The claims that Russia is the ‘greatest threat’ made by the incoming U.S. military chief is yet another rhetoric propaganda from those who have money on militarization.
This opinion was expressed by Jan Oberg, Director of the Transnational Foundation, speaking in an interview with RT.
Russia’s military expenditures are only 14 percent of the United States military expenditures and 8 percent of NATO, according to Jan Oberg and his data.
“To put it truthfully, only a Russian leader who is either suicidal – and suicidal on behalf of his people – or mentally ill would dream of starting a war against NATO,” Jan Oberg told RT.
Jan Oberg comments come as a response to the United States Air Force Secretary Deborah James calling Russia the ‘greatest threat’ to the U.S.
“I do consider Russia to be the biggest threat,” James said in an interview with the Guardian on Wednesday after having conducted a series of meetings with European allies, including Poland and other Northern European countries.
James also warned that the U.S. allies in NATO must comply with their obligations to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense in order to prevent any possible aggression from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
No matter what happens in the world, we have always heard this kind of claims and the calls that ‘we need more armament’, according to Jan Oberg. It has been happening “since 1945 – there is nothing new in it.”
U.S. harms its own economy with rhetoric propaganda
“And finally, over 41 percent of the world’s military expenditures are the United States. The U.S., at the same time, is the most paranoid country in the world that has to run wars all over the place,” Jan Oberg said.
However, “the more you militarize yourself, the more you spend on arms, the more you harm your own civilian economy. And the U.S. has enough of economic problems so I don’t see why she wants to add to it,” Jan Oberg added.
Making peace first and only then securing and maintaining it afterwards would be a better strategy than the current strategy of the U.S. and NATO military officials, according to Jan Oberg.
“But what these guys are doing – men and women in the military and the political sphere of the militarist countries – are doing the opposite. They say ‘let’s have all the arms we can and then hope we make peace at the same time through some kind of balance’. We know it has never worked,” Jan Oberg expressed his opinion.
The strategy to use military force and threats is not going to maintain peace, and “has no longer any relationship to reality.” According to Oberg, it is a ‘group think’ that has a structure that is not controlled by democracy even in politically democratic countries.
The world needs new people to make the world peaceful
“We need a completely new paradigm in order to create a more peaceful world. And secondly, we need people who can think new thoughts in this field.”
However, politics is always based on fear and intimidation, as said by Oberg. The world needs “people who are educated in this field. It just takes prime ministers, defense ministers and foreign ministers to have advisers who know something about conflict resolutions instead of the military. It is not so difficult,” Jan Oberg said.
It is possible to create a peaceful world, but the problem is that there is more money in warfare and there is a “traditional conservative thinking about what creates peace and that is what some of us are working against.”
Russia poses an ‘existential threat’ to the U.S.
However, Deborah James’ description of Russia as “the greatest threat to U.S. security” is shared by some other U.S. military officials even though the White House responded to the comments, saying that the Barack Obama administration has a slightly different opinion about Russia.
During his appointment hearing to become the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen Joseph Dunford called Russia’s recent actions “nothing short of alarming.”
“So if you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I’d have to point to Russia,” Gen Dunford told senators on Thursday, as reported by the BBC.
The general also urged the U.S. government to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine in order to end the conflict that has been tearing the country apart since March 2014.
“From a military perspective it’s reasonable that we provide that support to the Ukrainians,” Dunford said.
China is the number 2 threat to the U.S.? Or number 1 along with Russia?
According to Gen Dunford, the list of security concerns also include China for its intimidating actions in the South China Sea as well as its rapid military expanding. North Korea, while ISIS is also considered “alarming” to Pentagon.
However, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said later that the Obama administration is deeply concerned over Russia’s threatening actions but does not share Dunford’s opinion as his comment reflect “his own view and doesn’t necessarily reflect the … consensus analysis of the president’s national security team.”
What is interesting is the fact that China gets more and more mentioned by Washington officials as a ‘threat’ to the U.S. national security. It used to be mostly Russia for quite some time, but now it seems that China is also catching up.
Just recently, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, released a report that revealed the list of countries that threaten the U.S. national interests. The list includes Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
