Kremlin Apologist or Useful Idiot ? (or maybe I just don't want to die in a nuclear holocaust...)

Never did finish/post piece I intended on Russia & US Elections, but the Russian bear does still loom even larger than usual in Western political discourse, so I should probably say something, even as my suspicion that I may eventually end up regretting defending Russia grows...

I'll start thusly...As a Westerner I don't particularly fear Vladimir Putin...at all.  The man some want to paint as a Siberian candidate, soon to be POTUS Trump, a thin-skinned mentally deranged narcissist bully and confessed sexual predator OTOH...That sumbitch in control of not just the most powerful military of the planet, but also in possession of the codes to the US nuclear arsenal fucking terrifies me.  Why the difference ?  Because one, I judge on his past behaviour to be a rational actor, whilst the other...well, his words and actions rather speak for themselves.

I was vaguely hopeful up until the general election even that Trump, who prides himself on his unpredictability, might surprise us, that the incompetence & recklessness shown during the campaign might turn out to have been an act, but at this point, listening to commentators on the BBC mere days before inauguration still holding out promise that he can change, and insisting that we should give him a chance, give him the benefit of the doubt, I have do ask What are they smoking ?  Will the chattering classes still six months from now, eighteen months from now still be denying the obvious ?  That the man is exactly who he has shown himself to be, the last two years of the campaign...The last seven decades of his life ?  FFS !

Anyways...Putin...Russia...I've written here before on what I think about/how I feel about events in South Ossetia, in Ukraine & Crimea.  How I feel that Russia's geopolitical strategy is, certainly from their point of view, primarily defensive, and an attempt through fostering frozen conflicts, to establish buffer-zones between themselves, and what they see as Western encroachment/encirclement.  And it's a smart strategy.  Russia, despite what the USSR may or may not have been, and despite attempts at modernisation, is likely not as powerful militarily as they would have us believe, and even before falls in the price of oil & natural gas*, hardly an economic powerhouse.

What does it cost Russia to maintain frozen conflicts around Georgia & Ukraine ?  How many military assets does Russia need to sustain a minimal presence in South Ossetia or Abkhazia ?  How much does it cost to fund a simmering uprising in the East of Ukraine, to send over the occasional advisers or armaments ?  The cost of fortifying and rebuilding the infrastructure of Crimea I would imagine are substantial, but of the territories in question, this is the only one of true militarily strategic value to the Russians, so I'd be surprised if they didn't spend there, whether they have the money or not.  It's an investment in the future.

And so long as the unrest simmers in Eastern Ukraine, so long as Ukraine declines to relinquish its claim to Crimea, Ukraine is stuck/frozen.  No EU membership for Ukraine, no invitation to join the NATO umbrella.  Same for Georgia so long as it maintains its claims to Abkhazia & South Ossetia.  (Perhaps another non-European nation will be the first instead to take the EU out of the actual European subcontinent...if the European experiment even survives the next few years...) Cheap & effective.

Know what wouldn't be cheap ?  Rolling tanks into fucking Poland.  Or even Kiev.  This is the fear, right ?  Not that Russia might have slightly more influence in its own backyard, might maintain a buffer holding back western expansion, not even that Russia might have some influence in Europe, but that...the Russkies are coming any moment now to kill us all !

What would it cost the Russians to invade, conquer, and then occupy European countries...or any other hostile territories** ?  To destroy entire armies, to maintain infrastructure, to suppress likely ongoing violent resistance ?  And, in the event of attacking NATO nations (there's the rub in a bit...), risking outright nuclear war ?  For what ?  'Cos evil Vladimir Putin ('Vlad the Impaler' as Russophobic idiot Randi Rhodes has taken to calling him) wants to rebuild the Soviet Empire ?!!  I have no doubt that Putin does want to restore what he sees as Russian pride, as Russian honour, as respect for Russia.  As no doubt, do most ordinary Russians.  But where is the evidence for imperial ambitions ?

I could be wrong, of course, but when has Putin acted irrationally, when has he shown himself to be anything other than the cool calculating pragmatist, acting in what he rationally sees as the best interest of the Russian people ?  Empires are expensive.  (And even the most successful, even the mightiest eventually collapse under their own weight.)  If Putin truly is the psychopath some would make him out to be, maybe he doesn't care, but there's no evidence of this.  Russia, economically, is still largely in a state of  contraction.  Putin can puff his flabby chest out all he want, but Russia is no Rome, no industrial Britain.  Russia, large as it is, doesn't have the resource-constraints of an island Britain or a Japan to drive it on to overseas conquests.  And it doesn't have the ideological motivation of a Nazi Germany or its own predecessor the USSR for empire-building, nor even the putative motivation of US empire in 'spreading democracy.'  Why, unless Putin is a complete maniac, would Russia be so stupid as to roll out the tanks into Europe ?

