The Earth is dying: As Thousands of Species Cease to Exist

By Robert J. Burrowes

On the day that you read this article, 200 species of life on Earth (plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects, reptiles) will cease to exist. Tomorrow, another 200 species will vanish forever.

The human onslaught to destroy life on Earth is unprecedented in Earth’s history. Planet Earth is now experiencing its sixth mass extinction event and Homo sapiens is the cause. Moreover, this mass extinction event is accelerating and is so comprehensive in its impact that the piecemeal measures being taken by the United Nations, international agencies and governments constitute a tokenism that is breathtaking in the extreme.

And it is no longer the case that mainly ‘invisible’ species are vanishing: those insects, amphibians and small animals about which you had never even heard, assuming they have been identified and given a name by humans.

You and I are on the brink of driving to extinction some of the most iconic species alive today. For a photo gallery of threatened species, some of which are ‘critically endangered’, see ‘World’s wildlife being pushed to the edge by humans – in pictures’.

If you want to read more about some aspects of the extinction threat, you can do so in these recent reports: ‘World Wildlife Crime Report: Trafficking in protected species’ and ‘2016 Living Planet Report’  which includes these words: ‘The main statistic from the report … shows a 58% decline between 1970 and 2012. This means that, on average, animal populations are roughly half the size they were 42 years ago.’

And if you want to read just one aspect of what is happening in the world’s oceans, this recent UN report will give you something to ponder: ‘New UN report finds marine debris harming more than 800 species, costing countries millions’. 

Of course, some of what is happening is related to the ongoing climate catastrophe and there isn’t any good news on that front. See ‘What’s Happening in the Arctic is Astonishing’.

But not everything that is going badly wrong is well known either. Did you know that we are destroying the Earth’s soil? See ‘Only 60 Years of Farming Left If Soil Degradation Continues’.

And did you realise that even nitrogen is now a huge problem too? See ‘Scientists shine a spotlight on the overlooked menace of nitrogen’.

UN Secretary General, Antonnio Guterres

Of course, military violence has devastating consequences on the Earth’s ecosystems too, destroying land, water and atmosphere (not to mention killing human beings) in the fight over resources. You will get no joy from the article ‘Iraq’s oil inferno – government inaction in the face of eco-terrorism’ or the website of the Toxic Remnants of War Project. 

But every single aspect of military spending is ultimately used to destroy. It has no other function.

While 2.5 billion human beings do not have enough to eat. See ‘One in three people suffers malnutrition at global cost of $3.5 trillion a year’

As you read all this, you might say ‘Not me’! But you are wrong. You don’t have to be an impoverished African driven to killing elephants for their tusks so that you can survive yourself. You don’t have to be a farmer who is destroying the soil with synthetic poisons.

You don’t have to be a soldier who kills and destroys or a person who works for a corporation that, one way to another, forces peasants off their land.

You just have to be an ‘ordinary’ person who pays your military taxes and consumes more than your share of world resources while participating without challenge in the global system of violence and exploitation managed by the global elite.

‘Why is this?’ you might ask.

This is because the primary driver of the human-induced mass extinction is not such things as some people hunting a particular lifeform to extinction, horrendous though this is. In fact, just two things drive most species over the edge: our systematic destruction of land habitat – forests, grasslands, wetlands, peatlands, mangroves… – in our endless effort to capture more of the Earth’s wild places for human use (whether it be residential, commercial, mining, farming or military) and our destruction of waterways and the ocean habitat by dumping into them radioactive contaminants, carbon dioxide, a multitude of poisons and chemical pollutants, and even plastic.

And do you know what drives this destruction of land and water habitats? Your demand for consumer products, all of which are produced by using land and water habitats, and the resources derived from them, often far from where you live. The most basic products, such as food and clothing, are produced on agricultural land, sometimes created by destroying rainforests, or taken from the ocean (where overfishing has savagely depleted global fish stocks). But in using these resources, we have ignored the needs of the land, oceans and the waterways for adequate regenerative inputs and recovery time.

We also participate, almost invariably without question or challenge, in the inequitable distribution of resources that compels some impoverished people to take desperate measures to survive through such means as farming marginal land or killing endangered wildlife.

