According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
Starmer’s announcement today seems to have been received with near universal plaudits on here, which is unusual (though I don’t believe @bigjohnowls has commented yet, and I can see @Foxy isn’t happy).
I think the scale of the aid cut announced will come back to haunt them, but I accept it’s pretty decent short term politics. It feels a bit like the government equivalent of cutting BBC funding - saves some money now but at the expense of cultural and service exports later.
How will public opinion react though? This place is not exactly representative of the general public.
Starmer has another test on Thursday. How will he deal with Trump? That will possibly be the decisive one. Difficult balancing act.
Have you looked at the guff we spend the aid budget on recently? It's not feeding people. Half of it is probably actively malign. As for 'Xi stepping in' - I hope he bloody does step in, to replace the aid we currently provide to China, which should be first to go.
It’s a very diverse mix, which doubtless includes some guff but also some very useful (for the recipients, or for the country) programmes.
Rather randomly I learned about one of those programmes yesterday during a call with a former civil war rebel commander turned opposition party leader turned government envoy of a sub-Saharan African state, and it gave me a bit of hope. (I don’t frequently meet with former rebel commanders turned politicians by the way).
He described a railway and road corridor being constructed in a joint UK-EU project linking the coast with the hinterland and neighbouring landlocked countries. The Brits were leading the management and British construction firms were on the ground.
I expressed surprise - isn’t that the sort of thing that Chinese already do in the Belt and Road initiative? He said they’d had a go a few years ago but it had been poorly constructed and was already falling apart.
This is the sort of infrastructure that will drive the next few decades of African growth. Some of those countries will become regional superpowers and massive markets. I think it’s good we are in there, and by all accounts - though it does always beg the question - not in a cackhanded neocolonial way.
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
That isn't an unreasonable view. Indeed Portillo used to advocate it.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So you approve of Trump's rapprochement with Russia?
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
That isn't an unreasonable view. Indeed Portillo used to advocate it.
It wasn't an unreasonable view - but without Nukes we no longer have mutual destruction which is rather problematic when the only thing Putin cares about is not being ground zero when the bomb goes off..
Starmer’s announcement today seems to have been received with near universal plaudits on here, which is unusual (though I don’t believe @bigjohnowls has commented yet, and I can see @Foxy isn’t happy).
I think the scale of the aid cut announced will come back to haunt them, but I accept it’s pretty decent short term politics. It feels a bit like the government equivalent of cutting BBC funding - saves some money now but at the expense of cultural and service exports later.
How will public opinion react though? This place is not exactly representative of the general public.
Starmer has another test on Thursday. How will he deal with Trump? That will possibly be the decisive one. Difficult balancing act.
Apparently Zelensky follows Starmer through the White House door on Friday and according to Ukraine sources Zelensky has agreed a mineral deal with Trump
The question that follows, if true, will Trump protect Ukraine in any peace deal to protect his own interests?
They should catch up for a beer (and socially distanced curry) afterwards. Chew the fat over their dealings with the orange one.
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
That isn't an unreasonable view. Indeed Portillo used to advocate it.
"The SAS have a famous motto - Who Dares Wins. We DARE! We WILL WIN!"
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
That isn't an unreasonable view. Indeed Portillo used to advocate it.
If the Ukranians hadn’t given up nuclear weapons, no war.
So how many hundred thousand dead on the altar of the disgusting, contemptible ideology of nucleomitophobia?
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
Owen should be glad that both us and France have Nukes because otherwise Russia would be rolling into Poland tomorrow going - surrender or we will Nuke Warsaw and Berlin..
He'd love Putin's policy towards gay folks, or indeed media types who spend all day writing protest pieces and objecting to the government.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
Dunno. Worked for Reagan.
I am not saying it never works, just that an arms race can go either way. Sometimes it is a reason for a pre-emptive strike. The arms race in Europe is generally seen as a major factor in causing WW1.
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
That isn't an unreasonable view. Indeed Portillo used to advocate it.
With everything going on in Ukraine I expect support for Trident has never been higher amongst the public .
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
So you haven't got a plan - just an ulterior motive.
Starmer’s announcement today seems to have been received with near universal plaudits on here, which is unusual (though I don’t believe @bigjohnowls has commented yet, and I can see @Foxy isn’t happy).
I think the scale of the aid cut announced will come back to haunt them, but I accept it’s pretty decent short term politics. It feels a bit like the government equivalent of cutting BBC funding - saves some money now but at the expense of cultural and service exports later.
How will public opinion react though? This place is not exactly representative of the general public.
Starmer has another test on Thursday. How will he deal with Trump? That will possibly be the decisive one. Difficult balancing act.
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
That isn't an unreasonable view. Indeed Portillo used to advocate it.
After all I read on here that Russian nuclear weapons were unlikely to work in any case. Mind you, it was often the same people who were diagnosing Putin’s fatal illness, Prigozhin taking the Kremlin and the collapse of the Russian military, so…
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
Trump has chosen an alternative. Side with Russia.
It’s not a good alternative.
Nobody wants to live in interesting times, but we are where we are.
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
That isn't an unreasonable view. Indeed Portillo used to advocate it.
After all I read on here that Russian nuclear weapons were unlikely to work in any case. Mind you, it was often the same people who were diagnosing Putin’s fatal illness, Prigozhin taking the Kremlin and the collapse of the Russian military, so…
I think the slightly more cautious might say that some of them probably don't work (the USA even has taken bad care of its own in the past apparently), but they have so many it hardly matters.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
Trump has chosen an alternative. Side with Russia.
It’s not a good alternative.
Nobody wants to live in interesting times, but we are where we are.
Yes, selling out Ukraine to Russia becomes the default option if the West is not willing to bear the economic or manpower cost of fighting.
I doubt anyone ever thought it'd go all the way eg full scale war to help Ukraine, but until the last couple of months a midpoint other than capitulation or full scale war was on the table. Which meant things were dragged out, which is not great, but also didn't just give in.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
A very understandable fear.
But the way to at least help towards avoiding that is not to allow the American tyrants walk away from NATO to give Putin any hopes of taking more nibbles out of free europe.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
A very understandable fear.
