Degaussing your Mind of NUTS

Jamarl Thomas interviews KJ Noh on China’s hidden role in Iran’s new defense posture against US aggression, and the big view at the moment.

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Jamarl Thomas: You look good. You look good. You look good. Let me bring him on. KJ. No. The man himself. KJ is a journalist, political analyst, writer, and teacher specializing in the geopolitics of the Asia Pacific region. He’s contributor to the book Capitalism on a Ventilator. Once censored by Amazon. It is now available at .org. You can also find him on Breakthrough News Network. Again, fantastic network with the China Report. KJ, welcome to the show, man. How you doing today? You doing all right?

KJ Noh: I’m doing well, thank you.

Jamarl Thomas: It is always a pleasure to have you, KJ, there is reporting out that Iran is purchasing jets from China. Now, China got a lot of publicity recently in the war between Pakistan and India. And India was running a lot of propaganda, very angry at China because the thought was that it was Chinese weapons that were knocking out Indian planes out of the sky. , and that those weapon systems that they got from China was extraordinarily effective, especially against Western equipment that didn’t seem to be up to snuff. And now it seems that Iran is purchasing, and this goes in two fronts.

One, Iran’s purchasing Chinese aircraft, top of the line for air defense, but also that they got rid of GPS and they the ethic is called by DU that they’ve been using China’s global system for their military campaigns, which is in part responsible for the accuracy of the weapon systems that we saw in their war against Israel. Let’s go to the first one first. And it sounds weird, but I’ll go with it. as are they purchasing these planes from China? And then I want to go to the GPS thing because the GPS thing is really interesting to me. But let’s go for the first one first.

KJ Noh: Yeah. So there are not official statements but there sources there statements from good journalists who have said that this is the case. So I think that certainly something is in the works. we know that the 10 ministers of the 10 defense ministers of the SCO met very recently with the Chinese defense minister. and so whatever is happening something big is happening and certainly it is related to defense and defense acquisitions regarding the Chinese jets. The thing to understand about arms in general and warfare in general is that all modern warfare is joint arms combined warfare. That is you’re using systems together.

So for example, you might be using Chinese jets along with you know for example you know other types of surveillance aircraft along groundbased radar with missile drones, missile interceptors, etc. And so it’s all combined arms warfare. Everything is joint and connected. And so you have to understand it. It’s not simply that if they do acquire the J10s, it’s not simply that they’re acquiring the J10, they they’re acquiring the entire system and in particular the tactical data networks that connect everything. You know, it’s like, you know, it’s not simply like you’re buying a cell phone, which is just you know, it’s just an expensive paper weight without a SIM card. So once you have the SIM card and once you have the various apps then it becomes a mini supercomputer in your pocket. And so we have to understand it that if Iran acquires Chinese J10s or other technology then it’s an entire defense ecosystem that is being built in for Iran. And then the other piece of it is that because this weaponry is so complex, involves ongoing support and maintenance and you kind of get the after service contract. So essentially it’s a form of relationship building. So interesting. So what we’re looking at here if it turns out to be true and I think that it most likely is based on the sources that I’ve read is that China is strengthening its defense cooperation. Iran is strengthening its defense cooperation with China along with the entire SCO block. So that’ll be very very interesting. So big moves of foot here.

Jamarl Thomas: Thank God. Thank God, man. Because Iran freaks me out. They freak me out. And they freaked me out because it seems like they were like, “We want to do this on our own. We want to, you know, we don’t want to buy equipment. We want to just build our own.” And obviously their equipment and the political structure was able to withstand the attack from internally and externally.

But from from my point of view and from many people’s point of view I think Sarah Bills will back me up on this too, the one from DDGeopolitics. Russia, China and Iran are a force of the new world. meaning and even though it’s frustrating to me, I understand why they go with this notion of international law. I would say there is no such thing, but they have been cidously with this notion of we’re going to stay within the bounds of law. And so even though the West has no red lines, we have red lines. We’re not going to go after civilians.

We’re not going to go after targets that are not military targets. we’re going to be very legalistic in the way that we talk about this stuff. And on some level, you kind of get it if indeed they see themselves as a fulcrum of a new world — that you want that new world to be based on law, not what came before it. So, I do get it. But it just felt like for the longest time they were flying on their own. So, I’m glad that they have now started this kind of military cooperation with and I’m saying cooperation in sense of getting equipment and relationship with China and even Russia in this front.

The other one is the satellites. From my understanding, they weren’t using GPS. They got rid of GPS. In fact, from my understanding, a lot of their equipment, especially from India, was infiltrated by Israeli agents. And so they seem to be getting a lot more equipment from China as opposed to from India, especially using Beidou as a satellite platform as opposed to GPS. Is that correct? Am I getting that right? I saw a reporting on this, but I wasn’t certain it was true.

KJ Noh: Yes, I think I think that is most certainly correct that they’re using the Chinese quote unquote you know positioning system it’s the Chinese version of GPS and of course that in doing so they’ve made themselves impervious to US interference because GPS can be cut off anytime the US sees fit.

So that’s another way in which they’ve created a kind of electronic sovereignty over their air territory which you know as you know Brian has been saying this but there key domains of sovereignty which are essential you know of course you want sovereignty over your land that’s the basis on which the whole notion of statehood is con you know is conceived but you also want sovereignty over your own airspace and then you want sovereignty over a certain portion of your naval territory and then you want and this is important because the US conceives of war fighting in multiple domains.

So you want sovereignty over the cyber domain what I refer to as digital sovereignty or what my colleagues sometimes refer to as digital vestalia. But you need digital sovereignty the sovereignty over the cyber domain or else you have nothing. and then you also want to have you know that includes sovereignty or you know your own control over your own devices and apps that are run inside you know the cyber domain.

Otherwise you are completely porous. You are you know a sieve, you’re a colander, you know, from which you can be undermined as we have seen. And so the fact that Iran is, you know, taking measures to ensure that that is the case is really important. So I think that we need we should pay attention to that and understand that these are actually strong defensive measures that are actually necessary.

Jamarl Thomas: I’m curious how does China view this? You know I spoke to Marandi I’ve spoken to Mark and I guess they would give you a perspective of in of Iran and a perspective of Russia. How does China view all of this? I mean, for all intents and purposes, you have an empire that is setting fires all across the globe with this notion of hegemonic control.

They went after Russia. It didn’t work. They went after Iran. They will keep going after Iran for right now. It didn’t work. And Iran is trying to deal with, let’s say, bolstering itself and solidifying itself. And for all intents and purposes, not just it didn’t work, it made Iran stronger, weirdly enough, because you have this youthful generation that didn’t understand that the West were monsters. They thought, well, the US is love and light. Look, they have Superman and pizza.

What what’s, you know, what’s your issue? Our economy would be better off if it wasn’t if we could work with the West. You guys are just not being cooperative. And then they see in their own mind was negotiating. People like me saying they should have, but they weren’t negotiating. They get attacked during negotiations. It’s clear as day that the West was behind it. It’s clear as day that the West backed it. And they could see with their own eyes what their government had been telling them was true. China for the most part has been on the outskirts and has only had to deal with that in an economic sense. Taiwan, yes, but not really in a direct military sense. China has to see these events unfold. What is it thinking from its own point of view after a 12- day war and after the attack on Russia?

KJ Noh: You know, I think they’re seeing things very clearly. I mean, the Chinese are not fools. They know that the US has been agitating, militating to war since 2009. Certainly, actually before that. But we know that the war plans were. I mean the war plans were printed developed in 2009 and then in 2011 we had the pivot to pivot to Asia really the pivot to encircle China in 2011 that was formally declared in Darwin in Australia and then they saw all the extraordinary undermining that was being taking place.

The entire approach was both regime change and military encirclement and a really a fullcourt press that has been ongoing since 2009. So we’re you know 16 years into this process. Well, what happened in 2009, 2008, the global capitalist financial system collapsed around its ears.

