and we're sliding inexorably into a world war, don't you?
It's strange how calm and accepting everyone is.
Pucker up your árseholes, boys. It's armageddon for us all.
and we're sliding inexorably into a world war, don't you?
It's strange how calm and accepting everyone is.
Pucker up your árseholes, boys. It's armageddon for us all.
Do you not think Trump may be bluffing? I'd have thought he'd have struck by now.
Apparently May is going to contribute 1 x RAF Voyager for air to air refueling
Also, Putin isn't going to shoot an F-22 out of the sky because 1) he doesn't have the minerals and 2) because he doesn't have the resources to do so.
Well, with his latest Twitter outburst I rather suspect that the bluffing option has been defenestrated!
""Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!""
The Donald has realised - as Lord Palmerston did 150 years before him - that "The policy and practice of the Russian Government has always been to push forward its encroachments as fast and as far as the apathy or want of firmness of other Governments would allow it to go, but always to stop and retire when it met with decided resistance and then to wait for the next favourable opportunity."
Which, of course, is an endorsement of the idea of pushing back against Putin as Trump is doing and as Obama singularly failed to do.
It's certainly a description of the foreign policy of expansionist powers. There aren't many such powers left, however - at least in the West. Russia has always been that sort of power because it perceives itself as having a sphere of influence and control far beyond its borders that includes nebulous ethnic (ie Slavic) and religious (ie Orthodox) components. In addition, being where it is, Russia has always had a massive chip on its shoulder because it is seen (justifiably) as backward and uncivilised by its western European neighbours. This inferiority complex has made it aggressive in its dealings with those neighbours and its relationships with them uncomfortable.
Not really. He isn't a serious global threat in the sense that the USSR was. He's simply a posturing strong man type who needs to be made to wind his fvcking neck in.
Never forget when talking about Russia and its capabilities that - for all its geographical size - Russia's economy is less than half the size of the UK's. Russia's economic capacity for doing anything much more than posturing in military terms is virtually zero.