But the way to at least help towards avoiding that is not to allow the American tyrants walk away from NATO to give Putin any hopes of taking more nibbles out of free europe.
Ah, but even though he has now done it several times, we are supposed to assume it will never happen again, because next time, well, next time we;ll jolly well do something you see! Or the other one, about how since they've struggled to do it this time and not gotten all their gains, that means they couldn't manage anything else - even though the only reason they struggled was the support for the defender, which the USA is now abandoning.
New: Three different federal judges delivered legal setbacks and slap downs to President Donald Trump in the span of an hour and a half on Tuesday in a series of cases challenging controversial moves taken during the early days of his second term.
I have zero confidence in any US guarantee for Ukraine and their willingness to honour Article 5 .
I’d think that behind the scenes most European leaders have come to that conclusion and it’s now about playing for time to get their house in order re defence .
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
So you haven't got a plan - just an ulterior motive.
I would start by addressing the subversion of our media and politics by foreign influencers, particularly those in the pay of Putin.
We laugh about our Saturday morning Troll on PB, and the Mods tend to boot them off quickly, but why as a country do we tolerate it at all? Other Internet and Social Media sites are infested with them, particularly our newspapers.. Why don't we start by cleaning out that nest of vipers?
We see with the case of the Reform leader in Wales who was taking payments from a Russian intelligence operative, and I am absolutely certain that is only the tip of a very big iceberg. I suspect that the reason that our politicians play so dumb is because all parties are implicated to a greater or lesser extent. There are very plausible stories of Russian links to the highest reaches of government, including former Prime Ministers and their top advisors.
We should start there, not with some facile announcement of new defence spending.
New: Three different federal judges delivered legal setbacks and slap downs to President Donald Trump in the span of an hour and a half on Tuesday in a series of cases challenging controversial moves taken during the early days of his second term.
Given the ability of the SC to make things up out of wholecloth if they really wanted it's hard to know how much credence to give to other judges. They are such a law unto themselves, unaccountable and untouchable, and whilst they won't go unpredictable and shocking most of the time (they aren't stupid), the main question always has to be how does it benefit the politics of the justices, and do they think that matters enough? Most of the time the second question may be no and they keep within the bounds of reasonableness, but every now and then they can see the political benefit is worth any price.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
“You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.“
We’re probably getting a little carried away on the WW3 talk.
Europe needs to bolster its defence spending because the USA is pulling away from European security. That’s to deter Russia from trying it on with cable chopping in the Baltic, making a move on Moldova or trying something in Ukraine again. It’s also to help support those countries if Russia does come again.
Russia is not a minnow but it’s not a superpower anymore. It needs containment in the same way as Iran or North Korea (the latter of which is also a nuclear armed state). And the nuclear deterrent remains in place even if the USA completely withdraws.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
So you haven't got a plan - just an ulterior motive.
How many of your own family do you want to send to the Donbas? Or is it just other people's kids who should go?
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
A very understandable fear.
But the way to at least help towards avoiding that is not to allow the American tyrants walk away from NATO to give Putin any hopes of taking more nibbles out of free europe.
Ah, but even though he has now done it several times, we are supposed to assume it will never happen again, because next time, well, next time we;ll jolly well do something you see! Or the other one, about how since they've struggled to do it this time and not gotten all their gains, that means they couldn't manage anything else - even though the only reason they struggled was the support for the defender, which the USA is now abandoning.
If we give Putin Leicester, perhaps he will spare us?
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
In what scenario is that likely?
Well, after Ukraine comes the Baltic states. Then Poland. Just a corridor to Kaliningrad, you understand. My last territorial demand and all that…
Presumably even the Corbynites will be slightly annoyed before we start discussing Warsaw. Or maybe not.
Starmer’s announcement today seems to have been received with near universal plaudits on here, which is unusual (though I don’t believe @bigjohnowls has commented yet, and I can see @Foxy isn’t happy).
I think the scale of the aid cut announced will come back to haunt them, but I accept it’s pretty decent short term politics. It feels a bit like the government equivalent of cutting BBC funding - saves some money now but at the expense of cultural and service exports later.
How will public opinion react though? This place is not exactly representative of the general public.
Starmer has another test on Thursday. How will he deal with Trump? That will possibly be the decisive one. Difficult balancing act.
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
That isn't an unreasonable view. Indeed Portillo used to advocate it.
With everything going on in Ukraine I expect support for Trident has never been higher amongst the public .
Our 'independent' nuclear deterrent (subject to Washington's approval).
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
That isn't an unreasonable view. Indeed Portillo used to advocate it.
After all I read on here that Russian nuclear weapons were unlikely to work in any case. Mind you, it was often the same people who were diagnosing Putin’s fatal illness, Prigozhin taking the Kremlin and the collapse of the Russian military, so…
I think the slightly more cautious might say that some of them probably don't work (the USA even has taken bad care of its own in the past apparently), but they have so many it hardly matters.
I think there's a good chace that not a single one works. I'm not that keen to test it, of course. But still. Given the state of the rest of the military, the chance of the nukes still working seems very slim indeed.
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
If anything there's now a case to develop a completely independent nuclear deterrent that doesn't rely on a US missile delivery system. I wonder how feasible it is and whether we even have the expertise now in nuclear weapons technology. If I was the government I'd be asking BAE and RR to jointly develop a new missile delver system and ramping up development of a new nuclear missile.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
A very understandable fear.
But the way to at least help towards avoiding that is not to allow the American tyrants walk away from NATO to give Putin any hopes of taking more nibbles out of free europe.
Ah, but even though he has now done it several times, we are supposed to assume it will never happen again, because next time, well, next time we;ll jolly well do something you see! Or the other one, about how since they've struggled to do it this time and not gotten all their gains, that means they couldn't manage anything else - even though the only reason they struggled was the support for the defender, which the USA is now abandoning.
If we give Putin Leicester, perhaps he will spare us?
Or will that just make him more angry?
The city or the football club? I’m not giving up the curry mile, so the football club it is.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
So you haven't got a plan - just an ulterior motive.
How many of your own family do you want to send to the Donbas? Or is it just other people's kids who should go?
