Former Russian Spy and his daughter poisoned in Salisburygrad

[repoman0]

Putin will most certainly threaten with nukes, what I am saying is that you cant back down to that.

The USSR and US both threatened with nukes plenty of times and both sides managed to back down as appropriate. There are plenty of ways to wait for the collapse of the current Russian leadership that don't involve escalating to nuclear war. To suggest otherwise is insanity. Leave it to the real generals please so they can continue to avoid any possibility of nuclear confrontation.

 

[Jhhnn]

Putin will most certainly threaten with nukes, what I am saying is that you cant back down to that.

Which means we need to steer away from it, not towards it as you suggest.

 

[cytg111]

Which means we need to steer away from it, not towards it as you suggest.

And that is why he gets away with jabbing everyone in the face with no consequence. It is not surprising NK wants their own nukes.

 

[pmv]

And that is why he gets away with jabbing everyone in the face with no consequence. It is not surprising NK wants their own nukes.

Well, of course it isn't. Not least they've seen what happens to countries who don't have them (indeed they've experienced it for themselves in living memory).

Just not sure what your point is. Anyone can talk macho about nuclear war on a web forum. Probably especially easy for those who haven't experienced war or large-scale terror bombing on their own territory in living memory. It doesn't seem to offer much practical guidance though.

There's also the little problem of Europe being so dependent on Russian gas (in the UK it was Thatcher that bought that about). Plus nuclear war tends to be bad for the financial system, something that isn't terribly stable even as it is.

There have always been dodgy countries run by dodgy people, the problem seems more to be that the 'West' has no self-confidence or alternative vision, and is completely divided in itself, with potential Putins of it's own.

At least in the old cold war the right seemed to have some belief in it's own mythology that it wanted to 'liberate' those oppressed by communism (something that it rapidly forgot once the grand-stratgeic rival collapsed). Now half the right want to build Putinism at home, and nobody seems to have a real vision for an alternative.

 

[cytg111]

Well, of course it isn't. Not least they've seen what happens to countries who don't have them (indeed they've experienced it for themselves in living memory).

Just not sure what your point is. Anyone can talk macho about nuclear war on a web forum. Probably especially easy for those who haven't experienced war or large-scale terror bombing on their own territory in living memory. It doesn't seem to offer much practical guidance though.

There's also the little problem of Europe being so dependent on Russian gas (in the UK it was Thatcher that bought that about). Plus nuclear war tends to be bad for the financial system, something that isn't terribly stable even as it is.

There have always been dodgy countries run by dodgy people, the problem seems more to be that the 'West' has no self-confidence or alternative vision, and is completely divided in itself, with potential Putins of it's own.

At least in the old cold war the right seemed to have some belief in it's own mythology that it wanted to 'liberate' those oppressed by communism (something that it rapidly forgot once the grand-stratgeic rival collapsed). Now half the right want to build Putinism at home, and nobody seems to have a real vision for an alternative.

You all seem to be putting a lot of emotion into this equation that I am not, you say macho I say simple deduction. Example, you have two adversaries, both nuclear powers and an escalating conflict. If the first side knows that you will always back down given a certain level of conflict, he is going to steal your lunch and eat it. Repeatedly. By nukes I mean that you have to be willing to go all the way if you have to, please god let it never come to that, but the bully needs to understand that you will. Right now the west is being played for fools and we have no proper response.

As we have allready seen russia has no problem weaponizing that gas .. those gas pipes are nothing but a wide net of geopolitical pressure points, it is a universal BAD idea to suck on that pipe if you ask me.

 

[Jhhnn]

You all seem to be putting a lot of emotion into this equation that I am not, you say macho I say simple deduction. Example, you have two adversaries, both nuclear powers and an escalating conflict. If the first side knows that you will always back down given a certain level of conflict, he is going to steal your lunch and eat it. Repeatedly. By nukes I mean that you have to be willing to go all the way if you have to, please god let it never come to that, but the bully needs to understand that you will. Right now the west is being played for fools and we have no proper response.

As we have allready seen russia has no problem weaponizing that gas .. those gas pipes are nothing but a wide net of geopolitical pressure points, it is a universal BAD idea to suck on that pipe if you ask me.

You dick wavin' fool. The only answer wrt Ukraine is a diplomatic one. The only losers right now are the Ukrainians & the Russians. It's not something where we could go it alone simply due to location. I mean get a map, fer crissakes. It would have to be a Nato endeavor & they're not really interested. Yeh, sure, they'd love for Ukraine to be part of Nato but they're not interested in shedding a sea of blood to have it that way.