I meant it, that I don't fear Vladimir Putin.  I don't like the bastard, I don't think he's 'a good person', I despise his treatment of the LGBT community, his record on civil liberties, his targeting of political enemies, and I don't trust him as such, but I do on the basis of his past action see him as a rational actor.  As he moves the various (likely to him, disposable) pieces around on the chessboard, Putin is a ruthless player, but not so far as I can tell, ever a reckless one.

---

Now, for the caveat: Donald Fucking Trump.

I don't know to what degree the Russians may have worked with his campaign, or whether they might have some hold over him via bribery or blackmail.***  The fact that they not so much wanted him as President per se, but far more obviously Did Not Want Fucking Russophobic Warmonger Hillary, I don't blame them for, and the idea that of all the factors in the election, from Hillary's own inappropriateness as a candidate to the GOP suppression of the vote, we would focus on supposed Russian hacking as responsible for Hillary's loss, I find laughable.  And ooh, CIA goons, shock horror, RT is involved in producing state-propaganda, that tends to favour Russian interests over the West ?...No Shit !  But...if only via Paul Manafort, there do seem to be ties between the Donald and the Kremlin; there is reason for suspicion.

And, I have to say this...Trump potentially changes everything.  Trump is the wildest of wild cards, and could destabilise the global order seven ways from Sunday with any given tweet, never mind access to nukes.  And Trump is on the record, questioning the relevance or necessity of NATO.  Personally, I'm not sure myself whether NATO should have continued post Cold War****, but all my past calculations regarding the actions of Russia & other possible hostile powers have been posited at least in part on an assumption that the shared military & nuclear deterrent of NATO would hold.  Disbanding or neutering the NATO deterrent at this point in time would seems to me incredibly reckless (more so or less so than massing NATO forces on Russia's border as idiot Obama & the EU currently doing debatable), let alone in concert w/encouraging nuclear proliferation in the Far East & Middle East, but...idiot Americans decided to elect maniac Trump, and such ill-thought-out policies does he bring.

I still don't particularly fear Putin, but then again, I don't live in Eastern Europe...  I couldn't blame them back in the (well, still technically in for a few more days) relatively safe era of Obama for being wary of Putin & the Kremlin at least.  Back when I assumed the NATO alliance would endure well into the foreseeable future.  If that alliance goes away, or is significantly weakened...if the immediate threat of Mutually Assured Destruction is removed ?...

Well, I still don't think it likely that even then Putin would be stupid enough to invade & occupy the Baltic states, never mind Poland...Germany...  Empire, as I said, is Expensive.  But...some more localised disturbance, on the pretext say of protecting Russian citizens, Russian speakers, some version of the strategy of frozen conflicts ?  Some interference in the political process, an attempt to install political figures friendly to Russian interests...?  If I lived in the Baltics right now, in the soon-to-be Trump era, yeah, I'd be at least a little worried.  Live nowhere near, and I'm fucking terrified, but again, in my case,...of Donald, not Vlad.

The point of all of this ?  Nothing more than to set out where I stand on these issues currently, how I see events possibly playing out.  And, even in the era of the Cheeto King Trump, advising caution, that we treat Putin and the Russians generally as respected adversaries, and as proven rational actors, rather than as cartoon-supervillains.  Putin's hold on power won't last; Nor will Trump's.  One way or another, the earth will dawn on a day neither of said authoritarian arseholes hold sway over their respected peoples.  I'd rather the reason therefor were not the nuclear annihilation of all human civilisation.



* And if you believe that there wasn't a coordinated effort between the US & Saudi in this regard...

** Hint, hint...South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea...not only not hostile territory to Russia, but friendly.

*** If the CIA et al do have any further potentially damaging info. or rumours on Trump, I would suggest they release it post haste, to pre-empt any blackmail, and to let Trump deal with the embarrassment whilst he still lacks actual nukes at his disposal.

**** It could have been maintained as more of a Northern alliance, if we had pursued closer friendlier relations & possible alliance w/a certain large country of similar cultural origins, but neither here nor there now...

You Maniacs !