So don’t sit back waiting for some miracle by the United Nations, international agencies or governments to solve this problem. It cannot happen for the simple reason that these organizations are all taking action within the existing paradigm that prioritizes corporate profit and military violence over human equity and ecological sustainability.

Despite any rhetoric to the contrary, they are encouraging overconsumption by industrialized populations and facilitating the inequitable distribution of income and wealth precisely because this benefits those who control these organizations, agencies and governments: the insane corporate elites who are devoid of the capacity to see any value beyond the ‘bottom line’. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane’. 

If you want action on the greatest challenge human beings have ever faced – to avert our own extinction by learning to live in harmony with our biosphere and equity with our fellow humans – then I encourage you to take personal responsibility.

If you do, you need to act. At the simplest level, you can make some difficult but valuable personal choices. Like becoming a vegan or vegetarian, buying/growing organic/biodynamic food, and resolutely refusing to use any form of poison or to drive a car or take an airline flight.

But if you want to take an integrated approach, the most powerful way you can do this is to systematically reduce your own personal consumption while increasing your self-reliance. Anita McKone and I have mapped out a fifteen-year strategy for doing this in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’.

You might also consider signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’ which obviously includes nonviolence towards our fellow species.

One of the hidden tragedies of modern human existence is that we have been terrorized into believing that we are not personally responsible. See ‘The Delusion “I Am Not Responsible”‘.

For a fuller explanation, see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’. 

It isn’t true but few people feel powerful enough to make a difference.

And every time you decide to do nothing and to leave it to someone else, you demonstrate why no-one else should do anything either.

Extinction beckons. What will you do?

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

Editorial

DESTROYING THE WORLD?

Human activity appears to be pushing the world as we know it today towards total destruction.

Through mining and other activities the waters of the world are being seriously polluted and war continues to destroy large numbers of human beings.

Credible reports say that at least 200 different species of life get destroyed every day.

The Insight is deeply worried by this situation and warns that unless current and future generations make a special commitment to the preservation of the environment we will become extinct sooner than later.

It is time to work hard to save the earth from total destruction.

YAO GRAHAM TO SPEAK

Dr Yao Graham, TWN

Dr. Yao Graham, Co-ordinator of The Third World Network (TWN) will be a key-note speaker at a public forum to mark the 51st anniversary of the overthrown of the Nkrumah Government.

The event organised by the Socialist Forum of Ghana (SFG) will be under the broad theme “Ghana’s Day of Shame-the Role of Socialists in the Struggle for Democracy”.

It will take place at the Teachers’ Hall in Accra on Friday, February 24, 2017 at 4:30pm.

Comrade Kyeretwie Opoku, Convener of the SFG will chair the event which has become an annual congregation of left individuals and organisations in Ghana.

Other speakers at the event will be Comrade Barzini Tandoh of the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) and Comrade Albie Walls of the All African Peoples Revolution Party (AAPRP).

“Ghana’s Day of Shame” was first observed by the SFG, 15 years ago and has been observed every year since then.

On February 24, 1966 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United State of America (USA) overthrew the popularly elected government of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in collaboration with reactionary forces in the Ghana armed forces and police. 

IN SUPPORT OF THE GAMBIA

A Show of Bully’s Cowardice

Ex President Yahya Jammeh

By John Abu

The Senegal-led ECOWAS invasion of the Gambia was an embarrassing display of the bully’s cowardice, and there is scarcely any justification for it.

A review of the whole case-from the preparations for the presidential election, to Jammeh’s post-election appeal to the Supreme Court against the election result-reveals that the ECOWAS display of violence was an uncalled for threat to peace in the Gambia.

It should be immediately pointed out that the threat to Gambia’s peace was indicated by the scene of the ousted President Jammeh’s departure at the airport into exile.

The scene exposed the ECOWAS action as being dictated by external pressure to force a regime change in the Gambia by getting rid of sovereignty and constitution.

Let us go to the beginning: Neither the coalition in the election of political parties which chose Adama Barrow to stand in the election, nor any other identifiable group in the Gambia made an appeal to ECOWAS to intervene in the election dispute. There was no civil war to demand a peace –keeping force, either.

There was no such appeal because the Jammeh government and the ruling party chose rule of law by formally putting before the Supreme Court their compliant against the election result.

To avoid a constitutional crisis possibly leading to confusion in the administration (governing) of the country, parliament decided that the Jammeh government should stay on for three months, till the Supreme Court could convene to take a decision.

Parliament was right, because it was absolutely necessary to prevent a government vacuum that could lead to civil strife in the country, which could be destructive as the government and opposition supporters appear to be equal in size.

This parity of the political (people’s) support bases of the two sides would make a civil upheaval chaotic, indeed!

So Parliament’s move to ensure a legitimate government in the interim was reasonable.

And, indeed, the scene at Banjul airport of a large gathering of Jammeh supporters who bravely went to bid him farewell, many of them openly weeping, as he departed into exile, showed that a spark of violence could lead to a regrettable civil explosion.

Supposing Jammeh decided to dig in and called his supporters to stand firm. Against whom would ECOWAS troops be fighting? Would they shoot down half of the Gambia population to install Adama Barrow in power?

That is one factor of recklessness of the ECOWAS adventure in the Gambia. If the ECOWAS threat of military action failed to impress or frighten Jammeh and he decided to hold or-repeat, with obviously about half the country’s population standing behind him rallied by the ruling party –would the disputed election result be a justifiable reason for ECOWAS troops to open fire?

Luckily, Jammeh said openly that he would not like a drop of Gambian blood to be spilled for his sake, so he would go away.

Another sad reflection of the ECOWAS reckless military invasion of the Gambia is the ‘might is right’ bravado upon which the slave Trade and Colonial Rule thrived.

Every member country of ECOWAS was once a colony subjected under the military power of the colonial authorities, just as the use of stronger military power by European settlers and their home governments led to the rise of militant African nationalism resulting in the killing of thousands of nationalist fighters in their national liberation struggles.

Like a bully always picking on weaker boys, ECOWAS ran rough shod on the Gambia, ignoring the country’s sovereignty, constitution and judicial system and was ready to ignite a civil strife. What does ECOWAS seek to prove?

It is no wonder that the ECOWAS tried to avoid arguing justification for its stand by keeping quiet on the invaded country’s territorial integrity and rather trying to divert public attention to Jammeh’s human rights abuses.

ECOWAS has also claimed that Jammeh’s strong-arm rule has caused Gambians to leave the country.

All ECOWAS countries have seen their own citizens leaving to settle abroad for various reasons including economic refuge. Has ECOWAS analysed the Gambian situation?

Some 76,000 Gambians are reported to have fled the country to Senegal since the election dispute started, and some Ministers defected and fled, and the Army Chief had taken a position looking like being neutral.

These did not demonstrate opposition to or rejection of the Jammeh government. Experience shows that people flee in such situations for safety, as the Gambians fled for safety from harm that would occur if the ECOWAS threat went into action.

The fleeing or defection by some Ministers and the declaration of neutrality by the Army chief were for self-preservation, and no one can claim that they were expressions of hatred for the Jammeh government; that would not be logical.

Jammeh’s whole conduct in the election crisis was fair. He accepted the result when the Electoral Commission (EC) announced that everything went well. He later rejected the result after the EC came back to say that there were some mistakes in the vote counting.

Jammeh said whether those mistakes affected the final result or not, only the Supreme Court would decide.

What, then, did ECOWAS stand on, without consulting the Gambian people? The Supreme Court might well have consulted the electorate by ordering a re-count of the votes or a fresh election.

It is a hollow and lazy point to say that Jammeh originally accepted the election result and congratulated the winner. He changed his mind following the EC’S own later pronouncement of a flaw in the counting.

So the question must he repeated: What invited ECOWAS leaders to interfere in the Gambia’s internal affairs? It was might is right, underlined by the bully’s cowardice: Like the imperialist powers, ECOWAS pounced on a small, weak country to illustrate its great strength!

