Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
I hope they do and I think they will.
But you’re missing that there are two potential confrontations here, the “conventional” war between Ukraine and Russia,
And the potential nuclear stand-off between Russia and NATO.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
Crimea is Ukraine. We can get a ceasefire when Russia is out of Ukraine.”
++++
This is the maximalist madness that will lead us to nuclear war. Crimea really is a “debatable land”. It is historically different to Lviv or Kyiv. It is much more Russian and Tatar
It was only cut away from mother Russia in the 1950s by Khrushchev
Let Russia keep Crimea (perhaps after another vote). Totally humiliating Russia means nuclear Holocaust for us all
No, maximalist madness is to say we need to march on Moscow.
Crimea voted democratically to be a part of a free and independent Ukraine. There may have been a debate once upon a time, but the debate ended the second Russia chose to solve the debate by invasion instead of democracy. They need to be repelled.
Nuclear weapons are not to prevent humiliation, they're to prevent your own nation being invaded and defeated. Russia chose this invasion, they deserve this humiliation and we need to be prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure this total humiliation proceeds in full, until Russia is prepared to seek readmittance to the human race.
That’s not the maximalist position.
The maximalist position is arguing about the location of the Ukraine-Taiwan border.
"A friend of mine who works for Gordon Brown says he has a collection of tiny china figurines which he keeps in a shoebox - tiny sheperdesses and horses and farmers and pigs and the like. She says most nights when he’s alone with his aides and the wife he gets them out and plays “farmy-farm” with the little dolls, making the horses jump over tiny hedges etc. He even takes the miniature cows to the Number 10 toilet so they can do “Brownpats” as he makes little mooing noises.
The staff’s big fear is that he will take his “farmy-farm” set to the Commons and be caught on TV playing with it just before PMQs. He’s come pretty close already - during the non-election debate, a miniature sheep apparently fell from his breast pocket onto Ruth Kelly’s hair, and was there right through the broadcast.
Amazingly no one noticed, but they reckon it’s just a matter of time."
It spread from here, like a modest dose of knotweed
No, Gordon and the rocking horse was definitely Guido:
I was a determined lurker at the time. I remember it well. He said he wanted to create a ludicrous rumour about Gordon Brown, a rumour which was so bizarre it would be amusing, yet also have just enough credibility that some might believe it
He went away for half an hour, then came back with "farmy farm". It then got picked up on Guido
He failed in his task: no one believed it. However he made it sufficiently absurd that it entertained and spread, for a while
Farmy farm and rocking horse nappies are two different rumours.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
I hope they do and I think they will.
But you’re missing that there are two potential confrontations here, the “conventional” war between Ukraine and Russia,
And the potential nuclear stand-off between Russia and NATO.
It is wise to consider all angles.
Yes and in a potential nuclear stand-off between Russia and NATO, then NATO are right to say that they will not respect any nuclear threats over Ukrainian soil, which includes all of the Donbas and Crimea.
If a nuclear threat allows Russia to seize Crimea, despite losing a war of aggression by conventional terms, then they might as well make more nuclear threats. No, all of Ukraine which includes Crimea has to be treated as not being under Russia's nuclear shield, if they use nukes, then that's on Russia.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
No, better to finish the job than risk appeasing nuclear threats.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
No, better to finish the job than risk appeasing nuclear threats.
Then you also have to face the real risk we are at the closest we have been to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
For 4 small regions on the Russian border it is not worth it
More power to him, I say, We need to take the threat of Armageddon a lot more seriously. We are close
Giving into Putin might defer Armageddon this time, but it makes it more likely in future.
Better to stand up and a take the chance of being wiped off the planet.
so we ve gone from hide in your houses for 2 years for a disease with a 99% survival rate to risking nuclear apocolypse ....something is slightly awry in your judgement of risk
If you give into nuclear blackmail once, then don't you think there's a teeny-weeny chance that the blackmailer might just blackmail again?
So, we might all get wiped out. That would suck.
But the alternative is that we give into blackmail, and then next time Putin (or Kim Jong-un or whoever) knows we're going to back down. And therefore their incentive to escalate is much greater.
Giving into nuclear blackmail increases the risk of nuclear annihation.
If you - or @Leon - don't realise this, then you are genuinely retarded. And I don't use that word lightly.
but what are we talking about here...we are not talking about an attack on the UK or even Eastern Europe.....we are talking about some eastern provinces of ukraine most people hadnt heard of a few months ago....you are prepared to risk nuclear annihalation for that!!
Another troll. Go away
He's not a troll for pointing out that quite a few of us are wondering if we want to die over the sovereignty of Luhansk
What you seem incapable of understanding is that not standing up now increases the likelihood of it happening again.
"Standing up now"
This macho talk is adolescent wank. We are not in a playground fight, we are discussing the end of civilisation. We may have to cede more than is comfortable, but so will Putin. That is the way to peace. It won't be pretty, but Act 2 of Threads is infinitely uglier, and as for Act 3....
If both sides were to accept UN-monitored binding referendums in the territories, that would make it more likely that a similar method - not war - would be used to resolve any future argy-bargy in the largely ethnic-Russian area of Ida-Virumaa in Estonia, for example. The precedent would be positive.
I thought "Oh no, what has that tosser Musk had to say?" before reading it. But he's right. I would add that if the territories go to Russia and Ukraine is guaranteed as neutral, then the territories although in Russia could also be agreed to be demilitarised somehow. Also I'd have no problem with another referendum in Crimea if it lets Zelensky save face.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
No, better to finish the job than risk appeasing nuclear threats.
Then you also have to face the real risk we are at the closest we have been to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
For 4 small regions on the Russian border it is not worth it
For preventing nuclear armed aggression or threats to the world, it absolutely is completely worth it.
"A friend of mine who works for Gordon Brown says he has a collection of tiny china figurines which he keeps in a shoebox - tiny sheperdesses and horses and farmers and pigs and the like. She says most nights when he’s alone with his aides and the wife he gets them out and plays “farmy-farm” with the little dolls, making the horses jump over tiny hedges etc. He even takes the miniature cows to the Number 10 toilet so they can do “Brownpats” as he makes little mooing noises.
The staff’s big fear is that he will take his “farmy-farm” set to the Commons and be caught on TV playing with it just before PMQs. He’s come pretty close already - during the non-election debate, a miniature sheep apparently fell from his breast pocket onto Ruth Kelly’s hair, and was there right through the broadcast.
Amazingly no one noticed, but they reckon it’s just a matter of time."
It spread from here, like a modest dose of knotweed
No, Gordon and the rocking horse was definitely Guido:
I was a determined lurker at the time. I remember it well. He said he wanted to create a ludicrous rumour about Gordon Brown, a rumour which was so bizarre it would be amusing, yet also have just enough credibility that some might believe it
He went away for half an hour, then came back with "farmy farm". It then got picked up on Guido
He failed in his task: no one believed it. However he made it sufficiently absurd that it entertained and spread, for a while
Farmy farm and rocking horse nappies are two different rumours.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
No, better to finish the job than risk appeasing nuclear threats.
Then you also have to face the real risk we are at the closest we have been to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
For 4 small regions on the Russian border it is not worth it
For preventing nuclear armed aggression or threats to the world, it absolutely is completely worth it.
You aren't going to prevent it, you are quite likely to provoke it.
Zelensky should settle for having forced the Russians out of most of his country, put a strong force on the border of the 4 regions and leave it there for the time being
Former First Lady Laura Bush agrees, mostly, with CycleFree. She made helping Afghan women one of her biggest causes, and did what she could while her husband was president. (I doubt that her efforts did the Republicans much good, politically. Or did much to change the image of the United States abroad. But she was doing the right thing.)
More power to him, I say, We need to take the threat of Armageddon a lot more seriously. We are close
Giving into Putin might defer Armageddon this time, but it makes it more likely in future.
Better to stand up and a take the chance of being wiped off the planet.
so we ve gone from hide in your houses for 2 years for a disease with a 99% survival rate to risking nuclear apocolypse ....something is slightly awry in your judgement of risk
If you give into nuclear blackmail once, then don't you think there's a teeny-weeny chance that the blackmailer might just blackmail again?
So, we might all get wiped out. That would suck.
But the alternative is that we give into blackmail, and then next time Putin (or Kim Jong-un or whoever) knows we're going to back down. And therefore their incentive to escalate is much greater.
Giving into nuclear blackmail increases the risk of nuclear annihation.
If you - or @Leon - don't realise this, then you are genuinely retarded. And I don't use that word lightly.
but what are we talking about here...we are not talking about an attack on the UK or even Eastern Europe.....we are talking about some eastern provinces of ukraine most people hadnt heard of a few months ago....you are prepared to risk nuclear annihalation for that!!
Another troll. Go away
He's not a troll for pointing out that quite a few of us are wondering if we want to die over the sovereignty of Luhansk
What you seem incapable of understanding is that not standing up now increases the likelihood of it happening again.
"Standing up now"
This macho talk is adolescent wank. We are not in a playground fight, we are discussing the end of civilisation. We may have to cede more than is comfortable, but so will Putin. That is the way to peace. It won't be pretty, but Act 2 of Threads is infinitely uglier, and as for Act 3....
If both sides were to accept UN-monitored binding referendums in the territories, that would make it more likely that a similar method - not war - would be used to resolve any future argy-bargy in the largely ethnic-Russian area of Ida-Virumaa in Estonia, for example. The precedent would be positive.
I thought "Oh no, what has that tosser Musk had to say?" before reading it. But he's right. I would add that if the territories go to Russia and Ukraine is guaranteed as neutral, then the territories although in Russia could also be agreed to be demilitarised somehow. Also I'd have no problem with another referendum in Crimea if it lets Zelensky save face.
Don't be ridiculous, there can not be any binding referendums in a territory that has been invaded, because the invaders have dislodged the population that lived there and supplanted them with their own population.
Getting invaders to vote that they agree with the invasion was a good thing, is not democratic.
Before there can be any votes, the Russians who invaded need to go home, the sovereignty needs to be returned to Ukraine, justice must be served and any refugees allowed to go home.
You are just being an apologist for Russia's military aggression.
Labour 52% (+6) Conservative 24% (-5) Liberal Democrat 10% (-3) Green 5% (+1) SNP 5% (+2) Reform UK 3% (-1) Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 28-29 Sept
redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-gb-voti…
Whoops
Lead below 30 points.
Conference bounce for Truss?
Why are Lib Dems taking a hammering - they didn’t aid and abet the bad budget! 😠
Libdems the only challengers throughout Blue wall so why don’t they share the Tory slump? Something whiffs about these polls to me, I think they are Mickey Mouse polls, I don’t trust them as being remotely permanent.
There has been ephemeral polling glitches before, Hague wiped out Blair’s lead during Labour conference week one year, voter frustration with not liking being unable to put petrol in car. It was all short lived, polls went straight back to normal a few weeks later.
Without that foundation in fact Lib Dems should not be dropping by a quarter, they should be going up with blue wall voters switching from Tory to them, I refuse to believe these polls are for keeps, I choose to believe it will be back to a Lab lead about 10 in a few weeks and Lib Dems back to 12+. You can’t believe something is for real when its not founded in fact. Do you see what I mean.
Suppose LibDems had a 20% share in every seat. They would get zero seats with a 20% share. Look at the Greens. 5% share, 1 seat.
Suppose LibDems had a 50% share in 50 seats and a 2% share in the other 600 seats. They would get 50 seat with an overall share of just 6%. Look at the SNP. 5% share, 51 seats.
As voters get wiser to tactical voting and Labour becomes more LibDem friendly, I think that LibDem supporters in Labour seats are declaring that they will vote Labour at a General Election, and in Tory/LibDem marginals, Labour supporters are declaring for the LibDems to get the Tories out.
