Some wicked court-advisor’s CV:
As the conflict between Russia and Ukraine nears the one-year mark, the United States continues to play a central role in supporting Ukraine. But our support is not inexhaustible. Stand Together Trust spoke with George Beebe, Director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and a grantee of STT, about the conflict, the current risks, and potential diplomatic pathways to ending the war. Beebe has spent more than two decades in government as an intelligence analyst, diplomat, and policy advisor, including as director of the CIA’s Russia analysis and as staff advisor on Russia matters to Vice President Dick Cheney. His book, The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral in Nuclear Catastrophe (2019), warned about how the United States and Russia could stumble into a dangerous military confrontation.
Here’s what the thing says, minus the blah-blah:
The biggest risk is a direct military confrontation with Russia. We’re obviously the world’s two largest nuclear powers, and any time you’re talking about a direct military conflict the chances that it might go nuclear are real. I wouldn’t say they are large—chances are probably less than even. But the consequences of something like that are so enormously bad that even if you’re talking about a 10 to 20 percent chance of nuclear war, the risk is not at all worth the potential reward.
But he’s still willing to risk the planet, with risk management strategies the neocons, in their infinite wisdom and omniscience, deem sufficient.
I really hope he and his ilk are close but not too close to “ground zero”, so they can feel the painful results of their own actions for a long time (before finally dying and receiving the full brunt of their punishment).