DISPATCHES FROM MOON OF ALABAMA, BY "B"
This article is part of an ongoing series of dispatches from Moon of Alabama
Sino-Russian weapons may already be generations ahead of US equivalents.
The Trump administration is hostile to any agreement that restricts its abilities to build, test and deploy nuclear weapons.
It left the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) agreement which limited nuclear missile deployments in Europe. It did so after accusing Russia of deploying missiles that exceed the range the INF treaty allowed. It has never shown evidence that the assertion was true.
Recently the administration announced that it will leave the Treaty on Open Skies which allowed for mutual reconnaissance flights for its 34 country members. It accused Russia of having limited U.S. requests for such flights over certain Russian areas. The Russian government rejected those claims.
The Trump administration is intentionally running out of time to renew the New START Treaty which limits the strategic nuclear platforms deployed by the U.S. and Russia. The treaty will expire on February 5 2021. Russia has offered to renew it for five years without any conditions. The U.S. rejected that. It says that China must be integrated into the treaty even as that makes no sense at all.
On top of all that Trump is now thinking about breaking the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty which the U.S. has signed but not ratified:
The Trump administration has discussed whether to conduct the first U.S. nuclear test explosion since 1992 in a move that would have far-reaching consequences for relations with other nuclear powers and reverse a decades-long moratorium on such actions, said a senior administration official and two former officials familiar with the deliberations.
The matter came up at a meeting of senior officials representing the top national security agencies May 15, following accusations from administration officials that Russia and China are conducting low-yield nuclear tests — an assertion that has not been substantiated by publicly available evidence and that both countries have denied.
The claims that Russia and China conducted low yield testing is almost certainly false and only an excuse to avoid the ratification of the test ban treaty.
The big joke though is that the the administration claims that it may need to again test nuclear devices to helpwith the renewing of the New START Treaty:
A senior administration official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the sensitive nuclear discussions, said that demonstrating to Moscow and Beijing that the United States could “rapid test” could prove useful from a negotiating standpoint as Washington seeks a trilateral deal to regulate the arsenals of the biggest nuclear powers.
There will be no 'trilateral deal'. The U.S. claims it wants to renew the New START Treaty by including China. But China has absolutely no reason to enter such an agreement. This graphic by the Arms Control Association explains why:
Russia and the U.S. both have some 6,000+ nuclear warheads. The New START Treaty between the U.S. and Russia limits the numbers of platforms - missiles, bombers and submarines - that each side can use to launch strategic nuclear weapons to some 1,400. China has less than 300 nuclear warheads and even fewer platforms from which those could be launched. The U.S. claims that China will double the number of its warheads and platforms during the next ten years but there is again zero evidence to support that claim.
Why should China, with less nuclear capabilities than France and Britain, join a treaty that would limit its meager capabilities when the U.S. and Russia both have more than twenty times its numbers. That makes no sense at all.
It is obvious that the Trump administration is simply using the China card as an excuse to let the New START Treaty run out.
The administrations real hope may be to restart a nuclear arms race. That is how I interpret this circular argument:
U.S. President Donald Trump’s arms control negotiator on Thursday said the United States is prepared to spend Russia and China “into oblivion” in order to win a new nuclear arms race.
“The president has made clear that we have a tried and true practice here. We know how to win these races and we know how to spend the adversary into oblivion. If we have to, we will, but we sure would like to avoid it,” Special Presidential Envoy Marshall Billingslea said in an online presentation to a Washington think tank.
The 'threat' of a new nuclear arms race is made to press Russia to bring China on board of a renewed New Start Treaty:
Marshall Billingslea, who was appointed last month as the president’s special envoy for arms control, said Thursday that he had his first secure phone call with his counterpart in Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. Billingslea said they agreed to meet, talk about their objectives and find a way to begin negotiations.
“Suffice to say, this won’t be easy. It is new,” Billingslea said, adding that the U.S. fully expects Russia to help bring China to the table.
...
