Russian Tensions
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Don’t know whether this statement from Russia’s long-standing foreign minister will re-assure TM but it sets out what Russia’s position is. Basically, Don’t or we will use some more powerful weapon that we have not yet used. Presumably he is referring to tactical nuclear weapons though not necessarily. Anyway, he is not talking about pressing the red button.
Here’s how the official Russian state news agency reported what Volodin said:
https://tass.com/politics/1845365/amp
Note the difference between:
“What the European Parliament is calling for opens the way to a nuclear world war,”
And Reuters translation:
“What the European Parliament is calling for leads to a world war using nuclear weapons,”
I don’t know what the Russian word he used was but “opens the way to” and “leads to” are not the same. The second implies that a nuclear war will result; the first that it makes one more possible.
Both of them are saying that, in the event of a long-range NATO missile being launched against Russia, Russia would retaliate against Ukraine using a “powerful weapon”.
It looks as if NATO may have backed down and is saving face by not making any official announcement. But if it hasn’t backed down and a long-range NATO missile is used against Russia, then we can expect Russia to deploy its “powerful weapon” against Ukraine (but not a nuclear strike on Britain or America).
New school training:
How long before this is imposed in the UK?
Well, we’ve got a new government here that is pledged to facilitate things getting worse. A pledge we can be sure they will honour.
I sort of don’t think what’s happening in Russia will happen in the UK. Russia has that ‘default to autocracy’ which makes it much easier for it to happen and to be enforced there.
Which raises the question of Putin’s motive in this militarization of civilian life, if he is not expecting total war.
The Americans had something like this in the fifties. Schoolchildren being taught to ‘duck and cover’. No need for the US government to instruct folk in the use of firearms of course.
Sir Thomas ought to cultivate the insouciance of the working class. Blithely (if that’s not the same thing as insouciant) unaware of what could happen to them, they plod on with their mundane everyday lives. Bertie Russell when he was setting up CND lamented the conservatism and apathy of the ‘common people’ ( Russell was an aristocrat) who were unwilling to ‘acquiesce in their own survival’.
If the worst comes to the worst they will be just as dead as Sir Thomas, but unlike him they wont have fretted about things beforehand. So in a sense they win.No it doesn’t. It could just a way of inculcating loyalty to the state from its subjects.
I don’t think for one moment that the rulers of Russia expect still less want a total war with NATO any more than the rulers of the US want one with them.
They are both practising the doctrine of “if you want peace, prepare for war” by building their military might. They know that a total war between them would mean “mutually assured destruction”. In fact this is the message they want to give. It’s a mad solution dictated by a mad system but it seems to have worked for the last 80 years.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12470309/Putin-nuclear-weapon-Britain.html
First time on “combat duty.” Carries ten nuclear bombs.
Why put these on duty, if everything’s a bluff?
“Why put these on duty, if everything’s a bluff?”
Obviously because part of a bluff is making yourself look like you can physically carry out your threat.
You knew that anyway.
What’s disappointing about this latest world war scare is that it hasn’t produced, as far as I am aware, one half-decent tune to sing-a-long to.
The cubist missile crisis gave us ‘Talking World War Three Blues and ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’ from Blob Dylan, (Bryan Ferry did a great cover of that) and in the early eighties we were entertained by, among others, the Jam’s ‘Going Underground’. And there were plenty more. My favourite was ‘Final Day’ by the Young Marble Giants.
I don’t know if Sir Thomas plays a musical instrument…I think Biden will authorise the use of missiles deep inside Russia. Everything is tending toward it.
“Europe does not have a developed [early warning system],” he added. “In this sense they are more or less defenceless.” – Putin.
This is hinting at European countries being targeted by Russian nuclear missiles, not Ukraine.
Depends what you mean by “being targeted”. Russia will have had nuclear weapons trained on European sites for two generations. But if you mean that these sites would be hit in the event of Ukraine using long-range missiles supplied by NATO to attack Russia then that would be the product of your incorrigible doomsaying.
A more rational interpretation of what Putin is saying would be that he is pointing out how weak militarily Europe is compared to Russia and that those in charge of European governments should take this into consideration in their decision-making.
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