EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR THURSDAY OCTOBER 20, 2022

The Brits Are Dragging the U.S. and Europe into a Suicidal Nuclear Confrontation with Russia

Oct. 19, 2022 (EIRNS)—Today, the full Russian National Security Council met for the first time since May. Almost no details of their discussion have been made public at this time.

Today, NATO’s “Steadfast Noon” military exercises continued, as did Russia’s parallel military maneuvers—both are drilling nuclear warfare against the other.

More ominous still, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace arrived in Washington, D.C. yesterday on a hastily arranged visit to meet with Biden administration officials, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, under the public cover of discussing Russia’s use of drones (allegedly supplied by Iran) in the Ukraine theater.

One has to assume that drones are not the principal topic under discussion; nuclear war is.

Britain’s Armed Forces Minister James Heappey would only tell Sky News that Wallace’s discussions in Washington “were particularly grave,” and that “it’s beyond belief really, the fact that we are in a time when these sorts of conversations are necessary.” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly stressed the “urgency” of the situation and said the high-level conversations could not be carried out over the phone. Asked by the press whether the unscheduled visit was to discuss the nuclear threat, Cleverly deflected: “What we do is discuss a full range of how we help the Ukrainians to defend themselves.”

How does Russia read all of this? Top diplomat Konstantin Vorontsov told the UN General Assembly’s First Committee yesterday that Kiev had publicly stated they would “attempt to acquire nuclear weapons,” and had also made “statements about the need for preventive nuclear strikes by NATO countries on Russia.” This, Vorontsov stated, “is doubly unacceptable and categorically impermissible.”

Recall that it was Britain’s then Prime Minister Boris Johnson who travelled to Kiev last April to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and ordered him to pull the plug on any possible negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia, which at the time was close at hand.

Recall that it was the same Boris Johnson who traveled to Sweden and Finland in May, before NATO took up the issue of their joining the alliance, to sign bilateral mutual military defense pacts with both countries, de facto putting them under NATO’s Article 5 umbrella.

Recall that it has been British think tanks like RUSI, which argued that a “Crimean Missile Crisis” is the best way to get Russia to capitulate, and media outlets like The Economist that have insisted on playing a nuclear chicken game with Putin, to get the Russian “problem” out of the way before turning their attention to the bigger “threat” of China.

Recall that it was King Charles—good Malthusian that he is—who demanded, when he was still a mere Prince, that “warlike measures” had to be adopted to deindustrialize and depopulate the entire planet, emphatically including the United States.

And above all, never forget that it is the City of London-centered financial system, bursting with $2 quadrillion in unpayable derivatives and other speculative assets, that is demanding the full economic “decoupling” of the West from China, Russia and India. This policy is already leading to the intentional, physical-economic levelling of continental Europe, with the U.S. following close behind.

Scott Ritter, the outspoken former UN weapons inspector and military expert, hit the nail on the head in an interview that Cynthia Pooler conducted with him and LaRouche U.S. Senate candidate, Diane Sare, who so far has been excluded from the Oct. 30 debate between the other two candidates for New York’s Senate seat:

“The single issue that she (Sare) raised to get on this list (the ballot), the single issue that motivated 66,000 New Yorkers to sign their names to a petition [to put her on the ballot], was the danger of nuclear war,” Ritter insisted.

“And here we are today, on the brink of a nuclear conflict.... Right now, there’s a NATO nuclear exercise taking place that is literally practicing to drop bombs on Russia. Now, Russia responded with their own nuclear weapons exercise that is literally practicing to drop bombs on NATO. The difference here is that Russia does not have a doctrine of preemption; the United States does.... It’s imperative that we get people like Diane put in positions of authority where they can bring this issue to the forefront.”

Turning to Sare, Ritter addressed her directly:

“I’ll tell you what, I endorse your presence on the (debate) stage. I endorse your message. I endorse the fact that you alone seem to understand what’s important to this world, and that is having a future for our children, for our grandchildren, and their children and generations to follow, in the future that’ll be denied to everybody, if we have a nuclear conflict.”