The US, dragging the western allies behind them, is preparing for war with Russia and China. Washington also wants India ‘onside’ for obvious reasons of geography, history, and growing economic power. The US also needs allies with some money to help pay for the Pentagon’s endless war machine that is heavily dependent on expensive space technology.

GETTING INDIA “ONSIDE”

Washington wishes to bring India under its ‘Space Command’ so that all its military will be run through the Pentagon space warfighting satellite program. A term ‘interoperability’ has been coined to describe the process where all allies must have suitable warfighting systems that can be technically run through the US Space Command system. In the end this means the US is controlling the deadly tip of the spear because no other nation has all the satellites and ground stations around the globe that give Washington the ability to see everything on Earth, hear everything, and ultimately target every place on the planet.

All the new NATO allies (and ‘partners’ like Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand) are being brought into the global military alliance to control and dominate the planet on behalf of western corporate capitalism. That means London-Washington-Brussels-Paris-Berlin running the world. Russia, China, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba and a few other nations are on the list for ‘regime change’ in the coming years. They still stand outside full control by the western bankers and militarists.

The recent formation of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) alternative economic institution would loan money to developing countries and not exploit them the way western bankers do using the IMF and World Bank as their tools of domination. The west is not happy about BRICS and thus we saw the leader of Brazil was recently dethroned in a coup essentially orchestrated by Washington.

Raytheon’s global missile system.

The US-NATO alliance is not happy to currently see many nations around the world begin to stand up against this long run of western imperialism. The BRICS nations are calling for a multi-polar world and the US demands to remain as the unipolar leader of the planet. Washington appears willing to go to war to defend its collapsing empire.

The US is like a cowboy gambler with a black hat on a Mississippi riverboat playing cards. The cowboy looks around and sees himself surrounded by those he has exploited for years. He thinks his only way out is to start shooting – the law of the west. That, I think, is essentially still the foreign and military policy of the US. Its part arrogance and part fear that the world has woken up at last and is rejecting the cowboy mentality of ‘full spectrum dominance’.

A HISTORY OF DOMINANCE

Growing global poverty and the reality of climate change though are banging on Washington’s front door. The corporations are trying to make money from climate change – their love for the dollar bill is so great that they cannot see beyond their lust for power and greed. I call them pirates.

The pirates have buried a treasure chest in the US – it is our national treasury created from the taxes from the people’s hard work. About 55% of every federal tax dollar under the discretion of Congress goes to the Pentagon. America has become a war culture. Our economy is addicted to military production. People are increasingly being indoctrinated that the ‘Muslims’ are coming to attack us so we must spend more on weapons for war and we must have the very best space technology system in place to protect ourselves. We are a paranoid nation – massive guilt and fear comes from our long legacy of genocide.

First was the destruction of the Native Americans and then the illegal and immoral importation of slaves from Africa. During the days of slavery that very institution became America’s dominant economic institution. Slave labor made America rich. This (let’s call it fascist) element of our culture might have lost the civil war in the 1860’s but they are running the country today. We have a wedding in America of the government and corporate power – they are one in the same. Democracy has been drowned in the United States.

Raytheon sea-launched missiles.

Thus no one anywhere on our Mother Earth should ever listen to the moralistic preaching that comes from Washington about democracy, freedom, peace, or the rule of law. It’s all Hollywood talk – a scripted propaganda machine that has sold an image to the world. Fortunately the initial shine has worn off the Stars & Stripes and most people around the globe clearly understand what is really going on.

THE “PIVOT TO ASIA”

I have been working on space issues for the last 33 years and today coordinate the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. We are very worried about aggressive US moves to create more conflict with Russia and China – in particular the Pentagon claim that the US Space Command should “control and dominate space and deny other nations the use of space”.

The dangerous notion of US ‘exceptionalism’ has now been extended to outer space. In order to successfully operate the current US global space war fighting system ‘downlink ground stations’ have been based around the world to relay military communications from one place to another via space satellites. Activists around the planet are opposing the presence of these Star Wars bases in their communities and are the active membership of the Global Network.

The US today is feverishly deploying so-called “Missile Defense” (MD) systems around the globe – essentially encircling Russia and China. Added to that is Obama’s provocative ‘pivot’ of 60% of US military forces into the Asia-Pacific – what the Pentagon calls ‘rebalancing’. This pivot is dangerous and hugely expensive, so costly that Washington’s allies in are being pressured to help pay for the program.

US military bases around China.

