Have only had a scan through the last hour, but there does seem to be this odd thing where HY thinks our Trident missiles would restrain the russian bear. "we would threaten to attack Moscow" or some guff.
So lets understand how the hour or so of nuclear war would last. We threaten to nuke Moscow. They detect that we are at maximum readiness. So they choose to preempt - a nuclear attack on British military and 3C assets. That means they take out airbases, dockyards and command centres.
If you look at a map of this country and overlay these counterforce targets, you will see that we lose the country in a single attack. Like permanently lose it. Hard for London to order a counterattack when its had 8 SS-27 warheads flatten it and our cold war bunkers no longer exist.
So no, Trident will not defend London. If we fire them we are either in the process of being destroyed, or we have already been destroyed. I'd fare better up here with plenty of cows and potatoes and trees to cook them on, some of you less well.
Either way, its clear that the Big Dog has been leant on hard in his defence briefings. Instead of his usual detail-free waffle and bluster he is very clear when challenged over things like no-fly zones which means WWII which quickly could end us.
Trident is, primarily, your bog standard, second strike kill-us-and-you-will-die deterrent. As described in a zillion papers/books, since before Polaris was the little rocket that grew up.... AKA one of the Minimum Deterrent options, as described in Herman Kahn
Since the point where the US and UK started saying that war was going to happen in Ukraine (back when everyone was ridiculing the suggestion), they have both been very clear in rejecting any direct military intervention - military aide and sanctions to help Ukraine, and reinforce NATO.
The line has been so consistent, that I think it must have been agreed between Washington and London.
Have only had a scan through the last hour, but there does seem to be this odd thing where HY thinks our Trident missiles would restrain the russian bear. "we would threaten to attack Moscow" or some guff.
So lets understand how the hour or so of nuclear war would last. We threaten to nuke Moscow. They detect that we are at maximum readiness. So they choose to preempt - a nuclear attack on British military and 3C assets. That means they take out airbases, dockyards and command centres.
If you look at a map of this country and overlay these counterforce targets, you will see that we lose the country in a single attack. Like permanently lose it. Hard for London to order a counterattack when its had 8 SS-27 warheads flatten it and our cold war bunkers no longer exist.
So no, Trident will not defend London. If we fire them we are either in the process of being destroyed, or we have already been destroyed. I'd fare better up here with plenty of cows and potatoes and trees to cook them on, some of you less well.
Either way, its clear that the Big Dog has been leant on hard in his defence briefings. Instead of his usual detail-free waffle and bluster he is very clear when challenged over things like no-fly zones which means WWII which quickly could end us.
About right sadly. Both NATO and nuclear weapons exist as deterrence. Both only work (with regard to a nuclear superpower) when not implemented. This has been true for the whole lives of most of us. And it works very precisely until the moment it doesn't. It is not called Mutually Assured Destruction for nothing.
And the moment it doesn't work (as this week we are being reminded) we have not got a clue how the NATO thing would work short of the use of nuclear weapons. And we know pretty much how the nuclear thing will work once started.
While this is obviously crazy, the other options apart from de-inventing the science which allows it to happen are:
Universal disarmament. Good luck with that one.
Unilateral ditto. UK could make a gesture but it makes no difference, so good luck with that one too.
General disarmament, which means that only crazy people have them.
All of which are probably even crazier.
Once it can be done there aren't any sane options. Just a choice of more or less insane ones.
I have an exceptionally mild cold. It consists of a very infrequent cough, a slight tickle in my throat, the odd sneeze, and a faint sense of fatigue.
Because I have not had a cold for about two years it nonetheless feels like cholera, psychologically.
Long term effects of covid may continue to be severe, including organ damage, even with apparently mild symptoms.
Get well soon.
Not that likely. Most people with severe long covid tend to be those who were hospitalised. I know that there are a lot of people who have long covid symptoms, but its not clear what the cause is for many of them. For most, in time there will be full recovery. Those who have damaged organs, cardiovascular damage etc, less so.
You have I believe no medical expertise or research to back that up.
Apart from working in University Pharmacy department, no. Which bit do you think is wrong?
"Are you ready to defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine with weapons in hand?" - Yes, google translate....
Однозначно так - Definitely so Скорiше так - Rather so Важко вiдповiсти - It is difficult to answer Скорiше нi - Not soon Однозначно нi - Definitely not
The regionality map used is
So the “pro-Russia” East is still net +27 in favour of defending Ukraine……
Interesting little thread about the impact of an inadequate / corrupt maintenance regime for military trucks on their performance in mud in the Rasputitsa mud season.
This is a thread that will explain the implied poor Russian Army truck maintenance practices based on this photo of a Pantsir-S1 wheeled gun-missile system's right rear pair of tires below & the operational implications during the Ukrainian mud season.
All true, as anyone knows who has a trailer or caravan which is unused for extended periods - leave them out in the sun and the rubber of the tyres perishes. How funny if something as basic as this is their downfall.
In my part of the world, a 4-year-old tyre is the equivalent of an MoT failure, irrespective of condition. The heat and sunlight kills them.
Car tyres have a date of manufacture stamped on them, usually ww/yy in a box stamped on the sidewall. To anyone who doesn’t drive much, go and look how old your tyres are…
Last time I had new tyres a couple of years ago there was a bloke in the shop pleading for them to fix a puncture in a trailer tyre, despite them pointing out it was dated 1979. And last year I bought a wooden sailing dinghy with plastic buoyancy bags in it dated 1957
We tend to replace our classic mini's tyres quite often, despite doing no more than 1 to 2 thousand miles a year in it. The rubber degrades.
Not bad, albeit Ukraine's not had a smooth ride of things.
I didnt know George Osborne was moonlighting as head of Russia!
Interesting to look at Putin ageing in those photos. From 2000-2014 he ages ‘normally’. In fact quite well for a senior politician. Suddenly in the latest photo he looks decidedly worse. Barely recognisable
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
If the Russians go nuclear over Ukraine, even if they are primarily attacking NATO countries, they will nuke Ukraine as well. Almost certainly.
Have only had a scan through the last hour, but there does seem to be this odd thing where HY thinks our Trident missiles would restrain the russian bear. "we would threaten to attack Moscow" or some guff.
So lets understand how the hour or so of nuclear war would last. We threaten to nuke Moscow. They detect that we are at maximum readiness. So they choose to preempt - a nuclear attack on British military and 3C assets. That means they take out airbases, dockyards and command centres.
If you look at a map of this country and overlay these counterforce targets, you will see that we lose the country in a single attack. Like permanently lose it. Hard for London to order a counterattack when its had 8 SS-27 warheads flatten it and our cold war bunkers no longer exist.
So no, Trident will not defend London. If we fire them we are either in the process of being destroyed, or we have already been destroyed. I'd fare better up here with plenty of cows and potatoes and trees to cook them on, some of you less well.
Either way, its clear that the Big Dog has been leant on hard in his defence briefings. Instead of his usual detail-free waffle and bluster he is very clear when challenged over things like no-fly zones which means WWII which quickly could end us.
Trident is, primarily, your bog standard, second strike kill-us-and-you-will-die deterrent. As described in a zillion papers/books, since before Polaris was the little rocket that grew up.... AKA one of the Minimum Deterrent options, as described in Herman Kahn
Since the point where the US and UK started saying that war was going to happen in Ukraine (back when everyone was ridiculing the suggestion), they have both been very clear in rejecting any direct military intervention - military aide and sanctions to help Ukraine, and reinforce NATO.
The line has been so consistent, that I think it must have been agreed between Washington and London.
Trident is a far more credible threat to Russia than Polaris as it has a longer range and more power. Just one Trident nuclear missile exploding is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas.
I was never advocating use of Trident to defend Ukraine, or even necessarily other NATO nations. However it remains a last resort of defence for the UK
I thought that quite sharp and a tad undiplomatic (if not untrue) - may not help achieve the outcome he wants. “EU bureaucrat tells UK what to do” is less likely to achieve results that the more even tone most have been using in both the U.K. and EU.
Maybe, but this is what I was getting at earlier
BoZo and chums tell the people we are leading the way, while the rest of the World knows that is not true
Putin tells the people he is winning the "peacekeeping action", while the rest of the World knows that is not true
Yes , lots of windbaggery from Tories but actually doing nothing on refugees and little to nothing on sanctions. Whilst those nasty Europeans ar etaking in all comers and apply sanctions willy nilly, impounding boats , etc etc. Not many Tories on here sounding off about France and Germany nowadays.
"Boris Johnson will need to bite the bullet: we must urgently increase spending back to 3 per cent of GDP, and conceivably to 3.5 per cent if we want to be Europe’s leading military power. I don’t say this with any relish: I’m not a militarist. But there are no other responsible options..."
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That sounds great, until you think about it. It's not just yourself or your country you are wishing nuclear war on its everybody else. A proper nuclear war would at a minimum cause 3 orders of magnitude more suffering than would be entailed by the annexation of the whole of Ukraine. What makes that a good value trade off?
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That poll is a bit out of date.
The latest poll is from RedfieldWilton and was taken on 28th February ie fully after Comres and has the Labour lead down to 3%
"Are you ready to defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine with weapons in hand?" - Yes, google translate....
Однозначно так - Definitely so Скорiше так - Rather so Важко вiдповiсти - It is difficult to answer Скорiше нi - Not soon Однозначно нi - Definitely not
The regionality map used is
So the “pro-Russia” East is still net +27 in favour of defending Ukraine……
Indeed - though from the methodology page
o Audience: the population of Ukraine aged 18 and older in all regions, except the temporarily occupied territories of Crimea and Donbass o The sample is representative by age, sex and type of settlement o Sample population: 1200 respondents o Survey method: CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing). Based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers o Error of representativeness of the study with a confidence level of 0.95: not more than 2.8% o Deadlines: March 1, 2022
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Er, speak for yourself. Ukraine is a hideous, immoral tragedy, and a great crime. But I still don’t want to ‘risk a nuclear war’ over it. Nor does anyone sane
A nuclear war is probably the end of human civilization as we know it. Which puts Ukraine in perspective
Well, I'm prone to both a more optimistic and realistic outlook, but I very much hope I wasn't wrong in thinking that any rational sense has been seen in Russia yet, going from the various signals. Every day seems to start more gloomily and end more slightly more positively on that front recently, though, so let's hope.
Feels quite gloomy this morning.
Russia is going to slowly flatten Ukraine. Probably divide it in two along the Dnieper. Thousands and thousands will die. The east will be absorbed into Russia itself, like Crimea. The west of Ukraine will be run by a Moscow-friendly puppet regime in Kyiv
But Russia, crippled by sanctions, its economy in freefall, will then have to face an Iraq style insurgency, even as Russia is left with no money and an unhappy military
That’s the best case scenario
Worst: nukes
A throwaway comment on the radio yesterday said Putin's approval had risen 12% because of this. Don't know how trustworthy that is, but it doesn't augur well for any swift overthrow hopes.
Yes, all the reports I’m reading say that Russian state propaganda INSIDE Russia is working very well. They all believe this is a defensive move against nasty Ukrainian fascists. And of course people rally to the flag in any war, even one as rubbish and wicked as this (even Iraq had majority support in the UK at one point)
I am a bit blue today. After a horrible plague, a horrible war? It feels like this is a new pattern in human affairs. After decades of things generally getting better, now they are generally getting worse, and this will continue for some time
I'm keeping abrest of Russian propaganda, and it's probably working. The truth is that there are people in the east of Ukraine sympathetic to Russia. How many there are is up for debate, but the Russian reporters are finding them.
There has been a debate raging among the membership of a global, although German-based, non-profit foundation of which I'm an (mostly inactive) member on whether or not to publicly make a statement of support for Ukraine. A Russian member, living in Russia, whom I've worked with in the past and considered sane (although we've never discussed politics) posted a rant about Western intereference in Ukraine, the West-sponsored coup that toppled the democratically elected pro-Russian leader, NATO threatening Russia etc etc. Even he stated that Ukraine's government is not Nazi, but described them as extremists oppressing the Russian peoples of the East. To be clear, I think most/all of what he posted is complete nuts, but I haven't previously thought him to be nuts, so I assume the propaganda there, not just now but over the last decade or so since Russian interference in Ukraine, has been quite effective.