Dutch Journalists Ordered to Shut their Mouths

By Pravda.ru

The police of the Netherlands detained two Dutch journalists Stephen Beck and Michel Spekkers in Amsterdam, upon their return from the Donbas. The police confiscated all the materials that the journalists collected in the south-east of Ukraine.

The journalists visited the Donbass to examine the crash site of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing that crashed over the region on July 17, 2014. According to the journalists, they found fragments of the liner on the crash site, even though all the fragments of the airplane were supposed to be collected long ago. The police of the Netherlands confiscated all the fragments of the aircraft that the journalists had with them, along with all the video materials from the Donbas, including interviews with eyewitnesses of the disaster.

Stefan Beck and Michel Spekkers spent eight days in the Donbas. They came to the southeast of Ukraine to conduct a series of interviews with local residents, who showed them the place, where Flight MH17 of Malaysia Airlines crashed.

The journalists were amazed to find out that many pieces of the aircraft were still on the crash site.

“There are still a lot of materials to collect there, and it is not as dangerous there as representatives of the Dutch Public Prosecutor say. Apparently, we are dealing with serious negligence,” the journalists said.

Even though Beck and Spekkers had informed the Netherlands Ministry for Foreign Affairs of their visit, they were arrested at Schiphol airport upon their arrival home, one of the journalists wrote on Facebook.

“Officials with the Dutch Public Prosecutor Office claimed that they could not collect the material because the region where the plane crash occurred was too dangerous. However, during our stay in the region, we could see that it was not the case,” the Dutch journalist wrote.

He also questioned the credibility of arguments of Dutch prosecutors: “The facts of incorrect argumentation from prosecutors and confiscation of materials (including images) gives every reason to cast doubt on the transparency and reliability of the ongoing investigation.”

The Dutch journalists fear that the confiscated materials could be delivered to employees of the Security Bureau of Ukraine who may prosecute those who agreed to speak to the reporters. Stefan Beck said that the police detained and searched them prior to customs clearance. He thereby refuted the statement from the prosecutor’s office that assumed that the journalists could conceal the collected materials.

Russian specialists handed over the data related to the crash of the Malaysian Boeing to the Dutch authorities in October 2016.

The preliminary report from Joint Investigation Team (JIT) claimed that the Malaysian Boeing was shot down by Buk missile system. The Buk complex, the report said, arrived from Russia and then returned back.

Representatives of the the Russian Foreign Ministry stated that the results of the investigation into the crash of the Malaysian Boeing were biased, because the report was based on the information received from the Ukrainian side only. Almaz-Antey, the maker of the Buk missile system, conducted a series of experiments that proved that the Boeing was shot down from a territory controlled by the Ukrainian army.

The Boeing 777-200ER of Malaysian Airlines, Flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed on July 17, 2014 in the Donetsk region. The crash killed 283 passengers and 15 crew members – citizens of ten countries.

The original source of this article is Pravda Report

Fighting the Apartheid Regime in South Africa: Commemorating Steve Biko at 70

Steve Biko

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark

They had to kill him to prolong the life of apartheid. Nelson Mandela

Commemorating birthdays in the aftermath of a person’s death tends to be a false exercise. At best, it reminds us about an era that will have, almost certainly, vanished. This goes for whatever that era entailed – brutality, or peace; tranquillity or chaos. Then comes the issue of historical effectiveness: what would that person have actually achieved had he seen the world he fought change?

The martyr, to that end, bridges the world that needs changing to the change to come.  Many would regard Steve Biko as one such martyr in the anti-apartheid cause. But the pathway of the martyr after death tends to be the work of others, they who serve a posthumous name or worship at the altar of a legacy.

Biko’s contribution was primarily the notion of Black Consciousness, which he considered “an attitude of the mind and a way of life, the most positive call to emanate from the black world for a long time.”  Gradually, his activities earned the violent ire of authorities.  It began gradually.  The ban in February 1973 was meant to neuter his drive to organise, speak and publicise. It did the opposite.

In 1976, the savage bloodiness of the apartheid regime, in its remorseless effort to curb revolt, saw 170 people, many children, slain.  It had begun with protests by high school students in the township of Soweto to the southwest of Johannesburg.  Their beef with the instructors was simple: why should they be forced to undertake studies in Afrikaans?

