To think we're on the brink of WW3?

[TellMeStraight]

If the US and Russia become at war with each other, can we possibly stay out of it?

What if Donald Trump is president when it all kicks off?

Should I buy a gun? Or build a shelter? Or stock up on tins?

I am genuinely frightened.

[DoYouRememberJustinBobby]

I found news of the British military sending troops and supplies to Estonia very interesting.
www.riskmap.com/#/m/6789794/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

I would be very interested to be pointed in the direction of some decent back ground articles on this, if anyone has any?

[SuffolkBumkin]

Great post Werks

[SeasonalVag]

That was hugely informative, Werks

[Werkzallhourz]

What was Putin's annexation of Crimea then? Is not Russian policy in Syria equally batshit insane?

Russia is supporting the sovereign Syrian state against foreign proxy mercenary forces. You can't really argue against this; however you may feel about Assad, he is the sovereign leader of Syria and Syria is a sovereign state. What Britain and the US is doing in Syria is actually contravening the sovereignty of another sovereign state without the reason of direct threat to their own territory (this is why Blair tried to argue for the 40 min WMD; he needed the threat to his own territory to make the argument for the invasion of Iraq to the UN security council). This essentially makes the British Syrian action an invasion, and against any understanding of international norms. This is what Putin is trying to say.

You fuck with these understandings, and you've got a serious geostrategic problem.

A similar scenario would be the Chinese deciding to bomb Britain because they decided they didn't like Teresa May and wanted to support the upswell of a "revolutionary" movement that essentially consisted of a bunch of non-Brits who'd been enticed to come to Britain to fight for shit and giggles.

Crimea is complicated. The EU knew that they were asking for trouble by challenging the politics around a Black Sea port that led to the Bosphorus and through into the wider Med, but they did it anyway.

A lot of this goes back years, particularly under the previous Labour government that didn't notice the power they had given the Russian state by not challenging the "awkwardness" of Gasprom contracts that delivered energy throughout Europe (at one point, Russian gas was fueling a number of NHS hospitals and York Minster). Now everyone has noticed and they are panicking and making stupid, panicked decisions. Syria is one of them. It stands in the way of a pipeline from Qatar to Europe, designed to dissolve European dependence on Russian gas.

We are the bad guys here. And I really wish people would see it.

Putin, I have to say, is being very measured. And I am no fan of the Russian administration.

[wowfudge]

Just coming back to you OP, as I haven't been online for a couple of days: I think owning a gun is unnecessary. You have said things I did not insinuate - to be considering murdering your own children now is off the scale imo. And it isn't 'mass suicide's.

[scaryteacher]

What was Putin's annexation of Crimea then? Is not Russian policy in Syria equally batshit insane?

As much of Eastern Europe was still Warsaw Pact and behind the Iron curtain within the last 30 years, you might need to amend your time frame somewhat, as it's not 30 years yet since the Wall came down. The Baltic states are sovereign and have made their decisions now about joining NATO and the EU, as have many other Eastern European states...what was 'seriously dodgy' about policy there?

How about Vlad pulling out of Kaliningrad? That might make people feel safer.

[Werkzallhourz]

Interesting responses on this thread.

Putin is not sabre rattling. If anything, he has been spent doing the last few years trying to get the US and the EU to realise exactly how dangerous its foreign "interventions" are. He held a press conference for Western journalists a few years ago where he said "I have no idea how to get through to you people anymore." And he's right. Western policy in Syria is batshit insane. US policy in Libya was beyond insanity. In fact I can't think of any US or UK foreign policy on Eastern Europe, the ME or Africa that has not been seriously dodgy for the last thirty years.

While everyone is buffooning Trump, there's a lot of leftwing thinkers that are seriously worried about a Hilary Clinton presidency. This is the woman that said "We came, we saw, he died" and then laughed about the extrajudicial execution of Gaddafi. Libya, a very stable country with such good food subsidies that people fed bread to cows, then descended into a extremist hell hole. The woman is a hawk, and a dangerous one.

All I can say is thank God we got rid of Cameron and his ilk (though Boris Johnson is still talking utter shit). Between May and Corbyn, the likelihood of Britain getting deeper into this murk is somewhat arrested.

[scaryteacher]

I watched the BBC WW3:Inside the War Room. I am told that it is very realistic as to how Putin operates with asymmetric warfare, and this is an ongoing concern for NATO and the Baltic States.

That said, I think Putin has probably got trouble trying to digest Crimea and sort out his tactics for Ukraine, let alone Syria. Much of his noise is for his domestic audience imo.

[PikachuSayBoo]

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[PikachuSayBoo]

Interesting leaflet which the council sent to every house in the city in the 80s.

[StealthPolarBear]

Thanks hope I assumed it would be something like that

[ginandbearit]

I rember the early eighties being a really scary time in the UK , never mind the threat of nuclear war . There was a very strange atmosphere before the Falklands war , the riots in Northern Ireland were on tv most nights and I remember thinking this will happen here , and it did .
There were rumours then about impending war , call up papers being printed and just an unsettled atmosphere , mates in the army and police have since said something was going on in the background but can't say more .

[hopetobehappy]

Mainly because we're an island. The last two world wars were both fought in Europe, and any future conventional war has mainly been planned for in Europe.

[StealthPolarBear]

Not a challenge as I know nothing about this stuff but why do you sound so sure?

[hopetobehappy]

Just to reassure the Op, I don't think it could ever, in the UK come to a point where we'd have foreign hostile troops in our country going round torturing, raping and killing.

[Pluto30]

Yeah, OP, you can't say peoples' concerns for your mental health are unfounded when you openly admitted that you want to get a gun so that you can shoot yourself and your DC. That's genuinely concerning.

[StStrattersOfMN]

Not wanting to sound rude, but you were the one discussing getting a gun with your DH, so you could shoot your DC and yourself. Thinking things like that in the depths of an insomnia filled night = normalish, actual discussion with partner, not normal.

I'm another survivor of the 80's, global warming will get us before WWIII, and I have my doubts about that being scaremongering.

[StealthPolarBear]

That was to bumps point. We're not stupid.

[StealthPolarBear]

I don't think anyone's disagreeing with that

[Pluto30]

And yes, bumpety is correct. We've been at war for ages now. It predates 9/11, actually. We've been involved in conflict in the Middle East since the 1990s.

[Pluto30]

alias Trump is stupid, but not stupid enough to think that nuclear war would be anything other than a death sentence for the US.

[bumpetybumpbumpbump]

Does anyone realise we are already at war and have been for ages ?? When we look back it will be clearer .

The work the security services do every day to protect us is immense I am sure .

[aliasjoey]

Previous near misses where we nearly had a nuclear war (Cuban missile crisis aside) were usually mistakes or misinterpretations.... what are the chances this could happen again, but this time with Trump in charge, it gets followed through?

[Teddy1970]

Does anyone remember the early 80s having an atmosphere of an impending attack? This might sound dramatic but It was on TV everywhere, even comedy programes tried to make light of a possible war, The Young Ones, Not the Nine O'Clock News, Only Fools and Horses, and then John Lennon released the single "Imagine", it was on everyones minds at the time I guess..

[TellMeStraight]

You just told me to go and 'see someone'!!

A previous poster said the same and I gave them a very reasonable and polite response. Forgive me if come page 6 it's gets a bit irritating.