 

[pmv]

You all seem to be putting a lot of emotion into this equation that I am not, you say macho I say simple deduction. Example, you have two adversaries, both nuclear powers and an escalating conflict. If the first side knows that you will always back down given a certain level of conflict, he is going to steal your lunch and eat it. Repeatedly. By nukes I mean that you have to be willing to go all the way if you have to, please god let it never come to that, but the bully needs to understand that you will. Right now the west is being played for fools and we have no proper response.

As we have allready seen russia has no problem weaponizing that gas .. those gas pipes are nothing but a wide net of geopolitical pressure points, it is a universal BAD idea to suck on that pipe if you ask me.

Oh absolutely it was a bad thing to become so dependent on Russian Gas. That's one of the many charges I would have laid against Thatcher and the neo-liberal right. It was a concequence of her hatred of the miners and the right's obsession with privatisation (it was the way the power generation system was privatised that created the rush to gas). Along with putting money ahead of country and selling off the nation's infrastructure to foreigners (the two sides of conservatism - fixation on free markets and patriotism - never fitted together all that well)

(I said 'would have' because the issue became still more complicated with the advent of the politics of climate change - gas producing far less CO2 than coal)

But that's part of my problem with the situation - those who are currently among the greatest new-cold-war warriors are mostly the same people who got us into this mess in the first place, the same who took glee in pressing every strategic advantage against post-USSR Russia (thus humiliating her during a period of weakness and encouraging them to turn to authoritarian leaders), and who sent all the kleptocapitalist advisors to promote 'the free market' over there, leading to a situation where oligarchs, and ultimately Putin, ended up running the show.

Putin's a scumbag, but cold-war warriors helped put him in into power, so they don't have much credibility when declaring how to deal with him.

And 'simple calculations' tend to be the preferred analysis style of those of macho dispostion. I don't see Russia as a threat worth being incinerated over. What's needed is an alternative vision, and not one based largely on macho posturing - that's partly what got us here in the first place.

 

[cytg111]

You dick wavin' fool. The only answer wrt Ukraine is a diplomatic one. The only losers right now are the Ukrainians & the Russians. It's not something where we could go it alone simply due to location. I mean get a map, fer crissakes. It would have to be a Nato endeavor & they're not really interested. Yeh, sure, they'd love for Ukraine to be part of Nato but they're not interested in shedding a sea of blood to have it that way.

Sure I'm the internet tough guy. Anyway, here

You want to pick another time and/or place? Fine, I am not a general ... But I do recognize that it is of paramount importance to strike back in a language that IS understood.

I allready conceded the Ukraine point. Pick another spot then. But pick one.

 

[Darwin333]

I would be willing to bet that American spies have done some pretty fucked up shit that nobody is aware of. I have no illusions about the "clean hands" of our intelligence own agencies.

I always thought that one of the biggest points of doing spy shit was for it to not be obvious that spy shit was done. You know, quietly kill someone and maybe make it look like a mugging or something, instead of making it absurdly obvious that it was a government-sanctioned execution.

 

[Darwin333]

Yep. It's the fact that they won't get caught that's disconcerting. Especially when you consider the heightened level of security due to the current terrorist threat in the UK.

Using a nerve agent is so typically russian. Apparently this what they did when russians were taken hostage in lebanon during the 1980s.

"The Jerusalem Post said the Soviet secret police last year secured the release of three kidnaped Soviet diplomats in Beirut by castrating a relative of a radical Lebanese Shia Muslim leader, sending him the severed organs and then shooting the relative in the head."

http://articles.latimes.com/1986-01-07/news/mn-13892_1_soviets

So typically russian.

Well that is one way to negotiate...

 

[skull]

I always thought that one of the biggest points of doing spy shit was for it to not be obvious that spy shit was done. You know, quietly kill someone and maybe make it look like a mugging or something, instead of making it absurdly obvious that it was a government-sanctioned execution.

You make it obvious when you need to make some sort of point. For all we know the britsh have been going after russian spies lately or maybe this is putins way of screwing with trump since the rights recent talking point has been that hillary conspired with the russians through steele.

 

[cytg111]

Oh absolutely it was a bad thing to become so dependent on Russian Gas. That's one of the many charges I would have laid against Thatcher and the neo-liberal right. It was a concequence of her hatred of the miners and the right's obsession with privatisation (it was the way the power generation system was privatised that created the rush to gas). Along with putting money ahead of country and selling off the nation's infrastructure to foreigners (the two sides of conservatism - fixation on free markets and patriotism - never fitted together all that well)

(I said 'would have' because the issue became still more complicated with the advent of the politics of climate change - gas producing far less CO2 than coal)

But that's part of my problem with the situation - those who are currently among the greatest new-cold-war warriors are mostly the same people who got us into this mess in the first place, the same who took glee in pressing every strategic advantage against post-USSR Russia (thus humiliating her during a period of weakness and encouraging them to turn to authoritarian leaders), and who sent all the kleptocapitalist advisors to promote 'the free market' over there, leading to a situation where oligarchs, and ultimately Putin, ended up running the show.

