War and Peace

The Nuclear Posture Review and the New Arms Race

POSTED 2/1/2018

“Nuclear weapons are indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction with no place in civilised international relations. The United States should endeavour to strengthen the taboo against the use of nuclear weapons, not seek to undermine it.” - Beatrice Fihn, Executive Director of International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Trump's Military Parade

The Washington Post broke the story yesterday.  This is something you might believe would happen in an authoritarian dictatorship, not in a democracy.  Tanks in the streets of Washington?  Flyovers by fighter jets?  Goose-stepping down Pennsylvania Avenue?  The Pentagon is seriously considering this insanity.  Given the obscenely bloated military budget, I'm sure they can find some money for the parade.   - RJC, 2/7/2018

Win Without War denounced #TrumpParade ("The reality is that this needless effort to stoke Donald Trump’s fragile ego will only reinforce the notion that America’s foreign policy is military first (and second, third, and fourth) — particularly at a time when diplomacy is needed most. ") 

...and has a petition urging D.C.'s mayor to "use your position as mayor of our nation's capital to prevent President Trump from holding his dangerous war parade in your city."

Taking War Off Its Pedestal (TomDispatch.com)

POSTED 2/12/2018

America's Endless Wars - Andrew Bacevich's Questions for the New York Times

POSTED 3/22/2018

I've long thought corporate media coverage of wars and foreign policy issues inadequate or wrong-headed. Who can forget the excited, helmeted journalists "embedded" with the troops invading Iraq in the most disastrous US blunder since Vietnam? And who can forget the role the New York Times (and to be fair, other news outlets) played in legitimizing the march to war on "intelligence" from Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi and neo-cons in the Administration?   The effects of the destabilization of the Middle East caused by the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (the so-called "war on terror") will be with us for many more years. ISIS may not be the last jihadist group to rise from the mess we made.  

So as we stumble along in our unending wars, TomDispatch contributor Andrew Bacevich considers America's wars and asks six questions of the "paper of record." - RJC, 3/22/2018

Bacevich summarizes the status of America's current military engagements  - in Afghanistan ("over 6,000 days after it began, America’s war in Afghanistan continues"); in Syria's civil war (the ever-shifting cast of belligerents now includes at least 2,000 US. special operators, the rationale for their presence changing from week to week, even as plans to keep U.S. troops in Syria indefinitely take shape; in Iraq ("now liberated from ISIS, itself a byproduct of U.S. invasion and occupation, U.S. troops are now poised to stay on, more or less as they did in West Germany in 1945 and in South Korea after 1953"); on the Arabian Peninsula (where U.S. forces have partnered with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud in brutalizing Yemen, thereby creating a vast humanitarian disaster);  in Libya; in Somalia.  

He writes, "Elsewhere in Africa, the U.S. military footprint is rapidly expanding, all but devoid of [congressional oversight, and] from the Levant to South Asia, a flood of American-manufactured weaponry continues to flow unabated...with little evidence that the arms we sell or give away are contributing to regional peace and stability...

"Amid this endless spiral of undeclared American wars and conflicts, Congress stands by passively, only rousing itself as needed to appropriate money that ensures the unimpeded continuation of all of the above...Meanwhile, President Trump, though assessing all of this military hyperactivity as misbegotten -- “Seven trillion dollars. What a mistake.” -- is effectively perpetuating and even ramping up the policies pioneered by his predecessors...

"When it comes to recent American wars, the Times offers coverage without perspective. 'All the news' is shallow and redundant. Lots of dots, few connections."  Bacevich continues: "Crudely put, the central question that goes not only unanswered but unasked is this: What the hell is going on? Allow me to deconstruct that in ways that might resonate with Times correspondents:

• What exactly should we call the enterprise in which U.S. forces have been engaged all these years? ...The paper of record should insist that whatever it is the troops out there may be doing, their exertions ought to have a descriptive name.

• What is our overall objective in waging that no-name war?  ...Without a readily identifiable objective, how will anyone know when to raise that “Mission Accomplished” banner (again) and let the troops come home?

• By extension, what exactly is the strategy for bringing our no-name war to a successful conclusion? 

• Roughly speaking, in what year, decade, or century might this war end?  

• What can we expect the no-name war to cost?  Although the president’s estimate of $7 trillion may be a trifle premature, it’s not wrong. It may even end up being on the low side.  

• Finally, what are the implications of saddling future generations with this financial burden?  With the sole exception of the very brief Gulf War of 1990-1991, the no-name war is the only substantial armed conflict in American history where the generation in whose name it was waged resolutely refused to pay for it."

"Democracy Now!" May 18, 2018 Interview with Daniel Ellsberg

Whistleblowing Needed to Avert Catastrophic Wars

The Catonsville Nine, 50 Years Later

POSTED 5/18/2018

As Trump and his war cabinet bluster and blunder around the world stage, the real threat of the use of nuclear weapons against Iran and North Korea looms over us.  Trump has played the Nixon madman card ("I'm so crazy you can't tell what I will do") but is he really just playing it? Or is he unstable enough to attack these countries with nuclear weapons?  Following his unilateral violation of the JCPOA, can Trump be egged on to attack Iran?  Israel's far-right government and Iran's Sunni rivals on the Arabian peninsula would like nothing more than to draw the US into a war that destroys Iran and further destabilizes the Middle East.  And then there are ultra-Iran hawks Pompeo and Bolton, recently appointed to positions of power.  These are advisers who enable Trump's worst instincts, and his belligerence against other nations is the worst of the worst. 

Maybe we need another peace movement to protest, and hopefully stop, the march towards war.  Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the Catonsville Nine.  Their protest against the lies and deaths of the Vietnam War was a spark setting off anti-war protests across the country.  

On May 17, 1968, in protest against the Vietnam War, nine Catholic activists burned the draft records at the Selective Service offices in the Baltimore suburb of Catonsville, Maryland.  "They had gone into the local draft board office and taken 378 draft records, for the young men in the 1-A category who were most likely to get drafted to go to war in Vietnam. They set fire to the draft records using homemade napalm, made from gasoline and laundry soap, to symbolize the U.S. military’s use of napalm on Vietnamese civilians. Six weeks earlier, on April 4, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Robert F. Kennedy’s killing would follow not long after. The war was raging, with no end in sight, and these nine, including two brothers, Dan and Phil Berrigan, both Catholic priests, were engaging in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience to oppose it. The Catonsville Nine patiently waited until the Baltimore County police arrived to arrest them. The fire was put out, but this bold action was a spark, inspiring similar protests around the country, fueling the anti-war movement." (Democracy Now!, May 17)

The war would continue for almost 7 more years, ending only after Richard Nixon had been driven from office for the Watergate crimes.  The Peace Movement is virtually non-existent today, even though as The Nation points out, "Antiwar sentiment remains among the most potent forces in our politics. It was pivotal to Barack Obama’s election in 2008, and his two terms in office brought major victories for those who have spent decades organizing for a demilitarized foreign policy—most notably the nuclear deal with Iran and the establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba." 

So how can a peace movement be reborn in the 21st century? Daniel May at The Nation believes we need to merge social justice and anti-war activism.  May advises: "Such an effort will require that some of the younger leaders coming up in contemporary justice movements make the struggle against militarism central to their program, not just their analysis. Those organizers who make this their life’s labor will find ways of exposing the cost and waste of imperialism, organizing against those who profit from it, and offering a clear choice between global military expansion and a democracy that serves its citizens."

The TomDispatch website is a good place to start understanding the extent of the militarization of our foreign policy.  As noted in the embedded link above, its mission is "connecting some of the global dots regularly left unconnected and offering a clearer sense of how this imperial globe of ours actually works."  

Today, I added another embedded link above - this one is to the home page of Waging Non Violence.  There's an excellent article remembering the Catonsville Nine on the occasion of the unveiling of the memorial marker celebrating their action.

Remembering the Fallen

POSTED 5/28/2018

Today, the last Monday in May, is Memorial Day here in the United States. It's a day set aside to remember those Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice.  As we remember them, we should also pause to remember the devastating toll that war has taken on all the peoples of the world - military and civilian alike. 

Trump threatens to pull out of INF treaty, could spark new nuclear arms race

POSTED OCTOBER 22, 2018

"President Trump has announced plans to pull the United States out of a landmark nuclear arms pact with Russia, in a move that could spark a new arms race. President Ronald Reagan and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987. The INF banned all nuclear and non-nuclear missiles with short and medium ranges. The treaty helped to eliminate thousands of land-based missiles. On Saturday, Trump vowed to build new nuclear weapons." (Democracy Now!, Oct 22)

Armistice Day

"Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first." - Charles De Gaulle

POSTED NOV 9, 2018/UPDATED NOV 12

Trump's Nuclear Weapons

POSTED FEBRUARY 22, 2019

A disturbing nuclear proliferation and potential war scenario is playing itself out in the administration of Donald Trump.  Consider the following:

Trump proposed "usable" nuclear weapons for the US arsenal in the Administration's Nuclear Posture Review in February, 2018.   Last month, a new low-yield nuclear warhead "officially entered production" (Defense Times, Jan 28, 2019). 

Earlier this month, Trump withdrew from the INF (Intermediate Nuclear Force) treaty* with Russia claiming they were violating the agreement.  Russia denies that the weapons in question violate the treaty, and in a tit-for-tat move, also will withdraw from the treaty.  Will it spark a new nuclear arms race?  Perhaps. But a treaty whose ending would pose an even more serious threat is up for renewal in 2021, and"neither the Trump nor Pompeo gave any indication whether the administration would agree to extend the 2010 New Start treaty, the last remaining arms control agreement constraining the arsenals of the two major nuclear weapons powers.  Both the US and Russia have abided by the New Start limit of 1,550 deployed, strategic nuclear warheads, but the treaty expires in 2021, leaving little time to negotiate a five-year extension."

And then there's Iran and Saudi Arabia.  

Last year, Trump unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA and, in violation of that agreement, reinstated sanctions on Iran, which remains in full compliance.  This week, someone in Trump's neocon war cabinet falsely claimed that Iran has ties to Al-Qaeda, apparently attempting to lay the legal groundwork for an attack.  

As retired congressman Dr. Ron Paul explains on his blog: "In an astonishing Washington Times article this week, unnamed Trump Administration officials (who may or may not be called “John Bolton”) are claiming that Iran, which has been battling al-Qaeda in Syria for nearly four years, is actually secretly allied with al-Qaeda and therefore Iran can be attacked with no further Congressional authorization. Are we seeing the old 'babies thrown from incubators' lies resurrected to gin up a war with Iran?"  

There is apparently no limit to the extent of the lies that the neocons who brought us the Iraq War will tell.  Is the American public so ignorant (and Congress, so cowardly and/or partisan) to still believe them?

As for Saudi Arabia, Iran's rival in the Middle East, MSNBC reports that "whistleblowers from within President Donald Trump’s National Security Council have told a congressional committee that efforts by former national security adviser Michael Flynn to transfer sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia may have violated the law, and investigators fear Trump is still considering it." (MSNBC, Feb 20)

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) told Rachel Maddow that other members of Team Trump, including Jared Kushner, who has his own Saudi ties, 'basically took it upon themselves to continue with this plan' after Flynn left the Administration.  The list of laws the administration may have broken isn’t short. Among the areas of concern are possible violations of the Atomic Energy Act, conflict-of-interest rules, and disclosure requirements for security clearances. The House Oversight Committee has formally opened an investigation into the matter, releasing an interim staff report that adds new details to previous public accounts of how Flynn sought to push through the nuclear proposal on behalf of a group he had once advised. Tom Barrack, a prominent Trump backer with business ties to the Middle East, also became involved in the project, the report says."

