Rayvin

It scans for me because it presents a viable reason as to why no one is openly panicking in the media.

Why isn't this headline news then? Is it because it's happened too slowly for the media to notice?

What does that mean in terms of everyday life? That the cost of debt right?

Fair question, not sure. I assume many will understand the nuclear threat (which they would almost certainly take the brunt of) and maybe be glad we stayed back, assuming they win. Those who lost people will be angrier with us I suppose. They'll have earned the right to respond however they wish, I think.

That bit of paper is a technicality is my point. I don't believe (but could be wrong) that the treaty specifically forbids NATO to come to the aid of any country unless it is attacked first. If it does have that stipulation then Iraq was all the more egregious. But that said, even if NATO itself would have been incapable of acting, the fact remains that the individual nations of Europe and North America could have chosen to do so anyway, and instead hid behind this technicality. Maybe they were right to do so, but if Putin drops a nuke anyway then they were categorically wrong IMO. I feel we should have done more. We are Putin's enemy, not Ukraine.

I think I said my response to that first bit at the time - that in my eyes that piece of paper which dictated which countries we would respond over and which we wouldn't was nothing more than an excuse in the face of what is really a direct attack on Western liberalism and our values. This isn't just Ukraine's war although they're the only ones paying for it in blood. Putin is the enemy of the entire West and has been for fucking years. He's funded all the chaos we've had to live through, he's funded right wing lunatics the world over, he fundamentally believes in a fascist, authoritarian style of government - and has whittled away at our institutions and structures in order to weaken us in the face of his imperialism. The war was already raging, he just thought he'd done enough to take us out of the game. While Ukraine's bravery and defiance of him in this will not have been expected, neither will the collective respond of the West that he had thought to be wounded and broken. So yes, I do believe that we should be in there fighting him back in defence of any country that shares our values and asks for help. Bits of paper be damned. If Putin falls here we have won a much bigger war than just the battle for Ukraine's standing as a sovereign nation - it will be a great triumph of Western liberalism, proof that interdependency and internationalism work. Ukraine is paying a great price for this, fighting alone.

As someone who advocated for immediate NATO intervention, I still believe we should have. We don't have wartime leaders though, so it was too big a decision for them, understandably. We're moving in the same direction as we would have if NATO had gotten involved which was inevitable unless Russia just outright won. The only real argument for NATO not getting involved immediately was that Ukraine was an acceptable sacrifice to avoid nuclear war - but as soon as they dug their heels in and made clear they weren't going to go quietly, that became impossible. Whether by NATO or Ukraine, Putin was going to be pushed to the same conclusion if he couldn't win. I don't think he'll go for nukes yet, but we might see more apparent indiscriminate shelling of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and, frankly, civilians themselves. And again, NATO should step in. Ukraine deserves that.

Was reading earlier that the big "worry" now is that Putin doesn't really have any way out of this while saving face. Almost sounds like they think he'd pull out if it was remotely possible for him personally.

I'm working on the assumption that the use of NATO/Western hardware comes with guarantees and assurances of mission critical informational transfers - I'm not military but I certainly would have demanded that as part of the price of the hardware - but maybe you're right.

Also worth noting that NATO will 100% have known about this strike.

Patreaus said NATO would fully commit at that point. This is a big success for Ukraine - IMO not enough for Putin to go nuclear over, but enough to genuinely, seriously hurt him.

So has JRM just outed himself as a member of the nefarious Anti-Growth Coalition with that suggestion that people save energy instead of spending frivolously?

I continue to believe she's a true believer on this stuff. Hence this latest ridiculous position. If we don't spend, how can it all trickle down?

The idea that anyone is 'anti-growth' in this conversation is just absurd.

Liz Truss was wrong when she claimed in her conference speech that she was the first prime minister to have gone to a comprehensive school. Gordon Brown went to a comprehensive secondary school (Kirkcaldy High School), while Theresa May’s school was converted in a comprehensive while she was a pupil there - Holton Park Girls’ Grammar School, in Oxfordshire, became Wheatley Park Comprehensive School in 1971, two years after May enrolled. The education secretary at the time was Margaret Thatcher.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/05/over-330000-excess-deaths-in-great-britain-linked-to-austerity-finds-study?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other 330k deaths linked to austerity. It was always the real weapon of the Tories against the people of this country, and they wielded it long before Brexit. It can never be forgiven.

At this point, I genuinely believe that the group of people who will be most relieved when Labour take over the running of the country will be Tory Party MPs. What a shitshow this is.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/02/us-russia-putin-ukraine-war-david-petraeus 'The US and its allies would destroy Russia’s troops and equipment in Ukraine – as well as sink its Black Sea fleet – if Russian president Vladimir Putin uses nuclear weapons in the country, former CIA director and retired four-star army general David Petraeus warned on Sunday.' “Just to give you a hypothetical, we would respond by leading a Nato – a collective – effort that would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and every ship in the Black Sea.” -- Petraeus

Is she worse than Johnson, already?

Aye this is all on Brexit. I doubt Putin could do more long lasting damage to this country by dropping a nuke on us than he's managed through paying for idiots to deliver Brexit.

At least it backs PR.

I think it might be better to let the whole thing collapse from within and have the Russians push for real change. Problem is that's only likely to happen if they get their arses handed to them in some capacity or another.

Having said all that, bring it the fuck on as far as I'm concerned. If it goes hot, it wouldn't be the moment for the West to shy back - it would be the moment we put the psychotic cunt down for good.

I'm also going to add that we (the UK) are very possibly a key target here. I have for some time been noticing the UK being cited by Russia throughout much of what goes on - and I don't know, maybe he's like that with France and Germany too but we only hear it about us because of the press, but genuinely I think we're right up there with the US on his shitlist. He cited Dresden in that speech - there are plenty of other examples he could have picked across many countries - he could have called out Germany for actually invading Russia - instead he has cast them as a victim of what I can only assume at this point is Anglo-Saxon hegemony. I am convinced we will get hit if this escalates into a broader conflict.