A Visit to Russia for “Life Extension” of the PlanetBy Brian Terrell,
On October 9, I was in the Nevada desert with Catholic Workers from around the world for an action of prayer and
nonviolent resistance at what is now called the Nevada National Security Site, the test site where between 1951 and
1992, nine hundred and twenty-eight documented atmospheric and underground nuclear tests occurred. Since the
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and the apparent end of the Cold War, The National Nuclear Security
Administration, NNSA, has maintained the site, circumventing the intent of the treaty with a stated “mission to maintain
the stockpile without explosive underground nuclear testing.”
Three days earlier, as if to remind us that the test site is not a relic with exclusively historic significance, the
NNSA announced that earlier in the month, two B-2 Stealth Bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri dropped two
dummy B61 nuclear bombs at the site. “The primary objective of flight testing is to obtain reliability, accuracy, and
performance data under operationally representative conditions,” said the NNSA press release. “Such testing is part of the qualification process of current alterations and life extension programs for weapon
systems.
“The B61 is a critical element of the U.S. nuclear triad and the extended deterrent,” said Brig. Gen. Michael Lutton,
NNSA’s principal assistant deputy administrator for military application. “The recent surveillance flight tests
demonstrate NNSA’s commitment to ensure all weapon systems are safe, secure, and effective.”
General Lutton and the NNSA do not explain what threat the testing of B61 nuclear bombs is meant to deter. The military
industrial complex, including the “life extension programs for weapon systems” the U.S. intends to spend a trillion
dollars on over the next decades, is not a response to any real threat but exists only to perpetuate itself. For public
consumption, however, expenditures of this magnitude require justification. The not so subtle message that this was a
“dry run” of a nuclear attack on Russia was not missed by the media that picked up the story.
Shortly after leaving Nevada, I was in Moscow, Russia, as part of a small delegation representing Voices for Creative
Nonviolence from the United States and United Kingdom. Over the next 10 days in Moscow and St. Petersburg, we saw
nothing of the massive preparations for war there that are being reported in the Western media. We saw no sign of and no
one we spoke to knew anything about the widely reported evacuation of 40 million Russians in a civil defense drill. “Is
Putin preparing for WW3?” asked one U.K. tabloid on October 14: “Following a breakdown in communication between the USA and Russia, the Kremlin organized the huge
emergency practice drill – either as a show of force or something more sinister.” This drill turned out to be an annual
review that firefighters, hospital workers and police routinely conduct to evaluate their capacities to manage potential
natural and manmade disasters.
Over the past years I have visited many of the world’s major cities and Moscow and St. Petersburg are the least
militarized of any I’ve seen. Visiting the White House in Washington, DC, for example, one cannot miss seeing uniformed
Secret Service agents with automatic weapons patrolling the fence line and the silhouettes of snipers on the roof. In
contrast, even at Red Square and the Kremlin, the seat of the Russian government, only a few lightly armed police
officers are visible. They seemed mainly occupied with giving directions to tourists.
Traveling on the cheap, lodging in hostels, eating in cafeterias and taking public transportation is a great way to
visit any region and it gave us opportunities to meet people we would not otherwise have met. We followed up on contacts
made by friends who had visited Russia earlier and we found ourselves in a number of Russian homes. We did take in some
of the sights, museums, cathedrals, a boat ride on the Neva, etc., but we also visited a homeless shelter and offices of
human rights groups and attended a Quaker meeting. On one occasion we were invited to address students in a language
school in a formal setting, but most of our encounters were small and personal and we did more listening than talking.
I am not sure that the term “Citizen Diplomacy” can be accurately applied to what we did and experienced in Russia.
Certainly the four of us, me from Iowa, Erica Brock from New York, David Smith-Ferri from California and Susan Clarkson
from England, hoped that by meeting Russian citizens we could help foster better relations between our nations. On the
other hand, as much as the term suggests that we were acting even informally to defend or explain our governments’
actions, interests and policies, we were not diplomats. We did not go to Russia with the intention of putting a human
face on or in any way justifying our countries’ policies toward Russia. There is a sense, though, that the only genuine
diplomatic efforts being made between the U.S. and NATO countries at this time are citizen initiatives like our own
little delegation. What the U.S. State Department calls “diplomacy” is actually aggression by another name and it is
questionable whether the U.S. is capable of true diplomacy while it surrounds Russia with military bases and “missile
defense” systems and carries out massive military maneuvers near its borders.
I am conscious of the need to be humble and not to overstate or claim any expertise. Our visit was less than two weeks
long and we saw little of a vast country. Our hosts reminded us continually that the lifestyles and views of Russians
outside their country’s largest cities might be different from theirs. Still, there is so little knowledge of what is
going on in Russia today that we need to speak the little we have to offer.
While we heard a wide variety of views on many crucial issues, there seems to be a consensus among those we met about
the impossibility of a war between Russia and U.S./NATO. The war that many of our politicians and pundits see clearly on
the horizon as inevitable is not only unlikely, it is unthinkable, to the Russian people we talked with. None of them
thinks that our countries’ leaders would be so crazy as to allow the tensions between them to bring us to a nuclear war.
In the United States, Presidents Bush and Obama are often credited for “fighting the war over there so we don’t have to
fight it here.” In St. Petersburg we visited the Piskaya Memorial Park, where hundreds of thousands of the one million
victims of the German’s siege of Leningrad are buried in mass graves. In World War II, more than 22 million Russians
were killed, most of these civilians. Russians, more than Americans, know that the next world war will not be fought on
a faraway battlefield.
Russian students laughed at the joke, “If the Russians are not trying to provoke a war, why did they put their country
in the middle of all these U.S. military bases?” But I ruefully told them that due to our nation’s professed
exceptionalism, many Americans would not see the humor in it. Rather, a double standard is considered normal. When
Russia responds to military maneuvers by the U.S. and its NATO allies on its borders by increasing its defense readiness
inside its borders, this is perceived as a dangerous sign of aggression. This summer in Poland, for example, thousands
of U.S. troops participated in NATO military maneuvers, “Operation Anakonda” (even spelled with a “k,” an anaconda is a
snake that kills its victim by surrounding and squeezing it to death) and when Russia responded by augmenting its own
troops inside Russia, this response was regarded a threat. The hyped up proposition that Russia might be conducting
civil defense drills raises suspicion that Russia is preparing to launch World War III. Yet, a practice run, dropping
mock nuclear bombs in Nevada, is not viewed in the West “as a show of force or something more sinister,” but only as an
indication of a “commitment to ensure all weapon systems are safe, secure, and effective.”
The life extension of our planet needs to be a universal goal. To speak of, let alone pour a nation’s wealth into a
program of “life extension programs for weapon systems” is nothing short of madness. Our Russian friends’ confidence in
our collective sanity and the steadiness of our leadership, especially in the wake of the recent election, is a great
challenge. I am grateful to new friends for the warmth and generosity of their welcome and I hope to visit Russia again
before long. As important and satisfying as these “citizen diplomatic” encounters are, however, we must honor these
friendships through active resistance to the arrogance and exceptionalism that might lead the U.S. to a war that could
destroy us all.
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David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015 and 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.