According to Helen Caldicott, the founder of International Physicians against Nuclear War, which won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, the expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders is “very, very dangerous,” and amounts to the breaking of a guarantee that the U.S. made the last Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, before the breakup of the Soviet Union, that NATO would never be allowed to expand to Russia’s border. Addressing the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., in October 2014, Caldicott observed, “The nuclear weapons, are sitting there, thousands of them. They are ready to be used.”
The following month, Noam Chomsky made comparable remarks on RT News. Noting that NATO took on a different mission after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chomsky observed that, “The official mission of NATO became to control the international, the global energy system, pipelines. That means, to control the world.” According to Chomsky, “Current Western policies are driving Russia towards closer interaction with the Chinese-based system. In this interaction Russia is actually the weaker partner, so it’s making concessions, but the US is openly creating a system of power, which could significantly diminish US domination in the world.” He also noted that tensions between US and Russia resemble a new cold war and increase the threat of nuclear war.
Sources:
Martin Sieff, “Nuclear War Could be Near, According to Nobel Laureate,” Global Research, October 13, 2014, http://www.globalresearch.ca/nuclear-war-could-be-near-according-to-nobel-laureate/5407744.
Noam Chomsky, “World Ominously Close to Nuclear War, “ RT, November 7, 2014, http://rt.com/news/202995-chomsky-rt-nuclear-war/.
Student Researcher: Zoe Lindstrom (Sonoma State University)
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