Nuclear war: Could it ever happen?

Russian aggression and nuclear saber rattling have reminded us that the likelihood of nuclear war is a matter of both independent and interdependent probabilities. Paradoxically, reducing the probability of an all-out catastrophe requires that we learn to accept a certain degree of risk and uncertainty.

  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and nuclear saber rattling against the West have revived a debate about nuclear weapons. Last year, when a United Nations treaty to ban such weapons outright entered into force, none of the world’s nine nuclear-weapons states was among the 86 signatories. How can these states justify possessing weapons that put all of humanity at risk? That is a pertinent question, but it must be considered alongside another one: If the United States were to sign the treaty and destroy its own arsenal, would it still be able to deter further Russian aggression in Europe? If the answer is no, one also must consider whether nuclear war is inevitable? 

Read more at: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://thebulletin.org/2022/10/nowhere-to-hide-how-a-nuclear-war-would-kill-you-and-almost-everyone-else/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiewsSbgtP8AhW4nWoFHVvOAFkQFnoECAkQAg&usg=AOvVaw33RID1QoBfVwwbGqh-CEYf

Ukraine: Russia’s annexation puts world ‘two or three steps away’ from nuclear war

President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of the annexation of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine signals the onset of a new and highly dangerous phase in the seven-month war, one that Western officials and analysts fear could escalate to the use of nuclear weapons for the first time in 77 years.

Read more at: https://www.washingtonpost.com

Nuclear War: What the science says: Could humans survive a nuclear war between NATO and Russia?

Russian leader Vladimir Putin has suggested that he would consider using nuclear weapons if confronted with a NATO military response in Ukraine, or if faced with a direct threat to his person or regime. If the war spreads to a NATO country like Estonia or Poland a direct US-Russia confrontation would take place, with a clear danger of runaway nuclear escalation.

The world is therefore arguably now closer to nuclear conflict than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. So what would a full-scale nuclear exchange look like in reality? Is it truly global Armageddon, or would it be survivable for some people and places?

Many scientists have investigated this question already. Their work is surprisingly little known, likely because in peacetime no one wants to think the unthinkable. But we are no longer in peacetime and the shadows of multiple mushroom clouds are looming once again over our planet.

Read more at: What the science says: Could humans survive a nuclear war between NATO and Russia? - Alliance for Science

Ukraine war: Russia warns West of 'unpredictable consequences'

Moscow formally warns of "unpredictable consequences" if the US and allies keep supplying weapons to Ukraine

Read more at: Ukraine war latest news: Russia warns West of 'unpredictable consequences' - BBC News

Nuclear Holocaust: This is what would happen to Earth if a nuclear war broke out between the West and Russia

Suddenly, the threat of nuclear war feels closer than it has in decades. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists updated their Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds to midnight, and President Joe Biden has issued increasingly ominous statements reflecting how the looming conflict over the Ukraine that could ensnare both Russia and the west into conventional war.

And, some fear, war with nuclear weapons. It is a prospect that has haunted human beings since the dawn of the Cold War. Politicians who were perceived as too open to the idea of nuclear war would pay for their hawkishness at the polls. Motion pictures from "Dr. Strangelove" to "The Day After" have depicted an uninhabitable world, filled with lethal amounts of radiation and short on necessities like food and water. As our electrical infrastructure collapsed around us, people would resort to looting and other violent methods to survive. The seeming deterioration of civilization during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic would be nothing compared to the anarchy and destruction that would follow nuclear war.

Read more at https://www.salon.com/2022/02/19/this-is-what-would-happen-to-earth-if-a-nuclear-broke-out-between-the-west-and/

Weapons Industry: the weapons are now making nuclear war more likely

The weapons making nuclear war more likely

Read more at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-47117349

NATO Prepares for War With Russia With Simulated Naval and Cyberattacks - by Cristina Maza

Around 1,000 participants from 30 member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) gathered in the tiny Baltic nation of Estonia late last month to prepare for war with an enemy that looks a lot like Russia, according to reports.

The exercises were dystopian and catastrophic, and included simulated cyberattacks, poisoned water supplies, a hacked drone employed to kill NATO soldiers and a faulty power grid. As tensions ratchet up between Moscow and the West, NATO countries, especially those like Estonia that border Russia, are increasingly preparing for the worst. The Locked Shields live-fire cyber exercise is a key part of that preparation.

“The exercise required participants to counter high-intensity attacks on a fictitious country’s IT systems and critical infrastructure networks. Teams had to maintain the IT systems while reporting incidents, managing crises, making strategic decisions, solving digital forensics tasks and dealing with other challenges,” according to a report on homeland preparedness. “The exercise involved a total of 4,000 virtualized systems and more than 2,500 attacks.”

