Background Briefing: October 12, 2022
Biden’s New National Security Strategy and the Danger Putin May Not be Able to Accept Losing His War Without Escalating to Nukes
We begin with the release today of the Biden Administration’s National Security Strategy that makes clear the post Cold War era is “definitively over.” Joining us is Tom Collina, Director of Policy at the Ploughshares Fund where he works as a researcher, analyst, and advocate to end US nuclear testing, rationalize anti-missile programs, extend the Nonproliferation Treaty, and secure Senate ratification of the New START Treaty. He previously served as Research Director of the Arms Control Association, was the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Institute for Science and International Security and the Director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He is the co-host of the Press the Button podcast and the co-author with William Perry of The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump. We discuss the sad truth that nuclear weapons no longer keep the peace since Putin is using nuclear deterrence as a shield behind which he is waging a conventional war on his neighbor, and the irony that Putin may not be able to accept losing the war without escalating to nukes which mean we might need to provide him with an offramp.
Haiti Now a Lawless State Controlled by Gangs, is Poised For Another Intervention
Then we look into the call by the head of the UN for a “rapid action force” to be deployed in Haiti which is now a lawless state controlled by gangs. Joining us is Garry Pierre-Pierre, a Haitian-born Pulitzer-prize winning multimedia and entrepreneurial journalist who left the New York Times in 1999 to launch the Haitian Times, a New York-based English-language weekly publication serving the Haitian Diaspora. He is the Co-Founder of the City University of New York’s Center for Community and Ethnic Media and we discuss his latest article at The Haitian Times, “Another invasion of Haiti is coming.”