Is the right answer.
My wife has been fielding calls and messages from Russian friends and family, mostly the older generations, this week. Many of them think there’s Nazis, or neo-Nazis, in Ukraine, and that if Russia doesn’t keep the peace then there will be a war and killing of innocent people. They think that, because it’s what’s been on their version of News at Ten, for years now.
Sadly that will be the case, and I don't really know any good ways to change it. I would suggest that if anybody has any emails addresses or phone numbers of 'Ordinary Russians' the message over videos and so on. but being realistic this will only get to a small number of people and will it be fully believed? Good luck to 'Radio Free Europe' and others who do try to broadcast in to Russia, but again beyond a few people its not clear how many will receive it.
long term the solders who return form war will tell there story's to family and friends, as they did from WW1 and Afghanistan, but that will take a long time. and a lot of people will be dead by then.
The person I mentioned is, as it happens, a bit younger than me. And tech savvy - a software engineer. So, stange in a way to see such views. Interestingly, the message thread did not degenerate at that point, although a number of people responded point by point with facts, including a Ukrainian (now living in Germany, although I think only left Ukraine in the last couple of years, for work) whom I also know quite well. He was very calm and reaching out to the Russian poster, referring to him as a friend and brother and saying how saddened he was to see the misrepresentation of what had been going on in his country from this other person, whose opinions he normally values.
Whether any of that changes opinions, I do not know. The original Russian poster has not yet responded.
Have only had a scan through the last hour, but there does seem to be this odd thing where HY thinks our Trident missiles would restrain the russian bear. "we would threaten to attack Moscow" or some guff.
So lets understand how the hour or so of nuclear war would last. We threaten to nuke Moscow. They detect that we are at maximum readiness. So they choose to preempt - a nuclear attack on British military and 3C assets. That means they take out airbases, dockyards and command centres.
If you look at a map of this country and overlay these counterforce targets, you will see that we lose the country in a single attack. Like permanently lose it. Hard for London to order a counterattack when its had 8 SS-27 warheads flatten it and our cold war bunkers no longer exist.
So no, Trident will not defend London. If we fire them we are either in the process of being destroyed, or we have already been destroyed. I'd fare better up here with plenty of cows and potatoes and trees to cook them on, some of you less well.
Either way, its clear that the Big Dog has been leant on hard in his defence briefings. Instead of his usual detail-free waffle and bluster he is very clear when challenged over things like no-fly zones which means WWII which quickly could end us.
That is the whole reason Trident is on submarines not on land.
A Trident nuclear missile would be launched on Moscow from a submarine if the UK was attacked depending on what the PM of the time had written in their letter of last resort.
The PM and Cabinet have a nuclear bunker ready for them anyway if needed. I have already made clear I oppose a no fly zone and troops in Ukraine and only support sanctions.
This scenario is entirely based on most of Europe falling to Russian invasion and the UK being next in line
Thats not what you said though. You said that Trident would defend London. It won't.
If as you said we launch it at Moscow to stop the reds invading the UK they would simply launch a full counter strike and destroy the whole country.
If as you now say we launch at what used to be Moscow because the letter says launch they're opening the letter because London has been destroyed along with the rest of the UK. And they have missiles to fire because they were not used in the nuclear exchange which destroyed western civilisation because SLBMs are held back as a second strike platform.
So, we launch and bring about our own destruction. Or we launch having been destroyed.
Either way, Trident is NOT defending if London as you claim.
It is. If the Russians destroy London, we destroy Moscow by launching a Trident nuclear missile from a submarine.
That would be the risk the Russians would take.
Yes London may already have been destroyed when Trident was launched but so what? Moscow would still be destroyed in the end too
Much as I defer to the military strategists on here I think it is premature to determine that for one reason (logisitcs, morale, equipment readiness, whatever) or another, as evidenced by six pictures on twitter and one bbc picture of a tank with a thrown track, that the Russian invasion is failing.
This is not playing out in 24-hr news/twitter time. Best to wait a while to take stock before raising the winner's hand.
Though in the grand scheme of things Putin has already lost. They will at best have an unmanageable country that hates them and the rest of the world not dealing with them , bust economy and back to potatos and cabbage only queues. Or he will get Ceaușescued
Have only had a scan through the last hour, but there does seem to be this odd thing where HY thinks our Trident missiles would restrain the russian bear. "we would threaten to attack Moscow" or some guff.
So lets understand how the hour or so of nuclear war would last. We threaten to nuke Moscow. They detect that we are at maximum readiness. So they choose to preempt - a nuclear attack on British military and 3C assets. That means they take out airbases, dockyards and command centres.
If you look at a map of this country and overlay these counterforce targets, you will see that we lose the country in a single attack. Like permanently lose it. Hard for London to order a counterattack when its had 8 SS-27 warheads flatten it and our cold war bunkers no longer exist.
So no, Trident will not defend London. If we fire them we are either in the process of being destroyed, or we have already been destroyed. I'd fare better up here with plenty of cows and potatoes and trees to cook them on, some of you less well.
Either way, its clear that the Big Dog has been leant on hard in his defence briefings. Instead of his usual detail-free waffle and bluster he is very clear when challenged over things like no-fly zones which means WWII which quickly could end us.
Trident is, primarily, your bog standard, second strike kill-us-and-you-will-die deterrent. As described in a zillion papers/books, since before Polaris was the little rocket that grew up.... AKA one of the Minimum Deterrent options, as described in Herman Kahn
Since the point where the US and UK started saying that war was going to happen in Ukraine (back when everyone was ridiculing the suggestion), they have both been very clear in rejecting any direct military intervention - military aide and sanctions to help Ukraine, and reinforce NATO.
The line has been so consistent, that I think it must have been agreed between Washington and London.
Trident is a far more credible threat to Russia than Polaris as it has a longer range and more power. Just one Trident nuclear missile exploding is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas.
I was never advocating use of Trident to defend Ukraine, or even necessarily other NATO nations. However it remains a last resort of defence for the UK
Interesting how you concentrate on the irrelevant. Polaris was where the concept of the second strike really began to be possible. Rather than launch on warning. Yes, the Americans had tried constant airborne deference - but found it dangerous and hideously expensive.
Incidentally, that is warhead yield, not "missile". At, presumed, max yield.
"Sunak's absolutely shat the bed on this. So close, Rishi. He will look back on this week with regret, I'm sure of it."
- me, January 19th 22:27
I called him fucking it in December never mind mid January.
The point is not that I was first, I obviously wasn't. It's that I called it right at the peak of "Johnson is going", judging by the graph in the header.
On the subject of the tories in the polls, I don't subscribe to the optimistic view that they are going to do well out of this.
The further Ukraine slides into rubble and the more Putin pulverises them and is allowed by the rest of the west to get away with it, the worse this looks for Johnson.
We talk the talk but actually we're doing bugger all. We haven't even impounded the oligarch money which continues to sluice its way into the tory part coffers. They will take an absolutely hammering over this come the GE.
I think the UK's commitment to Ukraine - which began well before the conflict - is eminently defensible.
However I certainly agree that BJ will gain very little benefit from it, and any Tory MPs who think he's got an "Out of Jail Card" are making a very big mistake. Boris in not Back.
What it does do is reshuffle the pack a bit of possible successors. Still think it is Rishi's to lose but Ben Wallace, if he wants it, has become a plausible challenger. He has the gift of authenticity which is priceless. An old-fashioned commitment to public service, which he exemplifies, might be what the times require.
Much as I defer to the military strategists on here I think it is premature to determine that for one reason (logisitcs, morale, equipment readiness, whatever) or another, as evidenced by six pictures on twitter and one bbc picture of a tank with a thrown track, that the Russian invasion is failing.
This is not playing out in 24-hr news/twitter time. Best to wait a while to take stock before raising the winner's hand.
It's not that the Russian invasion is failing - they will probably still 'win', tactically - but Ukraine has not only exceeded our expectations but put a serious dent in Russia's ability to move on to the next domino; and meanwhile has allowed the west time to regroup. Who knows, in Russia's timeline, they may already have expected to have moved on to Moldova or Estonia. Ukraine is still resisting, a week into the invasion by one of the world's biggest militaries. Russia didn't expect that, and neither did I.
We may not have expected it, but I wonder whether our government did? Afterall we've been training and supplying Ukraine for years.
The thing that strikes me, looking back, is Boris's immediate video response saying from memory that "Russia must fail and be seen to fail" in its invasion. Biden from memory said similar too.
At the time that just struck me as typical Boris boosterism - but looking back, I wonder if there's more to it than that, and that Boris, Biden etc had war-gamed what is happening now?
If Russia can be defeated and lose this invasion, not just 'the peace' afterwards, then that is going to be a major paradigm shift going forwards.
We'd also been training and supplying the Afghan armed forces for years, but even the most pessimistic intelligence reports underestimated the speed with which Kabul fell.
Makes it hard to believe that they had perfect anticipation of how the last week would play out. Also the US offer to evacuate Zelenskyy from Kyiv would be a bit weird. If they knew the Russian invasion would struggle so badly why weaken the morale of the Ukrainian resistance by evacuating the President?
I'd say it's pretty clear that NATO intelligence has been surprised by the travails of the Russian military.
It's lost its platform on Sky, decided by Sky - surely?
Ofcom only launched an investigation yesterday.
'The EU has banned Russia Today' is worrying centralism, unless there has been a debate amongst the democratic structures first.
It's seemingly general for UK viewers. I've been looking at their website rt.com now and then for the last couple of weeks, and from today it's seemingly blocked ("can't be reached"). Don't know about the TV stuff.
The EU have blocked RT. As UK providers take its feed from Luxembourg that means we lose it too.
This is the exact thing we left the EU to stop. Farage should start a campaign to get RT restored to UK screens so that we don't have these faceless European bureaucrats cutting off sovereign British consumers desperate to see The Alex Salmond Show.
On the latter I don't mind popping down the road with my phone to livecast him from his garden gate. But not today its drizzling.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That would be nice. The trouble is that at a moral level the existence of mutually assured destruction not only changes the textbooks for generals about how to fight, it changes entirely the landscape of what constitutes a just war. To wage a just war (both secular and religious traditions are onto this) one of the features has to be proportion, risk, the chance of winning, of doing more good than harm and so on.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Absolutely not. If the law as it stands protects the oligarchs then you democratically change the law, if Parliament so decides - you don’t ‘sanction’ or ‘shame’ the lawyers. This is precisely why our system is superior to Putinesque autocracy
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Uh, we don't suspend rule of law just because we don't like those being subject to it. They have every right to try to challenge and defend themselves against legal sanctions.
Much as I defer to the military strategists on here I think it is premature to determine that for one reason (logisitcs, morale, equipment readiness, whatever) or another, as evidenced by six pictures on twitter and one bbc picture of a tank with a thrown track, that the Russian invasion is failing.
This is not playing out in 24-hr news/twitter time. Best to wait a while to take stock before raising the winner's hand.
It's not that the Russian invasion is failing - they will probably still 'win', tactically - but Ukraine has not only exceeded our expectations but put a serious dent in Russia's ability to move on to the next domino; and meanwhile has allowed the west time to regroup. Who knows, in Russia's timeline, they may already have expected to have moved on to Moldova or Estonia. Ukraine is still resisting, a week into the invasion by one of the world's biggest militaries. Russia didn't expect that, and neither did I.
We may not have expected it, but I wonder whether our government did? Afterall we've been training and supplying Ukraine for years.
The thing that strikes me, looking back, is Boris's immediate video response saying from memory that "Russia must fail and be seen to fail" in its invasion. Biden from memory said similar too.
At the time that just struck me as typical Boris boosterism - but looking back, I wonder if there's more to it than that, and that Boris, Biden etc had war-gamed what is happening now?