Juan Cole at Informed Comment spells out the dastardliness and implications of the plot: "The House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Reform has issued a report on a plot to make billions of dollars by selling Saudi Arabia sensitive American nuclear technology that could allow the Kingdom to develop nuclear weapons. The scheme required breaking US law, which forbids technology transfers that might allow nuclear proliferation."

Democrats have proposed legislation that would bar the US from a first use of nuclear weapons (Sen. Warren/Rep. A. Smith) and would prevent the President from using nuclear weapons without the approval of Congress (Sen. Markey/ Rep. Lieu).  Neither bill stands a chance of withstanding a Trump veto even if it does pass the House and Senate.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists left their Doomsday Clock at 2 minutes to midnight this year.  Perhaps they should reconsider.

*This landmark treaty from 1987 "required the United States and the Soviet Union to eliminate and permanently forswear all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. The treaty marked the first time the superpowers had agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals, eliminate an entire category of nuclear weapons, and utilize extensive on-site inspections for verification. As a result of the INF Treaty, the United States and the Soviet Union destroyed a total of 2,692 short-, medium-, and intermediate-range missiles by the treaty's implementation deadline of June 1, 1991." (Arms Control Association)

Pentagon war-fighting doctrine: nuclear weapons could ‘create conditions for decisive results’ 

POSTED JUNE 20, 2019

Trump's "usable nuclear weapons" appear to have moved us a step closer towards a 21st century Armageddon.

Arms control experts expressed alarm at a Nuclear Operations document published on June 11 by Pentagon.  “Using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability,” the joint chiefs’ document says. “Specifically, the use of a nuclear weapon will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and create conditions that affect how commanders will prevail in conflict.”  The document quotes controversial cold war theorist Herman Kahn who argued that a nuclear war could be "winnable" and is reported to have provided part of the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr Strangelove. (The Guardian, June 19) 

The Guardian notes that "the doctrine has been published in the wake of the Trump administration’s withdrawal from two nuclear agreements: the 2015 joint comprehensive programme of action with Iran, and the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty with Russia." 

Alexandra Bell, a former state department arms control official said: “This seems to be another instance of this administration being both tone-deaf and disorganised.” Bell, now senior policy director at the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, added: “Posting a document about nuclear operations and then promptly deleting it shows a lack of messaging discipline and a lack of strategy. Further, at a time of rising nuclear tensions, casually postulating about the potential upsides of a nuclear attack is obtuse in the extreme.” (The Guardian, June 19)

Defund the Military

POSTED JULY 1, 2020 / updated JULY 2

As happens every year, the National Defense Authorization Act is quietly making its way through Congress.  This year's bipartisan exercise in misplaced priorities is on the order of $740 billion, though the actual figure is much higher than that (sidebar below).  The coronavirus has laid bare the true domestic cost of the decades of wasteful and unnecessary military spending.   One of the first actions that any administration can take if it's interested in a 21st century economically just (and healthy) United States is to cut the defense budget, which is larger than the next ten countries combined.  

Beyond that of course is the toll in lives - both our own and those of others - that American militarism has caused.  During my lifetime, there has not been a single US war or military action that meets even the standards of the medieval "just war."  In addition to the lives lost, there are the war crimes and human rights violations occasioned by our military misadventures - from the My Lai massacre of 1968 to the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse of 2003-2004 to the drone strike murder of Iran's Qassem Soleimani earlier this year.  

To starve the beast of American imperialism, to end its forever wars and to rejoin the world community in respecting international law, we must first starve the beast of militarism.  

The Bomb: Hiroshima at 75 and the End of Arms Control As We Know It

POSTED AUGUST 6, 2020

Seventy-five years ago today, in the greatest single act of terrorism the world has ever seen, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.  The explosion immediately killed an estimated 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. [1]  

The true totals of deaths and injuries caused by the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan will never be known. The destruction and overwhelming chaos that followed the bombing made orderly counting impossible. [2] 

In August 1945, the US unleashed a new and ultimate weapon of mass destruction on the world and, in so doing, sowed the seeds of mistrust in the Soviet Union, our ally in the fight against fascism.  That mistrust would lead to the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, and the bizarre theory of Mutually Assured Destruction.  Now the last of the remaining agreements that have held those weapons in check is about to expire.

Armistice Day

POSTED NOVEMBER 11, 2020

"The First World War, boys,

It came and it went

The reason for fighting

I never did get"

- Bob Dylan, "With God on Our Side"

During the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, an armistice was signed between Germany and the Allied Powers that put an end to fighting on the western front in the Great War. 

The Great War/World War I was one of the most inexplicable and horrific wars in history.  Bob Dylan is not alone in wondering why an assassination in Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist grew into the greatest global conflict the world had yet seen. 

By the time it was over in 1918, "The Great War" claimed more than 16 million lives, including 7 million civilians. The trenches, machine guns, chemical weapons, and the use of airplanes made this war different - more horrific and more deadly than previous wars. The Treaty of Versailles, by severely punishing the Germans as if they were solely responsible for the war, laid the grounds for the rise of Hitler and World War II, with its even greater death toll.  The "war to end all wars" did no such thing. 

Is there an answer?

In the United States, Armistice Day is commemorated now as Veterans Day - a day to remember the sacrifices of the men and women sent to fight and die in wars.  As we remember veterans, we should also continue the struggle against the notions that violence is a viable solution and that war is a means of achieving peace.  War and violence are not ingrained indelibly in human nature. We must continue to believe in the transformative power of nonviolent action and work against the underlying causes of war - the "interwoven systems of domination and exploitation at the roots of inequality and injustice."  

