US support to maintain UK's nuclear arsenal is in doubt
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Since the Cold War, nuclear non-proliferation has been based entirely on the idea that NATO would balance Russia and vice versa.
Given that NATO as it has been understood is now effectively dead, the non-proliferation treaty is essentially dead too.
Europe needs to rapidly increase it’s nuclear weapons stockpile (and realises this), but this also gives other countries around the world an incentive/excuse to do the same.
Canada has no nuclear umbrella of its own, is not part of a mutual defence alliance beyond NATO, and they are being actively threatened with annexation by a Russia-controlled US. They’ll clearly need to build or agree by pact their own nuclear defence as a matter of national emergency. It’s hard to see how anyone will place much trust in such pacts ever again though.
It’s a scarier world we’re entering, and is significantly more dangerous than even the Cuban missile crisis.
Look at Biden’s deference to Russia over Ukraine and Israel over its neighbours. (Or Bush and Obama with Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya versus North Korea.) There is a nuclear sovereignty subtly expressed by decades of American Presidents. In part due to realism. But in part because triggering a nuclear war, even a limited one, is presumed punsihable heavily diplomatically and electorally.
Trump, of course, has accelerated this shift. But Le Monde Diplomatique wrote elegantly about it in ‘22 [1].
[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2022/11/18/the-war...
It turns out Bin Laden was in Pakistan directly adjacent to the premises of Pakistan's top military academy. So we do the most minimal in and out operation imaginable, and then shortly thereafter got back to shipping Pakistan billions of dollars in "aid."
The world going nuclear is only a danger when one nation begins to think they could win a nuclear conflict, or are enticed to play chicken with another nuclear power. Outside of that nukes are almost certainly the reason that the window from ~1945 to today has been, by far, one of the safest in the developed world. Without nukes the Cold War would, with complete certainty, have ended up as WW3.
It's because Pakistan has nukes. Nukes essentially make wars unwinnable. This [1] describes the effect of a tiny 0.15Mt nuke going off in NYC. The largest nuke ever detonated was 50+Mt, so more than 300x the yield of what's described there.
And that's one nuke. Pakistan is believed to have hundreds of nukes, and nuclear weapons are also designed such that a single missile will have multiple warheads that will splinter off not only increasing the destruction but also making any sort of missile defense even less viable.
[1] - https://www.atomicarchive.com/science/scenarios/newyork/inde...
There is no world in which Pakistan could nuke America. I agree on the effect—nukes gave Islamabad cover it wouldn’t have had without them. But the mechanism isn’t military strategic, but something deeper.
Nukes are also the ultimate defensive weapon. Any forces, ships, etc deployed on or near their territory would be toast. One of the many reasons that naval forces are largely obsolete. Aircraft carriers are sitting ducks worth tens of billions of dollars. Pakistan's known nuclear capable missiles have a range of 2750km which means even long distance aerial bombardment is not an answer.
Trading a lower frequency of war for a more devastating consequence has worked thus far, but when people start to act like such consequences are an impossibility they’ll push risk right up to the edge - and someday someone will eventually go over it. Ironically triggering the thing that was supposed to be impossible.
Basically, we're screwed if the world doesn't trend towards peace. And even times of peace will always be liminal, because people are people. So I think we should (1) aiming for positive relations, (2) aiming to minimize the scope and scale of the wars that do inevitably happen, and (3) aim to get setup on other planets.
Perhaps the first planet to nuke/virus itself to death can work as a more visible reminder of the dangers for the others. We always learn best by putting our fingers in the fire (and it's no surprise that games of nuclear chicken are arising only once Hiroshima/Nagasaki fall out of living memory), but this is pretty darn close to it at least.
There is no multi-planetary scenario in which a nuclear war on Earth doesn’t also target the country’s off-world settlements.
Then you'd also need to know a lot like how nukes would even work on Mars. Dramatically lower atmospheric pressure, amongst other things, will mean nukes will function dramatically differently and be substantially less dangerous. You're looking at dramatically reduced shock/blast waves, less of a threat of fallout (since environmental exposure is already lethal), and so on.
It's another great argument for expansion - each colony will have to deal with different situations, which makes various threats - less threatening. For another example, a directed gamma ray burst could be catastrophic on Earth, and is one hypothesis for the Great Ordovician Extinction, but on Mars it would almost entirely harmless.
