Ukraine war mega thread

[bsnub]

Still carrying your master's water, I see. Good little boy. Hopefully you do not take payment in rubles.

[sabang]

Any smart people left here? This is for you- an excellent analysis:-



America’s three oligarchies in control of U.S. foreign policy

It is more realistic to view U.S. economic and foreign policy in terms of the military-industrial complex, the oil and gas (and mining) complex, and the banking and real estate complex than in terms of the political policy of Republicans and Democrats. The key senators and congressional representatives do not represent their states and districts as much as the economic and financial interests of their major political campaign contributors. A Venn diagram would show that in today’s post-Citizens United world, U.S. politicians represent their campaign contributors, not voters. And these contributors fall basically into three main blocs.

Three main oligarchic groups that have bought control of the Senate and Congress to put their own policy makers in the State Department and Defense Department. First is the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) – arms manufacturers such as Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, have broadly diversified their factories and employment in nearly every state, and especially in the Congressional districts where key Congressional committee heads are elected. Their economic base is monopoly rent, obtained above all from their arms sales to NATO, to Near Eastern oil exporters and to other countries with a balance-of-payments surplus. Stocks for these companies soared immediately upon news of the Russian attack, leading a two-day stock-market surge as investors recognized that war in a world of cost-plus “Pentagon capitalism” (as Seymour Melman described it) will provide a guaranteed national-security umbrella for monopoly profits for war industries. Senators and Congressional representatives from California and Washington traditionally have represented the MIC, along with the solid pro-military South. The past week’s military escalation promises soaring arms sales to NATO and other U.S. allies, enriching the actual constituents of these politicians. Germany quickly agreed to raise is arms spending to over 2% of GDP.

The second major oligarchic bloc is the rent-extracting oil and gas sector, joined by mining (OGAM), riding America’s special tax favoritism granted to companies emptying natural resources out of the ground and putting them mostly into the atmosphere, oceans and water supply. Like the banking and real estate sector seeking to maximize economic rent and maximizing capital gains for housing and other assets,, the aim of this OGAM sector is to maximize the price of its energy and raw materials so as to maximize its natural-resource rent. Monopolizing the Dollar Area’s oil market and isolating it from Russian oil and gas has been a major U.S. priority for over a year now, as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline threatened to link the Western European and Russian economies more tightly together.

If oil, gas and mining operations are not situated in every U.S. voting district, at least their investors are. Senators from Texas and other Western oil-producing and mining states are the leading OGAM lobbyists, and the State Department has a heavy oil-sector influence providing a national-security umbrella for the sector’s special tax breaks. The ancillary political aim is to ignore and reject environmental drives to replace oil, gas and coal with alternative sources of energy. The Biden administration accordingly has backed the expansion of offshore drilling, supported the Canadian pipeline to the world’s dirtiest petroleum source in the Athabasca tar sands, and celebrated the revival of U.S. fracking.

The foreign-policy extension is to prevent foreign countries not leaving control of their oil, gas and mining to U.S. OGAM companies from competing in world markets with U.S. suppliers. Isolating Russia (and Iran) from Western markets will reduce the supply of oil and gas, pushing up prices and corporate profits accordingly.

The third major oligarchic group is the symbiotic Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, which is the modern finance-capitalist successor to Europe’s old post-feudal landed aristocracy living by land rents. With most housing in today’s world having become owner-occupied (although with sharply rising rates of absentee landlordship since the post-2008 wave of Obama Evictions), land rent is paid largely to the banking sector in the form of mortgage interest and debt amortization (on rising debt/equity ratios as bank lending inflates housing prices). About 80 percent of U.S. and British bank loans are to the real estate sector, inflating land prices to create capital gains – which are effectively tax-exempt for absentee owners.

This Wall Street-centered banking and real estate bloc is even more broadly based on a district-by-district basis than the MIC. Its New York senator from Wall Street, Chuck Schumer, heads the Senate, long supported by Delaware’s former Senator from the credit-card industry Joe Biden, and Connecticut’s senators from the insurance sector centered in that state. Domestically, the aim of this sector is to maximize land rent and the “capital’ gains resulting from rising land rent. Internationally, the FIRE sector’s aim is to privatize foreign economies (above all to secure the privilege of credit creation in U.S. hands), so as to turn government infrastructure and public utilities into rent-seeking monopolies to provide basic services (such as health care, education, transportation, communications and information technology) at maximum prices instead of at subsidized prices to reduce the cost of living and doing business. And Wall Street always has been closely merged with the oil and gas industry (viz. the Rockefeller-dominated Citigroup and Chase Manhattan banking conglomerates).