That is why, as a LibDem, I'm pleased to see the national LibDem share remain around 10%. I know it is a LOT higher in Tory/LibDem marginals. So it must be a LOT lower in the many Tory/Labour marginals - which is good news for anti-Tory voters, who are the large majority.
I don’t really want to argue with this thought out piece of Barnesian thinking, but I don’t believe it as much as I want to.
Lib Dems jump from third to win with 30% swings because the people there just can’t make the leap to Labour, so why would they tell pollsters something different right now? [The LibDem share at the start of the by-election campaigns was quite low. It was the incredible amount of resource that the LibDems threw into the by-election campaigns that produced the 30% swings. It wasn't low hanging fruit.]
I have my own theory. I think the polls are wrong now for the same reason polls are always wrong, underestimating Trump and Bolsonaro for two recent examples - the pollsters are now struggling for balanced and honest samples, Truss and Tories have a lot more support than shown waiting in the polling station, it’s just hiding off grid now or lying to pollsters out of sense of embarrassment. [An excellent point. Though you would expect an embarrassed Tory who supports Truss to lie by saying LibDem rather than Labour wouldn't you?]
One poll today greens up 1 to 5 Lib Dem down 3 to 10? That tells you there’s inherent vice in the poll. I would believe your theory over mine if less of the Tory plunge broke for Labour and more of it to Lib Dem. [ Most constituencies are Tory/Labour fights so switching from Tory to Labour would make more sense if you were a fed up Tory? And MOE is about +/- 2%]
..
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If you don’t believe me Barnsy I can produce exhibit B - that is your own posts down thread where you have crunched the seat changes, Labour up 200 into 400s, Tory’s down to 125, and Libdems just 14 seats was it?
If there’s an election tomorrow, is that what’s going to happen?
Don’t believe last weeks and this weeks polls, they are not for real because the Tory vote has fled off grid to hide in the shadows of the ballot box.
No. In an election tomorrow I estimate the LibDems would get 30 seats, perhaps more. The estimate of 14 is from Electoral Calculus which has a poor algorithm for tactical voting in my opinion.
Do you think the Tories on here who say they have lost faith in Truss and won't vote Tory next time if she is still PM are bluffing out of embarrassment?
This 'free for all' on policy is only happening because Truss has totally abandoned the manifesto the government was actually elected on.
Abandoned, or now at war with the declinist direction it was taking us?
For a LibDem you seem to take some strange positions.
Not my position. I’m just flagging up what I think this new government is explaining - 97 - 2010 pathetic declinest Labour government, 2010 - last month more pathetic declinist government by… um… it doesn’t matter by who only the policy is completely different at long last , lean mean taxes and state means aspiration, growth, productivity, growth, and a UK and flag you can be proud in once again.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what they are saying.
97-2007 was a golden age compared to what came after. Time for a change.
You saying you don’t want your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish, you don’t want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, you don’t want growth, you don’t want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?) you don’t want a UK and flag to be proud of once again? What sort of declinist traitor are you? 😠
PS apologies, forgot to boast about spending 8% of GDP on a market busting hand out, a lot of which goes to those who don’t even need it.
PPS I appreciate the appeal of change once in a while, but you have to accept, every time we have let a Labour government in they have wrecked the economy.
More power to him, I say, We need to take the threat of Armageddon a lot more seriously. We are close
Giving into Putin might defer Armageddon this time, but it makes it more likely in future.
Better to stand up and a take the chance of being wiped off the planet.
so we ve gone from hide in your houses for 2 years for a disease with a 99% survival rate to risking nuclear apocolypse ....something is slightly awry in your judgement of risk
If you give into nuclear blackmail once, then don't you think there's a teeny-weeny chance that the blackmailer might just blackmail again?
So, we might all get wiped out. That would suck.
But the alternative is that we give into blackmail, and then next time Putin (or Kim Jong-un or whoever) knows we're going to back down. And therefore their incentive to escalate is much greater.
Giving into nuclear blackmail increases the risk of nuclear annihation.
If you - or @Leon - don't realise this, then you are genuinely retarded. And I don't use that word lightly.
Seems like Game Theory 101 to me.
Exactly: the only way to prevent your opponent escalating is to make it clear that you don't worry about the apocalypse.
Because you will rain the other apocalypse on them.
Mutual.
Is Putin suicidal? Who knows? Is the entire chain of command suicidal? I doubt it.
Putin does not have a red button as I understand it. He has a briefcase with some codes that allow him to confirm it is him ordering the use of nukes and then the senior generals get involved.
Which is why it doesn't start with a full strategic first strike.
The order of things goes something like this.
1. Putin orders battlefield nuclear weapon to be fired on a military target, e.g. a military base in Ukraine 2. Nato responds by intervening directly - e.g. its planes launching air strikes on Russian military targets inside Ukraine, blowing up the black sea fleet with cruise missiles, or destroying the Crimea bridge. 3. And here's the important one. This changes the opinion of the chain of command. Nato are now directly attacking Russian targets. So when... ...4 The order to go full strategic nuclear strike comes in, it's much more likely to be obeyed.
This is the problem with escalation. It doesn't start as a full strategic exchange, but that's where it ends up.
Our best course of action is probably to look tough and say we'll get involved militarily, while actually planning devastating sanctions - no Russian citizens allowed in or out of Russia, no trade, completely cut off from banks, the internet, all trade routes, etc - which would of course require China and others to be on side. But completely starving Russia of the spare parts it needs, trade goods it needs, even food it needs, is a better option than military escalation.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
No, better to finish the job than risk appeasing nuclear threats.
Then you also have to face the real risk we are at the closest we have been to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
For 4 small regions on the Russian border it is not worth it
For preventing nuclear armed aggression or threats to the world, it absolutely is completely worth it.
You aren't going to prevent it, you are quite likely to provoke it.
Zelensky should settle for having forced the Russians out of most of his country, put a strong force on the border of the 4 regions and leave it there for the time being
No, Putin should settle for not invading other countries and pull his troops out in full, just as American troops have left Afghanistan.
Defeating an invasion doesn't provoke anything, don't try and victim blame. There is no provocation in repelling and defeating an attacker.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
Ukraine has attacked Belgorod, actually Russia russia and no nukes happened in response.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
No, better to finish the job than risk appeasing nuclear threats.
Then you also have to face the real risk we are at the closest we have been to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
For 4 small regions on the Russian border it is not worth it
We have been at the closest to nuclear war since Cuba for months.
Labour 52% (+6) Conservative 24% (-5) Liberal Democrat 10% (-3) Green 5% (+1) SNP 5% (+2) Reform UK 3% (-1) Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 28-29 Sept
redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-gb-voti…
Whoops
Lead below 30 points.
Conference bounce for Truss?
Why are Lib Dems taking a hammering - they didn’t aid and abet the bad budget! 😠
Libdems the only challengers throughout Blue wall so why don’t they share the Tory slump? Something whiffs about these polls to me, I think they are Mickey Mouse polls, I don’t trust them as being remotely permanent.
There has been ephemeral polling glitches before, Hague wiped out Blair’s lead during Labour conference week one year, voter frustration with not liking being unable to put petrol in car. It was all short lived, polls went straight back to normal a few weeks later.
Without that foundation in fact Lib Dems should not be dropping by a quarter, they should be going up with blue wall voters switching from Tory to them, I refuse to believe these polls are for keeps, I choose to believe it will be back to a Lab lead about 10 in a few weeks and Lib Dems back to 12+. You can’t believe something is for real when its not founded in fact. Do you see what I mean.
Suppose LibDems had a 20% share in every seat. They would get zero seats with a 20% share. Look at the Greens. 5% share, 1 seat.
Suppose LibDems had a 50% share in 50 seats and a 2% share in the other 600 seats. They would get 50 seat with an overall share of just 6%. Look at the SNP. 5% share, 51 seats.
As voters get wiser to tactical voting and Labour becomes more LibDem friendly, I think that LibDem supporters in Labour seats are declaring that they will vote Labour at a General Election, and in Tory/LibDem marginals, Labour supporters are declaring for the LibDems to get the Tories out.
That is why, as a LibDem, I'm pleased to see the national LibDem share remain around 10%. I know it is a LOT higher in Tory/LibDem marginals. So it must be a LOT lower in the many Tory/Labour marginals - which is good news for anti-Tory voters, who are the large majority.
I don’t really want to argue with this thought out piece of Barnesian thinking, but I don’t believe it as much as I want to.
Lib Dems jump from third to win with 30% swings because the people there just can’t make the leap to Labour, so why would they tell pollsters something different right now? [The LibDem share at the start of the by-election campaigns was quite low. It was the incredible amount of resource that the LibDems threw into the by-election campaigns that produced the 30% swings. It wasn't low hanging fruit.]
I have my own theory. I think the polls are wrong now for the same reason polls are always wrong, underestimating Trump and Bolsonaro for two recent examples - the pollsters are now struggling for balanced and honest samples, Truss and Tories have a lot more support than shown waiting in the polling station, it’s just hiding off grid now or lying to pollsters out of sense of embarrassment. [An excellent point. Though you would expect an embarrassed Tory who supports Truss to lie by saying LibDem rather than Labour wouldn't you?]
One poll today greens up 1 to 5 Lib Dem down 3 to 10? That tells you there’s inherent vice in the poll. I would believe your theory over mine if less of the Tory plunge broke for Labour and more of it to Lib Dem. [ Most constituencies are Tory/Labour fights so switching from Tory to Labour would make more sense if you were a fed up Tory? And MOE is about +/- 2%]
..
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If you don’t believe me Barnsy I can produce exhibit B - that is your own posts down thread where you have crunched the seat changes, Labour up 200 into 400s, Tory’s down to 125, and Libdems just 14 seats was it?
If there’s an election tomorrow, is that what’s going to happen?
Don’t believe last weeks and this weeks polls, they are not for real because the Tory vote has fled off grid to hide in the shadows of the ballot box.
No. In an election tomorrow I estimate the LibDems would get 30 seats, perhaps more. The estimate of 14 is from Electoral Calculus which has a poor algorithm for tactical voting in my opinion.
Do you think the Tories on here who say they have lost faith in Truss and won't vote Tory next time if she is still PM are bluffing out of embarrassment?
Well, yeah. That’s the gist of what I am claiming is built into all these polls. How else do you explain Bolsonaro and Trump making pollsters look like chumps?
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
No, better to finish the job than risk appeasing nuclear threats.
Then you also have to face the real risk we are at the closest we have been to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
For 4 small regions on the Russian border it is not worth it
It's not for 4 small regions on the Russian border! That's the whole point.
Former First Lady Laura Bush agrees, mostly, with CycleFree. She made helping Afghan women one of her biggest causes, and did what she could while her husband was president. (I doubt that her efforts did the Republicans much good, politically. Or did much to change the image of the United States abroad. But she was doing the right thing.)
Bush got 48% of the female vote in 2004, though the last Republican to win the female vote was his father Bush Snr in 1988 who won 50% of female votes to 49% for Dukakis
More power to him, I say, We need to take the threat of Armageddon a lot more seriously. We are close
Giving into Putin might defer Armageddon this time, but it makes it more likely in future.
Better to stand up and a take the chance of being wiped off the planet.
so we ve gone from hide in your houses for 2 years for a disease with a 99% survival rate to risking nuclear apocolypse ....something is slightly awry in your judgement of risk
If you give into nuclear blackmail once, then don't you think there's a teeny-weeny chance that the blackmailer might just blackmail again?
So, we might all get wiped out. That would suck.
But the alternative is that we give into blackmail, and then next time Putin (or Kim Jong-un or whoever) knows we're going to back down. And therefore their incentive to escalate is much greater.