I'm hoping that we don't end up sending conscripted Brits. But to do that we need to provide everything we can to the Ukraine ASAP so it doesn't become an issue.
Remember my argument is a very simple one, we prepare for war (by supporting Ukraine now) or we end up fighting one anyway after Putin and co have had time to regroup and prepare.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
So you haven't got a plan - just an ulterior motive.
I would start by addressing the subversion of our media and politics by foreign influencers, particularly those in the pay of Putin.
We laugh about our Saturday morning Troll on PB, and the Mods tend to boot them off quickly, but why as a country do we tolerate it at all? Other Internet and Social Media sites are infested with them, particularly our newspapers.. Why don't we start by cleaning out that nest of vipers?
We see with the case of the Reform leader in Wales who was taking payments from a Russian intelligence operative, and I am absolutely certain that is only the tip of a very big iceberg. I suspect that the reason that our politicians play so dumb is because all parties are implicated to a greater or lesser extent. There are very plausible stories of Russian links to the highest reaches of government, including former Prime Ministers and their top advisors.
We should start there, not with some facile announcement of new defence spending.
Totally off topic... on the train home today, a kid got on, sat diagonally opposite, put his feet on the seat next to me, then when I got up to get off at my stop barely moved out of the way to let me past. How delightful, I thought, noting the crest of one of the local private schools on his tracksuit. Whatever his parents are paying them to teach him, it certainly isn't good manners.
"A large bruise that appeared on Donald Trump's hand is down to him shaking a lot of hands, the White House has said.
Mr Trump's right hand seemed bruised during the 78-year-old's meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, prompting speculation on social media over his health.
Redness or bruising on the US leader's right hand were also spotted in August and November last year, Sky News' US partner network NBC reported."
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
Dunno. Worked for Reagan.
I am not saying it never works, just that an arms race can go either way. Sometimes it is a reason for a pre-emptive strike. The arms race in Europe is generally seen as a major factor in causing WW1.
Except for the fact that Germany had lost the “Dreadnought race” by 1912. The Royal Sovereigns were the final kick.
The war started because the Austro-Hungarian Empire had run out of time.
Totally off topic... on the train home today, a kid got on, sat diagonally opposite, put his feet on the seat next to me, then when I got up to get off at my stop barely moved out of the way to let me past. How delightful, I thought, noting the crest of one of the local private schools on his tracksuit. Whatever his parents are paying them to teach him, it certainly isn't good manners.
Using empty seats as footrests has become almost universal on buses and trains.
Because people who don't do it are scared of confronting the people who do in case they have a knife, etc.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
So you haven't got a plan - just an ulterior motive.
How many of your own family do you want to send to the Donbas? Or is it just other people's kids who should go?
I'm hoping that we don't end up sending conscripted Brits. But to do that we need to provide everything we can to the Ukraine ASAP so it doesn't become an issue.
Remember my argument is a very simple one, we prepare for war (by supporting Ukraine now) or we end up fighting one anyway after Putin and co have had time to regroup and prepare.
Totally off topic... on the train home today, a kid got on, sat diagonally opposite, put his feet on the seat next to me, then when I got up to get off at my stop barely moved out of the way to let me past. How delightful, I thought, noting the crest of one of the local private schools on his tracksuit. Whatever his parents are paying them to teach him, it certainly isn't good manners.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
So you haven't got a plan - just an ulterior motive.
I would start by addressing the subversion of our media and politics by foreign influencers, particularly those in the pay of Putin.
We laugh about our Saturday morning Troll on PB, and the Mods tend to boot them off quickly, but why as a country do we tolerate it at all? Other Internet and Social Media sites are infested with them, particularly our newspapers.. Why don't we start by cleaning out that nest of vipers?
We see with the case of the Reform leader in Wales who was taking payments from a Russian intelligence operative, and I am absolutely certain that is only the tip of a very big iceberg. I suspect that the reason that our politicians play so dumb is because all parties are implicated to a greater or lesser extent. There are very plausible stories of Russian links to the highest reaches of government, including former Prime Ministers and their top advisors.
We should start there, not with some facile announcement of new defence spending.
It’s both/and, not either/or.
But it isn't. There is no move at all against Putinist influencers in the media and politics.
Why have we never seen the report into Russian interference in our elections? My suspicion is that it would reveal far more influence, and in all parties, than our politicians would be comfortable with.
They talk of confronting Putin but don't expose Putin's agents in the Commons, Lords and in extraparliamentary party staffers.
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
If anything there's now a case to develop a completely independent nuclear deterrent that doesn't rely on a US missile delivery system. I wonder how feasible it is and whether we even have the expertise now in nuclear weapons technology. If I was the government I'd be asking BAE and RR to jointly develop a new missile delver system and ramping up development of a new nuclear missile.
I suspect we will need help from France but I also suspect that since January what would have been very straightforward Non is now at the very least a tentative Oui, où as-tu besoin d'indices
"A large bruise that appeared on Donald Trump's hand is down to him shaking a lot of hands, the White House has said.
Mr Trump's right hand seemed bruised during the 78-year-old's meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, prompting speculation on social media over his health.
Redness or bruising on the US leader's right hand were also spotted in August and November last year, Sky News' US partner network NBC reported."
They sure it wasn't caused by so many republicans kissing his hand and begging to be his bestie mate even if they have to abandon everything they believe in?
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
So you haven't got a plan - just an ulterior motive.
How many of your own family do you want to send to the Donbas? Or is it just other people's kids who should go?
The Ukranians are quite prepared to fight on our behalf. Which is the point.
- you can try and stop Putin in Ukraine - you can try and stop Putin in Riga. - you can try and stop Putin at the Polish border. - Etc
Pick one.
His war aims in Ukraine were elimination of the Ukrainian identity, and its total absorption into the Russian state.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
So you haven't got a plan - just an ulterior motive.
How many of your own family do you want to send to the Donbas? Or is it just other people's kids who should go?
Actually my answer was unfair - both twins are qualified ofcom radio operators - so they would be sat in the UK passing on orders. Hardly surprising as both are also exempt from military service due to their minor disabilities..
Is there any evidence that foreign aid has produced any positive results over the last 60 years? Or does most of it go in the pockets of autocratic leaders.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
A very understandable fear.
