Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 4/27/22:
"Housing Market Game Over, Adjustable Rate Mortgages Are Back;
Market Wants To Crash - Get Ready"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "Velvet Morning"
Full screen recommended.
Liquid Mind, "Velvet Morning"
Liquid Mind ® is the name used by Los Angeles composer and producer
Chuck Wild of the best-selling Liquid Mind relaxation music albums.
"A Look to the Heavens"
"No, hamburgers are not this big. What is pictured is a sharp telescopic view of a magnificent edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3628, a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this deep galactic portrait puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, The Hamburger Galaxy.
The tantalizing island universe is about 100,000 light-years across and 35 million light-years away in the northern springtime constellation Leo. NGC 3628 shares its neighborhood in the local Universe with two other large spirals M65 and M66 in a grouping otherwise known as the Leo Triplet. Gravitational interactions with its cosmic neighbors are likely responsible for the extended flare and warp of this spiral's disk.”
Chet Raymo, "Starlight"
"Starlight"
by Chet Raymo
"Poor Calvin is overwhelmed with the vastness of the cosmos and no small dose of existential angst. He is not the first, of course. Most famously the 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal wailed his own despair: "I feel engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing and which know nothing of me. I am terrified...The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me."
"Every Human Decision..."
"Except for totally impulsive or psychotic behavior, every human
decision comes down to the choice between two alternatives."
- Jeff Duntemann
"That's Where It All Begins..."
"That's where it all begins. That's where we all get screwed big time as we grow up. They tell us to think, but they don't really mean it. They only want us to think within the boundaries they define. The moment you start thinking for yourself - really thinking - so many things stop making any sense. And if you keep thinking, the whole world just falls apart. Nothing makes sense anymore. All rules, traditions, expectations - they all start looking so fake, so made up. You want to just get rid of all this stuff and make things right. But the moment you say it, they tell you to shut up and be respectful. And eventually you understand that nobody wants you to really think for yourself."
- Ray N. Kuili, "Awakening"
"The Biggest Financial Scam in History is Happening NOW!"
ThisisJohnWilliams,
"The Biggest Financial Scam in History is Happening NOW!"
"Celente & The Judge: Disney Vs. Florida: DeSantis Locks Horns With Mickey Mouse"
Full screen recommended.
"Celente & The Judge: Disney Vs. Florida:
DeSantis Locks Horns With Mickey Mouse"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."
"Predator Nation"
"Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population. Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy. These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, and lobbying industry.
If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite. Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism."
- Charles Ferguson, "Predator Nation", June 2012
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"Charles Ferguson:
"Wall Street Has Turned US Into a 'Predatory Nation'"
May 29, 2012: "Two years after directing the Academy Award-winning documentary, "Inside Job," filmmaker Charles Ferguson returns with a new book, "Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America." Ferguson explores why no top financial executives have been jailed for their role in the nation's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We also discuss Larry Summers and the revolving door between academia and Wall Street as well as the key role Democrats have played in deregulating the financial industry. According to Ferguson a "predatory elite" has "taken over significant portions of economic policy and the political system and also, unfortunately, major portions of the economics discipline."
Gregory Mannarino, "Must See This! 100% Proof That The FED. Deliberately Continues To Inflate"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/27/22"
"Must See This!
100% Proof That The FED. Deliberately Continues To Inflate"
○
"Keynes on Inflation"
Excerpt: "Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but [also] at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.
Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become "profiteers," who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.
Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."
Highly recommended full article is here:
"And That's Why..."
“I don’t believe in ‘original sin.’ I don’t believe in ‘guilt.’ I don’t believe in villains or heroes – only right or wrong ways that individuals have taken, not by choice but by necessity or by certain still-uncomprehended influences in themselves, their circumstances, and their antecedents. This is so simple I’m ashamed to say it, but I’m sure it’s true. In fact, I would bet my life on it! And that’s why I don’t understand why our propaganda machines are always trying to teach us, to persuade us, to hate and fear other people on the same little world that we live in.”
- Tennessee Williams
"Buying Time"
"Buying Time"
Author Unknown
"A man came home from work late again, tired and irritated, to find his 5-year-old son waiting for him at the door. "Daddy, may I ask you a question? " "Yeah, sure, what is it?" replied the man. "Daddy, how much money do you make an hour?" "That's none of your business! What makes you ask such a thing? " the man said angrily. "I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour? " pleaded the little boy. "If you must know, I make $20.00 an hour. " "Oh," the little boy replied, head bowed. Looking up, he said, "Daddy, may I borrow $10.00 please?"