If Russia can be defeated and lose this invasion, not just 'the peace' afterwards, then that is going to be a major paradigm shift going forwards.
We've also been training and supplying the Afghan armed forces for years, but even the most pessimistic intelligence reports underestimated the speed with which Kabul fell.
Makes it hard to believe that they had perfect anticipation of how the last week would play out. Also the US offer to evacuate Zelenskyy from Kyiv would be a bit weird. If they knew the Russian invasion would struggle so badly why weaken the morale of the Ukrainian resistance by evacuating the President?
I'd say it's pretty clear that NATO intelligence has been surprised by the travails of the Russian military.
Are you sure the US didn't ask him so he could say no?
Have only had a scan through the last hour, but there does seem to be this odd thing where HY thinks our Trident missiles would restrain the russian bear. "we would threaten to attack Moscow" or some guff.
So lets understand how the hour or so of nuclear war would last. We threaten to nuke Moscow. They detect that we are at maximum readiness. So they choose to preempt - a nuclear attack on British military and 3C assets. That means they take out airbases, dockyards and command centres.
If you look at a map of this country and overlay these counterforce targets, you will see that we lose the country in a single attack. Like permanently lose it. Hard for London to order a counterattack when its had 8 SS-27 warheads flatten it and our cold war bunkers no longer exist.
So no, Trident will not defend London. If we fire them we are either in the process of being destroyed, or we have already been destroyed. I'd fare better up here with plenty of cows and potatoes and trees to cook them on, some of you less well.
Either way, its clear that the Big Dog has been leant on hard in his defence briefings. Instead of his usual detail-free waffle and bluster he is very clear when challenged over things like no-fly zones which means WWII which quickly could end us.
Since the point where the US and UK started saying that war was going to happen in Ukraine (back when everyone was ridiculing the suggestion), they have both been very clear in rejecting any direct military intervention - military aide and sanctions to help Ukraine, and reinforce NATO.
The line has been so consistent, that I think it must have been agreed between Washington and London.
And when the EU (belatedly) joined the party and “promised fighter jets for Ukraine” they had to row back.
Tory Party chairman - and chief fundraiser - Ben Elliot, has deleted a page on his company's website which boasted of "nearly 15 years' experience providing luxury lifestyle management services to Russia's elite and corporate members."🤔 ~AA
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Uh, we don't suspend rule of law just because we don't like those being subject to it. They have every right to try to challenge and defend themselves against legal sanctions.
Hence why Boris and Starmer are having to address the issues
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Uh, we don't suspend rule of law just because we don't like those being subject to it. They have every right to try to challenge and defend themselves against legal sanctions.
On topic, yep, Johnson is more likely than not to fight the next GE as leader. Ukraine is a factor in this but it isn't the big reason. Tory MPs will still ditch him if polls say they have to in order to save their seats. It's all about the party's electoral prospects imo. He won a large majority quite recently so they need strong evidence he's become toxic (and someone else would be much better) before they'd bite the bullet and replace him. That was the essential situation before the war - eg law breaking and lying to parliament wasn't enough - and it remains the case.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Uh, we don't suspend rule of law just because we don't like those being subject to it. They have every right to try to challenge and defend themselves against legal sanctions.
Not if we pass primary legislation they can't.
Not sufficient that it's primary legislation. It would have to be a very rigorous piece of work.
Much as I defer to the military strategists on here I think it is premature to determine that for one reason (logisitcs, morale, equipment readiness, whatever) or another, as evidenced by six pictures on twitter and one bbc picture of a tank with a thrown track, that the Russian invasion is failing.
This is not playing out in 24-hr news/twitter time. Best to wait a while to take stock before raising the winner's hand.
It's not that the Russian invasion is failing - they will probably still 'win', tactically - but Ukraine has not only exceeded our expectations but put a serious dent in Russia's ability to move on to the next domino; and meanwhile has allowed the west time to regroup. Who knows, in Russia's timeline, they may already have expected to have moved on to Moldova or Estonia. Ukraine is still resisting, a week into the invasion by one of the world's biggest militaries. Russia didn't expect that, and neither did I.
We may not have expected it, but I wonder whether our government did? Afterall we've been training and supplying Ukraine for years.
The thing that strikes me, looking back, is Boris's immediate video response saying from memory that "Russia must fail and be seen to fail" in its invasion. Biden from memory said similar too.
At the time that just struck me as typical Boris boosterism - but looking back, I wonder if there's more to it than that, and that Boris, Biden etc had war-gamed what is happening now?
If Russia can be defeated and lose this invasion, not just 'the peace' afterwards, then that is going to be a major paradigm shift going forwards.
We've also been training and supplying the Afghan armed forces for years, but even the most pessimistic intelligence reports underestimated the speed with which Kabul fell.
Makes it hard to believe that they had perfect anticipation of how the last week would play out. Also the US offer to evacuate Zelenskyy from Kyiv would be a bit weird. If they knew the Russian invasion would struggle so badly why weaken the morale of the Ukrainian resistance by evacuating the President?
I'd say it's pretty clear that NATO intelligence has been surprised by the travails of the Russian military.
The big factor in the Afghan situation was that the truth was not wanted.
It seems that US and UK intelligence was very up to the mark on Russian plans. Which means they may have been getting their assessments of Russian readiness and capabilities from *Russian* inside information. As in what was briefed to Putin.
There is history for this - during the Cold War, the West built it's intelligence estimates on USSR capabilities from information stollen at the highest levels in the Kremlin. Which turned out to be bollocks in many cases - the Kremlin was being briefed lies by it's own people.....
"Boris Johnson will need to bite the bullet: we must urgently increase spending back to 3 per cent of GDP, and conceivably to 3.5 per cent if we want to be Europe’s leading military power. I don’t say this with any relish: I’m not a militarist. But there are no other responsible options..."
Several commentators have noted that if we are about to enter Cold War II (probably of them all not the worst scenario) then that is a heaven sent gift for the West's militaries. It would be a green light for them to squeeze every dollar from their countries' budgets. Plenty of kit, new money, priorities, and all for a war they would never fight.
As opposed to, say, Afghan and Iraq where they did have to fight.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Absolutely not. If the law as it stands protects the oligarchs then you democratically change the law, if Parliament so decides - you don’t ‘sanction’ or ‘shame’ the lawyers. This is precisely why our system is superior to Putinesque autocracy
I agree and to be fair Boris and Starmer agreed at PMQs to work together to address the issue but this is the reason for the delays
We have to abide by the law and it can be frustrating when the law is unjust
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That would be nice. The trouble is that at a moral level the existence of mutually assured destruction not only changes the textbooks for generals about how to fight, it changes entirely the landscape of what constitutes a just war. To wage a just war (both secular and religious traditions are onto this) one of the features has to be proportion, risk, the chance of winning, of doing more good than harm and so on.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
What would we have decided?
That's what our leaders face now. God help them.
Hitler was so close to getting nukes first. It is a truly terrifying concept and counter-factual, and of course the basis for The Man in the High Castle. A world where Hitler wins and rules the planet
The difference between that idea, and what we face now, is that both sides - many sides - have nukes. A Mexican stand off
Much as I defer to the military strategists on here I think it is premature to determine that for one reason (logisitcs, morale, equipment readiness, whatever) or another, as evidenced by six pictures on twitter and one bbc picture of a tank with a thrown track, that the Russian invasion is failing.
This is not playing out in 24-hr news/twitter time. Best to wait a while to take stock before raising the winner's hand.
It's not that the Russian invasion is failing - they will probably still 'win', tactically - but Ukraine has not only exceeded our expectations but put a serious dent in Russia's ability to move on to the next domino; and meanwhile has allowed the west time to regroup. Who knows, in Russia's timeline, they may already have expected to have moved on to Moldova or Estonia. Ukraine is still resisting, a week into the invasion by one of the world's biggest militaries. Russia didn't expect that, and neither did I.
We may not have expected it, but I wonder whether our government did? Afterall we've been training and supplying Ukraine for years.
The thing that strikes me, looking back, is Boris's immediate video response saying from memory that "Russia must fail and be seen to fail" in its invasion. Biden from memory said similar too.
At the time that just struck me as typical Boris boosterism - but looking back, I wonder if there's more to it than that, and that Boris, Biden etc had war-gamed what is happening now?
If Russia can be defeated and lose this invasion, not just 'the peace' afterwards, then that is going to be a major paradigm shift going forwards.
We'd also been training and supplying the Afghan armed forces for years, but even the most pessimistic intelligence reports underestimated the speed with which Kabul fell.
Makes it hard to believe that they had perfect anticipation of how the last week would play out. Also the US offer to evacuate Zelenskyy from Kyiv would be a bit weird. If they knew the Russian invasion would struggle so badly why weaken the morale of the Ukrainian resistance by evacuating the President?
I'd say it's pretty clear that NATO intelligence has been surprised by the travails of the Russian military.
The big difference between Afghanistan and Ukraine is the Ukrainians wanted our help. The Ukrainians were willing to fight on the side we were taking. The Afghanis ... not so much.
As for the US offer to evacuate Zelenskyy, I believe that's standard operating procedure in this sort of scenario and it'd be weird not to make that offer - but also even if they knew that he'd reject the offer, it still makes sense to make it. Whether it was deliberately planned or not, having had an escape offered and rejected and his reported line of "I don't need transport, we need arms" has been awe-inspiring and really rallied the rest of the world that was prevaricating until then.
Yes that is true it does give succour to those who want or need it. I am just concerned about the old echo chamber element of twitter. We can't condemn it when we disagree with its nature on the one hand, and cite it as a key element in the fight for truth on the other.
Yes, Twitter's basically a neutral tool for projecting unfiltered chatter from all kinds of people, and no more reliable that what a stranger tells you in a pub. The general ethos of mutually supportive networks encourages rah-rah cheerleading - the good guys are winning, the other side are idiots. On a similar note it's curious that we've shut down access to RussiaToday, which I suspect had a viewership close to zero before this. From today, we're not allowed to look at it, which is something I don't think we've ever done before - e.g. I believe it's possible to look at militant Islamist websites, and during WW2 AFAIK we never bothered to try to jam Lord Haw-Haw.
I've no brief for the war, which is basically neo-Czarist imperialism, but understanding what everyone is saying is important, and if we stop people doing that, it's harder to complain about Russian censorship of Western comment. It also makes it harder to have an unconstrained discussion as one starts to think that there's something suspect about even knowing what the other side are saying.
I agree we shouldn’t ban Russia Today. But was it a UK political decision? I thought it was done of necessity for some complex EU-related reason
RT hasn’t been banned by Britain. The satellite operator who sends the broadcast feed has terminated their contract. Google has also binned their Youtube page.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Absolutely not. If the law as it stands protects the oligarchs then you democratically change the law, if Parliament so decides - you don’t ‘sanction’ or ‘shame’ the lawyers. This is precisely why our system is superior to Putinesque autocracy
I agree and to be fair Boris and Starmer agreed at PMQs to work together to address the issue but this is the reason for the delays
We have to abide by the law and it can be frustrating when the law is unjust
Ok, fairy nuff. You seemed to be saying the opposite earlier. But maybe I need a coffee and another aspirin
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Absolutely not. If the law as it stands protects the oligarchs then you democratically change the law, if Parliament so decides - you don’t ‘sanction’ or ‘shame’ the lawyers. This is precisely why our system is superior to Putinesque autocracy
I agree and to be fair Boris and Starmer agreed at PMQs to work together to address the issue but this is the reason for the delays
We have to abide by the law and it can be frustrating when the law is unjust
The rule of law is the big difference between us and the Russians. Almost everyone here normally acknowledges that, its strange to have anyone arguing that should be thrown away.
Much as I defer to the military strategists on here I think it is premature to determine that for one reason (logisitcs, morale, equipment readiness, whatever) or another, as evidenced by six pictures on twitter and one bbc picture of a tank with a thrown track, that the Russian invasion is failing.
This is not playing out in 24-hr news/twitter time. Best to wait a while to take stock before raising the winner's hand.