But the way to at least help towards avoiding that is not to allow the American tyrants walk away from NATO to give Putin any hopes of taking more nibbles out of free europe.
Ah, but even though he has now done it several times, we are supposed to assume it will never happen again, because next time, well, next time we;ll jolly well do something you see! Or the other one, about how since they've struggled to do it this time and not gotten all their gains, that means they couldn't manage anything else - even though the only reason they struggled was the support for the defender, which the USA is now abandoning.
If we give Putin Leicester, perhaps he will spare us?
Or will that just make him more angry?
The city or the football club? I’m not giving up the curry mile, so the football club it is.
Sacrifices have to be made. So the curry mile and Foxy have to go.
Peace requires sacrifices, land I’ve decided who shall be the sacrifices…
Starmer’s announcement today seems to have been received with near universal plaudits on here, which is unusual (though I don’t believe @bigjohnowls has commented yet, and I can see @Foxy isn’t happy).
I think the scale of the aid cut announced will come back to haunt them, but I accept it’s pretty decent short term politics. It feels a bit like the government equivalent of cutting BBC funding - saves some money now but at the expense of cultural and service exports later.
How will public opinion react though? This place is not exactly representative of the general public.
Starmer has another test on Thursday. How will he deal with Trump? That will possibly be the decisive one. Difficult balancing act.
Have you looked at the guff we spend the aid budget on recently? It's not feeding people. Half of it is probably actively malign. As for 'Xi stepping in' - I hope he bloody does step in, to replace the aid we currently provide to China, which should be first to go.
"No aid has been sent to the Chinese Government since 2011. Instead, UK aid has primarily been spent through civil society organisations and UK universities and diplomats. Aid related to research, universities and diplomatic engagement is mostly spent through UK-based institutions."
"In 2021, then Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, said aid programming in China from the FCDO would be reduced by 95%, to £900,000. Any continuing FCDO programmes would focus on promoting democracy and human rights.
"In July 2023, the ICAI, which scrutinises the UK’s official development assistance, said UK aid to China has “fallen rapidly” and is expected to total £10 million in 2023/24 (centred on educational and cultural engagement, which did not form part of the government’s 2021 commitment)."
And when it comes to British Universities and China - any aid is as much to create subsidiaries and marketing opportunities far more than actual aid.
Thinking about the 3 universities where I worked on their CRM solutions for overseas recruitment...
Is there any evidence that foreign aid has produced any positive results over the last 60 years? Or does most of it go in the pockets of autocratic leaders.
Is there any evidence that foreign aid has produced any positive results over the last 60 years? Or does most of it go in the pockets of autocratic leaders.
That's absolutely untrue. Much of it goes into the pockets of the great and the good back home.
I completely agree with the necessity of increased European defence spending. The US security guarantee can no longer be trusted, so our spending needs to be sufficient such that Europe's conventional arms are overwhelmingly superior to that of Russia (in the way the US' is).
But a more positive perspective is Russia's army is heavily worn down. It will take years for it to rebuild strength. We just need to be faster than them. And hopefully someone more reliable is in the White House before they are ready to make their next move.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
So you haven't got a plan - just an ulterior motive.
How many of your own family do you want to send to the Donbas? Or is it just other people's kids who should go?
The Ukranians are quite prepared to fight on our behalf. Which is the point.
- you can try and stop Putin in Ukraine - you can try and stop Putin in Riga. - you can try and stop Putin at the Polish border. - Etc
Pick one.
His war aims in Ukraine were elimination of the Ukrainian identity, and its total absorption into the Russian state.
That’s not the kind of thinking that has limits.
The frustrating thing is that Russia was being subject to grinding attrition of both its military and its economy, and that was slowly but surely depriving it of the means to start new adventures. Its influence was draining from the Middle East after the fall of Assad, from the Caucasus after abandoning Armenia and from Central Asia as Turkey and China extend their tentacles in that direction. Erdogan had started to treat Putin with barely disguised contempt.
Russia was still taking land, but extremely slowly, and the whole economic edifice was (is) looking decidedly sketchy. Then along comes Trump, gifts Putin international recognition again, looks to be on the way to gifting him all the lands he’s taken already, and most incredibly of all seems to be waiting to bring Russia out of sanctions and back into the global economy. All so the country can recover enough to launch the next war.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
So you haven't got a plan - just an ulterior motive.
How many of your own family do you want to send to the Donbas? Or is it just other people's kids who should go?
The Ukranians are quite prepared to fight on our behalf. Which is the point.
- you can try and stop Putin in Ukraine - you can try and stop Putin in Riga. - you can try and stop Putin at the Polish border. - Etc
Pick one.
His war aims in Ukraine were elimination of the Ukrainian identity, and its total absorption into the Russian state.
That’s not the kind of thinking that has limits.
Well yes we do need to pick one but it might not be the answer you think. During the Cold War the West knew that the minute NATO and Warsaw Pact troops started shooting each other the risk of nuclear escalation became unacceptably high. We knew then which country we would risk that for and the answer was West Germany. Hopefully someone in power has a clear answer to that question today.
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
If anything there's now a case to develop a completely independent nuclear deterrent that doesn't rely on a US missile delivery system. I wonder how feasible it is and whether we even have the expertise now in nuclear weapons technology. If I was the government I'd be asking BAE and RR to jointly develop a new missile delver system and ramping up development of a new nuclear missile.
I suspect we will need help from France but I also suspect that since January what would have been very straightforward Non is now at the very least a tentative Oui, où as-tu besoin d'indices
If you want a solid fueled ICBM/SLBM, it’s actually the Italians who are the leaders in big SRMs, in Europe.
Starmer’s announcement today seems to have been received with near universal plaudits on here, which is unusual (though I don’t believe @bigjohnowls has commented yet, and I can see @Foxy isn’t happy).
I think the scale of the aid cut announced will come back to haunt them, but I accept it’s pretty decent short term politics. It feels a bit like the government equivalent of cutting BBC funding - saves some money now but at the expense of cultural and service exports later.
How will public opinion react though? This place is not exactly representative of the general public.
Starmer has another test on Thursday. How will he deal with Trump? That will possibly be the decisive one. Difficult balancing act.
