A Return to the Madness of: M.A.D.

By Brett Redmayne-Titley

One generation later, madmen have returned. They bring with them the madness of … M.A.D.

Again, absolutely all politics are reduced to White or Black. There is no gray. All peoples of our world again exist within a fateful clash between only two distinct ideologies, best summed-up as; Good vs. Evil. Right vs. Wrong. Life or… death?

A mere generation ago the colors of worldwide military polarization were then thrust upon the innocent by mad politicians with similar delusions of empire who, then, portrayed their geo-political expansionism in the easily understood colors of  Red vs. Blue: East vs. West. The Cold War. The once Soviet empire vs. the ever-since burgeoning US contra-empire. The multitude of issues separating the two supposedly separate doctrines of Red or Blue ultimately distilled into one single, horrific doctrine of military nuclear madness that all on earth finally, by the necessity of self-preservation, truly understood.

To increase the perceived terror of their new doctrine of horror, these politicians announced an all-too-accurate acronym that translated their man-made horror into a simple definition no sane person could ignore. A doctrine of pure madness, one trumpeted by treasonous politicians and readily admitted to by their military leaders in the name of final “world victory.” M.A.D.

Mutually. Assured. Destruction.

Ours.

Suddenly, the citizens on either side of the Iron Curtain were faced daily with a very real, very personal threat. A  terror haunting their nightmares, while a military nuclear build-up pushed forward globally. To all the moral world, the issue of this terror was not Red vs. Blue but pure and simply the black of heartless men, not the white of conscience and humanity. All knew: for the future of man, this nuclear madness had to be stopped. Or, else…?

And, so it was.

The citizens of the countries of the world rose up together, day-after-day, year-after-year. The mind-set of the world changed. In December of 1987 the “Doomsday Clock” of Armageddon, that had ever-ticked forwards towards oblivion each New Year – seemingly for a lifetime – was, thankfully, for the first time moved … backwards! The destruction of man was no longer “assured.”

This day brought on further gains such as the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and with them the seeming end of the era of nuclear madness. For the first time in memory the world relaxed with a collective sigh of overdue relief. The threat was over. White had defeated Black. Sanity-nay humanity- had overcome both Blue and Red.

That call to order has sounded again. The madmen have returned.

 The rhetoric… screams of an intention to practically declare war on Russia. They [US Military] only talk about defense, but in fact they are preparing an offensive.  – Mikhail Gorbachev.

NATO has been under direction from Washington, DC for the inception of many recent wars re-branded as “conflicts.” Much the same can be said of the United Nations. As American diplomatic hegemony leads to the further placement of US missile systems surrounding Russia, what was once a post-Cold War promise by the US and NATO not to use former Soviet-bloc nations for offensive military purposes has left barely a handful not pointing US-provided guns back at a targeted Russia.

It can be argued correctly that,  beginning with the shootings at Maidan Square, Ukraine and continuing to Gaza, Palestine in 2014, these two Obama-backed war crimes of atrocity began an epiphany of the world public, but also of world leaders. Then, the willful barbarism of the Odessa massacre. Next flight MH370 disappeared, literally, and then MH17 was shot out of the sky along with 298 people’s futures. Following these atrocities was the US propagation, support and funding of the un-holy terror- pure evil personified – ISIS/ Daesh. Currently Libya and Iraq wallow in US-inspired political and military chaos.

All this took place with five years of Obama-inspired Syrian slaughter as a daily backdrop. Wrapped in a controlled American media’s many depths of deliberate, gray obfuscation the truth is so graphic that it has clearly been revealed to the remaining moral world. The collective hidden American message: America places no value whatsoever on human life. Yours!

The world of gray is not working. The predictable cover-up of all these and many other US approved atrocities fails to fool the world, nor its conscience, any longer. Instead, these examples show clearly to all which two countries truly lead the world’s expanding dark and immoral minions. In a black and white world not shrouded in media gray, the answer is obvious. America and Israel.

Three years-on from Maidan Square, a massive worldwide defensive military build-up is taking place in countries directly under US threat. Countries that have previously tried peace, appeasement and diplomacy, such as Russia, Iran, and China, have all had their own recent Maidan epiphanies. Finding, instead, their efforts, their leaders and their countries in-turn demonized, they now realize their US-declared enemy is not interested in any technique of political communication other than the singular language of war, terror and death. Talks that began at  Washington’s behest immediately post-Maidan with Warsaw, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, about the permanent stationing of US Army equipment warehouses, including heavy weapons, have all come to fruition in the last few months. Despite violating the post-Soviet NATO accords with these actions, Russia finds itself, thanks to US control of these  former Russian satellites,  increasingly surrounded ever-closer to its own borders. Consider the developments of this past week, all within rocket distance from Moscow:

On, Saturday July 16, 2016, 28 NATO leaders agreed to the alliance’s biggest military revamp since the Cold War. Claiming a “resurgent” Russia they vowed to unite behind a “hard-headed” policy of deterrence and dialogue with Russia. Proving their point, Romania and Poland immediately received funding and began installing US land-based missile systems. Circling to the southeast, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that the Pentagon has budgeted $3.45 billion in annual US funds to pay for 350,000 Afghan forces, with the Kabul government contributing an additional sum of around $420 million, for a total yearly budget of nearly $5 billion. This belies, of course, that the US has been-there-done-that to near zero effect, but does highlight the continued US attempt to surround Russia with American war-power. Stoltenberg stated, “The united message is that defense and dialogue are what our relationship is based on.” Really? This week a US-guided missile destroyer, USS Ross, equipped with the Aegis advanced missile defense system entered the Black Sea heading to the Ukrainian port city of Odessa to join the international maritime exercises Sea Breeze 2016 along with, Bulgaria, Greece, Lithuania, Italy, Poland, Romania, Turkey, the UK, Georgia and Ukraine.

A statement issued by the Russian foreign ministry seemed more accurate. “A preliminary analysis of the results of the meeting shows that NATO continues to exist in some sort of military-political looking-glass world.”

What’s a peaceful nation to do?

For Iran, the chicanery of US negotiators during the P5+1 nuclear treaty negotiations has not stopped with its passage and correctly reinforces strong suspicions. This past week the US Congress reneged on this signed treaty by imposing new sanctions, refusing to cancel sanctions listed in the treaty and introduced new anti-Iran legislation. Despite the promised reprieve from the crippling US sanctions that resulted in the deaths of over a million Iranians, the Iranian leadership had maintained diplomacy and satisfied all the five other signatory nations. But despite Obama signing for the US, what should be a historic peace agreement, congresspersons blustered with scripted hatred and promises of regime change and military intervention.

What’s a peaceful nation to do?

America’s third declared enemy, China, is getting quite tired of US incursions into their air space and into their territorial waters. US naval ships continue to deliberately provoke conflict regarding the Spratly Islands in the South China sea, less than five hundred miles from Chinese turf. Make no mistake, this is not a turf war, this is an oil war.“The recent move by the South Korean side has harmed the foundation of mutual trust between the two countries,” Reuters cited Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi as telling his South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se. Emphasizing their rising suspicions, the US this week sent a full Navy battle group to maintain close proximity to the Spratlys. Also, US reconnaissance planes have taking a liking to encroaching on Chinese air space and disturbing commercial flights. Last month the US imposed a 555% tariff on Chinese steel imports. What’s a peaceful nation to do?

Underscoring the current post-Maidan world’s change-of-heart, China last week announced it will now shift from “territorial air defense” to both “defense and offense.”

“We have prepared ourselves for the most dangerous scenarios…”- Brig. General Hossein Salami, Lt. Commander/ the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)

Indeed. Since Maidan, an unprecedented military build-up has accelerated globally by those who are under threat of American expansionism. This build-up has covered six major facets:

1. Purchase and/or manufacture of defensive anti-rocket missile systems.
2. Development and/or expansion of existing and new conventional offensive weapons technologies.
3. Creation/expansion of indigenous weapons and spare parts manufacturing; development of cyber-warfare technologies.
4. Increased frequency of training and preparation of all troops and national military assets.
5. New strategic military alliances with the other nations also under US threat.
6. New economic policies that leave behind the US-controlled petro-dollar and banking system.

Iran, particularly, has showcased marked achievements in all six areas over the past two-plus post-Maidan years, now displaying a formidable array of new military advancements. With its educational system on the rise and having already achieved world rankings of 7th in Nanotechnologies and 15th in Production Science, it is not surprising that Iran has so quickly introduced a wide battery of new military defenses as well. These include cyber warfare, drone technology and remote-controlled attack speed boats. With American hegemony seeming to have no bounds, these build-ups are also taking place from Venezuela to Pakistan, Brazil to India.

But, the true horror lies not in the build-up of long-since mislabeled “conventional” weapons dispersed across the borders of the globe. There is now only one primary threat. There is only one political issue. That issue is pure black. Not one shade of gray. It is nuclear.

“Where have all the people gone my honey,
Where have all the people gone today.
There’s no need for you to be worrying about all those people,
You never see those people anyway.”

-From, “Morning Dew.” composed by Bonnie Dobson.

In resisting the American military’s “pivot to Asia” (read: China), its encroachment of Russia’s western flank by NATO, and the persistent attempts to manifest war with the Iranian leadership, it is the prudent, preventative measures of these three leading nations that show to the remaining free world, clearly, that, one: they, now, well understand this threat, and two: they must prepare for it.

The nuclear threat of the Cold War era was a different threat, however. During those anxious times, the threat of M.A.D. was an implicit bluff: bluffing that no world leader, Red or Blue, would be so callous, so cruel, so immoral as to be the one to “press the button,” thereby dooming their enemies and millions of their own countrymen to certain death and nuclear winter. This bluff was based on one existing fundamental of all men: humanity. Love of life. In those by-gone times of daily implied Armageddon, although tested several times on the razor’s edge of geo-politics, humanity triumphed. No trembling hand could find, then, the will to apply a calloused finger to the final button of global termination.

That was long ago.

Today, by any metric of the post-Maidan era, America has shown that it has foregone all considerations with respect to innocent life or humanity. World populations are merely collateral damage of a rampaging American hegemony. In the societal charge of Criminal Insanity, “depraved indifference to human life,” is considered. Therefore, any leader of a nation that finds collateral death of the innocent to be acceptable is: guilty as charged! Hence, we are dealing with madmen.

According to data exchanged under new START requirements, as of October 1, 2014, the United States had 1,642 deployed strategic warheads, compared to 1,643 for Russia. The number of deployed ICBMs, SLBMs and strategic bombers – the means to deliver the nuclear horror – for the United States was 794, compared to 528 for Russia.

America long ago ignored its moral obligation under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which it joined in 1970 and which was extended indefinitely on May 11, 1995. Instead, it used twisted language to justify a massive nuclear “upgrade” to make its existing arsenal more threatening to the world. The cost, which is in addition to this year’s $598.5 billion dollar military budget, is, of course, secret.

Hence, Russia and China have followed suit.

Certainly these concerns about  future nuclear actions of America were only increased when the current American Congress and Senate provided massive, and of course secret, funding to move NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) back inside Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. This is the bunker created deep inside a solid granite mountain in 1966, said to be able to withstand a direct nuclear strike. NORAD was sheltered there until 2005 when the threat of nuclear retaliation was, then, minimal.

Cheyenne Mountain also had another sinister purpose: to house in comfort, presumably until plant life outside was able to grow again, the leaders of the “free” world. Those leaders whose populations were likely dead or dying in the smoldering, gray remains of morning outside. The madmen!

So, leaders in Iran, Russia, and China are under an offensive US nuclear threat. They have been forced by obligation of national self-preservation to shift to offensive weapons, including the “nuclear option.” The result of this offensive reactionary deterrent is indeed the return, in sad practicality, to the doctrine of M.A.D.

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One of the nuclear response weapons that China has recently begun testing is a hypersonic nuclear weapon delivery system, the WU-14. A test of the hypersonic glide vehicle was carried out on June 7 and is the missile’s fourth test in 18 months. The strategic strike weapon is extremely advanced and can travel at 10 times the speed of sound, or 12,231.01kph. The Wu-14 is capable of maneuvering during flight while traveling at the edge of space, and so is extremely difficult to shoot down.

In Russia, production of the Tu-160 “Blackjack” supersonic strategic bomber and missile carrier will resume with updated improvements, according to defense minister, Sergey Shoigu. Further, in 2015 Russia’s new 100-ton silo-based heavy ballistic missile Sarmat began undergoing its initial tests. On December 4, 2015 in his address to the Federal Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin set objectives for the country’s military policy. Russia aims to maintain its military advantage, prioritize the rearmament of its nuclear deterrence forces and refit up to 100 percent of its military hardware by 2020. This policy is obviously moving rapidly, with the ultra-hawkish Brookings Institution’s Steven Pifer admitting, “Russia’s strategic modernization program today appears to far outpace U.S. efforts.”

It is national resources that are the difference between the American set of allied nations and those they seek to conquer. These invading countries are of an aging empire bankrupt in all resources normally part of any flourishing nation. These destitute nations’ economies and banking industries are on the brink of collapse, their natural resources terminally and forever depleted, exports in contraction, GDP in recession, unemployment growing to revolutionary levels, the moral and social wealth of their countries corrupted, their people increasingly impoverished and their laws optional and plutocratic. The aging empire has very little left, so it would steal, using their armies, from those countries who have, in abundance, all of what the empire lacks, what it has thrown away: a future!

So, the madmen are desperate. A desperate man with nothing to lose is capable of any insanity at any moment. Post-Maidan, we need not see more. Although preparing, it is doubtful that Russia, China and Iran, nations with so many assets and prosperous national futures will cast aside their respect for humanity after years of renewing  flourishing societies. As Russian president Putin expressed succinctly to Italian news outlet, Il Corriere della Sera, “I think that only an insane person and only in a dream can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO. I think some countries are simply taking advantage of people’s fears with regard to Russia“.

Fear.

On Jan 22, 2015, the nuclear Doomsday clock of Armageddon suddenly moved forward two minutes. Two full minutes! It stands now at three-minutes-to midnight. The return to the madness of M.A.D. cannot be covered from our eyes in shrouds of the lies of gray. For, since Maidan, the issue of M.A.D. is a siren’s scream sent from the souls of all the past victims of empire. It pierces the ears. Whether we listen, we hear it on the winds of change. The forgotten howl. With a lonely cry, the dead scream.

A warning: The madmen have returned.

Image Credit: Anthony Freda Art

-THE END-

About The Author: Brett Redmayne-Titley has been reporting on-scene for a decade in an effort to provide better quality reporting from current events of geo-political, environmental and moral importance. Having visited over fifty countries he is a world citizen and life-long activist, political commentator and world citizen. The author has published over one hundred in-depth articles, many of them multi-part exposes, which have been re-published and translated internationally. He can be reached at: live-on-scene [at] gmx.com