"History tells us that the absence of war is not the presence of peace. We have seen time and time again that violence does not end when you put down the gun, that war is not over when you declare a ceasefire. We understand that there are interwoven systems of domination and exploitation at the roots of inequality and injustice, and that to 'remove all causes of war' we must collaborate and stand in solidarity with oppressed people across the globe."  

- War Resisters League Statement of Purpose

"I wonder how foreign policies would look if we ...thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never...wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children."

- Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States

The costs of American imperialism 

POSTED SEPTEMBER 3, 2021

Addressing the nation on the final troop withdrawal and evacuation of Afghanistan,  President Joe Biden declared an end to the neocon forever wars and "nation building":  "This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries.” [link below left] 

Conveniently neglecting the role they played in starting America's forever wars, Republicans and the conservative media are fulminating about the chaos in Kabul.  Their hypocritical, political point-scoring is reprehensible.  Biden did the right thing.  

The media frenzy over the withdrawal and their anger over Biden's refusal to restart the war shows how deeply they have bought into the American imperialist venture.  This "imperial pride" creates problems. Notably it obscures what the empire is really doing and takes attention and moneys away from desperately needed social programs and the fight against threats like the pandemic and climate change. [link below right]

The neocon's forever wars, which started with the invasion of Afghanistan, are the greatest foreign policy blunder since Vietnam.  

Note: *That's the official budget number, the actual total annual spend on the national-security state is over $1 trillion.

The costs of American militarism: the lost peace dividend

POSTED OCTOBER 4, 2021/UPDATED OCT 5

After rejecting legislation to cut the defense budget by 10%, the House of Representatives passed a $778 billion defense policy bill for fiscal year 2022. That’s nearly $25 billion more than the amount requested by President Biden and the Pentagon itself.  The increase was approved when 14 House Armed Services Committee Democrats in vulnerable seats or with national security backgrounds sided with a Republican amendment during the committee’s consideration of the bill.  Once again Democrats were cowed by Republicans into voting for the bill for fear of being called "weak on defense,"  this year's version of the charge being "soft on China".  

The final vote was 316-113 with just 38 Democrats opposing the bill.*  United States' military expenditures are 39% of the world's total, more than the next highest 11 countries combined, and three times that of China whose population is four times that of the United States.   

So once again, our representatives have mistaken defense spending as a sign of patriotism.  What makes America great is not the size of its armed forces.  What makes America great is the power of its highest democratic ideals and values.  Spending excessive money on unnecessary weapons and defense systems takes funding from real problems both domestic (a lack of universal health care, for example) and global (such as climate change and the pandemic).

Notes: 

*An earlier version of this post did not acknowledge the 75 Republicans who voted against the bill.

**That's the official budget number, the actual total annual spend on the national-security state is over $1 trillion.

Sources: The Hill, CODEPINK, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, National Center for Education Statistics, federalsafetynet.com, Journalists Resource, Value Penguin (Lending Tree), Statistics and Data, Health Markets, Policy Advice, World Population Review, Tom Dispatch

Live up to our highest democratic ideals: the alternative to imperialism and militarism

POSTED OCTOBER 20, 2021

On April 3, 1968, the day before his assassination, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his last speech, popularly known as "I've Been to the Mountaintop." King was in Memphis as part of his "Poor Peoples' Campaign" in support of a strike by African-American sanitation workers, who had staged a walkout to protest working conditions and unequal wages.  He called for unity, economic actions, boycotts, and nonviolent protest, while challenging the United States to live up to its ideals: "All we say to America is 'Be true to what you said on paper'." 

Although MLK was primarily referring to the situation at home, his words are eminently applicable to US foreign policy.  America's greatness lies in its values and democratic ideals, and our values should not stop at our borders.  When political leaders champion a distorted view of American exceptionalism, such as the neocon "Project for a New American Century", when they confuse capitalism with democracy, the United States engages in military and imperialistic ventures at odds with our true values.  The devastation we wreak on the rest of the human race and the opportunities we lose here at home are enormous.

The costs of American imperialism - Sep 3

The costs of American militarism: the lost peace dividend - Oct 4

Martin Luther King's legacy of non-violence in the area of civil rights is remembered to this day.  What is often forgotten is his vehement opposition to the Vietnam War and US militarism.   Exactly one year before his death, he delivered an impassioned condemnation of militarism at Riverside Church in New York City.  In that speech, King called the US government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today", as well as the leading exponent of "the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long."  

King recognized that the Vietnam War was "a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit." He insisted that no significant social problem - wealth inequality, gun violence, racial strife - could be resolved while the US remains "a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift" - a recipe, he said, for certain "spiritual death". For that reason, he argued, "it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war...If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over." [link below left]

King's warning about the poison of militarism went unheeded.  Although directed at the Vietnam War, his words apply equally well to our 21st century forever wars, foreign policy and military tactics.  Because American soldiers are no longer dying in great numbers as they did in Vietnam, it has become easy to forget the deaths we inflict on others.  

Drones and sanctions are two deceptively lethal tools.  

Drones routinely kill civilians.  The US military recently admitted that the August 29 drone supposedly targeting a car-bomber in Afghanistan killed only an extended family of 10  including 7 children.  This was not the first time civilians have been killed in drone strikes under the banner of the war on terror. Studies say as many as tens of thousands of innocent people may have been killed in strikes like these in the last 20 years. [NPR]

Sanctions too are tools of war, and they too kill innocents.  Between 1990 and 1998, an estimated 576,000 Iraqi children died from disease and malnutrition as a result of food and medicine supply shortages caused by the UN sanctions.   More recently, Trump imposed and maintained sanctions on nations even during the pandemic.  Just one example: As the pandemic surged across the world in April of last year, Colombia's largest airline, Avianca, declined to bring 100,000 masks to the Cuban people because a majority-shareholder is a US-based company subject to the trade embargo on Cuba.   Less than one week later, Cuba was denied all future access to two of its most regular suppliers of ventilators.  Both companies announced their parent company told them to end all commercial relations with Cuba. [link below right]

The Cuban embargo and, for the most part, Trump's sanctions on that country and others are still in place.  Biden now owns them.

A "Trump-lite" foreign policy is unacceptable - Jun 3

The Alternative

There is no better place to look for an alternative to US militarism and imperialism than MLK's vision of the Beloved Community.  The Beloved Community is similar to "the kingdom of God" of Christianity - not in the sense of a rapturous future time but in the sense of a goal achievable by a critical mass of committed people across the world.  

The King Center explains the Beloved Community as a "global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth.  In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful conflict-resolution and reconciliation of adversaries, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict." 

The Beloved Community: the philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - May 16, 2020

While he is best known for his non-violent approach to racism and civil rights, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a strong opponent of Vietnam War and vehemently condemned American militarism.  When he was assassinated in Memphis in 1968, he was fighting for better housing, wages, workplace safety and schools for the underprivileged.  King saw more clearly than anyone the relationship between racism, militarism, and poverty - which he considered the three great evils preventing the attainment of the Beloved Community. 

• The relationship between militarism and racism: Nearly all of America's wars, interventions and imperialist actions since WWII have been in non-white countries.  

• The relationship between militarism and poverty: Money spent on the military and wars are not available for defeating poverty and all its associated ills. 

• The relationship between racism and poverty: much of the poverty in the United States is a result of systemic racism.

Where to start

MLK's speech at Riverside Church has a suggestion on how we can start to build the Beloved Community and begin to repair the nation's soul before it becomes totally poisoned:  Listen to those we call enemies.  Understand their arguments.  Don't assume that we have "everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them."  

King noted that "the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence" is that it "helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves."  King explained "from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition."  

Not easy words, but essential if we are ever to put an end to the three great evils of militarism, racism and poverty.

Armistice Day

POSTED NOV 11, 2021

Today, November 11, is Armistice Day, which commemorates the end of the Great War (World War I) on the western front.  During the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, an armistice was signed between Germany and the Allied Powers that put an end to the fighting in one of the most inexplicable and horrific wars in history.  

Why an assassination in Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist grew into the greatest global conflict the world had yet seen is impossible to fathom a century later. 

By the time it was over in 1918, "The Great War" claimed more than 16 million lives, including 7 million civilians. The trenches, machine guns, chemical weapons, and the use of airplanes made this war different - more horrific and more deadly than previous wars. 

The Treaty of Versailles, by severely punishing the Germans as if they were solely responsible for the war, laid the grounds for the rise of Hitler and World War II, with its even greater death toll.  The "war to end all wars" did no such thing.  In the words of journalist, anti-war activist and author Adam Hochschild,  "The first World War in so many ways shaped the 20th century and really remade our world for the worse."

During and after the Great War, Americans opposed to our entry into this senseless war were hounded and prosecuted.  Most notably, Eugene Debs, the five-time Socialist candidate for President was imprisoned and sentenced to serve 10 years for his criticism of America's participation in the war and the military draft.  “The working class have never yet had a voice in declaring war,” Debs had declared. “If war is right, let it be declared by the people – you, who have your lives to lose.” 

The Great War also initiated a period of political repression here in the United States.  In addition to the administration of President Woodrow Wilson — with its 1917 Espionage Act and the even more punishing 1918 Sedition Act — there was a wave of right-wing terrorism that acted as enforcers, especially the militaristic American Protective League and a resurgent Ku Klux Klan, as detailed in a forthcoming book by Adam Hochschild, one of the founders of Mother Jones magazine. [sidebar] 

The costs of war

The great American revisionist historian Howard Zinn once wrote, ""I wonder how foreign policies would look if we...thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never...wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children."  

The 3,000 wars of recorded human history have claimed more than 340,000,000 lives.  Hundreds of millions have been forced to leave their homes.  And still the wars go on.  

-At present, there are at least 47 armed conflicts continuing throughout the world.  

-There are nearly 84 million forcibly displaced persons 

-More than 30 years after the Cold War ended, nine countries still possess more than 13,000 nuclear weapons.

-In 2020, the nations of the world spent almost $2 trillion on their military budgets - in a year when the greatest threat was not other nations but the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 5,000,000 people.  

"History tells us that the absence of war is not the presence of peace. We have seen time and time again that violence does not end when you put down the gun, that war is not over when you declare a ceasefire. We understand that there are interwoven systems of domination and exploitation at the roots of inequality and injustice, and that to 'remove all causes of war' we must collaborate and stand in solidarity with oppressed people across the globe."  

- War Resisters League's Statement of Purpose

Sources: [1] OZY Daily Dose,  [2] TomDispatch, 

Beyond the "American Century": an antidote to the arrogance, failures, and tragedies of US foreign policy 

POSTED SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, died Tuesday.  Gorbachev was instrumental in ending the Cold War and was awarded the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.  During his six years as the Soviet leader, he dismantled the machinery of repression erected by his predecessors, lifted the Iron Curtain that divided East and West, pulled Soviet troops from foreign conflicts, forged disarmament treaties with Cold War enemies, freed political prisoners and ushered in free elections, cracking open the door for states in Eastern Europe to eventually break free of Moscow’s rule.

“The winds of the Cold War are being replaced by the winds of hope,” Gorbachev said in 1988 of the changes then sweeping away the old ways of confrontation.

When the Soviet Union was officially dissolved on December 26, 1991, the world was ready for a new era of cooperation and an end to old antagonisms.  People were speaking of a "peace dividend" as we could now invest our money in programs of social uplift instead of weapons of war.  But think tanks, politicians and defense lobbyists made sure that we never collected that peace dividend.    