I hope he knees him in the balls.
Alternatively, Starmer could take Mike Amesbury to Washington with him in case things turn out a bit rough. He'd sort Trump out.
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
If anything there's now a case to develop a completely independent nuclear deterrent that doesn't rely on a US missile delivery system. I wonder how feasible it is and whether we even have the expertise now in nuclear weapons technology. If I was the government I'd be asking BAE and RR to jointly develop a new missile delver system and ramping up development of a new nuclear missile.
I suspect we will need help from France but I also suspect that since January what would have been very straightforward Non is now at the very least a tentative Oui, où as-tu besoin d'indices
If you want a solid fueled ICBM/SLBM, it’s actually the Italians who are the leaders in big SRMs, in Europe.
President Donald Trump said he is starting a program to offer residency and a path to citizenship to investors who pay $5 million, offering a new avenue for legal immigration even as he carries out a sweeping crackdown on undocumented migrants.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
So you haven't got a plan - just an ulterior motive.
How many of your own family do you want to send to the Donbas? Or is it just other people's kids who should go?
The Ukranians are quite prepared to fight on our behalf. Which is the point.
- you can try and stop Putin in Ukraine - you can try and stop Putin in Riga. - you can try and stop Putin at the Polish border. - Etc
Pick one.
His war aims in Ukraine were elimination of the Ukrainian identity, and its total absorption into the Russian state.
That’s not the kind of thinking that has limits.
Well yes we do need to pick one but it might not be the answer you think. During the Cold War the West knew that the minute NATO and Warsaw Pact troops started shooting each other the risk of nuclear escalation became unacceptably high. We knew then which country we would risk that for and the answer was West Germany. Hopefully someone in power has a clear answer to that question today.
As Herman Kahn observed, mutually understood rules helped with what he (Kahn) regarded as the big problem of the late 50s -
“Reaching 1975 Alive”
Clear answer? That’s the point of the nuclear weapons.
They can’t be argued with. They can’t be averaged, diced, spliced or even reasoned with. Implacable clarity and total uniformity - just like the contents of the hohlraum after a couple of shakes.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
So you haven't got a plan - just an ulterior motive.
How many of your own family do you want to send to the Donbas? Or is it just other people's kids who should go?
The Ukranians are quite prepared to fight on our behalf. Which is the point.
- you can try and stop Putin in Ukraine - you can try and stop Putin in Riga. - you can try and stop Putin at the Polish border. - Etc
Pick one.
His war aims in Ukraine were elimination of the Ukrainian identity, and its total absorption into the Russian state.
That’s not the kind of thinking that has limits.
Well yes we do need to pick one but it might not be the answer you think. During the Cold War the West knew that the minute NATO and Warsaw Pact troops started shooting each other the risk of nuclear escalation became unacceptably high. We knew then which country we would risk that for and the answer was West Germany. Hopefully someone in power has a clear answer to that question today.
West Germany wasn't the answer - it was the point where Europe switched from the Soviet Block to Nato / the EU.
So the answer is going to be Poland / Finland and shows why Ukraine wants to be in NATO as that shifts the point to the Ukrainian border or where-ever it's deemed to be today.
President Donald Trump said he is starting a program to offer residency and a path to citizenship to investors who pay $5 million, offering a new avenue for legal immigration even as he carries out a sweeping crackdown on undocumented migrants.
Who has $5m but couldn't already swing an O1 with the right advice?
President Donald Trump said he is starting a program to offer residency and a path to citizenship to investors who pay $5 million, offering a new avenue for legal immigration even as he carries out a sweeping crackdown on undocumented migrants.
I reckon Farage could afford that. Not sure about Truss.
REPORTER: What does Ukraine get in this mineral deal?
TRUMP: Military equipment and the right to fight on
He means (because he’s framing this as payment for weapons already delivered) that they *got* - past tense - military equipment and the ability to fight on from 2022. The US has ceased providing any new arms. So Putin knows Russia can just keep grinding on until Ukraine runs short, unless Europe is able to make up the gap. It is an assisted suicide.
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
Cloud cuckoo land can be very attractive to some people.
President Donald Trump said he is starting a program to offer residency and a path to citizenship to investors who pay $5 million, offering a new avenue for legal immigration even as he carries out a sweeping crackdown on undocumented migrants.
I'm definitely European but there are a whole set of countries I would pick before spending $5m to move to the USA - and most of those offer tax incentives alongside a lower entry price...
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
If anything there's now a case to develop a completely independent nuclear deterrent that doesn't rely on a US missile delivery system. I wonder how feasible it is and whether we even have the expertise now in nuclear weapons technology. If I was the government I'd be asking BAE and RR to jointly develop a new missile delver system and ramping up development of a new nuclear missile.
I suspect we will need help from France but I also suspect that since January what would have been very straightforward Non is now at the very least a tentative Oui, où as-tu besoin d'indices
If you want a solid fueled ICBM/SLBM, it’s actually the Italians who are the leaders in big SRMs, in Europe.
I was more thinking about the nukes themselves but you are right the rockets will be something we haven't really thought about for a long time...
We make our own warheads.
The design bureau in the U.K. and US effectively merged by the late 60s - the US/UK designs are common. The US shared the results of their designs and testing. We shared ours. Though we were behind, early on, there were some interesting ideas from the U.K. program - salvage fusing, spherical secondaries and fission secondaries among them.
We build pretty much the same designs as the US, though with a British accent. Things like the exact composition of the conventional explosives in the warhead differ.
During my senate campaign in 2022, I met a Ukrainian-American man in NE Ohio. He was very angry about my views on the conflict, and my desire to bring it to a rapid close.
"You are trying to abandon my country, and I don't like it."
"Sir, I replied, "your country is the United States of America, and so is mine."
I always found it offensive that a new immigrant to our country would be willing to use the power and influence of their new nation to settle the ethnic rivalries of the old.
One of the most important parts of assimilation is seeing *your* country as the USA. It's part of the bargain: if you're welcomed into our national family, you ought to look out for the interests of the United States. I know many immigrants who have the right perspective, and I'm grateful to them. For example, I met many Ukrainian Americans during that campaign (and since) who agreed with my views, or at the very least, asked the right question: what is in the best interests of the United States?
