BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY MARCH 6, 2019) — On Feb. 1, President Donald Trump pulled America out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), a deal that has been in place since 1987. In June, Trump announced the creation of a U.S. Space Force. Both have had serious repercussions, which is like saying that sunlight gives off heat and light. We too take that for granted.

We have grown immune to the horrific presence of nuclear weapons. It’s been 74 years since the United States dropped Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We can debate forever whether President Truman made the right call, particularly with respect to the detonation over Nagasaki. The damned weapons haven’t been used in anger since. One thing stands out, though. Since that time, we have lived under an authentic and legitimate threat of total annihilation as the nuclear djinn escaped its bottle. The bombs proliferated and got smaller. The technology has kept pace. Moreover, humanity has never made a weapon it did not use or use again.

THE PLANET recalls as a lad being fascinated as Khrushchev and Kennedy signed the nuclear test-ban treaty in ’63. The sweet air of hope tasted particularly good coming as it did so soon after the October Missile Crisis, the closest we’ve come to the unthinkable. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev shook hands on the INF. Two years later, the Berlin Wall came down with Soviet Russia following not long after. Again, one could taste the hope.

Now it seems belligerence is back. Seems. We can’t be sure if this new Trump-Putin pas de deux of “Can You Top This” can be taken at face value. Are the two men genuine warmongers, or are they engaged in an act? We can’t say. What we can conclude is that we have a new arms race on our hands. Trump pulled out of the INF on Feb. 1. Putin followed a month and change later. The most troubling aspect relates to the missiles themselves. The INF was meant to control “intermediate” missiles, those with a range of 310 miles to 3,417 miles. War gamers and strategists say these are the ones most likely to be used first.

“All the actions may lead to an escalation of the military-political situation and the emergence of new threats which [sic] Russian will have to respond [to] with reciprocal and asymmetric measures,” said Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s First Deputy Defense Minister. As THE PLANET reads it, the key word is “asymmetric.” The word means that Russia reserves the right to respond disproportionately, as in, “You build one? We’ll build two. You build two? We’ll build three or four.” And the race is on.

Putin, a student of history, has to realize such a response would guarantee another loss. Keeping up with the Joneses the first time around put so much strain on the Soviet economy that the center could not hold. It’s hard to imagine a sharpie like Putin making that mistake. If so, then what’s truly going on with this dangerous game? Could it be nothing more than a napalm mix of ego and politics? This new build-up strokes the “strongman” in each man’s makeup. At the same time, it allows him to play to a respective base that cherishes “peace through strength,” a spotty strategy that, while it has kept the Big One from going off, has nonetheless not prevented continuous and continual war.

To be safe from of this type of dangerous build-up is one of the “forgotten freedoms” everyone on earth should possess.

Ah, but that it were so.

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“The best things in life are free — or available on easy terms” — Sir Tiberius Fruitjuice.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

Love to All.

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