Is a nuclear war with Russia on the horizon?

…by Jonas E. Alexis and Gilbert Doctorow

Gilbert Doctorow graduated from Harvard University (magna cum laude) in 1967 and has a Ph.D. in history (with honors) from Columbia University in 1975. After completing his studies, Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. For 25 years he worked for US and European multinationals in marketing and general management with regional responsibility.

From 1998-2002, Doctorow served as the Chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow. He is a co-founder and European Coordinator of the American Committee for East West Accord Ltd. based in Brussels. He is the author of the new book Does Russia Have a Future?

Jonas E. Alexis: In your recent article, you’ve argued that NBC News has edited out a number of crucial issues that Putin raised to Megyn Kelly. Why do you think they have deliberately become comfortable with bad journalism, which always amounts to fake news and propaganda?

Gilbert Doctorow: As others have remarked, NBC is more interested in entertainment than in news.  In that sense, the glamorous Megyn Kelly serves their purposes perfectly. Insofar as they had a political purpose, it was to show the importance of their journalist, who is received very respectfully by the President of Russia, so that we have reconfirmation from the Russians themselves that NBC counts.

Secondly, it was restate in the presence of the Russian president the whole litany of allegations against his “regime,” thereby showing that the channel shows its firmness to Power. It did not serve their interests to allow Vladimir Putin to use their air time to explain himself to the American audience.

At the same time, it bears saying that Putin had used Kelly to serve his own purposes with his Russian audience at the plenary session of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. He punctured her haughtiness and poise by asking directly whether she had ever read the US intelligence agency reports which she used in her indictment of “Russian meddling” in the U.S. elections, or whether she had read the Paris agreement on Climate Change.

Kelly sheepishly admitted not to know what she was talking about, and so was exposed to the ridicule and open laughter of the audience. Putin had especially wanted Kelly to moderate the question period to show how he could tame her and put her in her place, unlike Trump who could not master her intellectually and so resorted to crude character assassination to achieve the same purpose.

Jonas E. Alexis: I have already argued that no New World Order agent can get in the political ring and morally and intellectually challenge Putin precisely because the New World Order ideology is logically incoherent and existentially worthless. Charlie Rose himself admitted after his interview with Putin that the Russian president told him before the interview that he could ask any question he wanted! Putin, Rose added, didn’t have a script. He was basically answering questions as they came.

In an open letter to NBC News, you wrote: “You intentionally made Putin sound like an empty authoritarian, when he is in fact a very sophisticated debater who outranked your Megyn at every turn during the open panel discussion in the Forum, to the point she was the laughing stock of the day.” You moved on to add that “You are only preconditioning the American public for the war that is coming, whether by intention or by accident.” Is there a war coming? If so, who is behind it and what are the costs?

Gilbert Doctorow: The possibility of a hot war with Russia is, regrettably, entirely off the radar screen of even well informed Americans. Yet, I have numerous fellow experts in international relations and Russian affairs who share my sense of alarm that we are headed for the rocks and that a rapidly escalating cycle of violence culminating possibly in a nuclear exchange can come about by accident today, not just by the malevolent machinations of American politicians like John McCain.

The acute problems we face are absolute lack of trust between the two sides, which means that any sign the other is reaching for the button will result in a nuclear war and total annihilation of human civilization.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts for a Harvard College reunion. Eight hundred of my classmates were there and I met with a great many. They are all professionally successful people, fairly prosperous and civic minded, with many engaged in charitable works in their communities.

However, it was utterly shocking for me that almost none of them follows international affairs.  When I mentioned the risks of war, to a man they said: “goodness, we haven’t heard that before.”  Indeed, they haven’t, and there is the problem.

America is stumbling towards the abyss. The Russians are fearful of a confrontation, but they are aware of its chances of occurring and are ready to press the button, if they are convinced the nation’s survival is under threat.

Jonas E. Alexis: A nuclear war with Russia would bring about an apocalypse, the likes of which the world has never seen before. If Hegel and Solzhenitsyn are right—that truth will triumph in the end, that no force on earth can impede Logos, and that warmongers and New World Order agents cannot win forever—then there is no reason to despair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUev327Ptbk&feature=youtu.be

Jonas E. Alexis, Senior Editor

Jonas E. Alexis has degrees in mathematics and philosophy. He studied education at the graduate level. His main interests include U.S. foreign policy, the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the history of ideas. He is the author of the book, Kevin MacDonald’s Metaphysical Failure: A Philosophical, Historical, and Moral Critique of Evolutionary Psychology, Sociobiology, and Identity Politics. He teaches mathematics in South Korea.

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