A bit simplistic from Vance. You can care about more than one country at the same time.
President Donald Trump said he is starting a program to offer residency and a path to citizenship to investors who pay $5 million, offering a new avenue for legal immigration even as he carries out a sweeping crackdown on undocumented migrants.
Who has $5m but couldn't already swing an O1 with the right advice?
The O1 is a non-immigrant visa, with no path to citizenship / green card.
I'm on an O1. But I don't have any plans to become American, so it's the right visa choice for me.
During my senate campaign in 2022, I met a Ukrainian-American man in NE Ohio. He was very angry about my views on the conflict, and my desire to bring it to a rapid close.
"You are trying to abandon my country, and I don't like it."
"Sir, I replied, "your country is the United States of America, and so is mine."
I always found it offensive that a new immigrant to our country would be willing to use the power and influence of their new nation to settle the ethnic rivalries of the old.
One of the most important parts of assimilation is seeing *your* country as the USA. It's part of the bargain: if you're welcomed into our national family, you ought to look out for the interests of the United States. I know many immigrants who have the right perspective, and I'm grateful to them. For example, I met many Ukrainian Americans during that campaign (and since) who agreed with my views, or at the very least, asked the right question: what is in the best interests of the United States?
A bit simplistic from Vance. You can care about more than one country at the same time.
Quite:
Not least because said person will still have relatives back in Ukraine, and they might want them not to be killed by Russian missiles.
President Donald Trump said he is starting a program to offer residency and a path to citizenship to investors who pay $5 million, offering a new avenue for legal immigration even as he carries out a sweeping crackdown on undocumented migrants.
Who has $5m but couldn't already swing an O1 with the right advice?
The O1 is a non-immigrant visa, with no path to citizenship / green card.
I'm on an O1. But I don't have any plans to become American, so it's the right visa choice for me.
During my senate campaign in 2022, I met a Ukrainian-American man in NE Ohio. He was very angry about my views on the conflict, and my desire to bring it to a rapid close.
"You are trying to abandon my country, and I don't like it."
"Sir, I replied, "your country is the United States of America, and so is mine."
I always found it offensive that a new immigrant to our country would be willing to use the power and influence of their new nation to settle the ethnic rivalries of the old.
One of the most important parts of assimilation is seeing *your* country as the USA. It's part of the bargain: if you're welcomed into our national family, you ought to look out for the interests of the United States. I know many immigrants who have the right perspective, and I'm grateful to them. For example, I met many Ukrainian Americans during that campaign (and since) who agreed with my views, or at the very least, asked the right question: what is in the best interests of the United States?
A bit simplistic from Vance. You can care about more than one country at the same time.
Americans usually understand that more than most, given they are often very patriotic about the USA and very aware of their heritage.
But the core question is the one he raises about what is best for the USA, and it's weird he thinks cosying up to |Russia is best for that in the long run.
President Donald Trump said he is starting a program to offer residency and a path to citizenship to investors who pay $5 million, offering a new avenue for legal immigration even as he carries out a sweeping crackdown on undocumented migrants.
So... it's a rebranded EB-5.
Simplifying the EB-5 visa is a good idea, and I quite like the option to simply pay directly to the government, which avoids some of the current scammy schemes that are setup to be EB-5 qualifying investments.
Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno · 3h We are getting to the point where we are increasingly normalising the idea that direct war with Russia is inevitable.
This will significantly increase the chance of nuclear apocalypse, in which the lucky ones will die in the initial blast.
It is OK to resist this.
He is making a valid point. All this talk of rearmament does run the risk of being dragged into direct war.
We either prepare for a direct war or we end up unprepared fighting a direct war. The world has changed take your pick as to the options but remember Russia isn't going to play fair...
You seem to see war between UK and Russia as inevitable. It doesn't have to be so.
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
So come up with a plan then - so I can shoot it down for the fundamental flaws you will have missed.
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
Facism, militarism and the drift to war. There are alternatives.
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
So you haven't got a plan - just an ulterior motive.
How many of your own family do you want to send to the Donbas? Or is it just other people's kids who should go?
The Ukranians are quite prepared to fight on our behalf. Which is the point.
- you can try and stop Putin in Ukraine - you can try and stop Putin in Riga. - you can try and stop Putin at the Polish border. - Etc
Pick one.
His war aims in Ukraine were elimination of the Ukrainian identity, and its total absorption into the Russian state.
That’s not the kind of thinking that has limits.
Well yes we do need to pick one but it might not be the answer you think. During the Cold War the West knew that the minute NATO and Warsaw Pact troops started shooting each other the risk of nuclear escalation became unacceptably high. We knew then which country we would risk that for and the answer was West Germany. Hopefully someone in power has a clear answer to that question today.
As Herman Kahn observed, mutually understood rules helped with what he (Kahn) regarded as the big problem of the late 50s -
“Reaching 1975 Alive”
Clear answer? That’s the point of the nuclear weapons.
They can’t be argued with. They can’t be averaged, diced, spliced or even reasoned with. Implacable clarity and total uniformity - just like the contents of the hohlraum after a couple of shakes.
And while one country has them you need another country with them as real friend as otherwise country one will roll into (say Ukraine) and the other countries little choice but to help in a limited way...
And that's the biggest issue that Trump has created - previously most of the world knew that the USA were willing to back them up. That is no longer the case so nuclear weapons are going to (very quietly) proliferate following the logic of India / Pakistan / Israel. Do enough to ensure people "know" you have them but not enough to make it 100% obvious that you've broken any international agreement.
President Donald Trump said he is starting a program to offer residency and a path to citizenship to investors who pay $5 million, offering a new avenue for legal immigration even as he carries out a sweeping crackdown on undocumented migrants.
I feel like he could set the price a bit higher to be honest - if someone for some reason would pay 5m I'm sure they'd pay 10m.
According to an SNP MP on Sky News we should ditch Trident and put that into conventional defence ! I mean really at this time ! Did she miss the fact that Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons .
Cloud cuckoo land can be very attractive to some people.
