It’s easy to understand why some would think bringing Sweden and Finland
into NATO is a good idea. It would serve Putin right to have his illegal,
immoral, and unjustified invasion of Ukraine end up more than doubling
Russia’s border with NATO. It would reflect what appears to be the
majority sentiment in Finland and a growing majority of Swedes. Both
countries have “first-rate” military capabilities as well as strong
democratic traditions, which would bolster NATO’s power and reputation.

But the desire to humiliate Putin and reinforce U.S. global military
dominance is shortsighted and dangerous. It risks escalating, expanding,
and prolonging the war in Ukraine. It will vastly increase the probability
of a nuclear exchange, which could easily spiral into a global holocaust..
The U.S. Senate — which by a two-thirds majority must give its advice and
consent to the ratification of protocols adding new members to the
alliance — should think hard before rubber-stamping the admission of new
candidates.

Escalating, expanding, prolonging the war in Ukraine

The highest priority of the United States should be to bring this war to a
swift conclusion through an immediate ceasefire and a negotiated
settlement that is fair and durable.

Yet the Biden administration — under pressure from Congress and the
foreign policy establishment — has only ratcheted up its war aims, from
containing Russia to crushing it. Following a high-level visit to
Ukraine, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin described the U.S. goal as seeing
“Russia weakened to the degree it cannot do the kinds of things it has
done in invading Ukraine,” while Democratic leaders called for an outright
military “victory”.

The deepening U.S. involvement is not mere rhetoric; the United States has
now admitted to providing operational intelligence that Ukrainian forces
used to target and kill Russian generals as well as to sink Russia’s
prized warship. Deliveries of increasingly heavy and sophisticated arms
from the United States and its allies have gone beyond allowing Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky to defend his country; they have emboldened
him to vastly expand his demands for entering peace talks. Whereas he had
earlier indicated significant flexibility on the Donbas, Zelensky is now
demanding “a restoration of preinvasion borders, the return of more than 5
million refugees, membership in the European Union, and accountability
from Russian military leaders.”

In this environment, pressing NATO up against Russia’s doorstep is a
provocation that will only raise the stakes in the Ukraine war and make it
more difficult for Putin to back down. It was a mistake to incorporate the
former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO after the end of the Cold War, as
many leading analysts and policymakers argued at the time, and it
ultimately served to reinforce Russia’s sense of isolation and
encirclement.

Indeed, Ukraine’s desire to join NATO and its receipt of arms and training
from the United States were certainly key factors in Putin’s decision to
invade. Expanding NATO now will raise the stakes for Putin in a way that
virtually guarantees the war will drag on longer and increases the chances
it will expand beyond Ukraine’s borders.

Setting back prospects for peace in Europe

Saying “yes” to Finland and Sweden will make it far more difficult to say
“no” to Ukraine. More importantly, Finnish and Swedish accession to NATO
could end up destabilizing Europe rather than protecting it. Neither
country faced a serious threat from Russia before this crisis, but the
arms bonanza that will inevitably result from their incorporation into
NATO could create incentives for Russia to push back. The war has already
provided a huge boon for defense contractors, as pressure ramps up to
modernize and improve the interoperability of systems and flush out the
last remaining Russian military equipment.

What Europe needs is not a redrawing of Cold War boundaries and the
creation of a larger NATO footprint, but a new architecture of security
and economic institutions that all European countries, including Russia,
can eventually join.

Raising nuclear risks

The world has been rightly aghast at Russian threats to use nuclear
weapons if its existence is jeopardized, although the United States has
also refused to rule out the first use of nuclear weapons. Given the
danger that even a single tactical nuclear weapon could cause calamitous
damage and quickly escalate into a full-scale nuclear exchange, keeping
the war in Ukraine from turning nuclear ought to be a central objective of
U.S. and NATO military planners. Which begs the question: how does
expanding NATO advance that objective?