The FIRE, MIC and OGAM sectors are the three rentier sectors that dominate today’s post-industrial finance capitalism. Their mutual fortunes have soared as MIC and OGAM stocks have increased. And moves to exclude Russia from the Western financial system (and partially now from SWIFT), coupled with the adverse effects of isolating European economies from Russian energy, promise to spur an inflow into dollarized financial securities

As mentioned at the outset, it is more helpful to view U.S. economic and foreign policy in terms of the complexes based on these three rentier sectors than in terms of the political policy of Republicans and Democrats. The key senators and congressional representatives are not representing their states and districts as much as the economic and financial interests of their major donors. That is why neither manufacturing nor agriculture play the dominant role in U.S. foreign policy today. The convergence of the policy aims of America’s three dominant rentier groups overwhelms the interests of labor and even of industrial capital beyond the MIC. That convergence is the defining characteristic of today’s post-industrial finance capitalism. It is basically a reversion to economic rent-seeking, which is independent of the politics of labor and industrial capital.

The dynamic that needs to be traced today is why this oligarchic blob has found its interest in prodding Russia into what Russia evidently viewed as a do-or-die stance to resist the increasingly violent attacks on Ukraine’s eastern Russian-speaking provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, along with the broader Western threats against Russia.

The rentier “blob’s” expected consequences of the New Cold War

As President Biden explained, the current U.S.-orchestrated military escalation (“Prodding the Bear”) is not really about Ukraine. Biden promised at the outset that no U.S. troops would be involved. But he has been demanding for over a year that Germany prevent the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from supplying its industry and housing with low-priced gas and turn to the much higher-priced U.S. suppliers.

U.S. officials first tried to stop construction of the pipeline from being completed. Firms aiding in its construction were sanctioned, but finally Russia itself completed the pipeline. U.S. pressure then turned on the traditionally pliant German politicians, claiming that Germany and the rest of Europe faced a National Security threat from Russia turning off the gas, presumably to extract some political or economic concessions. No specific Russian demands could be thought up, and so their nature was left obscure and blob-like. Germany refused to authorize Nord Stream 2 from officially going into operation.

A major aim of today’s New Cold War is to monopolize the market for U.S. shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG). Already under Donald Trump’s administration, Angela Merkel was bullied into promising to spend $1 billion building new port facilities for U.S. tanker ships to unload natural gas for German use. The Democratic election victory in November 2020, followed by Ms. Merkel’s retirement from Germany’s political scene, led to cancellation of this port investment, leaving Germany really without much alternative to importing Russian gas to heat its homes, power its electric utilities, and to provide raw material for its fertilizer industry and hence the maintenance of its farm productivity.

So the most pressing U.S. strategic aim of NATO confrontation with Russia is soaring oil and gas prices, above all to the detriment of Germany. In addition to creating profits and stock-market gains for U.S. oil companies, higher energy prices will take much of the steam out of the German economy. That looms as the third time in a century that the United States has defeated Germany – each time increasing its control over a German economy increasingly dependent on the United States for imports and policy leadership, with NATO being the effective check against any domestic nationalist resistance.

Full Article- The importance of the Russian peacekeeping operation in Ukraine | The Vineyard of the Saker


Gotta give it to the Germans- very good at surrendering. This is the third national capitulation in a century. And you accuse the French of being surrender monkeys..

[bsnub]

Any smart people left here?

You sure would not be one of those, considering the fact that you bleated on for months about how Russia would never invade Ukraine. Posting more crap from a pro Putin blog just digs you deeper.

It is more realistic to view U.S. economic and foreign policy in terms of the military-industrial complex, the oil and gas (and mining) complex, and the banking and real estate complex than in terms of the political policy of Republicans and Democrats.

Right because the tech industry which is the primary driver of the US economy has nothing to do with it. GTFO with this tripe.