A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Geng Shuang, said in January that China has “no intention to participate” in trilateral arms control negotiations. Billingslea, however, is optimistic that Beijing will want to joint in and be seen as a world power.
Russia would never "bring China to the table" even if it could. The U.S. and Russia are first class superpowers. China isn't there yet.
Billingslea's threat of a new arms race is not credible. Russia has already preempted such a race by introducing a generation of completely new weapons which the U.S. can not counter at all. Trump's relaunch of Reagan's Star Wars will not change that.
Russia will not take part in a new arms race as it already has everything it needs to respond to a U.S. first strike with a counterstrike that is guaranteed to destroy the United States. This capability is independent from the number of nuclear warheads and launchers the U.S. deploys.
China did not take part in the Cold War arms race. It always believed that it had sufficient capabilities to threaten the U.S. with a counterstrike no matter what. That attitude can be discerned from this vignette:
Slightly over a decade ago at a U.S.-Chinese “Track II” meeting in Beijing, American participants were reported to have pressed their Chinese counterparts about the limits of China’s nuclear no-first-use (NFU) commitment. One of them raised the possibility of U.S. conventional strikes against Chinese nuclear forces: what would happen then? Would China adhere to NFU in the strictest sense, or would it use its remaining nuclear weapons to retaliate against a conventional counterforce attack? One of the Chinese participants, a retired senior military official, is said to have responded, “Try it and see.”
There is no sign that China's thinking has changed.
"Spending the adversary into oblivion", as Billingslea's threatened, is also rumored to have a certain cost. It is quite doubtful that the U.S. is capable or willing to finance that.
Billingslea is by the way a dangerous nutter. During the Bush administration he was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict and the civilian responsible for the war on terror and torture regime conducted by U.S. special operation forces.
If he believes that torture can help to fight terrorism, or that nuclear tests can further arms control negotiations, he might also believe that unrealistic threats of an arms race can push China into a treaty it does not want. In reality neither will work.
But that may well fit Trump's plans of pushing all arms control regimes into oblivion.
Retreating from arms control regimes has already a high a price even when no new weapons are bought. With each step the administration has taken in this regard it has won no new capabilities but lost insight into the capabilities of its presumed enemies. The INF, New Start, Test Ban and the Open Skies Treaty all had verification instruments and inspection regimes that allowed all sides to gain insight into the others capabilities and thinking.
In a few years the U.S. will have lost a lot of insight into Russia's weapons and thinking. The insecurity created by that may well come back to haunt it.
Posted by b on May 23, 2020 at 18:00 UTC | Permalink
I forgot to add, AFTER China is sufficiently demonized then Trump's plan is to make laws against doing business with China. As Pepe Escobar reported from contacts within Wall Street close to Trump back in 2016-17 that their plan was to being back manufacturing from China at all costs. So this is how they are doing it 1) Demonize China 2) Making it socially unacceptable to so business with China 3) After a while make it illegal or make it too costly do do business with China after manufacturing starts to move out of China to other countries.
@Huh or @1: I think the blog is probably against nuclear testing, the breaking of treaties that protect the whole world from the runaway rampaging egos of fat men who are stupid but think they'll be remembered by history, honorably, for a ball groping wind breaking evening at the opera so to speak. I think the blog is not pro-war. I think the blog is about a refined, well thought out, diplomacy. Me thinkest thou doth PROJECT too much. You know what they say about second rate thinkers, they can't find the good in anything. So thank you for your educational and pithy (I should say pissy but I'll give it a pass) insights. Please edify us further on your keen notions and insights with a better plan to bring peace to earth.
Posted by: Madison James | May 23 2020 18:23 utc | 3
Aside from the many commenters who disagree with moon on Covid 19 but otherwise value his reporting like me, the comment sections was better when the hasbara trolls hadn't targeted moon.
Posted by: gepay | May 23 2020 18:24 utc | 4
Marshall Billingslea, Was he a rejected character from Gilbert and Sullivan? Too nasty even for the Victorians?