Though in the grand scheme of things Putin has already lost. They will at best have an unmanageable country that hates them and the rest of the world not dealing with them , bust economy and back to potatos and cabbage only queues. Or he will get Ceaușescued
It took us two years to get rid of May and she and her cabal weren't wielding ridiculous power over the armed forces and security services.
I don't think it too likely that Putin will suffer from internal dissent/deposition.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Absolutely not. If the law as it stands protects the oligarchs then you democratically change the law, if Parliament so decides - you don’t ‘sanction’ or ‘shame’ the lawyers. This is precisely why our system is superior to Putinesque autocracy
I agree and to be fair Boris and Starmer agreed at PMQs to work together to address the issue but this is the reason for the delays
We have to abide by the law and it can be frustrating when the law is unjust
The rule of law is the big difference between us and the Russians. Almost everyone here normally acknowledges that, its strange to have anyone arguing that should be thrown away.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That would be nice. The trouble is that at a moral level the existence of mutually assured destruction not only changes the textbooks for generals about how to fight, it changes entirely the landscape of what constitutes a just war. To wage a just war (both secular and religious traditions are onto this) one of the features has to be proportion, risk, the chance of winning, of doing more good than harm and so on.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
What would we have decided?
That's what our leaders face now. God help them.
Hitler was so close to getting nukes first. It is a truly terrifying concept and counter-factual, and of course the basis for The Man in the High Castle. A world where Hitler wins and rules the planet
The difference between that idea, and what we face now, is that both sides - many sides - have nukes. A Mexican stand off
If Hitler had got atomic bombs by 1944 (and he already had V1s and V2s by then) then D Day would likely not have happened. With the US also having atomic bombs by the end of WW2, it would have ended in stalemate much like the Cold War did for decades
Much as I defer to the military strategists on here I think it is premature to determine that for one reason (logisitcs, morale, equipment readiness, whatever) or another, as evidenced by six pictures on twitter and one bbc picture of a tank with a thrown track, that the Russian invasion is failing.
This is not playing out in 24-hr news/twitter time. Best to wait a while to take stock before raising the winner's hand.
It's not that the Russian invasion is failing - they will probably still 'win', tactically - but Ukraine has not only exceeded our expectations but put a serious dent in Russia's ability to move on to the next domino; and meanwhile has allowed the west time to regroup. Who knows, in Russia's timeline, they may already have expected to have moved on to Moldova or Estonia. Ukraine is still resisting, a week into the invasion by one of the world's biggest militaries. Russia didn't expect that, and neither did I.
We may not have expected it, but I wonder whether our government did? Afterall we've been training and supplying Ukraine for years.
The thing that strikes me, looking back, is Boris's immediate video response saying from memory that "Russia must fail and be seen to fail" in its invasion. Biden from memory said similar too.
At the time that just struck me as typical Boris boosterism - but looking back, I wonder if there's more to it than that, and that Boris, Biden etc had war-gamed what is happening now?
If Russia can be defeated and lose this invasion, not just 'the peace' afterwards, then that is going to be a major paradigm shift going forwards.
We'd also been training and supplying the Afghan armed forces for years, but even the most pessimistic intelligence reports underestimated the speed with which Kabul fell.
Makes it hard to believe that they had perfect anticipation of how the last week would play out. Also the US offer to evacuate Zelenskyy from Kyiv would be a bit weird. If they knew the Russian invasion would struggle so badly why weaken the morale of the Ukrainian resistance by evacuating the President?
I'd say it's pretty clear that NATO intelligence has been surprised by the travails of the Russian military.
I know I sound like a stuck record (remember them) but what are the travails of the Russian military as it is engaged in Ukraine.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That would be nice. The trouble is that at a moral level the existence of mutually assured destruction not only changes the textbooks for generals about how to fight, it changes entirely the landscape of what constitutes a just war. To wage a just war (both secular and religious traditions are onto this) one of the features has to be proportion, risk, the chance of winning, of doing more good than harm and so on.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
What would we have decided?
That's what our leaders face now. God help them.
Hitler was so close to getting nukes first. It is a truly terrifying concept and counter-factual, and of course the basis for The Man in the High Castle. A world where Hitler wins and rules the planet
The difference between that idea, and what we face now, is that both sides - many sides - have nukes. A Mexican stand off
I'm not sure Hitler was ever that close to functioning nuclear weapons. He had, of course, nailed the delivery system, at least to as far as London...
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Uh, we don't suspend rule of law just because we don't like those being subject to it. They have every right to try to challenge and defend themselves against legal sanctions.
Not if we pass primary legislation they can't.
Even then they can still challenge it. They might not get the law struck down, but a court could still declare it incompatible with other legislation.
Yes that is true it does give succour to those who want or need it. I am just concerned about the old echo chamber element of twitter. We can't condemn it when we disagree with its nature on the one hand, and cite it as a key element in the fight for truth on the other.
Yes, Twitter's basically a neutral tool for projecting unfiltered chatter from all kinds of people, and no more reliable that what a stranger tells you in a pub. The general ethos of mutually supportive networks encourages rah-rah cheerleading - the good guys are winning, the other side are idiots. On a similar note it's curious that we've shut down access to RussiaToday, which I suspect had a viewership close to zero before this. From today, we're not allowed to look at it, which is something I don't think we've ever done before - e.g. I believe it's possible to look at militant Islamist websites, and during WW2 AFAIK we never bothered to try to jam Lord Haw-Haw.
I've no brief for the war, which is basically neo-Czarist imperialism, but understanding what everyone is saying is important, and if we stop people doing that, it's harder to complain about Russian censorship of Western comment. It also makes it harder to have an unconstrained discussion as one starts to think that there's something suspect about even knowing what the other side are saying.
I agree we shouldn’t ban Russia Today. But was it a UK political decision? I thought it was done of necessity for some complex EU-related reason
RT hasn’t been banned by Britain. The satellite operator who sends the broadcast feed has terminated their contract. Google has also binned their Youtube page.
I can get it easily online. So it’s definitely not ‘banned’. Which is good - banning your enemy’s obvious bullshit is a sign of weakness. Unless it is actively inciting treason and rapine. I agree with NPXMP on this
And FWIW Russia Today is not as bad as Al Jazeera, esp AJ Arabic (which we have never banned). There have been times when AJA has been openly pro-jihadist, even sympathetic to ISIS
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Absolutely not. If the law as it stands protects the oligarchs then you democratically change the law, if Parliament so decides - you don’t ‘sanction’ or ‘shame’ the lawyers. This is precisely why our system is superior to Putinesque autocracy
I agree and to be fair Boris and Starmer agreed at PMQs to work together to address the issue but this is the reason for the delays
We have to abide by the law and it can be frustrating when the law is unjust
The rule of law is the big difference between us and the Russians. Almost everyone here normally acknowledges that, its strange to have anyone arguing that should be thrown away.
Yes but we can pass the Taking All Abramovich's Money Away Act 2023 without fear of him having recourse to EU law because sovrantee. I'd have thought that was the nimble Vs sclerotic thing to do?
Also what about those times when it was really cool to break international law and renege on treaties?
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That would be nice. The trouble is that at a moral level the existence of mutually assured destruction not only changes the textbooks for generals about how to fight, it changes entirely the landscape of what constitutes a just war. To wage a just war (both secular and religious traditions are onto this) one of the features has to be proportion, risk, the chance of winning, of doing more good than harm and so on.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
What would we have decided?
That's what our leaders face now. God help them.
Hitler was so close to getting nukes first. It is a truly terrifying concept and counter-factual, and of course the basis for The Man in the High Castle. A world where Hitler wins and rules the planet
The difference between that idea, and what we face now, is that both sides - many sides - have nukes. A Mexican stand off
He was no-where near. If the attempted reactor in Bavaria had a bit more heavy water, it would have run away and achieved the world's first melt down. The German scientists on the project were out of their depth
Much as I defer to the military strategists on here I think it is premature to determine that for one reason (logisitcs, morale, equipment readiness, whatever) or another, as evidenced by six pictures on twitter and one bbc picture of a tank with a thrown track, that the Russian invasion is failing.
This is not playing out in 24-hr news/twitter time. Best to wait a while to take stock before raising the winner's hand.
It's not that the Russian invasion is failing - they will probably still 'win', tactically - but Ukraine has not only exceeded our expectations but put a serious dent in Russia's ability to move on to the next domino; and meanwhile has allowed the west time to regroup. Who knows, in Russia's timeline, they may already have expected to have moved on to Moldova or Estonia. Ukraine is still resisting, a week into the invasion by one of the world's biggest militaries. Russia didn't expect that, and neither did I.
We may not have expected it, but I wonder whether our government did? Afterall we've been training and supplying Ukraine for years.
The thing that strikes me, looking back, is Boris's immediate video response saying from memory that "Russia must fail and be seen to fail" in its invasion. Biden from memory said similar too.
At the time that just struck me as typical Boris boosterism - but looking back, I wonder if there's more to it than that, and that Boris, Biden etc had war-gamed what is happening now?
If Russia can be defeated and lose this invasion, not just 'the peace' afterwards, then that is going to be a major paradigm shift going forwards.
We'd also been training and supplying the Afghan armed forces for years, but even the most pessimistic intelligence reports underestimated the speed with which Kabul fell.
Makes it hard to believe that they had perfect anticipation of how the last week would play out. Also the US offer to evacuate Zelenskyy from Kyiv would be a bit weird. If they knew the Russian invasion would struggle so badly why weaken the morale of the Ukrainian resistance by evacuating the President?
I'd say it's pretty clear that NATO intelligence has been surprised by the travails of the Russian military.
The big difference between Afghanistan and Ukraine is the Ukrainians wanted our help. The Ukrainians were willing to fight on the side we were taking. The Afghanis ... not so much.
As for the US offer to evacuate Zelenskyy, I believe that's standard operating procedure in this sort of scenario and it'd be weird not to make that offer - but also even if they knew that he'd reject the offer, it still makes sense to make it. Whether it was deliberately planned or not, having had an escape offered and rejected and his reported line of "I don't need transport, we need arms" has been awe-inspiring and really rallied the rest of the world that was prevaricating until then.
Zelensky is a truly remarkable man and has managed to move German foreign policy more in one week than the previous 60 years .
I have an exceptionally mild cold. It consists of a very infrequent cough, a slight tickle in my throat, the odd sneeze, and a faint sense of fatigue.
Because I have not had a cold for about two years it nonetheless feels like cholera, psychologically.
Hope you have tested, that is exactly how Omicron feels.
Even if you have Omicron, why bother testing? It's just a normal virus same as any other now.
If you don't feel up to going out, stay at home. If you do, go out. Don't visit those who are extremely vulnerable but that's always been the same even with the common cold.
Just use some sense. Tests are redundant since Covid or Cold you should act the same.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That would be nice. The trouble is that at a moral level the existence of mutually assured destruction not only changes the textbooks for generals about how to fight, it changes entirely the landscape of what constitutes a just war. To wage a just war (both secular and religious traditions are onto this) one of the features has to be proportion, risk, the chance of winning, of doing more good than harm and so on.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
What would we have decided?
That's what our leaders face now. God help them.
Hitler was so close to getting nukes first. It is a truly terrifying concept and counter-factual, and of course the basis for The Man in the High Castle. A world where Hitler wins and rules the planet
The difference between that idea, and what we face now, is that both sides - many sides - have nukes. A Mexican stand off
I'm not sure Hitler was ever that close to functioning nuclear weapons. He had, of course, nailed the delivery system, at least to as far as London...
Well yes he was the first to ballistic missiles: the V2. Tho wiki agrees with you that Nazi nukes were never imminent
Tory Party chairman - and chief fundraiser - Ben Elliot, has deleted a page on his company's website which boasted of "nearly 15 years' experience providing luxury lifestyle management services to Russia's elite and corporate members."🤔 ~AA
Yes that is true it does give succour to those who want or need it. I am just concerned about the old echo chamber element of twitter. We can't condemn it when we disagree with its nature on the one hand, and cite it as a key element in the fight for truth on the other.
