The world is poised on the edge of blowing itself up, and “it’s very shocking”, warned world-renowned American economist Jeffrey Sachs.
Direct confrontation between the United States and Russia carries very serious and real threats, he said during a lecture in Armenia’s capital of Yerevan.
The two sides possess thousands of nuclear warheads, reminded the president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He referred to the ongoing Ukraine proxy conflict as an open confrontation waged by the US, where Ukraine has been doing “a good service by dying on behalf of the Americans.”
Emphasizing that the conflagration is between two nuclear superpowers, he queried, "Do you know how much we talk about the nuclear risk of this war? Zero.”
According to the economist, any talk in the US about the inherent dangers of a standoff between two nuclear superpowers is deemed “very bad taste” and dismissed as "[Russian President] Putin is just bluffing."
The popularity of such a viewpoint in the US may lead to a catastrophic situation, according to the pundit, when there will be no time to say, "Sorry, we got it wrong.”
“We’ll have one minute before the missile lands... And that’s how the world ends," he said.
“This is really very serious and much closer than we think,” warned Sachs. The reason for this dire situation, he explained, is because “we’re not well led", alluding to the trigger-happy hawks in Washington and the West.
“They weren’t the best students in class, but they have their hands on the missiles […] and they believe in war games,” summed up the economist.
There is little chance that president Joe Biden will steer the United States toward a "good direction" throughout the remainder of his term, Jeffrey Sachs previously told Sputnik.
"We need a completely new foreign policy, based on negotiation, mutual respect with other great powers, and peace... The US doesn’t seem to have much sound thinking at the top right now," he said.