The bits of Mayfair, Kensington & Chelsea etc that they don't already own?
But expect more of this sort of fearmongering. It's almost that time of year when the sanctions against Russia are due to end or be re-negotiated. Some EU countries are wavering, on account of it costing them billions and not really bothering Russia too much. So expect more fear mongering.
At least Russia's not flying U2s or SR-71s equivalents across the UK
Should we be concerned at this? its happening so often now its starting to feel like they are planning something.
You do know that we do exactly the same to them? This is nothing to worry about. It's a standard thing, we all do it to each other partially to test reaction times, gather intelligence, and also because both NATO and Russia like to engage in dickwaving at each other.
Yes, because the only way to actually be under the boot of Russia is to have them actually invade... :roll:
They know that we possess god-knows-how-many chemical and biological weapons, of course.
Wut? What "gods-knows-how-many chemical and biological weapons" do the UK possess outside of the small samples at Porton Down for research into defence against purposes? It would be a cool trick since biological and chemical weapons have been banned in some manner or another since 1925, with the most recent convention in 1993.
So what do "They" and "You" know - that the HMG and her Armed Forces do not?
Even without these, they know we could screw their country up in so many ways.
How exactly could the UK screw up a country the size of Russia in so many ways by non nuclear means?
So what would they gain?
Pacification. Compliance. Unwillingly Allies. The same thing they gain when they did not withdraw from Eastern Europe after 1945.
""Nuclear deterrence is essentially aimed at states, because it doesn't work against terrorists. And you can only aim a nuclear weapon at a rational regime, and at rational states that are not already deterred by the US nuclear deterrent. "
Which was always the way. However Has Russia suddenly gone away? or did it after the 15 December 2013, get involved in a conflict with the Ukraine, annex Crimea and started sponsoring one side in the Ukranian Civil War?
Perhaps, just perhaps James Arbuthnot might have reconsidered his position, since the reason for the independent Deterrent seems to still be there and kicking - Russia.
Which was always the way. However Has Russia suddenly gone away? or did it after the 15 December 2013, get involved in a conflict with the Ukraine, annex Crimea and started sponsoring one side in the Ukranian Civil War?
Perhaps, just perhaps James Arbuthnot might have reconsidered his position, since the reason for the independent Deterrent seems to still be there and kicking - Russia.
Like the US and the EU sponsor the other you mean?
The UK has absolutely no need for nuclear weapons, and should unilaterally disarm now.
The UK has absolutely no need for nuclear weapons, and should unilaterally disarm now.
Apart from the Greens who want to get rid of nukes, turn army bases into fields and then sow immigrants from all over the world in them, any of the other sensible parties would disagree with you.
Like the US and the EU sponsor the other you mean?
Did the EU annex the Crimea? Move along Pan. Is Russia not showing a heighten sense of assertiveness, be it from military interventions in sovereign country's, to starving trade partners of energy in order to press their policies? Ukraine disarmed, looked what has happened to them...
So the fact remains Russia, the primary reason for the Deterrent in the Cold War, is still the primary reason for the deterrent in the coming years.
The UK has absolutely no need for nuclear weapons, and should unilaterally disarm now.
Given your opinion is not backed up by anything that could remotely be considered "substance" - forgive me if I laugh in your digital face.
Yes, because the only way to actually be under the boot of Russia is to have them actually invade... :roll:
What other scenarios would plausibly put us "under the boot" of Russia, then?
What would Russia's strategic objective be?
Wut? What "gods-knows-how-many chemical and biological weapons" do the UK possess outside of the small samples at Porton Down for research into defence against purposes? It would be a cool trick since biological and chemical weapons have been banned in some manner or another since 1925, with the most recent convention in 1993.
You're a very trusting soul, aren't you?
OK, assuming that we haven't got these things actually weaponised and secretly ready to go (and that's your assumption, not mine) it would be a trivial matter to reconstitute such weapons pretty quickly, as prevailing political conditions deteriorated. We've got the knowledge. We've got the capability. We only need "small samples" of biological agents to cause serious problems.
How exactly could the UK screw up a country the size of Russia in so many ways by non nuclear means?
The sky's the limit. All countries have many areas of critical weakness: Transport infrastructure, energy, agriculture, water, IT etc.
Pacification. Compliance. Unwillingly Allies. The same thing they gain when they did not withdraw from Eastern Europe after 1945.