And remember, prior to that, of course, the west was engaging with China, but their theory was that we engage with China in order to regime change it. This was essentially the same process that they envisioned happening in the Soviet Union. China, it was a Potemkin state. Once they see our KFC and our hamburgers, you know, they will throw themselves at their knees and beg to be our vassels. That was the theory, you know, that was what they really believed.

And on the other hand, you had people like Hillary Clinton who said, you know, China is, you know, it’s on its last legs. You know, this Gordon Chang Hillary Clinton theory is that, you know, it’s it’s a paper tiger. It’s a Potemkin state. it’s ready to fall down and we just have to be ready to swoop in and sweep up all of its, you know .. its wealth. And this is how they think.

And then what happened in 2008 was the, you know, the financial collapse. And it showed that it wasn’t China that was about to collapse that was on its last legs. It’s actually the western capitalist world. The entire capitalist system collapsed. This is why Sarkozi, right-wing French president said “Laisez faire c’est finis”, you know, capitalism is finished.

You know, this is a right-wing French leader saying that we’ve seen the end of capitalism, and because of that, that’s when the daggers came out. The West decided that China was not going to collapse of its own accord from its own internal contradictions because rather the contradictions were with the western systems.

And therefore it needed a good shove down the stairs and so that’s when they built this doctrine of war called Air-Sea Battle and they also built up, they declared the Pivot to Asia Plan, encircling and choking China out. They were doing all kinds of dirty tricks as far as you know encouraging corruption, opening the doors wide so that foreign exchange could be extracted.

So there was all kinds of financial warfare going on. When China started to clamp down and they said oh you know Xi jinping is a dictator, but no they were just trying to prevent this you know kind of drainage of Chinese wealth overseas which you know is again another kind of precursor to creating collapse.

And then they also started to implement the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is actually has a similarity to what’s going on right now with the tariffs, but the idea was to isolate China and exclude it from the entire Pacific zone as far as trading is concerned. That is you would have all the Pacific economies they would trade with each other but China would be excluded from it. They referred to this as an economic aircraft carrier.

So there was all kinds of dirty tricks and subkinetic warfare that was happening and the Chinese are not deceived by any of this. So they started to build out the belt and road. Remember the belt and road happened after this US initiative to take down China. So that’s a way of bypassing these naval choke points by creating overland routes or overland routes that bypass the immediate choke points such as the Straits through CMEC and CPEC — China Myanmar Economic corridor, China Pakistan Economic Corridor.

And then you can see how then the US was initiating different kinds of disruption in both Pakistan and Myanmar, in particular the supporting of terror activities against those construction projects infrastructure projects. It’s this kind of continuous game that you see escalating in different – it’s Go – it’s like a ladder happening. You see the continuing move and counter move happening.

But again there’s this concerted program of countering this US approach to choke it out which China has been building. And so again in the South China Sea they started to militarize some of the islands there because that is the cost for the US. The US shrieks and screams that China has, you know, overseas bases and they’ve militarized the entire South China Sea.

Absurd, because all five or all six of the claimants to the South China Sea have islands that they’ve militarized and five of them have air strips on them, but it’s only China which is being, you know

Jamarl Thomas: KJ just to point out the US has like 800 military bases around the globe. The notion that they are screaming that China, oh my god, China has two military bases, it’s outrageous.

KJ Noh: Yeah, it has one military base in Djibouti. It has one military base in Djibouti as part of a UN mandated antipiracy program which it does in collaboration with five or six other countries. Even Japan has a base in Djibouti and Japan is supposed to be a pacifist nation with no military. So that tells you how threatening you know or technically how, anyway!

So China does not have bases. The US has 8 – 900 bases. Nobody really knows, but we know that it has a military presence in at least 170 countries. And it’s not really the bases themselves that count. It is the basing agreements. That is to say, a lot of what the US does is it sets up a basing agreement with a country and then that allows the US to go in and use the bases in this almost eminent domain type of way. So whether you see troops or not, what you really have to look at is there some kind of basing agreement? Is there some kind of use agreement?