Giving into nuclear blackmail increases the risk of nuclear annihation.
If you - or @Leon - don't realise this, then you are genuinely retarded. And I don't use that word lightly.
Seems like Game Theory 101 to me.
Exactly: the only way to prevent your opponent escalating is to make it clear that you don't worry about the apocalypse.
Because you will rain the other apocalypse on them.
Mutual.
Is Putin suicidal? Who knows? Is the entire chain of command suicidal? I doubt it.
Putin does not have a red button as I understand it. He has a briefcase with some codes that allow him to confirm it is him ordering the use of nukes and then the senior generals get involved.
Which is why it doesn't start with a full strategic first strike.
The order of things goes something like this.
1. Putin orders battlefield nuclear weapon to be fired on a military target, e.g. a military base in Ukraine 2. Nato responds by intervening directly - e.g. its planes launching air strikes on Russian military targets inside Ukraine, blowing up the black sea fleet with cruise missiles, or destroying the Crimea bridge. 3. And here's the important one. This changes the opinion of the chain of command. Nato are now directly attacking Russian targets. So when... ...4 The order to go full strategic nuclear strike comes in, it's much more likely to be obeyed.
This is the problem with escalation. It doesn't start as a full strategic exchange, but that's where it ends up.
Our best course of action is probably to look tough and say we'll get involved militarily, while actually planning devastating sanctions - no Russian citizens allowed in or out of Russia, no trade, completely cut off from banks, the internet, all trade routes, etc - which would of course require China and others to be on side. But completely starving Russia of the spare parts it needs, trade goods it needs, even food it needs, is a better option than military escalation.
The sanctions have already been done.
If Russia chooses to escalate this to a nuclear confrontation, then we need to respond with the full might of NATO against Russia. Full strategic retaliation. Let Russia choose not to be wiped out, knowing that is our response, but if they still issue a first strike anyway then that is what our weapons are for, we absolutely should use Trident in response and America should use the full weight of its weaponry in response too.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
Ukraine has attacked Belgorod, actually Russia russia and no nukes happened in response.
Putin wasn't losing badly then. He is now, despite mobilisation. He is out of options
More power to him, I say, We need to take the threat of Armageddon a lot more seriously. We are close
Giving into Putin might defer Armageddon this time, but it makes it more likely in future.
Better to stand up and a take the chance of being wiped off the planet.
so we ve gone from hide in your houses for 2 years for a disease with a 99% survival rate to risking nuclear apocolypse ....something is slightly awry in your judgement of risk
If you give into nuclear blackmail once, then don't you think there's a teeny-weeny chance that the blackmailer might just blackmail again?
So, we might all get wiped out. That would suck.
But the alternative is that we give into blackmail, and then next time Putin (or Kim Jong-un or whoever) knows we're going to back down. And therefore their incentive to escalate is much greater.
Giving into nuclear blackmail increases the risk of nuclear annihation.
If you - or @Leon - don't realise this, then you are genuinely retarded. And I don't use that word lightly.
Seems like Game Theory 101 to me.
Exactly: the only way to prevent your opponent escalating is to make it clear that you don't worry about the apocalypse.
Because you will rain the other apocalypse on them.
Mutual.
Is Putin suicidal? Who knows? Is the entire chain of command suicidal? I doubt it.
Putin does not have a red button as I understand it. He has a briefcase with some codes that allow him to confirm it is him ordering the use of nukes and then the senior generals get involved.
Which is why it doesn't start with a full strategic first strike.
The order of things goes something like this.
1. Putin orders battlefield nuclear weapon to be fired on a military target, e.g. a military base in Ukraine 2. Nato responds by intervening directly - e.g. its planes launching air strikes on Russian military targets inside Ukraine, blowing up the black sea fleet with cruise missiles, or destroying the Crimea bridge. 3. And here's the important one. This changes the opinion of the chain of command. Nato are now directly attacking Russian targets. So when... ...4 The order to go full strategic nuclear strike comes in, it's much more likely to be obeyed.
This is the problem with escalation. It doesn't start as a full strategic exchange, but that's where it ends up.
Our best course of action is probably to look tough and say we'll get involved militarily, while actually planning devastating sanctions - no Russian citizens allowed in or out of Russia, no trade, completely cut off from banks, the internet, all trade routes, etc - which would of course require China and others to be on side. But completely starving Russia of the spare parts it needs, trade goods it needs, even food it needs, is a better option than military escalation.
This is also my view.
But we can’t say it out loud, we still have to threaten decapitation and a totally commensurate response.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
Not meaning to be rude but you do appear to be strong when your opponent is weak (not tolerating peaceful protest for independence in Scotland and Spain, threaten to nuke Argentina) and weak when confronted by a strong bully eg IRA/UDF and Putin. I prefer the reverse. Respect those who don't turn to violence and control your response to a weaker aggressor, but stand up to bullies.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
Ukraine has attacked Belgorod, actually Russia russia and no nukes happened in response.
Putin wasn't losing badly then. He is now, despite mobilisation. He is out of options
Telling his forces to withdraw, as Trump and then Biden did in Afghanistan, is an option.
More power to him, I say, We need to take the threat of Armageddon a lot more seriously. We are close
Giving into Putin might defer Armageddon this time, but it makes it more likely in future.
Better to stand up and a take the chance of being wiped off the planet.
so we ve gone from hide in your houses for 2 years for a disease with a 99% survival rate to risking nuclear apocolypse ....something is slightly awry in your judgement of risk
If you give into nuclear blackmail once, then don't you think there's a teeny-weeny chance that the blackmailer might just blackmail again?
So, we might all get wiped out. That would suck.
But the alternative is that we give into blackmail, and then next time Putin (or Kim Jong-un or whoever) knows we're going to back down. And therefore their incentive to escalate is much greater.
Giving into nuclear blackmail increases the risk of nuclear annihation.
If you - or @Leon - don't realise this, then you are genuinely retarded. And I don't use that word lightly.
Seems like Game Theory 101 to me.
Exactly: the only way to prevent your opponent escalating is to make it clear that you don't worry about the apocalypse.
Because you will rain the other apocalypse on them.
Mutual.
Is Putin suicidal? Who knows? Is the entire chain of command suicidal? I doubt it.
Putin does not have a red button as I understand it. He has a briefcase with some codes that allow him to confirm it is him ordering the use of nukes and then the senior generals get involved.
Which is why it doesn't start with a full strategic first strike.
The order of things goes something like this.
1. Putin orders battlefield nuclear weapon to be fired on a military target, e.g. a military base in Ukraine 2. Nato responds by intervening directly - e.g. its planes launching air strikes on Russian military targets inside Ukraine, blowing up the black sea fleet with cruise missiles, or destroying the Crimea bridge. 3. And here's the important one. This changes the opinion of the chain of command. Nato are now directly attacking Russian targets. So when... ...4 The order to go full strategic nuclear strike comes in, it's much more likely to be obeyed.
This is the problem with escalation. It doesn't start as a full strategic exchange, but that's where it ends up.
Our best course of action is probably to look tough and say we'll get involved militarily, while actually planning devastating sanctions - no Russian citizens allowed in or out of Russia, no trade, completely cut off from banks, the internet, all trade routes, etc - which would of course require China and others to be on side. But completely starving Russia of the spare parts it needs, trade goods it needs, even food it needs, is a better option than military escalation.
I agree that is what we should do. A massive conventional military response leads pretty quickly to all-out nuclear war, and we all die with our eyes melting
This 'free for all' on policy is only happening because Truss has totally abandoned the manifesto the government was actually elected on.
Abandoned, or now at war with the declinist direction it was taking us?
For a LibDem you seem to take some strange positions.
Not my position. I’m just flagging up what I think this new government is explaining - 97 - 2010 pathetic declinest Labour government, 2010 - last month more pathetic declinist government by… um… it doesn’t matter by who only the policy is completely different at long last , lean mean taxes and state means aspiration, growth, productivity, growth, and a UK and flag you can be proud in once again.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what they are saying.
97-2007 was a golden age compared to what came after. Time for a change.
You saying you don’t want your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish, you don’t want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, you don’t want growth, you don’t want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?) you don’t want a UK and flag to be proud of once again? What sort of declinist traitor are you? 😠
PS apologies, forgot to boast about spending 8% of GDP on a market busting hand out, a lot of which goes to those who don’t even need it.
PPS I appreciate the appeal of change once in a while, but you have to accept, every time we have let a Labour government in they have wrecked the economy.
Not everyone utterly resents every last penny of tax. If the price of getting more taxes back is to wreck the country financially, then I would rather they kept the taxes.
And as for accusing Labour of wrecking the economy The current govt makes Labour look like paragons of fiscal rectitude!
This 'free for all' on policy is only happening because Truss has totally abandoned the manifesto the government was actually elected on.
Abandoned, or now at war with the declinist direction it was taking us?
For a LibDem you seem to take some strange positions.
Not my position. I’m just flagging up what I think this new government is explaining - 97 - 2010 pathetic declinest Labour government, 2010 - last month more pathetic declinist government by… um… it doesn’t matter by who only the policy is completely different at long last , lean mean taxes and state means aspiration, growth, productivity, growth, and a UK and flag you can be proud in once again.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what they are saying.
97-2007 was a golden age compared to what came after. Time for a change.
You saying you don’t want your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish, you don’t want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, you don’t want growth, you don’t want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?) you don’t want a UK and flag to be proud of once again? What sort of declinist traitor are you? 😠
PS apologies, forgot to boast about spending 8% of GDP on a market busting hand out, a lot of which goes to those who don’t even need it.
PPS I appreciate the appeal of change once in a while, but you have to accept, every time we have let a Labour government in they have wrecked the economy.
"idle hooked on state hand outs" That's a bit unfair on pensioners.
More power to him, I say, We need to take the threat of Armageddon a lot more seriously. We are close
Giving into Putin might defer Armageddon this time, but it makes it more likely in future.
Better to stand up and a take the chance of being wiped off the planet.
so we ve gone from hide in your houses for 2 years for a disease with a 99% survival rate to risking nuclear apocolypse ....something is slightly awry in your judgement of risk
If you give into nuclear blackmail once, then don't you think there's a teeny-weeny chance that the blackmailer might just blackmail again?
So, we might all get wiped out. That would suck.
But the alternative is that we give into blackmail, and then next time Putin (or Kim Jong-un or whoever) knows we're going to back down. And therefore their incentive to escalate is much greater.
Giving into nuclear blackmail increases the risk of nuclear annihation.
If you - or @Leon - don't realise this, then you are genuinely retarded. And I don't use that word lightly.
Seems like Game Theory 101 to me.
Exactly: the only way to prevent your opponent escalating is to make it clear that you don't worry about the apocalypse.
Because you will rain the other apocalypse on them.
Mutual.
Is Putin suicidal? Who knows? Is the entire chain of command suicidal? I doubt it.
Putin does not have a red button as I understand it. He has a briefcase with some codes that allow him to confirm it is him ordering the use of nukes and then the senior generals get involved.
Which is why it doesn't start with a full strategic first strike.
The order of things goes something like this.
1. Putin orders battlefield nuclear weapon to be fired on a military target, e.g. a military base in Ukraine 2. Nato responds by intervening directly - e.g. its planes launching air strikes on Russian military targets inside Ukraine, blowing up the black sea fleet with cruise missiles, or destroying the Crimea bridge. 3. And here's the important one. This changes the opinion of the chain of command. Nato are now directly attacking Russian targets. So when... ...4 The order to go full strategic nuclear strike comes in, it's much more likely to be obeyed.
This is the problem with escalation. It doesn't start as a full strategic exchange, but that's where it ends up.