[bsnub]

A Network of the Kremlin’s Obedient Followers

The Saker of the Vineyard is a blog by a retired Swiss Red Cross officer, residing in Florida and defending Russia against an enigmatic Empire. The Saker has become a franchise for an international network of pro-Kremlin outlets, with branches in German, Italy, Latin America, and Russia. A Saker is a sort of falcon, falco cherrug, endemic to the steppes of Eurasia. The name of the blog is an anagram of the blogger’s name.

The Saker connects Russian nationalist groups and outlets with North American anti-Semite groups; Russian communists with French and Italian right-wing activist. Devote Christians with aggressive thugs. It’s a successful franchise in disinformation.

So what is The Saker? Let’s start with the original, English language version of the site. It’s registered in Iceland. The blog started as a humble Blogspot site in 2007 and developed slowly into an international brand. The site’s tagline is “Stop the Empire’s War on Russia”. The author describes himself:

Disrespectful of social dogmas and norms, oppositional and defiant towards authority, rebellious and aggressive by nature, deeply contrarian on an almost knee-jerk level, libertarian in outlook.

The Saker sounds like a really impressive guy; with integrity. “Defiant towards authority”. Wow. We all want to be like The Saker. His defiance is, unfortunately, very much one-sided. He is devotedly aligning himself with anything that the Kremlin says. Ukraine is ruled by Nazis; The Baltic States are Aggressive; Russia is bringing peace to Syria. Virtually anything the Kremlin lies about is repeated, faithfully, by The Saker: MH17, Skripal – even the Eurovision Song Contest is narrated the Kremlin way.

The Evil Empire

The Real Enemy of The Saker is “The Empire”. The tagline of The Saker’s blog is “Stop the Empire’s War on Russia”. And it’s not just any old empire – it’s the Anglo-Zionist Empire. The Saker breaks it down in detail:

The US Empire is run by a 1% (or less) elite which can be called the “deep state” which is composed of two main groups: Anglos and Jews. These two groups are in many ways hostile to each other (just like the SS and SA or Trotskysts and Stalinists), but they share 1) a racist outlook on the rest of mankind 2) a messianic ideology 3) a phenomenal propensity for violence 4) an obsession with money and greed and its power to corrupt. So they work together almost all the time.

The Saker has a ready answer to anyone suggesting that the above claim is a racist, anti-Semite remark:

I don’t care.

Syndicated Disinformation

The Saker is strongly integrated into both Kremlin-controlled networks and homegrown US-based conspiracy groups. The Saker and South Front syndicate content; a special section of The Saker Site is devoted to reports from South Front. The Saker personally contributes to sites in Canada, the US and to Russian nationalist groups. The site contains a selection of news sources – most are affiliated to Russian state or oligarch structures. RT, Sputnik, New Eastern Outlook, Strategic Culture Foundation, South Front, News Front and other contributors to the EUvsDisinfo Database on Disinformation

The site has a rather impressive traffic – data from Similarweb shows that the site had over 360 000 visitors in May. Most visitors come from the US, some from Canada.
Saker is in all a fairly mainstream conspiracy site. The unique selling point is that the site combines a slightly leftist anti-colonialist sentiment – suggesting the USA as the evil force in global politics – with traditional right-wing approaches to Jews, Moslems, the LGTB community etc. He is eloquently supporting Orthodox Christian values, as long as the Orthodoxy is commanded by the Kremlin.

The Franchise “The Saker” has developed into a community. The Saker’s readers can share tips on what to read, what to grow and how to stay healthy; the list of reliably pro-Kremlin news makes the members of the community feel comfortable and cosy inside the bubble. And an entire set of different language versions is found. The English version links versions of The Saker in French, in Italian, in Spanish, Serbian and Russian. And with some digging we can find a few more: A German version, a defunct New Zealand version.
And the spirit of “Defiance towards Authority” certainly runs deep in across community.

The Saker Network share IP address. All, except the French and German versions, are registered at the same US hosting, NameCheap Inc. in Florida:




Obviously all those sites share content, provided by Mr. Saker himself. After all – it is his network, where he, as he puts it himself, is the “benevolent dictator”. Other frequent contributors are all frequently contributing to various parts of the pro-Kremlin network. From various perspective all join in attacking “The Anglo-Zionist Empire”. Some focus on the “Anglo” part, others on the imperialism, others yet – on the Zionist element. There’s something for everybody on the Saker’s Smorgasbord.

Masculine Virtues

So what is the Russian connection? The first element – of course – The Saker’s loyal following the Kremlin’s narratives. The second is the exchange of content, strictly within a pro-Kremlin network; and the third element – some of the authors of the Russian version of the Saker are tightly connected to Russian nationalist circles. Under his real name, Andrei Raevsky, The Saker regularly writes articles for the Svobodnaya Pressa website; one of the most influential platforms for a Russian nationalist, Ukraine hostile, USSR-nostalgic sentiment.

The Saker is a successful instrument for reaching out to an international audience. It has a vaguely intellectual approach, with references to philosophy, theology and dubious sources. It is a cosy, secluded environment, reaffirming any kind of prejudice and bigotry, allowing the readers to indulge in hatred while pretending to be reasonable and rational, courageous truth-sayers; a bastion of free men:

What is needed now in the West are more typically-masculine virtues.

Like the virtue of Defiance Towards Authority, as long as the authority is not in the Kremlin.



https://euvsdisinfo.eu/the-saker-bli...d-as-defiance/

[sabang]

Speed reader are we now snubs? Na, you are not. You should read it- it actually agrees with your expressed US political concerns. You've said several times that the two party system there does not represent the interest of the citizens. I agree.

[bsnub]

You've said several times that the two party system there does not represent the interest of the citizens. I agree.

That part I agree with but that does not change the fact that the source is poison.

[harrybarracuda]

The fucking rubbish that the three stooges post in this thread means it should really be moved to the DH.
I will use Looper's Putin thread from now on.

[bsnub]

The fucking rubbish that the three stooges post in this thread means it should really be moved to the DH.

I posted a new thread at the start of the Russian assault. It was deleted, and the asshole mods pushed all my comments into this trash thread. I have stated several times that I do not want to post in this shit thread as it is stifled by the Three Stooges propaganda. It should have been doghoused ages ago and all of those lemmings posts should have been dumped in there.

Say la vie.

[sabang]

Say la vie.

Inside Donetsk, the separatist republic that triggered the war in Ukraine






Alexandra Lygina is a 20-year-old student on a mission to fight Nazis.
"We can't live in the same country as the Nazis," she tells me. "We can't forgive all that we experienced through the years. How can I live in one country with those who killed my loved ones?"
It's a week before the Russian invasion of Ukraine begins and Alexandra is speaking to me from her shabby apartment in the city of Donetsk, capital of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic (DPR).
The DPR, in Ukraine's east, split from the rest of the country eight years ago and has a so-called "people's militia" to keep Ukrainian government forces out. In the rest of Ukraine, most see it as Russian-occupied territory. Alexandra says it's an independent country that will probably one day join Russia.

"I feel myself Russian despite the fact that my mum is Ukrainian," she tells me. "We will never be part of Ukraine again."

Some Australians know the DPR as the rebel enclave from where MH17 was shot down in 2014, after missile system controllers mistook the passenger jet for a Ukrainian warplane.
Last week the DPR became the pretext for Russia invading Ukraine, with President Vladimir Putin declaring his "military operation" was to "protect people who have been bullied and subjected to genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years".
"For that, we will strive to de-militarise and de-Nazify Ukraine and will bring to justice those who committed multiple bloody crimes against civilians, including Russian citizens," Putin said.
It's been all but impossible for foreign media to enter the DPR for some time. But as Ukraine counted down to war, Foreign Correspondent gained permission to send a crew from Moscow in the days leading up to the invasion, as this forgotten statelet suddenly changed history.

