“Preemptive Nuclear War”: The Historic Battle for Peace and Democracy. A Third World War Threatens the Future of Humanity

July 23, 2023

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research,

Region: Russia and FSUUSA

Theme: Militarization and WMDUS NATO War Agenda

In-depth Report: Nuclear WarUKRAINE REPORT

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This article was first published on March 9, 2022, revised and expanded on October 5, 2022, minor revisions on May 25, 2023.

Introduction

At no point since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, has humanity been closer to the unthinkable. All the safeguards of the Cold War era, which categorized the nuclear bomb as “a weapon of last resort”, have been scrapped.

Let us also recall the unspoken history of America’s doctrine pertaining to the conduct of nuclear war. 

Barely six weeks after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,the U.S. War Department released a Secret Plan on September 15, 1945 to  bomb 66 cities of the Soviet Union with 204 atomic bombs.

The September 1945 Plan was to “Wipe the Soviet Union off the Map” at a time when the US and the USSR were allies. Confirmed by declassified documents, Hiroshima and Nagasaki served as a “Dress Rehearsal” (see historical details and analysis below). 

Putin’s February 2022 Statement

Vladimir Putin’s statement on February 21st, 2022 was a response to US threats to use nuclear weapons on a preemptive basis against Russia, despite Joe Biden’s “reassurance” that the US would not be resorting to “A first strike” nuclear attack against an enemy of America: 

“Let me [Putin] explain that U.S. strategic planning documents contain the possibility of a so-called preemptive strike against enemy missile systems. And who is the main enemy for the U.S. and NATO? We know that too. It’s Russia. In NATO documents, our country is officially and directly declared the main threat to North Atlantic security. And Ukraine will serve as a forward springboard for the strike.” (Putin Speech, February 21, 2022, emphasis added)

In July 2021, the Biden administration launched its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) which was formally announced in October 2022.

The 2022 NPR includes what is described as a “nuclear declaratory policy of the United States”.

The 2022 NPR largely confirms the nuclear options developed by the Obama and Bush administrations predicated on the notion of preemptive nuclear war raised in President Putin’s speech. 

The underlying US nuclear doctrine consists in portraying nuclear weapons as a means of “self defense” rather than as a “weapon of mass destruction”.

The NPR does not rule out the possibility of a “first strike” nuclear attack against Russia. According to theUS Congress Research Service:  

“The NPR [2022] suggests that the United States may use nuclear weapons in circumstances that do not involve potential adversaries’ potential use of nuclear weapons. …The review also asserts that an ‘effective nuclear deterrent is foundational to broader U.S. defense strategy,’ but does not elaborate.  (…)”

“Should deterrence fail, ‘the United States would seek to end any conflict at the lowest level of damage possible on the best achievable terms’— language implying that the United States might use nuclear weapons for purposes other than deterrence.” (CRS Reports. US Congress 2022 NPR, emphasis added)

The Privatization of Nuclear War 

It should be understood, that there are powerful financial interests behind the NPR which are tied into the $1.3  trillion nuclear weapons program initiated under President Obama. 

Although the Ukraine conflict has so-far been limited to conventional weapons coupled with “economic warfare”, the use of a large array of sophisticated WMDs including nuclear weapons is on the drawing board of the Pentagon.

Dangerous narrative: The NPR proposes “increased integration of conventional and nuclear planning”, which consists in categorizing tactical nuclear weapons (e.g. B61-11 and 12) as conventional weapons, to be used on a preemptive basis in the conventional war theater (as a means of self defense)

According to the Federation of American Scientists, the total number of nuclear warheads Worldwide is of the order of 13,000.  Russia and the United States “each have around 4,000 warheads in their military stockpiles”.

The Dangers of Nuclear War are Real. Profit Driven. Two Trillion Dollars

Under Joe Biden, public funds allocated to nuclear weapons are slated to increase to 2 trillion by 2030 allegedly as a means to safeguarding peace and national security at taxpayers expense. (How many schools and hospitals could you finance with 2 trillion dollars?):

The United States maintains an arsenal of about 1,700 strategic nuclear warheads deployed on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and at strategic bomber bases. There are an additional estimated 100 non-strategic, or tactical, nuclear weapons at bomber bases in five European countries and about 2,000 nuclear warheads in storage. [see our analysis of B61-11 and B61-12 below]

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in May 2021 that the United States will spend a total of $634 billion over the next 10 years to sustain and modernize its nuclear arsenal. (Arms Control)

In this article, I will focus on

  • The Post Cold War shift in US Nuclear Doctrine,
  • A brief review of the History of US-Russia Relations since World War I
  • An Assessment of  the history of nuclear weapons going back to the Manhattan Project initiated in 1939 with the participation of both Canada and the United Kingdom. 

Most people in America do not know that the Manhattan Project in the immediate wake of bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki in August 1945, was intended to formulate a nuclear attack against the USSR, at a time when the Soviet Union and the U.S. were allies. 

What I am referring to is the U.S Blueprint of September 15, 1945 according to which the US War Department planned to drop more than 200 atomic bombs on 66 cities of the Soviet Union. This is not mentioned in the history books. See:

http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/1945-Atomic-Bomb-Production.pdf 


Video: The Dangers of Nuclear War: Michel Chossudovsky

https://odysee.com/$/embed/CHOSSUDOVSKYWAR/9496935b55284df69c962de76d556936aedca787?r=CasfmoxRU6rik2hYfPCN84F6qKkqFtsS

Comments: Link to Odysee


A Note on the History of US-Russia Relations. The Forgotten War of 1918

From a historical standpoint the US and its Allies have been threatening Russia for more than 104 years starting during World War I with the deployment of US and Allied Forces against Soviet Russia on January 12, 1918, (two months following the November 7, 1917 revolution allegedly in support of Russia’s Imperial Army).  

The 1918 US-UK Allied invasion of Russia is a landmark in Russian History, often mistakenly portrayed as being part of a Civil War. 

It lasted for more than two years involving the deployment of more than 200,000 troops of which 11,000 were from the US, 59,000 from the UK. Japan which was an Ally of Britain and America during World War I  dispatched 70,000 troops. 

US Troops in Vladivostok, 1918

US Occupation Troops in Vladivostok 1918

US and Allied Troops in Vladivostok in 1918

The Threat of Nuclear War

The US threat of nuclear war against Russia was formulated more than 76 years ago in September 1945, when the US and the Soviet Union were allies. It consisted in a “World War III Blueprint” of nuclear war against the USSR, targeting 66 cities with more than 200 atomic bombs. This diabolical project under the Manhattan Project was instrumental in triggering the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. (See analysis below).

Chronology

1918-1920:  The first US and allied forces led war against Soviet Russia with more than 10 countries sending troops to fight alongside the White Imperial Russian army. This happened exactly two months after the October Revolution, on January 12, 1918, and it lasted until the early 1920s.

The Manhattan Project initiated in 1939, with the participation of the UK and Canada. Development of the Atomic Bomb. 

Operation Barbarossa, June 1941. Nazi Invasion of the Soviet Union. Standard Oil of New Jersey was selling oil to Nazi Germany.

February 1945: The Yalta Conference. The meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin.

“Operation Unthinkable”: A Secret attack plan against the Soviet Union formulated by Winston Churchill in the immediate wake of the Yalta conference. It was scrapped in June 1945.

April 12, 1945: The Potsdam Conference. President Harry Truman and Prime Minister Winston Churchill approve the atomic bombing of Japan.

September 15, 1945: A World War III Scenario formulated by the US War Department: A plan to  bomb 66 cities of the Soviet Union with 204 atomic bombs, when the US and USSR were allies. The Secret plan  (declassified in 1975) formulated during WWII, was released less than two weeks after the official end of WWII on September 2, 1945

1949: The Soviet Union announces the testing of its nuclear bomb.

Post Cold War Doctrine: “Preemptive Nuclear War”

The Doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) of the Cold War Era no longer prevails. It was replaced at the outset of the George W. Bush Administration with the Doctrine of Preemptive Nuclear War, namely the use of nuclear weapons as a means of “self-defense” against both nuclear and non-nuclear weapons states.

In early 2002, the text of George W. Bush’s Nuclear Posture Review had already been leaked, several months prior to the release of the September 2002 National Security Strategy (NSS) which defined, “Preemption” as:

“the anticipatory use of force in the face of an imminent attack”. 

Namely as an act of war on the grounds of self-defense

The MAD doctrine was scrapped. The 2001 Nuclear Posture Review not only redefined the use of nuclear weapons, so-called tactical nuclear weapons or bunker buster bombs (mini-nukes) could henceforth be used in the conventional war theater without the authorization of the Commander in Chief, namely the President of the United States.

Seven countries were identified in the 2001 NPR (adopted in 2002) as potential targets for a preemptive nuclear attack

Discussing “requirements for nuclear strike capabilities,” the report lists Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Syria as “among the countries that could be involved in immediate, potential, or unexpected contingencies.”  …

Three of these countries (Iraq, Libya and Syria) have since then been the object of US-led wars. The 2001 NPR also confirmed continued nuclear war preparations against China and Russia.

“The Bush review also indicates that the United States should be prepared to use nuclear weapons against China, citing “the combination of China’s still developing strategic objectives and its ongoing modernization of its nuclear and non-nuclear forces.”

“Finally, although the review repeats Bush administration assertions that Russia is no longer an enemy, it says the United States must be prepared for nuclear contingencies with Russia and notes that, if “U.S. relations with Russia significantly worsen in the future, the U.S. may need to revise its nuclear force levels and posture.” Ultimately, the review concludes that nuclear conflict with Russia is “plausible” but “not expected.” [that. was back in 2002] ( Arms Control) emphasis added.

The Privatization of Nuclear War

With tensions growing in major regions of the World, a new generation of nuclear weapons technology was unfolding making nuclear warfare a very real prospect. And with very little fanfare, the US had embarked on the privatization of nuclear war under a first-strike “preemptive” doctrine. This process went into full swing in the immediate wake of the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (2001 NPR) adopted by the US Senate in 2002.

On August 6, 2003, on Hiroshima Day, commemorating when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima (August 6 1945), a secret meeting was held behind closed doors at Strategic Command Headquarters at the Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Senior executives from the nuclear industry and the military industrial complex were in attendance.

This mingling of defense contractors, scientists and policy-makers was not intended to commemorate Hiroshima. The meeting was intended to set the stage for the development of a new generation of “smaller”, “safer” and “more usable” nuclear weapons, to be used in the “in-theater nuclear wars” of the 21st Century.”

“Nuclear war has become a multibillion dollar undertaking, which fills the pockets of US defense contractors. What is at stake is the outright “privatization of nuclear war”. 

Nuclear War against both China and Russia is contemplated

Russia is tagged as  “Plausible” but “Not Expected”. That was back in 2002.

Today at the height of the Ukraine war, a Preemptive Nuclear attack against Russia is on the drawing of the Pentagon. That does not however mean that it will be implemented.

A Nuclear War Cannot be Won?

We recall Reagan’s historic statement: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used.”

Nonetheless, there are powerful voices and lobby groups within the US establishment and the Biden administration that are convinced that “a nuclear war is winnable”.

Flashback to Inter-War Period: Wall Street Finances Hitler’s Election Campaign 

According to Yuri Robsov, Wall Street and the Rockefellers were funding Germany’s war machine as well as Adolf Hitler’s election campaign:

American cooperation with the German military-industrial complex was so intense and pervasive that by 1933 the key sectors of German industry and large banks such as Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Danat-Bank (Darmstädter und Nationalbank), etc.  were under the control of American financial capital.

The political force that was intended to play a crucial role in Anglo-American plans was being simultaneously prepared. We are talking about the funding of the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler personally.

On January 4th, 1932, a meeting was held between British financier Montagu Norman (Governor of the Bank of England), Adolf Hitler and Franz Von Papen (who became Chancellor a few months later in May 1932) At this meeting, an agreement on the financing of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP or Nazi Party) was reached.

This meeting was also attended by US policy-makers and the Dulles brothers, something which their biographers do not like to mention.

A year later, on January 14th, 1933, another meeting was held between Adolf Hitler, Germany’s Financier Baron Kurt von Schroeder, Chancellor Franz von Papen and Hitler’s Economic Advisor Wilhelm Keppler took place, where Hitler’s program was fully approved.

It was here that they finally resolved the issue of the transfer of power to the Nazis, and on the 30th of January 1933 Hitler became ChancellorThe implementation of the fourth stage of the strategy thus begun.

World War II: “Operation Barbarossa”

There is ample evidence that both the US and its British ally were intent upon Nazi Germany winning the war on the Eastern Front with a view to destroying the Soviet Union:  

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“Stalin and his entourage’s growing suspicions, that the Anglo-American powers hoped the Nazi-Soviet War would last for years, were based on well-founded concerns. This desire had already been expressed in part by Harry S. Truman, future US president, hours after the Wehrmacht had invaded the Soviet Union.

Truman, then a US Senator, said he wanted to see the Soviets and Germans “kill as many as possible” between themselves, an attitude which the New York Times later called “a firm policy”. The Times had previously published Truman’s remarks on 24 June 1941, and as a result his views would most likely not have escaped the Soviets’ attention. (Shane Quinn, Global Research, March 2022)

Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa initiated in June 1941 would have failed from the very outset had it not been for the support of Standard Oil of New Jersey (owned by the Rockefellers) which routinely delivered ample supplies of oil to the Third Reich. While Germany was able  to transform coal into fuel, this synthetic production was insufficient. Moreover, Romania’s Ploesti oil resources (under Nazi control until 1944) were minimal. Nazi Germany largely depended on oil shipments from US Standard Oil.

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Trading with the Enemy legislation (1917) officially implemented following America’s entry into World War II did not  prevent Standard Oil of New Jersey from selling oil to Nazi Germany. This despite the Senate 1942 investigation of US Standard Oil.

While direct US oil shipments were curtailed, Standard Oil would sell US oil through third countries. US oil was shipped to occupied France (officially via Switzerland, and from France it was shipped to Germany: “… The shipments went through Spain, Vichy France’s colonies in the West Indies, and Switzerland.”

Without those oil shipments instrumented by Standard Oil and the Rockefellers, Nazi Germany would not have been able to implement its military agenda. Without fuel, the Third Reich’s eastern front under Operation Barbarossa would most probably not have taken place, saving millions of lives. The Western front including the military occupation of France, Belgium and The Netherlands would no doubt also have been affected.

The USSR actually won the war against Nazi Germany, with 27 million deaths, which in part resulted from the blatant violation of Trading with the Enemy by Standard Oil.

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“Operation Unthinkable”: A World War III Scenario Formulated During World War II

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A  World War III scenario against the Soviet Union had already been envisaged in early 1945, under what was called  Operation Unthinkable, to be launched prior to the official end of World War II on September 2, 1945.

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Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met at Yalta in early February 1945 largely with a view to negotiating the post war occupation of Germany and Japan.

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Video: Yalta Conference

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Meanwhile in the wake of the Yalta Conference, Winston Churchill had contemplated a Secret Plan to wage war against the Soviet Union: .

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If you thought the Cold War between East and West reached its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, then think again. 1945 was the year when Europe was the crucible for a Third World War.

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The plan called for a massive Allied assault on 1 July 1945 by British, American, Polish and German – yes German – forces against the Red Army. They aimed to push them back out of Soviet-occupied East Germany and Poland, give Stalin and bloody nose, and force him to re-consider his domination of East Europe. … Eventually in June 1945 Churchill’s military advisors cautioned him against implementing the plan, but it still remained a blueprint for a Third World War. …The Americans had just successfully tested an atomic bomb, and there was now the final temptation of obliterating Soviet centres of population”

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Churchill’s “Operation Unthinkable” against Soviet Forces in Eastern Europe (see above) was abandoned in June 1945.

During his mandate as Prime Minister (1940-45), Churchill had supported the Manhattan Project. He was a protagonist of nuclear war against the Soviet Union, which had been contemplated under the Manhattan project as early as 1942, when the US and the Soviet Union were allies against Nazi Germany.

A  Blueprint for a Third World War using nuclear weapons against 66 major urban areas of the Soviet Union was officially formulated on September 15, 1945 by the US War Department (see section below).

The Potsdam Conference

Vice President Harry S. Truman was sworn in as president of the United States on April 12, 1945, after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died unexpectedly of a cerebral hemorrhage.

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At the Potsdam meetings, President Truman entered into discussions (July 1945) with Stalin and Churchill: (see image right). The discussions were of a different nature to those of Yalta, specifically with regard to both Truman and Churchill who were both in favour of nuclear warfare:

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“[British] PM [Churchill] and I ate alone. Discussed Manhattan (it is a success). Decided to tell Stalin about itStalin had told PM [Churchill] of telegram from Jap emperor asking for peace. Stalin also read his answer to me. It was satisfactory. Believe Japs will fold up before Russia comes in. I am sure they will when Manhattan appears over their homeland. I shall inform Stalin about it at an opportune time. (Truman Diary, July 17, 1945, emphasis added)

What this statement from Truman’s Diary confirms is that Japan would “fold up” and surrender to the US  “before Russia comes in”. Ultimately this was the objective of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

While Stalin was casually informed by Truman regarding the Manhattan Project in July 1945, sources suggest that the Soviet Union was aware of the Manhattan Project as early as 1942. Did Truman tell Stalin that the atom bomb was intended for Japan?

“We met at 11.00am. today.[ That is, Stalin, Churchill and the US president].

But I had a most important session [without Stalin?] with Lord Mountbatten and General Marshall [US joint Chiefs of Staff] before that. [This meeting was not part of the official agendaWe have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley era, after Noah and his fabulous ark. Anyway, we think we have found the way to cause a disintegration of the atom. An experiment in the New Mexico desert was startling – to put it mildly. Thirteen pounds of the explosive caused a crater six hundred feet deep and twelve hundred feet in diameter, knocked over a steel tower a half mile away, and knocked men down ten thousand yards away. The explosion was visible for more than two hundred miles and audible for forty miles and more.

This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th.I have told the secretary of war, Mr Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop this terrible bomb on the old capital or the new. He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I’m sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance. It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler’s crowd or Stalin’s did not discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful.” (Truman’s Diary, Potsdam meeting on July 18, 1945)

The discussion on the Manhattan Project does not appear in the official minutes of the meetings.

The Infamous “WW III Blueprint” to Wage a Nuclear Attack against the Soviet Union (September 15, 1945)

Barely two weeks after the official end of World War II (September 2, 1945), the US War Department issued  a directive  (September 15, 1945) to “Erase the Soviet Union off the Map” (66 cities with 204 atomic bombs), when the US and USSR were allies, confirmed by declassified documents. (For further details see Chossudovsky, 2017)

According to a secret (declassified) document dated September 15, 1945, “the Pentagon had envisaged blowing up the Soviet Union  with a coordinated nuclear attack directed against major urban areas.

All major cities of the Soviet Union were included in the list of 66 “strategic” targets. The tables below categorize each city in terms of area in square miles and the corresponding number of atomic bombs required to annihilate and kill the inhabitants of selected urban areas.

Six atomic bombs were to be used to destroy each of the larger cities including Moscow, Leningrad, Tashkent, Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa.

The Pentagon estimated that a total of 204 atomic bombs would be required to “Wipe the Soviet Union off the Map”. The targets for a nuclear attack consisted of sixty-six major cities.

One single atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima resulted in the immediate death of 100,000 people in the first seven seconds. Imagine what would have happened if 204 atomic bombs had been dropped on major cities of the Soviet Union as outlined in a secret U.S. plan formulated during the Second World War.

Hiroshima in the wake of the atomic bomb attack, 6 August 1945

The document outlining this diabolical military agenda had been released in September 1945, barely one month after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (6 and 9 August, 1945) and two years before the onset of the Cold War (1947).

The secret plan dated September 15, 1945 (two weeks after the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945 aboard the USS Missouri, see image below) , however, had been formulated at an earlier period, namely at the height of World War II,  at a time when America and the Soviet Union were close allies.

The Manhattan project was launched in 1939, two years prior to America’s entry into World War II in December 1941. The Kremlin was fully aware of the secret Manhattan project as early as 1942.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Dress Rehearsal for Planned Nuclear Attack against the Soviet Union

Were the August 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks used by the Pentagon to evaluate the viability of  a much larger attack on the Soviet Union consisting of more than 204 atomic bombs? The key documents to bomb 66 cities of the Soviet Union (15 September 1945) were finalized 5-6 weeks after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings (6, 9 August 1945):

“On September 15, 1945 — just under two weeks after the formal surrender of Japan and the end of World War II — Norstad sent a copy of the estimate to General Leslie Groves, still the head of the Manhattan Project, and the guy who, for the short term anyway, would be in charge of producing whatever bombs the USAAF might want. As you might guess, the classification on this document was high: “TOP SECRET LIMITED,” which was about as high as it went during World War II. (Alex Wellerstein, The First Atomic Stockpile Requirements (September 1945)

The Kremlin was aware of the 1945 plan to bomb sixty-six Soviet cities.

The documents confirm that the US was involved in the “planning of genocide” against the Soviet Union. 

Let’s cut to the chase. How many bombs did the USAAF request of the atomic general, when there were maybe one, maybe twobombs worth of fissile material on hand? At a minimum they wanted 123. Ideally, they’d like 466. This is just a little over a month after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Of course, in true bureaucratic fashion, they provided a handy-dandy chart (Alex Wellerstein, op. cit)

http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/1945-Atomic-Bomb-Production.pdf 

Soviet Cities to be targeted with Atomic Bombs

Map of 66 Soviet Urban Strategic Areas to be Bombed with 206 atomic Bombs (Declassified September 1945) 

Access all the documents of the September 15, 1945 Operation

The Nuclear Arms Race

Central to our understanding of the Cold War which started (officially) in 1947, Washington’s September 1945 plan to bomb 66 cities into smithereens played a key role in triggering the nuclear arms race.

The Soviet Union was threatened and developed its own atomic bomb in 1949 in response to 1942 Soviet intelligence reports on the Manhattan Project.

While the Kremlin knew about these plans to “Wipe out” the USSR, the broader public was not informed because the September 1945 documents were of course classified. They were declassified 30 years later in September 1975

Today, neither the September 1945 plan to blow up the Soviet Union nor the underlying cause of the nuclear arms race are acknowledged. The Western media has largely focussed its attention on the Cold War US-USSR confrontation. The plan to annihilate the Soviet Union dating back to World War II and the infamous Manhattan project are not mentioned.

Washington’s Cold War nuclear plans are invariably presented in response to so-called Soviet threats, when in fact it was the U.S. plan released in September 1945 (formulated at an earlier period at the height of World War II) to wipe out the Soviet which motivated Moscow to develop its nuclear weapons capabilities.

The assessment of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists mistakenly blamed and continue to blame the Soviet Union for having launched the nuclear arms race in 1949, four years after the release of the September 1945 US Secret Plan to target 66 major Soviet cities with 204 nuclear bombs:

“1949: The Soviet Union denies it, but in the fall, President Harry Truman tells the American public that the Soviets tested their first nuclear device, officially starting the arms race. “We do not advise Americans that doomsday is near and that they can expect atomic bombs to start falling on their heads a month or year from now,” the Bulletin explains. “But we think they have reason to be deeply alarmed and to be prepared for grave decisions.” (Timeline of the Doomsday Clock, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 2017)

IMPORTANT: Had the US decided NOT to develop nuclear weapons for use against the Soviet Union, the nuclear arms race would not have taken place. 

Neither The Soviet Union nor the People’s Republic of China would have developed nuclear capabilities as a means of “Deterrence” agains the US which had already formulated plans to annihilate the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union lost 26 million people during World War II.

The Cold War Era

The Nuclear Arms Race was the direct result of America’s September 1945 plan to “blow up the Soviet Union”, formulated by the US War Department.

The Soviet Union tested its first nuclear bomb in 1949. Without the Manhattan Project and the War Department’s September 15, 1945 “World War III Blueprint”, the Arms Race would not have occurred.

The September 15, 1945 War Department set the stage for numerous plans to wage World War III against Russia and China:

The Cold War List of 1200 Targeted Cities

This initial 1945 list of sixty-six cities was updated in the course of the Cold War (1956) to include some 1200 cities in the USSR and the Soviet block countries of Eastern Europe (see declassified documents below). The bombs slated for use were more powerful in terms of explosive capacity than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Excerpt from list of 1200 Soviet cities targeted for nuclear attack in alphabetical order. National Security Archive, op. cit.

“According to the 1956 Plan, H-Bombs were to be Used Against Priority “Air Power” Targets in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe. Major Cities in the Soviet Bloc, Including East Berlin, Were High Priorities in “Systematic Destruction” for Atomic Bombings.  (William Burr, U.S. Cold War Nuclear Attack Target List of 1200 Soviet Bloc Cities “From East Germany to China”, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 538, December 2015

Source: National Security Archive

Rand Corporation

During the Cold War, the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) prevailed, namely that the use of nuclear weapons would result in “the destruction of both the attacker and the defender”.

In the post Cold war era, US nuclear doctrine was redefined.  “Offensive” military actions using nuclear warheads are now described as acts of “self-defense”.

Humanitarian Nuclear Warfare under Joe Biden

 US-NATO led military Interventions (Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen) which have resulted in millions of civilian casualties are heralded as Humanitarian Wars, as a means to ensuring Peace.

This is also the discourse underlying US-NATO intervention in Ukraine.

“I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace” said George W. Bush

“Humanitarian Nuclear Bombs”

This kind of window dressing of “humanitarian nuclear bombs” is not only embedded into Joe Biden’s foreign policy agenda, it constitutes the mainstay of US military doctrine, namely the so-called Nuclear Posture Review, not to mention the 1.2 trillion nuclear weapons program initiated during the Obama administration.

The B61 Mini-nukes Deployed in Western Europe

The latest B61-12 “mini nuke” is slated to be deployed in Western Europe, aimed at Russia and the Middle East (replacing the existing of B61 nuclear bombs).

B-61-12 is portrayed as a “more usable” “low yield” “humanitarian bomb” “‘harmless to civilians”. That’s the ideology. The reality is “Mutual Assured Destruction” (MAD).

The B61-12 has a maximum yield of 50 kilotons which is more than three times that of a Hiroshima bomb (15 kilotons) which resulted in excess of 100,000 deaths in matter of minutes.

If a preemptive attack using a so-called mini nuke were to succeed, targeted against Russia or Iran, this could potentially lead humanity into a WW III scenario. Of course these details are not highlighted in mainstream media reports.

F-15E Eagle Strike Eagle Fighter for the Delivery of the B-61-12 

Low Yield Nukes: Humanitarian Warfare Goes Live

And when the characteristics of this “harmless” low yield nuclear bomb are inserted into the military manuals, “humanitarian warfare” goes live: “It’s low yield and safe for civilians, let’s use it” [paraphrase].

The US arsenal of B61 nuclear bombs directed against the Middle East are currently located in the military bases of 5 non-nuclear states (Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Turkey). The command structure pertaining to the B61-12 is yet to be confirmed. The situation with regard to Turkey’s Incirlik base is unclear.

Upholding WMDs as Instruments of Peace is a Dangerous Gimmick

Throughout History, “Mistakes” have Played a Key Role 

We are at a Dangerous Crossroads. There is no Real Anti-war Movement in Sight.

Why? Because War is Good for Business!

And the powers of Big Money which are behind US-NATO led wars control both the anti-war movement as well as the media coverage of US led wars. That’s nothing new. It goes back to the so-called Soviet-Afghan War (1979-) which was spearheaded by US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. 

Through their “philanthropic” foundations (Ford, Rockefeller, Soros et al) the financial elites have over the years channelled millions of dollars into financing so-called “progressive movements” including the World Social Forum (WSF)

It’s Called “Manufactured Dissent”: Big Money is also behind numerous coups d’état and color revolutions.

Meanwhile, important sectors of the Left including committed anti-war activists have endorsed the Covid mandates without verifying or acknowledging the facts and the history of the so-called pandemic.

It should be understood that the lockdown policies as well as the Covid-19 “Killer Vaccine” are an integral part of the financial elite’s “broader arsenal”. They are instruments of submission and tyranny. 

The World Economic Forum’s Great Reset is an integral part of  the World War III scenario which consists in establishing through military and non military means an imperial system of  “global governance”.

The same powerful financial interests (Rockefeller, Rothschild, BlackRock, Vanguard, et al) which are supportive of the US-NATO military agenda are firmly behind  the “Covid Pandemic Op”.

***

The Historic Battle for Peace and Democracy. A Third World War Spells the End of Humanity?

Relentless War Propaganda and Media Disinformation Is the Driving Force. It Must be Confronted. 

Is “Peaceful Coexistence” and Diplomacy between Russia and the U.S. an Option? 

“War is Good for Business”: Corrupt Governments which Uphold the Interests of Big Money Must be Challenged


Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute  

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 2023

Putin and What Really Matters in the Chessboard

June 15, 2023

Source

Pepe ESCOBAR
Independent geopolitical analyst, writer and journalist

Pepe Escobar

It’s fascinating to see how Russian war correspondents are now playing a role similar to the former political commissars in the USSR.

President Putin’s meeting with a group of Russian war correspondents and Telegram bloggers – including Filatov, Poddubny, Pegov from War Gonzo, Podolyaka, Gazdiev from RT – was an extraordinary exercise in freedom of the press.

There were among them seriously independent journalists who can be very critical of the way the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense (MoD) are conducting what can be alternatively defined as a Special Military Operation (SMO); a counter-terror operation (CTO); or an “almost war” (according to some influential business circles in Moscow).

It’s fascinating to see how these patriotic/independent journalists are now playing a role similar to the former political commissars in the USSR, all of them, in their own way, deeply committed to guiding Russian society towards draining the swamp, slowly but surely.

It’s clear Putin not only understands their role but sometimes, “shock to the system-style”, the system he presides actually implements the journalists’ suggestions. As a foreign correspondent working all over the world for nearly 40 years now, I have been quite impressed by the way Russian journalists may enjoy a degree of freedom unimaginable in most latitudes of the collective West.

The Kremlin transcript of the meeting shows Putin definitely not inclined to beat around the bush.

He admitted there are “operetta Generals” in the Army; that there was a shortage of drones, precision munitions and communication equipment, now being addressed.

He discussed the legality of mercenary outfits; the necessity of sooner or later installing a “buffer zone” to protect Russian citizens from systematic Kiev regime shelling; and he stressed that Russia will not answer Bandera-inspired terrorism with terrorism.

After examining the exchanges, a conclusion is imperative: Russian war media is not staging an offensive even as the collective West attacks Russia 24/7 with its massive NGO/soft power media apparatus. Moscow is not – yet? – fully engaged in the trenches of information warfare; as it stands Russian media is only playing defense.

All the way to Kiev?

Arguably the money quote of the whole encounter is Putin’s concise, chilling evaluation of where we now stand in the chessboard:

“We were forced to try to end the war that the West started in 2014 by force of arms. And Russia will end this war by force of arms, freeing the entire territory of the former Ukraine from the United States and Ukrainian Nazis. There are no other options. The Ukrainian army of the US and NATO will be defeated, no matter what new types of weapons it receives from the West. The more weapons there are, the fewer Ukrainians and what used to be Ukraine will remain. Direct intervention by NATO’s European armies will not change the outcome. But in this case, the fire of war will engulf the whole of Europe. It looks like the US is ready for that too.”

In a nutshell: this will only end on Russia’s terms, and only when Moscow evaluates all its objectives have been met. Anything else is wishful thinking.

Back on the frontlines, as pointed out by the indispensable Andrei Martyanov, first-class war correspondent Marat Kalinin has conclusively laid out how the current Ukrainian metal coffin counter-offensive has not been able to reach even the first Russian line of defense (they are a long – highway to hell – 10 km away). Everything NATO’s top proxy army ever assembled was able to accomplish so far was to get mercilessly slaughtered on an industrial scale.

Meet General Armageddon in action.

Surovikin had eight months to place his footprint in Ukraine and from the beginning he understood exactly how to turn it into a whole new ballgame. Arguably the strategy is to completely destroy the Ukrainian forces between the first line of defense – assuming they ever breach it – and the second line, which is quite substantial. The third line will remain off limits.

Collective West MSM is predictably freaking out, finally starting to show horrendous Ukrainian losses and giving evidence of the utter accumulated incompetence of Kiev goons and their NATO military handlers.

And just in case the going gets tough – for now a remote possibility – Putin himself has delivered the road map. Softly, softly. As in, “Do we need a march on Kiev? If yes, we need a new mobilization, if not, we do not need it. There is no need for mobilization right now.”

The crucial operative words are “right now”.

The end of all your elaborate plans

Meanwhile, away from the battlefield, the Russians are very much aware of the frantic geoeconomic activity.

Moscow and Beijing increasingly trade in yuan and rubles. The ASEAN 10 are going all out for regional currencies, bypassing the US dollar. Indonesia and South Korea are turbo-charging trade in rupiah and won. Pakistan is paying for Russian oil in yuan. The UAE and India are increasing non-oil trade in rupees.

Everyone and his neighbor are making a beeline to join BRICS+ – forcing a desperate Hegemon to start deploying an array of Hybrid War techniques.

It’s been a long way since Putin examined the chessboard in the early 2000s and then unleashed a crash missile program for defensive and offensive missiles.

Over the next 23 years Russia developed hypersonic missiles, advanced ICBMs, and the most advanced defensive missiles on the planet. Russia won the missile race. Period. The Hegemon – obsessed by its own manufactured war against Islam – was completely blindsided and made no material missile advances in nearly two and a half decades.

Now the “strategy” is to invent a Taiwan Question out of nothing, which is configuring the chessboard as the ante-chamber of no holds barred Hybrid War against Russia-China.

The proxy attack – via Kiev hyenas – against Russophone Donbass, egged on by the Straussian neocon psychos in charge of US foreign policy, murdered at least 14,000 men, women and children between 2014 to 2022. That  was also an attack on China. The ultimate aim of this Divide and Rule gambit was to inflict defeat on China’s ally in the Heartland, so Beijing would be isolated.

According to the neocon wet dream, all of the above would have enabled the Hegemon, once it had taken over Russia again as it did with Yeltsin, to blockade China from Russian natural resources using eleven US aircraft carrier task forces plus numerous submarines.

Obviously military science-impaired neocons are oblivious to the fact that Russia is now the strongest military power on the planet.

In Ukraine, the neocons were hoping that a provocation would cause Moscow to deploy other secret weapons apart from hypersonic missiles, so Washington could better prepare for all-out war.

All those elaborate plans may have miserably floundered. But a corollary remains: the Straussian neocons firmly believe they may instrumentalize a few million Europeans – who’s next? Poles? Estonians? Latvians? Lithuanians? And why not Germans? – as cannon fodder as the US did in WWI and WWII, fought over the bodies of Europeans (including Russians) sacrificed to the same old Mackinder Anglo-Saxon power grab.

Hordes of European 5th columnists make it so much easier to “trust” the US to protect them, while only a few with an IQ over room temperature have understood who really bombed Nord Stream 1 and 2, with the connivance of the Liver Sausage German Chancellor.

The bottom line is that the Hegemon simply cannot accept a sovereign, self-sufficient Europe; only a dependent vassal, hostage to the seas that the US control.

Putin clearly sees how the chessboard has been laid out. And he also sees how “Ukraine” does not even exist anymore.

While no one was paying attention, last month the Kiev gang sold Ukraine to $8.5 trillion-worth BlackRock. Just like that. The deal was sealed between the Government of Ukraine and BlackRock’s VP Philipp Hildebrand.

They are setting up a Ukrainian Development Fund (UDF) for “reconstruction”, focused on energy, infrastructure, agriculture, industry and IT. All remaining valuable assets in what will be a rump Ukraine will be gobbled up by BlackRock: from Metinvest, DTEK (energy) and MJP (agriculture) to Naftogaz, Ukrainian Railways, Ukravtodor and Ukrenergo.

What’s the point in going to Kiev then? High-grade toxic neoliberalism is already partying on the spot.

Also by this author

From the Black Sea to the East Med, don’t poke The Russian Bear

February 24 2022

The US shouldn’t have poked the Russian Bear. Now it is fully awake: after Ukraine, the Russians are likely to do a clean sweep of foreign belligerents poking around the East Med and the Black Sea.

Russia endured eight years of NATO provocations in Ukraine before it roared. Now it will clean house in West Asia and beyond.Photo Credit: The Cradle

By Pepe Escobar

This is what happens when a bunch of ragged hyenas, jackals and tiny rodents poke The Bear: a new geopolitical order is born at breathtaking speed.

From a dramatic meeting of the Russian Security Council to a UN history lesson delivered by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the subsequent birth of the Baby Twins – the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk – all the way to the breakaway republics’ appeal to Putin to intervene militarily to expel the NATO-backed Ukrainian bombing-and-shelling forces from Donbass, it was a seamless process, executed at warp speed.

The (nuclear) straw that (nearly) broke the Bear’s back – and forced it to pounce – was Comedian/Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky, back from the Russophobia-drenched Munich Security Conference where he was hailed like a Messiah, saying that the 1994 Budapest memorandum should be revised and Ukraine should be nuclear-rearmed.

