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Artificial Intelligence as a Tool of War … AI Tracks to Target and Bomb … Since launching war on Gaza last October, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians and injured over 77,000. Bombing, shelling, missiles, drones have destroyed large sections throughout the narrow enclave and displaced millions who are now facing famine and starvation. […]
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‘Modernization’ of U.S. nuclear weapons systems is racing forward, budgets booming, artificial intelligence and gyrations of command & control rolling. Meanwhile in Los Alamos, the ‘birthplace of the Bomb’ and main location of the Academy award-winning film “Oppenheimer”, Bomb-makers are beginning to prep next gen “nuke ’em pits ‘n triggers”
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“Democracy Awakening”, Heather Cox Richardson’s new book, continues to stand out among non-fiction big publishing releases as its message, its history and its contemporary warning, comes into greater focus everyday. Those who support democracy full on are all better for Heather’s blend of news as history in-the-making. The times are changing. Hold on to democracy […]
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Strategic Demands associate, GreenPolicy360, recently posted a ‘snapshot’ look at what the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was revealing in the US budget for next gen nuclear weapons. The public interest group Los Alamos Study Group strongly commented. It’s long overdue to challenge how/what/where/why a ‘Nuclear Arms Race 3.0‘ is accelerating
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The News from Gaza continues to evidence devastation and death. The humanitarian crisis grows as food, water, supplies dwindle and safe-zone areas turn into killing zones… the consequences for Israel and the Palestinians are grave and extend far beyond the carnage the world is now graphically witnessing
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Disinformation has been a rising factor in elections across the world. In 2023/24, the roll out of Artificial Intelligence (AI) — with its deep fakes, targeting, push-pull, and unprecedented database harnessed power — delivers another world of threat…
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The next phase of the Gaza-Israel war has come into public view and with it a break between Israel and the US has become more and more evident. The carnage visible is overwhelming in the war, and calls for a ceasefire seem far-off possibilities. What’s next?
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Between and during disastrous wars raging with staggering loss of lives and geopolitical moves for land, control, power, religion, there is this… Record tropospheric temperature rise and record sea surface temperature rise. Earth Science is pulsing ‘danger, danger, danger’…
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‘No’ to a ‘Two-State’ solution is Benjamin Netanyahu’s firm position, expressed in increasingly strong language since he entered Israel’s government. Netanyahu’s refusal this week of a negotiated political settlement is not surprising, nor is US President Biden’s ‘hug’ after decades of support for Israel. A Hug with Reverberations
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The consequences of the Gaza-Israel 2023 war are shockingly deadly… another Mideast war, on-the-ground, air-to-ground, in the courts of public opinion, and now in an international court. The US in alliance with Israel is being tested as Israel’s war grinds on with horrifying ‘collateral damage’. This must change, the war in Gaza must end
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Some, a few, are looking toward solutions to decades of hatred, extremism, and ongoing wars in the Middle East. Today, as 2024 arrives amid bombs, bombardments, and globally reverberating blasts, let’s look at words, pics, on-the-ground realities, and ‘off-ramps’
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An ’emboldened Putin’ … meets with the Russian and international press and promises victory in his first formal news conference that Western media were allowed to attend since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022 (AP and international wire services)
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Reports of 29,000+ bombs and tens of thousands of artillery and tank shells dropped on the Gaza enclave with resulting vast devastation and profound humanitarian crisis… The head of the Israeli military, the nation’s Prime Minister, promises not to stop until ‘victory’ is achieved. But is ‘victory’ attainable?
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Henry Kissinger, Failed Diplomat, US National Security Adviser, Secretary of State, Corporate Consultant Dies 100 Years Old November 30, 2023
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What can one say when a religious zealot in a government controlling nuclear weapons declares that a nuke could be dropped on a population of approximately two million in a nearby city? Perhaps the word that describes this type of nuclear zealotry is “nuts”, not “metaphorical”. Who is Amihai Eliyahu? And who are the “Amalek” […]
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(Thread) On 7 October 2023, Palestinian militant groups, mainly Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, with other groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, launched a major attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip (Wikipedia | Gaza-Israel conflict) … the multi-year conflict, now as expanding war, is delivering catastrophe and international impact
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The Hamas organization’s surprise attack on Israel started with an onslaught at dawn on young people at a music festival. Hundreds upon hundreds of missiles were launched. The terrorist assault continued into southern Israel as news of slaughter and brutality became public. The US president today spoke to the world
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A feature news story by the globally distributed Associated Press (AP) service only begins to touch on a deeper story of nuclear proliferation. Strategic Demands takes a few salient lines from the AP update on US nukes and reminds our readers of what we are now calling a “Nuclear Arms Race 3.0”
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How many nuclear energy reactors are being built around the world by Russia and China? Another way of putting this is, how many tons of ‘supplies of nuclear fissionable materials’ are becoming available for ‘reprocessing’? For decades the question of how to stop nuclear proliferation has continued to be ‘the question of questions’.