Posted by: R Z | May 23 2020 18:41 utc | 5
'spend their way into oblivion' pretty well describes how the US got into the current situation. With 0.5-1 trillion going to military and quasi military spending for decades, the economic impact was that weapons firms bid up the cost of engineering and manufacturing with no limit, and then buyers of these services for other vital industrial activity were priced out of the domestic market and that activity was easily offshored.
And that's entirely apart from a possible arms race with a country that has 5x the industrial capacity, and the biggest generation of 20 year olds entering the work force who were the first to grow up with internet as kids, and widely available cheap computer access and quality tech education. A qualitative difference vs the current generation of 30 or 40 year olds.
These policy makers live in their own world.
Posted by: ptb | May 23 2020 18:42 utc | 6
Trump is mostly concerned with giving handouts to the MIC because he thinks "the economy" is based on jobs in the MIC since that is what they tell him is where US manufacturing is now based.
Posted by: Kali | May 23 2020 18:16 utc | 2
To a degree, it is true. However, the problem with MIC as an economic stimulant is rather pitiful multiplier effect. For starters, the costs are hopelessly bloated. Under rather watchful Putin, Russia does its piece of arms race at a very small fraction of American costs. By the same token, pro-economy effects of arms spending in USA are seriously diluted -- the spending is surely there, but the extend of activity is debatable For example, in aerospace, there is a big potential for civilian applications of technologies developed for the military. Scant evidence in Boeing that should be a prime beneficiary. The fabled toilet seat (that cost many thousands of dollars) similarly failed to find civilian applications. Civilians inclined to overpriced toilets, like Mr. Trump himself, rely on low-tech methods like gold-plating.
A wider problem is shared by entire GOP: aversion to any government programs, and least of all industry promoting programs, that could benefit ordinary citizens. This is the exclusive domain of the free market! Once you refuse to consider that, only MIC remains, plus some boondogles like interstate highways. Heaven forfend to improve public transit or to repair almost-proverbial crumbling dams and bridges.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | May 23 2020 19:01 utc | 7
The US is so far behind Russia in its weaponry that when threatening Russia and China, nuclear weapons are about the only real threat left that it can fall back upon. Adrei Martyanov describes how US carrier groups have been made obsolete by Russian (and Chinese) hypersonic missiles, which cannot be defended against. US BMD is useless against non-ballistic delivery nuclear weapon systems. Russian electronic warfare and missile defense systems are generations ahead of anything the US has. The US is making a big deal out of a Mach 5 missile in development, while Russia has deployed the Mach 10 Kinzhal missile and Mach 20+ Avangard nuclear delivery system.
The US is collapsing in a variety of ways and its neocon ideologue "leaders" want to start detonating nuclear weapons to prove how tough they are.
Posted by: Perimetr | May 23 2020 19:02 utc | 8
There are a few points contained here that are interesting in view of events of the last decade or so. One of them is the idea of spending enemies into oblivion. This is something the United States is well on the road to doing to itself. Note the cancellation or scaling back of ambitious weapons programs such as the Zumwalt destroyer and Ford class carriers. Much crowing took place in the 90s alleging the USA had engineered the collapse of the USSR by such means. Then there is the notion of bringing manufacturing back to the USA. This will not happen in any substantive way because the cat's out of the bag already and crucial manufacturing can't be brought back by any means other than locking down the USA's economy and declaring autarky to be the law. Not likely to happen and hence standing up USA industry to be as it once was would fly in the face of the realities of non competitiveness. Much talk has been going on about "containing Chinese aggression" in China's own back yard. This is dangerous talk in light of evolving new realities. Culturally the Chinese are likely not inclined towards empire of the colonial variety such as we are inclined towards, having inherited it from the British, but they are inclined towards defending themselves against such ventures undertaken against them by the west. They are, after all, painfully aware of the price they paid in the last 2 centuries for having been supine in the face of western aggression. Any moves against them in the South China Sea would depend on control of the the sea, and that would in turn be dependent on the dominance of carrier born aviation. B52s from Diego Garcia and Guam won't cut it in face of likely advanced Chinese air defences. Tuned in as they (and Russia) must be to the importance of precision stand off weapons systems, it seems likely that a country like China doesn't need carrier battle groups like ours; they only need to be able to destroy ours. The loss of a couple carriers would be a rude cold douche to our notions of knocking out their island outposts and we'd have to be off our rockers to think we could use Nukes in such an event. What American leader would trade the LA greater metro area for that, much less a few other cities?
There's lots of bluster from our foreign policy goons. but I suspect it's all show. It'll be an interesting show to watch going forward as Covid 19 has caused the entire USA to throw all fiscal caution to the wind when the realities of our fiscal situation were already on the thin edge before "Rona" came to town. The fiscal pandemic will outlast the viral one...
Posted by: erik | May 23 2020 19:05 utc | 9
We have to ask cui bono - who benefits from a new nuclear arms race? General Electric, Boeing, Honeywell International, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman et al. No one else really. Since these corporations also own the Congress and have zillions to fund Trump's re-election, they will probably get the go-ahead to spend the rest of the world into oblivion.
Posted by: Charles D | May 23 2020 19:19 utc | 11
Apart from the obvious fact that the MIC is the only viable engine of propulsion of the American "real economy" (a.k.a. "manufacturing"), there's the more macabre fact that, if we take Trump's administration first military papers into consideration, it seems there's a growing coterie inside the Pentagon and the WH that firmly believes MAD can be broken vis-a-vis China.
Hence the "Prompt Global Strike" doctrine (which is taking form with the commission of the new B-21 "Raider" strategic bomber, won by Northrop Grumman), the rise of the concept of "tactical nukes" (hence the extinction of the START, and the Incirlik Base imbroglio post failed coup against Erdogan) and, most importantly, the new doctrine of "bringing manufacture back".
The USA is suffering from a structural valorization problem. The only way out is finding new vital space through which it can initiate a new cycle of valorization. The only significant vital space to be carved out in the 21st Century is China, with its 600 million-sized middle class (the world's largest middle class, therefore the world's largest potential consumer market). It won two decades with the opening of the ex-Soviet vital space, but it was depleted in the 2000s, finally exploding in 2006-2008.
How many decades does the Americans think they can earn by a hypothetical unilateral destruction of China?
Billingslea received a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.A. in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Tufts University.[2] He began his career as an aide to Senator Jesse Helms,[3] serving as a Senior Professional Staff Member for National Security Affairs on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Jesse Helms...His ghost lingers on , to our dismay.
Posted by: donten | May 23 2020 19:49 utc | 13
Spending into oblivion is only possible if people continue to buy your debt
I think that is going to stop soon and there are already a few signs.
What a circus soap opera......too bad its our reality and not Hollywood
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 23 2020 19:54 utc | 14
Having a treaty that limits power (in this case nuclear) on the same level for the US and any other country is simply totally against the ideology of US Superiority/Exceptionalism.
That seems to be the driving (psychological and ideological) factor behind this charade.
And like this sick ideology always ends: It too will backfire.
@gepay: another problem is people that disagree with Bernhard on COVID, but then use this disagreement to not read his artciles anymore.
So many people only want to read what they want to hear, and run away at the first real different view.
The narcissism, that our neoliberal societies inducded in its people the last decade shows.. And seeing both sides and everything in between is not possible anymore for a majority it seems.
And living in a bubble is so comforting and easy in todays world. On MSM and on Alt Media alike.
Posted by: DontBelieveEitherPr | May 23 2020 19:58 utc | 15
It's drivel such as b has outlined in this post which strengthens my respect and admiration for Russian and Chinese diplomacy. If I was placed in a position of having to negotiate with such dopey, childish pricks, I'd laugh in their faces, tell them to F off, and have them escorted from the premises.
Hopefully, that helps to explain why Putin and Xi don't meet with them.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | May 23 2020 20:10 utc | 16
Like I said in the previous post, there's a big difference between what Trump wants and What the warmongers want. He likes economic war (against everybody), they want actual war. As long as Trump is in power, I don't see things changing.
There were some Brits, whose link I don't have, who have modellised that Trump is going to lose massively in November. If that's right, and if Biden remains the Dem candidate, then I guess war is what we're going to have.
Posted by: Laguerre | May 23 2020 20:17 utc | 17
Perhaps this proves that the Kissinger/Nixon theory of dividing Russia (USSR)from China is now dead.
Posted by: aukuu999 | May 23 2020 20:21 utc | 18
"...that may well fit Trump's plans of pushing all arms control regimes into oblivion."
It's not just arms control regimes, as the WHO business showed. This is the Roy Cohn agenda showing up again- the old GOP objection to the UN and all other international organisations. It is pure ideology-the US has gained immensely from dominating the organisations of which it is a part, leaving them makes no sense at all.
As to 'spending China to oblivion". This only works when every Pentagon dollar spent forces China or Russia to spend a dollar themselves. In such a contest the richest country wins. But that only works in the context of pre-nuclear warfare. With the nuclear deterrent it becomes possible to opt out of all the money wasting nonsense represented by the Pentagon budget, sit back and say, as the Chinese diplomat evidently did, "Just try it."
Which adds up to the conclusion that it is wholly irrational of the United States to denounce treaties designed to reduce the likelihood of nuclear weapons being used: it is to the advantage of Washington that other powers, potential rivals, are forced to build up conventional forces because they are bound by treaty not to rely on nuclear weapons.
So, again: pure ideology designed for domestic consumption and advanced by the most reactionary elements in American society- the Jesse Helms good ol' boys who make the neo-cons look almost human.
Posted by: bevin | May 23 2020 20:33 utc | 19
if the nuclear test is truly a "message" to the Sino-Soviets what prevents them answering in similar form viz "please provide the coordinates of your test-site as we would like to dig that hole immediately thereafter w our own similar"
Posted by: Jon Guillory | May 23 2020 20:34 utc | 20
He likes economic war (against everybody), they want actual war. Laguerre | May 23 2020 20:17 utc
Trump has a primitive mercantile mind. There is nothing inherently wrong about mercantilism, but a primitive version of anything tends to be mediocre at best. Thus he loves war that give profit, like Yemen where natives are bombed with expensive products made in USA (and unfortunately, also UK, France etc., but the bulk goes to USA). Then he loves wars the he thinks will give profit, like "keeping oil fields in Syria". Some people told him that oil fields are profitable (although they can go bankrupt just like casinos).
Privately, I think that Trump wanted to make a war with Iran, but the generals explained to him what kind of disaster that would be.
One difference is that Democrats are aligned with uber Zionists of slightly less rabid variety than Republicans. A bit like black bears vs grizzlies. Unfortunately, like in the animal kingdom, when the push comes to shove, black bears defer to grizzlies, so on the side of Palestinians etc. there is no difference.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | May 23 2020 20:38 utc | 21
Posted by: Piotr Berman | May 23 2020 20:38 utc | 21
Yemen was not Trump's launch, but Obama's. The Syrian oil-fields are not profit - he must have been warned, too little production - but rather preventing the Syrians from having their oil (Israel inspired no doubt).
Posted by: Laguerre | May 23 2020 20:48 utc | 22
Billingslea's "spending ... into oblivion" statement reflects the belief, still widespread among US neocon political / military elites, that the Soviet Union was brought down and destroyed by its attempts to keep up with US military spending throughout the 1980s. This alone tells us how steeped in past fantasy the entire US political and military establishment must be. Compared to Rip van Winkle, these people are comatose.
Spending the enemy into oblivion may be "tried and true" practice but only when the enemy is much poorer than yourself in arms production and in one type of weapons manufacture. That certainly does not apply to either Russia or China these days. Both nations think more strategically and do not waste precious resources in parading and projecting military power abroad, or rely almost exclusively on old, decaying technologies and a narrow mindset obsessed with always being top dog in everything.
Posted by: Jen | May 23 2020 21:17 utc | 24
Frankly, I think Russia and China should let the US spend itself into oblivion.