Putin's a scumbag, but cold-war warriors helped put him in into power, so they don't have much credibility when declaring how to deal with him.

And 'simple calculations' tend to be the preferred analysis style of those of macho dispostion. I don't see Russia as a threat worth being incinerated over. What's needed is an alternative vision, and not one based largely on macho posturing - that's partly what got us here in the first place.

Points 1..2..3..4, I 100% agree, the last point though, and maybe it is overreacting yet maybe it is not, I see Putins psyops campaign throughout the globe, inciting unrest in the EU, funding and inciting the radical right, backing Brexit, we all have a pretty good idea what was done to the US - as someone else here framed it, the US took a digital Pearl Harbor to the face.. Putin will burn everything else to the ground so that Russia can rise through the ashes of everyone else...

I get not wanting to be burned alive, but when is enough enough? Russia does something the international community disagrees with. Diplomacy follows. Fails. Sanctions follows. Fails. More sanctions follows. Putin infiltrates government to get sanctions dropped. He is pissing everyone straight in the face unchecked. I cant wait to see what his next show will be, dont know what it will be, but I bet its gonna be yuge....

 

[bshole]

I always thought that one of the biggest points of doing spy shit was for it to not be obvious that spy shit was done. You know, quietly kill someone and maybe make it look like a mugging or something, instead of making it absurdly obvious that it was a government-sanctioned execution.

LoL, good point.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

You make it obvious when you need to make some sort of point. For all we know the britsh have been going after russian spies lately or maybe this is putins way of screwing with trump since the rights recent talking point has been that hillary conspired with the russians through steele.

Yeah -- that's the Trumpie narrative. But if you were running a campaign, what propaganda would be better than a propaganda of the Truth? And what better way to build a propaganda of Truth than to simply conduct a study of solid fact?

The Trumpie argument seems to be that the "opposition research" connected to Steele is invalid, because some fool might suspect it as a fabrication. This instead is the logical but paranoid reaction of people who themselves engage in deceit to cause political trouble. After all, if they do it themselves, then so must the opposition.

 

[urvile]

I always thought that one of the biggest points of doing spy shit was for it to not be obvious that spy shit was done. You know, quietly kill someone and maybe make it look like a mugging or something, instead of making it absurdly obvious that it was a government-sanctioned execution.

That's why I suspect there was some added motivation from the soviets ... ah...um russian federation for doing it in that fashion.

1) The guy is a traitor and we got his daughter too (and possibly killed his wife previously https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ll-serious-says-amber-rudd-on-salisbury-visit)
2) Putin wanted headlines so the whole world would know the RF did it and the british couldn't do shit to stop them
3) Here is a big russian middle finger for you british government
4) We can use nerve agents. When and where we like

In a way it's a russian version of public relations.

 

[urvile]

roll in NATO in eastern Ukraine and kick Putins shadow army in the ass one more time.

I was listening to some military expert on the radio and they were talking about why NATO doesn't station large amounts of troops on the russian border and the guy was saying it's because NATO knows that the russians can bring so much fire power to bear they could just annihilate the troops stationed there. Comparing the russians to NK isn't really a fair comparison. The russians have the capability to project force far beyond their own borders and are much more competent both politically and militarily.

 

[Darwin333]

You all seem to be putting a lot of emotion into this equation that I am not, you say macho I say simple deduction. Example, you have two adversaries, both nuclear powers and an escalating conflict. If the first side knows that you will always back down given a certain level of conflict, he is going to steal your lunch and eat it. Repeatedly. By nukes I mean that you have to be willing to go all the way if you have to, please god let it never come to that, but the bully needs to understand that you will. Right now the west is being played for fools and we have no proper response.

So... We need to launch a nuke or two at them to prove that we are willing to use them. In return they launch a few dozen at us, then we launch everything we have and they do the same.

We win? At least we weren't "bullied"? Something else?

 

[cytg111]

So... We need to launch a nuke or two at them to prove that we are willing to use them. In return they launch a few dozen at us, then we launch everything we have and they do the same.

We win? At least we weren't "bullied"? Something else?

Yea but those gay frogs though... am i right?