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified that Putin might
turn to nuclear weapons if he believed he was losing the war in Ukraine,
especially if NATO were to intervene. Confoundingly, a “resounding
military defeat” is exactly what some U.S. senators are goading the
Pentagon to seek. Moreover, NATO’s expanding involvement in the war — and
potentially, NATO’s expanding size — raise the ante for Putin, vastly
increasing the chances of a nuclear conflagration. Even before Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine, experts deemed the world to be “the closest it has
ever been to civilization-ending apocalypse.”

President Biden himself seems to understand the need to avoid pushing
Putin into a corner. “The problem I worry about now,”he told a gathering
of Democrats, “is that he doesn’t have a way out right now, and I’m trying
to figure out what we do about that.”Yet imposing debilitating economic
sanctions, calling Putin a “war criminal,” and prematurely announcing U.S.
support for NATO membership for Sweden and Finland only narrow Putin’s
options and make Russia increasingly likely to use nuclear weapons in
Ukraine.

Nuclear risks are not limited to deliberate use. As Thomas L. Friedman
explains, “the longer this war goes on, the more opportunity for
catastrophic miscalculations — and the raw material for that is piling up
fast and furious.” The basing of more NATO troops and nuclear weapons
closer to Russian soil could certainly make Putin’s fingers twitchier.

The alternative

Providers of single-family rental homes are an important part of America’s
housing ecosystem
Keep the Chinese Communist Party out of college
In addition to taking NATO membership off the table for Ukraine, the West
could put NATO membership for Sweden and Finland on the negotiating table
with Russia. A promise not to expand NATO at all would be fairer to
Ukraine and could sweeten the pot for Russia to dial back its territorial
ambitions. Such a proposal would need to be part of a broader
international effort to stop the fighting, address Russia’s legitimate
security concerns, and prevent more people from dying inside Ukraine and
around the world. After all, the war’s impacts are beginning to be felt in
the form of worldwide food shortages that could end up killing far more
people than the fighting does.

More broadly, Europeans and Americans should begin thinking about what
kind of cooperative security arrangements would be most likely to deter
violent conflict, build positive peace, and promote human development
inside and beyond their borders. What they ultimately come up with may
bear little resemblance to the NATO we have now — and hopefully will not
require the increased spending for weapons and war that is now projected..
At the very least, U.S. and NATO leaders must avoid falling prey to the
same hubris to which Putin succumbed in his disastrous invasion of Ukraine.

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/3496849-time-for-a-strategic-pause-on-nato-expansion/

‘Doomsday Plane’ flies to Japan along with Biden’s trip to S. Korea

Posted May. 21, 2022 07:34,

With U.S. President Joe Biden headed to South Korea, the E-4B, dubbed the Nuclear National Airborne Operations Center, was deployed to the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan.

https://www.donga.com/en/article/all/20220521/3397348/1

When the U.S. president travels overseas, an E-4B aircraft is customarily deployed on standby in a visiting country or a nearby region. However, it is a rare occasion where its flight route and destination are openly released, which seemingly intends to issue a warning against North Korea as it has arguably prepared to launch an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) and test nuclear weapons with President Biden’s visit to South Korea and his summit talk with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol scheduled on Saturday in mind.

An E-4B run by the U.S. Air Force left the Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Thursday night (KST) to get the Kadena Base on Thursday afternoon, reported a military aircraft tracking website on Friday. It was deployed to Japan around the same time as the arrival of Air Force One at the Osan Air Base in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, with President Biden onboard. The “nightwatch” aircraft takes charge of operations concerning all nuclear forces including ICBMs, nuclear bombers and nuclear submarines as well as forces on the ground, at sea and in the air in case of any nuclear war. That explains why it is dubbed “Doomsday Plane.”

The E-4B is equipped inside and outside with innovative defense systems that protect electronic devices against a nuclear electromagnetic pulse arising out of nuclear explosion. President Biden is onboard during wartime but it is used in peace time for the U.S. defense secretary and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff to travel overseas. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin draw attention when he visited South Korea on an E-4B in March last year. “Exceptionally, the U.S. government makes an E-4B itinerary publicly open on a presidential trip outside the nation,” said a military insider, interpreting it as a warning against North Korea’s nuclear and ICBM provocations that may happen on President Biden’s trip to South Korea and Japan.

[]

We are all stuck in Jonestown now.

Sounds like more appeasement bullshit like the Jew Kissinger, the
antiquated old fossil. Time to die you old cunt.

The only outcome of the Volodomyr and Vladimyr show must be for full
land reclaimation by Ukraine, Donbass and Crimea. Therefore, Biden
must provide Reaper UAV's, Harpoons, MI tanks, MLRS and F16's through
to F35's.

Why not? Fuck Russia, full of vodka soaked cunts with short lifespans
in any case, make them shorter.

Go go go USA, all the way. Shed American blood too, those Marines
know how to die.

On Sat, 21 May 2022 22:19:33 +0100, slider <slider@anashram.com>
wrote:

>It’s easy to understand why some would think bringing Sweden and Finland
>into NATO is a good idea. It would serve Putin right to have his illegal,
>immoral, and unjustified invasion of Ukraine end up more than doubling
>Russia’s border with NATO. It would reflect what appears to be the
>majority sentiment in Finland and a growing majority of Swedes. Both
>countries have “first-rate” military capabilities as well as strong
>democratic traditions, which would bolster NATO’s power and reputation.
>
>But the desire to humiliate Putin and reinforce U.S. global military
>dominance is shortsighted and dangerous. It risks escalating, expanding,
>and prolonging the war in Ukraine. It will vastly increase the probability
>of a nuclear exchange, which could easily spiral into a global holocaust.
>The U.S. Senate — which by a two-thirds majority must give its advice and
>consent to the ratification of protocols adding new members to the
>alliance — should think hard before rubber-stamping the admission of new
>candidates.
>
>Escalating, expanding, prolonging the war in Ukraine
>
>The highest priority of the United States should be to bring this war to a
>swift conclusion through an immediate ceasefire and a negotiated
>settlement that is fair and durable.
>
>Yet the Biden administration — under pressure from Congress and the
>foreign policy establishment — has only ratcheted up its war aims, from
>containing Russia to crushing it. Following a high-level visit to
>Ukraine, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin described the U.S. goal as seeing
>“Russia weakened to the degree it cannot do the kinds of things it has
>done in invading Ukraine,” while Democratic leaders called for an outright
>military “victory”.
>
>The deepening U.S. involvement is not mere rhetoric; the United States has
>now admitted to providing operational intelligence that Ukrainian forces
>used to target and kill Russian generals as well as to sink Russia’s
>prized warship. Deliveries of increasingly heavy and sophisticated arms
> from the United States and its allies have gone beyond allowing Ukrainian
>President Volodymyr Zelensky to defend his country; they have emboldened
>him to vastly expand his demands for entering peace talks. Whereas he had
>earlier indicated significant flexibility on the Donbas, Zelensky is now
>demanding “a restoration of preinvasion borders, the return of more than 5
>million refugees, membership in the European Union, and accountability
> from Russian military leaders.”
>
>In this environment, pressing NATO up against Russia’s doorstep is a
>provocation that will only raise the stakes in the Ukraine war and make it
>more difficult for Putin to back down. It was a mistake to incorporate the
>former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO after the end of the Cold War, as
>many leading analysts and policymakers argued at the time, and it
>ultimately served to reinforce Russia’s sense of isolation and
>encirclement.
>
>Indeed, Ukraine’s desire to join NATO and its receipt of arms and training
> from the United States were certainly key factors in Putin’s decision to
>invade. Expanding NATO now will raise the stakes for Putin in a way that
>virtually guarantees the war will drag on longer and increases the chances
>it will expand beyond Ukraine’s borders.
>
>Setting back prospects for peace in Europe
>
>Saying “yes” to Finland and Sweden will make it far more difficult to say
>“no” to Ukraine. More importantly, Finnish and Swedish accession to NATO
>could end up destabilizing Europe rather than protecting it. Neither
>country faced a serious threat from Russia before this crisis, but the
>arms bonanza that will inevitably result from their incorporation into
>NATO could create incentives for Russia to push back. The war has already
>provided a huge boon for defense contractors, as pressure ramps up to
>modernize and improve the interoperability of systems and flush out the
>last remaining Russian military equipment.
>
>What Europe needs is not a redrawing of Cold War boundaries and the
>creation of a larger NATO footprint, but a new architecture of security
>and economic institutions that all European countries, including Russia,
>can eventually join.
>
>Raising nuclear risks
>
>The world has been rightly aghast at Russian threats to use nuclear
>weapons if its existence is jeopardized, although the United States has
>also refused to rule out the first use of nuclear weapons. Given the
>danger that even a single tactical nuclear weapon could cause calamitous
>damage and quickly escalate into a full-scale nuclear exchange, keeping
>the war in Ukraine from turning nuclear ought to be a central objective of
>U.S. and NATO military planners. Which begs the question: how does
>expanding NATO advance that objective?
>
>Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified that Putin might
>turn to nuclear weapons if he believed he was losing the war in Ukraine,
>especially if NATO were to intervene. Confoundingly, a “resounding
>military defeat” is exactly what some U.S. senators are goading the
>Pentagon to seek. Moreover, NATO’s expanding involvement in the war — and
>potentially, NATO’s expanding size — raise the ante for Putin, vastly
>increasing the chances of a nuclear conflagration. Even before Russia’s
>invasion of Ukraine, experts deemed the world to be “the closest it has
>ever been to civilization-ending apocalypse.”
>
>President Biden himself seems to understand the need to avoid pushing
>Putin into a corner. “The problem I worry about now,”he told a gathering
>of Democrats, “is that he doesn’t have a way out right now, and I’m trying
>to figure out what we do about that.”Yet imposing debilitating economic
>sanctions, calling Putin a “war criminal,” and prematurely announcing U.S.
>support for NATO membership for Sweden and Finland only narrow Putin’s
>options and make Russia increasingly likely to use nuclear weapons in
>Ukraine.
>
>Nuclear risks are not limited to deliberate use. As Thomas L. Friedman
>explains, “the longer this war goes on, the more opportunity for
>catastrophic miscalculations — and the raw material for that is piling up
>fast and furious.” The basing of more NATO troops and nuclear weapons
>closer to Russian soil could certainly make Putin’s fingers twitchier.
>
>The alternative
>
>Providers of single-family rental homes are an important part of America’s
>housing ecosystem
>Keep the Chinese Communist Party out of college
>In addition to taking NATO membership off the table for Ukraine, the West
>could put NATO membership for Sweden and Finland on the negotiating table
>with Russia. A promise not to expand NATO at all would be fairer to
>Ukraine and could sweeten the pot for Russia to dial back its territorial
>ambitions. Such a proposal would need to be part of a broader
>international effort to stop the fighting, address Russia’s legitimate
>security concerns, and prevent more people from dying inside Ukraine and
>around the world. After all, the war’s impacts are beginning to be felt in
>the form of worldwide food shortages that could end up killing far more
>people than the fighting does.
>
>More broadly, Europeans and Americans should begin thinking about what
>kind of cooperative security arrangements would be most likely to deter
>violent conflict, build positive peace, and promote human development
>inside and beyond their borders. What they ultimately come up with may
>bear little resemblance to the NATO we have now — and hopefully will not
>require the increased spending for weapons and war that is now projected.
>At the very least, U.S. and NATO leaders must avoid falling prey to the
>same hubris to which Putin succumbed in his disastrous invasion of Ukraine.
>
>https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/3496849-time-for-a-strategic-pause-on-nato-expansion/