The U.S. Might Finally Be Ready to Back Down, to Avoid WW III

Eric Zuesse

A lot depends now on what the "collective" Biden chooses to do.

Recently, tensions have been rising between, on the one hand, America, and on the other, both Russia and China. A nuclear war that includes the United States would destroy the entire world, because it would be not only nuclear, but major-power nuclear, which would entail so many nuclear explosions (perhaps all within less than an hour), so that nuclear winter would extend over not only all of the northern hemisphere, but probably also over all of the southern hemisphere (though more slowly there). Unfortunately, no scientific study has been published analyzing what the result would be of such a war, but studies have been published of likely outcomes from minor-power nuclear wars, and the results have indicated nearly as catastrophic outcomes as I’ve summarily indicated here for a major-power nuclear war.

The culminating public event displaying that a U.S. backdown has occurred would be Biden’s granting Putin’s bottom-line red line (which, if not granted but instead crossed, would precipitate a Russian attack against the U.S.), committing the U.S. to never cross that line, and this back-down would consist of a mutually accepted and implemented agreement regarding Ukraine and its two breakaway regions (the currently independent Donbas, and Russian Crimea). In the case of China, Biden would also need to grant Xi’s bottom-line red line, which would be for Biden publicly to accept the 28 February 1972 U.S.-China agreement called the “Shanghai Communique”, in which the U.S. Government agreed with China to the promise and commitment that “The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves.” However, there would also need to be an addendum made to the Shanghai Communique, to the effect that if the Government of Taiwan refuses to publicly and officially acknowledge that it is part of China — no longer a colony of Japan, such as it had been during 1895-1945 (and it had been a province of China during 1683-1895), and also not a separate (i.e., independent) nation — then the United States will not oppose a militarily imposed restoration of Taiwan as being a Chinese province.

If this sounds crazy, WW I also started as being crazy, and the publics in the respective combating countries were kept in the dark about everything except the propaganda. The publics overwhelmingly believe the propaganda, no matter how consistently it has subsequently become documented to have been based on lies.

The Shanghai Communique goes considerably further than that, however, to commit the U.S. Government to never doing some other things that, during the past decade, the U.S. Government has increasingly blatantly violated (done); and, so, the three most crucial Shanghai Communique commitments regarding Taiwan will be specifically quoted here (and one of them has just been quoted but will be quoted again, in the context of the other two, so that readers may more clearly recognize the blatancy with which the U.S. Government has recently been violating the Shanghai Communique):

“the two sides agreed that countries, regardless of their social systems, should conduct their relations on the principles of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, nonaggression against other states, noninterference in the internal affairs of other states, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence.”

“Both sides are of the view that it would be against the interests of the peoples of the world for any major country to collude with another against other countries, or for major countries to divide up the world into spheres of interest.”

“The U.S. side declared: The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves. With this prospect in mind, it affirms the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all U.S. forces and military installations from Taiwan.”

For the United States to accept either of those two red lines — Russia’s and/or China’s — (i.e., to agree that the U.S. accepts it, and will not oppose it), would be for the U.S. to back down in order to avoid a WW III. In other words: it would display the U.S. Government’s current decision that its #1 national-security goal isn’t to expand its current empire, but to avoid any WW III (avoid any U.S. war against either Russia or China).