Almost Russian

It doesn't take long to see who the real power in the DPR is. Russian flags adorn the city centre, cars have Russian number plates, cinemas show patriotic Russian films.
Alexandra Lygina is a member of a staunchly patriotic pro-Russian youth group. She grew up in Russia but chose to move to Donetsk to attend university, where she is studying to become a diplomat. She spends her spare time delivering humanitarian aid from Russia to struggling locals.
"[The DPR] feels Russian because people speak Russian," she tells me, a week before the invasion begins. "People have Russian money, Russian documents. So we are almost Russian."
She says people here are feeling reassured by the build-up of Russian troops on the border. "We have Russian passports, so Russia must protect us," she says. "And Russia is not an aggressive country because Russia doesn't want the invasion that Western media talks about."
Many Russians moved into the area after a devastating famine in the 1930s, when Stalin's disastrous economic policies saw millions of Ukrainians starve to death. Ethnic Russians were resettled into empty towns and villages to replace them.
In Soviet times, being Russian or Ukrainian didn't matter. They were all part of one country, the Soviet Union. But independence and the rise of Ukrainian nationalism made many Russians nervous.
After seizing Crimea, Russia encouraged and armed hard-line separatists in the east to rise up against Ukraine. Eight years of fighting the Ukrainian military has forced people in these regions to choose sides.
"I think some people, maybe, want to join Ukraine," Alexandra tells us. "But it's not very many people because most of such people have moved to Ukraine."
Certainly nobody in the city's crowded open-air food market expresses any sympathy for Ukraine.
"I don't want gay prides here like they have in Kyiv," one woman says.
"Why should I run away from my territory?" asks another. "So that Nazis can live here?"
That word Nazi again.

A 'Nazi' state

A short distance from the centre, signs of conflict are everywhere. Buildings are pockmarked with bullets. An unexploded shell lies in a suburban front yard.
Military journalist and commentator Dmitry Astrakhan, a former spokesperson for the Donetsk People's Militia, takes our cameraman on a tour of the city outskirts.
"You can see that nearly all the buildings are destroyed by Ukrainian shelling," he says.
"That's how it goes here. Right now, the Ukrainian military struck today 10 villages and cities of Donbas. We just heard the shelling, and nobody knows what happens next."
Donbas is the term for the mainly Russian-speaking south-east of Ukraine, where the DPR sits alongside another self-declared independent statelet, the People's Republic of Luhansk. Dmitry tells us they share a common fight — against Nazis.
"That's why they had to make the militia and had to defend themselves," he says.
"They were under attack both from the Ukrainian army and from Nazi battalions and Nazi paramilitary units."
He singles out a particular paramilitary group, the Azov Regiment.
"They began as Nazi paramilitary groups, they are formed from skinheads and from white supremacist groups and from Nazis.
"They are far-right extremists who are legal in Ukraine, that have heavy weapons in Ukraine and that they can do whatever they want fighting against people of Donbas."
It's a line the Kremlin has been pushing since Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. And it's not subtle.
That year, ahead of a referendum to join Russia, I saw authorities erect giant billboards across Crimea showing maps of Ukraine covered in swastikas. Other billboards showed a giant Mother Russia pushing back a Nazi stormtrooper.
In part, it was a reference to World War II, when Ukrainian extremists led by Stepan Bandera sided with Nazi Germany to try to win independence from the Soviet Union. But the Azov Regiment has been a handy update for the narrative.
Azov emerged in 2014 from a collection of often violent ultranationalists who joined peaceful democrats in the Maidan protests against the pro-Russian government. Russia portrayed the uprising as a Nazi coup and armed and supported separatists in Donbas.
The Azov battalion – mainly drawn from local Russian speakers – threw itself into the fighting with separatists, helping to wrest back the eastern port of Mariupol. Its success endeared it to a new Ukrainian government desperate to not lose more territory.
Politicians ignored or played down Azov's Neo-Nazi ideology and symbols, like the Sonnenrad (sun wheel) displayed on its insignia. Some far-right figures were given senior positions in the civil administration.
In November 2014, Azov was expanded from a battalion into a regiment and absorbed into the Ukrainian National Guard.

It was a propaganda gift for Russia, especially after the Christchurch massacre of 2019, when the shooter was found to have a Sonnenrad emblem on his backpack.

While there is little evidence he travelled to Ukraine, some Russian media have linked him to the Azov battalion.
"He was one of the people who were trained by Azov, who got his leadership and ideas from Azov website," Dmitry tells us.
Today, Azov is a tiny part of the Ukrainian military with fewer than 1,000 soldiers out of a Defence Force of nearly a quarter of a million. Azov's new commanders deny any links to Nazism.
There is an ocean of competing claims on the far right's influence in Ukraine, but what is clear is that it has almost no public support.
In the 2019 election, far-right parties including Right Sector, which absorbed many Azov leaders, received less than 3 per cent of the vote, below the threshold to enter parliament. Ukraine elected a Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who appointed a Jewish prime minister, Denis Shmyhal.
But still, the Kremlin insists, Ukraine is a Nazi state. Russian politicians can barely mention Ukraine without saying the word. Russian state television reports are full of stories of alleged Nazi atrocities.
Alexandra Lygina is a true believer.
''Ukraine is not a part of the Russian world anymore because Ukraine chose its way to the West," she says.
"It became a Nazi country. And the Russian world is against such things."