Posted by: Dick | May 23 2020 21:35 utc | 25
In theory, the NPT signatories are supposed to be eliminating their nuclear weapons.
Posted by: Edward | May 23 2020 22:07 utc | 26
Ladies and Gentlemen and all of you other bisexual transsexual creatures that were formally Human Beings. It is way past time to restart our Nuclear Test Program. While you may think I am joking, the reality is that we no longer know whether or not any of these weapons actually work. Think about it. Does the latest Multi-use platform military Aircraft work? No!. Does the latest version of the US Navy's Littoral Combat ship work? No! Does the most recently built and technologically wonderful US Navy Aircraft Carrier work? No!
So why do you think the Nuclear Weapons should work? These are new and high tech weapons that are cool and cost a phucking fem-nominal amount of money but they might not be any better than any of the other garbage designed by our Technological Engineering Geniuses that designed and built the latest Aircraft and Ships. How can I sleep at night, guarding my and other American's vital bodily fluids with weapons that might not work. I don't want to go to a gun fight with only a knife. Those Rooskies and Chinks play for keeps and they have not pissed away gargantuan amounts of money to buy useless non-working $hit. Besides, Vegas is closed down due to the Korona $hit so Nevada needs to get back to basics and start Nuclear testing again.
Just better do the first ones in Top Top Top Secrete in case they are duds.
Posted by: Gen. Jack D. Ripper | May 23 2020 22:16 utc | 27
@17 laguerre
Yes, it seems that way.
If Biden or another Dem candidate wins, they will use the ire of the populace against Trump to wholesale fire all Trump admin appointees and administrators. Trump did not do this to Obama appointees and this hurt him bigly but was in his mind the right thing to do to demonstrate a fair-minded authority. Not so with a dem-elect. It will be that much easier to steer towards war with rank and file sycophants and true believers.
...
A poster above mentioned Trump may make it illegal to do business with China.
Does any China-lover here actually think this is a bad idea? According to their logic, the U.S.'s goose is already cooked, so with Trump isolating America, it would seem a boon for China to swoop in as it continually demonstrates it is capable of this. Any argument against such a decoupling by China-lovers indeed translates to them actually shittung their pants at the notion of China sans America. That's a fact, Jack.
But don't worry guys, Americans don't mind being left in the dust. Our land is bountiful enough that a purge of all the anational elites is all we need.
Sure, sure, sure..."rough times ahead..." blah blah blah. Well...it's either a decoupling or full on globalist-faction war, dragging in the national armies of Russia and China.
If the dems win, I would imagine a reverting back to stirring up shit with Russia and inviting China to remain neutral. The opposite of the current strategy of separating Russia from China.
Posted by: Nemesiscalling | May 23 2020 22:17 utc | 28
'We know how to win these races and we know how to spend the adversary into oblivion.'
Good luck with that.
'Spending' means devoting 'resources' to the Arms Race.
From where will the U.S. get the 'resources' to devote to the arms race in quantities sufficient to outspend China and Russia?
China produces an order of magnitude more STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) graduates, the key 'resources' for the Arms Race, than the U.S, and Russia produces an equivalent number!
Will they take them from other military programs? Outside of arms, the U.S. military is already stretched!
Will the U.S. divert the 'resources' from goods producing industries, the ones who use STEM professionals? The U.S. already consumes 20% more goods than it produces, all bought with borrowed money, that it will never repay! Will it slash the living standards of its population, most of whom are already in economic stress, in order to 'resource' this arms race?
Or will it in-debt itself even more, with money printed by the FED? Doing so will further undermine the status of the $US as the World's reserve currency.
Statements such as the above only hasten the day the China and Russia move do depose the 'Dollar', and end, once and for all, the ability of the U.S. to outspend anybody!
