The Coming War on China Page #9

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position of military strength

such that your adversaries

were not tempted

to act in aggressive ways or

try and employ coercion to get their way.

- Just last week the US Navy

sent a guided missile destroyer

into the Spratly Islands,

the South China Sea.

And what was different

about this, I think,

was that Chinese fighters scrambled.

That sounds like an escalator.

- Well again, from an

American prospective,

the escalation was that the Chinese

beginning to militarize these

islands in the first place,

moving its military capabilities

down into that region,

engaging in provocative behavior against

the commercial activities

and military forces of

other minor countries in the region

that have claim to those islands.

So it's a response to

Chinese intimidation rather--

- Excuse me, how is

commerce being intimidated

in the South China Sea?

- There have been no military forces,

no military bases there.

The Chinese--

- Except the United States military base.

- Not in the South China Sea.

Not even in the Philippines because

the United States withdrew

its forces in the Philippines.

- But the United States is

back in the Philippines.

- The Philippines and the

United States have announced

five different locations

scattered all throughout

the Philippines where US troops will

be stationed on a rotational basis.

- [John Narrating] This

threat to China from yet more

US bases on its doorstep was not an issue

when an arbitration tribunal

ruled against China's claims

to the strategic Spratly

Islands in the South China Sea.

In 2015, the US Navy rehearsed a blockade

that would cut China's lifelines of oil

and trade and raw materials.

The danger of confrontation

grows by the day.

- The US Navy is on the doorstep of China

regardless of disputed islands

and is there with low-draft ships,

planes, battle groups.

It's right on the doorsteps.

What of Chinese ships?

What if the equivalent was off California?

- Well John, we ask ourselves

that question regularly.

And it's important to put

yourself in the other guy's shoes.

So look.

We don't operate in the

Pacific in an effort

to scare China, to contain

China, to backfoot China.

Our operations and our presence,

first of all, is warmly

welcomed by the vast majority

of the coastal states, but secondly,

is fully accepted by the Chinese.

Time after time--

- Excuse me, is it fully accepted?

- Yes, by their words.

The Chinese leaders--

- [John] My impression

is that they're scared.

- [John Narrating] And this

is what they're scared of.

A noose of bases right around China.

Missiles, bombers, drones, warships.

A provocation of war.

- Today, I state clearly

and with conviction.

America's commitment to

seek the peace and security

of a world without nuclear weapons.

(cheering)

- [John Narrating] Under Obama,

nuclear warhead spending has risen higher

than under any president

since the end of the Cold War.

- It's all a magician's show because

at the same time that Obama

is talking about that,

not only is he spending a trillion dollars

to modernize US nuclear forces,

but he's deploying these

missile defense systems

to encircle Russia and China,

which makes it impossible to

get rid of nuclear

weapons in that climate.

- Everybody wants to

look like they're tough.

See, I gotta be tough.

I'm not afraid of doing anything military.

I'm not afraid of threatening.

I'm a hairy-chested gorilla.

And you don't want to

look like you're weak,

so what you do is you talk

more and more aggressively

and if you don't want to do it yourself,

because you maybe think it

doesn't look very presidential,

you let somebody under you do the talking.

And the United States has

gotten into a situation

where there's a lot of

military saber-rattling

and it's really being

orchestrated from the top.

- Yeah, that seems incredibly

dangerous, all of this.

- That's an understatement,

I think, but I agree.

- When you routinely plan for mass murder,

you become conditioned to it.

That's what this is.

We accept it.

Oh yeah, we have nuclear weapons.

- The Defense Secretary has just announced

that there will be

warships and special forces

and planes sent to the Philippines

and the Wall Street Journal

has described this as

"the vanguard of a major US

presence in Southeast Asia."

That sounds like--

- Where does this end?

What's the purpose?

I mean, where are we

going to stop this process

before it starts a war?

And then if the war starts,

where does that end?

America, America

God shed his grace on me

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea

(wind howls)

The scientific studies that

I teach by the scientists

that predict that the Earth can be made

essentially uninhabitable

from nuclear war,

the scientists have been begging

the Obama administration--

well, they wouldn't say begging.

But they have made multiple requests

to meet with them and

discuss these predictions

because they're peer-reviewed studies

and they've been turned

down over and over again.

They've been peripherally told that,

well we don't think the long-term

environmental consequences of nuclear war

are all that important

if the immediate effects

of nuclear war don't stop it.

That the long-term environmental

consequences of nuclear war

are liable to wipe out the human race.

- [John] In one exchange,

nuclear exchange between the US and China,

what could be the consequences?

- Well let me just give you an example

of what one Chinese four

or five megaton warhead

would do to a city in the

United States if it got through.

The detonation of that weapon over a city

would instantly ignite about

six or 700 square miles on fire.

And within 20 to 30 minutes,

all of those fires would coalesce

into a single gigantic firestorm.

There would be no escape from it.

So all the people there would perish.

So the US, with say,

hundreds of nuclear

weapons on Chinese cities.

When you combine all the smoke

from these nuclear weapons detonating,

it actually creates

millions of tons of smoke.

Black carbon smoke that'll

rise above cloud level

into the stratosphere,

it's heated by the sun,

it acts like a solar collector.

And that smoke, because of that,

will stay there for 10 years or longer.

And what the smoke does is it blocks

warming sunlight from reaching

the surface of the earth

and it becomes so cold in a

matter of just a couple of weeks

that the temperature

will fall below freezing

every day for one to three years.

And it will become too

cold to grow food crops

for at least 10 years or longer.

(wind howls)

- I mean, there's a total disconnect

with the changing world.

You have a giant rising

power, in this case, China.

Why would you expect a giant rising power

to not want to have more

control over its destiny?

What we should be doing in my view

is trying to cultivate a sense

of friendship and cooperation

and we can have our differences with them.

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