Repeated some of same thoughts/arguments recently on Twitter, but said all I really had to on the subject here, and haven't changed my mind since.  I won't much mourn the EU, if it inevitably collapses, but I will mourn British English & Welsh voters, for what they've done to themselves.

Oh well, it is what it is, and a democratic result, decades of right-wing propaganda notwithstanding.  Congrats. Farage, congrats. UKIP, congrats. Hannan & co.  Enjoy yer victory.

Exit Stage Right ?

I'm a procrastinator.  Through and through.  And on political questions, as much as anything else, especially when I have the luxury of holding off on making a decision, or not making one at all.  Take the question say, of which Republican candidate I see as a greater threat in the upcoming US presidential elections, Donald Trump or Ted Cruz...  As for my preferences overall, clearly I'm leaning towards Bernie, and frankly I want nothing to do with the Republican party, the supposed 'moderate' candidates of which, would have been the far-right of just a few decades ago.  I still feel I should have an opinion though, and I've just left the notion of choosing between these two maniacs percolate in my mind the last year or so.  Then, somewhere between tweeting this, & a few days later this, I just made up my mind.

Strange as it seems to say it, I fear Ted Cruz as the GOP candidate more than Donald Trump.  a), Because all the head-to-head polls show Cruz as the greater threat in the general versus either Clinton or Sanders on the Democratic side.  And b), because, while I know Ted Cruz to be an extremist, an ideological bomb-thrower & theocrat, I don't honestly know what the fuck Trump is.  He increasingly looks and sounds like a fascist, but some of his economic talking-points* sound more like those of Sanders, his absurd rhetoric regarding ISIS aside, he seems less a warmonger on foreign policy generally than Clinton, and despite his newfound paper-thin pretense at being a devout Christian, he still sounds more liberal on social issues than his fellow Republican lunatics.  Never mind the fact, that everything he's doing or saying right now could all be an act.  Trump's a gamble, to be honest.  I don't really know what the hell he truly stands for (neither do his own supporters, apparently)**, but given a choice between a possible lunatic fascist and another proven lunatic fascist, who's a dyed-in-the-wool theocrat to boot, I can't honestly say that Cruz isn't at least equally scary.  He's more subtle and more soft-spoken sure, but he's still an evil fucking snake.  And if a Trump candidacy destroys the Republican party...well woo-hoo, party-time !  All our birthdays and Christmases come at once.***

Which is all a very roundabout way to get to the question of...Europe.  More specifically, a so-called 'Brexit' -- Should the United Kingdom exit the European Union ?  I've been on the fence about this forever, and even now, I'm conflicted.  I'd call my attitude towards the EU historically Euro-sceptic, were it not for the fact that that term was adopted long-ago by those who, far from being merely sceptical about the EU, were dead-set against everything it stood for.  I like the idea of the European Union in general terms, the notion of (Western) European nations transcending centuries of bloodshed & hatred to unite around shared values & traditions, in a new liberal democratic union.  And after the end of the Cold War, I had hopes that the EU could help balance American power in global affairs.

Instead...the EU consistently does the US' bidding on foreign affairs; the actual government has become a bloated bureaucratic mess sprawling across multiple cities; membership of former Soviet-bloc countries was rushed through to provide Western businesses with cheap labour, and new markets, with membership frequently floated for the likes of Turkey, Georgia, and even North African nations****; the shared currency has impoverished Southern European nations to Germany's benefit, one of which has been routinely blackmailed, looted, and humiliated in the name of paying debts it should never have been allowed to take on in the first place; as with the case of said country, and with trade-deals like TTIP, the EU has consistently been an anti-democratic force, placing the interests of banks & multi-national corporations ahead of both democracy & national sovereignty; and the EU has not only proven unable to control its borders, but the most prominent national leader therein, one Angela Merkel, actually worsened the worst refugee/migrant-crisis since WWII by inviting millions of refugees and economic migrants to disregard both actual refuge, and their own safety, by making the dangerous and unnecessary journey to Northern Europe.  Why ?  Because big business wants even more cheap labour, even more downward forces on the economic status of existing citizens and workers.  And I haven't even mentioned yet the lunatic ideologically driven class-warfare of so-called fucking 'Austerity'.  I could go on and on and on...