That would be the equivalent of a nuclear Mexico south of the Hegemon.

Putin immediately turned Responsibility to Protect (R2P) upside down: an American construct invented to launch wars was retrofitted to stop a slow-motion genocide in Donbass.

First came the recognition of the Baby Twins – Putin’s most important foreign policy decision since inserting Russian jets into Syria’s airspace in 2015. That was the preamble for the next game-changer: a “special military operation…aimed at demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine,” as Putin defined it.

Up to the last minute, the Kremlin was trying to rely on diplomacy, explaining to Kiev the necessary imperatives to prevent heavy metal thunder: recognition of Crimea as Russian; abandoning any plans to join NATO; negotiating directly with the Baby Twins – an anathema for the Americans since 2015; finally, demilitarizing and declaring Ukraine as neutral.

Kiev’s handlers, predictably, would never accept the package – as they didn’t accept the Master Package that really matters, which is the Russian demand for “indivisible security.”

The sequence, then, became inevitable. In a flash, all Ukrainian military forces between the so-called line of contact and the original borders of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts were re-framed as an occupying army in Russian-allied territories that Moscow had just sworn to protect.

Get Out – Or Else

The Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense were not bluffing. Timed to the end of Putin’s speech announcing the operation, the Russians decapitated with precision missiles everything that mattered in terms of the Ukrainian military in just one hour: Air force, navy, airfields, bridges, command and control centers, the whole Turkish Bayraktar drone fleet.

And it was not only Russian raw power. It was the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) artillery that hit the Armed Forces of Ukraine headquarters in Donbass, which actually housed the entire Ukrainian military command. This means that the Ukrainian General Staff instantly lost control of all its troops.

This was Shock and Awe against Iraq, 19 years ago, in reverse: not for conquest, not as a prelude for an invasion and occupation. The political-military leadership in Kiev did not even have time to declare war. They froze. Demoralized troops started deserting. Total defeat – in one hour.

The water supply to Crimea was instantly re-established. Humanitarian corridors were set up for the deserters. Ukrainian forces remnants now include mostly surviving Azov batallion Nazis, mercenaries trained by the usual Blackwater/Academi suspects, and a bunch of Salafi-jihadis.

Predictably, western corporate media has already gone totally berserk, branding it as the much-awaited Russian ‘invasion.’ A reminder: when Israel routinely bombs Syria and when the House of One Saudi routinely bombs Yemeni civilians, there is never any peep in NATO’s media.

As it stands, realpolitik spells out a possible endgame, as voiced by Donetsk’s head, Denis Pushilin: “The special operation in Donbass will soon be over and all the cities will be liberated.”

We could soon witness the birth of an independent Novorossiya – east of the Dnieper, south along Sea of Azov/Black Sea, the way it was when attached to Ukraine by Lenin in 1922. But now it would be totally aligned with Russia, and providing a land bridge to Transnistria.

Ukraine, of course, would lose any access to the Black Sea. History loves playing tricks: what was a ‘gift’ to Ukraine in 1922 may become a parting gift a hundred years later.

It’s creative destruction time

It will be fascinating to watch what Prof. Sergey Karaganov masterfully described, in detail, as the new Putin doctrine of constructive destruction, and how it will interconnect with West Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean and further on down the Global South road.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the ceremonial NATO Sultan, denounced the recognition of the Baby Twins as “unacceptable.” No wonder: that shift smashed all his elaborate plans to pose as privileged mediator between Moscow and Kiev during Putin’s upcoming visit to Ankara. The Kremlin – as well as the Foreign Ministry – don’t waste time talking to NATO minions.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for his part, had a recent, very productive entente with Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad. Russia, this past weekend, has staged a spectacular strategic missile display, hypersonic and otherwise, featuring Khinzal, Zircon, Kalibr, Yars ICBMs, Iskander and Sineva  – irony of ironies, in synch with the Russophobia-fest in Munich. In parallel, Russian Navy ships of the Pacific, Northern and Black Sea fleets performed a series of submarine search drills in the Mediterranean.

The Putin doctrine privileges the asymmetrical – and that applies to the near abroad and beyond. Putin’s body language, in his last two crucial interventions, spell out nearly maximum exasperation. As in realizing, not auspiciously, but rather in resignation, that the only language Beltway Neo-conservatives and ‘humanitarian imperialists’ understand is heavy metal thunder. They are definitely deaf, dumb and blind to history, geography and diplomacy.

So, one can always game the Russian military – for instance, imposing a no-fly zone in Syria to conduct a series of visits by Mr. Khinzal not only to the Turk-protected shady jihadist umbrella in Idlib but also the jihadists protected by the Americans in Al-Tanf base, near the Syria-Jordan border. After all, these specimens are all NATO proxies.

The US government barks non-stop about “territorial sovereignty.” So let’s game the Kremlin asking the White House for a road map on getting out of Syria: after all the Americans are illegally occupying a section of Syrian territory and adding extra disaster to the Syrian economy by stealing their oil.

NATO’s stultifying leader, Jens Stoltenberg, has announced the alliance is dusting off its “defense plans.” That may include little more than hiding behind their expensive Brussels desks. They are as inconsequential in the Black Sea as in the East Med – as the US remains quite vulnerable in Syria.

There are now four Russian TU-22M3 strategic bombers in Russia’s Hmeimim base in Syria, each capable of carrying three S-32 anti-ship missiles that fly at supersonic Mach 4.3 with a range of 1,000 km. No Aegis system is able to handle them.

Russia also has stationed a few Mig-31Ks in Syria’s coastal region in Latakia equipped with hypersonic Khinzals – more than enough to sink any kind of US surface group, including aircraft carriers, in the East Med. The US has no air defense mechanism whatsoever with even a minimal chance of intercepting them.

So the rules have changed. Drastically. The Hegemon is naked. The new deal starts with turning the post-Cold War set-up in Eastern Europe completely upside down. The East Med will be next. The Bear is back, hear him roar.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

الدور الروسيّ العائم…ورمال المنطقة المتحرّكة!

محمد صادق الحسينيّ

يذهب الكثيرون بعيداً في تصنيف القوة الروسيّة الصاعدة بأنها حليف استراتيجيّ لمحور المقاومة ولديهم الكثير مما يخدم تصنيفهم هذا.

فيما يذهب آخرون وهم ليسوا قلة، بتصنيف الروس بأنهم بقايا سياسة قيصريّة تبحث عن مصالح تاريخيّة في منطقتنا من المياه الدافئة، الى مصادر الطاقة الواعدة، وهؤلاء أيضاً لديهم الكثير مما قد يؤكد تصنيفهم هذا.

غير أنّ الجغرافيا السياسية وموازين القوى المتحركة على أرضنا والتحوّلات الدولية المحيطة ببلادنا العربية والإسلامية والتحوّلات الروسية الداخلية ما بعد الحرب الباردة قد تعزز تصنيفاً آخر، فلنرَ ماذا تقول تلك الوقائع:

أولاً: إنّ صعود فلاديمير بوتين لسدة الحكم في موسكو على أنقاض البيروسترويكا والحرب الباردة جعل روسيا الحديثة تظهر بمثابة خليط من القيصرية والسوفياتيّة، ذلك انّ حاكم روسيا الجديد قام ببناء سياسته الخارجية الجديدة على 3 أركان هي:

1

ـ إحياء القومية الروسية.

2

ـ إحياء الكنيسة الأرثوذكسية.

3

ـ إحياء سياسة الاتحاد السوفياتيّ الخارجية تجاه الحلفاء التقليديين (أو ما يسمّونها في موسكو بمحاسن الاتحاد السوفياتي).

وقد شكلت هذه في ما بات يُعرَف بعقيدة بوتين.

ثانياً: برز نجم بوتين ودور روسيا الجديد بالترافق مع تحوّلات دوليّة مهمّة يمكن تلخيصها بأنها نهاية «حرب عالمية» ضدّ الإرهاب كان بطلها محور المقاومة بقيادة الجمهورية الإسلامية ما جعل الحاكم الروسي الجديد الباحث عن إحياء دور بلاده السوفياتية القديمة بحاجة ماسة ليكون المظلة الحامية لهذا النصر التاريخيّ حتى يتمكّن من اقتطاف كلّ ثمار النصر هذا لصالح بلاده مرة واحدة.

ثالثاً: ولأنّ زعيم روسيا القومية الصاعدة يعرف تماماً أنّ بلاده «القارية» في جغرافيّتها السياسية ستكون بحاجة للخروج إلى أعالي البحار إذا ما أرادت أن تلعب دور المنافس الجديد للقوى البحرية الكبرى، لذلك رأى انّ تحقيق حلم استعادة الدور الروسي العالمي يتطلب منه أن يحيي السلوك القيصري التاريخي في التعامل مع كلّ اللاعبين الصغار كما الكبار على حدّ سواء، المنتصرين منهم كما المهزومين في الحرب على الإرهاب.

وهنا تماماً يمكن فهم سلوك موسكو البراغماتي والنفعي المحض تجاه تركيا وأخيراً السعودية والإمارات وقطر، ما جعلها (أيّ موسكو) تظهر على غير توافق مع قوى محور المقاومة وأحياناً على تضادّ، ولو في الشكل.

رابعاً: ثمة عامل رابع شديد التعقيد يدخل في تحديد السياسة الروسية البوتينية إذا جاز التعبير وهو:

علاقة الروس باليهود تاريخياً وحاضراً والتي يمكن تلخيصها كما يلي:

١– كانت روسيا القيصريّة أول مَن شنّت الحملة المناهضة لليهود في ثمانينيات القرن التاسع عشر، فيما عرف بسياسة «البوغروم» باعتبارهم المافيا أو القوة الخفية المسيطرة على المال والاقتصاد الروسي والتي اعتبرت بمثابة التهديد للأمن القومي الروسي القيصري آنذاك.

٢– كانت روسيا أول دولة أو من بين أولى الدول التي اعترفت بالكيان الصهيوني بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية مباشرة.

٣– لدى روسيا نحو مليون ونصف مليون مواطن روسي داخل الكيان يحملون الجنسيّة المزدوجة، يقضي الدستور الروسي بواجب الدفاع عن أمنهم كمواطنين مثلهم مثل المواطنين داخل الاتحاد الروسي.

ولما كان الرئيس فلاديمير بوتين قومياً وقيصرياً في عقله الباطني السياسي، فهو مرة كان مضطراً لمهاجمة المافيا الماليّة اليهودية الموجودة في تلابيب الاتحاد الروسي وقمعها بشدّة وهو في حال صعود وتعزيز موقع قيادته الجديد تحت عنوان الدفاع عن أمن الدولة، فيما هو الآن مضطر كثيراً وكثيراً جداً، لمداراة من تبقى من هذه المافيا التي لا تزال متحكّمة في كثير من دوائر الاقتصاد والإعلام الروسيّين، من أجل توظيف ذلك في سياسته الخارجية التي باتت تتطلب كسب جميع من في الداخل ومن في الخارج من قوى مؤثرة، في إطار مواجهة سياسة الحصار والبطش الأميركي ضدّه.

عقيدة بوتين المشار إليها آنفاً ومجموعة العوامل المؤثرة التي لعبت دوراً في تسلّمه مقاليد الاتحاد الروسي أولاً ومن ثم الجغرافيا السياسية المتغيرة التي رفعته من مجرد حاكم روسيّ قويّ الى لاعب دولي كبير، هي التي تفسّر اليوم وجهَي التناقض في الظاهرة البوتينية تجاه بلادنا العربية والإسلامية، بين مَن يعتبره مقاولاً شريفاً مدافعاً عن حقوقنا في المعركة المناهضة للإرهاب وللامبريالية، وبين من يضعه في صف المقاول المتعارضة مصالحه مع سياساتنا المقاومة ضدّ الامبريالية والصهيونية.

خلاصة القول، فإنه وفي ظلّ التحوّلات الاقليمية والدولية المتسارعة فإنّ موسكو بقيادة بوتين قوة صديقة لنا بقدر ما نحن أقوياء وثابتون ونعرف ماذا نريد وقادرين على توظيف قوّتها باتجاه ما نريد، تماماً كما فعلت ايران وسورية حتى الآن.

وفي غير ذلك فقد لا نستطيع الاستفادة منها، بل وربما خسرانها، في حال فكرنا بطريقة المقاول بدلاً من المقاوم.

بعدنا طيّبين قولوا الله…