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The story of a former New Yorker and US president continues … Long-time political journalist Susan Glasser, now at The New Yorker, sums up the state of Georgia’s charges — “the Georgia indictment cites the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, law against Trump, essentially defining him and his gang of alleged conspirators […]
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GreenPolicy360 & Strategic Demands Snapshot of Reviews the Day After Oppenheimer’s Premiere (with a personal memory of a father’s flight over the Trinity site days after ‘the Bomb’ was first tested by Los Alamos scientists) ♦
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Published 2017 Strategic Demands Editor, Steven Schmidt: It is time to recall my memories of Dan Ellsberg of nearly 50 years ago… From a nondescript building in Santa Monica to a house on the beach in Malibu, from a basketball court in Pacific Palisades to a Parade editor’s tennis court on Sunset Boulevard… My […]
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PBS ‘American Experience’ documentary film in 2023 brings into light how the 1969 Vietnam Moratorium peace movement acted to prevent the President Nixon – Henry Kissinger plan to use nuclear weapons
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A multi-billion dollar ‘modernization’ of US nuclear weapons delivered an unsurprising ‘next gen’ nuclear arms race. Strategic Demands called this a “Cold War 2.0”. Now, with threats and an announced ‘suspension’ of the New START treaty, the final remaining nuclear weapons agreement is foreclosed. A “Nuclear Arms Race 3.0” commences
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February 24, 2022: And so it starts with a Russian President speech, then tanks roll, planes attack, bombs fall, Russian troops move into Ukraine… diplomacy collapses, a campaign of war commences with a warning of “consequences you have never seen”
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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.
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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
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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”
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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?
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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…
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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
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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
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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
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The January 6th, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol is coming back in a revealing light. The ex-president’s role, the role of those who planned the rally that led to the attack on Capitol police, and the rioters who charged into the halls of Congress… it is insurrection investigation time
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First of three-part UN Report documenting the impacts of climate change by United Nations’ 6th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There is no doubt: “Climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying” – IPCC 6th Report, August 2021. Next release, February 2022; next, March 2022
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History can play a critical role informing every generation’s decisions. Accurate, informed knowledge and intelligence can shape front-line decision-makers lives as they deal with everyday challenges. Larger challenges, even existential challenges — and crisis require best available intelligence. To illustrate, let’s look back at the origins of U.S. climate and earth science
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Not far from the ‘Birthplace of the Bomb’, the city of Los Alamos in New Mexico, resides the city of Santa Fe named after the ‘Holy Faith’ of St. Francis of Assisi, Catholic patron saint of the environment and life on earth. Now, in an ominous move, Santa Fe could become a world nuclear center
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The original mission statement of NASA prominently focused on Earth Science. A first generation of visionary scientists and government leaders set in motion missions to study, measure and monitor Earth’s life systems. Now, fifty+ years on, with decades of data and ‘vital signs’ to guide policy decisions, it’s time for a leap of knowledge
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The International Energy Agency shocked the financial world this week. News headlines from the IEA, captured at StratDem with a series of screen shot scans, present demands and timeline for an End to the Oil & Gas Era. A drawdown of hydrocarbon emissions and immediate transition from business-as-usual must become a global goal — Now
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The #ClimateCrisis and U.S. Intelligence Community… A history-making IC report moves climate & environmental impacts from ‘irritants’ to a ‘core role’ in national security. This is overdue. For decades, GreenPolicy360 & Strategic Demands have pointed the way toward “New Definitions of National Security”
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When we talk about New Definitions of National Security, we point to a NASA message — ‘You can manage only what you can measure’. Strategic Demands & GreenPolicy360 share this insight: Good science, sound decision-making based on science, needs good data
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Strategic Demands in association with its partner site GreenPolicy360 have advanced a new vision of national security, one that is forward-looking and comprehensive. Join with us to bring “New Definitions of National Security” into security discussion, debate and democratic decision making. Now is a propitious time to act…
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For years Strategic Demands has pushed for rational controls of nuclear weapons, in particular the critical need for new ‘first use’ controls over the ‘sole authority‘ of the U.S. president to order nuclear war… Now comes a harsh realization this is no academic issue