But to bring things slightly more up to date, what makes you think that Russia could do a better job at occupying the UK than they did of occupying say, Afghanistan?
What makes you think they're interested in controlling territory at the other side of the continent, anyway?
Russia hasn't got a reputation for aggressive military expansion all over the globe. Unlike the US and its "coalition of the willing".
Has Russia suddenly gone away? or did it after the 15 December 2013, get involved in a conflict with the Ukraine, annex Crimea and started sponsoring one side in the Ukranian Civil War?
There are specific and localised issues at stake in Ukraine based on its geographic proximity, bordering Russia and significant percentage of populations that identify themselves as Russian by ethnicity and language.
Neither of those issues have any relevance to the UK, whatsoever.
Did the EU annex the Crimea? Move along Pan. Is Russia not showing a heighten sense of assertiveness, be it from military interventions in sovereign country's, to starving trade partners of energy in order to press their policies? Ukraine disarmed, looked what has happened to them...
ha. Ha. Ha.
Like the West interfered in Libya and wanted to do it again in Syria after their sponsored "rebels" provoked a civil war? How exactly where we respecting the sovereignty of Libya when we funded extremists to start a civil war? Russia is simply doing to Ukraine what the West has done in country after country in the past and whether we care to admit it or not, our anger is basically down to us throwing a tantrum that other countries are using the tricks in our playbook. Sponsor some extremist "rebels" to start a fight with the government, portray the government as a brutal regime massacring civilians, and then send in the troops to "protect" people. Worked for us in Libya, and it seems to be working for Russia in Ukraine. By the way, we helped topple the legitimate Ukranian government to install a puppet pro-EU leader, so I'd keep that in mind before you go pointing fingers at who is to blame for all this.
Perhaps, just perhaps James Arbuthnot might have reconsidered his position, since the reason for the independent Deterrent seems to still be there and kicking - Russia.
Well, he seemed pretty certain of his opposition to Trident in July. He's shown no indication since that his opinion has changed.
"James Arbuthnot suggested that nuclear weapons have been irrelevant to all of the wars in the past 30 years, and therefore we may be able to assume a continuation of this irrelevance in the future. Spending money on a nuclear weapon system that we will never use is not the best return on investment in the face of other conventional threats that we may face."
Why does it concern you? It is standard procedure, has been done for decades and we do the same thing to them. We cant complain about a plane flying in international airspace.
Why does it concern you? It is standard procedure, has been done for decades and we do the same thing to them. We cant complain about a plane flying in international airspace.
Really? I never actually knew that, I feel slightly less concerned now thanks. I think its because I had often seen stories like this but I've never taken the time to read them properly/fully so I probably didn't appreciate the true story.
It's because of Trident. If we unilaterally disarmed, then these fly-by's would cease immediately. Russia would feel guilty that we have done it, so will disarm too.
PEACE
Never in a million years would Russia stop doing this if we got rid of Trident. Indeed there are very few examples in history of a smaller country giving up a defence and a larger aggressor backing off (if any)
They are continuing to push their luck though. What are they up to?
They are trying to frighten us. They want both the sanctions and a green light to take the Eastern Ukraine.
Its partly instinctive behaviour to their neighbours , party born of paranoia, and partly because the Putin regime needs to generate an external threat to survive internal failure and ward off political competitors. .
Its backfiring enormously. The Russian economy is spending money it hasn't got - doing things that the Russian military do, habitually, that western leaders would never pay for - Moscow is getting 18 battalions of new 400 mile range surfece top air missiles to defend Putin's new 3000 feet deep bunker. London has nothing, and Washington has 3 missile launchers with 10 mile ranged missiles, and a man on the White House roof with a Stinger.
Its also producing a reaction in NAT0 , and Scandanavia . All NATO's east European states are increasing their defence budgets , and now manpower, and are re-equipping. There's allied NATO forces now deployed forward to protect the Baltic States. Finland , Poland and Sweden are building options to retaliate for any attack by hitting Russian targets. Germany has quietly announced its increasing its tank force by 50% by returning tanks from storage, , and the US is refocusing its defence effort on fighting competitor states - not terrorists.The Israelis are fed up that Putin has broken his promises not to sell missiles to Iran, and may soon start selling theirs to Eastern Europe - which will improve their capabilities massively. Its a resounding home goal for Putin .
