by Doug Casey, International Man:
International Man: Recently, Biden approved Ukraine’s use of American long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia—something Vladimir Putin has explicitly warned is a red line.
What are your thoughts on the implications of this decision?
Doug Casey: The Bidenistas are extremely dangerous fools. They’re taking one more step on the escalation ladder toward World War III.
I’ve watched governments scale the ladder since the 1950s when schoolchildren drilled to “duck and cover”—get under their desks when the air raid sirens went off. And I well remember the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when we came within a hair’s breadth of nuclear war.
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In the mid-1980s, the Soviets could sense that their empire was collapsing—the world was again on the edge of nuclear war—it was a “now or never” thing for them. Fortunately, it was a “not now.” However, what’s happening now may be the most serious crisis of all. Nuclear war is being considered as a realistic option.
Herman Kahn, the author of On Thermonuclear War and Thinking the Unthinkable, became a friend when I lived in Washington, DC. (See Crisis Investing for the 90s for how and why). His rational contemplation of how a nuclear war might start and how it would end was considered outrageous. But now it’s something that’s discussed in the popular media; people have come to accept the near inevitability of it.
The world is ramping up towards World War III. The atmosphere is like that of the late 30s when the civil war in Spain and the Japanese invasion of China were overtures to World War II.
People don’t seem as scared of the prospect as they were in past crises. But they should be more scared now than ever before. At least in some ways.
I say that because, in the past, ICBMs couldn’t be targeted with great precision. To make up for that, their payloads had to be gigantic to get the job done. We’re talking megaton-size city busters; the Soviets tested their 50-megaton Tsar Bomb in 1961 for a reason. But precision delivery systems have obviated the need for giant bombs. And it’s become obvious that there’s no need to destroy an entire city when you can neatly target military or intelligence installations, which are the real dangers.
That means a nuclear war using 1 or 10 kiloton (Hiroshima-sized) warheads is now, arguably, just as “winnable” as one using the 10-megaton devices of 50 years ago. You always want to limit collateral damage. As a result, nuclear weapons, by themselves, no longer necessarily mean the end of civilization. That also means that Putin’s threat to use nukes in retaliation to a serious assault on Russia is very credible. Especially since it appears Russia has missiles that are both hypersonic (10x the speed of sound) and maneuverable, which means they can’t be intercepted.
Of course, it’s no longer just Russia and the US that might go at each other. There are at least nine nuclear powers in the world (US, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea). Nuclear technology is no longer a secret. At least 20 countries around the world could create nuclear weapons within a matter of months if they chose to. Anybody can get them. And they don’t need missiles or bombers. Freighters, cargo planes, or trucks are perfectly viable delivery systems. So is FedEx for a miniaturized weapon.
I’m afraid the cat’s out of the bag. The bottom line is that anything that can happen eventually will happen. And there’s a good chance that is now. Especially with the reckless incompetents who still occupy Washington continuing to provoke Moscow, using the Kiev regime as a cat’s paw.
International Man: Putin recently signed a nuclear doctrine that lowers Russia’s threshold for deploying nuclear weapons, particularly if its territorial integrity is threatened.
What’s your perspective on this development?
Doug Casey: Putin and the Russians have been very rational and restrained about this. US neocons provoked the war between the Ukraine and Russia, and the US has financed and prolonged it.
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