Biko’s arrest followed on August 27, after which he was held for 101 days.  In September 1977, he was again arrested at a police roadblock and subjected to a dedicated, torturous thrashing, then taken, stripped and shackled, 750 miles to Pretoria prison hospital via land rover. He died a few hours on arriving.

The inquest in tho his death, publicised in the aftermath as a world historical event, could not repel the element of farce.  The police account was that the death was self-inflicted, occasioned by a hunger strike that enfeebled him.  This was assisted by the conspicuous absence of witness accounts.

Biko’s circle disputed the official version, while the magistrate responsible for steering the 15-day inquest found it impossible to identify a killer despite finding that the “cause or likely cause of Mr. Biko’s death was a head injury, followed by extensive brain injury and other complications including renal failure.”

Jimmy Kruger, the Justice Minister, preferred a crass analysis, claiming that there were “cases when I think to myself: Christ, I don’t know what to do now, I may as well give myself a bang.” Five members associated with Biko’s death were only identified after the fall of apartheid as part of the workings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

As always, auras of nobility tend to spring up among such figures. There are the ardent supporters in tow, sometimes more star struck than sober; and the keen civil rights supporters eager to point out the terrible flaws in mistreatment. Then come the modern, commercial appropriations of revolutionary ardour: Hollywood with its films; and Google with its commemorative Google Doodle on the occasion of Biko’s 70th birthday.

Former South African newspaper editor David Woods was certainly the main thrust behind Biko’s posthumous veneration, dragging another terrible fate at the hands of a repressive regime into a vast political limelight.  As Woods himself conceded, Biko, even at the time of his death, was not that known among the black masses in the townships, though his “black consciousness” notion found truck with activists.

Woods’ account of Biko, given vent through the Rand Daily Mail and was subsequently given the celluloid treatment by Richard Attenborough in Cry Freedom (1987).  Emotional proximity, and the subsequent work to promote Biko’s name led to the Writers’ Association of South Africa (Wasa) passing a resolution accusing Woods of being an “unscrupulous opportunist”.

Such are the travails of publicising the fallen among supporters.

Biko’s fate has subsequently spawned a weighty literature focused on his bloody demise rather than his intellectual oeuvre.  The “Biko Case” has become a foundational study in medical ethics as how these suffer under an authoritarian government.  One academic has even gone so far as to identify a “torture aesthetic” at play in the use of Biko’s case in the publicising of human rights abuses.

Biko was certainly one of the figures who supplied the anti-apartheid movement with oxygen when it risked being asphyxiated by the security apparatus.  He had been a serial troublemaker during his years in education, expelled from high school, and active with the National Union of South African Students while attending the University of Natal Medical School.

The vehicle he chose to further his protest agenda was through the South African Students’ Organisation, which he co-founded in 1968. The Black Consciousness Movement soon became more than just the aspirations of a rebellious stripling, though it remained, till after his death, less grandly muscular than assumed.

Having died prematurely in incipient revolutionary harness, Biko did not live to see the demise of the hated ideology he fought for. He did not see the release, rehabilitation and even sanctification of Nelson Mandela, who became leader of the Rainbow Nation.

Nor did he see Mandela’s successor, Thabo Mbeki, take searing jabs against that nation, using his own brand of ideology to deny the ravages of HIV in South Africa, and antiretroviral drugs to sufferers.  The current near unaccountable President, Jacob Zuma, is even more demagogic.

Revolutions, just as those who launch and implement them, eventually die.  Posterity, however, often supplies a different picture, one where ideas can become canon balls, making the pen a truly dangerous weapon.  That point was not lost on the engineers of apartheid.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

Paris Middle East Conference: Time for Israel to decide

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister

By Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Time for Israel to decide whether it is serious being a member of the international community or whether it chooses the path to pariah status, building illegal colonies on stolen land, flouting international law and disrespecting world opinion. Such pigfaced arrogance is bound to have negative consequences.

The Machiavellian approach

There are two types of lawyers. The first type understands that the practice of law is perfectly simple since the rules are laid down as clearly as possible, those who draw them up are in general terms competent and have an eye for detail, taking care not only to word the documents carefully but also to punctuate them adequately. The second type is a cynical, manipulative figure who understands that rules and laws are made to be broken and it is just a question of how much money is used or power exerted to reach the Machiavellian goal.

In signing international agreements and conventions, Israel is bound by their terms, and the very notion that a State can sign a treaty and then weasel its way out, accepting some of the terms and not others, is not only sheer, shitfaced arrogance but also an insult to the international community.

The fact is that Israel signed the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which basically prohibits countries from moving populations into territories occupied during a war. Hence the colonies which Israel is building outside its original borders are illegal, period. It is perfectly simple. So simple, indeed, that the United Nations Security Council, whose deliberations are legally binding, has stated that the terms of the Convention apply. Also, the United Nations General Assembly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Court of Justice and the High Contracting Parties to the Convention. Apart from this, several UN Resolutions have declared the Israeli settlements built on stolen land are illegal.

Israel, the chosen thief

Israel, of course, thinks it is above international law, or for that matter any law. It does what it wants, when, where and how it wants because it knows that the Jewish Lobby in the USA is so powerful that it pulls Washington's strings and therefore Washington's sickening Poodles in Europe will jump obediently and abstain when Washington vetoes UN Resolutions condemning Israel.

The result is that Israel continues to steal land which does not belong to it, continues to bulldoze Palestinian homes, continues to dessecrate Palestinian cemiteries, continues to expropriate Palestinian farms, dispossessing Palestinians, splitting up families, seizing land and property from children whose grandparents held the rights.

And what does the international community do? Nothing. It is fitting that this Conference is held in Paris, the capital city of one of the countries which started this mess (along with its bedmaster, the UK) by drawing lines on maps.

When Israel gets real, when Israel admits that it has to follow the norms of international law to be wholly accepted into the international community, and in so doing moving back to the borders drawn up in 1948, Israel will be accepted into the hearts and minds of the international community. Netanyahu is too emotionally stupid to realize this, as is most of the Knesset.

Time for a new generation of Jews to work alongside Jews against Zionism and together with the hearts and minds of the international community. To date what has ruled Israel is those in legion with the Devil, claiming the Jews are the chosen people (how racist does it get?) and disregarding the norms of international law.

Look where we are. Israel hanging by a thread, waiting for the day when someone ups the ante and does something spectacular. These days it isn't that difficult, let's be honest. And when, not if, when it happens, maybe Israel will think twice about its shitfaced arrogance. So suppose Israel started thinking in an intelligent manner from today?

Emotional intelligence is not that easy for the type of person who kicks those who have fallen in the head, for the type of person who shoots kids in the eyes, for the type of person who steals property, builds homes on it and cocks a snook at the international community.

Conclusion: Israel, in a word, is stupid.

Nuclear Weapons Deterrence Status Is Changing

Vladimir Putin with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu said on Thursday that nuclear weapons may no longer serve for the purpose of strategic deterrence in the future. Another type of weapon will come to replace it, the minister added. 

According to the Defense Minister, it will be high-precision weapons. The move will reduce international tensions and strengthen trust between countries, the minister said during a lecture for the leadership of the Defense Ministry and members of the public. 

According to Shoygu, high-precision guided weapons will be mostly based on ships and submarines by 2021, RIA Novosti reports.

"By 2021, we plan to increase combat capabilities of Russian strategic non-nuclear forces four times, which will give us an opportunity to fully solve problems of non-nuclear deterrence," said Shoygu.

The commander of Strategic Missile Forces, Colonel-General Sergei Karakayev also spoke about a possibility for nuclear weapons to lose their deterrence role. However, this is not a matter of near future, the official said. 

"The Strategic Missile Forces will continue to play their key role to ensure the country's security until nuclear weapons lose their deterrent role a result of either technological progress or changing  nature of international relations, he said in December of 2016.  

At the same time, he added, "the reliance on nuclear deterrence should provide necessary time and balance of power to create new systems and means of warfare."

One may assume that several strategic deterrence factors may emerge as a symbiosis - high-precision nuclear weapons, for example.