A military exercise staged 35 years ago almost triggered World War Three
bbc.com
bbc.com
But because their masters in Moscow wanted to hear there
was potential for a first-strike, to please their bosses,
that’s what the spies delivered.
“These people were close to the West, they lived in the
West and knew there were no plans for a first strike but
they reported what they were told to report,” Jones
explains.
[...]
It was a dangerously vicious circle. “It’s a failure of
the Soviet system,” says Jones, “Soviet intelligence did
not act rationally.”
I always assumed this was seen as a feature rather than a bug - i.e. that politicians choose and instruct spy agency bosses to be politically compliant, rather than to produce reports that are unbiased and strictly factual.
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/279/279582/the-spy-and-the-t...
It goes into quite a lot of detail about what it was like to work in the KGB at that time.
We've got four star general - US Presidential candidate, and NATO Supreme Allied Commander right before 9/11 - Wesley Clark admitting it in public on YouTube. I'll never understand why the most important policy admission of the last 30 years is intentionally ignored in all discussion of what the West is doing in Iraq, Syria, Libya, et al. This is the Western powers - led by the US - looking to strip Russia's power out of the Middle East (or at least break it). According to Clark, particularly before China completes its rise to power (which would present a demand to dilute focus, weakening the ability to challenge Russia's strategic goals). These proxy conflicts haven't stopped for a single day since WW2. Don't take my word for it, or Clark's for that matter, just look at the powers in Syria wrestling over who gets to keep or acquire influence (the US/West v Russia).
- We must do something
- This is something
- Therefore, we must do this.
After 9/11 the US had to do something, Afghanistan wasn't enough, so do Iraq.
Sept 2013: "Obama Seeks Approval by Congress for Strike in Syria"
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/world/middleeast/syria.ht...
The idea of 'doing something' about Iraq was a lot older.
9/11 was just the excuse. When you read about the subject it's interesting to realize how many people in Washington was against that war, including the Pentagon and the State Department, but powerful interest prevailed.
From https://www.haaretz.com/1.4764706:
"Is the Iraq war the great neoconservative war? It's the war the neoconservatives wanted, Friedman says. It's the war the neoconservatives marketed. Those people had an idea to sell when September 11 came, and they sold it. Oh boy, did they sell it. So this is not a war that the masses demanded. This is a war of an elite. Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened. Still, it's not all that simple, Friedman retracts [..]"
"Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable."
Milton Friedman
"Emmanuel Macron to urge Donald Trump to keep US in Syria during White House talks"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/23/emmanuel-macron-...
You don't see France egging on the US to get militarily involved in Venezuela for example. What's going on there is a human disaster of a similar scale as Syria, with the Maduro dictatorship brutalizing and starving the people, and millions fleeing the country. There is rarely a shortage of civil wars and other assorted internal conflicts to get involved in around the world. So why is France specifically so amped up to keep the US in Syria?
Solving the crisis there is indirectly one of the interests of the EU. The current situation also strengthens the position of Russia in the Middle East which is not in European interest.
Disclaimer: I'm from Germany. We have a shift to the right in most EU countries. One of the reasons the Britains left the EU was the refugee crisis - populists used this to scare the voters. This concept was also very successful to get votes in Germany with AfD (alternative party for Germany, right-wing).
Would love to hear other opinions instead of getting downvotes.
The fear of them has been amplified, but I don’t believe the actual refugees are the problem.
And, in case you’re wondering about me mixing up refugees and migrants, part of the problem in the UK is that angry people can’t tell them apart, so I don’t actually know which they’re really objecting to.
I don't think so, too. The underlying problem is growing inequality of wealth and opportunities. The very far right-wing people fear that the refugees will worsen their situation (and many are simply xenophobic, too).
I think it's a shame that there is no differentiation between these problems of inequality and helping people who get attacked by their own government. It seems that many people here in Europe don't understand that it's our duty to help people who get killed in their home countries (by our own moral standards).
- - -
France (and other European nations) care about the Syrian conflict because of the fear that more refugees will seek shelter in the EU (most European countries could handle this, but they won't do it because they aren't humanitarian which is pretty sad to see). Bringing peace to Syria is therefore a critical part of EU's solution to this (another wave of refugees would seriously risk the EU because the people here seem to have lost their connection to humanism - we could easily handle it if we want to). I have a hunch that I got downvotes because people interpreted my opinion as being contra refugees, but I'm actually telling the opposite. The problem is that many European countries (i.e. people) have decided that it's not their problem when people are in life-threatening situations and die while trying to get into those countries.
Venezuela crisis is not anywhere on the scale of outright war in Syria and Libya. It is also well outside the reach of feasible French force projection. France however is involved in a number of conflicts elsewhere in francophone Africa, relatively low profile as the interventions have stabilizing effect.
With Libya and Syria we also had as close to A/B test in history as we get. What if we interfere in a massacre, and what if we watch from the sidelines in exchange for deal with Iran? The answer is apparently two orders of magnitude more deaths, displacement and human suffering.
And there are tons of counter examples. For example, Eritrea is recognized as one of the worst dictatorship in the world, and we have no troops over here to free the people of Eritrea.
Interestingly, Dutch Wikipedia now calls him al-Qadhafi.
Here's a very fun Stack Overflow question about using a regex to match the different spellings: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5365283/regular-expressi...
I was of the understanding that the invasion was to increase France's political clout in North Africa, to avoid Ghaddafi's plan of unifying Africa under a gold standard (Gold Dinar) and most importantly to sell oil under the aforementioned currency.
* Khaddafi ordered his soldiers to shoot non-violent protesters * There was (as a result) an active rebellion against him that could use some support
There was no invasion by western forces, and I think the air support was mostly to stop Khaddafi from massacring his own people. I don't think western forces ever assisted in an attack; it was fairly limited and mostly denied Khaddafi the advantage of his air force.
A thumb on the scale to tip the balance between Khaddafi and the rebels, basically.
And in fact, Syria is not so different, although the involvement is on a much larger scale. It's still mostly various rebel factions that do the actual fighting. Iraq, by contrast, was a full scale invasion, and one based on a lie.
I'm not saying that makes Libya and Syria completely justified, but it's clearly a different case than Iraq, and much easier to justify, if you accept the legitimacy of the rebels.
6 months later, the same head of Amnesty International claimed that they had sent in investigators between Feb and July, and those investigators found no evidence that Ghaddafi had hired mercenaries to attack civilians.
Of course that was too late. The French/UK/US operation had already begun well before the investigation took place, and they weren't interested in evidence.
But your media probably didn't report on that.
In Iraq, the US and UK said "Saddam has mass destruction weapons, we must attack him", and the French said "okay, just show us the proof, and we'll be on your side". USA said they had a proof but didn't want to show it. France did not support the attack.
In Syria, USA, UK and France said "Bachar use chemical weapons on his population, we must attack him", and Russia said "okay, just show us the proof, and we'll be on your side". France said they had a proof but didn't want to show it. Russia did not support the attack.
There is no failure to provide evidence, only the usual conflicts.
Now, I just reported the fact that France said back then "we have evidence", but didn't show it at that time. Then they published an official report [1] a few days later, basically saying "oh, we have good reasons to think it's true, with a high degree of confidence" (haut degré de confiance). Basically, that document says
1- there was probably a chemical attack a few days ago 2- it would be strategically a good idea for Assad to use chemical weapons. 3- we have not heard about rebels acquiring chemical weapons. 4- therefore, Assad is responsible.
That's what happened at that time. Now, if you have a document from April 2018 giving factual proofs, and not just mentioning a "high degree of confidence", I'd be glad to revise my knowledge of the situation.
[1] https://www.defense.gouv.fr/layout/set/popup/base-de-medias/... [pdf][French]
https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/wp-content/uploads/s_2...
I have to say that the "details" are scarce in the report. The investigator not even went to place where the attack happened (because of the danger).
The conclusions are also interesting, because they accuse ISIL, and not Assad. While sometimes ISIL and Assad have shared interests in the ongoing war, that doesn't mean they are the same. After all, we have seen some USA/Iran cooperation in the area too.
So, I find your accusation to the grandparent of "provide leeway for murderers " when he is just saying that the facts are not clear dishonest.
Page 33:
> On the basis of the foregoing, the Leadership Panel is confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017.
I found specially damaging for the Syrian version the point 24 and 26 in the annex II: "The Syrian Arab Republic informed the Mechanism that the pilot had later been shot down and was missing in action. "
"During a briefing given by the Syrian Arab Republic to the Mechanism in Damascus, a representative of the Syrian Arab Air Force stated that no aircraft of the Air Force had attacked Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017. This contradicted the public statement made by the Government [..]"
U.S. started the war on Iraq for no reason but pulling out the troops too early was a mistake that allowed ISIS to exist.
Pulling out of Syria in its current form might create a similar vacuum of power that allowed ISIS to exist.
Asking the U.S. to stay in Syria is not comparable to how U.S. started the Iraq war.
And if the US had argued for invading Iraq on that basis, maybe we'd've supported it. But of course we're going to oppose an invasion when its proponents are basing their arguments on a blatant lie like the 45 minute claim.
(If the US/UK thought there was a good case for invasion on genuine grounds, why did they feel the need to lie?)
But that going into a war on a false pretext is morally corrupt, and fortunately most Western governments were above that.
You mean: sat by and did nothing.
Everyone's wailing about US <> Saudi relations with regard to Khashoggi. Was anyone suggesting trade relations with the US should be dropped due to their war on Iraq, which, by all accounts, killed more than one person.