This now seems likely to happen regarding Russia’s red line, as was indicated by Russia’s RT News on October 13th, under the headline “Kremlin says US & Russia agree Ukraine must give Donbass special autonomous status”. That would be Biden’s granting compliance with Putin’s bottom-line red line regarding Donbass. The next day, RT headlined “Strained relations between US & Russia could soon be on mend, Moscow says”. It stated that, after meeting with Kremlin officials in Moscow, “Victoria [Nuland] took with her to Washington a rather long list of those issues that were identified by the Russian side for the need to resolve them as soon as possible.” Nuland is the queen of the neoconservatives (or U.S. imperialists, or “super-hawks,” or “MIC darlings”), and had been sent to Moscow in order to push as hard as possible to get concessions from Russia. She was previously instrumental in the 2014 U.S. coup against Ukraine that captured Ukraine for military training and aid, and potential inclusion in the EU and in NATO — which coup (that she principally organized) actually sparked the current active restoration of the U.S.-Russia Cold War. This is probably why Biden chose her for that assignment. (It’s like sending a victim’s torturer to find out what the victim needs.) Whether Biden will decide in accord with her recommendations is unknown. If he does, then he will be continuing with President Obama’s plan (that she had designed) to ultimately place U.S. missiles on Ukraine’s border with Russia, so as to achieve “Nuclear Primacy”: the ability for the U.S. to destroy Moscow within less than ten minutes — too short a time for Russia to launch any retaliation. This would also indicate that China likewise is in severe jeopardy; it would warn China that it needs to presume the worst about the U.S. Government’s intentions.

If the United States will not comply, then one possible result would be that Russia and China will, then, jointly, and publicly, announce that any invasion against either, will be dealt with as constituting an invasion against both.

On the other hand, if Biden caves regarding Russia, then China, too, would likewise be much safer. For him to cave would be to accept not only that Ukraine must comply with the Minsk accords regarding Donbass, and that Crimea (which the Soviet Union’s leader N. Kruschev had arbitrarily transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954) is a province of Russia, but also that Taiwan is a province of China. (If Biden were to comply with Russia’s demand but not with China’s, then his subsequently invading China would almost certainly be met by Russian forces, and not only by Chinese ones, and thus America would likely experience yet another defeat — or else the entire world will, by means of a nuclear war between superpowers.) If he won’t agree with at least those three requirements (red lines), then avoiding WW III will be unlikely, if not impossible. That refusal would indicate the U.S. Government’s placing higher priority upon expanding yet further its empire, than upon avoiding a global nuclear war.

Neither Russia nor China will accept being a part of the U.S. empire. The question now is whether or not the U.S. Government will finally accept that fact. For it to do so would violate all U.S. international policy since FDR died on 12 April 1945. This would be a turning-point in world history — the apogee of the American empire, which was first imposed by Truman and Eisenhower (mainly via coups). But, so, too, would Biden’s continuing forward with the Nuland-led Obama policy on Ukraine produce the apogee, which then would mean WW III (effectively, the end of human history). The American empire might end by the U.S. Government’s accepting that it’s downhill from here on, and the empire’s gradually fading away. Or else, it will end with WW III. This is the choice that now faces Biden. That decision will probably come under this President — and maybe very soon.

On October 15th, the highly informed and extraordinarily honest analyst of geostrategic diplomatic affairs, Alexander Mercouris, headlined “Nuland’s Moscow Trip Ends with Disagreement on All issues, Russia Considers Freezing Relations with US”, and he provided an extensive description of the results from Nuland’s negotiations this past week in Moscow with the Kremlin (and of the U.S. news-media’s virtual blacking-out of even the fact that she was there — and the little U.S. coverage that there was, was mocking Russia, and presented nothing of what the Russian negotiators had said, but only what Russia’s enemies were saying, such as “Apparently, Moscow’s misogynists would rather not deal with a woman at all”). Mercouris’s take on the matter was that Biden will likely continue doing what Nuland and other extreme neoconservatives against Russia want to be done. If Mercouris is correct, then we’re now at the brink of WW III. But whether that war would start against Russia, or against China, one can only guess.

If this sounds crazy, WW I also started as being crazy, and the publics in the respective combating countries were kept in the dark about everything except the propaganda. The publics overwhelmingly believe the propaganda, no matter how consistently it has subsequently become documented to have been based on lies. For example: this news-report is being simultaneously submitted to virtually all news-media in the U.S. and allied countries. Let’s see how many of them publish it. After all: it’s definitely not propaganda. Everything in it is documented via the links, all of which are to extraordinarily relevant and reliable sources. Propaganda does not do that. But few people even notice this. That’s how imperialists routinely get away with mass-murders, such as in Iraq, Syria, and Ukraine.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of  The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience. 

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