Overnight, the United States had become the world's sole superpower.  Instead of using that position as a force for good and fostering international cooperation, we chose to think of the world as a playground for our power, a stage on which we could do whatever we pleased and also tell the other 6 billion inhabitants of the planet what they must do.  

Among the foreign policy think tanks spawned in the aftermath of the Cold War was the neoconservative Project for the New American Century*, which advised that we treat any nation with which we had a disagreement as if it were the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.  It shaped the Republican Party’s foreign policy agenda for years, most notably as the creator of the preventive war doctrine that spurred President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.  The regional destabilization the invasion touched off led directly to the rise of ISIS and further conflict throughout the Middle East.   All told, America's disastrous post 9/11 wars and our efforts at regime change in the region caused 900,000 deaths and 37 million refugees.  Estimates of the indirect deaths ranging from 2,000,000 to 5,000,000, and the destabilization of the Middle East caused by these wars remains with us to this day. 

According to the Military Intervention Project at Tufts University, the United States intervened abroad one hundred and twenty-two times between 1990 and 2017.  And as Brown University’s Costs of War Project has determined, the war on terror has been used to justify operations in almost half the world’s countries.  

Another myth of our interventions, military aid priorities, and economic sanctions since the time of the Cold War is that we are acting in the name of democracy and human rights.  During the Cold War alone, we helped impose regime changes in Iran, Guatemala, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, British Guiana, South Vietnam, Bolivia, Brazil, Panama, Indonesia, Syria, and Chile - nearly all involving the overthrow of a democratically elected leader.  Our support of right-wing dictators in the Western Hemisphere extended beyond military aid in our establishment of the School of the Americas, which became the alma mater of death squads and war criminals throughout Central America.  Today, we are, by far, the world's largest arms dealer.  Our top clients include nations guilty of human rights violations - Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Philippines and Israel to name the most prominent.  We willfully ignore their abuses of human rights and violations of international law while at the same time we impose economic sanctions on regimes whom we have chosen to consider enemies.

Although the Project for the New American Century was a distinctively conservative creation, Democrats and Republicans alike have contributed to the militarism of post Cold War US foreign policy. 

The "national defense" mentality and the mistaken belief that arms could ensure our safety never abated, and today we see Congress considering an obscene and bipartisan $850 billion defense budget for weapons we don't need, that don't keep us safe, and that hopefully we will never use.   

The "us vs them" mentality of the 2oth century Cold War also never abated, and Jeffrey Sachs explains the dangers of this approach in an interview with Democracy Now!. [link below]  Subsiding slightly in the years immediately after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it has come back in force since the rise of China to global superpower status and the Soviet invasion of Ukraine - an invasion that was totally preventable had the US and NATO listened to what Vladimir Putin had been saying for years: “Do not expand NATO into the Black Sea, not to Ukraine, not to Georgia. This will surround us. This will jeopardize our security. Let us have diplomacy.”  In December, as Russian troops poured into the border areas around Ukraine, the Kremlin presented the U.S. with new proposals on joint security issues.  The United States and NATO rejected negotiations, continued to send arms into the region, and now appear ready to fight to the last Ukrainian to "make Russia suffer."  Last week Biden announced an additional $3 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

Overheated rhetoric: Russia, Ukraine and NATO (Jan 21, 2022)

Thinking about the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine (Feb 27, 2022)

Ending Putin's War (Mar 9, 2022)

We have only two choices in Ukraine (Jun 19, 2022)

As for China, the "let's show them we're tough" mentality is making conflict more likely.  We are organizing alliances, building up weaponry, Speaker Pelosi flying to Taiwan.  When the Chinese government said, “Please, lower the temperature, lower the tensions.” We say, “No, we do what we want,” and send more arms.  The White House announced this week that Biden will officially ask Congress for an additional $1.1 billion in arms for Taiwan.

Biden's nuclear flip-flop, the South China Sea, and the coming cold war   (August 12, 2021)

If those responsible for US foreign policy do not change their "us vs them" approach, we will be saddled with out of control military spending - money that could better be spent on healthcare, food programs, the social safety net and the environment - and a world that becomes increasingly more dangerous every year.  A world in which nine nations have nuclear arsenals that can destroy life as we know it is already dangerous enough.  The antidote: we must first admit that the unipolar world of American hegemony enforced by a projection of military power, the "American Century", is over.   The US must take a diplomacy first approach in its negotiations with all countries and look for opportunities for global cooperation.  The existential threats of climate change, pandemic, poverty, and nuclear weapons are global threats and must be addressed by all together.

Daniel Bessner writes in the July issue of Harper's Magazine that there's a debate in the foreign policy establishment as to whether we continue with the failing policies or we move onto a path of international co-operation and military restraint.  The latter group, the "restrainers,"  maintain that 

"the expansive use of the U.S. military has benefited neither the United States nor the world, and that charting a positive course in the twenty-first century requires taking a [complete overhaul] to the principles that have guided U.S. foreign policy since World War II. Restrainers want to reduce the U.S. presence abroad, shrink the defense budget, restore Congress’s constitutional authority to declare war, and ensure that ordinary Americans actually have a say in what their country does abroad."

The restrainers are still in the minority, and it’s an open question whether U.S. foreign policy can transform in a way that fully reflects an understanding of the drawbacks of empire and the benefits of a less violent approach to the world.  Bessner concludes his article by reminding us that, if the American Century demonstrated one thing, it was that

"attempts to rule the world through force will fail. The task for the next hundred years will be to create not an American Century, but a Global Century, in which U.S. power is not only restrained but reduced, and in which every nation is dedicated to solving the problems that threaten us all. As the title of a best-selling book from 1946 declared, before the Cold War precluded any attempts at genuine international cooperation, we will either have 'one world or none.' " **

Notes:

*The term "American Century" was originally coined in 1941 by the publisher Henry Luce.  He laid out a vision for global domination by the US in an article titled "The American Century". By the end of the twentieth century, the United States, a nation founded after one of the first modern anticolonial revolutions, had become a world-spanning empire sustained by what historian Stephen Wertheim called "armed primacy."

**In 1946, just months after atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the scientists who had developed nuclear technology came together to express their concerns and thoughts about the nuclear age they had unleashed through the release of a book, One World or None. The anthology of essays included contributions from Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, and Robert Oppenheimer, among others. One World or None was critically reviewed in The New York Herald Tribune called it  "An illuminating, powerful, threatening and hopeful statement which will clarify a lot of confused thinking about atomic energy.”  Quickly rising to the top of The New York Times bestsellers' list, the book spawned the short film of the same name.

Sources: LA Times, Democracy Now!, Vox, "Empire Burlesque", Daniel Bessner (Harper's Magazine, July 2022), Brown University, Common Dreams, Byline Times, Wikipedia

International Day of Peace 2022

POSTED SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

Each year on the 21st of September, the world celebrates the International Day of Peace.  Around the world at noon local time, in private or in public events, people observe a minute of silence, remembering the 340,000,000 who have died in the more than 3000 wars in recorded human history, the 100 million forcibly displaced persons today, and the victims of ongoing conflicts around the world.  

In 1981, the UN General Assembly voted to establish this as a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace.  Two decades later, in 2001, the General Assembly unanimously voted to designate the Day as a period of non-violence and cease-fire.

This year's theme is: "End racism. Build peace."  Achieving true peace entails much more than laying down arms.  It requires the building of societies where all members feel that they can flourish. It involves creating a world in which people are treated equally, regardless of their race.

As UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said: “Racism continues to poison institutions, social structures, and everyday life in every society. It continues to be a driver of persistent inequality. And it continues to deny people their fundamental human rights. It destabilizes societies, undermines democracies, erodes the legitimacy of governments, and… the linkages between racism and gender inequality are unmistakable.”

This year is also the 20th anniversary of UN resolution 53/243, “Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace." Among the dozen or so items mentioned in that document as integrally linked to the fuller development of a culture of peace:

• Promoting peaceful settlement of conflicts, mutual respect and understanding and international cooperation

• Promoting democracy, development and universal respect for and observance of all human rights and fundamental freedoms

• Eradicating poverty and illiteracy and reducing inequalities within and among nations;

• Eliminating all forms of discrimination against women

• Eliminating all forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance;

• Advancing understanding, tolerance and solidarity among all civilizations, peoples and cultures, including towards ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities

Some reflections on war and its devastating effects: 

The peoples of the world are our brothers and sisters. The children of the world are, therefore, our children. 

"I wonder how foreign policies would look if we thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children."- Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States

Money spent on armaments is not available to address the pressing needs of people, especially the disadvantaged.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." - Pres. Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe (WWII)

Without justice, there is no true peace. We must address, resist, and correct the causes of injustice built into the system. Racism, militarism, and all forms of oppression must be protested and resisted at every turn. 

"We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life.” - A.J. Muste

MLK's Sermon at Riverside Church - A Call For a True Revolution of Values 

No one understood the relationship between war and racism better than Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   No one understood better how that "certain way of life" whose logical outcome was war, must change.  To change that way of life, we need a true revolution of values that opposes those things - racism, militarism, and economic exploitation – that stand in the way of the ideal society, MLK's “Beloved Community".

On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before he was killed, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a powerful sermon at New York City's Riverside Church, "A Time to Break Silence".  In this searing indictment of the Vietnam War, MLK pointed to other universal truths:

• “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are more important than people, the giant triplets of Racism, Militarism, and Economic Exploitation are incapable of being conquered...A true Revolution of Values will soon look uneasily at the glaring contrast between poverty and wealth…and say ‘This is not just.'” 

• "...we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. [...] True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." 

• ”A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of [war] cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

• “A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. 

• “This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing -- embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept...has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man.” 

The link below to the International Day of Peace website has information on the day's history, this year's theme and how to get involved.

The 21st century Cold War: Congress passes the largest military budget in American history

POSTED DECEMBER 16, 2022

Largely unnoticed and unremarked, Congress just passed the largest military budget in US history. Last week, the vast majority of both Democrats and Republicans in the House voted to spend another $858 billion on the US military, a figure $45 billion higher than President Joe Biden had requested and 8 percent higher than last year’s budget.  On Thursday, the Senate passed the $858 billion National Defense Authorization Act previously approved by the House.  The bipartisan exercise in grossly misplaced priorities was opposed by just 80 Representatives and 11 Senators.

Peace on Earth

POSTED DECEMBER 22, 2022

With at least 59 ongoing armed conflicts, this December may not seem much like a season of peace and joy for many.  Still there are some "points of light" in the darkness, and it is these that might give us hope.  Here are five stories of peacemaking and peace makers to kindle that hope.

The Bomb at 78

POSTED AUGUST 6, 2023

Seventy-eight years ago today, in the greatest single act of terrorism the world has ever seen, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.  The explosion immediately killed an estimated 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.  The dead were overwhelmingly civilians.

The true totals of deaths and injuries caused by the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan will never be known. The destruction and chaos that followed the bombing made orderly counting impossible. 

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The prevailing myth taught to American children in our history classes was that the bombings were necessary to end the war quickly and save American lives that would be lost in a ground invasion.  The reality is more complicated.

