Sunday, April 1, 2018

Welcome the Hot New Cold War Arms Race Era: Trump-Bolton vs. The World

                               
Heading for the starting blocks  


My Introduction: We, the U.S. and other global powers: Russia, China, Iran, and collectively, the EU and other wealthy nations are on the road to the end of time = Apocalypse and Armageddon here we come – “Cold War” is out – Welcome to the “Hot War” era getting fresh nuclear fuel and cranking into high gear. 

Cite: Recent world events here at home, in Russian, Syria, Iran, China, and North Korea.

Sample below from this article from the Daily Beast: New arms race between the U.S. and Russia with North Korea now being a side dish player and of course a new war hawk who is now close to Trump – John Bolton – whose philosophy on nukes and war is clear *with a little of my editing to make it fit the blog format – the overall content is not changed however:

Bolton believes in weapons and war over diplomacy – and coercion over negotiation whether it’s being pro-missile defense, pro-regime change, or anti-UN, his record has been consistent: hardline militarily and not much else.

Background from then until now: Bolton was Bush’s Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and in that capacity was the principal advocate for tearing up the ABM Treaty — and, then later as our envoy to Moscow over the arrangement, was the one who ripped it up right in the Kremlin’s face.

“When he and we cancelled that ABM Treaty, we did two things” (says Jim Walsh, a nuclear-strategy scholar at MIT): “We embarrassed Russia, we left them hanging. That’s a psychological effect, but there was also a direct consequence for their national security: If we build a missile defense, the only way they can respond is to build new missiles. That’s why we had an ABM Treaty in the first place, because we knew missile defense leads to arms races and creates strategic instability.”

Now Bolton has been elevated to being Trump’ NSC adviser and thus and rightly so, much is been made of his bellicose statements toward North Korea and Iran, his continued defense of the disastrous Iraq War, and his much-vocalized contempt for arms-reduction agreements, particularly the 2015 Iran deal. 

Far less attention has gone to his role in getting rid of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty — a footnote buried in the accumulated foreign-policy wreckage of the Bush administration, but one bitterly remembered in Moscow, where it contributed to the present reemergence of U.S.-Russia antagonism.

Now today we hear Putin announce he has a new ICBM codename: “Satan 2” that Putin professes is able to evade anything and strike anywhere, and anytime. Putin did so, but was not responding to anything Trump or even Obama had done.

In his eyes, he was reliving a decade and a half earlier when Bush and his administration threw away that ABM Treaty. Recall that Putin recently said to Megan Kelly in his TV interview: “If you were to speak about ‘arms race, then an arms race began at exactly the time and moment when the U.S. opted out of the Anti-Missile Treaty.”

Continue this fine article here – it is worth read:

My 2 Cents: As I said – here were now and yes Bolton is at the center again and hawk that he is, he fits right where Trump wants him – close by between Fox and Fiends and twitter.

If you thought Bannon and others around Trump who are now gone were awful to bad or just plain terrible, well, think again, they can’t hold a candle to Bolton. He is a horrible choice where Trump has placed him to head the NSC.

Time will prove me and others right, so stay tuned – it’s gonna get real ugly real fast.

Thanks for stopping by. 

 




No comments: