To think that preparing for war with Russia is total madness?

[Newbutoldfather]

General Patrick Sanders, our top general, warns troops ‘must be prepared to fight Russia in the battlefield’.

There is increasing acceptance of the idea that we could somehow fight a limited war with Russia. I just don’t believe this.

Leaving aside that our military consists of a toy battleship and an old man with a wooden gun (only slight hyperbole), have people wished nukes away?

I am very curious as to what this war would look like. Are they envisaging that there would be a limited battlefield and a list of allowed weapons and that the loser would shake hands and walk away?

I think we are perilously close to the total annihilation of Homo sapiens (which would happen in a nuclear war). We, meaning the west and, especially, the increasingly jingoistic UK, need to dial back the rhetoric and look for a way to find peace, even if we have to compromise on our principles.

Interested in what people think and whether people do think that AIBU.

Too right!

Having lived through the scary parts of the Cold War, I used to be anti-nuclear. Then I grew up and understood that MAD (mad as it is) does actually keep the peace.

It has early stages, though, and we should've assisted Ukraine much more strongly from the start. Better late than never. Also, much as there are other things I'd like us to spend money on, our self-disarmament has been bloody stupid and we need to beef up our own forces as well as making sure we're doing enough for NATO.

I wonder what life under Russian rule would be like 🤔 police brutality and corruption, really bad driving, misery, bad roads, drunkenness, crap housing, falling life expectancy and cabbage soup. Not that much different to here really. Apart from the soup perhaps. I wonder if they'd be able to get kids back into school.

The British Navy is the best in the world
In 1823, but that ship has sailed.

Really weird thread, this. It’s got bot farm vibes mixed with the ravings of crazy hermits.

It has sailed, but we have better ones now.

They are better, but the British Navy are #9 in the world, not the best in the world.

https://www.wdmmw.org/ranking.php

Who are you calling a crazy hermit? I went out twice last week!

The bots are ramping things up due to all the talk of war and it's also indicative of how badly Russia are doing. They always increase here when things are going south.

Understandably a lot of us feel very scared about the idea of a war and it seems to bring out a bit of a raving and denialist quality to some of the discussions.

I shared this before which I find a quite rational take https://theconversation.com/as-the-worlds-conflicts-spread-should-you-be-digging-a-bunker-how-to-think-about-the-future-of-war-221418

There's a reason Russia wanted to peel the UK off from Europe in terns of Brexit.

They interfered with the election didn't they? They'll be desperate for trump to be elected again.

Yes, Russia interfered with the Brexit vote. Separating the weak (U.K.) from the herd (EU).

Hasn’t Russia always seen EU expansion as a threat, especially as the EU now borders Russia in places? I got the impression (possibly from reading Prisoners of Geography), that Russia feels insecure without a buffer zone of subservient countries surrounding it.

I can definitely see Russia welcoming the weakening/break up of the EU, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Russia is particularly interested in the UK.

When you say "interfered with the election", what do you mean by that?

Do you think they tampered with the votes?

Only afaik Russia does have anti-democratic misinformation campaigns run with varying degrees of efficiency that target social media in the UK, USA and other countries (as well as in Russia itself!) but it doesn't physically involve itself in elections or referenda. There's been loads of enquiries into this.

Yes, social media misinformation campaigns. They do the same in the US elections don't they?

Christ! If some of you knew what the armed forces are doing in,day in and day out, and have been doing for years, you’d be having kittens.

Ooo, do tell 👀

Yes, they do it in various countries. Some of them are quite organised - apparently the one targeting Brexit was not (even the Russians couldn't be arsed with Brexit lol!) but they were pretty committed on the anti-Clinton front. Most analysis shows though that even that didn't make much of a difference - there was a fuck-tonne of other noise around that particular election, for starters.

Influencing the minds of voters and campaigning politicians with disinformation and propaganda is a form of interference:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/21/britain-report-russian-interference-brexit/

I think it's the opposite. The UK usually backs the USA and persuades other European powers to get involved. On Russia the UK is hawkish. The UK also takes national defense seriously unlike much of western Europe. Tactically peeling off the UK was assumed to be good for Russia.

Peeling off the U.K. was good for Russia. U.K. is weak economically as a result and this will inevitably further weaken its military power. Seriousness alone isn’t enough, also need extra billions to keep strong national security.

U.K. is more dependent on the goodwill of the USA as well by leaving the EU.

Influencing the minds of voters and campaigning politicians with disinformation and propaganda is a form of interference

Of course, but it's not indicative of a false election result.

I'm more concerned about the lies our own politicians told in the run-up to the Brexit vote tbh, although given that B Johnson sold London to Russia years ago while he was mayor it's only to be expected that the russkies would have his fat sweaty back.

They've done a lot more damage in Eastern Europe where the misinformation campaigns are more full on.

It would not shock me to find Russian money in British politicians’ and public officials’ accounts. The report I linked said the biggest problem was British intelligence not even properly investigating the allegations. You get that sort of willful blindness, nothing to see here, case open and shut when the government officials that control the intelligence agencies are corrupted/paid bribes at the highest levels. So, the election result could be false, but we will never know because the investigation into the extent of Russian interference was quietly shelved.

I'd rather go down fighting than let a murdering dictator do whatever he likes

@BabaBarrio oh yes absolutely - I think when you get to talking about the kind of wealth that people like Johnson, Sunak etc have, it has nothing to do with nation states. And all of them were quite happy with what Putin was up to for the best part of twenty years, right until they weren't.

But, for all the fevered typing in St Petersburg, that bloody bus did more damage.

It would be crazy NOT to prepare for it, as the UK is a member of NATO and obligated to defend any NATO nation attacked. There have been at least two cases, since the full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when it has looked like Russia or Belarus might have fired weapons on Poland. Every NATO member knows it could easily come to a land battle - not in Ukraine, but in any neighboring NATO country.