The capacity to gently land 150 tons on the surface of Mars, is also the capacity to make 150 tons land at, at least, Martian escape velocity — equivalent to an explosion of 411 tons of TNT.
Doesn't matter if it's RFGs instead of nukes, the people are just as dead. And any belligerents during a nuclear war on Earth will have grounds to presume second-strike capability exists on any affiliated off-planet colony, so will be motivated to attack those colonies as part of the nuclear war on Earth.
> For another example, a directed gamma ray burst could be catastrophic on Earth, and is one hypothesis for the Great Ordovician Extinction, but on Mars it would almost entirely harmless.
Are you sure? I thought even exceptionally focussed GRBs were about 0.1°, and that angle corresponds to maximal Earth-Mars separation at just 0.025 light years, at which point I'd be more worried about the gravitational pull of the GRB star removing both Earth and Mars from Sol orbit.
On Mars its effect would be largely inconsequential.
There are a few books on the subject: eg. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=6mGGX6AGBTAC
I'd venture the biggest threat of a GRB not dampened by distance would be the explosive event that caused a sun to release as much energy in a few seconds as our Sun will in its entire 10-billion-year lifetime.
No.
A GRB strong enough to reduce Earth's ozone layer by half, would be about 100 kJ/m^2:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20050179464/downloads/20...
On Mars, where there's no ozone layer in the first place, and the atmosphere is much thinner, and there's no magnetosphere, IIRC just over half the radiation from a GRB reaches the ground.
Given a human cross-sectional area from above is about 0.25 m^2, that means that a human outside during such an event would get 25 kJ almost entirely absorbed by their body.
A lethal dose for a 100 kg human is about 1 kJ absorbed. And when I say "lethal", 1 kJ absorbed is 99%+ lethal within 2-14 days, even with immediate treatment, and the victim suffers rapid incapacitation due to CNS failure.
You'd need to bury everyone under, IIRC, 2-3 meters of regolith to protect against that. You'd also need your crops underground for the same reason. If you're going to all the trouble to have a farm functioning under several meters of soil, you can also do the same things needed for that, on Earth, far more cheaply.
Furthermore, the nitrogen dioxide levels expected in such an event, would reduce Earth surface sunlight levels by 10-60%. Mars, just by being further from the Sun, gets a reduction of 48-64% (varies over the Martian year) relative to Earth — even when there's no planet-spanning dust storms, which it also gets.
I gave you a citation, that is about GRBs and interaction with the atmosphere. That's where 100 kJ/m^2 comes from. First page, even, it's in the abstract.
Radiation absorbed dose is measured in Grays, which is Joules/kg, and 8-30 J/kg is the lethal range I gave you, easy to find with trivial search but also so well known you shouldn't need to be told about it if you're serious about rad hazards.
You get from J/kg to J by accounting for mass, and from kJ/m^2 to J by accounting for cross sectional area. Hence 25 kJ actual, and 1 kJ lethal limit.
You can look up radiation mean-free-path shielding constants if you want, but I'm not walking you through what is foundation-level knowledge in this domain. Me, I got that knowledge by having an interest in atomic rockets and fusors back at university, it's not hard to find.
If you can't apply the inverse square law to get Martian sunglight relative to Earth's, or if you don't know about its missing ozone layer or missing magnetosphere, you have no business even thinking about a Mars colony.
At this point, why expect an AI based answer to miss citations when they've got a big friendly button saying "search" right there in the web UI?
In a world with colonies, those colonies become nuclear targets. You may not even have to expend a juke—just ram a ship into it.
My point is that the same logistics that would sustain a Martian colony make striking it easier. Mars isn’t a solution to war on Earth. It’s a long-term insurance policy against planet-wrecking accidents, whether natural or human.
As for viruses, it’s like someone millennia ago arguing that humans expanding to more continents reduces the risk of disease. Yes, for a bit. But the same factors that enable that expansion make global pandemics possible.
It is much easier to build a long term viable bunker without rocketing the construction materials. If we are to take the extraordinarily optimistic goal of $100kg at face value the price of building anything substantial on Mars is prohibitive. To have a truly independent colony it would require a substantial number of factories.
Getting people on Mars will be inspiring and humanity's greatest achievement to date. That it also serves as a 'backup' for humanity, is something that provides a motivation get it done ASAP in times like those that we live in, but is in many ways also largely incidental.
So the idea of a backup is not that we just go live on Mars, but rather that we have a significant number of people on Mars (and elsewhere ideally) that can return to Earth in such a scenario, help restore order, find/rescue survivors, and generally get society going again. It's simply the planetary equivalent of being able to send in aid to an area after a catastrophic force majeure.
So does Earth.
The downsides of Mars:
• Colder than Antartica • Drier than Sahara • Lower air pressure than top of Mount Everest • Soil perchlorate concentrations on par with a Superfund cleanup site • Atmosphere contains negligible oxygen, nitrogen; you need the former, plants need the latter, you need the plants • No ozone layer (not that you're ever going to be outside, what with the air being unbreathable in two distinct ways) • No magnetosphere (so CMEs are dangerous rather than being pretty light shows) • We don't even know yet if the lower gravity is important
I say this as one of the people who finds Mars inspiring, and would even consider being a Martian colonist: The technical capacity to make Earth as uninhabitable as Mars already is, would also threaten Mars.
Nukes? Mars colonies are much more vulnerable. Engineered viruses? If they existed, private companies could already ship them to Mars — etc.
If your goal is a backup for repopulating after a disaster, we can already do hermetically sealed metal boxes isolated from the outside world for long durations at a time, where at least one such box of people is always secreted away in an unknown location at any given moment: nuclear submarines.
I’m less worried about WW3 starting in anger than I am about it starting by oopsie/craziness/terrorism.
So he can't do that much. The French President oddly enough does have the power to independently appoint the Prime Minister though which has led to weird things like him (the appointed Prime Minister, after the last one was kicked out by a vote of no confidence) passing things in an undemocratic fashion and then managing to survive multiple votes of confidence thanks to the support of a motley crew of right wing nationalists and left wing socialists.
His Presidency has been generally negative and so I think he's trying to lay out some legacy as framing himself as a sort of hard ass, but it's like a dark barking loudly behind a fence - in large part because there is a fence. Nothing he's proposed will ever happen (and he is well aware of this), so he can be as radical as he wants. It could also be longer term angling to try to eventually play broader role in EU politics, NATO, or whatever else - perhaps especially if the EU does eventually form a multinational military.
He’s trying to preserve the non-proliferation status quo. Either Poland, Finland and Estonia each have nukes or they swap trust from Washington to Paris.
You are analysing this from the point of view of the personality of the president. What Macron says is not different from what Sarkozy said, or Chirac, or pretty much all presidents since De Gaulle. The delivery changed, not really the substance. That position is unlikely to change significantly over the long term because it fits the geopolitical interests of the country (and of the EU). There is no significant political movement that is pushing for subservience to a foreign country like there used to be up until the 1990s.
Since then, the "independence" stance has regressed and weakened to the point that France does not do anything without a German or EU representative by it's side...
Macron is not against France being in NATO’s integrated command. Or rather, he would not be if the US were sane.
The issue of the nuclear umbrella and European army are related to NATO, but not mutually exclusive. You cannot understand French recent history if you see it only through the lens of independence with respects to the US.
> Since then, the "independence" stance has regressed and weakened to the point that France does not do anything without a German or EU representative by it's side...
You haven’t been paying attention. The French point of view (well, that of the French government, anyway) is that there is a limit to their economic and military power. They are willing to play nice with their European neighbours because that is a force multiplier and that frees up resources that would otherwise be allocated to European security to do something else* (like international operations about which most other European countries do not care). It is blindingly obvious that France alone would be enough in Ukraine. So of course he’s going to talk to other European governments and try to avoid antagonising them.
* edit: this sounds a by cynical; in reality there are other numerous reasons to be nice with one’s neighbours and it does not boil down only to the military and strategy.
This sentiment is ridiculous and needs to stop. Just because a person's anti-globalist policy choices happen to align with Russia doesn't mean that Russia controls that person.
250% Tariffs on Canada now, does that sound reasonable? Can you think of a single sane reason to even have tarrifs on our close ally Canada? The reason is obvious, to drive a wedge between Canada and the US, and to make both countries poorer for it.
Says someone who doesn't understand anything about Russia. If you actually watched Russian mainstream media you would understand how much they dislike Trump and disagree with him. This sudden overture over Ukraine has even caught them by surprise and they are suspicious, though welcome, of this new development.
