I wish we could have continued with much better relations with Russia, instead of seeing polarization escalating and going from the possibility of humanity becoming extinct within 1 hour into the possibility of becoming extinct within 20 minutes. At some point some mad person is likely going to push the button, all just because we are programmed to compete and win by all means with help of misguided philosophies.
This is the sentiment that our Russian friends have. When the USA decided to quit the ABM treaty in 2002 the old doctrine of 'MAD' was no more and the arms race was fully back on, with the USA doing most of the spending and all the sabre-rattling.
I am amazed at how this story has not been covered by the mainstream media in the UK (and presumably the USA). This Russian capability upgrade has rendered the already useless UK nuclear deterrent into a very expensive joke, however, the penny has not dropped and we are in denial about it.
My 'friends' in the doughnut (GCHQ) do know that Trident is useless, the problem being undersea drones. From my casual chats I know this has been a problem for a few years now and that some changes are having to be made, Ascencion Island being the quiet little place where things happen. Such as last year when a test firing resulted in a missile heading towards Florida (which nobody really cared about).
Since there is only one UK nuclear armed submarine at sea at a given time it is imaginable that this crusty white elephant can be stalked by a deeper diving and faster nuclear tipped and nuclear armed drone across the oceans and back to its base in Faslane at all times. Therefore the anonymity of the oceans is no more, the 'deterrent' therefore is in Emperor's New Clothes territory, but we can pretend and we can ignore what Moscow has to say.
Trident never made any sense to the UK, there is no money left for the conventional fleet, operations such as the Falklands really are not possible any more. Crazy politicians from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair and Theresa May have been the decision makers, wasting money on war preparations that go against the ethos of the UN and the rule of law. Meanwhile, in Russia they have actually clued up politicians in Putin and his chums that play far better chess than what our 'ruling elite' are capable of.
Neither the UK or the USA have been repeatedly invaded as has happened in Russian history. Our weapon systems are primarily offensive, the Russians may have plenty of hypersonic nuclear missiles pointed at the dreaded imperialists (!) but there is no evidence that the goals in the Cold War era or even now were to obliterate and invade the USA or Western Europe.
More money, human potential and precious materials wasted on war preparations is not a good thing, however, by investing in their military-industrial-complex the Russian government has restored a multi-lateral world. It was not so fun in 2001-2003 when Bush and Blair were able to commit their war crimes with it being a 'unilateral world', so progress has been made towards a safer world by having these deadly new weapons pointed at us and able to destroy life on earth so quickly.
Extinct, hardly. In fact it's difficult to conceive of an event that could make humans, the most adaptable species in the history of Earth fully extinct - it would have to be an incredibly violent event that wipes out pretty much all non-microbial life on the planet. Most things we worry about, like runaway climate change, do not have this capability.
However, enough stress can cause civilization to collapse, as it's rather more fragile. Little things we take for granted like infrastructure, a highly specialized economy, and law and order can fall apart in the event of a nuclear war.
Even with an all out nuclear war, humanity would not go extinct. In fact, the United States as a government and people would survive just with severe economic and human losses.
This whole thing is a scam on Putin's part. Putin claims that the US is rapidly building a huge anti-ballistic missile defense system that could stop every single present Russian warhead. And that it is doing this in preparation for invading Russia and turning it into a brutally-oppressed colony, or at least threatening Russia with nuclear destruction to get it to do all sorts of important things that would be damaging to Russia.
This is all nonsense. The US is building only a modest number of ABM missiles, and there are no plans beyond that. And the US has no interest whatsoever in invading Russia. Not even over-the-top hawks like John Bolton or the neoconservatives, even mention that idea. As far as nuclear threats to Russia, the US is content to stick with the MAD balance of terror that has kept the peace for over half a century.
So why is Putin saying these crazy things? I think it is a combination of two things. One is that he is a Russian, and so as a consequence of Russian history, he believes that the country is always under imminent threat of invasion, no matter what the facts are. The other is that, as authoritarian leaders so often do, he is trying to divert his public's attention from domestic ills that he knows he will not solve.
Does anyone want to disagree with me? Does anyone want to lay out all that would be involved in invading Russia (a review of Napoleon's attempt would be helpful here) and also in occupying it, and argue that yes, the US leadership sincerely thinks it would be a great idea, and the US leadership furthermore has good reasons to think the invasion and occupation would be successes?
How would the US react if Russia build a missile defense site in Cuba? Cuba is closer to the US border than the site in Poland to the Russian border, on the other hand Washington is further away from Cuba than Moscow from the site in Poland. Both capitals would be in range of the interceptors. I do not really know enough to judge whether Putin's statement that one could easily replace interceptors with offensive weapons is true or not but I do not really see why you could not do that.
So would the US be okay with Russian interceptors in Cuba if they promised that it is only for defensiv purposes and can not be repurposed? Putin certainly is not the nice guy but I can to some extend unterstand that he might be rather unhappy with the actions of the USA and NATO more generally since the end of the Cold War.
EDIT: This comment was meant to be as a response to [1] asking about a new Cold War.
Even though Cuba is further away from DC compared to Poland from Moscow, wealth is more spread out in the US. There are many wealthy and influential people that reside in Florida compared to say, the border of Russia with Poland.
You're absolutely right. Russia should be absolutely terrified by the US abm sites because the US is planning on launching a massive nuclear missile attack that would totally destroy Russia.
By the same token, if the Ukraine had been more paranoid about Russian intentions, they might not have been invaded by Russia yet again. It’s not just the US, Poland has no interest in becoming a Russian satellite again. We can try to equivocate, but after WWII Russia took over half of Europe, and the US didn’t.
Would Russia have rebuilt Japan and let it go? The history of (East) Germany suggests an answer.
I've always considered the idea that the Cold War was "over" to be nothing but propaganda designed to prevent people from wondering why their nation is spending $Trillion on their military.
Of course the Cold War is still happening: America has been exporting war wholesale for decades. Just because Russia hasn't been doing it at the same scale as well, doesn't mean squat.
The US and Russia have had plenty of opportunities to leave each other in peace over the last 30 years. The trouble is, they're not the only parties to this farce. Incredibly powerful, massively entrenched super-power-like military industrial multinational corporations are involved as well, and there is no way in HELL they are going to let their number one revenue source dry up just because we all want peace.
Its quite simple: stop assuming that its sovereign nation states doing all the fire-lighting. We are way, way beyond that point now. If you want to get a grip on war economy you have to stop allowing your politicians to push you - the people - into more and more heinous debt, for more and more heinous reasons (imperialist warfare against innocents), without repercussion.
This is going to be a tough sell. Pretty much everyone using computers to establish themselves in the technology markets today is going to have to deal with a multinational, war-mongering, mega-corporate military-industrial giant. We're well and truly being dominated by those who are quite happy having us all in the abyss, trembling in fear at what would happen if we stopped buying from General Electric, Samsung and co.
So long as Russia has territory it doesn't control inside what it views to be its natural geological boundaries, there will always be Russian aggression.
Russia very much wants to "never get involved in a land war in Asia." To that end, it wants a solid mountain boundary from the Carpathians to the Tien Shan, and the Gobi desert from there to the Pacific. Until then, you can expect continued encroachments on Ukraine, the Caucuses, and steppe Central Asia, and continued buildup of its military capabilities.
The post-Soviet era is and was not the end of history. Geopolitical competition exists as a human condition.
Much of the "communist versus capitalist" competition that "justified" the Cold War, was actually just a result of two powers that were going to compete anyway pushing competing views of global economic-political organization.
The competition was not itself about economic philosophies. Rather competition of economic philosophies was the result of conflict.
The United States today is a waning power relative to the rest of the world. However, it's still the de facto superpower.
The American strategy is to keep its foot on Russia's neck and while containing the possible rise of China's power (seeking to keep it to a regional, rather than global setting).
Yes, the Cold War is still going. There's less of a chance of an immediate nuclear exchange, but the US and Russia continue proxy warfare (e.g. Syria, Ukraine, Iran) and propaganda warfare (e.g. US and Russia's interference in one another's elections)
Yes, since the late 90s. Hillary Clinton's whole “reset button” thing in 2009 was about reversing the escalation in that cold war associated with the Russian invasion of Georgia.
> My prediction for the post-Sovjet area was that the US and Russia would just leave each other in peace.
That prediction was proven wrong less than a decade into the post-Soviet era.
Remember Bushs Missile Defense Shield in East Europe?
Either the cold war never ended or it's not the cold war anymore.
I'd say it's the second. The superpower game never ended but even with the sanctions, trade, travel and politics are not that locked. On the other hand there are those 2.0 war technologies like drones, trolls, cyber warfare...
> My prediction for the post-Sovjet area was that the US and Russia would just leave each other in peace.
But they didn't. Or at least the U.S. didn't. Russia has warned for years that the US shouldn't be installing rocket shields so close to its borders. So the US has continued to antagonize Russia pretty much since the cold war was "over".
Now, Russia has started to interfere in US politics, possibly as a consequence of that, and it has also started showing its "might" in Europe.
This won't end well, if the two countries continue to antagonize each other.
As long as the US continues winning the economic/political game it doesn't matter what country builds X weapon that (perhaps) the US doesn't have (yet). It doesn't really make sense for China/Russia to try and compete with the US militarily - need only ask the Soviet Union how that turned out.
They need to compete on the economic/political level and they are still half a century away from having the clout the US has, regardless of who might occupy the Executive.
The Iskander is a bit smaller (7.3 metres long, 3.8 tonnes) than the Skybolt (11.7 metres long, 5 tonnes), but that fits with the idea that this is a tactical/theatre weapon rather than a (not quite) strategic one.
I wish someone competent commented on the
Nuclear-Powered Cruise Missile that Putin announced. There are a lot of posts in Russian social media that say that it's total BS.
It doesn't matter what it is or does. As soon as anyone fires off a nuclear missile/device civilization ends. Some tiny remnant of people will start over, in a mostly destroyed planet. Some day their descendants will wonder what kind of complete idiot(s) would start a nuclear war.
I have a number of comments for this article. I thought it would be helpful to explain where I am coming from.
A good place to start is what happened after WWII ended. The world was divided between two great powers, and what you would expect to have happened, given the past history of the world, is for this to lead in a decade or two to a massive war between them.
So why didn't that happen? Basically because of some extraordinary economic, technological and governmental changes that had happened over the preceding several centuries.
For thousands of years tribes and states had engaged in regular warfare. This was because they were based largely on agriculture. Even in empires, most of the people still were peasant farmers. This lead to warfare in two ways. One is that populations would often grow too large for agricultural output, the other was that the wealth was in the land and so the way to gain more wealth was through conquest.
The industrial revolution, based on modern science and technology, and operating under free market economics, lead to some radical changes. Radical increases in agricultural productivity, and in addition health advances lead to lower population growth. In addition, the main source of wealth was now industry, rather than land. And one consequence was the rise of democracy.
Nonetheless, warfare persisted. But nuclear weapons radically changed the logic of warfare, and made it suicidal, rather than an often-rational choice. And so we have had a remarkable 70 years of peace.
The problem is that Russia has never really adopted to the new era. Politically, it is authoritarian, rather than democratic. Economically it practices crony capitalism, and one consequence is it is very poor at technological advancement, and depends far too much on natural resources for wealth. And with respect to international affairs it thinks we are still back in the old era where great powers continually try to conquer each other, both for wealth and to eliminate military threats. And so it is pursing a policy of trying to gain back every part of the empire it lost when the Soviet Union collapsed.
I feel sorry for the Russians. Putin is taking them down a path that will lead to stagnation and maybe violent conflict. And, alas, Trump doesn't see this at all. That's because he is himself very out of touch with the realities of the modern, post-war era, and mistakenly thinks Putin is an excellent leader.
[+] [-] bitL|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Theodores|8 years ago|reply
I am amazed at how this story has not been covered by the mainstream media in the UK (and presumably the USA). This Russian capability upgrade has rendered the already useless UK nuclear deterrent into a very expensive joke, however, the penny has not dropped and we are in denial about it.
My 'friends' in the doughnut (GCHQ) do know that Trident is useless, the problem being undersea drones. From my casual chats I know this has been a problem for a few years now and that some changes are having to be made, Ascencion Island being the quiet little place where things happen. Such as last year when a test firing resulted in a missile heading towards Florida (which nobody really cared about).
Since there is only one UK nuclear armed submarine at sea at a given time it is imaginable that this crusty white elephant can be stalked by a deeper diving and faster nuclear tipped and nuclear armed drone across the oceans and back to its base in Faslane at all times. Therefore the anonymity of the oceans is no more, the 'deterrent' therefore is in Emperor's New Clothes territory, but we can pretend and we can ignore what Moscow has to say.
Trident never made any sense to the UK, there is no money left for the conventional fleet, operations such as the Falklands really are not possible any more. Crazy politicians from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair and Theresa May have been the decision makers, wasting money on war preparations that go against the ethos of the UN and the rule of law. Meanwhile, in Russia they have actually clued up politicians in Putin and his chums that play far better chess than what our 'ruling elite' are capable of.
Neither the UK or the USA have been repeatedly invaded as has happened in Russian history. Our weapon systems are primarily offensive, the Russians may have plenty of hypersonic nuclear missiles pointed at the dreaded imperialists (!) but there is no evidence that the goals in the Cold War era or even now were to obliterate and invade the USA or Western Europe.
More money, human potential and precious materials wasted on war preparations is not a good thing, however, by investing in their military-industrial-complex the Russian government has restored a multi-lateral world. It was not so fun in 2001-2003 when Bush and Blair were able to commit their war crimes with it being a 'unilateral world', so progress has been made towards a safer world by having these deadly new weapons pointed at us and able to destroy life on earth so quickly.
[+] [-] eloff|8 years ago|reply
However, enough stress can cause civilization to collapse, as it's rather more fragile. Little things we take for granted like infrastructure, a highly specialized economy, and law and order can fall apart in the event of a nuclear war.
[+] [-] RcouF1uZ4gsC|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] woodandsteel|8 years ago|reply
This is all nonsense. The US is building only a modest number of ABM missiles, and there are no plans beyond that. And the US has no interest whatsoever in invading Russia. Not even over-the-top hawks like John Bolton or the neoconservatives, even mention that idea. As far as nuclear threats to Russia, the US is content to stick with the MAD balance of terror that has kept the peace for over half a century.
So why is Putin saying these crazy things? I think it is a combination of two things. One is that he is a Russian, and so as a consequence of Russian history, he believes that the country is always under imminent threat of invasion, no matter what the facts are. The other is that, as authoritarian leaders so often do, he is trying to divert his public's attention from domestic ills that he knows he will not solve.
Does anyone want to disagree with me? Does anyone want to lay out all that would be involved in invading Russia (a review of Napoleon's attempt would be helpful here) and also in occupying it, and argue that yes, the US leadership sincerely thinks it would be a great idea, and the US leadership furthermore has good reasons to think the invasion and occupation would be successes?
[+] [-] danbruc|8 years ago|reply
So would the US be okay with Russian interceptors in Cuba if they promised that it is only for defensiv purposes and can not be repurposed? Putin certainly is not the nice guy but I can to some extend unterstand that he might be rather unhappy with the actions of the USA and NATO more generally since the end of the Cold War.
EDIT: This comment was meant to be as a response to [1] asking about a new Cold War.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16511248
[+] [-] s3nnyy|8 years ago|reply
I think that was the trigger for the Cuba crises?
[+] [-] horsecaptin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] woodandsteel|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IntronExon|8 years ago|reply
Would Russia have rebuilt Japan and let it go? The history of (East) Germany suggests an answer.
[+] [-] aerostable_slug|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] s3nnyy|8 years ago|reply
I read in other media how some new American weapons can fight certain Russian tanks etc, and now I read about Putin bragging about his new weapons.
My prediction for the post-Sovjet area was that the US and Russia would just leave each other in peace.
[+] [-] primitur|8 years ago|reply
Of course the Cold War is still happening: America has been exporting war wholesale for decades. Just because Russia hasn't been doing it at the same scale as well, doesn't mean squat.
The US and Russia have had plenty of opportunities to leave each other in peace over the last 30 years. The trouble is, they're not the only parties to this farce. Incredibly powerful, massively entrenched super-power-like military industrial multinational corporations are involved as well, and there is no way in HELL they are going to let their number one revenue source dry up just because we all want peace.
Its quite simple: stop assuming that its sovereign nation states doing all the fire-lighting. We are way, way beyond that point now. If you want to get a grip on war economy you have to stop allowing your politicians to push you - the people - into more and more heinous debt, for more and more heinous reasons (imperialist warfare against innocents), without repercussion.
This is going to be a tough sell. Pretty much everyone using computers to establish themselves in the technology markets today is going to have to deal with a multinational, war-mongering, mega-corporate military-industrial giant. We're well and truly being dominated by those who are quite happy having us all in the abyss, trembling in fear at what would happen if we stopped buying from General Electric, Samsung and co.
[+] [-] torstenvl|8 years ago|reply
Russia very much wants to "never get involved in a land war in Asia." To that end, it wants a solid mountain boundary from the Carpathians to the Tien Shan, and the Gobi desert from there to the Pacific. Until then, you can expect continued encroachments on Ukraine, the Caucuses, and steppe Central Asia, and continued buildup of its military capabilities.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5497331ae4b0148a6141b...
[+] [-] sexydefinesher|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwtadvice|8 years ago|reply
Much of the "communist versus capitalist" competition that "justified" the Cold War, was actually just a result of two powers that were going to compete anyway pushing competing views of global economic-political organization.
The competition was not itself about economic philosophies. Rather competition of economic philosophies was the result of conflict.
The United States today is a waning power relative to the rest of the world. However, it's still the de facto superpower.
The American strategy is to keep its foot on Russia's neck and while containing the possible rise of China's power (seeking to keep it to a regional, rather than global setting).
Yes, the Cold War is still going. There's less of a chance of an immediate nuclear exchange, but the US and Russia continue proxy warfare (e.g. Syria, Ukraine, Iran) and propaganda warfare (e.g. US and Russia's interference in one another's elections)
[+] [-] dragonwriter|8 years ago|reply
Yes, since the late 90s. Hillary Clinton's whole “reset button” thing in 2009 was about reversing the escalation in that cold war associated with the Russian invasion of Georgia.
> My prediction for the post-Sovjet area was that the US and Russia would just leave each other in peace.
That prediction was proven wrong less than a decade into the post-Soviet era.
[+] [-] Animats|8 years ago|reply
Yes. Russia wants their empire back. They've already taken back a piece of Georgia, Crimea, and a piece of Ukraine.
[+] [-] aluhut|8 years ago|reply
I'd say it's the second. The superpower game never ended but even with the sanctions, trade, travel and politics are not that locked. On the other hand there are those 2.0 war technologies like drones, trolls, cyber warfare...
[+] [-] mtgx|8 years ago|reply
But they didn't. Or at least the U.S. didn't. Russia has warned for years that the US shouldn't be installing rocket shields so close to its borders. So the US has continued to antagonize Russia pretty much since the cold war was "over".
Now, Russia has started to interfere in US politics, possibly as a consequence of that, and it has also started showing its "might" in Europe.
This won't end well, if the two countries continue to antagonize each other.
[+] [-] cynusx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j1vms|8 years ago|reply
They need to compete on the economic/political level and they are still half a century away from having the clout the US has, regardless of who might occupy the Executive.
[+] [-] twic|8 years ago|reply
Like Skybolt:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAM-87_Skybolt
The Iskander is a bit smaller (7.3 metres long, 3.8 tonnes) than the Skybolt (11.7 metres long, 5 tonnes), but that fits with the idea that this is a tactical/theatre weapon rather than a (not quite) strategic one.
[+] [-] sAbakumoff|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldcode|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ben_w|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shdh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] woodandsteel|8 years ago|reply
A good place to start is what happened after WWII ended. The world was divided between two great powers, and what you would expect to have happened, given the past history of the world, is for this to lead in a decade or two to a massive war between them.
So why didn't that happen? Basically because of some extraordinary economic, technological and governmental changes that had happened over the preceding several centuries.
For thousands of years tribes and states had engaged in regular warfare. This was because they were based largely on agriculture. Even in empires, most of the people still were peasant farmers. This lead to warfare in two ways. One is that populations would often grow too large for agricultural output, the other was that the wealth was in the land and so the way to gain more wealth was through conquest.
The industrial revolution, based on modern science and technology, and operating under free market economics, lead to some radical changes. Radical increases in agricultural productivity, and in addition health advances lead to lower population growth. In addition, the main source of wealth was now industry, rather than land. And one consequence was the rise of democracy.
Nonetheless, warfare persisted. But nuclear weapons radically changed the logic of warfare, and made it suicidal, rather than an often-rational choice. And so we have had a remarkable 70 years of peace.
The problem is that Russia has never really adopted to the new era. Politically, it is authoritarian, rather than democratic. Economically it practices crony capitalism, and one consequence is it is very poor at technological advancement, and depends far too much on natural resources for wealth. And with respect to international affairs it thinks we are still back in the old era where great powers continually try to conquer each other, both for wealth and to eliminate military threats. And so it is pursing a policy of trying to gain back every part of the empire it lost when the Soviet Union collapsed.
I feel sorry for the Russians. Putin is taking them down a path that will lead to stagnation and maybe violent conflict. And, alas, Trump doesn't see this at all. That's because he is himself very out of touch with the realities of the modern, post-war era, and mistakenly thinks Putin is an excellent leader.