The one significant sleeping power left is the UK- which has little military capability left post 2010 , massive gaps in its capability, and obsolete equipment. It doesn't even have the means to find Russian ships and submarines in its own waters. We are still thinking of cuts - which makes Putin's actions sending nuclear bombers to threaten us insanely stupid.
Why does it concern you? It is standard procedure, has been done for decades and we do the same thing to them. We cant complain about a plane flying in international airspace.
Its not standard. The volume is massively up on post cold war experience. Russia is using nuclear bombers - not the usual electronic listening aircraft that do probe everyone's defences on a regular basis. Bombers are used to send a threat of massive destruction, not to have a look. Putin is using nuclear bombers- because you can't send nuclear signals to specific targets with ICBMs in Russia, or submarines hidden at sea. Russia also can't repeat what it did in the 1980s- and deploy a new range of substrategic missiles that are obviously targetted only on Europe . Russia has i developed a new version of its nuclear tipped Iskander missile that can target western Europe - but can't field that until Putin is ready to break the INF treaty signed with NATO at the end of the cold war. That means the bombers are the only force available that can send a nuclear threat. And the threat is clear - this bomber can destroy 20 of your cities - do as we want.
Nor is anyone else doing this to Russia. The US isn't flying nuclear cruise missile launchers up to the Russian 12 mile limit, and the RAF has no aircraft that can get there, and no nuclear weapons, for the few strike aircraft we have left anyway. Poland, Finland Sweden , Portugal , Japan and Canada have no nuclear weapons at all - but Putin has been giving them the nuclear treatment too. It may be time for the US to start sending large groups of bombers to their missile launch points to make the point - but its not happening yet.
Really? I never actually knew that, I feel slightly less concerned now thanks. I think its because I had often seen stories like this but I've never taken the time to read them properly/fully so I probably didn't appreciate the true story.
Yes, it does look a bit worrying at face value but this kind of thing goes on all the time and we definitely do the same thing to them despite what others think. We don't advertise that though, because we tend to trot out the "increased incidents of Russian aircraft approaching" story whenever we want to criticize them for something, and it wouldn't be as effective if we were also saying "but we do it to them to so we are just as bad". It is dangerous that everyone turns their transponders off when doing this but at the same time those planes have radar and they will avoid any collision because (even if they don't really care about the loss of life) it would be a political disaster and whichever side did it would be crucified for reckless posturing costing hundreds of lives.
If you think about all the military hardware NATO positions very close to Russian territory to "reassure our allies", maybe we could look upon this as Russia simply "reassuring their allies" that they have the strength to defend against British military aggression?
Having Trident is just about British taxpayers paying for the "privilege" of the US putting its warheads on our territory.
We don't even have true independent control of them. When it comes to Trident, the US literally calls the shots.
The only US thing about our nuclear weapons is the delivery vehicle. The US provides that part and nothing more. The codes are in in UK hands, and the nuclear warheads themselves are manufactured in the UK also (at Aldermaston I believe).
The US aren't calling any shots on our nuclear deterrent. I'm fairly sure they aren't even aware of the location of an Vanguard subs during operations either.
They are continuing to push their luck though. What are they up to?
Maybe the media is emphasising all these near incursions on behalf of the government to justify the defence spending increases in the pipeline? It would be interesting to know the number of these "near incursions" (which isn't even anything really) which happened in the preceding ten years, year on year, compared to the last year.
Comments
The bits of Mayfair, Kensington & Chelsea etc that they don't already own?
But expect more of this sort of fearmongering. It's almost that time of year when the sanctions against Russia are due to end or be re-negotiated. Some EU countries are wavering, on account of it costing them billions and not really bothering Russia too much. So expect more fear mongering.
At least Russia's not flying U2s or SR-71s equivalents across the UK
They've always done it.
You do know that we do exactly the same to them? This is nothing to worry about. It's a standard thing, we all do it to each other partially to test reaction times, gather intelligence, and also because both NATO and Russia like to engage in dickwaving at each other.
Wut? What "gods-knows-how-many chemical and biological weapons" do the UK possess outside of the small samples at Porton Down for research into defence against purposes? It would be a cool trick since biological and chemical weapons have been banned in some manner or another since 1925, with the most recent convention in 1993.
