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The World is on the brink!

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kennas said:
The world is catching on to this confluence of geopolitical and social upheaval. We had MAD as a security blanket to rely on for no WWIII which I think still holds true for the prospect of 'total war', but this is adding up to long, long term proxy war. Let's hope the nukes stay in the armory.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...t/news-story/708f76752b9ca0631b8598e7773a6cf8
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With the arsenals that's out there, all that stands between a Nuclear Winter is a rouge general with access to the red button.

Saw it in Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove. :eek: Where Jack Ripper thought to shut his base, send a wing of B-52s into Russia and then inform the president he better get ready to follow through with all they got else the Soviets will retaliate and America is all doomed.

In case we think it's just a movie... Have heard that in real life there's at least 4 instances of the world about to go to heck due to wrong/malfunction signals or intentional provocation where, thank all gods, there happen to be a clearer head at the moment to stop it going nuclear.
 
The next WW might have already started with the proxy war going on in the Middle East between the West and Russia but it's so complicated with Islamic State that it could go anywhere.

Now China and Russia are doing joint exercises while the US, Japan, Sth Korea and allies are training together around the East and South China Sea...

Then, Russia might just tip everyone over the edge with their encroachments into old Russian Empire territory in the Baltics. Already pushed the boundaries in the Ukraine and got away with it, just. If the US had a more Hawkish leadership at the time, who knows.

What's next:

http://www.news.com.au/world/europe...t/news-story/aabc3af37bc0630d1636ac5a0435ac6a
 
kennas said:
Then, Russia might just tip everyone over the edge with their encroachments into old Russian Empire territory in the Baltics. Already pushed the boundaries in the Ukraine and got away with it, just. If the US had a more Hawkish leadership at the time, who knows.

What's next:

http://www.news.com.au/world/europe...t/news-story/aabc3af37bc0630d1636ac5a0435ac6a
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Trump leadership might nullify Russia/US tensions (although he is back flipping on promises)

US / China will be the one to watch. If US puts tariffs on trade with china, it may start the slide. Asia is probably more volatile then we would like to admit.
 
luutzu said:
With the arsenals that's out there, all that stands between a Nuclear Winter is a rouge general with access to the red button.

Saw it in Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove. :eek: Where Jack Ripper thought to shut his base, send a wing of B-52s into Russia and then inform the president he better get ready to follow through with all they got else the Soviets will retaliate and America is all doomed.

In case we think it's just a movie... Have heard that in real life there's at least 4 instances of the world about to go to heck due to wrong/malfunction signals or intentional provocation where, thank all gods, there happen to be a clearer head at the moment to stop it going nuclear.
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I drank with a lot of US generals and high rankings back in the 90's. Talk about some war thirsty attitudes. Everyone had an interesting story though
 
moXJO said:
I drank with a lot of US generals and high rankings back in the 90's. Talk about some war thirsty attitudes. Everyone had an interesting story though
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The most disturbing I had whispered in my ear was by a Jewish fella who insisted his mates in Israel had an itchy finger on the button during the second gulf war. No telling how close that came.
 
Tisme said:
The most disturbing I had whispered in my ear was by a Jewish fella who insisted his mates in Israel had an itchy finger on the button during the second gulf war. No telling how close that came.
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Don't they have itchy fingers all day, everyday?

They took out a few Iranian nuclear scientists; then took out Iran's IT system... all the egg an Iranian response so that the US would go in, take out the Mullahs and keep the entire region "peaceful" for itchy fingers and lawn mowing.
 
moXJO said:
I drank with a lot of US generals and high rankings back in the 90's. Talk about some war thirsty attitudes. Everyone had an interesting story though
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Servants get to drink at the adult table? :D

Saw a John Pilger doco where he said US high rankers consider Australian their... what's the word for Indian coolies. Is that true?

You know how we like to believe we're their "partner", we're not really are we?
 
In WW11 we were UKs a**wipes, it was only that an Aussie general ordered troops home and then to PNG that we were not invaded.

The UK could not have cared less about us colonials, which is why we should be a republic IMO

I imagine the USA would only help us if it suited them to fight the war on our soil rather than theirs. They would send over some hardware though, they have plenty to spare and would love to test it in real conditions on real people so it could report back.

They have lots of drones that need further testing :(

In spite of all this, I do think we need Allies and the USA is probably the best fit to our beliefs and lifestyle.
 
macca said:
In spite of all this, I do think we need Allies and the USA is probably the best fit to our beliefs and lifestyle.
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Either that or develop our own nuclear deterrent so we don't have to worry about people like Trump. If Israel can do it I don't see why we can't. I think Japan will probably do it as well so maybe we can form a strategic alliance with them.
 
luutzu said:
Servants get to drink at the adult table? :D

Saw a John Pilger doco where he said US high rankers consider Australian their... what's the word for Indian coolies. Is that true?

You know how we like to believe we're their "partner", we're not really are we?
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They love us, but- yeah we are viewed as the token effort. We would joke that our navy consisted of a tugboat with 3 guys standing on deck hurling bad language at the enemy.
Their military would defend us all day everyday. The politicians would leave us to rot
 
moXJO said:
They love us, but- yeah we are viewed as the token effort. We would joke that our navy consisted of a tugboat with 3 guys standing on deck hurling bad language at the enemy.
Their military would defend us all day everyday. The politicians would leave us to rot
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More love than Mother Britannia during WW2 then?

I like Paul Keating's view than Howard's on the relationship. Any alliance is a good thing, but too much reliance on that great protector and we'd be screwed the moment they're busy elsewhere. We might be up a creek on that canoe with no paddle.

 
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SirRumpole said:
Either that or develop our own nuclear deterrent so we don't have to worry about people like Trump. If Israel can do it I don't see why we can't. I think Japan will probably do it as well so maybe we can form a strategic alliance with them.
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Why not ey. We already got the nuclear test sites the Brits used in the 60s or whenever it was.

Japan is pretty much a colony of the US. Same with S.Korea and Australia.

Sure it's call a partnership and an alliance, but the way it's structured... well we're the luckier kind of colonies but one nonetheless.

Japan, so I heard, has been trying to repeal American influence and control. The PM that goes too far astray tend to get replace real smart... but efforts are being made by the Japs though. An example seems to be its push to nationalised those few rocks on the East China Sea. That give it excuse to ramp up its military. Though that could be with the approval of the US ally but yea, could go either way depends how to coin land.

Be hard for Japan to do much without invading some place... its fuel supplies, and practically most of its supplies, are at the mercy of those who control the high seas. That was part of the US grand strategy after WW2 - that Japan must not be the technological and economic hub of Asia - else it would mean Japan have practically won its war objectives anyway, and we can't have that.
 
Things turning nasty:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-worst-ever-meltdown-as-bull-market-shows-age

Global Bonds Suffer Worst Monthly Meltdown as $1.7 Trillion Lost
Garfield Clinton Reynolds and Wes Goodman
November 30, 2016 — 10:16 PM EST
The 30-year-old bull market in bonds looks to be ending with a bang.
Click to expand...

And back home, housing approvals down 24% the last 12 months. Combine that with growing unemployment from manufacturing and mining then the loss of jobs coming in the building industry will spell big issues for all of us.

Ha haaaarr, but we have Turnbull's "jobs and Growth x 100" and allowing tax breaks to the wealthy, so where's the problem Ralf
 
"where there's smoke there's fire" I have little doubt in spite of the source that there is a lot of truth here:

Make No Mistake: Russia Remains The Only Target Country Of NATO's Nuclear Weapons

Tyler Durden's picture
by Tyler Durden
Dec 6, 2016 2:00 AM
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Submitted by Brian Cloughley via Strategic-Culture.org,

Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States are the world’s five «nuclear weapons states », a description officially recognised in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which lays down that «each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices… »

It is apparent that the word ‘transfer’ involves ownership and not location, because the United States has transferred many nuclear weapons to countries which, although members of the US-NATO military alliance, are not nuclear weapons states. An analysis by the Nuclear Threat Initiative indicates that the US has positioned 160-200 B-61 nuclear warheads «at six bases in five NATO countries: Belgium (10-20), Germany (10-20), Italy (60-70), Netherlands (10-20), and Turkey (60-70) ».

According to a NATO statement of December 2015, «A number of NATO member countries contribute a dual-capable aircraft (DCA) capability to the Alliance. These aircraft are available for nuclear roles at various levels of readiness – the highest level of readiness is measured in weeks. In their nuclear role, the aircraft are equipped to carry nuclear bombs and personnel are trained accordingly ».

The claim that the readiness level is measured in weeks is intriguing, because, as indicated in the US-NATO Readiness Action Plan of October 2015, the entire alliance is gearing up for war against Russia and, among other blatantly provocative initiatives, is «Raising the readiness and capabilities of the Multinational Corps Northeast Headquarters in Szczecin, Poland and enhancing its role as a hub for regional cooperation ».

NATO’s policy of confrontation with Russia is causing some disquiet in western Europe, whose citizens are kept in the dark about the depth and demands of the military alliance to which their countries are committed, such as their aircraft being «equipped to carry nuclear bombs ». It is policy that the US B-61 nuclear weapons stored in Europe are delivered to targets by aircraft of the Belgian, Dutch, German and Italian air forces.

NATO declares that «Nuclear weapons are a core component of the Alliance’s overall capabilities for deterrence and defence alongside conventional and missile defence forces ». This strategy was approved at its 2012 Summit in Chicago, but had been evident for many years and had been continued in spite of the ending of the Cold War against the Soviet Union, a quarter of a century ago. Since then NATO has maintained a firm nuclear posture, but the question that was never asked in the post-Cold War years of NATO’s expansion towards Russia’s borders was «against whom are your nuclear weapons directed? »

There could be only one target country. What nation other than Russia could possibly interest the US-NATO military alliance? It is unlikely that the Brussels headquarters of NATO, the regional office of the Pentagon, is considering using nuclear weapons against any other country in the world. Even in the course of its catastrophic wars in Afghanistan and Libya it couldn’t have possibly considered a nuclear option.

Large numbers of US nuclear weapons systems were withdrawn from Europe at the end of the Cold War, but many remain, in the embrace of NATO, which Brussels uncompromisingly states will «remain a nuclear alliance » for «as long as nuclear weapons exist ».

At the manifestly anti-Russian NATO Summit in Warsaw in July it was noted by Arms Control that «Leaders of the 28 member countries of NATO strongly criticized Russian nuclear behaviour and reaffirmed the security role played by US nuclear weapons deployed in Europe. The sections of the alliance statement, or communiqué, devoted to nuclear weapons are nearly three times as long as those issued at the 2014 summit in the United Kingdom ». It is not surprising that Russia was criticised ”” but it is NATO that has been performing nuclear antics.

For many years before the 2016 Warsaw summit, NATO had been deploying aircraft all round Europe that were capable of delivering nuclear weapons against Russia. The only difference in recent times is that NATO, as recorded by Arms Control in June 2016, «is beefing up its nuclear posture. Polish F-16s participated for the first time on the sidelines of a NATO nuclear strike exercise at the end of 2014. As a clear signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin, four B-52 bombers flew a nuclear strike mission over the North Pole and the North Sea in a bomber exercise in April 2015. Although these planes did not have nuclear weapons on board, they were equipped to carry 80 nuclear air-launched cruise missiles ».

It goes further than that, because NATO’s most recent nuclear-associated deployments to the Baltic have involved aircraft from Belgium’s 10th Tactical Wing which is based at Kleine Brogel Air Base and flies US-supplied F-16 nuclear-capable strike aircraft. NATO reported that four of them are currently conducting missions from Ämari Air Base in Estonia, in order «to guard the Baltic skies against unauthorised overflights » and that their duties included «intercepting Russian aircraft flying in international airspace at the Baltic borders ».

According to NATO, the Mission of the 10th Tactical Wing is «to generate air power effects in the full operational spectrum by putting into action the best combat ready people and equipment to execute or support both conventional and nuclear operations in a joint, national or multinational environment, anytime and anywhere, in the most proficient, safe and efficient manner ». So it sends four of 10 Wing’s nuclear-capable F-16s, flown by nuclear-delivery trained pilots to Estonia to guard the Baltic skies.

In Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia the Alliance has established «NATO Force Integration Units » which are advanced military headquarters whose Mission is «to improve cooperation and coordination between NATO and national forces, and prepare and support exercises and any deployments needed ». The relentless expansion of US-NATO forces right up to Russia’s borders continues apace, with formation of a «new standing Joint Logistic Support Group Headquarters, to support deployed forces ».

NATO is on a war footing, and has made it clear that «nuclear weapons are a core component of the Alliance’s overall capabilities ». The Belgian F-16 deployments, deliberately and provocatively in a most sensitive area on Russia’s borders, together with creation of advanced military control organisations in eight countries, have been authorised and greeted with approval by western governments whose citizens have little understanding that the west’s policy of confrontation is increasing tension day by day.

Russia has no intention of invading any of the Baltic nations, or, indeed, any other country. It has no interest whatever in becoming engaged in conflict that could result only in vast expenditure, no territorial gain of any value, and destruction of much-valued trade and other commercial arrangements.

Yet NATO’s nuclear capabilities are to be boosted by an $8 billion upgrade to the B-61 nuclear bombs held in the US and five other NATO nations. This escalation in nuclear capabilities is consistent with NATO’s deployment of nuclear-capable aircraft to countries on Russia’s borders, and it can be hoped only that next year Washington will call a halt to the escalating confrontation caused by a military organisation that the President-elect perceptively called «obsolete ».
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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-...ins-only-target-country-natos-nuclear-weapons
 
explod said:
"where there's smoke there's fire" I have little doubt in spite of the source that there is a lot of truth here:



http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-...ins-only-target-country-natos-nuclear-weapons
Click to expand...

Why are these psychos playing with our world like that?

NATO has been war gaming in Poland or just West of the Ukraine earlier this year. The war in the Ukraine is still going on right? Just we haven't heard, like Yemen.

If you're Russia, what would you do. Just let a superpower and its allies move right next door? You'd want some buffer room; want some extra few minutes of warning... you would never allow your potential worst enemy to practise and gear up right next door. I mean, Stalin permit that in WW2 and look what Hitler did.


You probably heard that Trump's call to Taiwan wasn't accidental. It was planned and thought about for a couple weeks.

So there's a bunch of wars in the ME. Libya is still being blown the bits. Egypt is now cool since the US put a more understanding guy in charge. Somalia just got underway... there's planning for war in Eastern Europe for "defence" against Russian aggression

... and the president-elect thought to start screwing around with China while all these are happening.

Divde to conquer does not mean divide the world into different fronts and take on all of it at once, right?
 

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