Yes, Twitter's basically a neutral tool for projecting unfiltered chatter from all kinds of people, and no more reliable that what a stranger tells you in a pub. The general ethos of mutually supportive networks encourages rah-rah cheerleading - the good guys are winning, the other side are idiots. On a similar note it's curious that we've shut down access to RussiaToday, which I suspect had a viewership close to zero before this. From today, we're not allowed to look at it, which is something I don't think we've ever done before - e.g. I believe it's possible to look at militant Islamist websites, and during WW2 AFAIK we never bothered to try to jam Lord Haw-Haw.
I've no brief for the war, which is basically neo-Czarist imperialism, but understanding what everyone is saying is important, and if we stop people doing that, it's harder to complain about Russian censorship of Western comment. It also makes it harder to have an unconstrained discussion as one starts to think that there's something suspect about even knowing what the other side are saying.
I agree we shouldn’t ban Russia Today. But was it a UK political decision? I thought it was done of necessity for some complex EU-related reason
Have we banned Russia Today?
It's lost its platform on Sky, decided by Sky - surely?
Ofcom only launched an investigation yesterday.
'The EU has banned Russia Today' is worrying centralism, unless there has been a debate amongst the democratic structures first.
"Are you ready to defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine with weapons in hand?" - Yes, google translate....
Однозначно так - Definitely so Скорiше так - Rather so Важко вiдповiсти - It is difficult to answer Скорiше нi - Not soon Однозначно нi - Definitely not
The regionality map used is
So the “pro-Russia” East is still net +27 in favour of defending Ukraine……
Yes, but you have to remember autocrats suffer a disorder when it comes to support numbers and automatically transpose the figures for support/nonsupport.
In a splendid display of Russianness, holders of onshore Russian bonds will not receive interest on these bonds but will be liable for tax on the interest. reuters.com/article/ukrain…
In a splendid display of Russianness, holders of onshore Russian bonds will not receive interest on these bonds but will be liable for tax on the interest. reuters.com/article/ukrain…
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That would be nice. The trouble is that at a moral level the existence of mutually assured destruction not only changes the textbooks for generals about how to fight, it changes entirely the landscape of what constitutes a just war. To wage a just war (both secular and religious traditions are onto this) one of the features has to be proportion, risk, the chance of winning, of doing more good than harm and so on.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
What would we have decided?
That's what our leaders face now. God help them.
Hitler was so close to getting nukes first. It is a truly terrifying concept and counter-factual, and of course the basis for The Man in the High Castle. A world where Hitler wins and rules the planet
The difference between that idea, and what we face now, is that both sides - many sides - have nukes. A Mexican stand off
He was no-where near. If the attempted reactor in Bavaria had a bit more heavy water, it would have run away and achieved the world's first melt down. The German scientists on the project were out of their depth
You’re right. I’ve checked. He wasn’t that close to getting nukes and I RESILE!
Yes! RESILE!
In my mind there is some daring allied operation mixing Where Eagles Dare with the Heroes of Telemark and it’s turned into reality. Where Eagles Dare IS brilliant, tho
BREAKING: Ukraine's military said the southern city of Kherson is not under Russian control. “By now... heavy fights are taking place near Kherson. The city is not under Russian control. They use it as a temporary base” for units to transfer, an armed forces representative said. https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1499365512345800707
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Uh, we don't suspend rule of law just because we don't like those being subject to it. They have every right to try to challenge and defend themselves against legal sanctions.
Not if we pass primary legislation they can't.
Even then they can still challenge it. They might not get the law struck down, but a court could still declare it incompatible with other legislation.
It absolutely could not. That's parliamentary sovereignty for you.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That would be nice. The trouble is that at a moral level the existence of mutually assured destruction not only changes the textbooks for generals about how to fight, it changes entirely the landscape of what constitutes a just war. To wage a just war (both secular and religious traditions are onto this) one of the features has to be proportion, risk, the chance of winning, of doing more good than harm and so on.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
What would we have decided?
That's what our leaders face now. God help them.
Hitler was so close to getting nukes first. It is a truly terrifying concept and counter-factual, and of course the basis for The Man in the High Castle. A world where Hitler wins and rules the planet
The difference between that idea, and what we face now, is that both sides - many sides - have nukes. A Mexican stand off
He was no-where near. If the attempted reactor in Bavaria had a bit more heavy water, it would have run away and achieved the world's first melt down. The German scientists on the project were out of their depth
The Americans were absolutely right to develop. They couldn't really know. The great moral murkiness was in dropping these bombs on Japan, instead. Einstein regretted that for the whole of the rest of his days.
Since 1949 and the development of the Soviet bomb, though, the main threat has been the mixture of nuclear weapons and totalitarianism. And that will probably remain so, unless climate change makes our world uninhabitable first.
That's why Putin might have even prevented nuclear weapons getting into terrorists' hands in the first act. We need to keep a careful eye on that again, because it's also the key a disastrously lackadaisical attitude to Russia in the long-term overall.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That would be nice. The trouble is that at a moral level the existence of mutually assured destruction not only changes the textbooks for generals about how to fight, it changes entirely the landscape of what constitutes a just war. To wage a just war (both secular and religious traditions are onto this) one of the features has to be proportion, risk, the chance of winning, of doing more good than harm and so on.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
What would we have decided?
That's what our leaders face now. God help them.
Hitler was so close to getting nukes first. It is a truly terrifying concept and counter-factual, and of course the basis for The Man in the High Castle. A world where Hitler wins and rules the planet
The difference between that idea, and what we face now, is that both sides - many sides - have nukes. A Mexican stand off
I'm not sure Hitler was ever that close to functioning nuclear weapons. He had, of course, nailed the delivery system, at least to as far as London...
Well yes he was the first to ballistic missiles: the V2. Tho wiki agrees with you that Nazi nukes were never imminent
But if he had delayed the war by a couple of years, to investigate further… brrr
The What-If that always interested me was - What if Germany won WWI?
Part of their plan was to grab chunks of France and Belgium ready for the next war - yes, planing WWII before WWI properly got started.
So in about 1940*, the Kaiser Whilhem Institute in Berlin delivers some good news about buckets of instant sunshine to the Kaiser. Who is head of a War is Good, War is God empire.....
#Ukraine: More abandoned supply vehicles, including a fuel tanker & truck marked up as an Ambulance; but actually containing quantities of 3VOF6 122 mm HE reduced charge rounds for use with the D-30 howitzer and the 2S1 2S1 Gvozdika SPG.
Yes that is true it does give succour to those who want or need it. I am just concerned about the old echo chamber element of twitter. We can't condemn it when we disagree with its nature on the one hand, and cite it as a key element in the fight for truth on the other.
Yes, Twitter's basically a neutral tool for projecting unfiltered chatter from all kinds of people, and no more reliable that what a stranger tells you in a pub. The general ethos of mutually supportive networks encourages rah-rah cheerleading - the good guys are winning, the other side are idiots. On a similar note it's curious that we've shut down access to RussiaToday, which I suspect had a viewership close to zero before this. From today, we're not allowed to look at it, which is something I don't think we've ever done before - e.g. I believe it's possible to look at militant Islamist websites, and during WW2 AFAIK we never bothered to try to jam Lord Haw-Haw.
I've no brief for the war, which is basically neo-Czarist imperialism, but understanding what everyone is saying is important, and if we stop people doing that, it's harder to complain about Russian censorship of Western comment. It also makes it harder to have an unconstrained discussion as one starts to think that there's something suspect about even knowing what the other side are saying.
I agree we shouldn’t ban Russia Today. But was it a UK political decision? I thought it was done of necessity for some complex EU-related reason
Have we banned Russia Today?
It's lost its platform on Sky, decided by Sky - surely?
Ofcom only launched an investigation yesterday.
'The EU has banned Russia Today' is worrying centralism, unless there has been a debate amongst the democratic structures first.
Seems UK has done nothing other than lots of blowhard hot air from Boris and Truss
You mean, apart from training 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers over the last 7 years and being among the first to arm them and warn about the Russian war? Also being the first to ban Russian aircraft and now ships, and work to get the SWIFT ban which many of our peers were “reluctant” to do? But apart from that, what did the British do to help Ukraine?
"Are you ready to defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine with weapons in hand?" - Yes, google translate....
Однозначно так - Definitely so Скорiше так - Rather so Важко вiдповiсти - It is difficult to answer Скорiше нi - Not soon Однозначно нi - Definitely not
The regionality map used is
So the “pro-Russia” East is still net +27 in favour of defending Ukraine……
Yes, but you have to remember autocrats suffer a disorder when it comes to support numbers and automatically transpose the figures for support/nonsupport.
I'm just suprised that this poll hasn't got more attention here - this is Poll Analysis Central;....
I have an exceptionally mild cold. It consists of a very infrequent cough, a slight tickle in my throat, the odd sneeze, and a faint sense of fatigue.
Because I have not had a cold for about two years it nonetheless feels like cholera, psychologically.
Hope you have tested, that is exactly how Omicron feels.
Even if you have Omicron, why bother testing? It's just a normal virus same as any other now.
If you don't feel up to going out, stay at home. If you do, go out. Don't visit those who are extremely vulnerable but that's always been the same even with the common cold.
Just use some sense. Tests are redundant since Covid or Cold you should act the same.
HMMMMMM, What if someone in your family has immune issues or is high risk. I would still like to know I had it and try not to give it to them. Still a good few dying due to it.
Much as I defer to the military strategists on here I think it is premature to determine that for one reason (logisitcs, morale, equipment readiness, whatever) or another, as evidenced by six pictures on twitter and one bbc picture of a tank with a thrown track, that the Russian invasion is failing.
This is not playing out in 24-hr news/twitter time. Best to wait a while to take stock before raising the winner's hand.
It's not that the Russian invasion is failing - they will probably still 'win', tactically - but Ukraine has not only exceeded our expectations but put a serious dent in Russia's ability to move on to the next domino; and meanwhile has allowed the west time to regroup. Who knows, in Russia's timeline, they may already have expected to have moved on to Moldova or Estonia. Ukraine is still resisting, a week into the invasion by one of the world's biggest militaries. Russia didn't expect that, and neither did I.
We may not have expected it, but I wonder whether our government did? Afterall we've been training and supplying Ukraine for years.
The thing that strikes me, looking back, is Boris's immediate video response saying from memory that "Russia must fail and be seen to fail" in its invasion. Biden from memory said similar too.
At the time that just struck me as typical Boris boosterism - but looking back, I wonder if there's more to it than that, and that Boris, Biden etc had war-gamed what is happening now?
If Russia can be defeated and lose this invasion, not just 'the peace' afterwards, then that is going to be a major paradigm shift going forwards.
We'd also been training and supplying the Afghan armed forces for years, but even the most pessimistic intelligence reports underestimated the speed with which Kabul fell.
Makes it hard to believe that they had perfect anticipation of how the last week would play out. Also the US offer to evacuate Zelenskyy from Kyiv would be a bit weird. If they knew the Russian invasion would struggle so badly why weaken the morale of the Ukrainian resistance by evacuating the President?
I'd say it's pretty clear that NATO intelligence has been surprised by the travails of the Russian military.
The big difference between Afghanistan and Ukraine is the Ukrainians wanted our help. The Ukrainians were willing to fight on the side we were taking. The Afghanis ... not so much.
As for the US offer to evacuate Zelenskyy, I believe that's standard operating procedure in this sort of scenario and it'd be weird not to make that offer - but also even if they knew that he'd reject the offer, it still makes sense to make it. Whether it was deliberately planned or not, having had an escape offered and rejected and his reported line of "I don't need transport, we need arms" has been awe-inspiring and really rallied the rest of the world that was prevaricating until then.
Zelensky is a truly remarkable man and has managed to move German foreign policy more in one week than the previous 60 years .
I have an exceptionally mild cold. It consists of a very infrequent cough, a slight tickle in my throat, the odd sneeze, and a faint sense of fatigue.