If that’s the case, then you know that that base, you know, is like a Uber or an Airbnb that can be immediately taken over for US military purposes. So even that 900 number is actually an undercount. It’s much more aggressive and you know threatening all than that.

So US has encircled China with bases. It’s essentially staging the entire Pacific and the entire Asian continent for war. And there’s no way the Chinese have not caught on to this. They’re very clear on what’s happening and they’re creating defensive counter measures. as I’ve pointed out.

Jamarl Thomas: is it fair to say that from the Chinese point of view, I would say probably even the Russians and maybe even the Iranians, that the more time that they get, the weaker the position of the West gets, which is the reason for the seemingly desperate fire setting.

I mean, if you look at Serbia, they attempted to take down Georgia. They’re going after Azerbaijan got involved into this at this point. Of course, Russia, Iran .. they tried to take down the South Korean government. All of these things bespeak of desperation. They failed in South Korea. They’re failing in Russia. They failed in Iran.

And so, yeah, they may have some of these government bases, but the previous prime minister of Japan just came out saying, “We need to have a Japan without US bases.” I think people are seeing them committed genocide and think to themselves, these people are monsters.

From the point of view of China, Iran, Russia, is it just we need more time? The more time that goes by, the weaker they get and the worse their plans become. Is that the thought that China has?

KJ Noh: I think that’s a large part of it. You know, we spoke about the fact that China has the time. As our friend Dr. Wilmer Leon says, “You have the watches, we have the time.” I think that the Chinese always think in terms of the long haul in terms of you know the strategic and long duration, you know they think ahead.

If you go to China what’s astounding is that you see civil engineering projects that have been built over 600 years that means that you know whatever they were doing, you know, they were planning experience. So, for example, some of the canals in China, that’s a 600-year project. So they think big and they also think long term.

So certainly vis-a-vis the United States, they know that if they can avoid getting pulled into a war, which the US wants, then they can essentially, you know, sports analogy, they can run the clock down because they are ahead.

Jamarl Thomas: Speaking of that, Donald Trump is saying that there is a deal between China and the United States. Is that true?

KJ Noh: Well, I’ll believe it when I see it. I’m sure there are all kinds of deals that are being proposed. Whatever it is, I don’t think that they are trustworthy. As Sergey Lavrov said, the US is not agreement capable. It has broken every single deal, agreement, treaty, that it has ever made with any country or entity that it considers an enemy or a vassal.

Just think of the what 360 (hundreds) of treaties signed with the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Every single one of them violated. Not a one, not a one, upheld, right? Ruth Bader Ginsburg, you know, this kind of darling of the liberal, you know, of the liberal class, she was the one who hammered into the Supreme Court decision, the doctrine of discovery; this colonial era, theory, that you can simply take what you want.

So no the US is not agreement capable and I think the counterparties are aware of that and so I think they may be negotiating, they may be discussing things certainly, it’s better to discuss than to go to war. But you know I’ll believe it when I see it.

Certainly even if the president negotiates something, first that assumes that the president actually is the driver of the car and secondly it assumes that it won’t be overturned the moment that there’s a new administration in there or the moment that you know the deep state decides it’s going to undermine it.

A good example of this is North Korea. They had an agreement and then you know the moment it was signed, it was already null and void — within two weeks it was null and void.

Think of the Korean war the ceasefire that was signed in 1953 was null and void the next day. The US literally came out and said we are not looking for a peace here.

So this is how you know the empire works. They pretend or they use diplomacy and negotiation as a part of their military toolkit. It’s simply one of the diversions or ruses or tactics that they use.

But ultimately what they believe in and what they assert is raw power, raw domination. and I think that other countries are certainly wise to this. Certainly I hope Iran is aware of this. I don’t think the Chinese are deceived. And then regarding your point around the desperation, you know, the US says that “China will go to war in 2025 or 2027”. I thought it was 27. Yeah, there were two dates, but they’ve been set up as a kind of a window now. So we know somewhere between this year and two years from now the US will go to war with China.