Note EU-Digest: Contemplating war between Nuclear Powers is utter madness and even the idea of preparing for one is tltal madness, because their will be no victors. The only solution is complete disarmement by all nuclear Nations. Unfortunately with all these ego maniacs political leaders around the world this this is impossible.

Read more: NATO Prepares for War With Russia With Simulated Naval and Cyberattacks

USA: Hawaii 'ballistic missile threat' alert to phones was false alarm, officials say - by E. Ortiz, P. McCausland and C. Bailey

Hawaiians were thrown into a panic Saturday morning after an emergency alert was sent warning them to "seek immediate shelter" from a ballistic missile threat. But emergency officials took at least 20 minutes to relay it was a false alarm, with the governor's office later clarifying it was caused when someone pushed the wrong button.

The lapse led to an uproar over how such an error — with potentially dangerous consequences — could occur during a time of high international tensions with North Korea.

An alert in all caps was first sent to cellphones across the archipelago shortly after 8 a.m. local time (1 p.m. ET), saying, "Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill."

At 8:20 a.m., the state's Emergency Management Agency followed up in a tweet: "NO missile threat to Hawaii." A similar alert was sent to cellphones about 38 minutes after the first.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, who also tweeted "there is no incoming missile to Hawaii," questioned how the mistake happened and why it took so long before it was corrected, adding that it triggered feelings of terror unnecessarily in a state with more than 1.4 million people.

Read more: Hawaii 'ballistic missile threat' alert to phones was false alarm, officials say - NBC News

North Korea Disaster in the making? No One Can Stop Trump From Waging Nuclear War With North Korea - by Jeff Stein

One nightmare scenario goes like this: Donald Trump emerges from his White House bedroom in the middle of the night, cellphone in hand, enraged by the latest taunt from North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

He spots the military aide sitting in the corridor with a black valise in his lap. It’s called the nuclear football.

“I’m gonna take care of this son of a bitch once and for all,” Trump growls. “Big-time. Gimme the codes.”

The aide cracks open the valise and hands the president a loose-leaf binder with a colorful menu of Armageddon options. They range from all-out, total annihilation plans for Russia and China down to a variety of strikes tailored just for North Korea.

Read more: No One Can Stop Trump From Waging Nuclear War With North Korea, Not Even His Generals

North Korea: UN head tells Trump and Kim Jong-un 'We must not sleepwalk our way into nuclear war' - by Mythili Sampathkumar

The head of the UN has issued a stark warning to Donald Trump and the leader of North Korea, saying: “We must not sleepwalk our way into nuclear war.”

In the opening address to the 2017 UN General Assembly,  Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that fiery talk could lead to “fatal misunderstandings”.  “This is the time for statesmanship,” he added.

Speaking as tension between North Korea and the West continues to grow following Pyongyang’s sharp escalation of its testing of intercontinental missiles and nuclear payloads and sabre-rattling from the US, Mr Guterres said “when tensions rise so does chance of miscalculation”.

Read more: North Korea: UN head tells Trump and Kim Jong-un 'We must not sleepwalk our way into nuclear war' | The Independent

Nuclear Holocaust; The Coming War on China - by John Pilger

The Unthinkable - Could it happen again?

When I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open. At a quarter past eight on the morning of 6 August, 1945, she and her silhouette were burned into the granite. I stared at the shadow for an hour or more, unforgettably. When I returned many years later, it was gone: taken away, “disappeared”, a political embarrassment.

I have spent two years making a documentary film, The Coming War on China, in which the evidence and witnesses warn that nuclear war is no longer a shadow, but a contingency.  The greatest build-up of American-led military forces since the Second World War is well under way. They are in the northern hemisphere, on the western borders of Russia, and in Asia and the Pacific, confronting China.

The great danger this beckons is not news, or it is buried and distorted: a drumbeat of mainstream fake news that echoes the psychopathic fear embedded in public consciousness during much of the 20th century.

Like the renewal of post-Soviet Russia, the rise of China as an economic power is declared an “existential threat” to the divine right of the United States to rule and dominate human affairs.

To counter this, in 2011 President Obama announced a “pivot to Asia”, which meant that almost two-thirds of US naval forces would be transferred to Asia and the Pacific by 2020. Today, more than 400 American military bases encircle China with missiles, bombers, warships and, above all, nuclear weapons. From Australia north through the Pacific to Japan, Korea and across Eurasia to Afghanistan and India, the bases form, says one US strategist, “the perfect noose”.

Read more: The Coming War on China

NATO has outlived it's purpose and it's present anti-Russian rhetoric and moves are dangerous

Provocative statements and  moves by NATO
 could lead to Nuclear war

Alan Kuperman, a Harvard academic, argued some time ago that NATO intervention in Libya extended the war by a factor of 6 and increased the death toll 7 to 10 times; given that Libya is now a failed state, torn apart by warlords, we can safely say that these estimates were too conservative.

President Obama has privately called the situation in Libya a “shit show”. Only last month a report from the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament found that the humanitarian justification was an insufficient pretext and based on falsehoods, the supposedly limited intervention led “ineluctably” to regime change, and that the (British) government, and by implication other participating Western powers, did not seriously consider diplomatic alternatives to military action.

Twenty-seven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, NATO is back flexing its muscles as if nothing had changed since the days of the Soviet Union. Defense ministers from the enlarged, 28-member organization agreed recently to strengthen the alliance’s “forward presence” in Eastern Europe. If their new policy is endorsed at a summit in Poland this summer, NATO will begin deploying thousands of troops in Poland and the Baltic states, right up against Russia’s borders.

In other words, the Western alliance will redouble its military commitment to a Polish government whose right-wing, anti-Russian, and autocratic policies are so egregious that even the stanchly neo-conservative editorial page of the Washington Post saw fit to condemn the new leaders’ encroachments on democracy and the rule of law.

Most Americans are unaware that NATO’s policies, reaffirmed by the Obama administration, view nuclear weapons as a “core component” of the alliance’s capacity to repel even a conventional attack on one of its member states.

An accidental clash of forces, perhaps triggered by military exercises gone awry, could potentially lead NATO to use its nuclear weapons against Russian troops on Poland’s borders. Or, just as catastrophically, it could prompt Russian forces to attack NATO’s nuclear stockpiles preemptively.
Either scenario could trigger a much wider nuclear war.

The British television channel BBC Two explored such a scenario, involving Latvia, in a chilling “war game” film that aired earlier this month.

European countries, including, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Britain and France all have US stockpiles of Atomic bombs (totalling more than 200 bombs)  and would probably face immediate nuclear destruction  if a war broke out.

The EU Commission and Parliament don't seem to be aware, or at least do not openly comment about it, that this NATO sable rattling against Russia which has been initiated by the US and supported by most, if not all, Eastern European countries is not the appropriate way to carry out a productive dialog  with Russia.

It is not only bad policy, but worse, it could lead to nuclear war.

EU-Digest    

New World Order Equals "Global Disorder": as the frail structures of peace are collapsing around us - by RM

Nuclear War Looms

What was sold to the world as "the New World Order" by George Bush, the father of  George W.Bush can only be described today as a total failure and should really be known as the "World Corporate Takeover".

As a result things are escalating in the world today: tensions, wars, guns, refugee crises, poverty, economic crises, immigration, etc.

The world must solve these problems before they explode into  a Third World Nuclear War.

World leaders, politicians, people cannot continue keep silent on atrocities going on around the world, especially the Middle East and Africa, or even in our own Western cities and neighborhoods.

Only when enough voices are raised can something change.

Feel encouraged to use the social media, not only for pleasantries, culinary delights, travel, or navel staring, but also use it as a non-violent, but very effective weapon to criticize your elected leaders, corporations, the press, on issues that are important for your survival.

Those of you using Blogs or other communications tools, as an oversight to expose governments and corporate "hanky-panky" need to be cheered on and complimented.

The younger generation, reading this report, are also encouraged to use their energy and skills, not only to make money, but also to become an activists, by speaking their minds on issues they believe in.

After all as Alexis de Tocqueville once said said: "The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by its private citizens" .

Take the time to look around you and you will soon realize that the so-called "status-quo " enjoyed by only a few, is not sufficient to guarantee a productive living environment for all.

It is no longer acceptable before God, and people with conscience. Nations who have no voice in the world are being purged, gutted out and destroyed.

Today there is conflict all over the world. You name it, the Middle East, Africa, Central America, Ukraine, etc. Thousands have perished in Syria, and millions fled from their homes; thousands are perishing in Yemen, mostly children; thousand in Iraq and the destruction of an ancient city; thousands fled in Libya where another war is raging; 60, 000 just fled their homes a few days ago in South Sudan; Mali, Central African Republic, Somali, Congo all in conflict and millions in refugee camps. Thousands have perished and millions fled to seek refugee status in Europe, Turkey, Lebanon and even the US.