China imports 80% of its resources on ships and thus we see the Pentagon ‘pivot’ as a military strategy to possibly block China’s sea routes – literally putting a loaded gun to Beijing’s head. China has responded by building a couple new bases on tiny coral reefs to ensure their unhampered access to the sea lanes in their region.

Last summer the Global Network held its 23rd annual space conference in Kyoto, Japan. We were invited to meet in Kyoto in order to show support for the campaign opposing the recently deployed US MD radar at Kyogamisaki in the Kyoto prefecture. One day during the conference we took a bus ride to have lunch with the Ukawa villagers and then joined them in a protest at the base.

The MD radar base at Kyogamisaki would assist the Pentagon’s attempt to intercept Chinese retaliatory nuclear missiles that they would fire after the US launched a first-strike attack. We are constantly told that MD is being deployed by the Pentagon in Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, Taiwan, Guam, the Philippines, and Australia to protect against North Korean missiles. This is a lie and a tactic to redirect the discussion. In fact the US is deploying MD to be able to control and dominate China and Russia.

US THAAD missiles.

I’ll never forget a few years ago, when North Korea test fired a rocket, I read a story in a space industry publication that quoted US military personnel who were laughing at North Korea. One US airman said that North Korea had virtually no space technology and thus could not really track their own rocket while the US, with its robust space capability, could follow the North Korean rocket with no trouble at all. This made it clear to me that the Pentagon over hypes the treat from Pyongyang. The truth is that the US is aiming their massive space-directed military machine at Beijing and Moscow.

MISSILE OFFENSE

MD used to be illegal under the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty between Russia and the US. Both sides knew that MD is a destabilizing program that would give one side an advantage over the other. MD’s key job is to be the shield that is used to pick-off a nation’s nuclear retaliatory capability after the Pentagon’s first-strike sword lunges into the heart of the opponent’s nuclear forces.

One of the very first things President George W. Bush did after taking office in 2001 was to give Russia notice that the US was pulling out of the ABM Treaty. Since that time US research, development, testing, and deployment of MD systems has been on steroids. At the time of the collapse of the former Soviet Union the US promised that NATO would not expand one centimeter toward Russia. Since then that promise has been repeatedly broken and today NATO has established bases along Russia’s border in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Pentagon MD systems were this year deployed in Romania and next year will be deployed in Poland. US Navy Aegis destroyers also carry MD interceptor missiles on-board and today are being deployed in the waters off the coasts of Russia and China.

THAAD missiles being launched.

In early 2014 the US spent $5 billion in a coup d’état in Ukraine that took down an elected government and replaced it with a government in the capital city of Kiev that included Nazis. The US has established a base in western Ukraine where Army Special Forces troops come from the US to train neo-Nazis that have been assigned to the newly created Ukrainian National Guard. These forces have then gone to eastern Ukraine, along the Russian border, where for the last two years they have killed thousands of innocent citizens by shelling their homes, hospitals, churches, schools, day care centers, airports and rail stations. The only crime of the people in eastern Ukraine is that they are of Russian ethnic origin.

The US intends to destabilize Ukraine in order to ultimately force regime change in Moscow. One reason for this is that because of climate change the Arctic Sea ice is melting and the oil corporations are eager to drill in the once frozen Arctic region. But Russia has the largest land border with Russia thus the supposed need to break the large Russian Federation into pieces (like happened to Yugoslavia during the presidency of Bill Clinton). By doing this the oil companies believe they’d have an easier time in grabbing the oil near the Russian Arctic coastline.

The Pentagon is deploying four basic MD systems today. Inside the US (California and Alaska) are Ground-Based Midcourse MD interceptors buried deep underground. Their job is to hit a bullet with a bullet in deep space after a retaliatory strike by Russia or China. This program has the most difficult technical task and has the worst testing results.

Lockheed Martin’s THAAD designs.

In order to increase the chances of being able to knock missiles out of the sky it helps to put the MD interceptors closer to the intended targets. Thus the US is deploying MD systems on Navy Aegis destroyers and porting them in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Guam. These ship-based interceptors have the best testing success rates.

Mobile ground-based MD interceptors like the Patriot (PAC-3) and Theatre High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) are used to knock out incoming missiles in the terminal phase. These systems are now being deployed in Japan, Okinawa, South Korea and Guam.

