Bill Engdahl is good on this subject.

I have no doubt the US strategy has been the consistent pursuit of "Full Spectrum Dominance" and in particular a "First Strike" capability.

God forbid that is comes to that, but I never thought that I would be glad that Russia maintains a credible nuclear arsenal.

And by the way, Jacob, just so you know, that was not intended as a criticism.

You don't have to defend your corner against "attack" on ET, and you should neither mistake constructive criticism for attack nor dismiss out of hand comments made with less "authority" than yours.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson