The Pentagon is
reportedly overhauling its nuclear strategy, focusing on shorter-range tactical nukes rather than longer-range, higher-yield missiles, for
possible regional wars with China
and Russia. The man drafting this madness masquerading as a plan is policy chief and China hawk, Elbridge Colby. (You may remember him as the Pentagon official who
wasn’t sure
the U.S. was at war with Iran more than a month into the conflict.)
“I think it’s empirically true that China is preparing for war, and we do have the possibility of a multi-front war and the possibility of a World War III in the coming years,” Colby
predicted
in 2024. He appears to be hard at work to make that prophecy come true with a strategy that one former Pentagon analyst told TomDispatch would make nuclear war “more, not less” likely.
If the U.S. and China start lobbing nuclear weapons at each other, Hawai‘i is likely to find itself on the front lines of that conflict. It would be the latest and worst outcome of more than a century of ill treatment of the archipelago by the U.S. military, as TomDispatch regular Bill Hartung explains today.
Colby, the grandson of former CIA director and
ruthless assassination maven
William Colby, said: “We need to prioritize the potential for a conflict with China precisely in order to avoid it.” Hartung, on the other hand, offers an antidote to such lunacy.
—
Nick Turse, editor of TomDispatch
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The Real Cost of the Military’s Pacific Buildup
President Donald Trump and self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth are pushing for a post-World War II record
$1.6 trillion
Pentagon
budget
for next year, a sum so obscenely high that it is almost impossible to comprehend. The proposed $600 billion
increase
alone is
almost twice
the
total annual military
budget of America’s closest rival, China.
That supposed rivalry, despite the big spending gap, makes China central to justifying
… [more]
