We may not be going into WW3 with Russia over Syria after all.

[The Grand Nudger]

As I already mentioned...I'm not worried about Red Scare shit.  The world has changed since then.  The most credible threat of nukes is not from the Russian state, but from actors who may have gotten their hands on a nuke, maybe from the russian state (but honestly more likely to be a low yield homebrew POS dirty bomb)..who knows, and seek to detonate it in the middle of a city after having carted it there with their own two mitts.

That's the threat to watch, down on the ground, in city streets...not in the sky, or in the past.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Russia can turn every major city in the U.S. to glass in a matter of minutes. It doesn't really matter what their gdp is.

It does, however, matter what their desire to survive means. MAD is still in effect, "the End of the Cold War" notwithstanding.

[A Theist]

As I already mentioned...I'm not worried about Red Scare shit.  The world has changed since then.  The most credible threat of nukes is not from the Russian state, but from actors who may have gotten their hands on a nuke, maybe from the russian state (but honestly more likely to be a low yield homebrew POS dirty bomb)..who knows, and seek to detonate it in the middle of a city after having carted it there with their own two mitts.

That's the threat to watch, down on the ground, in city streets...not in the sky, or in the past.

That's certainly a scenario to think about. That maybe a radicalized lone wolf who has the material and knowledge to set off a dirty bomb in a major city. I really don't think Russia wants a nuclear confrontation with the U.S. But, I still think that North Korea is our major concern. Although NOKO may not have the delivery system just yet to hit the U.S. mainland they do have the capability to hit our troops stationed in SOKO, not to mention the 10+ million people living in Seoul.

[The Grand Nudger]

You misunderstand the purpose of those systems.  It's in service of juche, the thing holding the masses in thrall to Kims family, not for shooting at murica.  See...what happens, if that happens...is that poor little Kimmy is no longer the king of nothing. From the outside, sure, he seems cray cray...but we need to understand that he -has- to act that way, to say that shit. The ruling clique is only slightly less a prisoner to the ideology than their serfs are. The trick, for them, is to maintain the fiction without ever delivering on it.

Remind you of anyone?

[Chad32]

People keep saying that when someone launches a nuke, then horrible stuff is going to happen. Really? We have yet to design something that can stop a nuke from doing devastating damage to us? You'd think that would be top priority for the military.

[Anomalocaris]

People keep saying that when someone launches a nuke, then horrible stuff is going to happen. Really? We have yet to design something that can stop a nuke from doing devastating damage to us? You'd think that would be top priority for the military.

There is a reason why intelligent people thinks Reagan was an ignoramus and a baffoon. Stoping ICBMs is sufficiently difficult that people who have studied the problem but does not stand to pocket futile R&D trillions can see it would take a lot more than just some trillions we can ill afford and heighened priority to actually stop ICBMS instead of just talking dreamily about stopping ICBMS.

[CapnAwesome]

Russia can turn every major city in the U.S. to glass in a matter of minutes. It doesn't really matter what their gdp is.

It does, however, matter what their desire to survive means. MAD is still in effect, "the End of the Cold War" notwithstanding.

Sure. But to say that Russia isn't a threat because of a struggling economy is nonsense. They didn't have a good economy during the cold war either, but people were certainly worried about it then. It's also a country with a huge population, right on the border of Europe. Also your average Russian is way tougher than your average American or European, who have been getting softer and softer with each generation.

[Thumpalumpacus]

It does, however, matter what their desire to survive means. MAD is still in effect, "the End of the Cold War" notwithstanding.

Sure. But to say that Russia isn't a threat because of a struggling economy is nonsense. They didn't have a good economy during the cold war either, but people were certainly worried about it then. It's also a country with a huge population, right on the border of Europe. Also your average Russian is way tougher than your average American or European, who have been getting softer and softer with each generation.

I suppose it depends on what conception of WWIII we're talking about, conventional or nuclear.

[Sterben]

A war has been going, it's just not a war with traditional weapons. The battle field is the internet, when you look at a hacker you see a solider with no allegiance to any power.I'm not referring to a government hacker either, they are neutered dogs who have no sense of freedom. The real talent lies in the free lancers, ones without countries, laws, and boundaries.

This war being fought under your nose has been raging since the very birth of the internet. The ones who are able to claim it controls the future of mankind as we know it. Don't let the media keep you distracted from this fact. If there is going to be a war, the best way to go about it is through the internet. One could shut down power plants, shut down a satellite cause massive damage without even firing a single bullet. The panic would cause a society to panic and could potentially cause a lot of deaths in countries. Money is the glue that holds our fragile way of life together. If we lose money, we would in a major world crisis in which we may not recover from.

[Minimalist]

It does, however, matter what their desire to survive means. MAD is still in effect, "the End of the Cold War" notwithstanding.

Sure. But to say that Russia isn't a threat because of a struggling economy is nonsense. They didn't have a good economy during the cold war either, but people were certainly worried about it then. It's also a country with a huge population, right on the border of Europe. Also your average Russian is way tougher than your average American or European, who have been getting softer and softer with each generation.

Nervos belli, pecuniam infinitam.

(The sinews of war, infinite money.)

Cicero