By the end of 1944, Japan was essentially defeated - their navy decimated, their air force weakened, their infrastructure shattered and their morale plummeting.  In February 1945, Japanese commanders were advising the emperor that "defeat was inevitable."  By the spring, it was clear that Japan wanted out of the war.  In negotiations with the Russians who were massing for an invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria, they said that the only obstacle to peace was "unconditional surrender" being demanded by the Allies.  They did not want the emperor whom many worshiped as divine to be hung like Mussolini or subjected to a humiliating trial.  

Meanwhile the United States' Manhattan Project was approaching completion.  Truman and his anti-Soviet advisers saw the atomic bomb as a means to deny Russia the territorial and economic concessions promised them by President Roosevelt for entering the war against Japan.  The Soviet Union lost 27 million lives in World War II.  Their resistance to the German invasion was largely responsible for the defeat of the Nazi forces in Europe.  Bringing them into the war against Japan would immediately cause the Japanese to surrender.

But Truman had other ideas.  After delaying the Potsdam Conference two weeks to allow a test of the atomic bomb, Truman announced on July 24 that America was in possession of a new weapon of unusual destructive force. Truman, according to Winston Churchill, "was a changed man.  He told the Russians just where they get on and off and generally bossed the whole meeting."  Stalin understood the United States would now use their atomic monopoly to dictate terms in Europe and to deny them concessions in east Asia.

In spite of the entreaties from scientists and others, Truman went ahead with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Thus, in August 1945, the US unleashed a new and ultimate weapon of mass destruction on the world and, in so doing, sowed the seeds of mistrust in the Soviet Union, our ally in the fight against fascism.  That mistrust would lead to the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, and the bizarre theory of Mutually Assured Destruction. 

Russia suspends participation in New START

Russia and the U.S. hold the vast majority of the world's nuclear weapons. In February, 2023, Russia suspended its participation in New START*, the last remaining bilateral treaty on nuclear arms between Russia and the United States.  Formally called the “New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty,” the agreement limited Washington and Moscow’s deployed nuclear weapons to 1,550 each.  The treaty allowed each country to verify the weapons pact is being followed, by inspecting the other country's nuclear arsenal multiple times each year. The treaty also required regular communications about an array of military equipment and operations, to avoid misunderstandings or accidents.   

Ukraine and the Doomsday Clock

The two largest nuclear powers are now confronting each other in the totally avoidable** war in Ukraine.  The longer this war continues, the greater is the danger of an accidental exchange, especially now after the suspension of New START.  Since neither Russia nor Ukraine can win an all-out victory, the only way to end the bloodshed and avoid a possible nuclear exchange is by negotiation.  Unfortunately, Western triumphalism, the desire to "punish Russia," and the misplaced optimism in the "Ukraine offensive" make the prospects for negotiation in the foreseeable future almost non-existent.

On January 24, 2023, the Doomsday Clock was moved to 90 seconds before midnight, the closest it has ever been since the Clock's inception in 1947.  The Doomsday Clock is a symbol that represents the likelihood of a human-made global catastrophe, in the opinion of the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Maintained since 1947, the clock is a metaphor for threats to humanity from unchecked scientific and technological advances. A hypothetical global catastrophe is represented by midnight on the clock, with the Bulletin's opinion on how close the world is to one represented by a certain number of minutes or seconds to midnight, assessed in January of each year. The main factors influencing the clock are nuclear risk and climate change.  

Ban the Bomb

The U.S. attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945 were the beginning of a strong public antinuclear sentiment. A movement of scientists developed to try to prevent military control of atomic energy, resulting in the foundation of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) in 1946.  

Large scale anti-nuclear protests first emerged in the mid-1950s in Japan, later spreading to the UK, US, continental Europe, and Australia.  In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, about 50,000 women brought together by Women Strike for Peace marched in 60 cities in the United States to demonstrate against nuclear weapons.  In the early 1980s, the revival of the nuclear arms race triggered large protests about nuclear weapons.  In October 1981 half a million people took to the streets in several cities in Italy, more than 250,000 people protested in Bonn, 250,000 demonstrated in London, and 100,000 marched in Brussels. The largest anti-nuclear protest was held on June 12, 1982, when one million people demonstrated in New York City against nuclear weapons.  In October 1983, nearly 3 million people across western Europe protested nuclear missile deployments and demanded an end to the arms race.

In the final analysis, though, it took the end of the Cold War to reduce the number of nuclear warheads in the world's arsenals.  Now with political rhetoric heralding a 21st century Cold War, we face the possibility of another nuclear arms race.  

The first step to avoid this is to restore mutual trust between the US and Russia. And the first step in restoring that trust is a negotiated end of the war in Ukraine.  

The second step to avoiding a new nuclear arms race, one which may involve China, is a cooldown of the anti-China rhetoric and a return to the US' long-standing "One China" Principle.

Once these steps have been taken, Russia and the United States should return to New START and jointly announce an immediate reduction of their deployed nuclear warheads to 1000 each.  At some point, New START will need to include China.  China currently has about 400 nuclear warheads in its arsenal but it's continuing to increase.  Parity with China would be a good first step for the US and Russia to take as they bring China into the treaty.   

A pipe dream?  Perhaps.  But there are many organizations working for the total elimination of these ultimate weapons of mass destruction.  You can find a listing of many of these organizations including links to their websites here.  Supporting the work of one or more of these groups is a way for us to play a small part in this movement.

Notes:

*New START was set to expire in February 2021.  Outgoing President Donald Trump had indicated he would let it expire.  His defeat in the 2020 elections and prompt action by newly elected President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin temporarily saved the agreement by extending it for 5 years.  

**An agreement on Ukraine neutrality and a written guarantee that NATO would not expand into Ukraine would have prevented the Russian invasion.  See "The war in Ukraine at the one-year mark" for more background and context.

Sources: 

History.com,  "Children of the Atomic Bomb", UCLA.edu,  Oliver Stone: The Untold History Of The United States (2012),  NPR, Wikipedia, Britannica,   Al Jazeera, Statista