The father was furious. "If the only reason you wanted to know how much money I make is just so you can borrow some to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. I work long, hard hours everyday and don't have time for such childish games. " The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door. The man sat down and started to get even madder about the little boy's questioning. How dare he ask such questions only to get some money?
After an hour or so, the man had calmed down, and started to think he may have been a little hard on his son. Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $10.00, and he really didn't ask for money very often. The man went to the door of the little boy's room and opened the door. "Are you asleep son?" he asked. "No daddy, I'm awake," replied the boy. "I've been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier, " said the man. "It's been a long day and I took my aggravation out on you. Here's that $10.00 you asked for."
The little boy sat straight up, beaming. "Oh, thank you daddy! " he yelled. Then, reaching under his pillow, he pulled out some more crumpled up bills. The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to get angry again. The little boy slowly counted out his money, then looked up at the man. "Why did you want more money if you already had some? " the father grumbled. "Because I didn't have enough, but now I do, " the little boy replied. "Daddy, I have $20.00 now. Can I buy an hour of your time? "
"You Better Decide..."
“A wise man once said you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you’re willing to lose. Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right, and letting someone in means abandoning the walls you’ve spent a lifetime building. Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don’t see coming, when we don’t have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, when the battle chooses us and not the other way around, that’s when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear.”
- “Dr. Meredith Grey”, “Grey’s Anatomy"
"Stocks Are Cratering As Investors Worry About “The Perfect Storm” That Is Erupting All Over The Globe"
"Stocks Are Cratering As Investors Worry About
“The Perfect Storm” That Is Erupting All Over The Globe"
by Michael Snyder
"Is the party finally over on Wall Street? So far this month, the Dow is down more than 4 percent, the S&P 500 is down almost 8 percent, and the Nasdaq has fallen over 12 percent. In fact, the Nasdaq dropped almost 4 percent on Tuesday alone, and at this point it is almost 23 percent below the all-time high. Needless to say, that puts the Nasdaq solidly into bear market territory. Tech stocks were at the front of the long march up the mountain, and now they are leading the avalanche back down. Hundreds of billions of dollars in paper wealth is being wiped out, and a lot of the “experts” are suddenly warning that the worst is still yet to come. So why are investors so spooked?
Well, CNBC is blaming a number of different factors… "Worries about the global economy loomed. Investors are worried about a Covid surge in China. Regarding the war in Ukraine, a top Russian official said the threat of nuclear war is real. Plus, high inflation in the U.S. is denting demand for goods from houses to sneakers."
Let’s take a look at each of those factors one at a time. For years, I wrote article after article about how foolish it was for us to become so dependent on goods from China. Now a fresh wave of COVID lockdowns has paralyzed economic activity in much of that nation, and that has enormous implications for those of us in the western world…
"Widespread covid outbreaks in China have bought entire cities to a standstill and hobbled manufacturing and shipping hubs throughout the country. An estimated 373 million people - or about one-quarter of China’s population - have been in covid-related lockdowns in recent weeks because of what is known as the country’s zero covid policy, according to economists at Nomura Holdings. There are also fears that new lockdowns could soon take hold in the capital city, Beijing, escalating the threat to the global economic recovery."
Anxiety over new disruptions has already caused the Chinese stock market to fall sharply, weighing on U.S. stock indexes as well. Much of what usually populates our stores shelves normally comes from factories in China. Without a regular flow of those goods, our store shelves will become quite bare fairly rapidly. In fact, it is being reported that the shipping time for toys from China has already risen “from 21 days to 159 days”… "The shipping time for toys from China to U.S. stores has ballooned from 21 days to 159 days during the pandemic, he said. “All holiday toys have to ship out of China by the beginning of August, but that is not going to happen,” Larian said. “The factories are having a tough time getting labor, prices are going up, China keeps closing provinces. The big picture is bad, worse than last year.”
The war in Ukraine is another factor which is frightening investors. This week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that we should not “underestimate” the possibility that World War III could break out over this conflict… "Speaking to Russian news agencies, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticized Kyiv’s approach to floundering peace talks, saying the risk of a World War III “is serious”. “It is real, you can’t underestimate it.”
Of course my regular readers already know that I believe that World War III has already begun. And both sides just continue to escalate matters. On Tuesday, we learned that the Germans have decided to send tanks to Ukraine after all… "In a major reversal following Chancellor Olaf Scholz only days ago voicing strong resistance, it appears Berlin has bowed to the mounting pressure among allies and approved new tank deliveries to Ukraine from Germany’s own stock, which Scholz had previously said was depleted.