Our best course of action is probably to look tough and say we'll get involved militarily, while actually planning devastating sanctions - no Russian citizens allowed in or out of Russia, no trade, completely cut off from banks, the internet, all trade routes, etc - which would of course require China and others to be on side. But completely starving Russia of the spare parts it needs, trade goods it needs, even food it needs, is a better option than military escalation.
The sanctions have already been done.
If Russia chooses to escalate this to a nuclear confrontation, then we need to respond with the full might of NATO against Russia. Full strategic retaliation. Let Russia choose not to be wiped out, knowing that is our response, but if they still issue a first strike anyway then that is what our weapons are for, we absolutely should use Trident in response and America should use the full weight of its weaponry in response too.
This 'free for all' on policy is only happening because Truss has totally abandoned the manifesto the government was actually elected on.
Abandoned, or now at war with the declinist direction it was taking us?
For a LibDem you seem to take some strange positions.
Not my position. I’m just flagging up what I think this new government is explaining - 97 - 2010 pathetic declinest Labour government, 2010 - last month more pathetic declinist government by… um… it doesn’t matter by who only the policy is completely different at long last , lean mean taxes and state means aspiration, growth, productivity, growth, and a UK and flag you can be proud in once again.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what they are saying.
97-2007 was a golden age compared to what came after. Time for a change.
You saying you don’t want your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish, you don’t want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, you don’t want growth, you don’t want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?) you don’t want a UK and flag to be proud of once again? What sort of declinist traitor are you? 😠
PS apologies, forgot to boast about spending 8% of GDP on a market busting hand out, a lot of which goes to those who don’t even need it.
PPS I appreciate the appeal of change once in a while, but you have to accept, every time we have let a Labour government in they have wrecked the economy.
No they haven't. I lived through some. And none have achieved quite this level.
More power to him, I say, We need to take the threat of Armageddon a lot more seriously. We are close
Giving into Putin might defer Armageddon this time, but it makes it more likely in future.
Better to stand up and a take the chance of being wiped off the planet.
so we ve gone from hide in your houses for 2 years for a disease with a 99% survival rate to risking nuclear apocolypse ....something is slightly awry in your judgement of risk
If you give into nuclear blackmail once, then don't you think there's a teeny-weeny chance that the blackmailer might just blackmail again?
So, we might all get wiped out. That would suck.
But the alternative is that we give into blackmail, and then next time Putin (or Kim Jong-un or whoever) knows we're going to back down. And therefore their incentive to escalate is much greater.
Giving into nuclear blackmail increases the risk of nuclear annihation.
If you - or @Leon - don't realise this, then you are genuinely retarded. And I don't use that word lightly.
Seems like Game Theory 101 to me.
Exactly: the only way to prevent your opponent escalating is to make it clear that you don't worry about the apocalypse.
Because you will rain the other apocalypse on them.
Mutual.
Is Putin suicidal? Who knows? Is the entire chain of command suicidal? I doubt it.
Putin does not have a red button as I understand it. He has a briefcase with some codes that allow him to confirm it is him ordering the use of nukes and then the senior generals get involved.
Which is why it doesn't start with a full strategic first strike.
The order of things goes something like this.
1. Putin orders battlefield nuclear weapon to be fired on a military target, e.g. a military base in Ukraine 2. Nato responds by intervening directly - e.g. its planes launching air strikes on Russian military targets inside Ukraine, blowing up the black sea fleet with cruise missiles, or destroying the Crimea bridge. 3. And here's the important one. This changes the opinion of the chain of command. Nato are now directly attacking Russian targets. So when... ...4 The order to go full strategic nuclear strike comes in, it's much more likely to be obeyed.
This is the problem with escalation. It doesn't start as a full strategic exchange, but that's where it ends up.
Our best course of action is probably to look tough and say we'll get involved militarily, while actually planning devastating sanctions - no Russian citizens allowed in or out of Russia, no trade, completely cut off from banks, the internet, all trade routes, etc - which would of course require China and others to be on side. But completely starving Russia of the spare parts it needs, trade goods it needs, even food it needs, is a better option than military escalation.
The sanctions have already been done.
If Russia chooses to escalate this to a nuclear confrontation, then we need to respond with the full might of NATO against Russia. Full strategic retaliation. Let Russia choose not to be wiped out, knowing that is our response, but if they still issue a first strike anyway then that is what our weapons are for, we absolutely should use Trident in response and America should use the full weight of its weaponry in response too.
Take your hand off your tiny, stiffened cock
Discover what your backbone is for.
You'd rather confront the "woke" than enemies prepared to start wars of aggression.
This 'free for all' on policy is only happening because Truss has totally abandoned the manifesto the government was actually elected on.
Abandoned, or now at war with the declinist direction it was taking us?
For a LibDem you seem to take some strange positions.
Not my position. I’m just flagging up what I think this new government is explaining - 97 - 2010 pathetic declinest Labour government, 2010 - last month more pathetic declinist government by… um… it doesn’t matter by who only the policy is completely different at long last , lean mean taxes and state means aspiration, growth, productivity, growth, and a UK and flag you can be proud in once again.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what they are saying.
97-2007 was a golden age compared to what came after. Time for a change.
You saying you don’t want your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish, you don’t want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, you don’t want growth, you don’t want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?) you don’t want a UK and flag to be proud of once again? What sort of declinist traitor are you? 😠
PS apologies, forgot to boast about spending 8% of GDP on a market busting hand out, a lot of which goes to those who don’t even need it.
PPS I appreciate the appeal of change once in a while, but you have to accept, every time we have let a Labour government in they have wrecked the economy.
No they haven't. I lived through some. And none have achieved quite this level.
I was only explaining the mind of Liz Truss. Calm down.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
Not meaning to be rude but you do appear to be strong when your opponent is weak (not tolerating peaceful protest for independence in Scotland and Spain, threaten to nuke Argentina) and weak when confronted by a strong bully eg IRA/UDF and Putin. I prefer the reverse. Respect those who don't turn to violence and control your response to a weaker aggressor, but stand up to bullies.
It is called realpolitik. Spain and Argentina have relatively weak militaries and no nuclear weapons and we could still defend Gibraltar or the Falklands if pushed and the SNP are just blowhards.
I also never advocated appeasing the IRA. Putin however, while having weak conventional armed forces has the biggest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world, he could wipe us out along with the rest of the West if he wanted (even if he also destroyed most of Russia in the process).
Unless he full on invades a NATO state it is not worth a full on war with Putin
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
Ukraine has attacked Belgorod, actually Russia russia and no nukes happened in response.
Not just once, but several times. They've also retaken Lyman, and a number of other settlements, in several of the oblasts supposedly annexed by the Russian Federation. Nuclear counter-strike comes there none.
I find it incredible that so many people are willing to be so easily intimidated into acquiescing to a war of conquest.
It’s curious how Leon has gone overnight from gung-ho nuclear escalation to sailing on occasion close to offering Putin pretty much whatever he wants. Threads is indeed a powerful movie.
More power to him, I say, We need to take the threat of Armageddon a lot more seriously. We are close
Giving into Putin might defer Armageddon this time, but it makes it more likely in future.
Better to stand up and a take the chance of being wiped off the planet.
so we ve gone from hide in your houses for 2 years for a disease with a 99% survival rate to risking nuclear apocolypse ....something is slightly awry in your judgement of risk
If you give into nuclear blackmail once, then don't you think there's a teeny-weeny chance that the blackmailer might just blackmail again?
So, we might all get wiped out. That would suck.
But the alternative is that we give into blackmail, and then next time Putin (or Kim Jong-un or whoever) knows we're going to back down. And therefore their incentive to escalate is much greater.
Giving into nuclear blackmail increases the risk of nuclear annihation.
If you - or @Leon - don't realise this, then you are genuinely retarded. And I don't use that word lightly.
but what are we talking about here...we are not talking about an attack on the UK or even Eastern Europe.....we are talking about some eastern provinces of ukraine most people hadnt heard of a few months ago....you are prepared to risk nuclear annihalation for that!!
Another troll. Go away
He's not a troll for pointing out that quite a few of us are wondering if we want to die over the sovereignty of Luhansk
What you seem incapable of understanding is that not standing up now increases the likelihood of it happening again.
"Standing up now"
This macho talk is adolescent wank. We are not in a playground fight, we are discussing the end of civilisation. We may have to cede more than is comfortable, but so will Putin. That is the way to peace. It won't be pretty, but Act 2 of Threads is infinitely uglier, and as for Act 3....
If both sides were to accept UN-monitored binding referendums in the territories, that would make it more likely that a similar method - not war - would be used to resolve any future argy-bargy in the largely ethnic-Russian area of Ida-Virumaa in Estonia, for example. The precedent would be positive.
I thought "Oh no, what has that tosser Musk had to say?" before reading it. But he's right. I would add that if the territories go to Russia and Ukraine is guaranteed as neutral, then the territories although in Russia could also be agreed to be demilitarised somehow. Also I'd have no problem with another referendum in Crimea if it lets Zelensky save face.
Don't be ridiculous, there can not be any binding referendums in a territory that has been invaded, because the invaders have dislodged the population that lived there and supplanted them with their own population.
Getting invaders to vote that they agree with the invasion was a good thing, is not democratic.
Before there can be any votes, the Russians who invaded need to go home, the sovereignty needs to be returned to Ukraine, justice must be served and any refugees allowed to go home.
You are just being an apologist for Russia's military aggression.
Both sides would agree that sovereignty would depend on the results of referendums monitored by the UN. You are being ridiculous to insist there has to be a prior agreement on who has sovereignty in the meantime. These would be sovereignty referendums. Nobody is saying a Russian soldier from Vladivostok or a Ukrainian soldier from Kiev should be able to vote, or that a refugee from Luhansk currently living in Belgorod or Kiev shouldn't.
This 'free for all' on policy is only happening because Truss has totally abandoned the manifesto the government was actually elected on.
Abandoned, or now at war with the declinist direction it was taking us?
For a LibDem you seem to take some strange positions.
Not my position. I’m just flagging up what I think this new government is explaining - 97 - 2010 pathetic declinest Labour government, 2010 - last month more pathetic declinist government by… um… it doesn’t matter by who only the policy is completely different at long last , lean mean taxes and state means aspiration, growth, productivity, growth, and a UK and flag you can be proud in once again.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what they are saying.
97-2007 was a golden age compared to what came after. Time for a change.
You saying you don’t want your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish, you don’t want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, you don’t want growth, you don’t want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?) you don’t want a UK and flag to be proud of once again? What sort of declinist traitor are you? 😠
PS apologies, forgot to boast about spending 8% of GDP on a market busting hand out, a lot of which goes to those who don’t even need it.
PPS I appreciate the appeal of change once in a while, but you have to accept, every time we have let a Labour government in they have wrecked the economy.
Not everyone utterly resents every last penny of tax. If the price of getting more taxes back is to wreck the country financially, then I would rather they kept the taxes.
And as for accusing Labour of wrecking the economy The current govt makes Labour look like paragons of fiscal rectitude!
Yeah. That’s the bit where Team Truss argument is like a poster flagged up earlier, Wily Coyote thinking it’s on sound footing before realising it’s up in the air and about to drop.
Let's see, here are two main subjects being discussed here today, the one introduced by CycleFree, and what to do about Putin. Since the latter is far easier (for a man, anyway), I'll start with that:
A just outcome for Putin would have him being arrested promptly by Russian police, given a speedy trial -- and then hanged for treason. (And then his many accomplices should face the legal consequences for what they have done.)
Nonetheless, I would not object if we, with the help of other Russians, were able to end this war by persuading him to go into exile, to Cuba, for example. In fact, since the Cubans are now asking for help to recover from Hurricane Ivan, I wouldn't even object to giving them a bribe, disguised of course, to take him.