Now, after years of the 'Eurosceptic' voices being largely marginalised, and despite the sizable support of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) being suppressed through archaic first-past-the-post voting-practices, we find ourselves following the economic crisis of 2007-2009, following decades of class-warfare & globalisation, following the utter humiliation of Greece, and in the midst of oppressive economically dubious policies of Austerity, and a migrant-crisis worsened considerably by Merkel's idiocy...here.  David Cameron, having made an election-pledge to allow an in/out-referendum on EU-membership that he never expected to have to follow through on, with the expected outcome of the election, and having failed utterly to get a new settlement for Britain from the EU, that isn't found laughable by the entire political spectrum, has put Britain on the verge of seriously leaving the shared community for the first time since 1975.*****

Less than four months from now, British citizens will be asked 'Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?'  And that vote might eventually lead, to the slow dissolution of a union six decades in the making...  Seems, almost every time I go on Twitter now, I'm confronted with a poll on this subject, and, depending on the wording, I either answer 'Don't Know', or pass it over altogether.

My opinion of the European Union is the lowest it has ever been in my lifetime, and the last few years have been an embarrassing time to be a European.  Than again, they've been an even more embarrassing time to be a Brit.

The coalition-government formed in 2010 lost its lustre fairly early on, and was becoming an embarrassment towards its end.  Then, despite the disgraceful behaviour & rhetoric of the Tory party in the wake of the (narrowly won) referendum on Scottish independence, despite the warnings and exhortations of what a returning Tory party would do to Britain, and not so much despite of as because of a viciously malignant fearmongering campaign by the Tories and the establishment-media to convince the British public that voting for Labour would bring about a) A sinister deal w/the SNP resulting in the end of the Union, and b) Economic armageddon (partly based upon the continuing lie that Labour was somehow responsible for the global economic meltdown of 2007-9), the British public (or, a sufficient plurality thereof under first-past-the-post voting) gave the Tories not just the chance to form the next government, but an outright majority of seats in Parliament.

Hence, amongst other things, the referendum on leaving Europe, Cameron never actually intended to preside over.  Hence the loss of what little moderating influence the Liberal Democrats had been able to provide under coalition-government.  Hence the enabling of the more right-wing and more 'Eurosceptic' Tory backbenchers.  Hence David Cameron's government turning the dial on Austerity-politics up to eleven, as they slashed regional & local budgets wherever they could, even as they entered into more expensive and unnecessary military adventures & promised to renew the ever-more expensive Trident nuclear-deterrent.  Hence, the DWP's escalating war under that monster Iain Duncan Smith on the very most vulnerable members of society...  How many have died in recent years, many at their own hands out of total despair, as a result of ideologically driven cuts & sanctions under his regime ?

If you've read the first paragraphs above, you already have an idea of my opinion of the GOP, the Republican Party in the USA.  Even lacking some of the more explicitly theocratic tendencies of the GOP, I find the modern-day Conservative party worse.  I despise those evil fuckers and everything they stand for !  One of my (admittedly selfish) reasons for opposing Scottish independence, is the fear of a right-wing Tory dominance of England & Wales for decades to come.  And I have similar fears about the loss of the relative moderating influence on civil liberties of the European Union under a so-called Brexit.

The United States at least has a modicum of constraint on abuses of its' citizens' rights via a written constitution (abused and distorted as that has become over the last two-hundred plus years).  Britain has the last disintegrating shreds of Magna Carta, and the supposed balanced powers inherent in division of government between a now completely neutered monarchy, the now completely corrupt vessel of political patronage****** that is the House of Lords, and the ever less democratic institution that is the House of Commons.  Absent the likes of the European Convention of Human Rights, where would the government draw the line in restricting civil liberties in the name of 'Security', in the name of the so-called 'War on Terror' ?  What limits on indefinite detention without trial ?  What protections for freedom of speech & assembly ?  What to stop the government stripping anyone it doesn't like of citizenship at will ?  Having them murdered by drone in secret ?  What would now stand in the way of these fascist fuckers turning the UK into an out-and-out police-state ?

But, but, restoring our sovereignty...But, but immigration...But, but TTIP...

What kind of utter naïve blind fool would you have to be at this point, to think that any of the major mainstream parties, let alone the whores to Big Business that the Tories have become, give a damn about sovereignty, give a damn about ordinary people's jobs, incomes, futures ?  They're bought and sold by the biggest bidder.  They're selling all Britain's remaining state-owned assets, including to the likes of the People's Republic of China, in whom they apparently intend to entrust the building, and control of Britain's future nuclear reactors.  They're pulling away at every loose thread in the National Health Service, salivating at the prospect of finally privatising the crown-jewel of Social Democracy and the post-war consensus.  And whether, under the name of TTIP, or some new trade-deal, the Tories (probably the biggest proponents of TTIP on the entire European subcontinent) will absolutely give away Britain's sovereignty, making British governance subservient to not just the quasi-democratic influence of Brussels, but to the absolutely undemocratic power of completely unaccountable multi-national corporations.*******  And absolutely, one way or another, they will find a way to justify ever more immigration from the poorest nations on Earth, in the name, yet again, of driving down labour-costs, of reducing the working man to the lowest common denominator conditions possible.