The 'special military operation'

We weren't able to film the Donetsk frontline. Authorities say an upsurge in shelling makes it too dangerous to visit. But on the ground, those we speak with welcome the Russian forces massing on the borders as a deterrent to Ukrainian aggression.
"The war has been going for almost eight years, and I don't believe that something will change dramatically," Alexandra says.
The military commentator Dmitry Astrakhan gives our crew the same assessment.

"If we are talking about the big war between Russia and Ukraine, I don't think it's really possible," he says. "The next days I don't think this will happen."

Within hours, everything changes.
On February 18, the leaders of both separatist republics release simultaneous video statements on the messaging app Telegram claiming Ukraine is mounting concerted attacks and sending saboteurs. All men are to be mobilised and women and children evacuated.
"Only in the past days our army prevented several attempts of terrorist acts from Ukrainian special services," DPR leader Denis Pushilin declares.
Suddenly, buses are on hand to ferry civilians to Russia and the DPR press service has cameras ready to film it.
The investigative group Bellingcat claims metadata from the leaders' videos show they had been recorded two days earlier, when the frontline was quiet.
Others wonder why Ukraine would suddenly mount major operations when it is desperately trying to avoid giving Putin the excuse to send 190,000 troops across the border. Ukraine denies making any such attacks.
None of that matters. Russia suddenly has a pretext to intervene.
On February 21, when Putin announces he will recognise the statelet's independence and send peacekeepers, Donetsk erupts in celebration. Three days later, he announces Russia will mount a "special military operation" to remove the Nazis from the Ukrainian government.
This is, in effect, Putin's declaration of war against Ukraine. But Russian state television is as careful to avoid the word "invasion" as it is to include the word "Nazi".
"You know, as they retreat, the Nazis continue to destroy Donbas," Russian talk show host Olga Skabeeva announces.
"Today is the day of a very just operation on de-Nazification of Ukraine," says shock jock Vladimir Soloviev, who later cries on air over the loss of his two luxury homes in Italy to sanctions.

After the invasion

Five days after the invasion, I speak to Alexandra again. She's in the Russian border city of Rostov distributing aid to civilians fleeing Donetsk.
"My main feeling is I hope the war will end soon," she says. "This operation gives us hope that Ukrainian forces will not have the resources to kill people in Donbas."
The television reports being shown in Russia portray a very different war from the one we are seeing in the West. Bulletins focus more on the West's alleged bullying of Russia, featuring condemnation by countries like Venezuela and Iran.
"I have relatives and friends in Ukraine in Kyiv, in Odessa, in Mariupol," Alexandra tells me.
"Of course I feel sad for them and hope they will be safe. But Russia bombs only military facilities, not houses or schools or hospitals as Ukraine did."
None of what has happened has shaken her faith in what she sees as Putin's quest to save the innocent from Nazis.

Watch Foreign Correspondent's The Road to War tonight at 8pm on ABC TV and iview, and streaming live on YouTube and Facebook.

[bsnub]

Inside Donetsk, the separatist republic that triggered the war in Ukraine

More fake bullshit. Russia is loaded with Nazi's and white supremacists, many of whom work for your god Putin himself.

[Buckaroo Banzai]

But no, it’s not the same. Please point to me the time the US led a conventional army in an invasion of a sovereign other with the purpose of annexation or annihilation; . Was it Mexico or Canada?

Mexico
Hawaii was another one

[sabang]

So you are accusing the Australian Broadcasting Corporation of being a Russian propaganda outlet now snubs? Anyway, I just watched the program in question (Foreign Correspondent)- quite interesting, both sides of the narrative given space.

[OhOh]

Current U.S. and Russian military strategies reserve the option to use nuclear weapons first. In Russia’s case, its military policy allows for the president to order the use of nuclear weapons if the state is at risk or possibly if Russia is losing a major war

Quit telling porkies.

Quit insinuation your source is unbiased and trustworthy and your post is factual.