MISSILES IN ASIA

This past August I spent three weeks in South Korea attending various protests against the announced deployment of the US THAAD (Theater High Altitude Area Defense) ‘missile defense’ system. The Pentagon plans to station THAAD in the farming village of Seongju (population 10,000). The right-wing South Korean government, following orders from Washington, likely chose this village because it had backed the conservative government by a margin of 85 percent in the last national election. But that has now changed.

Just before I arrived in South Korea the residents of Seongju held a mock funeral where they announced that they had, en masse, resigned from the ruling party. Then, just before I left Korea, 900 of these same residents took the sacred step of sitting together and shaving their heads. In Korea this is a big deal. It indicates the commitment to fight to the death, and in this case many women also joined the hair shaving, which is rare. This anti-THAAD movement has become a national issue and one of the top concerns for the peace movement in South Korea today. So the US is currently developing MD systems to hit nuclear missiles in the boost phase, mid-course phase, and the terminal phase. This clearly indicates the seriousness that the Pentagon attaches to being able to launch a first-strike attack on China and/or Russia and then knock out any retaliatory strike they might be able to fire in return.

MD is not just a theoretical program. The US Space Command holds a computer war game each year where they practice such a first-strike attack – they call it the ‘Blue’ team against the ‘Red’ team. In the war game a US first-strike is launched against Russia and China. When they respond by firing their own nuclear missiles that have survived the initial Pentagon attack, the Space Command’s MD systems go to work to pick of the remaining missiles.

South Koreans protesting the THAADs.

Of course in the real world things don’t always work out so nicely. But the main point is that the Pentagon is actively preparing for such a first-strike attack. The Pentagon deployments of MD interceptor missiles and radars gives Space Command the confidence (and arrogance) that they can use this system. Thus MD becomes highly destabilizing and very dangerous to world peace. While in Okinawa in late 2015 on a solidarity trip to stand with those actively opposing US expanding bases on their island, I spotted a base called Fort Buckner which plays a critical role in “inter-base, tactical and strategic Command, Control, Communications and Computer (C4) network support of joint Pacific warfighters”. Fort Buckner relays military satellite communications between bases in South Korea, Japan, Okinawa, Guam, the Philippines, Hawaii, and the Pentagon.

TRIGGERING WWIII

Sadly Washington is now run by corporate interests who have determined that America’s role under globalization of the world economy will be ‘security export’ which translates to endless war. The number one industrial export product of the US today is weapons. When weapons are your #1 industrial export, what is the global marketing strategy for that product line?

Despite Pentagon claims that they are out to create peace, democracy and stability around the world with their more than 800 military bases, quite the opposite is the truth. I came away from recent trips to Japan, Okinawa, and South Korea seeing that the expansion of US bases in the Asia-Pacific is largely about creating the military infrastructure to take down China and Russia.

Thousands of Japanese protest US bases.

Add up the current US ‘pivot’ into the Asia-Pacific; the Japanese Shinzo Abe government’s ‘reinterpretation’ of peaceful Article 9 in their constitution to allow Tokyo to deploy offensive military forces; the destabilizing US-Japan-South Korean military alliance; and we find the makings of a very aggressive program that could easily trigger World War III.

The Chinese and Russian governments have repeatedly said that they would like to reduce their nuclear forces but cannot do it as long as the US is encircling their countries with MD systems. China and Russia each year go to the United Nations and introduce a new treaty to ban all weapons in space. The US and Israel (which has 200 nuclear weapons) annually block serious negotiations on that important treaty. Both Russia and China have been forced to expand their military operations and to even build more nuclear weapons as they face the US MD program and an expanding NATO.

When Japan recently launched a satellite into space few took notice. When North Korea launches a satellite or test fires a missile the world screams bloody murder. Clearly the US and its allies are hypocrites as they lecture North Korea and Iran about weapons of mass destruction but at the same time they are creating the largest military buildup in world history. US foreign military occupation must end if there will ever be true world peace. The Global Network is determined to do what we can to help build such a peace with justice. We are grateful to those in India who are working so hard to put an end to this madness.

We need peace workers in India to educate your fellow citizens about US plans to bring Delhi into the Pentagon’s Space Command program aimed at China. We hope you can help prevent this growing danger of WW III that could consume the entire planet in a hell fire of nuclear war. Our governments need to be dealing with the reality of climate change and growing global poverty. We must demand they convert the expensive military industrial complex to sustainable technology development to help us protect the future generations. Keep going – we all need each other. Holding hands let us work together.

Bruce K. Gagnon lives in Bath, Maine, USA and is Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space www.space4peace.org