This is not what I want to be reading in the news:
President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday formally lowered the threshold for Russia’s use of its nuclear weapons, a move that follows U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russian territory with American-supplied longer-range missiles.
The new doctrine allows for a potential nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power.
I really wish I could live in an underground bunker in Idaho for the next few months.
Well at least you won’t suffer if you stay near Seattle because it will be over in a flash…
Yeah… I know.
Well maybe it’s time to find your way home Brother…
I’m working on it.
Work Harder 😉
Ya, Putin sees the light at the end of the tunnel on this one. He’s trying to hold back clown-world that desperately needs WWIII.
We just need to pray our ATACMS don’t drop on something Putin can’t control his war hawks over.
None the less, everyone knows once they start, it’s game on and over in 24 hours. Which no one but clown-world wants.
Still, one might consider staying out of “hot zones”, not the net 80 days or so.
In order of nuclear deterrence to work you have to convince an adversary you are rigidly sane and completely crazy at the same time. It is not an accident that the acronym is MAD. Back when the Soviet Union was still around, I read all the basic literature on the subject and that was one of the weirdest rabbit holes I have ever been down.
Brought up to date, you have to ask questions suppose Putin blows up Podunk, Ukraine where the our rockets are based, killing a couple of dozen American “technicians” Do we trade all of America for Podunk in an all out strike? Or do we stand down or blow up some Russian logistics base in Russia or Ukraine. Ukraine would be better geopolitically but I am assuming the the Ukrainians would have an issue. The game has many twists and turns some of which end in the destruction of civilization.
I agree on the complexity and difficulty of playing all the cards close enough to correct to get a reasonable outcome.
That’s what makes it “interesting.”
And for me to want to be in an underground bunker in Idaho.
Well, let’s not be too hasty here. A limited – very limited – nuclear exchange may offer opportunities not available otherwise.
Consider: The PTB in the U.S. (aka “Dementia, Inc.”) authorize technologically-assisted negative incursions into Russian territory, such being not possible without Dementia, Inc.’s assistance, and unspoken, but tacit, approval (as in “we gave them to you, showed you how to operate them, provided the technical support to do it for you, but no, we aren’t doing it, nossir, not at all, that ain’t us….).
Russia, upset by such events, promises severe repercussions.
A makes B possible, which leads to C, and then D happens. Russia then fulfills its committment to supply those severe repercussions.
Now, this is where it gets interesting. IF those ‘severe repercussions’ are performed in a manner that: 1) Shows “we are really f**king serious about this s**t but we are not so crazy as to “repercuss” in a manner that drives the opposition to similar actions” then a limited demonstration of “will to repercuss” just might satisfy the equation, as in “we used the tiniest functional canned sunshine available on the place where you generated that incursion, so now you know just how f**king serious we are about this s**t.”
IIRC, when we unleashed the first trans-national use of Canned Sunshine (TM) it was 15 Kilotons worth about 3200 feet above downtown Hiroshima. Which roasted the entire city into oblivion. Just as a completely random thought, what would be the minimum size suitable for doing the same thing to, say 30 or 40 square blocks of downtown Washington, D.C.? Sure, some history gets…well…”more historical,” and places like the White House and Capitol buildings would exist only on picture postcards, but, hey. those are only buildings and we can bulid new ones….someplace else, and this time incorporate air conditioning and indoor plumbing into the build instead of century-later add-ons.
Consider the benefits: Dementia, Inc. shows off American technical know-how, What’s-His-Name – Biden’s money laundry guy in Ukraine – gets to prance about acting all proud and powerful, Russia gets to show “how really f**king serious” they are, if it happens mid-morning on an average Wednesday before January 3rd “Congress” can get sworn in and start meeting in, say, the convention center in Dallas, our President-elect’s assignment for Musk and Ramaswamy gets much easier, no one has to complain about Washington Post biased reporting any more, tax support for NPR and PBS ceases to be an issue, politicians still get to posture and pontificate, the domestic and international cancer that is D.C. gets excised, and in a few generations there will be some nice public parks alongside the Potomac. House values will decline precipitously in neighboring Maryland and Virginia, but that’s going to happen anyway when Trump & Co. downsize the fed dot gov, and some of those folks (more likely, their great-grandchldren, it’ll take a while for the radiation to subside….) can make a buck organizing tours of the crater.
Otherwise, maybe there are some large excavators and a few concrete fabricators who can provide an alternative. Might not be a bad idea, anyway; the space can always be used as storage, or as a sub-sub-basement rec room (any idea if the Salmon River area is on any targeting maps? If so , maybe add a couple more “subs-” to the below-basement construction requirements).
My understanding (little more than rumors) is that war games of these sorts of limited applications of Canned Sunshine never remain limited.
The outcomes of the war games are determined by the players and we have little understanding of the real players on the other side.
There is a theory that the Russians would never hit DC so as to make our recovery harder. Think about how much the EPA would screw up reconstruction.
Also if the goal is limited war, you want to leave the enemy’s command and control structure intact to decrease the possibility of it spinning out of control.
No need to go after DC if there ain’t hardly nothing left to give orders to.
Only thing that would be coming out of DC is congressmen looking for something to eat.