in delivery systems limit a small-arsenal adversary’s capacity for a second strike.
The reason nuclear war was once unthinkable was the hundreds of Cold War nukes, each averaging 20x Hiroshima, needed to disarm the U.S. or Russia already kills the planet before a retaliatory strike is even factored in.
At the time, ~300 nukes was deterrence for a middle power operating under a U.S. or Soviet nuclear umbrella.
Am I reliving the Reagan nightmare? Is this really what we should be doing during COVID?
COVID-19 is the perfect opportunity to impose dystopia.
The risk is thinking the world is entering a re-run of the Cold War: such illusion is the dangerous repetition of history. Mankind is certainly facing “into oblivion”.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Oblivion surrounds us.
US is stuck in Cold War thinking; Plan to spend Russia & China ‘into oblivion’ in arms race will bankrupt only America
By Scott Ritter, a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer. He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/489541-arms-race-oblivin-us-spend/
Sure we can outspend Russia, but can we outspend China? They seem to get much better value for their defense dollar. Cheap Chinese Weapons, and their economy is about as large as ours. This plane sounds like it is going to backfire.
They are replaying the Cold War in their heads only they don’t realize that the US is going to play the part of the Soviet Union this time around.
On the bright side, the Made in China nuke is more likely to miss.
On the other hand, the U.S. missiles probably use imported Chinese metals and parts…
With nukes you can compensate for inaccuracy with yield. Bigger bombs farther away the same as smaller bombs closer to the target.
Also if the Chinese adopt a “vengeance” strategy you don’t need to be that accurate. You just have to be able to hit somewhere in the city. If they try to adopt a “winning” strategy then you need to be super accurate to destroy US missiles in their hardened silos.
My TAXES !!!
When we are led by morons that’s what we end up with — a devastated economy, a culture of lies, a land flooded with foreigners and . . . a nuclear so help me arms race.
The US is not doing well.
https://sputniknews.com/military/202005261079421467-pentagon-lockheed-martin-tone-down-f-35-stealth-coatings-bubbling-and-blistering-issue/
The Russians and the Chinese love the oblivion, cause that’s where they pick up corpses.