Something must be done soon before the frail structures still holding the world from collapsing into a Third World Nuclear War” also collapse.

Many of the areas where you have conflicts these days are usually the so-called Third World Nations or as somecall them, Developing Nations. They do, however, contain most of the natural resources in the world, but still remain among the poorest nations of the world.

The obvious question is why?

Mainly because the global centers of power in the world, including the US, EU, China, Russia, Britain, either use these developing countries to expand their political sphere of influence, or to control their natural resources, under all kinds of pretenses; including the setting-up of puppet leaders who do their bidding.

Once a grip is established by "an outside power", it will put a "friendly" Puppet Government in place providing it with weapons to control the people they govern.

When those leaders, however,  for one reason or another, are not able to meet the goals set for them by their "foreign benefactor", they are either exciled or assassinated, under whatever pretense.

This is the way leaders in Egypt, Libya, Iraq, etc. were toppled.

Consequently many of the world's Third World leaders are ruthless, wicked, and not able to develop these natural resources for the benefit of their own people, specially in Africa, blessed with just about every natural resource the world needs.

Our own Western leaders are not much better in that respect, specially when it comes to Democracy or governance.

They seldom show any remorse for the atrocities they have created around the world; are godless and immoral; will promise anything to keep control over the people, only to deceive, will not do what they promise and usually create more problems than opportunities for the people they are supposed to serve.

Poverty has spread across the globe, not only in Africa, but now also to the rich and powerful nations of the world, including, the US, India, Russia, China, Britain, Greece, France, Braxil, Venezuela and many more.

When it comes to politics, people these days the world over have a lot in common. From Fukushima to Athens, and from Washington to Shanghai, China, the collective refrain is that government is not to be trusted, or working the way it should, and that corporations are calling the shots today.

People in the so-called "civilized" world now pay dearly for energy, medicine,insurance, healthcare, banking, and telecommunications services.  In the past it was called Voodoo Economics and today it has become Strangle-Hold Economics.

Research reveals that people are paying more -- much more -- in a variety of ways that our business-friendly mainstream media won't talk about.

Just look at America's Middle class. It  is almost wiped out; either you are rich, or poor now; poverty levels stand at 46 percent and is increasing; millions are in shelters, and millions without jobs. 

To add insult to injury - The wide-spread availability of guns in America has killed thousands of Americans, and everyday, many more die from gun violence; yet, Congress doesn't want to pass gun control law. Mainly again because of the powerful NRA lobby, which has its hands on the pocketbook of just about every legislator in both major parties.

In the meantime the corporate power structure has taken over most of the political decision making in Western Countries, and even more so in America. It now influences and controls just about anything  you can imagine. From the healthcare Industry to the food industry, even influencing what kind of hormones and pesticides are allowed in the food you eat, and all else in between. 

The Pharmaceutical industry uses sales agents, not only to peddle their drugs, but also to bribe Drs. with a variety of incentives, including money. 

Drs. are prescribing drugs and performing surgery on patients that don't really need those particular drugs or the surgery, while new effective and cheaper .drugs that can cure patient are delayed in being put on to the marketplace,t so that the Pharmaceutical Industry can continue selling expensive drugs which don't work. .    

A report by Battelle Memorial Institute determined that the $4 billion government-funded Human Genome Project (HGP) will generate economic activity of about $140 for every dollar spent. Although that estimate controversial, drug industry executives say it's just a matter of time before the profits roll in.

Big business has quickly made its move on this. 

One-fifth of the human genome is now privately owned through patents. Strains of influenza and hepatitis have been claimed by corporate and private university labs, preventing researchers from using the patented life forms to perform cancer research. This is not only bad it is plainly criminal.

As if to mock us, while taking over our public research, some of the largest drug companies haven't been paying much in taxes. Pfizer had 40% of its 2011-12 revenues in the U.S., but declared almost $7 billion in U.S. losses to go along with $31 billion in foreign profits. Abbott Labs had 42% of its sales in the U.S., but declared a loss in the U.S. along with $12 billion in foreign profits.

These alliances between the political establishment and the corporate world are now commonplace and even expanding further..

In the area of communications we see similar developments. 

In the US the CIA and NSA have been using public tax money to pay AT&T. Google, and other companies to access its data - basically your private data - for surveillance purposes. 

With almost no transparency or oversight, the CIA has been paying AT&T to monitor US citizens overseas phone calls. Hundreds of dollars per customer per month goes to Verizon for similar snooping. 

The NSA also compensated Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook for penalties accrued in the secretive Prism surveillance program.