Because I have not had a cold for about two years it nonetheless feels like cholera, psychologically.
Hope you have tested, that is exactly how Omicron feels.
Even if you have Omicron, why bother testing? It's just a normal virus same as any other now.
If you don't feel up to going out, stay at home. If you do, go out. Don't visit those who are extremely vulnerable but that's always been the same even with the common cold.
Just use some sense. Tests are redundant since Covid or Cold you should act the same.
HMMMMMM, What if someone in your family has immune issues or is high risk. I would still like to know I had it and try not to give it to them. Still a good few dying due to it.
I tested positive on an LFT, therefore I didn't go to the PB bash.
If nothing else, worth remembering that OGH is of an age where risk is higher.
I have an exceptionally mild cold. It consists of a very infrequent cough, a slight tickle in my throat, the odd sneeze, and a faint sense of fatigue.
Because I have not had a cold for about two years it nonetheless feels like cholera, psychologically.
Hope you have tested, that is exactly how Omicron feels.
Even if you have Omicron, why bother testing? It's just a normal virus same as any other now.
If you don't feel up to going out, stay at home. If you do, go out. Don't visit those who are extremely vulnerable but that's always been the same even with the common cold.
Just use some sense. Tests are redundant since Covid or Cold you should act the same.
HMMMMMM, What if someone in your family has immune issues or is high risk. I would still like to know I had it and try not to give it to them. Still a good few dying due to it.
Absolutely - and good health behaviour should stop people who are ill from visiting those who are vulnerable, whether its a cold or covid.
Have only had a scan through the last hour, but there does seem to be this odd thing where HY thinks our Trident missiles would restrain the russian bear. "we would threaten to attack Moscow" or some guff.
So lets understand how the hour or so of nuclear war would last. We threaten to nuke Moscow. They detect that we are at maximum readiness. So they choose to preempt - a nuclear attack on British military and 3C assets. That means they take out airbases, dockyards and command centres.
If you look at a map of this country and overlay these counterforce targets, you will see that we lose the country in a single attack. Like permanently lose it. Hard for London to order a counterattack when its had 8 SS-27 warheads flatten it and our cold war bunkers no longer exist.
So no, Trident will not defend London. If we fire them we are either in the process of being destroyed, or we have already been destroyed. I'd fare better up here with plenty of cows and potatoes and trees to cook them on, some of you less well.
Either way, its clear that the Big Dog has been leant on hard in his defence briefings. Instead of his usual detail-free waffle and bluster he is very clear when challenged over things like no-fly zones which means WWII which quickly could end us.
Trident is, primarily, your bog standard, second strike kill-us-and-you-will-die deterrent. As described in a zillion papers/books, since before Polaris was the little rocket that grew up.... AKA one of the Minimum Deterrent options, as described in Herman Kahn
Since the point where the US and UK started saying that war was going to happen in Ukraine (back when everyone was ridiculing the suggestion), they have both been very clear in rejecting any direct military intervention - military aide and sanctions to help Ukraine, and reinforce NATO.
The line has been so consistent, that I think it must have been agreed between Washington and London.
Trident is a far more credible threat to Russia than Polaris as it has a longer range and more power. Just one Trident nuclear missile exploding is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas.
I was never advocating use of Trident to defend Ukraine, or even necessarily other NATO nations. However it remains a last resort of defence for the UK
"Trident is better than Polaris" Polaris. A second strike platform that we would only use after we're all dead if at all Trident. A second strike platform that we would only use after we're all dead if at all
Against the background of the Russian attack on #Ukraine, #VWGroup has decided to stop the production of vehicles in #Russia (Kaluga, Nizhny Novgorod) until further notice. Vehicle exports to Russia will also be stopped with immediate effect. (1/2)
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That would be nice. The trouble is that at a moral level the existence of mutually assured destruction not only changes the textbooks for generals about how to fight, it changes entirely the landscape of what constitutes a just war. To wage a just war (both secular and religious traditions are onto this) one of the features has to be proportion, risk, the chance of winning, of doing more good than harm and so on.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
What would we have decided?
That's what our leaders face now. God help them.
Hitler was so close to getting nukes first. It is a truly terrifying concept and counter-factual, and of course the basis for The Man in the High Castle. A world where Hitler wins and rules the planet
The difference between that idea, and what we face now, is that both sides - many sides - have nukes. A Mexican stand off
He was no-where near. If the attempted reactor in Bavaria had a bit more heavy water, it would have run away and achieved the world's first melt down. The German scientists on the project were out of their depth
You’re right. I’ve checked. He wasn’t that close to getting nukes and I RESILE!
Yes! RESILE!
In my mind there is some daring allied operation mixing Where Eagles Dare with the Heroes of Telemark and it’s turned into reality. Where Eagles Dare IS brilliant, tho
Agreed Where Eagles Dare is superb and one of the best of its genre. There’s a lot going behind the scenes . I do wonder how Zelensky manages to stay safe .
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Uh, we don't suspend rule of law just because we don't like those being subject to it. They have every right to try to challenge and defend themselves against legal sanctions.
Not if we pass primary legislation they can't.
Even then they can still challenge it. They might not get the law struck down, but a court could still declare it incompatible with other legislation.
It absolutely could not. That's parliamentary sovereignty for you.
Yes that is true it does give succour to those who want or need it. I am just concerned about the old echo chamber element of twitter. We can't condemn it when we disagree with its nature on the one hand, and cite it as a key element in the fight for truth on the other.
Yes, Twitter's basically a neutral tool for projecting unfiltered chatter from all kinds of people, and no more reliable that what a stranger tells you in a pub. The general ethos of mutually supportive networks encourages rah-rah cheerleading - the good guys are winning, the other side are idiots. On a similar note it's curious that we've shut down access to RussiaToday, which I suspect had a viewership close to zero before this. From today, we're not allowed to look at it, which is something I don't think we've ever done before - e.g. I believe it's possible to look at militant Islamist websites, and during WW2 AFAIK we never bothered to try to jam Lord Haw-Haw.
I've no brief for the war, which is basically neo-Czarist imperialism, but understanding what everyone is saying is important, and if we stop people doing that, it's harder to complain about Russian censorship of Western comment. It also makes it harder to have an unconstrained discussion as one starts to think that there's something suspect about even knowing what the other side are saying.
I agree we shouldn’t ban Russia Today. But was it a UK political decision? I thought it was done of necessity for some complex EU-related reason
Have we banned Russia Today?
It's lost its platform on Sky, decided by Sky - surely?
Ofcom only launched an investigation yesterday.
'The EU has banned Russia Today' is worrying centralism, unless there has been a debate amongst the democratic structures first.
Seems UK has done nothing other than lots of blowhard hot air from Boris and Truss
You mean, apart from training 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers over the last 7 years and being among the first to arm them and warn about the Russian war? Also being the first to ban Russian aircraft and now ships, and work to get the SWIFT ban which many of our peers were “reluctant” to do? But apart from that, what did the British do to help Ukraine?
Seems very little actual help, so far none implemented and their chums are getting all the loot out minus Tories commission before anything is really done. No refugees allowed unless they buy visas ( how very Tory), you can be sure it will b eover by time they sort out who can get visa's and then will boast about how they helped. Big on rhetoric but light on actual action. Contrast with Ukraine's neighbour's.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Uh, we don't suspend rule of law just because we don't like those being subject to it. They have every right to try to challenge and defend themselves against legal sanctions.
Not if we pass primary legislation they can't.
Even then they can still challenge it. They might not get the law struck down, but a court could still declare it incompatible with other legislation.
It absolutely could not. That's parliamentary sovereignty for you.
Depends on the primary legislation. Anything which gives an element of discretion is a no go. It would have to basically be the "sanction Roman Ambramovitch" bill.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That would be nice. The trouble is that at a moral level the existence of mutually assured destruction not only changes the textbooks for generals about how to fight, it changes entirely the landscape of what constitutes a just war. To wage a just war (both secular and religious traditions are onto this) one of the features has to be proportion, risk, the chance of winning, of doing more good than harm and so on.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
What would we have decided?
That's what our leaders face now. God help them.
Hitler was so close to getting nukes first. It is a truly terrifying concept and counter-factual, and of course the basis for The Man in the High Castle. A world where Hitler wins and rules the planet
The difference between that idea, and what we face now, is that both sides - many sides - have nukes. A Mexican stand off
He was no-where near. If the attempted reactor in Bavaria had a bit more heavy water, it would have run away and achieved the world's first melt down. The German scientists on the project were out of their depth
You’re right. I’ve checked. He wasn’t that close to getting nukes and I RESILE!
Yes! RESILE!
In my mind there is some daring allied operation mixing Where Eagles Dare with the Heroes of Telemark and it’s turned into reality. Where Eagles Dare IS brilliant, tho
Agreed Where Eagles Dare is superb and one of the best of its genre. There’s a lot going behind the scenes . I do wonder how Zelensky manages to stay safe .
#Ukraine: More abandoned supply vehicles, including a fuel tanker & truck marked up as an Ambulance; but actually containing quantities of 3VOF6 122 mm HE reduced charge rounds for use with the D-30 howitzer and the 2S1 2S1 Gvozdika SPG.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Uh, we don't suspend rule of law just because we don't like those being subject to it. They have every right to try to challenge and defend themselves against legal sanctions.
Not if we pass primary legislation they can't.
Even then they can still challenge it. They might not get the law struck down, but a court could still declare it incompatible with other legislation.
It absolutely could not. That's parliamentary sovereignty for you.
I am not they (to my regret. Keep an eye out for DavidFree or CycleL), but I'd assume it would depend how it was drafted, but that assuming it covered all it needed to IshmaelZ would be right. Many things Parliament could do, even if should not or would not.
It's lost its platform on Sky, decided by Sky - surely?
Ofcom only launched an investigation yesterday.
'The EU has banned Russia Today' is worrying centralism, unless there has been a debate amongst the democratic structures first.
It's seemingly general for UK viewers. I've been looking at their website rt.com now and then for the last couple of weeks, and from today it's seemingly blocked ("can't be reached"). Don't know about the TV stuff.
The EU have blocked RT. As UK providers take its feed from Luxembourg that means we lose it too.
This is the exact thing we left the EU to stop. Farage should start a campaign to get RT restored to UK screens so that we don't have these faceless European bureaucrats cutting off sovereign British consumers desperate to see The Alex Salmond Show.
On the latter I don't mind popping down the road with my phone to livecast him from his garden gate. But not today its drizzling.
Is RT still on Freesat, does anyone know?
I believe not - am told the uplink is in the Netherlands, so access has been cut off. Can’t confirm this personally though.
#Ukraine: More abandoned supply vehicles, including a fuel tanker & truck marked up as an Ambulance; but actually containing quantities of 3VOF6 122 mm HE reduced charge rounds for use with the D-30 howitzer and the 2S1 2S1 Gvozdika SPG.
The video shows two abandoned trucks - the first with a rigid tow pole pulling the second with medical markings. The second has ammo in the back. What's the betting that lots of vehicles broke down, with these being the last 2 serviceable in the unit. They offloaded the medical stuff they didn't need and filled up with ammo which they did. They then moved on until the medical lorry broke down so they decided to tow it. Then the main lorry broke down so they abandoned the lorries. Cockup more than war crime. Still shows endemic failure of logistics.
Much as I defer to the military strategists on here I think it is premature to determine that for one reason (logisitcs, morale, equipment readiness, whatever) or another, as evidenced by six pictures on twitter and one bbc picture of a tank with a thrown track, that the Russian invasion is failing.
This is not playing out in 24-hr news/twitter time. Best to wait a while to take stock before raising the winner's hand.
Though in the grand scheme of things Putin has already lost. They will at best have an unmanageable country that hates them and the rest of the world not dealing with them , bust economy and back to potatos and cabbage only queues. Or he will get Ceaușescued
It took us two years to get rid of May and she and her cabal weren't wielding ridiculous power over the armed forces and security services.
I don't think it too likely that Putin will suffer from internal dissent/deposition.
