Putin's Hypersonic Weapon Appears to Be a Modified Iskander Ballistic Missile

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.

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.

I think that was the trigger for the Cuba crises?

Would Russia have rebuilt Japan and let it go? The history of (East) Germany suggests an answer.

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...

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.

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.

Yes. Russia wants their empire back. They've already taken back a piece of Georgia, Crimea, and a piece of Ukraine.

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.

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...

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)