That used to work great.
The issue is the stupid f**kers who decided to make themselves feel good by setting up the International Criminal Court so that tyrants and dictators couldn’t “escape justice”.
The result being that said tyrants and dictators have no way out and therefore fight to the bitter end causing untold carnage and destruction in the process.
More power to him, I say, We need to take the threat of Armageddon a lot more seriously. We are close
Giving into Putin might defer Armageddon this time, but it makes it more likely in future.
Better to stand up and a take the chance of being wiped off the planet.
so we ve gone from hide in your houses for 2 years for a disease with a 99% survival rate to risking nuclear apocolypse ....something is slightly awry in your judgement of risk
If you give into nuclear blackmail once, then don't you think there's a teeny-weeny chance that the blackmailer might just blackmail again?
So, we might all get wiped out. That would suck.
But the alternative is that we give into blackmail, and then next time Putin (or Kim Jong-un or whoever) knows we're going to back down. And therefore their incentive to escalate is much greater.
Giving into nuclear blackmail increases the risk of nuclear annihation.
If you - or @Leon - don't realise this, then you are genuinely retarded. And I don't use that word lightly.
Seems like Game Theory 101 to me.
Exactly: the only way to prevent your opponent escalating is to make it clear that you don't worry about the apocalypse.
Because you will rain the other apocalypse on them.
Mutual.
Is Putin suicidal? Who knows? Is the entire chain of command suicidal? I doubt it.
Putin does not have a red button as I understand it. He has a briefcase with some codes that allow him to confirm it is him ordering the use of nukes and then the senior generals get involved.
Which is why it doesn't start with a full strategic first strike.
The order of things goes something like this.
1. Putin orders battlefield nuclear weapon to be fired on a military target, e.g. a military base in Ukraine 2. Nato responds by intervening directly - e.g. its planes launching air strikes on Russian military targets inside Ukraine, blowing up the black sea fleet with cruise missiles, or destroying the Crimea bridge. 3. And here's the important one. This changes the opinion of the chain of command. Nato are now directly attacking Russian targets. So when... ...4 The order to go full strategic nuclear strike comes in, it's much more likely to be obeyed.
This is the problem with escalation. It doesn't start as a full strategic exchange, but that's where it ends up.
Our best course of action is probably to look tough and say we'll get involved militarily, while actually planning devastating sanctions - no Russian citizens allowed in or out of Russia, no trade, completely cut off from banks, the internet, all trade routes, etc - which would of course require China and others to be on side. But completely starving Russia of the spare parts it needs, trade goods it needs, even food it needs, is a better option than military escalation.
I agree that is what we should do. A massive conventional military response leads pretty quickly to all-out nuclear war, and we all die with our eyes melting
Avoid escalation
The response to a battlefield nuke might well be a US strike of comparable damage using conventional weapons.
Tit for tat.
Meantime, the Chinese are leaking their trousers at their now rogue ally who is threatening to tip Taiwan into building nukes pronto, never mind fucking up world trade.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
Ukraine has attacked Belgorod, actually Russia russia and no nukes happened in response.
Not just once, but several times. They've also retaken Lyman, and a number of other settlements, in several of the oblasts supposedly annexed by the Russian Federation. Nuclear counter-strike comes there none.
I find it incredible that so many people are willing to be so easily intimidated into acquiescing to a war of conquest.
Who is being "intimidated into acquiescence"?
We are saying that wars with nuclear powers do not end with total victory, because the nukes will be launched and everyone loses. This is realpolitik. Ugly but true
We need to accept that, and so does Ukraine. This does not mean we give Putin everything he wants, far from it. He is now humiliated and we want him to stay humiliated - but not completely, as that means war, again. We have to find the sweet spot where he is hurting, but he can still claim some modest "victory" to his people, and stay in power
We never sought the total military defeat of the USSR, and we never confronted them directly toe to toe, because it was a madman's errand. Same with Putin
More power to him, I say, We need to take the threat of Armageddon a lot more seriously. We are close
Giving into Putin might defer Armageddon this time, but it makes it more likely in future.
Better to stand up and a take the chance of being wiped off the planet.
so we ve gone from hide in your houses for 2 years for a disease with a 99% survival rate to risking nuclear apocolypse ....something is slightly awry in your judgement of risk
If you give into nuclear blackmail once, then don't you think there's a teeny-weeny chance that the blackmailer might just blackmail again?
So, we might all get wiped out. That would suck.
But the alternative is that we give into blackmail, and then next time Putin (or Kim Jong-un or whoever) knows we're going to back down. And therefore their incentive to escalate is much greater.
Giving into nuclear blackmail increases the risk of nuclear annihation.
If you - or @Leon - don't realise this, then you are genuinely retarded. And I don't use that word lightly.
Seems like Game Theory 101 to me.
Exactly: the only way to prevent your opponent escalating is to make it clear that you don't worry about the apocalypse.
Because you will rain the other apocalypse on them.
Mutual.
Is Putin suicidal? Who knows? Is the entire chain of command suicidal? I doubt it.
Putin does not have a red button as I understand it. He has a briefcase with some codes that allow him to confirm it is him ordering the use of nukes and then the senior generals get involved.
Which is why it doesn't start with a full strategic first strike.
The order of things goes something like this.
1. Putin orders battlefield nuclear weapon to be fired on a military target, e.g. a military base in Ukraine 2. Nato responds by intervening directly - e.g. its planes launching air strikes on Russian military targets inside Ukraine, blowing up the black sea fleet with cruise missiles, or destroying the Crimea bridge. 3. And here's the important one. This changes the opinion of the chain of command. Nato are now directly attacking Russian targets. So when... ...4 The order to go full strategic nuclear strike comes in, it's much more likely to be obeyed.
This is the problem with escalation. It doesn't start as a full strategic exchange, but that's where it ends up.
Our best course of action is probably to look tough and say we'll get involved militarily, while actually planning devastating sanctions - no Russian citizens allowed in or out of Russia, no trade, completely cut off from banks, the internet, all trade routes, etc - which would of course require China and others to be on side. But completely starving Russia of the spare parts it needs, trade goods it needs, even food it needs, is a better option than military escalation.
I agree that is what we should do. A massive conventional military response leads pretty quickly to all-out nuclear war, and we all die with our eyes melting
Avoid escalation
They should have you at Sandhurst or West Point teaching military theory. You are wasted writing articles on oysters and oddly named wines
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
Ukraine has attacked Belgorod, actually Russia russia and no nukes happened in response.
Putin wasn't losing badly then. He is now, despite mobilisation. He is out of options
He kind of was. The complete withdrawal from Kyiv was a major defeat.
Back in February, Putin already warned that he would retaliate if any other countries got involved, so really we've already called his bluff by continuing to supply Ukraine with weapons and training.
Not Martin Luther King, he was quoting someone else. He was also almost certainly a serial abuser and rapist of women, so what he is doing here is anyone's guess.
He was quoting a 19th century preacher whom no-one has heard of. His quote referring to that preacher has then been misquoted (and on some views misunderstood) by Obama, who reportedly had it sewn into a rug at the White House.
My only interest was in using the "arc of history" reference (not in King).
You clearly don't like anything I write above or below the line, which is your prerogative. So let's take it as a given and then you don't have to do it every time. Which will save you time for other pursuits.
I do like to be helpful, if I can.
Well good, but this piece like all your other pieces occupies the debatable ground where word salad collides with idea soup, and I shall continue where appropriate to say so. Do you write these things in the expectation that we all gaze on them in awed silence like Chinese tourists in the Sistine Chapel?
I write to stimulate debate.
You repeat the same criticisms over and over. It is, frankly, tedious and not at all useful, as thoughtful criticism usually is. But it is your time you are wasting.
PS Chinese tourists in the Sistine Chapel make the most appalling racket.
It’s curious how Leon has gone overnight from gung-ho nuclear escalation to sailing on occasion close to offering Putin pretty much whatever he wants. Threads is indeed a powerful movie.
Get it dubbed into Russian and streamed on the widescreen TV in Shoogu’s dacha.
As, interestingly, is my family. A violent argument about Dealing with Putin has broken out on the Family Whatsapp. Intriguing
Wonder who started that
Not me. Or rather, I just dropped in that Times story about the nuclear train, and then it kicked off between other family members
We had big rows about Ukraine when the war started. Older members are weirdly pro Putin, others fiercely the opposite. So then we all went quiet for the sake of harmony
You could look at it a different way. Incel (involuntarily celibate) is a subset of 'men who are just celibate'. If dealing with women becomes too difficult and risky, then they could just decide to stop bothering. No one is forcing men to have sex and go in to relationships with women. Particularly now that you have pornography, virtual reality etc. Perhaps it will get to the point where men adopt children, etc, in the way that single women sometimes give birth by IVF etc. Would this be such a bad thing? I am not saying that this is a healthy state of affairs, but it could be where the current phase of the 'sexual revolution' is leading to.
I'm inclined towards Houellebecq's answer, that it is "the law of market forces".
The dating market is the most capitalistic and selfish market there is - nobody wants to redistribute wealth in this market. There are a variety of things that make a person attractive - looks, physique, wealth, intelligence, sense of humour, style, youth etc. But each and every one of undeniably has a "sexual market value" based on these factors.
Now enter globalisation.
Up until about 2008, you largely met people through your social networks or your immediate surroundings. Social media didn't exist... you have to remember Facebook was limited to universities only until 2006 and the other stuff, instagram, tiktok, tinder, blah, didn't exist at all. So you'd go to a bar, meet through a college society, the young conservatives, a friend of the family, work colleague etc.
That all changed once our lives went online.
Consider an absolute stunner of a 21 year old girl. She's got model good looks and every man who meets her wants her. In 2005, she probably would have met people through uni, or at a bar, at her place of work, etc. Take out the oldies, the uglies the fatties etc - and she's probably got a dating pool of 1000 eligible bachelors in her town or wider social network to choose from.
Fast forward to 2022. All a beautiful 21 year old has to do is have access to an iphone and instagram and just by posting a few bikini shots, she can have 10,000 followers and premier league footballers in her DMs, if she's pretty enough.
Her sexual market value hasn't changed, but her access to an infinitely larger global sexual marketplace has.
This is very good for the attractive people of this world, but very bad for the unattractive ones. The attractive people have vastly more options at their disposal. The unattractive ones - well, are still unattractive, so many, many, many more rejections. It doesn't matter how many instagram selfies they post, they still get no interest.
We know that this is true of Tinder, if Tinder was a country it would have one of the highest gini coefficients in the world.
What all this means for society is, unfortunately, exactly what you'd get in any society where the resources are so unevenly distributed. You have an aristocracy with high sexual market value (through beauty, money, status etc) hoarding all the wealth, with an impoverished peasantry slowly starving to death.
All of which kind of ignores the fact that many men and women are attracted to each other for reasons other than their looks. Yes, in a nightclub or bar obviously the first thing that catches the eye is looks but it takes about 5 seconds actually talking with someone to realise that, whatever their superficial attractiveness, you sure as hell wouldn't want more than the briefest of flirtations.
This simple truth is proved by the fact that, in spite of the fact that 99% of us - whether male or female - are not 'stunners', the vast majority of us end up in romantic relationships that thankfully outlive the initial superficial attraction.
And again you totally miss the point. I’m not surprised you never got laid for years if you’re this obtuse
Internet dating. Dating apps
They make everything much more instant and visual. So the less good looking guys don’t even have a chance to pull. This is a real phenomenon and it is unquestionably bad for society. See all the incel shooters in the USA
And guess what, unless they are sad sacks like you, the vast majority of people do not use dating apps to get partners. They don't have to because they are able to actually interact with the opposite sex face to face rather than hiding behind a phone. It is you who completely miss the point. You are the incel.
