This is an incredibly dangerous time for the global community, we are at a crossroads where there lies a choice between greater cooperation and diplomacy or greater, potentially catastrophic, confrontation. The possibility of a nuclear war is being talked about as a more serious possibility than it has been since students were doing nuclear drills under their desks. A dangerous dance between two declining powers, Russia and the US, and a rising power, China, menaces prospects for global peace. All three have persistent domestic problems, while still possessing frightening arsenals capable of regional and global force projection, also known as threatening life on Earth. Competing geo-strategic and economic interests seem at a glance to be intractable, and at the current moment, an expanded war over Ukraine or military conflict over Taiwan seem all too possible. A renewed arms race and Cold War that the peoples of Russia, China and the US, and the whole world, cannot afford, is well underway, if only at a medium boil. However, the US, China and Russia have many common interests – reducing the nuclear weapons threat, curbing violent extremism, increasing peace and stability on the Eurasian landmass and in the Pacific region, achieving a stable peace on the Korean peninsula, and addressing the climate crisis and global pandemic. Ordinary Americans, for the most part, tend to oppose more wars and support diplomatic efforts and we need to mobilize them.

For its part, the US military-industrial complex points to China’s rise to justify continued massive Pentagon budgets, exorbitant, provocative weapons systems, and a “pivot” of 60% of its military resources to the Asia-Pacific region. This siphons off resources from efforts to address the world’s real human security crises like climate change and dangerous global pandemics.