Time to talk or time to move beyond negotiation and diplomacy? This week delivered another ratchet up of tensions along the Russian-Ukrainian border — and beyond. Germany foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, a leader of the Green Party in a newly installed coalition government, meets with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov
Author: Strategic Demands Online
Democracy in the U.S. in Deep Danger
Think about the events of Jan. 6… We are in a battle for the soul of America. I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation. And I’ll allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy.
Nations Pledge to Avoid Nuclear War
The U.S. offers up a five-nation ‘Statement on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races‘ … At the same time, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meeting of nations has been delayed – again.
Saber Rattling by Russia, Ukraine, NATO and the US
It is ominous when a nation’s citizens are being told to prepare for war and prepare for the use of nuclear weapons. Any use of nukes will become a horrifying, cataclysmic chain event, devastating with lasting consequences. Yet, this is the moment we are now facing
Democracy ‘Backsliding’
To look at some 200 nations of the world and ask how democracy’s doing these days is to witness what’s being called ‘backsliding’. Signs of loss in democratic norms are global and the world wide web — the Internet with its social media storms — is pushing breakdowns. Democracy’s ‘backsliding’ & its breakdowns are all-too-real
Harrowing, Wrenching – U.S. Intel Agencies Point at Climate Change
Intelligence services agencies of the United States have a warning that’s now crept into officially expressed national security policy. Strategic Demands: “The U.S. security establishment’s far too long delayed admission of the clear and present danger of #ClimateChange is still far from the shift in national and global security policy demanded”
New German Coalition Government, New Positions on Nuclear Weapons
Recall that the German Green Party, out in front of some 100 Green parties internationally, led ‘ban the bomb’ opposition to nuclear weapons in Europe in the 1980s. The new German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, is a German Green Party leader. Green politics calls …
Glasgow Climate Summit Concludes with Pledges and Promises, but What About Action?
A mutual existential question and threat remains as the international climate summit, COP26, ends. Some 39,000 registered delegates now return to their some 200 countries. Will nations’ climate actions come close to making the climate changes necessary?
International Climate Summit Needs to Demand New Definitions of National Security
As Strategic Demands’ editor reflects on half a century of climate work, beginning with Rep. George E Brown-(D) East LA, key drafter of the first National Climate Act in 1978, the climate science message we advanced decades ago is now, at last, coming into the spotlight. But is it too late?
U.S. Department of Defense – Report on China
Two citizens of the United States respond to the latest U.S. Department of Defense Report to Congress on the “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China”. The editor of Strategic Demands focuses in on a predictable result of U.S. nuclear weapons ‘modernization’ and expansion of capabilities…
ICBMs ‘Hair-trigger’ Launch on Warning Era Must End
As readers of Strategic Demands may recall, your editor as a younger man was close to Dan Ellsberg during his Rand research days in Santa Monica. Dan’s role with the “Pentagon Papers” was historic, but few know of Dan Ellsberg’s role as a U.S. nuclear war planner…
On Eve of International Climate Summit, Fossil Fuels Production Soars
Fossil Fuels Production Soars. The headline is Boldface type and briefly Top of the News. We captured the Production Gap Report with a screenshot. Staggering news as the 2021 international climate summit approaches. The fossil fuels Production Gap is a ‘Code Red’ global warning calling for deep, immediate reductions in CO2 emissions #StrategicDemands
A Failed Coup, Now Slow-Mo
January 6th’s insurrection, riot, attack on the U.S. Capitol, call it what you will, wasn’t a frolic of citizens out to ‘visit’ their ‘representatives’ and express ‘free speech’ as ‘protected by the Constitution’. In fact, the January 6th attempt at an election coup has now become a calculated, manipulative slow-motion coup
No First Use
Remember the storm that rose with the ‘Peril’ revelation of General Milley’s call to China? Do not forget how ex-president Trump’s state of mind was in question as he refused to acknowledge defeat and exit the White House. The ex-president has yet to acknowledge his election defeat nearly a year later. The former Commander-in-Chief, who […]
Stark Words, Stark Warning at the U.N.
President Biden speaks to the United Nations of pressing national and global challenges faced by today’s generation. Our “intergenerational” responsibility begins to be recognized, acknowledged and acted upon
As Is, the U.S. President’s Authority to Order Nuclear Weapons Launch
In the interest of furthering the goal of nuclear era sanity, Strategic Demands is re-posting the recent PolitiFact ‘clarification’ on the singular authority, the legal and practical powers of president Donald Trump to order the launch of nuclear weapons. The president’s state-of-mind was in deep question as he attacked the legality of the 2020 election
The End of Boots On the Ground Occupation
Twenty years at war….. This is how it ends…. a tweet from CENTCOM: The last American Soldier leaves Afghanistan Major General Chris Donahue, commander of U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division, boards a C-17 cargo plane at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan