Came here to say this. I was genuinely interested in reading this page, but the blue-on-gray promptly gave me a legitimate headache. I cannot understand the person who thinks this is OK.
That's my go-to the moment any kind of pop-up or overlay appears, or if the site seems to be interfering with scrolling. If reader mode doesn't work (it's disabled on some sites) I move on.
Threads is the most harrowing movie by far. Remember watching it in college and not being able to get out of bed the next day because I was so fucking depressed.
I remember watching it when it originally aired when I was 13, and having to talk about it at school the next day - we were in the middle of an assignment on the threat of nuclear war at the time, it was tacked into our english language class as I recall (tbf, I can't really think of anything else, other than possibly Physics, where the topic would have been better suited, and Physics could probably only have carried a very dry discussion of it).
Threads just seems like torture porn being shown to you to make you afraid of nuclear war, which had its uses in pushing for nuclear disarmament, so I can't hate it...
but The Day After does a lot more to personalize and humanize the story, each subplot makes you very intimately attached to these characters and their families by presenting their day-to-day life and aspirations, how normal their lives are when war is looming echoes our own. So when everything is blown to shit it hurts so much more.
I recently watched Threads for the first time, and I was scarred. The way it portrays the effects of a nuclear attack was too real and made me feel incredibly depressed for days. It felt almost as if I were looking at a portal into the future, showing how the human race will eventually end.
The part where the audio seamlessly transitions from screams into screeching wind, wails, and explosions was chillingly well done in the most dramatic way.
If you like Threads, check out Children of Men, which is also disturbingly realistic and also set in UK.
Hmm, sounds like watching this movie has 2 possible outcomes: either I don't like it and end up psychologically scarred, or I like it and I know I'm some sort of psychopath.
There’s definitely not a lot to like, but there is a lot to appreciate.
If you want a somewhat toned down version, the first episode of James Burke’s Connections describes some of the same concepts and themes in the context of the NYC blackout of 1965, and is only somewhat less disturbing, but is easily the most upsetting episode of the otherwise charming educational program.
We do proper apocalyptic books and films in the UK! If you survive "Threads" and "When the wind blows", why not wash it down with some dystopia! 1984, Animal Farm, Children of men.
Other apocalypses and dystopias are available. The UK is not the sole source of them. 451F, Brave New World ...
Wait until you find out who invented television. One of the more difficult adjustments to living in the US was the realization that people here grow up absorbing a fictitious version of history in which the US invented virtually everything we consider 'modern' and the rest of the world is far less developed than it actually is.
If you want to skip the prelude to the attack you can skip to 47:45.
It is messed up to think this level of destruction happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But in their case it was even more horrifying because nobody knew what was going on or what to do.
Another film (docu-drama) about a nuclear attack on the UK in the 1960s was The War Game.
"The War Game is a 1966 British pseudo-documentary film that depicts a nuclear war and its aftermath.Written, directed and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC, it caused dismay within the BBC and also within government, and was subsequently withdrawn before the provisional screening date of 6 October 1965. The corporation said that "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting. It will, however, be shown to invited audiences..."
The Annie Jacobsen book didn't have quite the same visceral impact of despair for me as watching Threads. But it was still disturbing for two reasons: the cascade which leads to war is remarkably believable with its grab bag of technical limitations, forced decisions with flawed data and dramatic consequences, and that it was written "now". It's not something which can be tidied away into a past era which we'd like to thing we emerged from never to return.
The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States by Jeffrey Lewis
Note this explicitly features President Trump and various real-life politicians and portrays Trump negatively. So if you are a fan of his probably avoid.
In a similar vein, I recently came across Peter Laurie's Beneath the City Streets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneath_the_City_Streets) in a second hand bookshop. Despite belonging to a very different time, it's still a very interesting read.
When I grew up in the 80ies Denmark nuclear “defense” was sort of build into everyday aspects. My childhood school had some really wide hallways with really wide doors. Turns out it was because my suburb was at the right distance from the city mass to be turned into a hospital following a nuclear attack. It also turned out the school had a large underground system full of various medical supplies and a control center of sorts to coordinate the medical leadership.
Cities mandated that housing needed basements which could be turned into nuclear bunkers/shelters. Where my parents live now there is basically a tiny town in the basements. Much of it is now things like fitness centers, tennis courts, a library and a few stores (not groceries or other things you eat/drink). Back in the 80ies it was solely meant for people storage, but after the wall fell it was slowly turned into more useable stuff.
Similarly most of our bunkers are now either discontinued or used for something practical.
I wonder if we’re going to see an increase in “civil defense” again now that we’re in another Cold War.
Would love to see a documentary on this! Related to that time, there are some fascinating documentaries online that goes through a secret “Regan Vest” facility in the woods (now declassified and a museum) of Denmark that was a nuclear safe facility to hold the royal family and the government in case of an emergency [1]. It was decommissioned only in 2003 and got released from the military in 2012.
Also having grown up in Denmark in the late 80's, I definitely had some of the same experiences; my school was built in the late 30's/early 40's, so not built for the cold war (but was reportedly used as the local Nazi HQ during WW2). But I can definitely recognize that a lot of 60's and 70's architecture was dual-purpose.
In Poland they built "1000 schools for 1000 years of Polish state" in 60s. The plan for these schools was to use them as military hospitals, so they also have these features. Among other things every classroom has tap water, there's wide doors etc.
The Autosan bus that was built in dozens of thousands for regular public transport was designed with a serious weakness in the front to allow quick conversion into a military evacuation vehicle. Basically there's space for loading/unloading a stretcher through the front of the bus. Which means if you collide with a tree - it goes through that hole and splits the bus in half :/
And these concerns were everywhere. Roads were built with very wide lanes and very straight routes in some forests so they can be used as emergency military airports.
Almost all of these concerns were abandoned in 90s. Schools were renovated with more focus on usability than military adaptability. New safer buses were built. Even the education changed.
My parents had "throwing a grenade" exams at shool :) There was also first aid, shooting, etc. I was at school in 90s-00s and only first aid and some shooting for kids that wanted to do it.
That article is from Jan 2022 though, has anything changed since then?
I was concerned that Russia had its eye on the Suwalki Gap around the time but since then I haven't seen any real movement towards the Gap to the Baltic states.
it sounds like you do, though, so I'm sure you've got some relevant and up-to-the-minute sources to share with us so we all can be up to date as well. thanks in advance
Wars are large, slow-moving beasts. Even if nothing had changed in Europe (beyond executing the 2022 plans, anyway) it'd be reasonable to expect the current conflict to expand.
There was a concerning level of global instability starting to bubble even before COVID hit. The US military didn't suddenly lose the ability to deter Russia in 2022. And China's growing military budget is also related because the US can't realistically manage a whole bunch of theatres simultaneously - so the Europeans are re-arming.
Of course the realignment caused by the Europeans having significant militaries can only be positive for EU-US relations. I can really only see the Europeans using their military to defend against the sort of aggressors who would go in and blow up things like the Nord Stream pipeline so there wouldn't be any cause for tension with the Americas.
You're concerned that Russia, the country that has spent two years struggling to win a war against the poorest country in Europe is going to invade NATO?
I have some great deals on oceanfront property in Magnitogorsk that I'm willing to cut you in on.
I agree it seems unlikely, but the concern isn't totally unfounded.
Russia has invested heavily in its military and if the Ukraine war ended today there is a question of whether the military would be disbanded or refocused.
There is also an increase in turmoil in NATO countries. The UK still hasn't really figured out how to not be part of the EU and many countries, from the US to France and Belgium, are seeing an increase in support for populist parties. If Russia was interested in regaining former Soviet territory, NATO may currently look weak to them.
Give the uk a chance. It will take time to unwind some of the more stupid brexit decisions without obviously losing face. There is appetite for it, but it’s probably going to take at least another govt to be able to make consequential decisions without reopening the wound
Russia can't win against Ukraine supported with about 0.5% of NATO military budget.
If it started a war against actual NATO it would end in Iraq-style massacre of their army. Even without significant USA support - European NATO countries have enough airpower to manage.
This is all PR to slow down help to Ukraine. They did the same in 2008 and in 2014.
But assuming Russia doesn't keep all of their nukes in those two cities, destroying them may not be enough to prevent many bombs launching towards far more than 2 European cities? If you're on the receiving end of a nuke it won't be of much solace to have a minute of thinking "hah at least Russia is fucked".
There's probably 500 more important cities to bomb in Europe before they get to my city. Which is 9th biggest in Poland, but still.
The point is that Russia can't hope to win in either conventional or nuclear war. So they won't start it.
It really is that simple.
BTW the only reason they started war in Ukraine is that they thought they will win easily. They had an article prepared that praised the army for 3-day victory. It accidentally went live early in the war :)
They weren't alone in that miscalculation - NATO thought that too. Nobody serious thinks Russia can win a war against NATO. Even Russia does not pretend that. Instead they pretend to be crazy. But they are rational, just evil.
Who starts a war is really a matter of perspective though. And often the answer, especially during the war, is that the other side started it and you had no choice.
Russia judtifies the Ukraine exactly the same way. And honestly it's really impossible to dispute, if Russia believed that Ukraine and/or NATO was posing a fundamental risk to Russian sovereignty or the Russian people, was their invasion offensive or defensive?
I have my own opinion to that, and it's the opposite of what Russia would say, but that doesn't mean I'm right and they are wrong.
Nitpicking. If Russia is at war with NATO - it ceases to exist. Why would it enter that war then?
It can just go back to 1992 Ukrainian borders. Some bruised pride. Lots of money wasted. That's it.
> I have my own opinion to that, and it's the opposite of what Russia would say, but that doesn't mean I'm right and they are wrong.
This is just relativism. Very convenient to justify doing nothing. Ultimately there are facts. Nobody was going to invade Russia and you know it (and Russian government knew it).
> Nitpicking. If Russia is at war with NATO - it ceases to exist. Why would it enter that war then?
You seem way more certain than me that NATO countries have the means and will to destroy Russia in short order. Maybe you're right, but I expect that would be a much more difficult and deadly war than Russia simply ceasin to exist.
> This is just relativism. Very convenient to justify doing nothing. Ultimately there are facts. Nobody was going to invade Russia and you know it (and Russian government knew it).
Even a bar fight isn't so black and white that you can easily say who started and when. Sure, if you want to consider recognizing that the events leading to a war are complex as relitivism then I'd argue that claiming it's easy to see Russia started this war and there are no mitigating factors muddying that water is absolutism.
Boiling complex situations down to simple, binary facts is a great way to justify doing whatever it is you want to do.
The balance is in the middle. I'm not arguing that Russia wasn't the agressor here, and I'm not arguing that they weren't the aggressor in 2008 or 2014 either. I am arguing, though, that one side can see unwarranted agression while the other side honestly believes they are responding to a threat that already existed.
It doesn't matter who started. It matters for morality, but you don't even need morality for this. For politics it matters how both sides estimate their chances and what in their opinions the other side will do.
And it's very clear. Both NATO and Russia estimate that NATO won't invade Russia. If you disagree - notice that Russia moved its army from Finnish border to Ukraine after Finland joined NATO. And it moved its army from Kaliningrad (border with Poland and Lithuania) to Ukraine. Russian least militarized borders are those with NATO countries.
If Russia actually thought NATO is going to invade - they would be scared shitless to start anything (because it makes them vulnurable and provides an excuse for intervention). Instead they leave their NATO borders naked because they estimate (correctly) that the last thing NATO wants is a war.
"The balance is in the middle" is a fine way to prove 2+2 is 4.5.
We may be talking past each other a bit here, I think we actually agree more than we disagree here.
I only raised the consideration of who starts it because you mentioned it in an earlier comment mentioning why Russia wouldn't start it. I agree with you that it doesn't matter who starts it and was only trying to point out that with war it's often so complicated that you can't really ever pin it on one side starting it out of the blue.
I also agree that NATO isn't planning on invading Russia, if I implied that somewhere along the way I just misspoke.
I don't actually think an invasion is how the next world war would start anyway, well likely end up launching tons of drones at each other before the war is reduced to soldiers on the battlefield.
> "The balance is in the middle" is a fine way to prove 2+2 is 4.5.
I'm not sure the connection there. Are you proposing that we should strice to view complex situations as a binary rather than a spectrum?
You argued if NATO doesn't back down ww3 is more likely. I argue the opposite.
As for 2+2 - my point is that some things are simple, and making them seem complex is an excuse not to do anything about them.
This is what happened in 2014. It was simple imperial land grab. It was preventable. But Russia and useful idiots muddled the water long enough that the help never arrived.
This is what I think should be prevented. Because every time the west appeases Russia it makes ww3 more likely.
Do we really want to push everyone to the brink and see who is and isn't willing to use nukes though?
Russia has mobile ICBMs and, if I'm not mistaken, their deadman switch system is still in use.
NATO wouldn't be able to take out Russia's entire nuclear capability before Russia responds. Even if we technically could, that's absolutely not a world I would want to live in anyway.
The alternative is a new nuclear arms race. Look at it from the POV of neighbors of China and Russia if UN and NATO backs down from nuclear blackmail. In that world security guarantees mean nothing. If a nuclear power invades you - the world leaves you to die. The only chance to survive is to build your own nukes.
Fast forward a few decades and you have like 50 countries with nukes. Good luck maintaining peace then.
The problem with appeasement is that people ignore the alternative costs. It always looks good when you assume only your actions have consequences. But inaction also have consequences - you can't just assume status quo remains when you do nothing.
Britain and France have only 8 SSBNs of which only several are on patrol at any given time. Track them, make them the first target and the snakes are defanged.
The US will not risk getting involved at this point.
War between Russia and NATO would look so much different than the Ukraine war though.
For one thing, Russia almost certainly wouldn't be as restrained with what targets its going after or the tactics they use. The Kremlin has to be aware that they can win a war of attrition here, especially if they can lean in to erode western support for Ukraine.
With both the wars in Ukraine and Gaza it seems like many observers have forgotten just how bad wars can get. We're counting deaths in Gaza by the thousands, and though military deaths in Ukraine have been estimated into the hundreds of thousands for both sides, civilian casualties are almost nonexistent.
Well that's a whole other ball of wax. I was always extremely frustrated with the American response to Russia's invasion of Crimea.
When the Russians made clear it wasn't them entering Ukraine, we should have gotten them on the phone to confirm and make them aware that we have bombers in the air scrambled to hit all invading forces that have crossed the border.
We also would have to follow through with that threat, Obama's red line with Syria was a pointless mess that just made us weaker. If Russia really wouldn't claim the invading force, who would say we were out of line for helping Ukraine defend their soverign borders from an invading paramilitary force?
Are you aware of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexive_control and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_generation_warfare ? Russia has been playing that game for decades, sowing an image of "we are extremely powerful" and "you are all weak". They know they can't do nothing against NATO, and they opt for that strategy of bullying their small neighbors while avoiding a NATO response using reflexive control (i.e. make NATO believe they are weak).
Just because something doesn't make sense to us doesn't mean it won't happen. Putin gave us at least 3 such moments in the past 10 years where the majority thought "It makes zero sense for Putin to do XXX", but he did it anyway. Likely because his assumptions, evaluation and priorities were quite different from ours.
This also suffers from presentism - situation today is not the same situation as in a year, two or 10, but we need to start preparing now for eventualities anyway. In a year, with Trump at the helm, there might not even be any NATO anymore ...
IMO most of the moves were predictable if you actually listened to what theyre saying. If you dismiss everything a govt is saying as misinformation and propaganda, then of course you will never know the next step.
considering how far the far right got in the recent elections, who knows, sabotages could happen, at the end, nobody guarantees nato will apply it's article to defend it's members
Also, afaik only France does have some own nuclear warheads that aren't controlled by the US and it's unknown if they will apply those to defend other countries. Imagine trump gets elected, what could happen in this case?
>Russia, the country that has spent two years struggling to win a war against the poorest country in Europe
The war will end with Ukrainian capitulation in a couple of months if NATO were to stop all intelligence, communications and material support for the Ukraine.
Poland has been threatened with nuclear apocalypse by Russia every few years since 1989. It's just how Russia does politics, ignore it and send more weapons to Ukraine to end this quickly.
IN the US, we started off with the CONELRAD system in 1951, then the Emergency Broadcast System in 1963, then the Emergency Alert System in 1997. Most people today know of the Wireless Emergency Alert System created in 2007 which supplements the EAS (nearly everyone has a cellphone today vs. being near a radio or TV).
The wireless system has been extended to include alerts for strong weather (tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, etc.) but also to include missing child alerts.
Growing up in the Cold War era, I'm used to these being used as an alert system (warning: loud)
this is such a fascinating thing. It feels like the last vestige of the analog era where everything had to be done in steps where something could go wrong or be interrupted at any time.
I remember a few years ago pre-pandemic, I was in my office working when one of those emergency alerts was activated and EVERYONE'S phone went off virtually at the same time. Surreal, kinda frightening
Slightly triggering! I grew up in Illinois, about two blocks from one of those sirens, and they tested the thing weekly for about 30 seconds. It was so loud. For a while, I had regular nightmares about tornadoes, and that siren was always a part of them.
Presumably it had something to do with D-day, but this morning I was woken to an air raid siren going off in my area (I live in the UK).
For a moment I considered whether I should check the news in case it was somehow a real siren, but I figured it almost certainly wasn't. Plus if it was a bomb I'd have no where to hide anyway, so went back to sleep.
It used to surprise me how crudely made the various British civil defence structures I could see were. But, then I rationalised they were very much Potemkin village stuff. Nobody who went into them was expected to come out of them, so adding more than barely functional bathrooms, or an ambience of sustainable long term existence begged questions: Do we actually expect to use this?
Most WW2 structures were similarly crude. The bare minimum of effort to make something which sustained life, in the event of anything bar a direct hit. In the context of nuclear weapons "direct" was just a larger circular-error-probable. Many of the civil-defence facilities were simple upgrades to Ministry of Defence assets held over since 39-45. Sometimes I suspect they were mostly unchanged. They had a network of concrete outposts for aircraft detection to hand, and just .. added on to them (or not: if you were a civil defence volunteer you were mostly expendable)
They did have a certain robust charm. Doors like some kind of Septic Tank lid. Hand crank air supply, with a wooden handle. Giant clips around the doors the same as on battleships. Bakelite handsets, valves, green metal, thick earth lines, robust antenna. You could imagine a Noel Coward Hero clenching a pipe in his (always his) teeth, as he watched the skyline with binoculars, wearing a camel hair duffelcoat: "it's quiet, too damn quiet"
Filey looked awesome as you drove past on the motorway. And there is nothing in the world quite like watching a Vulcan Bomber practice take-off and landing, as you drive by in Vauxhall Victor two-tone Saloon. The future is now!
I hated the practice runs of the sirens as a child. It was nightmare stuff. During the 73 fuel crisis, all households were issued ration books for petrol: They were suez era paper. hoarded by the government "just in case" -I learned subsequently in the 80s there were huge national stockpiles of dried milk, chocolate, all of it being circulated through the sales channels close to end-of-life, but held "just in case"
When they issued "protect and survive" I felt a very strong "oh god.." emotion. When Reagan mis-spoke at the microphone doing a sound check, even worse. I think we all had nightmares around that time, Loud noises and bright lights at night did not help anyone.
(a friend worked checking the ones in Yorkshire. Official Secrets signing stuff, pencil and paper provided, along with official gumboots)
> It used to surprise me how crudely made the various British civil defence structures I could see were
They were crude because they were built in the immediate aftermath of the second world war, when Blighty wasn't exactly brimming over with spare cash.
They were not really updated because, after the hydrogen bomb came on the scene in the 1950's (with Mt rather than kt warheads) they became utterly pointless; nothing can survive an H-bomb (thermonuclear) attack.
Trivia: The army 'green goddess' fire engines were commissioned at the start of the cold war to help extinguish the many fires caused by a nuclear attack. These were kept in storage for a very long time, though would also have been pointless in the event of an H-bomb attack.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 186 ms ] threadIt's a shame that the information is so badly presented.
It's on YouTube, but I won't link it here because it's probably the most horrifying film ever.
Threads is much worse.
Threads just seems like torture porn being shown to you to make you afraid of nuclear war, which had its uses in pushing for nuclear disarmament, so I can't hate it...
but The Day After does a lot more to personalize and humanize the story, each subplot makes you very intimately attached to these characters and their families by presenting their day-to-day life and aspirations, how normal their lives are when war is looming echoes our own. So when everything is blown to shit it hurts so much more.
NOPE. Nightmares. Horrible film. Important film, but horrible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvFu7Z5cc88
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads_(1984_film)
Even the trailer is harrowing with audio alone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgT4Y30DkaA
The part where the audio seamlessly transitions from screams into screeching wind, wails, and explosions was chillingly well done in the most dramatic way.
If you like Threads, check out Children of Men, which is also disturbingly realistic and also set in UK.
If you want a somewhat toned down version, the first episode of James Burke’s Connections describes some of the same concepts and themes in the context of the NYC blackout of 1965, and is only somewhat less disturbing, but is easily the most upsetting episode of the otherwise charming educational program.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XetplHcM7aQ
https://archive.org/details/ConnectionsByJamesBurke
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_1965
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(British_TV_series...
Other apocalypses and dystopias are available. The UK is not the sole source of them. 451F, Brave New World ...
A take on survival in the final days of WW2 Japan.
A guaranteed tearjerker such that I'm not I could stand to watch it again.
If anything it downplays the medium/long term aftermath.
It is messed up to think this level of destruction happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But in their case it was even more horrifying because nobody knew what was going on or what to do.
"The War Game is a 1966 British pseudo-documentary film that depicts a nuclear war and its aftermath.Written, directed and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC, it caused dismay within the BBC and also within government, and was subsequently withdrawn before the provisional screening date of 6 October 1965. The corporation said that "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting. It will, however, be shown to invited audiences..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game
A similar subject is:
The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States by Jeffrey Lewis
Note this explicitly features President Trump and various real-life politicians and portrays Trump negatively. So if you are a fan of his probably avoid.
Cities mandated that housing needed basements which could be turned into nuclear bunkers/shelters. Where my parents live now there is basically a tiny town in the basements. Much of it is now things like fitness centers, tennis courts, a library and a few stores (not groceries or other things you eat/drink). Back in the 80ies it was solely meant for people storage, but after the wall fell it was slowly turned into more useable stuff.
Similarly most of our bunkers are now either discontinued or used for something practical.
I wonder if we’re going to see an increase in “civil defense” again now that we’re in another Cold War.
[1] https://youtu.be/zSXYApRdw5k?si=Yg5qVphxg8AKJBcl
Kulturministeriet (The Danish agency for Culture and Palaces) has a great section on the Cold War ("Kold Krig" in Danish) at https://slks.dk/omraader/kulturarv/bevaringsvaerdige-bygning.... (Google Translate: https://slks-dk.translate.goog/omraader/kulturarv/bevaringsv...).
There'a also a book, Kold Krig, which is available as a PDF at https://slks.dk/fileadmin/publikationer/Kulturarv/Kold_Krig_... (but I can't make Google translate ... translate)
And I still have to visit www.reganvest.dk some day :)
The Autosan bus that was built in dozens of thousands for regular public transport was designed with a serious weakness in the front to allow quick conversion into a military evacuation vehicle. Basically there's space for loading/unloading a stretcher through the front of the bus. Which means if you collide with a tree - it goes through that hole and splits the bus in half :/
And these concerns were everywhere. Roads were built with very wide lanes and very straight routes in some forests so they can be used as emergency military airports.
Almost all of these concerns were abandoned in 90s. Schools were renovated with more focus on usability than military adaptability. New safer buses were built. Even the education changed.
My parents had "throwing a grenade" exams at shool :) There was also first aid, shooting, etc. I was at school in 90s-00s and only first aid and some shooting for kids that wanted to do it.
[1] https://breakingdefense.com/2024/02/us-greenlights-1-2-billi...
[2] https://alerts.in.ua/en
[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/war-russia-ukraine-latvia-mo...
I was concerned that Russia had its eye on the Suwalki Gap around the time but since then I haven't seen any real movement towards the Gap to the Baltic states.
What is your point exactly?
There was a concerning level of global instability starting to bubble even before COVID hit. The US military didn't suddenly lose the ability to deter Russia in 2022. And China's growing military budget is also related because the US can't realistically manage a whole bunch of theatres simultaneously - so the Europeans are re-arming.
Of course the realignment caused by the Europeans having significant militaries can only be positive for EU-US relations. I can really only see the Europeans using their military to defend against the sort of aggressors who would go in and blow up things like the Nord Stream pipeline so there wouldn't be any cause for tension with the Americas.
I have some great deals on oceanfront property in Magnitogorsk that I'm willing to cut you in on.
Russia has invested heavily in its military and if the Ukraine war ended today there is a question of whether the military would be disbanded or refocused.
There is also an increase in turmoil in NATO countries. The UK still hasn't really figured out how to not be part of the EU and many countries, from the US to France and Belgium, are seeing an increase in support for populist parties. If Russia was interested in regaining former Soviet territory, NATO may currently look weak to them.
If it started a war against actual NATO it would end in Iraq-style massacre of their army. Even without significant USA support - European NATO countries have enough airpower to manage.
This is all PR to slow down help to Ukraine. They did the same in 2008 and in 2014.
More like with Hiroshima-style massacre of European cities.
There's more than that in Germany alone, and then you have 20 other countries in EU.
Russia is in an uniquely bad position to start a nuclear war.
The point is that Russia can't hope to win in either conventional or nuclear war. So they won't start it.
It really is that simple.
BTW the only reason they started war in Ukraine is that they thought they will win easily. They had an article prepared that praised the army for 3-day victory. It accidentally went live early in the war :)
They weren't alone in that miscalculation - NATO thought that too. Nobody serious thinks Russia can win a war against NATO. Even Russia does not pretend that. Instead they pretend to be crazy. But they are rational, just evil.
Russia judtifies the Ukraine exactly the same way. And honestly it's really impossible to dispute, if Russia believed that Ukraine and/or NATO was posing a fundamental risk to Russian sovereignty or the Russian people, was their invasion offensive or defensive?
I have my own opinion to that, and it's the opposite of what Russia would say, but that doesn't mean I'm right and they are wrong.
It can just go back to 1992 Ukrainian borders. Some bruised pride. Lots of money wasted. That's it.
> I have my own opinion to that, and it's the opposite of what Russia would say, but that doesn't mean I'm right and they are wrong.
This is just relativism. Very convenient to justify doing nothing. Ultimately there are facts. Nobody was going to invade Russia and you know it (and Russian government knew it).
You seem way more certain than me that NATO countries have the means and will to destroy Russia in short order. Maybe you're right, but I expect that would be a much more difficult and deadly war than Russia simply ceasin to exist.
> This is just relativism. Very convenient to justify doing nothing. Ultimately there are facts. Nobody was going to invade Russia and you know it (and Russian government knew it).
Even a bar fight isn't so black and white that you can easily say who started and when. Sure, if you want to consider recognizing that the events leading to a war are complex as relitivism then I'd argue that claiming it's easy to see Russia started this war and there are no mitigating factors muddying that water is absolutism.
Boiling complex situations down to simple, binary facts is a great way to justify doing whatever it is you want to do.
The balance is in the middle. I'm not arguing that Russia wasn't the agressor here, and I'm not arguing that they weren't the aggressor in 2008 or 2014 either. I am arguing, though, that one side can see unwarranted agression while the other side honestly believes they are responding to a threat that already existed.
And it's very clear. Both NATO and Russia estimate that NATO won't invade Russia. If you disagree - notice that Russia moved its army from Finnish border to Ukraine after Finland joined NATO. And it moved its army from Kaliningrad (border with Poland and Lithuania) to Ukraine. Russian least militarized borders are those with NATO countries.
If Russia actually thought NATO is going to invade - they would be scared shitless to start anything (because it makes them vulnurable and provides an excuse for intervention). Instead they leave their NATO borders naked because they estimate (correctly) that the last thing NATO wants is a war.
"The balance is in the middle" is a fine way to prove 2+2 is 4.5.
I only raised the consideration of who starts it because you mentioned it in an earlier comment mentioning why Russia wouldn't start it. I agree with you that it doesn't matter who starts it and was only trying to point out that with war it's often so complicated that you can't really ever pin it on one side starting it out of the blue.
I also agree that NATO isn't planning on invading Russia, if I implied that somewhere along the way I just misspoke.
I don't actually think an invasion is how the next world war would start anyway, well likely end up launching tons of drones at each other before the war is reduced to soldiers on the battlefield.
> "The balance is in the middle" is a fine way to prove 2+2 is 4.5.
I'm not sure the connection there. Are you proposing that we should strice to view complex situations as a binary rather than a spectrum?
As for 2+2 - my point is that some things are simple, and making them seem complex is an excuse not to do anything about them.
This is what happened in 2014. It was simple imperial land grab. It was preventable. But Russia and useful idiots muddled the water long enough that the help never arrived.
This is what I think should be prevented. Because every time the west appeases Russia it makes ww3 more likely.
Russia has mobile ICBMs and, if I'm not mistaken, their deadman switch system is still in use.
NATO wouldn't be able to take out Russia's entire nuclear capability before Russia responds. Even if we technically could, that's absolutely not a world I would want to live in anyway.
Fast forward a few decades and you have like 50 countries with nukes. Good luck maintaining peace then.
The problem with appeasement is that people ignore the alternative costs. It always looks good when you assume only your actions have consequences. But inaction also have consequences - you can't just assume status quo remains when you do nothing.
We only have another arms race if countries decide to join the race.
You mean like Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria?
>The problem with appeasement
Putin decided two years ago that he is done appeasing the West and look where we are now.
The US will not risk getting involved at this point.
Looking at russian success rate in Ukraine at shooting down these - 2 will suffice :)
[0] https://www.atomicarchive.com/almanac/facilities/french-faci...