To suggest that Trump is Russia-controlled is to expose your complete ignorance of how Russians think. The Russians hated Trump's first term and consider it to be a disaster.
Proof: https://youtu.be/54rl-Z8F62U
Since the Trump win this talking point is mainstream on all Russian aligned outlets, who previously blamed the US (Nuland, Biden, Obama) for the war.
It is hard to tell what the game is:
1) (Most cynical) Trump and Russia want to divide up the world. Russia gets Ukraine and will not object to the US getting Greenland.
2) (Pragmatic) Both Russia and the US are low on weapons and would actually like a ceasefire. They blame Europe for preventing the deal.
3) (Neocon, continuity of agenda) Trump insults the EU in order to make them increase their military budget, so they can take over the Ukraine war by themselves and never talk to Russia again. The Russian media still hasn't caught on (or just uses the EU as the current convenient enemy for domestic consumption).
Some game is being played here, perhaps it's "the great game".
This isn't a Trump-exclusive thing, the relationship has gradually soured ever since Obama and when TTIP fell through, it just wasn't as public.
It’s a bit like that time Putin said he’d prefer Kamala with a wink and all the MAGAs started yelling “SEE!?!?”.
It’s obvious enough reverse psychology that even a five-year-old would roll their eyes at it.
Russian state media adores Trump, and I suspect the parent is fully aware of this.
This war was provoked and escalated by the US State Department. Pulling back and giving the Russians some space is the only way that doesn't look like it'll escalate further into the disaster. Thank goodness the US voting public is a bit better at sniffing out reasonable men than whoever handles hiring for the US government.
If the Europeans could shake the same mad instinct to mass up and charge Russia that worked so badly every other time there was a big war that'd also be helpful. 3rd time is not a charm.
The State Department provoked the war by:
* Stating that the US would not put boots on the ground if Russia invaded Ukraine.
* Opposing troop deployments from other NATO countries to Ukraine.
* Withdrawing US soldiers from joint exercises in Ukraine.
* Reducing embassy staffing to a minimum.
* Refusing to provide heavy weapons like artillery, tanks, and fighter jets to Ukraine.
* Offering to evacuate Ukraine's leaders.
> Pulling back and giving the Russians some space is the only way that doesn't look like it'll escalate further into the disaster.
This is a superb idea, because it has worked so well so far. Russia has matched every Western retreat by pulling back on its side as well. That's why the war ended three years ago.
> This sentiment is ridiculous and needs to stop.
I am not the one saying that the US is being controlled by Russia, but it seems like a more reasonable and convincing take than yours at explaining why the US is busy dismantling every leverage of power that made it a global hegemon after the second world war. Surely there are winners, and all evidence points towards them not being the average US citizen (nor that of formerly US-aligned countries).
The same reason Gorbachev got busy dismantling every leverage of power that the Soviet Union exercised in its last days: because he realized it was overextended and needed to slow down or go bankrupt and collapse. It did anyway, despite his best efforts at reform.
Trump and Musk have long been proponents of the idea that the US is overextended and far too deeply in debt. Whether you agree with them or not, that doesn't make them "Russia controlled".
>29 times Donald Trump did what Putin wanted https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-...
Can you cite any times he did something the Putin didn't want him to do? And I mean not just saying he's thinking of putting sanctions on Russia but actually doing any sort of sanctions whatsoever while he stops all support and shouts at their victims?
There's more to it than that.
Who is the worst actor on the international stage? Pretty much Putin. Who does Trump never criticize or do anything against? Putin. After the 2016 election when the US security services said Russia had interfered what did Trump do? Said he trusted Putin over his own intelligence. etc. etc.
France is the only European country with an independent, working nuclear deterrent. That's a very valuable asset.
So I see thee points for a sensible French policy (big question mark):
1. They can use it to their advantage and offer to protect EU countries. What would they gain and what can they ask for in exchange?
2. They should not 'share' control of their nukes
3. They would not want that another European country develop its own nukes.
The US just rug-pulled the framework on which Europe has based it's security guarantees, and European countries have been quietly scrambling for a way to restore a credible deterrence for weeks.
Frances push is essential.
To be fair, European countries have been asleep at the wheel, they should have started preparing after Trumps first term.
France has a credible deterrent that is a valuable asset. It should use it to its advantage.