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The U.S. president huddled in the White House on January 6, 2020, isolated in his office watching TV reports of a rally he called to DC and urged on … now an attack on the U.S. Capitol building…. the 45th president’s attempt to stop the election count and block his election loss failed, historically failed
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“There’s no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election.” All 10 living former U.S. defense secretaries issue a warning to Trump over threats to use the military to dispute the election. The president’s loss and denial of his election loss are resulting in a constitutional and potential military crisis
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Presidential claims of ‘fraud’ and a ‘stolen election’ escalate even as today the Washington Post reports their tracking database of ‘false and misleading claims’ of the U.S. president has reached 25,653…
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Today, in one of U.S. President Trump’s 51,282 tweet to his (as of today) 79,517,737 Twitter followers, the president attempted to rescind his acknowledgement yesterday that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Again claiming the November election was ‘rigged’, the president’s attack on the election is a spectacle of denial and threats
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“The Climate Crisis Is Still a Crisis”. November 3rd, a turning point election. With former VP Joe Biden currently leading in the polls and Democratic control of the Senate possible, the US may soon have the chance, for the first time in more than a decade, to enact urgently needed legislation to address global climate […]
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A Message to the US President As the Washington Post reveals the Trump administration’s planning to re-start nuclear weapons testing even as it ends another nuclear weapons treaty and announces its intent to allow the last critical nuclear weapons control treaty – New START – to terminate…
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Watching the collapse and observing a retreat into xenophobia… Today a more dangerous world, tomorrow another withdrawal from international engagement and cooperation. National and international security threats multiply — pandemic, economic depression, climate disruption, a new nuclear arms race, weapons proliferation, decades of conflict, migration of refugees in the millions, political chaos
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At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union and US took a half century facing off and ramping up nuclear weapons. Doomsday war games threatened life on the planet. Dr. Strangelove-types planned to ‘bring it on’. Today, proliferators are back with a vengeance. Time to meet ‘MET’
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Coronavirus politics… between now and the November 3 election in the U.S. the wheels will turn, hundreds of millions, a billion plus, will be spent. Prepare for a daily news cycle of blame game, recriminations, politics of division — political division, national division, international division. Time for attack politics, war room politics
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Fifty years on… and still going strong. Your Strategic Demands editor reflects on the road to the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970. Senator Nelson played a key role, Rep. George E. Brown worked behind the scenes, the Vietnam Moratorium with its message to Nixon and tactics of ‘teach-ins’ inspired. The word went out — […]
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CBS-moderated US Democratic presidential debate ends without one question being asked about the existential Climate Crisis or New Nuclear Arms Race: Questions of existence are not worthy of discussion, it seems, even as a US president denies Climate science and releases huge new nuclear budget featuring nuclear pits ‘n triggers for new ‘usable’ nukes
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It is the proverbial ‘elephant in the room’ or, to put it in other terms, it is the ‘dinosaur in the room’, the oil and gas, the security threat in the Middle East oil region, and the ‘no see ums’, an accumulating fossil fuels debt that is coming due for our generation and coming generations
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Nuclear weapons brinksmenship has a new cold war player. Forgotten collective memory. The collective intelligence of the world’s nations has forgotten the lessons of the Cold War. A new Cold War 2.0 is heating up, everyday and like Global Warming, the existential threat is created by us
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The ‘long-awaited’ U.S. plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace was revealed today… and by reports, the Palestinian representatives had no part in the announced plan. It showed. The White House ceremony was presented as spectacle without the respective participants needed for peace
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The killing of Iran’s general Soleimani is a ‘beheading’. Provocation takes another step forward as the US joins with Iran’s traditional enemy, Saudi Arabia, in carrying out beheadings of opponents as a cultural practice. Swords and falling heads, Religion, politics, oil. This killing with an overhead drone strike in Iraq will have consequences over decades
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As we enter the uncharted realm of 2020 and the coming decade, we have to pause and ask — How fast will the nuclear control dominoes continue to collapse, one arms agreement after another? Who can put in place nuclear arms control agreements now? We have to ask. Who can do?
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StratDem has been questioned about the term “perpetual war” as in — “the U.S. has entered a period of perpetual war”. Stop and ask yourself about the facts. The Washington Post has a graphic answer — How much of your life the U.S. has been at war
Acknowledging the seemingly insoluble problem of the Middle East wars, now in a Gaza-Israel incarnation, few believe there are solutions to interminable conflict. The history is one of ‘begats’. After all, it’s ‘Biblical’, right?