So what do "They" and "You" know - that the HMG and her Armed Forces do not?
How exactly could the UK screw up a country the size of Russia in so many ways by non nuclear means?
Pacification. Compliance. Unwillingly Allies. The same thing they gain when they did not withdraw from Eastern Europe after 1945.
Which was always the way. However Has Russia suddenly gone away? or did it after the 15 December 2013, get involved in a conflict with the Ukraine, annex Crimea and started sponsoring one side in the Ukranian Civil War?
Perhaps, just perhaps James Arbuthnot might have reconsidered his position, since the reason for the independent Deterrent seems to still be there and kicking - Russia.
Like the US and the EU sponsor the other you mean?
The UK has absolutely no need for nuclear weapons, and should unilaterally disarm now.
Apart from the Greens who want to get rid of nukes, turn army bases into fields and then sow immigrants from all over the world in them, any of the other sensible parties would disagree with you.
Did the EU annex the Crimea? Move along Pan. Is Russia not showing a heighten sense of assertiveness, be it from military interventions in sovereign country's, to starving trade partners of energy in order to press their policies? Ukraine disarmed, looked what has happened to them...
So the fact remains Russia, the primary reason for the Deterrent in the Cold War, is still the primary reason for the deterrent in the coming years.
Given your opinion is not backed up by anything that could remotely be considered "substance" - forgive me if I laugh in your digital face.
ha. Ha. Ha.
What other scenarios would plausibly put us "under the boot" of Russia, then?
What would Russia's strategic objective be?
You're a very trusting soul, aren't you?
OK, assuming that we haven't got these things actually weaponised and secretly ready to go (and that's your assumption, not mine) it would be a trivial matter to reconstitute such weapons pretty quickly, as prevailing political conditions deteriorated. We've got the knowledge. We've got the capability. We only need "small samples" of biological agents to cause serious problems.
The sky's the limit. All countries have many areas of critical weakness: Transport infrastructure, energy, agriculture, water, IT etc.
But to bring things slightly more up to date, what makes you think that Russia could do a better job at occupying the UK than they did of occupying say, Afghanistan?
What makes you think they're interested in controlling territory at the other side of the continent, anyway?
Russia hasn't got a reputation for aggressive military expansion all over the globe. Unlike the US and its "coalition of the willing".
There are specific and localised issues at stake in Ukraine based on its geographic proximity, bordering Russia and significant percentage of populations that identify themselves as Russian by ethnicity and language.
Neither of those issues have any relevance to the UK, whatsoever.
Like the West interfered in Libya and wanted to do it again in Syria after their sponsored "rebels" provoked a civil war? How exactly where we respecting the sovereignty of Libya when we funded extremists to start a civil war? Russia is simply doing to Ukraine what the West has done in country after country in the past and whether we care to admit it or not, our anger is basically down to us throwing a tantrum that other countries are using the tricks in our playbook. Sponsor some extremist "rebels" to start a fight with the government, portray the government as a brutal regime massacring civilians, and then send in the troops to "protect" people. Worked for us in Libya, and it seems to be working for Russia in Ukraine. By the way, we helped topple the legitimate Ukranian government to install a puppet pro-EU leader, so I'd keep that in mind before you go pointing fingers at who is to blame for all this.
Well, he seemed pretty certain of his opposition to Trident in July. He's shown no indication since that his opinion has changed.
"James Arbuthnot suggested that nuclear weapons have been irrelevant to all of the wars in the past 30 years, and therefore we may be able to assume a continuation of this irrelevance in the future. Spending money on a nuclear weapon system that we will never use is not the best return on investment in the face of other conventional threats that we may face."
http://www.wmdawareness.org.uk/we-need-to-talk-about-nukes-2/
Yes its starting to concern me now.
Why does it concern you? It is standard procedure, has been done for decades and we do the same thing to them. We cant complain about a plane flying in international airspace.
Really? I never actually knew that, I feel slightly less concerned now thanks. I think its because I had often seen stories like this but I've never taken the time to read them properly/fully so I probably didn't appreciate the true story.
Never in a million years would Russia stop doing this if we got rid of Trident. Indeed there are very few examples in history of a smaller country giving up a defence and a larger aggressor backing off (if any)
Having Trident hasn't stopped them though, has it?
Great deterrent, I must say...
They are trying to frighten us. They want both the sanctions and a green light to take the Eastern Ukraine.
Its partly instinctive behaviour to their neighbours , party born of paranoia, and partly because the Putin regime needs to generate an external threat to survive internal failure and ward off political competitors. .
Its backfiring enormously. The Russian economy is spending money it hasn't got - doing things that the Russian military do, habitually, that western leaders would never pay for - Moscow is getting 18 battalions of new 400 mile range surfece top air missiles to defend Putin's new 3000 feet deep bunker. London has nothing, and Washington has 3 missile launchers with 10 mile ranged missiles, and a man on the White House roof with a Stinger.
Its also producing a reaction in NAT0 , and Scandanavia . All NATO's east European states are increasing their defence budgets , and now manpower, and are re-equipping. There's allied NATO forces now deployed forward to protect the Baltic States. Finland , Poland and Sweden are building options to retaliate for any attack by hitting Russian targets. Germany has quietly announced its increasing its tank force by 50% by returning tanks from storage, , and the US is refocusing its defence effort on fighting competitor states - not terrorists.The Israelis are fed up that Putin has broken his promises not to sell missiles to Iran, and may soon start selling theirs to Eastern Europe - which will improve their capabilities massively. Its a resounding home goal for Putin .
The one significant sleeping power left is the UK- which has little military capability left post 2010 , massive gaps in its capability, and obsolete equipment. It doesn't even have the means to find Russian ships and submarines in its own waters. We are still thinking of cuts - which makes Putin's actions sending nuclear bombers to threaten us insanely stupid.
The UK makes its own warheads
Its not standard. The volume is massively up on post cold war experience. Russia is using nuclear bombers - not the usual electronic listening aircraft that do probe everyone's defences on a regular basis. Bombers are used to send a threat of massive destruction, not to have a look. Putin is using nuclear bombers- because you can't send nuclear signals to specific targets with ICBMs in Russia, or submarines hidden at sea. Russia also can't repeat what it did in the 1980s- and deploy a new range of substrategic missiles that are obviously targetted only on Europe . Russia has i developed a new version of its nuclear tipped Iskander missile that can target western Europe - but can't field that until Putin is ready to break the INF treaty signed with NATO at the end of the cold war. That means the bombers are the only force available that can send a nuclear threat. And the threat is clear - this bomber can destroy 20 of your cities - do as we want.
Nor is anyone else doing this to Russia. The US isn't flying nuclear cruise missile launchers up to the Russian 12 mile limit, and the RAF has no aircraft that can get there, and no nuclear weapons, for the few strike aircraft we have left anyway. Poland, Finland Sweden , Portugal , Japan and Canada have no nuclear weapons at all - but Putin has been giving them the nuclear treatment too. It may be time for the US to start sending large groups of bombers to their missile launch points to make the point - but its not happening yet.
So, let's assume that they destroy 20 of our cities and turn the UK into a nuclear cinder.
What does Russia gain?
Yes, it does look a bit worrying at face value but this kind of thing goes on all the time and we definitely do the same thing to them despite what others think. We don't advertise that though, because we tend to trot out the "increased incidents of Russian aircraft approaching" story whenever we want to criticize them for something, and it wouldn't be as effective if we were also saying "but we do it to them to so we are just as bad". It is dangerous that everyone turns their transponders off when doing this but at the same time those planes have radar and they will avoid any collision because (even if they don't really care about the loss of life) it would be a political disaster and whichever side did it would be crucified for reckless posturing costing hundreds of lives.
If you think about all the military hardware NATO positions very close to Russian territory to "reassure our allies", maybe we could look upon this as Russia simply "reassuring their allies" that they have the strength to defend against British military aggression?
The only US thing about our nuclear weapons is the delivery vehicle. The US provides that part and nothing more. The codes are in in UK hands, and the nuclear warheads themselves are manufactured in the UK also (at Aldermaston I believe).
The US aren't calling any shots on our nuclear deterrent. I'm fairly sure they aren't even aware of the location of an Vanguard subs during operations either.
Maybe the media is emphasising all these near incursions on behalf of the government to justify the defence spending increases in the pipeline? It would be interesting to know the number of these "near incursions" (which isn't even anything really) which happened in the preceding ten years, year on year, compared to the last year.
Why not? They have troops and weapons on the border of NATO countries.