But this is simply and probably wrong (you fat clueless twat etc etc)
These days people meet via social media, very often dating apps. It’s absolutely standard
I wonder if I was one of the earliest PBers to meet a partner through the Internet? I met a GF through a bulletin board (Mono, if anyone remembers that) in 1992. Pre-WWW.
Mono was awesome at its peak. I never met a partner through it, but my sister did. (Genuinely true fact.)
They really named a dating app after an infectious disease ?
This 'free for all' on policy is only happening because Truss has totally abandoned the manifesto the government was actually elected on.
Abandoned, or now at war with the declinist direction it was taking us?
For a LibDem you seem to take some strange positions.
Not my position. I’m just flagging up what I think this new government is explaining - 97 - 2010 pathetic declinest Labour government, 2010 - last month more pathetic declinist government by… um… it doesn’t matter by who only the policy is completely different at long last , lean mean taxes and state means aspiration, growth, productivity, growth, and a UK and flag you can be proud in once again.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what they are saying.
97-2007 was a golden age compared to what came after. Time for a change.
You saying you don’t want your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish, you don’t want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, you don’t want growth, you don’t want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?) you don’t want a UK and flag to be proud of once again? What sort of declinist traitor are you? 😠
PS apologies, forgot to boast about spending 8% of GDP on a market busting hand out, a lot of which goes to those who don’t even need it.
PPS I appreciate the appeal of change once in a while, but you have to accept, every time we have let a Labour government in they have wrecked the economy.
No they haven't. I lived through some. And none have achieved quite this level.
I was only explaining the mind of Liz Truss. Calm down.
Brave but doomed effort, I fear.
Meanwhile in "for freaks sake, read the freaking room" news...
A Conservative Treasury minister and one of Liz Truss’s major campaign donors both said they would like to abolish inheritance tax, as they urged the prime minister to continue with her “politically brave” agenda for wealth creation.
Andrew Griffith, a City minister under Kwasi Kwarteng, said tax was not his policy area but inheritance tax would be his top choice for a tax to abolish.
I got to play with serious A todayI. I asked it to write a note to my boss on a difficult topic, striking a positive, constructive tone. It inspired me to do a better job than I might otherwise had done. It was possible to break it once you clock what it is doing, but it’s a useful tool.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
Ukraine has attacked Belgorod, actually Russia russia and no nukes happened in response.
Not just once, but several times. They've also retaken Lyman, and a number of other settlements, in several of the oblasts supposedly annexed by the Russian Federation. Nuclear counter-strike comes there none.
I find it incredible that so many people are willing to be so easily intimidated into acquiescing to a war of conquest.
Who is being "intimidated into acquiescence"?
We are saying that wars with nuclear powers do not end with total victory, because the nukes will be launched and everyone loses. This is realpolitik. Ugly but true
We need to accept that, and so does Ukraine. This does not mean we give Putin everything he wants, far from it. He is now humiliated and we want him to stay humiliated - but not completely, as that means war, again. We have to find the sweet spot where he is hurting, but he can still claim some modest "victory" to his people, and stay in power
We never sought the total military defeat of the USSR, and we never confronted them directly toe to toe, because it was a madman's errand. Same with Putin
You are back to the "we must give him a ramp for exit" argument we had back six months ago.
I’m rather hoping our spy agencies are working overtime at the moment.
Best solution by far, and the cheapest, must be to undermine the leadership from within and if necessary to sabotage the nuclear threat at source.
Did you see those stat geeks I linked earlier?
They say the chances of a tactical nuke detonating in the next month are 8.6%
IIRC a tactical nuke was the trigger for your flight to Morocco/Ireland
8.6%
Ireland has taken too pro Zelensky a line to be safe from Putin, probably only Switzerland or Austria or maybe New Zealand of non NATO western nations would be relatively safe if nuclear war broke out
This 'free for all' on policy is only happening because Truss has totally abandoned the manifesto the government was actually elected on.
Abandoned, or now at war with the declinist direction it was taking us?
For a LibDem you seem to take some strange positions.
Not my position. I’m just flagging up what I think this new government is explaining - 97 - 2010 pathetic declinest Labour government, 2010 - last month more pathetic declinist government by… um… it doesn’t matter by who only the policy is completely different at long last , lean mean taxes and state means aspiration, growth, productivity, growth, and a UK and flag you can be proud in once again.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what they are saying.
97-2007 was a golden age compared to what came after. Time for a change.
You saying you don’t want your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish, you don’t want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, you don’t want growth, you don’t want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?) you don’t want a UK and flag to be proud of once again? What sort of declinist traitor are you? 😠
PS apologies, forgot to boast about spending 8% of GDP on a market busting hand out, a lot of which goes to those who don’t even need it.
PPS I appreciate the appeal of change once in a while, but you have to accept, every time we have let a Labour government in they have wrecked the economy.
No they haven't. I lived through some. And none have achieved quite this level.
I was only explaining the mind of Liz Truss. Calm down.
Brave but doomed effort, I fear.
Meanwhile in "for freaks sake, read the freaking room" news...
A Conservative Treasury minister and one of Liz Truss’s major campaign donors both said they would like to abolish inheritance tax, as they urged the prime minister to continue with her “politically brave” agenda for wealth creation.
Andrew Griffith, a City minister under Kwasi Kwarteng, said tax was not his policy area but inheritance tax would be his top choice for a tax to abolish.
Read that New Yorker article, we need to find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
One of those ways might be to assassinate Putin, but there are other ways, that may well be along the lines suggested by Musk.
I happen to think Musk’s intervention very poorly timed. It is really up to the Ukrainians right now, and they don’t need that twit weighing in, but it may indeed come to it that we need to find something Putin can sign up to.
Find ways that allow Russia to make peace.
OK, Russia departs Ukraine, apologises for the invasion, pays reparations, admits they were wrong to invade and begs for forgiveness.
That'd be a start.
Er ok. This is mere virtue signalling, frankly.
Not really, that's how vanquished aggressors are typically treated.
You have a better alternative?
If Putin wants to make peace he has a simple way to do it, depart every inch of Ukraine. Including Crimea and any other territory he has falsely and illegally annexed. Do that, and we have peace.
This is just garbage.
Personally I want the Ukrainians to march on Moscow, but it’s not going to happen.
We need to figure out ways for Putin (or his replacement) to step back.
When the time is right.
For now, it is really down to Ukraine’s ability to push them back as far as they can. Facts on the ground etc.
What's the garbage?
The way to step back is to say that Russia is withdrawing back into Russian territory.
That is the only sustainable way back. Staying in Ukraine's territory means a continuation of war. Going back to Russia, leaving Crimea and the other occupied territories, ends it.
In this, as with everything, you are a purist who cannot cope with shades of grey.
Ukraine may well accept something along the lines of Musk’s suggestion, just as India has accepted partition of Kashmir, and the Koreas accepted division of their country too.
India has most certainly NOT accepted the status quo in Kashmir. It claims the entire territory, including the bits occupied by China. It is still illegal to bring maps into India showing the de facto Indo-Pak border through Kashmir.
Ok, put quote marks around my “accepted”.
It doesn’t change my point though, which is that Barty can virtue signal about insisting on humiliating reparations imposed on Russia by the victors at Versailles-on-Don, but reality is likely to be rather more nuanced.
What makes it likely to be more nuanced? Russia is fucked, their Potemkin military can't win, can't equip their soldiers, has inferior technology and awful logistics.
Ukraine has access to better technology, vastly superior logistics, world class intelligence, an army prepared to fight to protect their homeland and leadership that is competent.
Ukraine can and will win this war, conventionally. No need for a stalemate, let alone a likely one.
However Russia also has the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. You assume Putin will fight only on conventional terms. He has already made clear he will launch a tactical nuclear weapon if Ukraine tries to push into the 4 regions he has now claimed as Russian.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
Ukraine has attacked Belgorod, actually Russia russia and no nukes happened in response.
Not just once, but several times. They've also retaken Lyman, and a number of other settlements, in several of the oblasts supposedly annexed by the Russian Federation. Nuclear counter-strike comes there none.
I find it incredible that so many people are willing to be so easily intimidated into acquiescing to a war of conquest.
Who is being "intimidated into acquiescence"?
We are saying that wars with nuclear powers do not end with total victory, because the nukes will be launched and everyone loses. This is realpolitik. Ugly but true
We need to accept that, and so does Ukraine. This does not mean we give Putin everything he wants, far from it. He is now humiliated and we want him to stay humiliated - but not completely, as that means war, again. We have to find the sweet spot where he is hurting, but he can still claim some modest "victory" to his people, and stay in power
We never sought the total military defeat of the USSR, and we never confronted them directly toe to toe, because it was a madman's errand. Same with Putin
Nobody is arguing for total victory over Russia. Nobody is arguing for a march on Moscow and regime change.
Putin can keep the bits of his military that aren't fighting in Ukraine. He can use them to hold onto power in Russia, just as Saddam used the surviving elements of his army to hold onto power in Iraq after being defeated in Kuwait.
There is no existential threat to Putin or to Russia, and so ultimately they will not escalate to MAD. They always have the alternative of walking away from Ukraine and ruling over Russia. That's the offramp. That's the escape route from escalation.
If we let Putin make any gain from an aggressive war of conquest what sort of lesson do we think dictators will learn from that? What will the consequence be? It would be to invite everyone to try and intimidate us into giving concessions.
It’s curious how Leon has gone overnight from gung-ho nuclear escalation to sailing on occasion close to offering Putin pretty much whatever he wants. Threads is indeed a powerful movie.
Get it dubbed into Russian and streamed on the widescreen TV in Shoogu’s dacha.
Supposedly, Reagan became a serious advocate of nuclear disarmament after watching Threads (and The Day After)
If true, that makes it one of the most important movies of all time
This thread is an example of the bleak stupid anti-Musk nihilism on Twitter
"There are a variety of problems with this proposal. There is no reason to think there would be a free and fair vote in areas occupied by Russian forces (as we just saw) and many Ukrainians who lived there were displaced when Russia invaded and wouldn't be able to vote."
It is followed by hundreds of comments telling Musk to shut up, stay in his lane, butt the fuck out, and so on
Sure his proposal is flawed, any proposal will be flawed. What, tho, is the alternative? Not one of these twitter warmongers addresses the very real possibility that Putin is about to drop a nuke. And if he does, what then?
I hinted at it last week but no one picked up on it. It’s what they deem a proportionate response - it would strike at something which Russia is immensely proud of, and regards as being of major strategic importance. But would be conventional in nature.
It’s curious how Leon has gone overnight from gung-ho nuclear escalation to sailing on occasion close to offering Putin pretty much whatever he wants. Threads is indeed a powerful movie.
Get it dubbed into Russian and streamed on the widescreen TV in Shoogu’s dacha.
Supposedly, Reagan became a serious advocate of nuclear disarmament after watching Threads (and The Day After)
If true, that makes it one of the most important movies of all time
Worth remembering that the only reason we are talking about nuclear weapons is because Russia is losing on the battlefield.
And that is precisely why the next steps have to be taken with care, we have achieved our main aim which is ensuring most of Ukraine is freed of Russian forces. No point then going too far in provoking Putin given he is clearly unstable and in charge of the world's biggest nuclear missiles arsenal
Those who want above all to smash Putin and Russia and to have a total Ukrainian victory aren't going to contribute much to discussing what a reasonable basis for a ceasefire and then a peace agreement might look like.
It’s curious how Leon has gone overnight from gung-ho nuclear escalation to sailing on occasion close to offering Putin pretty much whatever he wants. Threads is indeed a powerful movie.