 

[feralkid]

Clearly.

I know just the guy to do it.

 

[kage69]

I always thought that one of the biggest points of doing spy shit was for it to not be obvious that spy shit was done. You know, quietly kill someone and maybe make it look like a mugging or something, instead of making it absurdly obvious that it was a government-sanctioned execution.

In this case, the point is making an example of those that flee to the West. Secrecy would kind of defeat the point, no?

Using an extremely rare and difficult to obtain poison allows Putin to include his calling card while maintaining plausible deniability.

 

[Darwin333]

In this case, the point is making an example of those that flee to the West. Secrecy would kind of defeat the point, no?

Using an extremely rare and difficult to obtain poison allows Putin to include his calling card while maintaining plausible deniability.

Shrug, I have to imagine that people that are in the spy game are very aware when a spy that has turned sides gets killed under any circumstances. I guess it does send a loud and clear message but damned if it makes sense to me from a "spy" standpoint.

 

[norseamd]

Shrug, I have to imagine that people that are in the spy game are very aware when a spy that has turned sides gets killed under any circumstances. I guess it does send a loud and clear message but damned if it makes sense to me from a "spy" standpoint.

So consider that Putin just poisoned a former Russian spy, his daughter, and also poisoned at least 21 other British individuals with them, and then not long after makes a speech in which he says that Russia has a ton of new weapons, including many new nuclear weapons.























The Russian elections are set for March 18th.

 

[pmv]

Shrug, I have to imagine that people that are in the spy game are very aware when a spy that has turned sides gets killed under any circumstances. I guess it does send a loud and clear message but damned if it makes sense to me from a "spy" standpoint.

I would assume the intended audience is more than just 'spies'. It's anyone who wants to make trouble for Putin.

 

[pmv]

Points 1..2..3..4, I 100% agree, the last point though, and maybe it is overreacting yet maybe it is not, I see Putins psyops campaign throughout the globe, inciting unrest in the EU, funding and inciting the radical right, backing Brexit, we all have a pretty good idea what was done to the US - as someone else here framed it, the US took a digital Pearl Harbor to the face.. Putin will burn everything else to the ground so that Russia can rise through the ashes of everyone else...

I get not wanting to be burned alive, but when is enough enough? Russia does something the international community disagrees with. Diplomacy follows. Fails. Sanctions follows. Fails. More sanctions follows. Putin infiltrates government to get sanctions dropped. He is pissing everyone straight in the face unchecked. I cant wait to see what his next show will be, dont know what it will be, but I bet its gonna be yuge....

Well, yeah, but I guess the difficult thing is finding a way to stand up to him without talking in terms of starting a nuclear war (he is really taking the p*** I agree). The trouble with tough-guy ultimate thermonuclear brinkmanship is it doesn't seem very appealing in the absence of any vision for what one is trying to achieve in the long run. If the only future is just endless stand-offs, if not with Putin than with whatever equally nasty figure comes after him, then clearly eventually there will be a miscalculation and we are all going to die. It's the fact that we've already been through this once, and all we got was a _different_ bogeyman threatening us, makes that unappealing to me.

There has to be some belief that a better world can be attained, critically, including for the Russians themselves, or what's the point?

Edit - also Putin only has so much power to mess with us because the West is in such disarray anyway. Any interference in the election was only effective (if it was) because the US is so divided against itself to begin with. Ditto with Brexit.

 

[norseamd]

Easy, easy, guys, going too far is just as bad as not doing anything. On the other hand, never doing anything at all, as how most Westerners refuse to do anything but otherwise, is just as bad, and ends up with genocide and ultimately war anyways.

Heres a basic idea of what we do, Romania gets an armored brigade, Bulgaria gets an armored brigade, Poland gets an armored brigade, Norway gets an armored brigade, everyone gets an armored brigade. We also put more troops in the Baltics, maybe even including armored brigades. We also look to bring Sweden and Finland into NATO, and if we cant do that we work out defense collaboration agreements with them, and we consider stationing troops in their territory. We fill the Carpathian Mountains full of anti-air, anti-missile, and anti-tank defenses. We also integrate the entire European theatre forces into full combined arms units, with combat aviation, intelligence, and air/missile defense integrated with the various combat units at the division level. We also send Ukraine medical supplies, Javelins, Stingers, M72 LAWs, NVEs, electronic equipment, mines, and other defensive equipment. We make sure that Ukraine has stockpiles of all of those in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, Dnipro, Zaporizhia, Lviv, Kryvyi Rih, Mykolaiv, and Mariupol. If Russia full out invades Ukraine then we consider moving up to the Dnieper and holding.