The situation is very serious. Since 1700 three people have tried to take Moscow: Karl XII who lost his Swedish empire, Napoleon who lost his, Hitler who lost his… and now NATO / AUKUS, in which we are mindlessly participant. The US budget year begins with 830 billion for defence, 600 billion for nuclear refurbishment. Not news in Australia.

Vladimir Putinhas announcedthat referenda will be held in four regions of the eastern part of Ukraine whose populations will now vote on whether to join the Russian Federation, much like theCrimea referendumof 2014 which resulted in Russia’s annexation of that territory. Putin announced that300,000 additional troops will be mobilised for the war to help facilitate this action, which is a major escalation in the conflict by any measure.

Putin also issued a stern nuclear warning that’s being hysterically spun by empire managers as a shocking and unprecedentedly bellicose threat, but if youread what he actually saidit’s clear that he’s really reminding the west of the same principles of Mutually Assured Destruction that have been in place for generations, and isn’t expressing any position that western nuclear powers don’t also hold: Nuclear blackmail was also launched.We are talking not only about the shelling of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is encouraged by the West, which threatens a nuclear catastrophe, but also about the statements of some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO states about the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction against Russia nuclear weapons.

To those who allow themselves to make such statements about Russia, I would like to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and for some components more modern than those of the NATO countries.And if the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people.Its not a bluff.

The citizens of Russia can be sure that the territorial integrity of our Motherland, our independence and freedom will be ensured, I emphasise this again, with all the means at our disposal. And those who are trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the wind can also turn in their direction.

So while this war is indeed insanely dangerous, it’s not because of any of the words coming out of Vladimir Putin’s mouth.

Westerners who are expressing shock and astonishment at Putin’s frank acknowledgement of what’s at stake in Russia’s increasingly direct confrontation with the US empire are really just admitting that they haven’t been paying attention. The risk of nuclear war is why sensible peoplehave spent yearscalling for de-escalation and detente between the US and Russia while tensions have been steadily buildingsince long before the invasionof Ukraine. Now there arewestern officials who saythe world is actually at greater risk of nuclear war than it ever was during the last cold war.

A nuclear conflict could be sparked by either side making a calculated decision to use nuclear weapons (and you’re fooling yourself if you believe the US is any less trigger happy in that regard than Russia), but it can also be sparked by either side due to a mistake resulting from a technological malfunction, miscommunication, misunderstanding or miscalculation, asnearly happened many timesduring the last cold war. The more things escalate, the more likely both such possibilities become.

And, clearly, things are escalating.

And that’s just Russia; tensions are rapidly escalating between the US-centralised empire and China as well. In an article for Antiwar.com titled “Theres Little More Washington Can Do To Convince China To Invade Taiwan,” Andrew Corbley describes the frighteningly extensive provocations the US has been pouring into another massive geopolitical powderkeg just in the past few weeks.

“In the last 50 days, the executive and legislative branches in Washington have done more than in the last 50 years to convince China that Americas imperial policy is simply relentless, and must be met with force,” Corbley writes. “Thats not to say its by any means a given that the Peoples Republic of China will invade its cross-straits neighbour of Taiwan, but that is to say that if strategic planners in Washington sat down and created a bulleted list of how to facilitate such an invasion, they would have probably gone through all the bullets by now.”

Corbley notes theincendiary visit to Taiwanby Nancy Pelosi (which has since been followed by adelugeofadditional US officials), President Biden’srepeated and increasingly explicit commitmentto plunge the US intodirect hot war with Chinaif there’s an attack on Taiwan, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’sinsanely escalatoryTaiwan Policy Act. When you look at the brazenness, ferocity and aggression of these provocations between two nations who logically should never go to war with each other, it really does look as though the empire is putting the pedal to the metal in acceleration toward global conflict.

On paper it looks completely irrational for the US empire to be ramping up aggressions against two powerful military and economic forces simultaneously, but it’s undeniable at this point that that is what’s happening. Clearly our rulers have some kind of strategy for how they’re going to see this through, though it remains to be seen whether that strategy is the desperate Hail Mary pass of a dying empire or a potentially highly effective plan using tools that aren’t currently visible to the public.

Either way, it looks like it’s probably a good time to relish human life on this planet while it’s here to be relished.

Caitlin Johnstone as readers know that name is actually two people: herself and husband Tim Foley. Everyone, racist platforms excluded,has her permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else Ive written) in any way they like.