For one thing, Russia almost certainly wouldn't be as restrained with what targets its going after or the tactics they use. The Kremlin has to be aware that they can win a war of attrition here, especially if they can lean in to erode western support for Ukraine.
With both the wars in Ukraine and Gaza it seems like many observers have forgotten just how bad wars can get. We're counting deaths in Gaza by the thousands, and though military deaths in Ukraine have been estimated into the hundreds of thousands for both sides, civilian casualties are almost nonexistent.
Instead we let them think they will win easily. The easiest way to avoid further wars in Europe is to help Ukraine win quickly.
When the Russians made clear it wasn't them entering Ukraine, we should have gotten them on the phone to confirm and make them aware that we have bombers in the air scrambled to hit all invading forces that have crossed the border.
We also would have to follow through with that threat, Obama's red line with Syria was a pointless mess that just made us weaker. If Russia really wouldn't claim the invading force, who would say we were out of line for helping Ukraine defend their soverign borders from an invading paramilitary force?
This also suffers from presentism - situation today is not the same situation as in a year, two or 10, but we need to start preparing now for eventualities anyway. In a year, with Trump at the helm, there might not even be any NATO anymore ...
He's none of those things, and NATO's not going anywhere, even if the US leaves it. (And odds are good it won't.)
The war will end with Ukrainian capitulation in a couple of months if NATO were to stop all intelligence, communications and material support for the Ukraine.
One example from 2008: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/15/russia.poland....
It must be Monday.
(Frankly, we are all rather board of it.)
The wireless system has been extended to include alerts for strong weather (tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, etc.) but also to include missing child alerts.
Growing up in the Cold War era, I'm used to these being used as an alert system (warning: loud)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9rRSY0dRIU
I remember a few years ago pre-pandemic, I was in my office working when one of those emergency alerts was activated and EVERYONE'S phone went off virtually at the same time. Surreal, kinda frightening
For a moment I considered whether I should check the news in case it was somehow a real siren, but I figured it almost certainly wasn't. Plus if it was a bomb I'd have no where to hide anyway, so went back to sleep.
Most WW2 structures were similarly crude. The bare minimum of effort to make something which sustained life, in the event of anything bar a direct hit. In the context of nuclear weapons "direct" was just a larger circular-error-probable. Many of the civil-defence facilities were simple upgrades to Ministry of Defence assets held over since 39-45. Sometimes I suspect they were mostly unchanged. They had a network of concrete outposts for aircraft detection to hand, and just .. added on to them (or not: if you were a civil defence volunteer you were mostly expendable)
They did have a certain robust charm. Doors like some kind of Septic Tank lid. Hand crank air supply, with a wooden handle. Giant clips around the doors the same as on battleships. Bakelite handsets, valves, green metal, thick earth lines, robust antenna. You could imagine a Noel Coward Hero clenching a pipe in his (always his) teeth, as he watched the skyline with binoculars, wearing a camel hair duffelcoat: "it's quiet, too damn quiet"
Filey looked awesome as you drove past on the motorway. And there is nothing in the world quite like watching a Vulcan Bomber practice take-off and landing, as you drive by in Vauxhall Victor two-tone Saloon. The future is now!
I hated the practice runs of the sirens as a child. It was nightmare stuff. During the 73 fuel crisis, all households were issued ration books for petrol: They were suez era paper. hoarded by the government "just in case" -I learned subsequently in the 80s there were huge national stockpiles of dried milk, chocolate, all of it being circulated through the sales channels close to end-of-life, but held "just in case"
When they issued "protect and survive" I felt a very strong "oh god.." emotion. When Reagan mis-spoke at the microphone doing a sound check, even worse. I think we all had nightmares around that time, Loud noises and bright lights at night did not help anyone.
(a friend worked checking the ones in Yorkshire. Official Secrets signing stuff, pencil and paper provided, along with official gumboots)
They were crude because they were built in the immediate aftermath of the second world war, when Blighty wasn't exactly brimming over with spare cash.
They were not really updated because, after the hydrogen bomb came on the scene in the 1950's (with Mt rather than kt warheads) they became utterly pointless; nothing can survive an H-bomb (thermonuclear) attack.
Trivia: The army 'green goddess' fire engines were commissioned at the start of the cold war to help extinguish the many fires caused by a nuclear attack. These were kept in storage for a very long time, though would also have been pointless in the event of an H-bomb attack.