Coalition of the complicit.
Government is not about serving the politicians, it's about serving the people.
> But because their masters in Moscow wanted to hear there was potential for a first-strike, to please their bosses, that’s what the spies delivered.
> “These people were close to the West, they lived in the West and knew there were no plans for a first strike but they reported what they were told to report,” Jones explains.
> [...]
> It was a dangerously vicious circle. “It’s a failure of the Soviet system,” says Jones, “Soviet intelligence did not act rationally.”
Edit: Also, Charles Stross' A Colder War.[1]
0) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_begin_bombing_in_five_minut...
I have no clue who leaked it, in what order. From a reprint of contemporaneous coverage, I gather that many technicians heard the remark.[0] And eventual news coverage mainly served to put rumors at rest.
0) https://web.archive.org/web/20180917150154/https://www.thegu...
Your link reminds me of Cronenberg's Videodrome :)
I'm not justifying the annexation -- it was clearly illegal and the circumstances of the (also illegal) vote suggest fraud -- but Ukraine is not part of NATO and even an all-out undeniable Russian invasion wouldn't trigger a war with NATO.
Is it in NATO's interests if Russia fully invades or goes to war with Ukraine? No, of course not. Is it a violation of international law? Most likely so. But would this trigger any international treaties that would result in WW3? Hell no.
WW1 and WW2 weren't just escalated because The Good Guys were unhappy with the aggressors. They were escalated because of international treaties forcing nations to declare war in retaliation to the aggressors.
In WW2 the invasion of Poland triggered the defensive pact with Britain and France who declared war after setting an ultimatum. As for WW1, I think most people have heard of the complete clusterfuck of international alliances and naivety that resulted in that escalation[1].
Ukraine is not part of the EU. Ukraine is not part of NATO. Strategic position aside, there's little reason for NATO to get involved as long as Russia has no intentions of moving further westwards. Even if the US invaded directly and declared war on Russia this wouldn't trigger NATO as NATO is a defensive pact, not an aggressive pact. It would of course result in a lot of diplomatic tensions with so many US military bases being located in the EU.
As long as Russia does not pose a direct threat to the EU, there's very little incentive to jeopardize trade relationships to uphold ideals in foreign countries.
Yeah, having Ukraine be annexed by Russia would be a pity but if history has taught us anything a) Russia is too clever to do this without some level of deniability (see the "secession" of the Crimean prior to its annexation) and b) other countries are reluctant to get involved as long as the situation is "self-contained" (i.e. as long as it's just Ukraine and similar post-Soviet states with no direct ties to NATO members or the EU).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...
As the exercise concluded in the article, ”Most of the world was destroyed. Billions were dead. Civilisation ended.”
I say "sadly" because it's not as big a deterrent as we thought.
You can read how to avoid 90% of the deaths here : http://www.ki4u.com/goodnews.htm
One way or another, your initial duck-and-cover survival won't last long.
Edit, for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta...
Where I sit now in Scotland is within range of about 5 different high value Cold War targets - I don't think Duck and Cover would achieve very much.
If it's a single Hiroshima scale device, sure, it'll probably help some. If countries are exchanging their deterrent missiles, no, you're not going to avoid 90% of the deaths.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ciy5R-tLiE
And yes, this should be a warning to people in current year.
To this day, I actually shiver when I read of Able Archer and realize how closely the shit flew past the fan the very same week.
https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Hand-Untold-Dangerous-Legacy/dp/...
It is interesting to see how this plays out as the start of an exercise. I remember growing up in North Dakota and when the air force bases would run drills the sky would be filled with planes flying in formation .... no way you could tell if it was real or not (other than there not being any launches from the local ICBMs...).
Or not. If it is chance that prevents our self-destruction then you would expect it to already have happened. Seems like there is 'something' (for lack of a better word) to prevent it. Whatever it is, it seems to work and we're still here.
I always took it to be a description of the state of play once nukes exist.
History would like a word with you: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/first...
You'd think that NATO was just having their quiet simulation and those silly Soviets misinterpreted, right?
What the article fails to acknowledge is the deliberate provocations targeting USSR at the same time as the military exercise - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83#Psychological_o... :
"Psychological operations (PSYOP) by the United States began in mid-February 1981 and continued intermittently until 1983. These included a series of clandestine naval operations that stealthily accessed waters near the Greenland–Iceland–United Kingdom (GIUK) gap, and the Barents, Norwegian, Black, and Baltic seas, demonstrating how close NATO ships could get to critical Soviet military bases. American bombers also flew directly towards Soviet airspace, peeling off at the last moment, sometimes several times per week. These near-penetrations were designed to test Soviet radar vulnerability as well as demonstrate US capabilities in a nuclear war"