Get it dubbed into Russian and streamed on the widescreen TV in Shoogu’s dacha.
...talking of Shoigu, what do Tuvan shamans use in place of ayahuasca?
This 'free for all' on policy is only happening because Truss has totally abandoned the manifesto the government was actually elected on.
Abandoned, or now at war with the declinist direction it was taking us?
For a LibDem you seem to take some strange positions.
Not my position. I’m just flagging up what I think this new government is explaining - 97 - 2010 pathetic declinest Labour government, 2010 - last month more pathetic declinist government by… um… it doesn’t matter by who only the policy is completely different at long last , lean mean taxes and state means aspiration, growth, productivity, growth, and a UK and flag you can be proud in once again.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what they are saying.
97-2007 was a golden age compared to what came after. Time for a change.
You saying you don’t want your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish, you don’t want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, you don’t want growth, you don’t want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?) you don’t want a UK and flag to be proud of once again? What sort of declinist traitor are you? 😠
PS apologies, forgot to boast about spending 8% of GDP on a market busting hand out, a lot of which goes to those who don’t even need it.
PPS I appreciate the appeal of change once in a while, but you have to accept, every time we have let a Labour government in they have wrecked the economy.
No they haven't. I lived through some. And none have achieved quite this level.
I was only explaining the mind of Liz Truss. Calm down.
Brave but doomed effort, I fear.
Meanwhile in "for freaks sake, read the freaking room" news...
A Conservative Treasury minister and one of Liz Truss’s major campaign donors both said they would like to abolish inheritance tax, as they urged the prime minister to continue with her “politically brave” agenda for wealth creation.
Andrew Griffith, a City minister under Kwasi Kwarteng, said tax was not his policy area but inheritance tax would be his top choice for a tax to abolish.
Not Martin Luther King, he was quoting someone else. He was also almost certainly a serial abuser and rapist of women, so what he is doing here is anyone's guess.
He was quoting a 19th century preacher whom no-one has heard of. His quote referring to that preacher has then been misquoted (and on some views misunderstood) by Obama, who reportedly had it sewn into a rug at the White House.
My only interest was in using the "arc of history" reference (not in King).
You clearly don't like anything I write above or below the line, which is your prerogative. So let's take it as a given and then you don't have to do it every time. Which will save you time for other pursuits.
I do like to be helpful, if I can.
Well good, but this piece like all your other pieces occupies the debatable ground where word salad collides with idea soup, and I shall continue where appropriate to say so. Do you write these things in the expectation that we all gaze on them in awed silence like Chinese tourists in the Sistine Chapel?
I write to stimulate debate.
You repeat the same criticisms over and over. It is, frankly, tedious and not at all useful, as thoughtful criticism usually is. But it is your time you are wasting.
PS Chinese tourists in the Sistine Chapel make the most appalling racket.
You write the same incoherent garbage over and over. Doing the same thing, expecting different results.
I particularly enjoyed your fearless onslaught on the self important rich the other day. Rich = look at me, I have houses in London and the lake district. Self important = daily if not hourly reminders of How I Used To Investigate Bankers, Honest! Plus links to here's a header I wrote in 2017 which is even more turgidly irrelevant now than it was then.
It’s curious how Leon has gone overnight from gung-ho nuclear escalation to sailing on occasion close to offering Putin pretty much whatever he wants. Threads is indeed a powerful movie.
Clearly you don’t remember his posts from back in 2016
Those who want above all to smash Putin and Russia and to have a total Ukrainian victory aren't going to contribute much to discussing what a reasonable basis for a ceasefire and then a peace agreement might look like.
It’s curious how Leon has gone overnight from gung-ho nuclear escalation to sailing on occasion close to offering Putin pretty much whatever he wants. Threads is indeed a powerful movie.
Get it dubbed into Russian and streamed on the widescreen TV in Shoogu’s dacha.
...talking of Shoigu, what do Tuvan shamans use in place of ayahuasca?
The pee of reindeers that have eaten fly agaric mushrooms
It’s curious how Leon has gone overnight from gung-ho nuclear escalation to sailing on occasion close to offering Putin pretty much whatever he wants. Threads is indeed a powerful movie.
Clearly you don’t remember his posts from back in 2016
More power to him, I say, We need to take the threat of Armageddon a lot more seriously. We are close
Giving into Putin might defer Armageddon this time, but it makes it more likely in future.
Better to stand up and a take the chance of being wiped off the planet.
so we ve gone from hide in your houses for 2 years for a disease with a 99% survival rate to risking nuclear apocolypse ....something is slightly awry in your judgement of risk
If you give into nuclear blackmail once, then don't you think there's a teeny-weeny chance that the blackmailer might just blackmail again?
So, we might all get wiped out. That would suck.
But the alternative is that we give into blackmail, and then next time Putin (or Kim Jong-un or whoever) knows we're going to back down. And therefore their incentive to escalate is much greater.
Giving into nuclear blackmail increases the risk of nuclear annihation.
If you - or @Leon - don't realise this, then you are genuinely retarded. And I don't use that word lightly.
Seems like Game Theory 101 to me.
Exactly: the only way to prevent your opponent escalating is to make it clear that you don't worry about the apocalypse.
Because you will rain the other apocalypse on them.
Mutual.
Is Putin suicidal? Who knows? Is the entire chain of command suicidal? I doubt it.
Putin does not have a red button as I understand it. He has a briefcase with some codes that allow him to confirm it is him ordering the use of nukes and then the senior generals get involved.
Which is why it doesn't start with a full strategic first strike.
The order of things goes something like this.
1. Putin orders battlefield nuclear weapon to be fired on a military target, e.g. a military base in Ukraine 2. Nato responds by intervening directly - e.g. its planes launching air strikes on Russian military targets inside Ukraine, blowing up the black sea fleet with cruise missiles, or destroying the Crimea bridge. 3. And here's the important one. This changes the opinion of the chain of command. Nato are now directly attacking Russian targets. So when... ...4 The order to go full strategic nuclear strike comes in, it's much more likely to be obeyed.
This is the problem with escalation. It doesn't start as a full strategic exchange, but that's where it ends up.
Our best course of action is probably to look tough and say we'll get involved militarily, while actually planning devastating sanctions - no Russian citizens allowed in or out of Russia, no trade, completely cut off from banks, the internet, all trade routes, etc - which would of course require China and others to be on side. But completely starving Russia of the spare parts it needs, trade goods it needs, even food it needs, is a better option than military escalation.
I agree that is what we should do. A massive conventional military response leads pretty quickly to all-out nuclear war, and we all die with our eyes melting
Avoid escalation
They should have you at Sandhurst or West Point teaching military theory. You are wasted writing articles on oysters and oddly named wines
Those last eight words weren’t really necessary, back there?
Ukraine has attacked Belgorod, actually Russia russia and no nukes happened in response.
Not just once, but several times. They've also retaken Lyman, and a number of other settlements, in several of the oblasts supposedly annexed by the Russian Federation. Nuclear counter-strike comes there none.
I find it incredible that so many people are willing to be so easily intimidated into acquiescing to a war of conquest.
It's very unlikely to matter much what we write on PB, but we need to avoid a "Ha, ha, you've not done it, you weakling" approach to Russian nukes. A sober statement of the consequences as Biden seems to have sent Putin is appropriate.
This 'free for all' on policy is only happening because Truss has totally abandoned the manifesto the government was actually elected on.
Abandoned, or now at war with the declinist direction it was taking us?
For a LibDem you seem to take some strange positions.
Not my position. I’m just flagging up what I think this new government is explaining - 97 - 2010 pathetic declinest Labour government, 2010 - last month more pathetic declinist government by… um… it doesn’t matter by who only the policy is completely different at long last , lean mean taxes and state means aspiration, growth, productivity, growth, and a UK and flag you can be proud in once again.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what they are saying.
97-2007 was a golden age compared to what came after. Time for a change.
You saying you don’t want your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish, you don’t want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, you don’t want growth, you don’t want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?) you don’t want a UK and flag to be proud of once again? What sort of declinist traitor are you? 😠
PS apologies, forgot to boast about spending 8% of GDP on a market busting hand out, a lot of which goes to those who don’t even need it.
PPS I appreciate the appeal of change once in a while, but you have to accept, every time we have let a Labour government in they have wrecked the economy.
No they haven't. I lived through some. And none have achieved quite this level.
I was only explaining the mind of Liz Truss. Calm down.
Brave but doomed effort, I fear.
Meanwhile in "for freaks sake, read the freaking room" news...
A Conservative Treasury minister and one of Liz Truss’s major campaign donors both said they would like to abolish inheritance tax, as they urged the prime minister to continue with her “politically brave” agenda for wealth creation.
Andrew Griffith, a City minister under Kwasi Kwarteng, said tax was not his policy area but inheritance tax would be his top choice for a tax to abolish.
Ukraine has attacked Belgorod, actually Russia russia and no nukes happened in response.
Not just once, but several times. They've also retaken Lyman, and a number of other settlements, in several of the oblasts supposedly annexed by the Russian Federation. Nuclear counter-strike comes there none.
I find it incredible that so many people are willing to be so easily intimidated into acquiescing to a war of conquest.
It's very unlikely to matter much what we write on PB, but we need to avoid a "Ha, ha, you've not done it, you weakling" approach to Russian nukes. A sober statement of the consequences as Biden seems to have sent Putin is appropriate.
I'm trusting Biden and his team, who are very experienced, know what they are doing.
Average 5 ish degree temperature, they say much warmer than last year but I recall last winter being rather warm?
Last winter was the 15th warmest in the Central England Temperature record, back to 1659. That said, it was marginally colder than the winters of 2007, 2014, 2016 (all-time record warmest) and 2020.
So, although it was in the warmest ~4% of winters in the overall record, it was barely in the warmest third of winters in the last 16 years.
Battering Forest 4 nil was a pleasure, but slightly flattered us. They missed 2 absolute sitters. They were absolute shite.
I suppose that means you’re stuck with your manager for a while longer.
Yes, it seems so.
He played quite a different style tonight. But when they packed the midfield and pressed more in second half it was a bit dangerous and Rodgers didn't counteract it quickly.
This thread is an example of the bleak stupid anti-Musk nihilism on Twitter
"There are a variety of problems with this proposal. There is no reason to think there would be a free and fair vote in areas occupied by Russian forces (as we just saw) and many Ukrainians who lived there were displaced when Russia invaded and wouldn't be able to vote."
It is followed by hundreds of comments telling Musk to shut up, stay in his lane, butt the fuck out, and so on
Sure his proposal is flawed, any proposal will be flawed. What, tho, is the alternative? Not one of these twitter warmongers addresses the very real possibility that Putin is about to drop a nuke. And if he does, what then?
I hinted at it last week but no one picked up on it. It’s what they deem a proportionate response - it would strike at something which Russia is immensely proud of, and regards as being of major strategic importance. But would be conventional in nature.
This. 100x.
I have posted the same.
It is just not true that: "Not one of these twitter warmongers addresses the very real possibility that Putin is about to drop a nuke. And if he does, what then?"
There is bucket loads of analyse from serious mil and diplomatic analysts about "what then".
Average 5 ish degree temperature, they say much warmer than last year but I recall last winter being rather warm?
Last winter was the 15th warmest in the Central England Temperature record, back to 1659. That said, it was marginally colder than the winters of 2007, 2014, 2016 (all-time record warmest) and 2020.
So, although it was in the warmest ~4% of winters in the overall record, it was barely in the warmest third of winters in the last 16 years.
As they tend to span new year shouldn’t we say 14-15 for example.