The US never "protected" Europe out of kindness. France should not, either. It's already given up a lot of things in defense and space in the name of "European unity".
This is how it works. It's just that usually the public is fed nice speeches while the real play happens behind closed door, while Trump has been very undiplomatic and "in your face".
And is any one in Europe not skeptical of any increase in defense spending? Things have costs, that money is having to come from somewhere.
Is increasing traditional military spending the way to go in the 21st century? If the decision is left to military leaders,they might spend massive amounts of money preparing to fight yesterday's war.
If you set aside alarmist positions, it may very well possible that Russia has no interests in military conflict with rest of Europe beyond Ukraine. In that case what is the best thing Europeans could do?
But in general, there is lot of fear mongering and fatalism in European leadership. Secondarily, the concept that history can repeat itself is very dubious, the circumstances and events are far too complex for such a simple interpretation.
They should have started preparing in the 1970s. It takes time to develop an industrial base and a coherent strategy. It was always obvious how relying on a foreign power for sovereignty was short-sighted.
Unless we assume that the Russians are substantially more pacifistic than the rest of the world, that suggests that the concept of a nuclear umbrella doesn't exist. If Kursk appears not to be covered by the Russian nuclear umbrella in practice, what realistically will cause any country to fire off nuclear missiles? It is reasonable to say more than an invasion of a close ally. The entire MAD principle seems to have partially broken down over the last few years. Executing a land invasion of Russia, however symbolic, crossed a major line.
A lot of rhetoric now looks decidedly like bluff and bluster.
And then there’s the reality that Kursk has only played into the Russian’s hands in many different ways, including, that it split already inferior forces in an attrition war and on the geopolitical level where it caused Chinese caution and reluctance about the whole Russian operation to essentially immediately fall away due to the insanity and recklessness if the Kursk operation, which only has gotten more solidified due to the atrocities against civilians committed by the Ukrainians.
You appear to see things in a very narrow scope that is predominated by propagandistic perspectives. If land invasion were some kind of cause for launching nukes, then the wholesale invasion and infiltration by Mexico and its cartels that have killed around 1M Americans would have been cause to, e.g., nuke southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.
Do you want nuclear exchanges? Would you have preferred for Russia to have nuked its own territory instead of just using it to their advantage to draw in immense resources in a Ukrainian self created kettle?
The fundamental misunderstanding of all the Ukie cheer leaders is that they think this is one type of war, when it’s actually a whole different type of war where Russia is intentionally going it slow. “Russia Is losing their shock and awe, blitz war” they tell you, not knowing Russia is fighting more of a millstone war, grinding up all the Ukrainian men Downing Street and Biden fed into it.
This is simply not a scenario where something as reckless as using nuclear weapons is yet warranted even though the West and people like you keep trying to edge us closer to it in the belief that you can just feet away with these kinds of provocations forever … until humanity finds out that there was a line … and life on earth ends because of recklessness of narcissistic psychopaths with god-complexes.
So if a land invasion by foreign troops is going to be interpreted as no big deal, why would the fall of Poland matter from a nuclear standpoint? You can see it building in the public discourse as people convince themselves that they can push to an absurd distance without Russia being able to respond - we've seen their border integrity violated, strikes on Moscow, British missiles being lobbed in to Russian territories, an explicit US strategy of bleeding them out and fairly credible calls for regime change where it isn't obvious how far the US is acting on the idea.
If we assume by symmetry that the US would take similar abuse before it launched any nukes, what on earth is supposed to happen in Europe to provoke a serious response? I wouldn't chance it, but it looks a lot like they're bluffing a willingness to do anything and some idiot dressed up as a general will one day will do something really stupid. We're exploring for the line where Russia breaks the nuclear taboo here; as far as I remember the game-theoretic response to salami tactics is supposed to be wildly disproportionate aggression. And there is a decent chance that it'll go unpunished since the US is clearly not going to stand up for Ukraine to the point where it risks blowback to the US proper.
Maybe Putin's non-invocation (up to now) of the nuclear umbrella shows he is as eager as anyone to maintain it as the ultimate protection against existential threats. The US's sharp turn away from globalism is a gift to Putin, and, given that the US population is strongly divided over the changes the current administration is making, that might be threatened if Russia were to act more belligerently than it already is.