Posted by: dh-mtl | May 24 2020 0:12 utc | 29
A composite picture of TrumpCo conducting Foreign Affairs would be a Blusterbuss. As for beginning an Arms Race, don't tell Trump but it began long ago when Putin became Russia's Leader and was solidified in 2007. The Outlaw US Empire was so busy gutting its own economy and immiserating its own citizens that it failed to even get a hint at what Russia was doing. IMO, Russia and China have a 20 year lead time-wise which translates into roughly $100Trillion. AND current policy being set by Trump isn't even looking at trying to reestablish the strategic industrial base required to even enter the game. The Outlaw US Empire can't sit at the table because it lacks the ante. Let that sink in for a few minutes. Not even the Money Power with its trillions of fraudulently gained dollars can come up with the ante because that consists of the required industrial base that was liquidated to satisfy its parasitic desires. In terms of Geostrategic Assets, the Outlaw US Empire and its Money Power are Broke and are incapable of an Arms Race.
Posted by: karlof1 | May 24 2020 0:22 utc | 30
Once again, b, I am awed by the reading list you must have to embrace to put together such an appreciation as this one. And the Twitter link to Loren DeJonge Schulman was priceless. Very droll.
Many thanks.
One other thing the yanks missed was that Putin did say very explicitly in recent years that Russia would not be involved in an arms race.
Posted by: Grieved | May 24 2020 0:29 utc | 31
Posted by: Laguerre | May 23 2020 20:17 utc | 17 Like I said in the previous post, there's a big difference between what Trump wants and What the warmongers want. He likes economic war (against everybody), they want actual war. As long as Trump is in power, I don't see things changing.
The problem with that is that Trump is easily manipulated. He may buck and bolt frequently, just to keep his own narcissism satisfied that *he* is the one with the power. But he's still easily manipulated because he's ignorant of almost everything. He's not against war - like every other President he simply doesn't want to be *blamed* for starting another disastrous war. That's entirely different from being unwilling to *actually* start such a war. That was Obama's thing, too. He was happy to want to start a war with Syria in 2013 over a bogus "chemical weapons attack" - but once Putin and the US Senate pushed back, he ducked and covered. Trump will do the same. But whether that's enough to prevent a war *if* something actually happens to cause significant US casualties, that is another matter.
"There were some Brits, whose link I don't have, who have modellised that Trump is going to lose massively in November. If that's right, and if Biden remains the Dem candidate, then I guess war is what we're going to have."
Yes, that is the *other* main problem. What happens when Trump 1) loses, or 2) wins - and doesn't care any more about whether a new war will hurt his re-election chances? This has been my standard response to all those who say he won't start a war with Iran, despite his massive support for Israel and his antipathy towards Iran, because he doesn't want to hurt his re-election. So I say, "What about *after* the election?" The response is always crickets.
Regardless of what Trump "wants" - and a narcissist changes that with his socks - Trump *can* start a war. It just depends on the circumstances and what he perceives as his *personal* risk (of whatever nature.)
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | May 24 2020 1:16 utc | 32
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"b" is Moon of Alabama's founding (and chief) editor. This site's purpose is to discuss politics, economics, philosophy and blogger Billmon's Whiskey Bar writings. Moon Of Alabama was opened as an independent, open forum for members of the Whiskey Bar community. Bernhard )"b") started and still runs the site. Once in a while you will also find posts and art from regular commentators. You can reach the current administrator of this site by emailing Bernhard at MoonofA@aol.com. 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Trump is mostly concerned with giving handouts to the MIC because he thinks "the economy" is based on jobs in the MIC since that is what they tell him is where US manufacturing is now based. This is probably just about that, he isn't a strategic planner for foreign policy and his people aren't either, except when it comes to making money. They want to make it socially unacceptable to do business with China to bring back manufacturing without making a law. For example Bernie Sanders has a bill to make outsourcing companies pay a tariff equal to what they would have lost by paying higher wages to American workers. That is a a way to bring back manufacturing. Trump and his people don't want to do that because it LOOKS bad, so they want to achieve the same thing by attacking China instead. But it will fail since at most the manufacturing will move to other low wage states. https://medium.com/@pamho/tulsi-gabbard-the-end-times-7b2848d4ded9
Posted by: Kali | May 23 2020 18:16 utc | 1