Labour 52% (+6) Conservative 24% (-5) Liberal Democrat 10% (-3) Green 5% (+1) SNP 5% (+2) Reform UK 3% (-1) Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 28-29 Sept
redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-gb-voti…
Whoops
Lead below 30 points.
Conference bounce for Truss?
Why are Lib Dems taking a hammering - they didn’t aid and abet the bad budget! 😠
Libdems the only challengers throughout Blue wall so why don’t they share the Tory slump? Something whiffs about these polls to me, I think they are Mickey Mouse polls, I don’t trust them as being remotely permanent.
There has been ephemeral polling glitches before, Hague wiped out Blair’s lead during Labour conference week one year, voter frustration with not liking being unable to put petrol in car. It was all short lived, polls went straight back to normal a few weeks later.
Without that foundation in fact Lib Dems should not be dropping by a quarter, they should be going up with blue wall voters switching from Tory to them, I refuse to believe these polls are for keeps, I choose to believe it will be back to a Lab lead about 10 in a few weeks and Lib Dems back to 12+. You can’t believe something is for real when its not founded in fact. Do you see what I mean.
Suppose LibDems had a 20% share in every seat. They would get zero seats with a 20% share. Look at the Greens. 5% share, 1 seat.
Suppose LibDems had a 50% share in 50 seats and a 2% share in the other 600 seats. They would get 50 seat with an overall share of just 6%. Look at the SNP. 5% share, 51 seats.
As voters get wiser to tactical voting and Labour becomes more LibDem friendly, I think that LibDem supporters in Labour seats are declaring that they will vote Labour at a General Election, and in Tory/LibDem marginals, Labour supporters are declaring for the LibDems to get the Tories out.
That is why, as a LibDem, I'm pleased to see the national LibDem share remain around 10%. I know it is a LOT higher in Tory/LibDem marginals. So it must be a LOT lower in the many Tory/Labour marginals - which is good news for anti-Tory voters, who are the large majority.
I don’t really want to argue with this thought out piece of Barnesian thinking, but I don’t believe it as much as I want to.
Lib Dems jump from third to win with 30% swings because the people there just can’t make the leap to Labour, so why would they tell pollsters something different right now?
I have my own theory. I think the polls are wrong now for the same reason polls are always wrong, underestimating Trump and Bolsonaro for two recent examples - the pollsters are now struggling for balanced and honest samples, Truss and Tories have a lot more support than shown waiting in the polling station, it’s just hiding off grid now or lying to pollsters out of sense of embarrassment.
One poll today greens up 1 to 5 Lib Dem down 3 to 10? That tells you there’s inherent vice in the poll. I would believe your theory over mine if less of the Tory plunge broke for Labour and more of it to Lib Dem.
You're assuming people move along a left-right axis, so in departing from the Conservatives their natural next stop is the LibDems. Most people don't think in those orderly terms. They think "Tories, god, they've lost the plot, who else is there?" and they see a lot of Starmer and Reeves sounding sensible, and virtually nothing about the LibDems (who were profoundly unlucky to have their conference cancelled), so they say ":Labour". It's not mysterious, or necessarily permanent.
Comments
But you’re missing that there are two potential confrontations here, the “conventional” war between Ukraine and Russia,
And the potential nuclear stand-off between Russia and NATO.
It is wise to consider all angles.
Ukraine has already liberated most of the country, better to settle for stalemate for the time being than risk nuclear war
The maximalist position is arguing about the location of the Ukraine-Taiwan border.
If a nuclear threat allows Russia to seize Crimea, despite losing a war of aggression by conventional terms, then they might as well make more nuclear threats. No, all of Ukraine which includes Crimea has to be treated as not being under Russia's nuclear shield, if they use nukes, then that's on Russia.
What has happened behind the scenes overnight?
For 4 small regions on the Russian border it is not worth it
I thought "Oh no, what has that tosser Musk had to say?" before reading it. But he's right. I would add that if the territories go to Russia and Ukraine is guaranteed as neutral, then the territories although in Russia could also be agreed to be demilitarised somehow. Also I'd have no problem with another referendum in Crimea if it lets Zelensky save face.
Zelensky should settle for having forced the Russians out of most of his country, put a strong force on the border of the 4 regions and leave it there for the time being
Getting invaders to vote that they agree with the invasion was a good thing, is not democratic.
Before there can be any votes, the Russians who invaded need to go home, the sovereignty needs to be returned to Ukraine, justice must be served and any refugees allowed to go home.
You are just being an apologist for Russia's military aggression.
Do you think the Tories on here who say they have lost faith in Truss and won't vote Tory next time if she is still PM are bluffing out of embarrassment?
PS apologies, forgot to boast about spending 8% of GDP on a market busting hand out, a lot of which goes to those who don’t even need it.
PPS I appreciate the appeal of change once in a while, but you have to accept, every time we have let a Labour government in they have wrecked the economy.
The order of things goes something like this.
1. Putin orders battlefield nuclear weapon to be fired on a military target, e.g. a military base in Ukraine
2. Nato responds by intervening directly - e.g. its planes launching air strikes on Russian military targets inside Ukraine, blowing up the black sea fleet with cruise missiles, or destroying the Crimea bridge.
3. And here's the important one. This changes the opinion of the chain of command. Nato are now directly attacking Russian targets. So when...
...4 The order to go full strategic nuclear strike comes in, it's much more likely to be obeyed.
This is the problem with escalation. It doesn't start as a full strategic exchange, but that's where it ends up.
Our best course of action is probably to look tough and say we'll get involved militarily, while actually planning devastating sanctions - no Russian citizens allowed in or out of Russia, no trade, completely cut off from banks, the internet, all trade routes, etc - which would of course require China and others to be on side. But completely starving Russia of the spare parts it needs, trade goods it needs, even food it needs, is a better option than military escalation.
Defeating an invasion doesn't provoke anything, don't try and victim blame. There is no provocation in repelling and defeating an attacker.
If Russia chooses to escalate this to a nuclear confrontation, then we need to respond with the full might of NATO against Russia. Full strategic retaliation. Let Russia choose not to be wiped out, knowing that is our response, but if they still issue a first strike anyway then that is what our weapons are for, we absolutely should use Trident in response and America should use the full weight of its weaponry in response too.
But we can’t say it out loud, we still have to threaten decapitation and a totally commensurate response.
Avoid escalation
And as for accusing Labour of wrecking the economy
And none have achieved quite this level.
You'd rather confront the "woke" than enemies prepared to start wars of aggression.
As, interestingly, is my family. A violent argument about Dealing with Putin has broken out on the Family Whatsapp. Intriguing
I also never advocated appeasing the IRA. Putin however, while having weak conventional armed forces has the biggest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world, he could wipe us out along with the rest of the West if he wanted (even if he also destroyed most of Russia in the process).
Unless he full on invades a NATO state it is not worth a full on war with Putin
I find it incredible that so many people are willing to be so easily intimidated into acquiescing to a war of conquest.
The issue is the stupid f**kers who decided to make themselves feel good by setting up the International Criminal Court so that tyrants and dictators couldn’t “escape justice”.
The result being that said tyrants and dictators have no way out and therefore fight to the bitter end causing untold carnage and destruction in the process.
Talk about unintended consequences
Tit for tat.
Meantime, the Chinese are leaking their trousers at their now rogue ally who is threatening to tip Taiwan into building nukes pronto, never mind fucking up world trade.
Nick P will probably be along with a few tales later.
Best solution by far, and the cheapest, must be to undermine the leadership from within and if necessary to sabotage the nuclear threat at source.
We are saying that wars with nuclear powers do not end with total victory, because the nukes will be launched and everyone loses. This is realpolitik. Ugly but true
We need to accept that, and so does Ukraine. This does not mean we give Putin everything he wants, far from it. He is now humiliated and we want him to stay humiliated - but not completely, as that means war, again. We have to find the sweet spot where he is hurting, but he can still claim some modest "victory" to his people, and stay in power
We never sought the total military defeat of the USSR, and we never confronted them directly toe to toe, because it was a madman's errand. Same with Putin
Back in February, Putin already warned that he would retaliate if any other countries got involved, so really we've already called his bluff by continuing to supply Ukraine with weapons and training.
You repeat the same criticisms over and over. It is, frankly, tedious and not at all useful, as thoughtful criticism usually is. But it is your time you are wasting.
PS Chinese tourists in the Sistine Chapel make the most appalling racket.
We had big rows about Ukraine when the war started. Older members are weirdly pro Putin, others fiercely the opposite. So then we all went quiet for the sake of harmony
I guess apocalypse has focused minds, again
Meanwhile in "for freaks sake, read the freaking room" news...
A Conservative Treasury minister and one of Liz Truss’s major campaign donors both said they would like to abolish inheritance tax, as they urged the prime minister to continue with her “politically brave” agenda for wealth creation.
Andrew Griffith, a City minister under Kwasi Kwarteng, said tax was not his policy area but inheritance tax would be his top choice for a tax to abolish.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/03/id-like-inheritance-tax-to-be-abolished-says-uk-treasury-minister?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
They say the chances of a tactical nuke detonating in the next month are 8.6%
IIRC a tactical nuke was the trigger for your flight to Morocco/Ireland
8.6%
Sounds a bit french to me to be honest.
Putin can keep the bits of his military that aren't fighting in Ukraine. He can use them to hold onto power in Russia, just as Saddam used the surviving elements of his army to hold onto power in Iraq after being defeated in Kuwait.
There is no existential threat to Putin or to Russia, and so ultimately they will not escalate to MAD. They always have the alternative of walking away from Ukraine and ruling over Russia. That's the offramp. That's the escape route from escalation.
If we let Putin make any gain from an aggressive war of conquest what sort of lesson do we think dictators will learn from that? What will the consequence be? It would be to invite everyone to try and intimidate us into giving concessions.
Average 5 ish degree temperature, they say much warmer than last year but I recall last winter being rather warm?
If true, that makes it one of the most important movies of all time
It was 15 degrees on new years day in my bit of the Midlands.
15 degrees!!!
Meanwhile... ...talking of Shoigu, what do Tuvan shamans use in place of ayahuasca?
It's a theory.
I particularly enjoyed your fearless onslaught on the self important rich the other day. Rich = look at me, I have houses in London and the lake district. Self important = daily if not hourly reminders of How I Used To Investigate Bankers, Honest! Plus links to here's a header I wrote in 2017 which is even more turgidly irrelevant now than it was then.
No offence.
None of Guesses A, B C etc are in any way measurable, so the end result is fiction. Surely you can see that?
I find it incredible that so many people are willing to be so easily intimidated into acquiescing to a war of conquest.
It's very unlikely to matter much what we write on PB, but we need to avoid a "Ha, ha, you've not done it, you weakling" approach to Russian nukes. A sober statement of the consequences as Biden seems to have sent Putin is appropriate.
"What was it about Liz's plans for death duties that left your children with an extra £300,000 that first attracted you to her?"
I'm trusting Biden and his team, who are very experienced, know what they are doing.
Thank God it is him and not Trump.
But if we had infinite knowledge we would be able to put a real probability on this. And 8.6% in the next month does not seem unreasonable to me
Also: it is not paywalled
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2nDTrDPZJBEerZGrk/samotsvety-nuclear-risk-update-october-2022
So, although it was in the warmest ~4% of winters in the overall record, it was barely in the warmest third of winters in the last 16 years.
He played quite a different style tonight. But when they packed the midfield and pressed more in second half it was a bit dangerous and Rodgers didn't counteract it quickly.
I have posted the same.
It is just not true that: "Not one of these twitter warmongers addresses the very real possibility that Putin is about to drop a nuke. And if he does, what then?"
There is bucket loads of analyse from serious mil and diplomatic analysts about "what then".
That was a wet one wasn’t it?