They’ve declared it. You know they’ve calendared the dates.

And of course they’re saying that China will start the war. Of course not. China is not starting any wars anywhere. It’s trying really really hard not to get pulled into a fight, but certainly the US is extremely anxious and desperate for a war, because it knows that if it doesn’t go to war it will essentially lose hegemony.

And for them losing hegemony is the end of the world. And they would rather end the world than see the end of their hegemony. So this is the really dangerous moment we’re in.

Jamarl Thomas: The US is a powerful country among other powerful countries. And the moment that a country has the ability to end all things, then hegemony is over with. Like meaning, if you are the only one with nukes, if I have a powerful military that I can effectively win every contest, okay, then I’m a hegemon, right? I can control all of these things because ultimately when it comes down to it, I can win a military contest.

But the moment that both of us have the capability of destroying the world, the hegemony is over. At that point, we’re just in a contest of, I’m threatening to use nukes and you’re threatening to use nukes and both of us are threatening to use nukes — basically threatening to end the world, in any negotiation that ultimately takes place.

Meaning any war that takes place between the United States and China or the United States and Russia is effectively a contest of “either you back off, I’m going to end the world.” “No, you back off or I’m going to end the world.” There’s no way to win that.

And I and I know they may have this thought of tactical nukes. A tactical nuke is still a nuke. It doesn’t, you know, the moment that you lower the threshold of using a nuclear weapon, you’ve lowered the threshold to use a nuclear weapon. There’s no way out that box. So, correct me if I’m wrong on this. Maybe I’m missing something.

KJ Noh: Well, I’ve said before — I don’t think I need to repeat it that, well, the people who are driving this are some of them are millenarian Christians who believe in the Apocalypse.

They think it’s their interest to have an Apocalypse because that’s what their faith tells them. I mean very recently saw Peter Thiel, you know, talking with Ross Douthat, [JT: Terrifying]. He’s a terrifying person. I mean he looks like, you know, death warmed over, right? I mean, this is the man who has certainly significant influence over policy. [02 – excerpt][03 – full]

Do you think that he cares about the future of humanity?

I mean, the man looks dead already. This is the corpse of Roy Cohn warmed over, right?

Jamarl Thomas: I think he looks like he touches himself to killing puppies. Yeah he looks terrifying.

KJ Noh: These are very very frightening people. And I believe at heart they are nihilists or they are Christian fundamentalists who have a belief in the Apocalypse, which is the ultimate conflict of interest as far as I’m concerned.

And then you have to look at the doctrine that has been built out over nuclear war. Traditionally, the doctrine of nuclear deterrence was called M.A.D., right? Mutually Assured Destruction. It’s a kind of Samson project. And the idea associated with this is what’s called countervalue strikes.

You strike our capital, we strike your capitals. We have, automated means of launching missiles that will — the dead man’s hand — that will launch even after you’ve hit us. So are you willing to trade Beijing for Washington? Are you willing to trade New York for Shanghai? This is the traditional countervalue theory which is based on ultimately rational leaders will pull back from mutual assured destruction.

Starting around the period of Carter, towards the end of his administration, the US started to postulate this thing called NUTS. Not MAD, but NUTS. So NUTS is shorthand for Nuclear Utilization Target Selection, which is just silly, you know, military jargon for the idea that we get in the sucker punch. [01]

We get the sucker punch in first, and then anything else that they launch against us, we just kind of clean the deck with missile defense systems. We get in the sucker punch and anything they try and launch after that, we just kind of clean up and our missiles will shoot that down.

It really is the notion that if we do a nuclear first strike, we win. That is the doctrine behind this. So this notion that with counterforce strikes that the US can prevail in a nuclear war is literally one of the underpinnings of this US escalation to global war, global domination.

They believe that if push comes to shove and conventional warfare is not working, then we escalate to tactical nukes. Right now, there’s a lot of policy papers saying that we have to rehearse this, we have to make this part of formal doctrine. We have to make the conventional and nuclear continuum seamless.