The German Ministry of Defense announced Tuesday that delivery of Gepard anti-aircraft tanks to Ukraine has been approved. As part of Scholz’s earlier rejection of sending heavy weapons systems, he had cited the potential for the West and Russia sliding into a WW3 and nuclear war scenario."
Even more alarming, a former top NATO official that is currently advising Joe Biden is suggesting that NATO troops should be sent into western Ukraine…"Former NATO top commander Gen. Philip Breedlove is the latest big name to come out for putting troops on the ground in Ukraine. Breedlove, who has been angling for weeks for a more muscular policy against Russia, told The Times of London that it’s time for real action. And he may have the ear of the White House: the article says he’s named as one of “several high-ranking retired commanders advising the Biden administration on Ukraine.”
Instead of escalating the conflict, our leaders should be doing all that they can to try to bring about a negotiated resolution to this war. Because once we get to a point where U.S. and Russian forces start shooting at each other, there will be no going back.
The third factor that CNBC mentioned was inflation. On Tuesday, we learned that U.S. home prices in February 2022 were close to 20 percent higher than they were in February 2021…"Home prices increased 19.8% in February year over year, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index. That is up from the 19.1% annual increase in January and is the third-highest reading in the index’s 35-year history."
In other areas of the economy, price increases are even more absurd. For instance, we are now being told that used vehicle prices are actually 35 percent higher than they were a year ago… "Used car prices are already up 35 percent from a year ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Beneke says he expects them to climb even higher in coming weeks as a result of new shortages and delays."
The reserve currency of the entire planet is being systematically destroyed, but our leaders in Washington continue to spend money like drunken sailors. What we are witnessing is complete and utter madness.
Meanwhile, the World Bank is warning that the worst global food crisis since World War II threatens to get a whole lot worse in the months ahead… "The World Bank commodity outlook also warned many foods are set to see steep rises in their costs. The UN food prices index already shows they are at their highest since records began 60 years ago.
Wheat is forecast to increase 42.7% and reach new record highs in dollar terms. Other notable increases will be 33.3% for barley, 20% for soybeans and 29.8% for oils and 41.8% for chicken. These increases reflect the fact that exports from Ukraine and Russia have fallen drastically."
For a long time I warned that a “perfect storm” was brewing, and now a “perfect storm” is here. But what we have experienced so far is just the beginning. It is going to get a whole lot worse from here. The consequences of decades of incredibly foolish decisions are going to come crashing down upon us all at once, and it won’t be pretty."
Must Watch! "This Is It - Real Estate Is Finished"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 4/27/22:
"This Is It - Real Estate Is Finished"
"It’s all bad news when it comes to real estate. Everyone is laying off their staffs in the mortgage sector. Prices continue to go up and sales are dropping dramatically. People cannot get loans and mortgage applications have dropped 50%. It's Finished!"
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Related:
If you have a mortgage, Good Citizen,
you'd better be aware of the consequences that are coming to you...
When your home value is half what it was and you can't sell it or refinance
it, but are still responsible for 100% of the mortgage, what will you do?
"Global Megabanks Are Tanking – The Same Ones the Fed Bailed Out in 2019"
"Global Megabanks Are Tanking –
The Same Ones the Fed Bailed Out in 2019"
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Excerpt: "As long-term readers of Wall Street On Parade know well, we have regularly warned that the failure of Congress to meaningfully reform Wall Street by restoring the Glass-Steagall Act poses a national security threat to our nation in times of crisis.
Instead of meaningful reform, Congress has stood by and watched the Fed bail out the global banks repeatedly since 2008 – either with direct loans or by keeping interest rates artificially low (“administered rates”) or through trillions of dollars in asset purchases from the banks (what the Fed prefers to call Quantitative Easing).
The Fed’s balance sheet has ballooned from less than $1 trillion before the financial crisis in 2008 to $9 trillion today as a result of its willingness to perpetually bail out Wall Street. American taxpayers are on the hook for 98 percent of the Fed’s balance sheet and thus have a critical interest in demanding both transparency and accountability from the Fed.
In the fall of 2019 there was no war in Ukraine, there was no pandemic. But for still undisclosed reasons, the Fed decided to funnel trillions of dollars in cumulative repo loans to the trading units of U.S. megabanks and their foreign counterparties. The Fed’s repo loans stretched from September 17, 2019 through July 2, 2020. The Fed has begun releasing the names of the banks and the amounts they had borrowed on a quarterly basis, following a two-year lag. There has been an unprecedented mainstream media news blackout of this information."