Kommersant: Why Putin put nuclear forces on special alert

"Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered to put the strategic nuclear forces on special alert, justifying this decision by the West’s "unfriendly economic actions", as well as the "aggressive" rhetoric against Moscow, the Kommersant newspaper said. According to experts, this is the first time when Russia’s nuclear forces were transferred to such a mode since the end of the Cold War. The US leadership declared that NATO did not pose a threat to Russia.

"Most likely, we are talking about bringing the control system of nuclear forces into a state that makes deterrence forces more stable in the event of an attack,"

Director of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project, Senior Researcher at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) Pavel Podvig told Kommersant.

"Overall, once a containment force has been brought to this point, it becomes less vulnerable to a first strike, be it decapitation or disarmament. However, this does not mean that Russia is going to attack first."

Furthermore, Senior Research Fellow at the Academy of Strategic Missile Forces Vasily Lata told Kommersant that the president’s order sought "not to escalate the conflict with the West but, on the contrary, to prevent its aggravation."

Lata believes that through this decision, Putin warned the US and NATO once again that meddling in the military conflict in favor of Ukraine was inadmissible.

"Therefore, Putin is sending them another message: we are carrying out a special operation, do not meddle in this, because we are ready to take decisive measures," the expert said.

"At present, it is a necessary and reasonable decision. This will cool any hot heads on the other side."

https://tass.com/pressreview/1412885

The NaGastan official position, as of 13/10/2021"

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy: Considering
“No First Use”

UpdatedOctober 13, 2021

The Biden Administration began its Nuclear Posture Review(NPR)in July2021and expects to complete the study in early 2021. The NPR is likely to include a review of U.S. declaratory policy—the statements the United States makes about when, how,and why it might use nuclear weapons to deter adversaries and reassure U.S. allies of its commitment to their defence—with a focus on whether the United States should pledge never to be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.

President Biden has spoken, in the past, about his support for a“sole purpose” policy for nuclear weapons, which some see assimilar to a“no firstuse”pledge. Some in Congress support such a pledge, but others have insiste dthat it would undermine the U.S. commitment to extend deterrence to allies.

A“no first use”policy would represent a change from current policy, where the United State shas pledged to refrain from using nuclear weapons against most non-nuclear weapon states, but has neither ruled out their first use in all cases nor specified the circumstances under which it would use them.

This policy of “calculated ambiguity” addressed U.S. concerns during the Cold War, when the United States and NATO faced numerically superior Soviet and Warsaw Pact conventional forces in Europe. At the time, the United States not only developed plans to use nuclear weapons on the battlefield to disrupt or defeat attacking tanks and troops, but it also hoped that the risk of a nuclear response would deter the Soviet Union froman initiating a conventional attack.This is not because the United States believed it could defeat the Soviet Union in a nuclear war, but because it hoped the Soviet Union would know that the use of these weapons would likely escalate to all-out nuclear war, with both sides suffering massive destruction.

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has modified its declaratory policy to reduce the apparent role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security, but has not declared that it would not use them first.

In the2010Nuclear Posture Review Report, the Obama Administration stated that the United States“would only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances” and would not threaten or use nuclear weapons, under any circumstances,“against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.”But the Administration was not prepared to state that the“sole purpose” of U.S. nuclear weapons was to deter nuclear attack because it could envision“a narrow range of contingencies” where nuclear weapons might play a role in deterring conventional, chemical,or biological attacks.

The Trump Administration, in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR)Report, also rejected the idea that the sole purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack, and, therefore, did not adopt a“no first use”policy. It noted that“the United States would only consider the employment of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States, its allies, and partners”but stated that nuclear weapons contribute to “deterrence of nuclear and non-nuclear attack."

https://sgp.fas.org/crs/nuke/IN10553.pdf

In Russia’s case, its military policy allows for the president to order the use of nuclear weapons if the state is at risk or possibly if Russia is losing a major war

No Russian threat of first use. Care to provide an official link to your allegation that Russia has a first use policy?

NaGastan continue to retain the first use doctrine.

However, there is certainly there is a risk of a retaliation, to any adversary, if it is using, fired Nuclear weapons first.

The second, presumes Russia, is in and losing a major war?

If so, what is your evidence, of:

1. Russia believes it is in a major war?

2. Russia is losing a major war?

Your source:



" About the Arms Control Association


The Arms Control Association, founded in 1971, is a national nonpartisan membership organization dedicated to promoting public understanding of and support for effective arms control policies.


Washington, DC Office
1200 18th St NW, Suite 1175
Washington, DC, 20036
Tel (202) 463-8270


Foundation Support

The Arms Control Association is currently supported by generous grants from the following institutions:

Carnegie Corporation of New York Janelia Foundation John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation New-Land Foundation Pentagon Budget Campaign and the Colombe Foundation Ploughshares Fund About the Arms Control Association | Arms Control Association

Prospect Hill Foundation Selma Ankist Family Trust Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust The Susan A. and Donald P. Babson Foundation Telemachus Fund German Foreign Federal Office Global Affairs Canada Weapons Threat Reduction Program"

Impartial? Of the 12 funders, 10 are NaGasan. It could be suggested the organisation is somewhat NaGstan biased'

Whoever funds the organisation controls the organisations output, IMHO.

Try again:

[misskit]

^ Old news.

New Russian policy allows use of atomic weapons against non-nuclear strike

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday endorsed Russia’s nuclear deterrent policy, which allows him to use atomic weapons in response to a conventional strike targeting the nation’s critical government and military infrastructure.


By including a non-nuclear attack as a possible trigger for Russian nuclear retaliation, the document appears to send a warning signal to the U.S. The new expanded wording reflects Russian concerns about the development of prospective weapons that could give Washington the capability to knock out key military assets and government facilities without resorting to atomic weapons.

MORE New Russian policy allows use of atomic weapons against non-nuclear strike

[OhOh]

Say la vie.

You will be missed, your propaganda posts are entertaining.

[OhOh]

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday endorsed Russia’s nuclear deterrent policy, which allows him to use atomic weapons in response to a conventional strike targeting the nation’s critical government and military infrastructure.

Thank you.

An official link to THE LORDS statement, as opposed to the many media print, would bring clarity.

AP/Defence News are, for example, suggesting there is a new "document which appears to send a warning signal to the U.S.". Neither have a link posted.

Putin signs Russia'''s nuclear deterrent policy | AP News

New Russian policy allows use of atomic weapons against non-nuclear strike

One suspects such a change would be in an official Russian statement.

[misskit]

Repaired.

[OhOh]

^ Old news.

New Russian policy allows use of atomic weapons against non-nuclear strike

Nearly two years old. My apologies.

Here is one opinion, although nothing of Russian Government origin is posted.

New Document Consolidates Russia’s Nuclear Policy in One Place

June 04, 2020

"Some of this is old. But two things are new, or newish.

First is the clear statement that Russia can launch under warning of ballistic missile attack. This is in line with Putin’s statements, but still notable to see in a formal document.

Second, is the equally clear statement that an attack (military or otherwise) on Russia’s nuclear, command and related infrastructure, broadly defined, justifies a nuclear response. This has been a matter of speculation, and often assumed to be true.

Now it’s confirmed.

New Document Consolidates Russia’s Nuclear Policy in One Place | Russia Matters

First change allegedly:

Launching of Russian missiles without knowing if the incoming missiles are nuclear armed. How one tells if a ballistic missile is nuclear or conventionally armed seems difficult.

Second change allegedly:

An attack on "Russia’s nuclear, command and related infrastructure, broadly defined, justifies a nuclear response."

Russia is hit by missiles on it's own nuclear infrastructure and in retaliates. One suspects it would be difficult to determine if the resultant nuclear explosions were caused by the incoming nuclear/conventionally armed missile or the Russian nuclear/conventionally armed missile sitting in its silo.

Maybe are military nuclear weapons experts can clarify.

But you are potentially correct, and I, potentially wrong.

[Switch]

• Again?
• But you are potentially correct, and I, potentially wrong.
  
  
  
  
  
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[David48atTD]

1 ....

[nidhogg]

Da fuck with the formating????

[David48atTD]

Da fuck with the formating????

It's only this page.

And it hasn't flipped to a new page

[David48atTD]

New page OK

[David48atTD]

New page OK

Well, that was weird!

New page seems to be OK now.

[kingwilly]

Speed reader are we now snubs? Na, you are not. You should read it- it actually agrees with your expressed US political concerns. You've said several times that the two-party system there does not represent the interest of the citizens. I agree.

It's propaganda blog, why does anyone have to read that shite