I don't think the 'crisis' under Theresa May quite compares to what is about to hit Russia.
#Ukraine: More abandoned supply vehicles, including a fuel tanker & truck marked up as an Ambulance; but actually containing quantities of 3VOF6 122 mm HE reduced charge rounds for use with the D-30 howitzer and the 2S1 2S1 Gvozdika SPG.
The video shows two abandoned trucks - the first with a rigid tow pole pulling the second with medical markings. The second has ammo in the back. What's the betting that lots of vehicles broke down, with these being the last 2 serviceable in the unit. They offloaded the medical stuff they didn't need and filled up with ammo which they did. They then moved on until the medical lorry broke down so they decided to tow it. Then the main lorry broke down so they abandoned the lorries. Cockup more than war crime. Still shows endemic failure of logistics.
Reminds me of what PJ O'Rourke found, poking around in the remains of the Highway Of Death in the first Gulf War.
I have an exceptionally mild cold. It consists of a very infrequent cough, a slight tickle in my throat, the odd sneeze, and a faint sense of fatigue.
Because I have not had a cold for about two years it nonetheless feels like cholera, psychologically.
Hope you have tested, that is exactly how Omicron feels.
Even if you have Omicron, why bother testing? It's just a normal virus same as any other now.
If you don't feel up to going out, stay at home. If you do, go out. Don't visit those who are extremely vulnerable but that's always been the same even with the common cold.
Just use some sense. Tests are redundant since Covid or Cold you should act the same.
HMMMMMM, What if someone in your family has immune issues or is high risk. I would still like to know I had it and try not to give it to them. Still a good few dying due to it.
I tested positive on an LFT, therefore I didn't go to the PB bash.
If nothing else, worth remembering that OGH is of an age where risk is higher.
Can one still get free LFTs at Boots or wherever? I have a REALLY important lunch-meeting tomorrow and I guess it would be the responsible thing to test myself first…
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That would be nice. The trouble is that at a moral level the existence of mutually assured destruction not only changes the textbooks for generals about how to fight, it changes entirely the landscape of what constitutes a just war. To wage a just war (both secular and religious traditions are onto this) one of the features has to be proportion, risk, the chance of winning, of doing more good than harm and so on.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
What would we have decided?
That's what our leaders face now. God help them.
Hitler was so close to getting nukes first. It is a truly terrifying concept and counter-factual, and of course the basis for The Man in the High Castle. A world where Hitler wins and rules the planet
The difference between that idea, and what we face now, is that both sides - many sides - have nukes. A Mexican stand off
He was no-where near. If the attempted reactor in Bavaria had a bit more heavy water, it would have run away and achieved the world's first melt down. The German scientists on the project were out of their depth
You’re right. I’ve checked. He wasn’t that close to getting nukes and I RESILE!
Yes! RESILE!
In my mind there is some daring allied operation mixing Where Eagles Dare with the Heroes of Telemark and it’s turned into reality. Where Eagles Dare IS brilliant, tho
Hitler's sheer hatred of the jews, cost him dear, most of the top german scientists at the time were Jewish, most of them fled to America, America got the bomb, and the germans didnt, and the rest as they say is history
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Uh, we don't suspend rule of law just because we don't like those being subject to it. They have every right to try to challenge and defend themselves against legal sanctions.
Not if we pass primary legislation they can't.
Even then they can still challenge it. They might not get the law struck down, but a court could still declare it incompatible with other legislation.
It absolutely could not. That's parliamentary sovereignty for you.
Promise you. The particular trump's the general so the Not Arbitrarily Depriving Oligarchs of their Dosh Act 2020 won't help you anyway. And if the new Act is properly drafted it will have a notwithstanding or a partial or total repeal of the NADODA just to be absolutely clear
Have only had a scan through the last hour, but there does seem to be this odd thing where HY thinks our Trident missiles would restrain the russian bear. "we would threaten to attack Moscow" or some guff.
So lets understand how the hour or so of nuclear war would last. We threaten to nuke Moscow. They detect that we are at maximum readiness. So they choose to preempt - a nuclear attack on British military and 3C assets. That means they take out airbases, dockyards and command centres.
If you look at a map of this country and overlay these counterforce targets, you will see that we lose the country in a single attack. Like permanently lose it. Hard for London to order a counterattack when its had 8 SS-27 warheads flatten it and our cold war bunkers no longer exist.
So no, Trident will not defend London. If we fire them we are either in the process of being destroyed, or we have already been destroyed. I'd fare better up here with plenty of cows and potatoes and trees to cook them on, some of you less well.
Either way, its clear that the Big Dog has been leant on hard in his defence briefings. Instead of his usual detail-free waffle and bluster he is very clear when challenged over things like no-fly zones which means WWII which quickly could end us.
That is the whole reason Trident is on submarines not on land.
A Trident nuclear missile would be launched on Moscow from a submarine if the UK was attacked depending on what the PM of the time had written in their letter of last resort.
The PM and Cabinet have a nuclear bunker ready for them anyway if needed. I have already made clear I oppose a no fly zone and troops in Ukraine and only support sanctions.
This scenario is entirely based on most of Europe falling to Russian invasion and the UK being next in line
Thats not what you said though. You said that Trident would defend London. It won't.
If as you said we launch it at Moscow to stop the reds invading the UK they would simply launch a full counter strike and destroy the whole country.
If as you now say we launch at what used to be Moscow because the letter says launch they're opening the letter because London has been destroyed along with the rest of the UK. And they have missiles to fire because they were not used in the nuclear exchange which destroyed western civilisation because SLBMs are held back as a second strike platform.
So, we launch and bring about our own destruction. Or we launch having been destroyed.
Either way, Trident is NOT defending if London as you claim.
It is. If the Russians destroy London, we destroy Moscow by launching a Trident nuclear missile from a submarine.
That would be the risk the Russians would take.
Yes London may already have been destroyed when Trident was launched but so what? Moscow would still be destroyed in the end too
Unsure if dense or not listening.
Nuclear strategists consider three stages of nuclear war: Theatre wide - use of air-dropped nuclear weapons on a specific target in theatre. As an example NATO drops B61 bombs onto that Russian military column. Russia responds in kind against NATO forces Counterforce - strategic use of nuclear weapons to destroy enemy weapons and 3C capabilities. This would EXCLUDE Trident but would destroy 3C targets such as London and Moscow Countervalue - strategic use of nuclear weapons to destroy the enemy utterly.
So we would see a counterforce exchange where US missiles and bombers burst over Russian targets and theirs over NATO targets. Both capitals and millions of people are dead. We then get talking from whomever is left to try and stop the war there, with submarine systems held in reserve to threaten total destruction. Not that we would care as the counterforce strike would do so much damage to the UK that we would cease to function as a nation.
Only afterwards - the letter of last resort or an explicit order - does Trident fire. And not at smoking ruins like Moscow. We're off slaughtering the 600k civilians in Irkutsk.
How is Trident defending London as you keep saying? That is *explicitly* not its role.
Tory Party chairman - and chief fundraiser - Ben Elliot, has deleted a page on his company's website which boasted of "nearly 15 years' experience providing luxury lifestyle management services to Russia's elite and corporate members."🤔 ~AA
Have only had a scan through the last hour, but there does seem to be this odd thing where HY thinks our Trident missiles would restrain the russian bear. "we would threaten to attack Moscow" or some guff.
So lets understand how the hour or so of nuclear war would last. We threaten to nuke Moscow. They detect that we are at maximum readiness. So they choose to preempt - a nuclear attack on British military and 3C assets. That means they take out airbases, dockyards and command centres.
If you look at a map of this country and overlay these counterforce targets, you will see that we lose the country in a single attack. Like permanently lose it. Hard for London to order a counterattack when its had 8 SS-27 warheads flatten it and our cold war bunkers no longer exist.
So no, Trident will not defend London. If we fire them we are either in the process of being destroyed, or we have already been destroyed. I'd fare better up here with plenty of cows and potatoes and trees to cook them on, some of you less well.
Either way, its clear that the Big Dog has been leant on hard in his defence briefings. Instead of his usual detail-free waffle and bluster he is very clear when challenged over things like no-fly zones which means WWII which quickly could end us.
That is the whole reason Trident is on submarines not on land.
A Trident nuclear missile would be launched on Moscow from a submarine if the UK was attacked depending on what the PM of the time had written in their letter of last resort.
The PM and Cabinet have a nuclear bunker ready for them anyway if needed. I have already made clear I oppose a no fly zone and troops in Ukraine and only support sanctions.
This scenario is entirely based on most of Europe falling to Russian invasion and the UK being next in line
Thats not what you said though. You said that Trident would defend London. It won't.
If as you said we launch it at Moscow to stop the reds invading the UK they would simply launch a full counter strike and destroy the whole country.
If as you now say we launch at what used to be Moscow because the letter says launch they're opening the letter because London has been destroyed along with the rest of the UK. And they have missiles to fire because they were not used in the nuclear exchange which destroyed western civilisation because SLBMs are held back as a second strike platform.
So, we launch and bring about our own destruction. Or we launch having been destroyed.
Either way, Trident is NOT defending if London as you claim.
It is. If the Russians destroy London, we destroy Moscow by launching a Trident nuclear missile from a submarine.
That would be the risk the Russians would take.
Yes London may already have been destroyed when Trident was launched but so what? Moscow would still be destroyed in the end too
Unsure if dense or not listening.
Nuclear strategists consider three stages of nuclear war: Theatre wide - use of air-dropped nuclear weapons on a specific target in theatre. As an example NATO drops B61 bombs onto that Russian military column. Russia responds in kind against NATO forces Counterforce - strategic use of nuclear weapons to destroy enemy weapons and 3C capabilities. This would EXCLUDE Trident but would destroy 3C targets such as London and Moscow Countervalue - strategic use of nuclear weapons to destroy the enemy utterly.
So we would see a counterforce exchange where US missiles and bombers burst over Russian targets and theirs over NATO targets. Both capitals and millions of people are dead. We then get talking from whomever is left to try and stop the war there, with submarine systems held in reserve to threaten total destruction. Not that we would care as the counterforce strike would do so much damage to the UK that we would cease to function as a nation.
Only afterwards - the letter of last resort or an explicit order - does Trident fire. And not at smoking ruins like Moscow. We're off slaughtering the 600k civilians in Irkutsk.
How is Trident defending London as you keep saying? That is *explicitly* not its role.
I think this is all a lot less likely than last week for now, so maybe we should all be thinking on that calmer basis for the moment.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
Maybe explain how the UK can drive Russia out of Ukraine on its own
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
Uh, we don't suspend rule of law just because we don't like those being subject to it. They have every right to try to challenge and defend themselves against legal sanctions.
Not if we pass primary legislation they can't.
Even then they can still challenge it. They might not get the law struck down, but a court could still declare it incompatible with other legislation.
Article 1 of the ECHR? Maybe some lawyers will have an opinion on this.
In general, I don't think lawyers will like being told who they can defend.
#Ukraine: More abandoned supply vehicles, including a fuel tanker & truck marked up as an Ambulance; but actually containing quantities of 3VOF6 122 mm HE reduced charge rounds for use with the D-30 howitzer and the 2S1 2S1 Gvozdika SPG.
The video shows two abandoned trucks - the first with a rigid tow pole pulling the second with medical markings. The second has ammo in the back. What's the betting that lots of vehicles broke down, with these being the last 2 serviceable in the unit. They offloaded the medical stuff they didn't need and filled up with ammo which they did. They then moved on until the medical lorry broke down so they decided to tow it. Then the main lorry broke down so they abandoned the lorries. Cockup more than war crime. Still shows endemic failure of logistics.
Reminds me of what PJ O'Rourke found, poking around in the remains of the Highway Of Death in the first Gulf War.
I so wish he was still with us in his prime. His writing on this would have been something to behold - human, humorous and yet righteous about the failure of authoritarian regimes to manage a piss up in a brewery.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That would be nice. The trouble is that at a moral level the existence of mutually assured destruction not only changes the textbooks for generals about how to fight, it changes entirely the landscape of what constitutes a just war. To wage a just war (both secular and religious traditions are onto this) one of the features has to be proportion, risk, the chance of winning, of doing more good than harm and so on.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
What would we have decided?