Many US  corporations consequently feel very powerful as a result of the inequitable support they receive from their government when operating in other countries, and often act accordingly in an arrogant way, when dealing with foreign governments.

Recently Facebook rejected claims made by Germany's state authorities that it was reluctant to co-operate with them on criminal investigations, saying many of the requests it received for user data were incorrectly formulated.

Several regional interior ministers have complained that the social media group is hesitant to respond to requests for data and have called on the Federal Justice Ministry to introduce new laws.

German Police said the Ansbach bomber had six Facebook accounts including one held under a false identity. Traces of an online messaging conversation found on his phone also suggest he was influenced by an unknown person up until the time of the attack, said Bavaria's interior minister.

Germany's spy chief called on Monday for a more intensive exchange of information between social networks and security agencies in the fight against terrorism.

Bottom-line: The state of the world is not looking good, and maybe in this respect one should quote Scripture which says: “You will reap whatever you sow in life.” 

Mankind certainly can not be proud about what it sowed. 

The time of reckoning is fast approaching -and we must act before it is too late,

EU-Digest                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Russia: Nato risks nuclear war with Russia 'within a year', senior general warns - by Charlie Cooper

Nato risks a nuclear war with Russia within a year if it does not increase its defence capabilities in the Baltic states, one of the alliance's most senior retired generals has said.

General Sir Richard Shirreff, who served as Nato’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe between 2011 and 2014, said that an attack on Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia – all Nato members – was a serious possibility and that the West should act now to avert “potential catastrophe”.

He has written a fictional book 2017 War with Russia, but told BBC Radio 4’s Today program the events it describes were “entirely plausible”.

General Shirreff said: “The chilling fact is that because Russia hardwires nuclear thinking and capability to every aspect of their defence capability, this would be nuclear war.

“We need to judge President Putin by his deeds not his words,” he added. “He has invaded Georgia, he has invaded the Crimea, he has invaded Ukraine. He has used force and got away with it.

“In a period of tension, an attack on the Baltic states… is entirely plausible.”
Nato members would be obliged under Article 5 of its founding treaty to come to the defence of another member if it came under attack.

General Shirreff said that Mr Putin could be persuaded into an intervention in the Baltic by a “perception” of weakness in Nato, and predicted that, as in Crimea, the Russian president would present his actions as an act of defence to protect the large Russian-speaking minorities in those countries.

Nato has already stepped up defences in the Baltic states, but General Shirreff said that it needed to “raise the bar sufficiently high for any aggressor to say it is not worth the risk."

Note EU-Digest: Anyone who believes in risking a nuclear war to achieve political gain is not only out of touch with reality, but also not fit to be a general or major political leader, and obviously also suicidal.


Read more: Nato risks nuclear war with Russia 'within a year', senior general warns | Europe | News | The Independent

Fear Factor: The World's Greatest Fears, Mapped by Country - byJeanne Kim

The biggest fear among the Japanese is, unsurprisingly, nuclear weapons. People in South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda are most worried about AIDS and other diseases. And inequality is the deepest concern for much of Europe and the U.S.

These are among the findings of Pew Research Center’s survey of more than 48,000 people in 44 countries this spring (so, it’s worth noting, pre-Ebola epidemic). 

The survey asked people to choose among five categories of threat: AIDS and other diseases, nuclear weapons, pollution and environment, inequality, and religious and ethnic hatred.

Read more: The World's Greatest Fears, Mapped by Country - The Atlantic

North Korea ups ante, putting rockets on standby - Foster Klug

North Korea's Kim Jong Un

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned Friday that his rocket forces were ready “to settle accounts with the U.S.,” unleashing a new round of bellicose rhetoric after U.S. nuclear-capable B-2 bombers dropped dummy munitions in joint military drills with South Korea.

Kim’s warning, and the litany of threats that have preceded it, don’t indicate an imminent war. In fact, they’re most likely meant to coerce South Korea into softening its policies, win direct talks and aid from Washington, and strengthen the young leader’s credentials and image at home.

But the threats from North Korea and rising animosity from the rivals that have followed UN sanctions over Pyongyang’s Feb. 12 nuclear test do raise worries of a misjudgment leading to a clash.
Kim “convened an urgent operation meeting” of senior generals just after midnight, signed a rocket preparation plan and ordered his forces on standby to strike the U.S. mainland, South Korea, Guam and Hawaii, state media reported.

Kim said “the time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation,” according to a report by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

Read more: North Korea ups ante, putting rockets on standby - The Globe and Mail