Please view this complete article here:
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Full screen recommended.
"US Debt of $30 Trillion Visualized in Stacks of Physical Cash"
"Stagflation Rules with John Rubino"
"Stagflation Rules with John Rubino"
by Kerry Lutz's Financial Survival Network
"John Rubino is back… Interest rates keep rising, 10-year Treasury nearing 3% Housing bubble is bursting. Mortgages above 5% and some sellers are cutting their prices. Massive drag on the overall economy. Stagflation is here. Ukraine war looking like a quagmire, with an outside chance of stupid mistakes causing Russian and NATO forces to start killing each other. Idiots in the US corporate media seem to think the above is okay. Sean Penn… OMG. Nooses tightening around Clintons and Bidens. 5 Clinton campaign aids take the 5th. Florida Federal Judge strikes down mask mandate. Most dangerous job in the world is now Russian General in Ukraine, displacing NYC convenience store clerk after dark. Poison Pills are so yesterday. Twitter Employee Undergoes Therapy Over Elon Musk Takeover. Much, much more."
"The Military Situation In Ukraine"
"The Military Situation In Ukraine"
by Contributing Reporter
Excerpt: "Is it possible to actually know what has been and is going on in Ukraine? Jacques Baud is a former member of the Swiss strategic intelligence and specialist in Eastern countries. He takes a fact-driven down-to-earth approach to analyze the conflict and the role the West plays in it."
Please view this excellent, lengthy, factually accurate full article here,
with my very highest recommendation:
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"UK Backs Right Of Ukraine To Attack Russian Territory -
Kremlin Warns London Of 'Proportional Response'"
by Tyler Durden
Excerpt: "Later in the day Moscow responded by warning of a "proportional response" in such a scenario of aggression laid out by Heappey... "We would like to emphasize that London's direct provoking of the Kiev regime for such actions, in the event that they are implemented, will lead to an immediate and proportional response by Russia", the MoD said.
"As we have warned, the Russian Armed Forces are on round-the-clock standby to launch long-range precision-guided retaliatory strikes against the relevant decision-making centers in Kiev", the ministry asserted, according to a state media translation."
Given the weekly and near-daily escalation in both rhetoric and the heavier and more sophisticated weapons that the West is willing to pour into the conflict, the rising concerns of a Russia-NATO collision course are indeed warranted. Commenting on reports that Germany has approved sending anti-aircraft tanks to Ukraine, journalist Glenn Greenwald questions... "Virtually every week, Biden announces new massive aid of cash and weapons to Ukraine. Every week, US/NATO announce greater involvement that, weeks earlier, was deemed unthinkable. It's a full-on proxy war. The risks are mind-boggling. What is being achieved that warrants this?"
Please view this complete article here:
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"There are a multitude of fuses affixed to dozens of powder-kegs and little kids with matches are on the loose. I don’t know which of the fuses will be lit and which powder-keg will blow, but someone is bound to do something stupid, and then all hell will break loose. It could happen at any time. One military miscue. One assassination. One violent act that stirs the world. And the dominoes will topple, setting off fireworks not seen on this planet since 1939 – 1945. I can see it all very clearly."
- Jim Quinn
Gregory Mannarino, "The Economy Continues To Crater Faster! Keep Your Eyes On The SP500 4150 Level"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/27/22:
"The Economy Continues To Crater Faster!
Keep Your Eyes On The SP500 4150 Level"
○
Related:
"Higher Prices At ALDI! What We Bought For Dinner"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 4/27/22:
"Higher Prices At ALDI! What We Bought For Dinner"
"In today's vlog we are at Aldi and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and pick up dinner where we will be using all Aldi's products. It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
"History..."
"History is indeed little more than the register of
the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind."
- Edward Gibbon
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
"15 Shocking Facts About The Student Loan Debt Bubble And The Great College Education Scam"
Full screen recommended.
"15 Shocking Facts About The Student Loan Debt
Bubble And The Great College Education Scam"
by Epic Economist
"They have told us that the future of our country walked hand in hand with education - but when the cost of attaining such education causes irreparable financial damages for millions of college graduates, what future do we really have? College tuition has become increasingly burdensome in recent years. In fact, since the 1970s, the cost of tuition for private institutions skyrocketed by 567%, while for public universities, that increase was shockingly higher, exploding by 2,580%, as reported by the National Center For Education Statistics. Almost 30% of the U.S. population currently carries student loan debt. A significant share of these borrowers has been paying their debt for decades. Now, they're reaching their 60s, and they're being forced to use their Social Security benefits to cover their student loans.
