(LifeSiteNews) — With an announcement released Monday, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres remarked: “I fear the world is not sleepwalking into a wider war. I fear it is doing so with its eyes wide open.”
Mentioning the movement of the Doomsday clock, he urged world leaders to rededicate their efforts towards peace, rather than the dangers of escalating the Ukraine conflict.
His message comes at a time of conflicting interests over the war, which on closer examination do much to explain the difference of opinion emerging between military planners and the Pentagon, and the politicians who have staked their political future on the defeat of Russia.
This is what is meant by the observation that the world is walking into a wider war with its eyes open. Why is this the case? Guterres notes with regret that the goals of the management are opposed to peace, because they are focused not on the good of humanity, but on “[t]he next poll. The next tactical political maneuver to cling to power. But also the next business cycle – or even the next day’s stock price.”
His intervention is prompted by the credible threat of a nuclear exchange should the war in Ukraine continue to escalate. The danger to the wider world is one generated by the full-throated commitment to the defeat of Russia on the battlefield, and the destruction of its economy to promote regime change. It is to this course of action that many world leaders and fellow technocrats have committed themselves, repeatedly and in public. To move for peace for them would amount to a collapse in their credibility. In brief, any measures to preserve life in this regard would be political suicide.
Guterres redoubles his appeal for sanity with a reminder of the short termism towards which the planning of career politicians is oriented – “This near-term thinking is not only deeply irresponsible – it is immoral” – and identifies the absence of moral considerations in the decision making process.
It is not immoral, in fact, but utterly lacking in any moral foundation to promote nuclear brinkmanship for the sake of public image. For so long the leaders of the West have managed a propaganda war so effective that many believe the Russian leader has cancer, or some terminal illness, and that the Russian army is on the verge of collapse. To move to peace is not only to admit the degree to which the management has lied to its populations, but also to concede the recklessness of declaring war-by-proxy on the border of the world’s largest nuclear power.
General Mark Milley caused controversy with his call in November 2022 for a negotiated end to the war. This move anticipates the recent advice published by the RAND Corporation, which has advised the Pentagon since 1948. In it, RAND laid out compelling reasons for a swift exit from the war, saying this was the only course of action which served the U.S. national interest. It also admitted that Ukraine was very unlikely to win, and that neither Crimea nor the 20 percent of Ukrainian territory taken by Russia would be returned. In comparison with its earlier assessment of 2019, it tacitly admitted that the U.S. and its allies had failed by every measure to destabilize and overextend Russia.
The same report, published in January 2023, includes remarks made by Milley to President Joe Biden of the USA:
Since October 2021, when he first briefed President Joe Biden on Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley reportedly kept a list of ‘U.S. interests and strategic objectives’ in the crisis: ‘No. 1’ was ‘Don’t have a kinetic conflict between the US. military and NATO with Russia.’
To send fighter jets, as sections of the Western press demand today (see below), is to directly enter the war. Those jet fighters would have to be flown by NATO pilots. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s repeated demands for these aircraft are demands for the start of World War Three. In a shameless bid for attention, former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is urging that Britain must be first to effectively declare war on Russia.
The fortunes of war equate directly to those of Zelensky and Johnson, with the Ukrainian premier increasingly isolated in what appears to be a CIA orchestrated purge of his closest aides. Ukrainian officials trained by the U.K. have been replaced by U.S. oriented ministers and advisers, in a move which weakens the influence of the former British and current Ukrainian leaders. These political games behind the scenes dictate the visible moves of the actors, with both Johnson and Zelensky making renewed efforts to secure media attention and regenerate their waning influence. The medium is the media, but the message is all out war.
This madness is the result of the craving for exposure however sensational, which translates to political capital in our mass media society. For flagging political careers there is no better photo opportunity than that with the permanently shirtless Zelensky. To understand the factional calls for war and peace is to realize a division between military and political managers. Paradoxically, it is the Pentagon, its generals and advisors who are calling for a negotiated settlement and for de-escalation. This is a reality based assessment of the dangers of a wider war. Number two of Milley’s objectives was “contain [the] war inside the geographical boundaries of Ukraine.”
To do so is to limit the chance of reaching the nuclear threshold. This is sane and rational. It is a position which the UN Secretary General would welcome, as would anyone not concerned with re-election at any cost. The course of action which best serves our politicians, including Biden himself, is the one which may lead the world to nuclear armageddon. Together with Zelensky, EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen, and the German Foreign minister Annalena Baerbock who famously declared “we are at war with Russia,” the leaders of the English speaking world are facing a defeat which will end their political careers. There is no rationale beyond their need to save face to risk escalation in Ukraine.
This is the simple calculus for and against war. Once again, our political management demonstrate clearly that there is no price they are unwilling for us to pay for their prosperity. This UN statement is a timely and urgent reminder of the moral and mortal dangers of the type of political mismanagement we know as the “rules based order.” It is us or them. The clock is ticking.