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World War Three

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fowler9

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I love the idea that Russia would have RAF Woodvale on a map of places to nuke first.
It's bizarre isn't it. Ha ha. Apparently true though. Not so long ago Russia released a list of places their missiles were programmed to hit. I think an agreement had been made whereby remaining ICBM's and SLBM's no longer had permanent targets programmed in.
Funnily enough I went cycling past Finningley last Sunday and the Vulcan bomber was outside, just west of the terminal buildings. Hopefully Russia knows it's not in use now and that all a Tactical Nuclear Strike on Finningley would disrupt is the several dozen tourists drinking in the morning at the Wetherspoons there :s
Used to be a brilliant Airshow there. Saw The Russian Kmights there which was apparently the first time a Russian display team performed in the UK. I remember the SU-27's taxying past and some of the pilots had red stars on their helmets. Very big and very loud. Impressive.
 
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Hornet

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I've far more important things to be worried about, than to be concerned about Nuclear Annihilation. (Mind you the Russians will get my full support if they target HMRC, if the thieving sods don't repay me my overdue Tax Rebate).
 

PeterY

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The first thing my dad said to me this morning "WW3" and he lived thought WW2.
 

najaB

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Try under four minutes. It's twenty minutes for Russia to the US.
In the days when there were IRBMs in Eastern Europe, yes. These days it would be ICBMs on a sub-optimal trajectory from mainland Russia so more like 10 to 15 minutes.
 

najaB

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I think an agreement had been made whereby remaining ICBM's and SLBM's no longer had permanent targets programmed in.
I think that was one of the provisions of START or NewSTART - doesn't take long to reload them though.

Edit: I was mistaken, it was a separate agreement between Clinton and Yeltsin in 1994.
 
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Busaholic

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Does that mean the earth is flat after all?
A lot of Trump supporters apparently believe so. therefore it must be true. I'm not sure Jacob Rees-Mogg has ever been explicitly questioned on this either.
 

TheNewNo2

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I don't think WW3 is all that likely, but it's a lot more likely now than it was two years ago, or twenty years ago. I wouldn't be hugely surprised to see a nuke used in anger though...

As for what was said about WW3 being ongoing since 1998, you have a point there. The nature of modern war isn't big armies fighting, it's about guerilla war and terrorist bombings. They're mostly not in the West, so we don't notice it that much.

That said, remember the old quote that "I don't know what weapons world war three will be fought with, but world war four will be fought with sticks and rocks".
 

najaB

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A lot of Trump supporters apparently believe so. therefore it must be true.
I don't doubt that a lot of flat-Earth believers are also Trump supporters (he promotes conspiracy theories), but I'm not sure the link works the other way.
 

Domh245

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The nature of modern war isn't big armies fighting, it's about guerilla war and terrorist bombings.

As a 20 year old guy, I'm just quite glad that the nature of war has moved on from sending wave after wave of men to the front line!
 

nlogax

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Look. We've been the same misunderstanding away from an unintended start to WWIII for the last forty years. This local hilarity will make no difference to the general mish-mash. See you here, same time, same place next year.
 

najaB

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We've been the same misunderstanding away from an unintended start to WWIII for the last forty years.
I disagree. I grew up in W Germany during latter stages of the Cold War. In those days we knew who the enemy was and we knew where the attack would come from. It was, for all intents and purposes, a very stable environment.

Over the course of the last 40 years India, Pakistan, North Korea and (most probably) Israel have developed nuclear weapons, the USSR has dissolved and new power blocks have developed. None of the current leaders in Washington, Pyongyang and Moscow can be described as statesmen in the way that their predecessors have and dependence on the global Internet means that both state and non-state actors have a much lower barrier to entry to starting a chain of events that lead to armed conflict.
 

nlogax

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Beacons of media fear and worry. For now I sincerely doubt they provide any real means to instil doubt or concern into any right-minded individual.

Look. As much as the world appears to be f***ed up right now, we need to maintain some faith in collective sanity. Else we lose ours. Your choice.
 

GusB

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Beacons of media fear and worry. For now I sincerely doubt they provide any real means to instil doubt or concern into any right-minded individual.

Look. As much as the world appears to be f***ed up right now, we need to maintain some faith in collective sanity. Else we lose ours. Your choice.
There was much fear and worry when I grew up during the cold war years. It didn't really affect our daily lives, but there was always a little nagging doubt in the back of your mind. When one of your parents disappears for a week or so "on exercise" and comes back home in full combat gear, it did bring home the fact that we were living on the edge. WW3 was always there.
When the Berlin wall came down and the various former Soviet-bloc countries returned from the "dark side", there was a wee bit of hope that there might just be world peace in my lifetime, but then we decided that Saddam was the Enemy, and we got a whole new set of Baddies instead of those pesky Russians.
I'm pragmatic enough to realise that my demise will likely be a result of my own unhealthy life choices, but as long as there are still nuclear weapons in existence and leaders such as Trump, Putin (and May) around, we're definitely not out of the woods.
 

Cowley

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There was much fear and worry when I grew up during the cold war years. It didn't really affect our daily lives, but there was always a little nagging doubt in the back of your mind. When one of your parents disappears for a week or so "on exercise" and comes back home in full combat gear, it did bring home the fact that we were living on the edge. WW3 was always there.
When the Berlin wall came down and the various former Soviet-bloc countries returned from the "dark side", there was a wee bit of hope that there might just be world peace in my lifetime, but then we decided that Saddam was the Enemy, and we got a whole new set of Baddies instead of those pesky Russians.
I'm pragmatic enough to realise that my demise will likely be a result of my own unhealthy life choices, but as long as there are still nuclear weapons in existence and leaders such as Trump, Putin (and May) around, we're definitely not out of the woods.
Pretty much how I feel Gus.
Yes these people seem to be the enemy of life as we know it. But in all honesty I’m probably my own worst enemy from the point of view of shortening my own time on this earth...
Which is why I really ought to get to sleep at 3:24am. ;)
 

najaB

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There was much fear and worry when I grew up during the cold war years. It didn't really affect our daily lives, but there was always a little nagging doubt in the back of your mind.
The difference was that during the Cold War the fact that it was 'all or nothing' between the Societ Bloc and the West meant that it was pretty sure to be nothing.

The Warm Peace that's developed since the early 2000's has been characterised by non-state and non-aligned states for whom inflicting a bloody nose is a viable action.

While, initially, that seems to make total nuclear war less likely in recent years it's been combined with leaders who ask questions like 'Why do we have nukes if we don't use them?' - and not as a rhetorical point. So it's easy to see (to me at least) that a slippery slope into war is more likely now than it was, say, 10 years ago.
 
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