Five decades ago, the average tuition for private schools hovered around $4,000. Now, some institutions are charging their students $20,000, $30,000, or even $40,000 a year for tuition and fees, and this sum doesn't even count living expenses. To make things worse, college graduates are facing one of the toughest job markets ever. There's a scarcity of good-paying jobs all around the nation, and despite their degree, a large share of young adults are underemployed, or working in low-wage jobs and earning $25,000 or less, which doesn't even allow them to alleviate their debt burden. At least 33.5% of college graduates are underemployed right now, and about 9% are unemployed, Federal Reserve data show.
According to one estimate, today, a private school student working on a minimum-wage job would have to work 100 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, just to pay for tuition. All of this makes us wonder: when did getting a college degree stopped being about people's education and started being an industry of debt? The system continues to push the notion that a college education is the key to a good future and that there is plenty of financial aid out there for everyone that wants to go to college. But they fail to mention that you'll probably spend the rest of your life trying to get rid of that debt, and that it will leave you financially drained for decades. Not even bankruptcy can get you out of student loan debt. It will stay with you forever until you finally pay it off.
Now, the U.S. economy is facing the biggest student loan debt bubble in the history of the world, and when our new college graduates finally enter the labor market, they rapidly realize that the good jobs they were promised are very few and far between. As millions of Americans wake up to the fact that the tens of thousands of dollars that they have poured into their college educations was not a guarantee of better working opportunities or financial stability, will the great college education scam finally be exposed? How can this nation grow if we limit the growth of our students the moment they enter college? Opting for an education shouldn't result in such acute financial distress. How can our students feel motivated about getting a degree if that means they will struggle financially for decades after graduation? Sadly, if education is indeed the future of our nation and there’s simply no safety net for our students, then we’re doomed to fail.
In today's video, we compiled stats that reveal that education in America has become a lucrative industry of debt. Here are 15 Shocking Facts About The Student Loan Debt Bubble And The Great College Education Scam."
Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal: America Is Back!"
Full screen recommended.
Strong Language Alert!
Gerald Celente, 4/26/22:
"Trends Journal: America Is Back!"
Gerald's in fine form today... lol
"Markets Vaporized - Big Trouble Ahead; Global Inflation Not Going Away"
Jeremiah Babe, PM 4/26/22:
"Markets Vaporized - Big Trouble Ahead;
Global Inflation Not Going Away"
"It’s Time to Send U.S. Troops to Ukraine ?!"
"It’s Time to Send U.S. Troops to Ukraine ?!"
by Jim Rickards
"It seems that more and more commentators and political figures are calling for an increased U.S. role in Ukraine, even the deployment of ground troops. For example, Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware recently argued, “We in Congress and the administration [must] come to a common position about when we are willing to go the next step and to send not just arms but troops to the aid in defense of Ukraine." Coons later walked back his comments, but he’s not the only one who’s argued for sending troops to Ukraine.
Gen. Philip Breedlove, former NATO supreme allied commander, has suggested that NATO should deploy troops “into western Ukraine to carry out humanitarian missions and to set up a forward arms supply base.” Well, that’s fine, but setting up an arms supply base in western Ukraine drags us right into the middle of the conflict. Do they think Russia is going to just sit back and watch NATO arms pour in to help Ukrainians kill more Russians?
Russian missiles have already destroyed weapons supplied to Ukraine by the U.S. and its NATO allies. What happens if Russia attacks an arms supply base and kills a number of American soldiers? The pressure would be to attack Russian forces in retaliation. The U.S. and Russia would then be on the escalation ladder (more on that below).
Oh, Stop Your Worrying! Meanwhile, retired Gen. Ben Hodges says, "It still does not feel like we are all-in to win. We have exaggerated the potential for a so-called World War III to the point that we're making policy decisions based on an exaggerated fear." But maybe it’s not fear that’s keeping us out of direct involvement in Ukraine, but prudence. These people are gambling that a conventional conflict with Russia wouldn’t escalate into nuclear war. And maybe they’re right. Maybe it wouldn’t. But is that a risk we’re willing to take?
Nuclear warfighting is not a topic that has been much discussed in the past 30-odd years since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It’s certainly not a topic that nonexperts want to think about because the implications are both horrific and existential. Still, no topic is more critical today.
“Don’t Go There”: The theories around nuclear warfighting were mostly developed in the 1950s and 1960s by scholars such as Herman Kahn, Henry Kissinger and Albert Wohlstetter. I read their work beginning in the late 1960s as part of my studies in international relations and I continued to study the topic through graduate school and beyond.
Scholarly approaches varied in some respects related to doctrines of counterforce (aiming missiles at missiles), countervalue (aiming missiles at cities), first-strike, second-strike and mutual assured destruction. But there’s one rule they all agreed on: Don’t go there. What this means is that nuclear war is not a place where anyone begins an attack and it's not a place where anyone wants to end up. But it can happen anyway.
Climbing the Escalation Ladder: The process by which nuclear war happens is called escalation. Two nuclear powers start out with a grievance of some kind. The grievance may be played out using proxy powers such as Vietnam in the 1960s and Afghanistan in the 2000s. One side escalates the conflict by doing something unexpected or extreme. The other side does not stand still; they take an extreme retaliatory action. The first actor then retaliates to the retaliation and so on. Now we have a dynamic where two sides are climbing the escalation ladder.
Again, it's important to emphasize that neither side really wants a nuclear war, but once they start climbing the ladder, it's hard to stop. Eventually one side pushes the other so far that the only response is to use nuclear weapons. At that point, you're no longer just escalating; you're at the brink of a nuclear launch.
Use It or Lose It: To make matters worse, the other side sensing that their opponent may go nuclear will be under pressure to go nuclear first in order to avoid being hit themselves. This then goes into another branch of theory involving first-strike, second-strike, counterforce and countervalue strategies, etc. I don't have to do a deep dive on these theories in order to make the point that a nuclear war doesn't begin with a nuclear attack. It begins with small steps that spin out of control.
Because of the war in Ukraine, the world is closer to this apocalyptic state than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. That doesn’t mean both sides would launch ICBMs at each other right out of the gate. Any nuclear conflict would likely begin with tactical nuclear weapons, which are lower-yield devices designed to take out enemy troop formations, military bases, etc.
Russia has already warned that it may use tactical nuclear weapons. The U.S. and NATO seem to believe Russia is bluffing and it is therefore safe to continue escalating. Again, maybe that’s true, but maybe it isn’t. Unlike the U.S., which regards any nuclear weapons deployment only as a last resort, Russian military doctrine is much more open to the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield.
And it’s believed that Russia has about 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons, while the U.S. has under 250. Given Russia’s conventional inferiority against the U.S. and NATO (totally untrue - CP), it’s not surprising that Russia fields so many tactical nukes. To be clear, I’m not predicting nuclear war. I’m simply pointing out the risks involved once both sides get on the escalation ladder toward nuclear war. It’s easier to get on than to get off.
Stumbling Into War: Meanwhile, there are credible reports that British special forces are in Ukraine instructing the Ukrainians in sabotage and other special operations tactics. Similar reports are circulating about U.S. and French special forces in Ukraine. The U.S., U.K. and France are all members of NATO. If any of those troops are killed or confront Russia forces, it could be viewed as a war between Russia and NATO, which is tantamount to World War III. Russia is investigating the claims. By itself, these special forces may seem like a small escalation. But it’s exactly the kind of action that can escalate into something far worse.
The White House would do well to study the same work that I learned in the late 1960s. Instead, it seems like no one is home at the White House. We’re playing with fire as the potential for escalation continues. And unfortunately, so does the potential march toward a nuclear war we’re told not to worry about. I don’t know about you, but I’m a little worried."
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Related:
Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Atmospheres"
Full screen recommended.
"Relax, find yourself in enchanted and blissful serenity..."
Deuter, "Atmospheres"
00:00 ⋄ Uno05:45 ⋄ Deux
11:58 ⋄ Drei
18:27 ⋄ Four
25:15 ⋄ Cinque
31:58 ⋄ Sei
36:33 ⋄ Sieben
42:22 ⋄ Huit
50:55 ⋄ Nine
57:27 ⋄ Dieci
"A Look to the Heavens"
NGC 1300 spans over 100,000 light-years and the Hubble image reveals striking details of the galaxy's dominant central bar and majestic spiral arms. In fact, on close inspection the nucleus of this classic barred spiral itself shows a remarkable region of spiral structure about 3,000 light-years across. Unlike other spiral galaxies, including our own Milky Way, NGC 1300 is not presently known to have a massive central black hole.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120325.html
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