Personally, I'm more concerned over what will happen if and when the situation becomes one in which Trump realizes he's going to be seen as the president who 'lost' Taiwan.
The US is claiming 700,000+ Russian killed and wounded so far. Moscow obviously think something here is a threat to the long term integrity and security of Russia. That is serious commitment.
Unless the US is lying. I hope they are, to be honest. Mountains of skulls are fun in D&D but not in real wars.
I share your feelings about the entirely avoidable horror of it all.
Some sources please (ideally not Russian propaganda, but I would be asking for too much, would I?). I haven't noticed any change in Chinese stance after Kursk incursion. The operation has been a gambit by the Ukraine to divide the attention of weary Russian occupants.
> atrocities against civilians committed by the Ukrainians.
War is hell and everything, but Ukrainians seem to be much more precise when trying to achieve their goals. Did you not notice Russian army targeting schools and hospitals? Bucha massacre?
> You appear to see things in a very narrow scope that is predominated by propagandistic perspectives
As you do.
> If land invasion were some kind of cause for launching nukes, then the wholesale invasion and infiltration by Mexico and its cartels that have killed around 1M Americans would have been cause to, e.g., nuke southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.
Are you really comparing military operation to US opioid epidemic?
> Russia is intentionally going it slow
Sources? Russia planned a 2 day special operation. It seems that Ukrainians have been doing most of the grinding, not the other way around.
> … and life on earth ends because of recklessness of narcissistic psychopaths with god-complexes.
Like Putin, Trump and their supporters (yeah, looking at you).
If a country further away like the US or Turkey tried a land invasion, then they might not be so cautious to react.
If Kursk appears not to be covered by the Russian nuclear umbrella in practice, what realistically will cause any country to fire off nuclear missiles?
Kursk is nothing of the sort. Russia attacked Ukraine, Ukraine countered, and pushed Russian forces back by 10 miles into Russian territory - so what? Trying to spin this as a "land invasion of Russia" is ridiculous hyperbole that even Russian military experts don't take seriously. I distinctly remember one of them demonstratively rolling his eyes and sighing when Solovyov tried to push the same narrative with leading questions on his show.
If Warsaw is nuked, I do not believe the French would nuke back. DeGaulle believed the same about the US (and I agree), therefore France has nuclear weapons.
Macron makes grand speeches, but could not even keep the French presence in Niger (African country, in case someone misreads).
In my opinion, this will all lead to nuclear proliferation at levels not seen for decades. This has been my main argument to US folks who don't really care about Ukraine, since 2022. Their argument has been "you are playing with WWIII!" My argument has been that inaction on Ukraine will lead to increased chances of some nuclear exchange in the long-term.
The only reason to expect escalation is that they insist on supporting a war right up to Russia's border. They do need to be prepared to defend themselves but I think they only have to worry if they keep instigating wars with other nuclear powers. Don't you think Russia is similarly concerned about getting nuked? That's why they won't suffer hostile forces putting missile bases only a few miles from their border. That is in fact half of what the Ukraine war is about.
>Canada has no nuclear umbrella of its own, is not part of a mutual defence alliance beyond NATO, and they are being actively threatened with annexation by a Russia-controlled US. They’ll clearly need to build or agree by pact their own nuclear defence as a matter of national emergency. It’s hard to see how anyone will place much trust in such pacts ever again though.
If you think the US is actually going to allow Canada or Mexico to be invaded, you're really out of touch. It's akin to how Russia won't allow Ukraine to become a hostile neighbor without intervening to stop it.
>It’s a scarier world we’re entering, and is significantly more dangerous than even the Cuban missile crisis.
It's not in fact more dangerous than the Cuban missile crisis. Cuba had 1500 Soviet nukes (if I recall correctly) on their soil unbeknownst to JFK. War was only averted because the Soviets decided to pull out rather than launch all the nukes. The only sense in which things are more dangerous now is that we've got actual warmongers in charge of some NATO countries who think that they can strategically defeat the most heavily-armed country in the world in its own backyard.
Nobody put any missiles in Eastern Europe. That's a worn-out Russian talking point that lacks any substance.
And the Cuban missile crisis proves exactly the opposite of what you are trying to argue. I stress the name: MISSILE crisis. After nuclear missiles were removed, Cuba remained an ally of the USSR until its very end and continued to host conventional Soviet forces. The USSR equipped Cuba with weapons such as Koni-class frigates and SA-8 surface-to-air missile systems, gave them hundreds of T-55 and T-62 tanks, stationed Soviet bombers and fighter jets in Cuba, and used Cuban ports to conduct exercises such as sailing missile cruisers like Admiral Isakov within 50 miles of the Mississippi coast in the 1980s. The cooperation, including visits by Russian warships to Cuban ports with exercises 30 miles off the Florida coast, continues to this day: https://www.tampabay.com/life-culture/history/2024/06/12/rus...
If Cuba is a blueprint for you, then you have nothing to complain about. Even full members of NATO do not receive this level of support from the alliance.
>Nobody put any missiles in Eastern Europe. That's a worn-out Russian talking point that lacks any substance.
It doesn't lack substance. They seriously worry about that. And like I said, it is only half the story. Another huge issue for them is that US interests interfered in Ukrainian politics to destabilize relations with Russia, which was set to deprive them of bases that they were set to have in Ukraine. Another issue had to do with the Nazi leadership of Ukraine. Another had to do with shelling of Russian-speaking civilians in the Donbas and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine. The Nazism and attacks on civilians were covered by even the Western press until our side decided they wanted to fight a war in Ukraine. Then all of that information was brushed under the rug so that we could claim we were supporting the good guys.
No, because they are..
> the most heavily-armed country in the world
Russia threatens nuclear war all the time. They’re not concerned about it at all. Most of what they do as a country is tell other countries how big their nuclear missiles are in a menacing tone.
You misunderstood the situation. If MAD is to remain an effective deterrent, no country can allow another to get the upper hand. That can happen for example through one country putting a missile base 5 minutes away from your border. Russia sees a move like that as a strategic threat and thus they feel justified in waging war to prevent it. That is even more justified when the territory in question is not even belonging to a nuclear-armed country. We too threatened nuclear war when it came to the Soviets putting nukes in Cuba.
So no missiles, no missile bases. The best you can come up with are a bunch of old fighter jets delivered a full decade after Russia invaded, to shoot down cruise missiles and drones launched at Ukrainian cities. Proves the point.
For future generations of missiles, recent events might encourage the UK to make buy/build decisions in line with those made by France, and I would personally be very pleased if we did. It's not at all good for us to rely on the US to make things that we could build ourselves, if we actually tried.
But: there's no real possibility of the transatlantic defence alliance suddenly completely failing, and we shouldn't allow the mercurial temperament of the current president to make us think that there is.
So with Trump you can use logic to be sure what comes next, because is actions align very well with Ruzzia for now but it could be he is either stupid or he really prepares for invading NATO countries before he nature claims him.
I believe the entire reason we're having this conversation is because that doesn't appear to be much of a concern for the current administration.
In his last term Trump wanted to pullout of NATO[1], but “cooler heads” prevailed. Now these moderating forces are no longer members of his cabinet. So he will doubtlessly try officially, through legal means, or unofficially, by weakening NATO to the point where its guarantees are no longer believed, to withdraw.
The only real moderating force preventing official withdrawal is the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024”[2] which “prohibits the President from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO without approval of a two-third Senate super-majority or an act of Congress”.
There is no real moderating force preventing unofficial withdrawal.
[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/23/bolton-book-trump-nato-...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_NATO#:~:text=M...
My point though was on the UK/US defence relationship. This has always been a transactional arrangement, and there's benefit on both sides from it continuing.
The USA is now threatening to wage war to annex both Canada and Greenland. For the life of me I don't understand why so many people are absolutely unwilling to take this seriously.
“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests” - Henry Kissinger
Yes, and we are well aware of this. See the history of the Tube Alloys project and the McMahon Act.
But you’re talking about two massive land masses with relatively little population right next to the US, both in places that will become strategically important as the climate shifts. Of which one (Canada) is openly engaging with the CCP, the US’s geopolitical rival.
The US will (if forced to) invade Canada for the same reason Russia invaded Ukraine or China is invading the Philippines and ASEAN Sea: no major power will tolerate a large border controlled by adversarial states.
This is amazing. You cannot be serious. Is this how the insanely ignorant far-right in the US convinces themselves that Canada is a "security threat", ala Russia? There is one country/party that is supercharging China, and has de facto ceded global leadership to them in the most amazing self-own in history, and that is the US under the Trump administration.
When American trade and relations collapse into a pile of ashes, and eventually nuclear proliferation gone wild due to your clown's actions leads to some American cities glassed, I hope you think "Boy, but it sure made me feel like a big man saying incredibly stupid things online"
The US is already teetering on the edge of dissolution -- if you don't realize this, you're living a fantasy -- and won't be invading anyone. I doubt the country will even survive the decade. Russia and China cannot believe how profoundly generous Trump and his outrageously ignorant movement could be for them.
Trump is the predictable result of past US administrations doing that, for the past several generations.
> When American trade and relations collapse into a pile of ashes, and eventually nuclear proliferation gone wild due to your clown's actions leads to some American cities glassed, I hope you think "Boy, but it sure made me feel like a big man saying incredibly stupid things online"
Are you projecting your own mindset?
> your clown's actions leads to some American cities glassed
> "Boy, but it sure made me feel like a big man saying incredibly stupid things online"
But yes, do you not understand why the US spent the last half century preventing nuclear proliferation? Trump has ramped up nuclear projects worldwide. And it just turns out that the US -- specifically because of people like you -- is the natural enemy of a lot of other nations. Nuclear proliferation will especially harm the United States. It is an utter certainty.
I mean...Trump specifically said that he doesn't care about such things because he "won't be around". Still gets votes by large numbers of possibly the stupidest nation on Earth.
> Still gets votes by large numbers of possibly the stupidest nation on Earth.
Ah, the classic ad hominem.
> But yes, do you not understand why the US spent the last half century preventing nuclear proliferation?
This too is calling me ignorant because I disagree with your assessment:
What triggered the destabilizing of global order was the preceding three generations of American weakness and not Trump. Trump was a predictable outcome of, eg, multiple generations of selling the US out to China.
Nuclear proliferation is indeed a symptom of that destabilization — but you’re blaming another symptom (Trump) rather than the underlying cause. And proliferation was still happening, eg, North Korea and Iran.
> And it just turns out that the US -- specifically because of people like you -- is the natural enemy of a lot of other nations.
Mhm.
Canada has a higher population density than that of Alaska which is right next to it should they take it over for their protection after all the US is engaging with their enemy Russia? no? why not same logic you just gave
Second greenland isn't massive it only looks that way due to mercator projection map and the icesheet.
>The US will (if forced to) invade Canada for the same reason Russia invaded Ukraine or China is invading the Philippines and ASEAN Sea: no major power will tolerate a large border controlled by adversarial states.
Canada isn't a adversarial power they are one of our greatest alies, and everyone is openly engaging China and the CCP including Us, they are the largest industrial power on the planet with the 17% the worlds population it would be bizarre if Canada weren't.
Do you think they wouldn’t if the population and military strength of the two countries were reversed?
They won’t because they’re a tenth the population of the US, and less than that militarily.
> Second greenland isn't massive it only looks that way due to mercator projection map and the icesheet.
You’re factually wrong:
US is 9.9M km2; Canada is 10.0M km2; but Greenland is a hefty 2.2M km2; and for comparison, Alaska is 1.7M km2. If Greenland were an independent country, it would be the 13th largest.
Acquiring Greenland would be a gain of about 20%, and a larger contribution than Alaska.
Trump is clearly being steered towards leaving NATO altogether, so the idea that "severe reciprocal damage" is a consideration is naive.
Trump doesn't have the IQ or the rationality to operate in the best interests of the US, and his US handlers like Heritage are too busy hallucinating dollar signs to think geopolitically.
And even if none of that were true it's obvious the old WWII consensus is being - nuked.
So here we are. Without US support the UK's deterrent is a very expensive nothingburger. Presumably it still has some time before it expires - the actual time being [redacted], but no doubt known to Moscow.
I really can't see Starmer crash-starting a new independent deterrent program. And I also can't see him doing a deal with France. That would push the UK back towards the EU, and his handlers clearly don't want that.
Why dont they stop the nuclear posturing and just get on with reindustrializing
40+ years later it is still about Trident.
"Kremlin usually gets the NATO defence information before it gets filtered to us at Number 10."
The US government lives in a city surrounded by mountains of lobbyists for defence industries. They could drown in their tears of lost revenue.
Unreliable? Yes. Vanishing tomorrow? No.