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Declassified US nuclear targets – interactive map

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Re: Declassified US nuclear targets – interactive map

#61

Post by fyfuddtdue »

einpoklum wrote: post #55
cm2187 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am struggling with the alternative. So a dictator can invade any country he wants because otherwise he can say "booh, nuclear apocalypse" and because we can't risk to be anywhere near that, we need to give the dictator whatever he wants? And the invaded country has to swallow it? It's easy to write off other people's freedom. This map is very the reason why Putin's threats are empty threats. The US, UK and France h…

> So a dictator can invade any country he wants Let me guess: You live in the US. For most people in the world, the situation is that the US, and possibly some neighboring regional power, can invade whenever they want; and at best we can offer limited initial resistance and guerilla/terrorist attack once they've occupied. But "with food comes appetite": The US government has normalized, among its citizens, the presum…

No post body was provided.

Re: Declassified US nuclear targets – interactive map

#62

Post by kalrqa »

hackerlight wrote: post #21
ptr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it’s the Internet’s fault. Maybe people have become so jaded by Online discourse and carry it over into IRL?

Also people in the 60s lived through a nuke (1945) and lived through WW2. That living memory is now gone. The problem with the "anti-war" crowd right now, is many appear to be closet Putin supporters. Or at least they're so anti-American that they support Putin by default. It would help the anti-war people not in that camp to carefully disambiguate between wanting to reduce the risk of nuclear conflict -- a laudable…

A large part of the peace movement in e.g. West Germany in the 1980s was "anti-American" but not "pro-Soviet-Union".

Not everything is a binary choice, and it gets tiresome to prefix every Internet comment with a whole paragraph of disclaimers.

The "anti-war" crowd questions the Western provocations and meddling since the orange revolutions by Nuland etc. It questions the erasure of history since at least 1995.

Mearsheimer, a West Point graduate, is certainly not a Putin supporter. Yet he is depicted as one by large parts of the Internet mob, who always have the correct flag selections in their Twitter "biographies".

Re: Declassified US nuclear targets – interactive map

#64

Post by flohofwoe »

Normille wrote: post #51
rjzzleep wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

>The only country that is threating 1st strike is Russia. >All of Putin's speeches are available in english on the kremlin website. Shh! --you're spoiling the doublethink. It's the same as how the energy crisis has now become "Russia turned off the taps" when, in fact, Europe decided to shoot itself in the foot by refusing to buy Russian gas, beforehand. Now "Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons" when, in fac…

> "Russia turned off the taps"... Europe decided to shoot itself in the foot by refusing to buy Russian gas, beforehand.

Russia has indeed 'turned off the taps' (at least Nord Stream 1). At first the excuse was maintenance work, but when that excuse didn't work any longer they first reduced and then stopped the gas flow completely.

Re: Declassified US nuclear targets – interactive map

#66

Post by [deleted] »

hackerlight wrote: post #21
ptr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it’s the Internet’s fault. Maybe people have become so jaded by Online discourse and carry it over into IRL?

Also people in the 60s lived through a nuke (1945) and lived through WW2. That living memory is now gone. The problem with the "anti-war" crowd right now, is many appear to be closet Putin supporters. Or at least they're so anti-American that they support Putin by default. It would help the anti-war people not in that camp to carefully disambiguate between wanting to reduce the risk of nuclear conflict -- a laudable…

[deleted]

Re: Declassified US nuclear targets – interactive map

#67

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

_visgean wrote: post #20
chaosbolt wrote: post #2

>Because you invaded a country for no reason (like we did to Iraq), (except the one you invaded is at your borders and we put our guy at its head a couple years ago, and the one we invaded is half a planet from us), we will bring forth the apocalypse. Humans are crazy, seeing how we're speaking about a nuclear war now vs how people spoke about it in the 60s, it's like a mass psychosis, we don't care anymore, or maybe…

Who are you quoting? > we put our guy at its head a couple years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Ukrainian_presidential_el... this is denying that ukraine has agency of its own. Nobody put a guy anywhere. He was elected. > we will bring forth the apocalypse. The only country that is threating 1st strike is Russia.

They're referring to the overthrow of the elected government in 2014. That government was relatively friendly towards Russia. The US was involved[0] in the revolution/coup (whatever you want to call it, though a lot of people in eastern Ukraine considered it a "coup"), and the Russian government saw it as an attempt to bring Ukraine into the orbit of the United States.

