NEW YORK, July 22 (IPS) – Following Russia and North Korea’s announcement this summer of a new alliance to pledge mutual defense with Chinese support, there is now a shocking proposal in South Korea to review its security policy with the United States, end its reliance on American guarantees and use American nuclear weapons on South Korea’s behalf as part of a “nuclear shield”.
The “umbrella” is provided to all NATO members and Pacific nations such as Japan, Australia, and South Korea. These questions are evidence of the growing chaos facing the world as a result of the United States’ failure to fulfill its legal obligation under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) to make good faith efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are an illegal violation of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, as long as they are deployed in five NATO members (Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Turkey). In the treaty, the five nuclear-weapon states – the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China – pledged to make “good faith efforts” to eliminate nuclear weapons, but all other countries in the world agreed not to possess nuclear weapons.
All countries except Israel, Pakistan and India signed the NPT, which developed their own nuclear weapons. The NPT was a Faustian bargain, where if a country promised not to have nuclear weapons, it would gain an “inalienable right” to so-called “peaceful” nuclear energy.
Since all the “peaceful” nuclear power plants produced the material needed to make nuclear weapons, the NPT gave those countries the keys to the bomb factory, and North Korea withdrew from the NPT and used nuclear energy to make nuclear weapons. Iran has been enriching nuclear material but has not yet made a bomb. Russia’s current alliance with North Korea and China is a result of the failure of American diplomacy and the drive of the US military-industry-congressional-media-academic-think tank complex (MICIMATT) to expand the US empire beyond the 800 US military bases in 87 countries.
The US is now encircling China with its new bases in the Pacific, and forming a new military alliance, AUKUS, with Australia, the UK and the US. The US is breaking its 1972 agreement with China by arming Taiwan, despite Nixon and Kissinger’s promise to recognize China and remain neutral on the question of Taiwan’s future. It is a place where anti-communist forces retreated after the Chinese revolution.
After the end of the Cold War with Russia in 1989, the US withdrew from the ABM Treaty in 1992, built missile bases in Poland and Romania, withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Missile Forces Treaty negotiated by Reagan and Gorbachev in 1972, and expanded NATO all the way to Russia’s borders, despite promising Gorbachev that he would not expand NATO “one inch” eastward beyond a unified Germany. In fact, Putin, who was horrified by NATO expansion, at one point asked Clinton if he would invite Russia to join NATO, but Clinton refused, and in the years leading up to the Ukraine War frequently announced that bringing Ukraine into NATO would be a “red line” for Russia!
The empire was indifferent and continued to expand until we reached this unfortunate and dangerous moment we are now in. In retaliation, Putin deployed Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus. The first instance of Russian nuclear sharing!
Ironically, the fundamental reason Nixon and Kissinger made a peace treaty with China was to prevent Russia and China from forming a more powerful alliance.
If the United States does not fulfill its nuclear obligations and chooses the path to peace, it will face a whirlwind. Nuclear-armed states like South Korea could proliferate further. Saudi Arabia is currently pursuing “peaceful” nuclear energy without any safeguards for its use.
With our planet on the brink of collapse due to nuclear war or climate disaster, it is time to work together with other countries to create peace, not war!!
Alice Slater He serves on the boards of World BEYOND War and the Global Network Against Space Weapons and Nuclear Energy, and serves as UN NGO representative for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal Source: Inter Press Service
