By Raul Capote Fernandez on June 8, 2024
photo: antena 3
The struggle for markets and the differences in the conception of international relations give rise to a rupture of the world balance which is expressed, fundamentally, in a qualitative increase of the arms race.
In order to understand what some analysts and political leaders call the New Cold War, we must go back to the 1980s, when both George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev agreed that the confrontation between the two blocs would end without winners or losers; on the contrary, Bush declared himself triumphant in 1992: “America won the Cold War”.
The United States and the European powers, against all logic, opted for a “winner-take-all” policy, and not only failed to comply with the agreements, such as not extending NATO to Russia’s borders, but also swooped in like vultures on the wealth of the former socialist countries -mainly Great Russia-, appropriated important markets, literally destroyed the competition and tried to turn the former superpower into a poor and dependent country.
This policy of “victors in occupied land” played an important role in the nationalist reaction of a nation that could not admit the dispossession and humiliation of those who were supposed to be allies in the construction of “democracy” and “freedom”, the dream of the American Liberty turned into a nightmare for many.
So here we are in the presence of a struggle for markets, for world hegemony, and in this confrontation, Russia and China constitute a serious obstacle to American pretensions.
Russian political analyst Vardan Bagdasarian told the Pravda.ru portal that in addition to the economic crisis, it is a crisis of values that is really affecting the US, adding that it is possible for someone to control this crisis by pursuing certain political ends.
“I think that the way out of the economic crisis is already well planned. And it is a military conflict, because military conflict attracts investments, strengthens industry, something that happened during World War II,” Bagdasarian said.
The idea that the US always comes out of wars stronger – as in the first two World Wars – is very cleverly handled by the mass media. Rooted in the American imagination, it is also used to justify the increase in military spending and the reduction of public spending: more production by the military industry equals more jobs, more wealth, a formula sold by the gurus of the military industrial complex.James Lewis, vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, assures that a new round of the nuclear arms race has already begun, although public opinion is not yet aware of it. The weapons born of the new nuclear arms race look like something out of macabre science fiction stories. Trident nuclear missiles, for example, launched by U.S. submarines can increase the destructive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima by a factor of six.
China’s new df-31 is capable of causing far more damage than U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of wiping out entire cities; the 50-megaton destructive power of the Russian rs-28 Sarmat missile and China’s df-31 have a destructive capacity that could wipe out all of Texas or France with a single launch.
The U.S. B53 bomb, designed to be delivered by the stealthy B-2 Spirit, is capable of apocalyptic damage, its impact would kill millions of people within half an hour of the explosion.
The Russian Status-6 naval system has been labeled by U.S. defense officials as the “Doomsday weapon.” The Status-6 is actually a submersible drone equipped with a massive 100-megaton warhead. The explosion resulting from the detonation would cause, in addition to destructive energy, a gigantic tsunami-like wave, accompanied by radioactive fallout.
The United States, according to its new nuclear rearmament plan, is betting on the development of new and smaller atomic bombs. The Pentagon argues that the development of these less powerful but highly devastating weapons of less than 20 kilotons would serve as a deterrent to enemies.
“Using nuclear weapons is not a deterrence tool, it is global suicide,” said meteorologist Alan Robock, one of the most prominent figures in the study of these environmental and climatic effects in a current nuclear scenario.
The New Cold War or Hot Peace, as some experts prefer to call it, could turn planet Earth into a hell, and this time it would end, with no winners and no losers. Stopping the spiral of nuclear arms madness must be a priority task of mankind.
No matter how far away the impacts of these weapons occur, their effect is global and would affect everyone, no matter who pushes the button. The consequence is the end of life. Let these data serve as food for thought and let rationality and common sense prevail above all.
Raul Capote Fernandez is a Cuban writer, professor, researcher and journalist. He is the author of “Juego de Iluminaciones”, “El caballero ilustrado”, “El adversario”, “Enemigo” and “La guerra que se nos hace”.
Source: Cuba en Resumen