Whatever you think of Yanukovych and the people who followed him, the US getting so heavily involved in a country right on Russia's doorstep was a very risky move. There have been warnings from several prominent American foreign policy analysts about how this sort of action would prompt an extreme reaction from Russia. George Kennan, the father of the US' Cold War containment strategy, was extremely prescient, all the way back in 1998:

> "Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are - but this is just wrong. [...] This has been my life, and it pains me to see it so screwed up in the end."[1]

If both Russia and the US continue to push maximalist positions, this conflict will just escalate and escalate, and nobody can say where it will end.

0. Recorded call from 2014 between high-level US State Department officials, in which they work out who should go in what position in the Ukrainian government: https://youtu.be/JoW75J5bnnE

1. George Kennan discussing NATO expansion in 1998: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/02/opinion/foreign-affairs-no...

Re: Declassified US nuclear targets – interactive map

#68

Post by stareatgoats »

notthatmccarthy wrote: post #57
stareatgoats wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many appear to be closet Putin supporter This is the eternal paradox of being anti-war: if you are advocating peace in a polarized situation you are essentially aiding and abetting the enemy. The anti-war movement really only has one window of opportunity: in a non- or low-polarized situation create strong trade ties, international agreements and intercultural understanding and hope that it can fetter the always ac…

> This is the eternal paradox of being anti-war: if you are advocating peace in a polarized situation you are essentially aiding and abetting the enemy. There is no such paradox. True patriots simply do not want their beloved countries to bloody their hands with the murder of foreign people. Not to mention with the total annihilation of the entire human race. Of course those who are opposed to the war should protest.…

Good thing you added that thing about snark to your previous comment because the irony was not altogether evident.

I totally agree, people should protest. But they don't, exactly because of the age-old paradox mentioned, that you so emphatically deny. You underestimate the societal, psychological mechanisms in place, you underestimate the power of propaganda given to the military, even in democratic countries when "national security" is at stake, you underestimate the belief among large swathes of the population that "we can win this thing" and get rich doing it.

Of course I hope you are right, I'd love to be proven wrong. You are likely young and want to live a long and healthy life. I am old and with one foot in the grave anyway. But I do believe it gives me some clarity of vision, unobscured by wishful thinking.

But again, I hope you are right.

Re: Declassified US nuclear targets – interactive map

#69

Post by notthatmccarthy »

cm2187 wrote: post #22
chaosbolt wrote: post #2

>Because you invaded a country for no reason (like we did to Iraq), (except the one you invaded is at your borders and we put our guy at its head a couple years ago, and the one we invaded is half a planet from us), we will bring forth the apocalypse. Humans are crazy, seeing how we're speaking about a nuclear war now vs how people spoke about it in the 60s, it's like a mass psychosis, we don't care anymore, or maybe…

I am struggling with the alternative. So a dictator can invade any country he wants because otherwise he can say "booh, nuclear apocalypse" and because we can't risk to be anywhere near that, we need to give the dictator whatever he wants? And the invaded country has to swallow it? It's easy to write off other people's freedom. This map is very the reason why Putin's threats are empty threats. The US, UK and France h…

> I am struggling with the alternative. So a dictator can invade any country he wants because otherwise he can say "booh, nuclear apocalypse" and because we can't risk to be anywhere near that, we need to give the dictator whatever he wants? And the invaded country has to swallow it? It's easy to write off other people's freedom.

Yes, that's how it works with nuclear weapons. It's deeply unfair: international bullies can threaten other countries into doing whatever they like, even complete subjugation, just because they are nuclear-armed. Overwhelming power supports overwhelming injustice.

Back when nuclear weapons first became available, many people, famous scientists among them, pointed out the problems with them. And guess what? This is where we are today.

Re: Declassified US nuclear targets – interactive map

#70

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

flohofwoe wrote: post #64
Normille wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The only country that is threating 1st strike is Russia. >All of Putin's speeches are available in english on the kremlin website. Shh! --you're spoiling the doublethink. It's the same as how the energy crisis has now become "Russia turned off the taps" when, in fact, Europe decided to shoot itself in the foot by refusing to buy Russian gas, beforehand. Now "Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons" when, in fac…

> "Russia turned off the taps"... Europe decided to shoot itself in the foot by refusing to buy Russian gas, beforehand. Russia has indeed 'turned off the taps' (at least Nord Stream 1). At first the excuse was maintenance work, but when that excuse didn't work any longer they first reduced and then stopped the gas flow completely.

It would be very silly for the Europeans to think that Russia would continue supplying them with gas after the EU cut Russia off from the international financial system. This was the obvious consequence.
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