That's what our leaders face now. God help them.
Hitler was so close to getting nukes first. It is a truly terrifying concept and counter-factual, and of course the basis for The Man in the High Castle. A world where Hitler wins and rules the planet
The difference between that idea, and what we face now, is that both sides - many sides - have nukes. A Mexican stand off
He was no-where near. If the attempted reactor in Bavaria had a bit more heavy water, it would have run away and achieved the world's first melt down. The German scientists on the project were out of their depth
You’re right. I’ve checked. He wasn’t that close to getting nukes and I RESILE!
Yes! RESILE!
In my mind there is some daring allied operation mixing Where Eagles Dare with the Heroes of Telemark and it’s turned into reality. Where Eagles Dare IS brilliant, tho
Hitler's sheer hatred of the jews, cost him dear, most of the top german scientists at the time were Jewish, most of them fled to America, America got the bomb, and the germans didnt, and the rest as they say is history
David Jones : The Russians put our camera made by *our* German scientists and your film made by *your* German scientists into their satellite made by *their* German scientists.
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That would be nice. The trouble is that at a moral level the existence of mutually assured destruction not only changes the textbooks for generals about how to fight, it changes entirely the landscape of what constitutes a just war. To wage a just war (both secular and religious traditions are onto this) one of the features has to be proportion, risk, the chance of winning, of doing more good than harm and so on.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
What would we have decided?
That's what our leaders face now. God help them.
Hitler was so close to getting nukes first. It is a truly terrifying concept and counter-factual, and of course the basis for The Man in the High Castle. A world where Hitler wins and rules the planet
The difference between that idea, and what we face now, is that both sides - many sides - have nukes. A Mexican stand off
Ye can't beat history by Netflix (or Prime in this case).
I don't think this is going to play well for the tories. Putin is pulverising Ukraine and we're doing nothing to stop it. We haven't even touched dirty Russian money.
It's a pathetic response.
We should stand up to the bullies and drive them out of Ukraine even if that risks a nuclear war.
That would be nice. The trouble is that at a moral level the existence of mutually assured destruction not only changes the textbooks for generals about how to fight, it changes entirely the landscape of what constitutes a just war. To wage a just war (both secular and religious traditions are onto this) one of the features has to be proportion, risk, the chance of winning, of doing more good than harm and so on.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
What would we have decided?
That's what our leaders face now. God help them.
Hitler was so close to getting nukes first. It is a truly terrifying concept and counter-factual, and of course the basis for The Man in the High Castle. A world where Hitler wins and rules the planet
The difference between that idea, and what we face now, is that both sides - many sides - have nukes. A Mexican stand off
He was no-where near. If the attempted reactor in Bavaria had a bit more heavy water, it would have run away and achieved the world's first melt down. The German scientists on the project were out of their depth
You’re right. I’ve checked. He wasn’t that close to getting nukes and I RESILE!
Yes! RESILE!
In my mind there is some daring allied operation mixing Where Eagles Dare with the Heroes of Telemark and it’s turned into reality. Where Eagles Dare IS brilliant, tho
Hitler's sheer hatred of the jews, cost him dear, most of the top german scientists at the time were Jewish, most of them fled to America, America got the bomb, and the germans didnt, and the rest as they say is history
It was completely rational to try and get it before him, though. He would have threatened the entire world with it continually - now who does that remind you of, in the past week - and probably used it, too.
Comments
Trident is, primarily, your bog standard, second strike kill-us-and-you-will-die deterrent. As described in a zillion papers/books, since before Polaris was the little rocket that grew up.... AKA one of the Minimum Deterrent options, as described in Herman Kahn
Since the point where the US and UK started saying that war was going to happen in Ukraine (back when everyone was ridiculing the suggestion), they have both been very clear in rejecting any direct military intervention - military aide and sanctions to help Ukraine, and reinforce NATO.
The line has been so consistent, that I think it must have been agreed between Washington and London.
And the moment it doesn't work (as this week we are being reminded) we have not got a clue how the NATO thing would work short of the use of nuclear weapons. And we know pretty much how the nuclear thing will work once started.
While this is obviously crazy, the other options apart from de-inventing the science which allows it to happen are:
Universal disarmament. Good luck with that one.
Unilateral ditto. UK could make a gesture but it makes no difference, so good luck with that one too.
General disarmament, which means that only crazy people have them.
All of which are probably even crazier.
Once it can be done there aren't any sane options. Just a choice of more or less insane ones.
Adds to the idea he might be unwell
So that has to be added to the risk.
I was never advocating use of Trident to defend Ukraine, or even necessarily other NATO nations. However it remains a last resort of defence for the UK
"Boris Johnson will need to bite the bullet: we must urgently increase spending back to 3 per cent of GDP, and conceivably to 3.5 per cent if we want to be Europe’s leading military power. I don’t say this with any relish: I’m not a militarist. But there are no other responsible options..."
The latest poll is from RedfieldWilton and was taken on 28th February ie fully after Comres and has the Labour lead down to 3%
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1498342246038523910?s=20&t=3WusPXooUxqawDJrfnWa1Q
o Audience: the population of Ukraine aged 18 and older in all regions, except the temporarily occupied territories of Crimea and Donbass
o The sample is representative by age, sex and type of settlement
o Sample population: 1200 respondents
o Survey method: CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing). Based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers
o Error of representativeness of the study with a confidence level of 0.95: not more than 2.8% o Deadlines: March 1, 2022
You do know the entire membership of NATO is against no fly zones
Boris and Starmer are cooperating on Russian money but these London lawyers threatening the UK with litigation on behalf of their Russian clients need to be named and shamed and sanctioned
A nuclear war is probably the end of human civilization as we know it. Which puts Ukraine in perspective
Whether any of that changes opinions, I do not know. The original Russian poster has not yet responded.
That would be the risk the Russians would take.
Yes London may already have been destroyed when Trident was launched but so what? Moscow would still be destroyed in the end too
Incidentally, that is warhead yield, not "missile". At, presumed, max yield.
However I certainly agree that BJ will gain very little benefit from it, and any Tory MPs who think he's got an "Out of Jail Card" are making a very big mistake. Boris in not Back.
What it does do is reshuffle the pack a bit of possible successors. Still think it is Rishi's to lose but Ben Wallace, if he wants it, has become a plausible challenger. He has the gift of authenticity which is priceless. An old-fashioned commitment to public service, which he exemplifies, might be what the times require.
Makes it hard to believe that they had perfect anticipation of how the last week would play out. Also the US offer to evacuate Zelenskyy from Kyiv would be a bit weird. If they knew the Russian invasion would struggle so badly why weaken the morale of the Ukrainian resistance by evacuating the President?
I'd say it's pretty clear that NATO intelligence has been surprised by the travails of the Russian military.
So in 1939 we went into war with Germany, after Poland, having weighed up the prospects. It may well have been a balanced decision, with arguments on both sides.
Now imagine that in 1939 Germany held the power to destroy in 24 hours the entire of western Europe and North America and we had no way of stopping it.
What would we have decided?
That's what our leaders face now. God help them.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-chair-ben-elliot-russia-elite-b2027521.html
It seems that US and UK intelligence was very up to the mark on Russian plans. Which means they may have been getting their assessments of Russian readiness and capabilities from *Russian* inside information. As in what was briefed to Putin.
There is history for this - during the Cold War, the West built it's intelligence estimates on USSR capabilities from information stollen at the highest levels in the Kremlin. Which turned out to be bollocks in many cases - the Kremlin was being briefed lies by it's own people.....
As opposed to, say, Afghan and Iraq where they did have to fight.
We have to abide by the law and it can be frustrating when the law is unjust
The difference between that idea, and what we face now, is that both sides - many sides - have nukes. A Mexican stand off
As for the US offer to evacuate Zelenskyy, I believe that's standard operating procedure in this sort of scenario and it'd be weird not to make that offer - but also even if they knew that he'd reject the offer, it still makes sense to make it. Whether it was deliberately planned or not, having had an escape offered and rejected and his reported line of "I don't need transport, we need arms" has been awe-inspiring and really rallied the rest of the world that was prevaricating until then.
I don't think it too likely that Putin will suffer from internal dissent/deposition.
And FWIW Russia Today is not as bad as Al Jazeera, esp AJ Arabic (which we have never banned). There have been times when AJA has been openly pro-jihadist, even sympathetic to ISIS
Also what about those times when it was really cool to break international law and renege on treaties?
Not sure Putin bargained on this .
If you don't feel up to going out, stay at home. If you do, go out. Don't visit those who are extremely vulnerable but that's always been the same even with the common cold.
Just use some sense. Tests are redundant since Covid or Cold you should act the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nuclear_weapons_program
But if he had delayed the war by a couple of years, to investigate further… brrr
Putin and his cronies will really feel that.
https://twitter.com/m_paulmcnamara/status/1499348112741183494?s=21
Yes! RESILE!
In my mind there is some daring allied operation mixing Where Eagles Dare with the Heroes of Telemark and it’s turned into reality. Where Eagles Dare IS brilliant, tho
“By now... heavy fights are taking place near Kherson. The city is not under Russian control. They use it as a temporary base” for units to transfer, an armed forces representative said.
https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1499365512345800707
Since 1949 and the development of the Soviet bomb, though, the main threat has been the mixture of nuclear weapons and totalitarianism. And that will probably remain so, unless climate change makes our world uninhabitable first.
That's why Putin might have even prevented nuclear weapons getting into terrorists' hands in the first act. We need to keep a careful eye on that again, because it's also the key a disastrously lackadaisical attitude to Russia in the long-term overall.
Part of their plan was to grab chunks of France and Belgium ready for the next war - yes, planing WWII before WWI properly got started.
So in about 1940*, the Kaiser Whilhem Institute in Berlin delivers some good news about buckets of instant sunshine to the Kaiser. Who is head of a War is Good, War is God empire.....
#Ukraine: More abandoned supply vehicles, including a fuel tanker & truck marked up as an Ambulance; but actually containing quantities of 3VOF6 122 mm HE reduced charge rounds for use with the D-30 howitzer and the 2S1 2S1 Gvozdika SPG.
(Thank You @blueboy1969 for assistance) https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1499361168590258178/video/1
Full poll data at - https://ratinggroup.ua/files/ratinggroup/reg_files/rg_ua_1200_032022_war_press.pdf
If nothing else, worth remembering that OGH is of an age where risk is higher.
Polaris. A second strike platform that we would only use after we're all dead if at all
Trident. A second strike platform that we would only use after we're all dead if at all
Your point being?
can I get a second opinion here please?
Made PB look non-pedantic....
Nuclear strategists consider three stages of nuclear war:
Theatre wide - use of air-dropped nuclear weapons on a specific target in theatre. As an example NATO drops B61 bombs onto that Russian military column. Russia responds in kind against NATO forces
Counterforce - strategic use of nuclear weapons to destroy enemy weapons and 3C capabilities. This would EXCLUDE Trident but would destroy 3C targets such as London and Moscow
Countervalue - strategic use of nuclear weapons to destroy the enemy utterly.
So we would see a counterforce exchange where US missiles and bombers burst over Russian targets and theirs over NATO targets. Both capitals and millions of people are dead. We then get talking from whomever is left to try and stop the war there, with submarine systems held in reserve to threaten total destruction. Not that we would care as the counterforce strike would do so much damage to the UK that we would cease to function as a nation.
Only afterwards - the letter of last resort or an explicit order - does Trident fire. And not at smoking ruins like Moscow. We're off slaughtering the 600k civilians in Irkutsk.
How is Trident defending London as you keep saying? That is *explicitly* not its role.
In general, I don't think lawyers will like being told who they can defend.
David Jones : The Russians put our camera made by *our* German scientists and your film made by *your* German scientists into their satellite made by *their* German scientists.