The above is a link to a statement made by a US General Officer about why the US must continue to indebt itself in Nuclear Weapons spending and Triad (Air Sea Land based) delivery systems. It poses as a stance rooted in Realism. “I am forced to deal with the world as it is!”
One should be reminded of an exchange in the movie, The Mission between the Roman Catholic Cardinal appointed as a Representative of the Papacy and the Spanish Governor of their Colonies in South America (the Spanish Colonies had outlawed slavery and the slave trade in indigenous peoples), and the Portuguese leader of the Colony of Brazil who represents that slave trading/owning entity (Brazil) designed to generate profits and power for Portugal. The Portuguese leader says that it will be necessary for the Spanish to permit the Portuguese to enslave the Guarani indigenous living communally under the Jesuit Mission) because this was a matter having been negotiated (giving that disputed borderline territory to the Portuguese during a “peace settlement” of a European matter between the Portuguese and the Spanish) in Europe (with Papal approval). He argues to the Cardinal “THUS is the world!” to which the Cardinal responds, ‘No, Thus WE HAVE MADE the world!” Nevertheless he grants the authority to the Portuguese to disband mission and enslave the Indians as territory now under Portuguese Law.
Just so our military industrial complex has justified its urging of increasing military spending to “modernize” our nuclear weapons capabilities to the tune of ($1.2 Trillion dollars) because the world as it is (Realism?) demands the USA be able to engage in two major military confrontations at once–China and Russia. One must ask if that depiction is based in “reality” or an intended and carefully nuanced fantasy claiming to be a reality. Do we really believe that the Chinese or the Russians for that matter would be anymore willing to risk Nuclear Winter and the annihilation of huge portions of life than is the United States? Dr. Strangelove lives! When we take the risk it is on behalf of the “good guys” for whom it is necessary to defend our “interests” even at the risk of everyone’s interests. Please. This definition of REALITY is a creation of US Exceptionalism designed to create a world in which the US defines and dictates the rules and interests in favor “of US investments world wide” to use a phrase coined by the US Space Command in its Vision Statement for 2020.
Why shouldn’t the rest of the world view the USA as the bad guy, consigning Climate Change cooperation to the realm of fairy tale, so that its financiers’ profits will not be restricted by environmental regulation, when the rest of the world believes, as they should, that they are threatened by this “US First” policy.