Alternatively the government could have brought in the FxckPutinTax ! I’m not a big fan of Starmer but I thought he gave a pretty good speech . What many seem to be overloooking is if Russia was allowed to take Ukraine that would see millions more Ukrainians fleeing the country .
Latest from the university of the bleedin' obvious:
Labour is losing support fastest among voters who feel economically insecure, according to a report urging Keir Starmer to focus on boosting living standards, rather than on culture wars and immigration.
We’re probably getting a little carried away on the WW3 talk.
Europe needs to bolster its defence spending because the USA is pulling away from European security. That’s to deter Russia from trying it on with cable chopping in the Baltic, making a move on Moldova or trying something in Ukraine again. It’s also to help support those countries if Russia does come again.
Russia is not a minnow but it’s not a superpower anymore. It needs containment in the same way as Iran or North Korea (the latter of which is also a nuclear armed state). And the nuclear deterrent remains in place even if the USA completely withdraws.
So it’s not the way the wind blows yet.
Agreed. This (hopefully) isn’t about fighting a war with Russia, rather than making any repeat of what they attempted in 2022 look less likely to succeed than it evidently did back then.
Also the UK air defences are woefully inadequate to handle even a fraction of what’s been chucked at Ukraine over the last three years. Serious anti-missile defence is expensive.
Latest from the university of the bleedin' obvious:
Labour is losing support fastest among voters who feel economically insecure, according to a report urging Keir Starmer to focus on boosting living standards, rather than on culture wars and immigration.
During my senate campaign in 2022, I met a Ukrainian-American man in NE Ohio. He was very angry about my views on the conflict, and my desire to bring it to a rapid close.
"You are trying to abandon my country, and I don't like it."
"Sir, I replied, "your country is the United States of America, and so is mine."
I always found it offensive that a new immigrant to our country would be willing to use the power and influence of their new nation to settle the ethnic rivalries of the old.
One of the most important parts of assimilation is seeing *your* country as the USA. It's part of the bargain: if you're welcomed into our national family, you ought to look out for the interests of the United States. I know many immigrants who have the right perspective, and I'm grateful to them. For example, I met many Ukrainian Americans during that campaign (and since) who agreed with my views, or at the very least, asked the right question: what is in the best interests of the United States?
A bit simplistic from Vance. You can care about more than one country at the same time.
It’s also essentially an ad hom response to an argument, which is obviously uncomfortable for him to address on its own terms.
President Donald Trump said he is starting a program to offer residency and a path to citizenship to investors who pay $5 million, offering a new avenue for legal immigration even as he carries out a sweeping crackdown on undocumented migrants.
Who has $5m but couldn't already swing an O1 with the right advice?
The O1 is a non-immigrant visa, with no path to citizenship / green card.
I'm on an O1. But I don't have any plans to become American, so it's the right visa choice for me.
My cousin got a green card from an O visa though that was about 10 years ago. Not sure if the rules have changed since then.
President Donald Trump said he is starting a program to offer residency and a path to citizenship to investors who pay $5 million, offering a new avenue for legal immigration even as he carries out a sweeping crackdown on undocumented migrants.
Who has $5m but couldn't already swing an O1 with the right advice?
The O1 is a non-immigrant visa, with no path to citizenship / green card.
I'm on an O1. But I don't have any plans to become American, so it's the right visa choice for me.
My cousin got a green card from an O visa though that was about 10 years ago. Not sure if the rules have changed since then.
I have a friend who did the same - but it did require an employer to sponsor the shift. And I don't think the people targeted under this new visa tend to have employers.
Comments
The increased expenditure talked of is less than the amount that the Americans are preparing to draw down.
So, in fact, there will be less armament in Western Europe at the end of it.
So you and he are being stupid.
(he pronounces it wrong I think)
I wish our politicians were thinking of how to avoid a direct war.
Arms races are not a reliable way of avoiding war. Not in Edwardian times and not now.
Rather randomly I learned about one of those programmes yesterday during a call with a former civil war rebel commander turned opposition party leader turned government envoy of a sub-Saharan African state, and it gave me a bit of hope. (I don’t frequently meet with former rebel commanders turned politicians by the way).
He described a railway and road corridor being constructed in a joint UK-EU project linking the coast with the hinterland and neighbouring landlocked countries. The Brits were leading the management and British construction firms were on the ground.
I expressed surprise - isn’t that the sort of thing that Chinese already do in the Belt and Road initiative? He said they’d had a go a few years ago but it had been poorly constructed and was already falling apart.
This is the sort of infrastructure that will drive the next few decades of African growth. Some of those countries will become regional superpowers and massive markets. I think it’s good we are in there, and by all accounts - though it does always beg the question - not in a cackhanded neocolonial way.
So how many hundred thousand dead on the altar of the disgusting, contemptible ideology of nucleomitophobia?
Hint with Putin willing to send 300,000 men to their deaths to gain a few miles of almost worthless land in Ukraine - we aren't exactly in the cold war era...
I have 2 sons of military age. I do not want them to die in the Donbas.
Mind you, it was often the same people who were diagnosing Putin’s fatal illness, Prigozhin taking the Kremlin and the collapse of the Russian military, so…
It’s not a good alternative.
Nobody wants to live in interesting times, but we are where we are.
I doubt anyone ever thought it'd go all the way eg full scale war to help Ukraine, but until the last couple of months a midpoint other than capitulation or full scale war was on the table. Which meant things were dragged out, which is not great, but also didn't just give in.
But the way to at least help towards avoiding that is not to allow the American tyrants walk away from NATO to give Putin any hopes of taking more nibbles out of free europe.
@jimsciutto
New: Three different federal judges delivered legal setbacks and slap downs to President Donald Trump in the span of an hour and a half on Tuesday in a series of cases challenging controversial moves taken during the early days of his second term.
https://x.com/jimsciutto/status/1894514243485004083
I’d think that behind the scenes most European leaders have come to that conclusion and it’s now about playing for time to get their house in order re defence .
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/25/wes-streeting-to-axe-thousands-of-jobs-at-nhs-england-after-ousting-of-chief-executive
Will this be a removal of ‘unnecessary duplication’, or something else ?
Foxy ?
Seems fairly substantial, whichever it is.
We laugh about our Saturday morning Troll on PB, and the Mods tend to boot them off quickly, but why as a country do we tolerate it at all? Other Internet and Social Media sites are infested with them, particularly our newspapers.. Why don't we start by cleaning out that nest of vipers?
We see with the case of the Reform leader in Wales who was taking payments from a Russian intelligence operative, and I am absolutely certain that is only the tip of a very big iceberg. I suspect that the reason that our politicians play so dumb is because all parties are implicated to a greater or lesser extent. There are very plausible stories of Russian links to the highest reaches of government, including former Prime Ministers and their top advisors.
We should start there, not with some facile announcement of new defence spending.
Europe needs to bolster its defence spending because the USA is pulling away from European security. That’s to deter Russia from trying it on with cable chopping in the Baltic, making a move on Moldova or trying something in Ukraine again. It’s also to help support those countries if Russia does come again.
Russia is not a minnow but it’s not a superpower anymore. It needs containment in the same way as Iran or North Korea (the latter of which is also a nuclear armed state). And the nuclear deterrent remains in place even if the USA completely withdraws.
So it’s not the way the wind blows yet.
Or will that just make him more angry?
Why has Farage been to the US at least eight times since the election? Very strange.
Presumably even the Corbynites will be slightly annoyed before we start discussing Warsaw. Or maybe not.
I'm not that keen to test it, of course. But still. Given the state of the rest of the military, the chance of the nukes still working seems very slim indeed.
Remember my argument is a very simple one, we prepare for war (by supporting Ukraine now) or we end up fighting one anyway after Putin and co have had time to regroup and prepare.
Mr Trump's right hand seemed bruised during the 78-year-old's meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, prompting speculation on social media over his health.
Redness or bruising on the US leader's right hand were also spotted in August and November last year, Sky News' US partner network NBC reported."
https://news.sky.com/story/bruise-on-trumps-hand-prompts-speculation-over-health-but-white-house-blames-shaking-hands-13316982
The war started because the Austro-Hungarian Empire had run out of time.
Why have we never seen the report into Russian interference in our elections? My suspicion is that it would reveal far more influence, and in all parties, than our politicians would be comfortable with.
They talk of confronting Putin but don't expose Putin's agents in the Commons, Lords and in extraparliamentary party staffers.
- you can try and stop Putin in Ukraine
- you can try and stop Putin in Riga.
- you can try and stop Putin at the Polish border.
- Etc
Pick one.
His war aims in Ukraine were elimination of the Ukrainian identity, and its total absorption into the Russian state.
That’s not the kind of thinking that has limits.
https://x.com/gerryhassan/status/1894517227837157765?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Peace requires sacrifices, land I’ve decided who shall be the sacrifices…
And Then We Shall Have Peace.
https://youtu.be/G92z8l5vxpQ?si=yML16KxtiymaZhxf
Thinking about the 3 universities where I worked on their CRM solutions for overseas recruitment...
But a more positive perspective is Russia's army is heavily worn down. It will take years for it to rebuild strength. We just need to be faster than them. And hopefully someone more reliable is in the White House before they are ready to make their next move.
Russia was still taking land, but extremely slowly, and the whole economic edifice was (is) looking decidedly sketchy. Then along comes Trump, gifts Putin international recognition again, looks to be on the way to gifting him all the lands he’s taken already, and most incredibly of all seems to be waiting to bring Russia out of sanctions and back into the global economy. All so the country can recover enough to launch the next war.
The legacy of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_(rocket) and the use of SRM technology within ESA.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-157917425?source=queue
REPORTER: What does Ukraine get in this mineral deal?
TRUMP: Military equipment and the right to fight on
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-25/trump-to-launch-gold-card-visa-program-for-wealthy-investors
President Donald Trump said he is starting a program to offer residency and a path to citizenship to investors who pay $5 million, offering a new avenue for legal immigration even as he carries out a sweeping crackdown on undocumented migrants.
“Reaching 1975 Alive”
Clear answer? That’s the point of the nuclear weapons.
They can’t be argued with. They can’t be averaged, diced, spliced or even reasoned with. Implacable clarity and total uniformity - just like the contents of the hohlraum after a couple of shakes.
So the answer is going to be Poland / Finland and shows why Ukraine wants to be in NATO as that shifts the point to the Ukrainian border or where-ever it's deemed to be today.
Not sure even Trump could now justify pulling military support !
The design bureau in the U.K. and US effectively merged by the late 60s - the US/UK designs are common. The US shared the results of their designs and testing. We shared ours. Though we were behind, early on, there were some interesting ideas from the U.K. program - salvage fusing, spherical secondaries and fission secondaries among them.
We build pretty much the same designs as the US, though with a British accent. Things like the exact composition of the conventional explosives in the warhead differ.
I'm on an O1. But I don't have any plans to become American, so it's the right visa choice for me.
Not least because said person will still have relatives back in Ukraine, and they might want them not to be killed by Russian missiles.
But the core question is the one he raises about what is best for the USA, and it's weird he thinks cosying up to |Russia is best for that in the long run.
Simplifying the EB-5 visa is a good idea, and I quite like the option to simply pay directly to the government, which avoids some of the current scammy schemes that are setup to be EB-5 qualifying investments.
And that's the biggest issue that Trump has created - previously most of the world knew that the USA were willing to back them up. That is no longer the case so nuclear weapons are going to (very quietly) proliferate following the logic of India / Pakistan / Israel. Do enough to ensure people "know" you have them but not enough to make it 100% obvious that you've broken any international agreement.
Labour is losing support fastest among voters who feel economically insecure, according to a report urging Keir Starmer to focus on boosting living standards, rather than on culture wars and immigration.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/feb/25/labour-support-voters-economy-insecure-finances-study
This (hopefully) isn’t about fighting a war with Russia, rather than making any repeat of what they attempted in 2022 look less likely to succeed than it evidently did back then.
Also the UK air defences are woefully inadequate to handle even a fraction of what’s been chucked at Ukraine over the last three years. Serious anti-missile defence is expensive.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c4gm41lq6rlt
The US under Trump can be relied on for nothing but the unreliability of any promises it might make, and naked self-interest.