That’s seamless in execution, rehearsal and preparation. And then of course at the end of the day they have this N.U.T.S. doctrine, which is the idea then if that doesn’t go to plan we simply fire off the nukes first and we will win.

Of course what that doesn’t take to account is the fact that, first, those missile defense systems don’t work as we’ve seen very recently in the Iran-Israel war. The much vaunted THAAD system doesn’t work. And it’s expensive as hell, but essentially it is these things do not perform as they’re advertised.

It’s like those little stunt things where somebody catches a bullet with their teeth. That entire thing is a setup, right? I mean it requires a lot of skill but it’s a setup and it’s not going to happen. it’s not going to happen in real life and that’s what we’ve just seen.

So have the military planners noticed this? Have they realized that if Iranian missiles can penetrate five layers of the most sophisticated western defense systems — that is the British the American the Israeli (three four layer system), if Iran’s old antiquated missiles can punch through this, then what do you think will happen when you go to war with China which has more much much more advanced missiles. Have they taken that into consideration? I have no idea. I have no idea.

Jamarl Thomas: It’s just dystopian. It’s almost like it’s like “hey we need a new doctrine”. Oh I know. Let me just think one up. This is kind of the conversation I have with Brian Berletic. It’s one thing to write something down, reality is different.

And Yemen just fired a missile that that wasn’t taken down. One missile. It just missed. I’ve seen Iran fire missiles where helicopters were chasing it, and they still couldn’t get that thing down. This is a fool’s errand if they indeed go into a nuclear strike.

So KJ, we’ll see. KJ, you are always appreciated, man. Thank you for this. By the way, when is your next report coming out for China report?

KJ Noh: Probably next Tuesday. Just one more thing, Jamarl. The thing here we have to really make sure is that we don’t lapse into despair. You know, there’s nothing we can do, right? You know, “if they’re you going to use nukes, they’re going to use nukes”. There’s nothing we can do.

The fact is that we despair is not an option. We have to challenge this escalation to war.

And we were talking about domains of warfare. Of course there’s you know air, sea, land, cyber, there’s media, there’s information space.

And also your mind itself is a terrain of battle. Literally, the military planners see your mind as a terrain of contestation or terrain of battle. And the idea is to occupy and colonize your mind. And that is the work of propaganda, of mainstream media, of PsyOps, of everything that the Guardian and the New York Times and Amy Goodman does day in and day out. All of this is a way to occupy your mind, to colonize your mind, so that you acquiesce and you give up to the war mongers.

That’s where the resistance has to start — to degaussing your brain, degaussing your mind. Do not let your mind be taken over. Don’t become a bot or a propaganda repeating bot. And then resist that mental colonization. Then what you do is you start to share the facts, the truth. You degausse these influences and then you start to build anti-war coalitions that resist this insane drive and along the way you start to unpack and understand you know the reality of politics and history.

This is the task that every single person can do. In fact it’s what we have to do right now as well as all the other work that we should be doing in protesting you know the genocide, in protesting this mad escalation to war, to protesting the complete and total militarization of our society and the entire planet.

Jamarl Thomas: That’s why we’re here. That’s what we’re here. If it pushes the needle 0.1%, it pushes the needle 0.1%, it’s better than what it was prior. [KJ Noh: Every day counts]. Right.

KJ Noh. journalist, political analyst, writer, teacher, specializing in the geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region, contributor to the book “Capitalism on a Ventilator”. One censored by Amazon. It is now available aicenter.org. [04] You can check them out on the China Report on BreakThrough News. [05] KJ man, always appreciate you. Thank you for this. You be safe, okay.

Links:

[01] Nuclear utilization target selection (NUTS) doctrine of the United States
[02] Excerpt of Peter Thiel interview with Ross Douthart
[03] Full Interview of Peter Thiel with Ross Douthart
[04] “Capitalism on a Ventilator”
[05] The China Report on BreakThrough News YouTube channel