In an article in the American Conservative from Oct. 4, author and former State Department advisor James Carden argues that it is the United States, not Russia, which is escalating the world toward a nuclear conflict. In addition, as his subtitle reads: “There are fewer guardrails against nuclear annihilation than at any time in the past 50 years.”
Carden notes that the U.S. had withdrawn from treaty after treaty after George Bush’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, with each withdrawal having given Russia a reason to worry. When Aegis defense systems were installed in Poland and Romania, that escalated even further worry, because, as Carden quotes nuclear expert Ted Postol, writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: “And there would be little way for Russia to know whether Aegis systems were loaded with missile defense interceptors or nuclear-armed cruise missiles.”