There'll be less bureaucracy under a 'Brexit', I suppose.  Fewer stories in the Daily Mail about bans on bendy bananas, or 'political correctness gone mad'.  Also, less restriction on the ability of huge companies to poison the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe; to 'frack' Britain from Land's End to John o' Groats; to contribute even further to Anthropogenic Climate Change...  We can't even claim any economic advantage to dropping the shared currency, the Euro, since Britain never abandoned the Pound in the first place.  Just about the only benefit I can think of in Britain leaving the EU, is that Britain, the great tax-haven for foreign billionaires & tyrants, that a London-dominated finance-centric Britain has become, would no longer have to contribute financially to the upkeep of the bloated EU bureaucracy, or to supporting its poorer neighbours...Any guesses where such a windfall (even assuming it weren't cancelled out by a decline in trade with the continent) would go ?...  Not into your pockets.  Not into crumbling infrastructure.  Not into rebuilding what remains of the welfare-state, certainly.  I don't even need to say it.  You already know what would happen to the damn money...

The ironic thing is, the European Union is ripe for reform.  Desperately in need of it, to create an edifice that reflects the democratic interests & aspirations of the subcontinent's citizens, rather than a mechanism to funnel more and more wealth & power into the hands of the planet's elites.  If Britain goes, it almost certainly won't be the last, and I can't blame the citizens of every nation in Europe for being fuming mad at what their governments have done to them, for wanting far better.  And if he and/or his party were remotely serious about reforming Europe, David Cameron could have gone to the EU with a far-more credible plan at reforming not just Britain's place in the EU, but the EU as a whole.  Instead of which, he comes back with pledges to restrict benefits for migrants.

Which is where I really started with my thinking on this.  I listen to the language surrounding this debate, and it's all about denying benefits to migrants, who time after time we see are striving to come to Britain very specifically for jobs and not welfare.  It's all about Othering, about spreading fears that the migrants, be they from Kraków or Kabul, will not only steal your jobs, but rape your wives, and enslave your daughters.  That any moment now, your town will fall under sharia-law, and the ISIS flag rise over the town-hall.  And fuck, I'm just about as right-wing on such matters as most, but the blatant racism, the hatred, the incitements to violence, it's too much to bear.  And then I see the public faces of 'Brexit', such inhumane fascistic monsters as Iain Duncan Smith, and I think 'whatever my doubts, whatever my fears, do I really want anything to do with a movement championed by such an evil piece of excrement as this ?!!'

I can't really apologise for the European Union, such as it is -- it's a g-d-awful mess, in need of probably quite radical reform, if it is to survive at all in the longer term, never mind as the shining hope of the world some may have hoped it to become.  And I can't blame Brits, any more than other Europeans, for wanting out.  But I'm not remotely convinced that the leaders of the Exit campaign have Britons' best interests at heart, I don't see any sign that the real problems blamed on the EU would be solved by an exit, and if anything, especially under the current far-right political regime, I fear things could get even worse.

As meaningful reform isn't on the table, as any kind of real return of sovereignty isn't in the offing, as the current government would likely be only further enabled by exit, and the continuing crushing war on the working-classes and the most vulnerable in society only escalate, and as Britain would lose what remaining influence it had in the EU, to even attempt at a better direction for Europe, I'd have to say...Stay.

Not happy, not comfortable, not even entirely sure.  But sometimes I just know where I must stand.




* What word am I supposed to use here ?  Would be dishonest to call them ideas, never mind actual policy-proposals.

** Shit, I could've said the same of George W Bush for that matter.  Even Obama maybe.

*** Well also assuming, the Democrats kick his ass in the general...obviously...

**** Most of which are either geographically or culturally not European; in some cases, neither.

***** Common Market/EEC at the time.  I'm not going to go into the whole history, including the various treaties between then and now, partly because it's beyond the scope of what I'm talking about here, partly because I'm not remotely qualified to do so.

****** Thanks again, Tony Blair !

******* And oh yeah, if America says 'Jump !'...

Naughty or Nice Doesn't Come Close

I would not have believed even seven months ago that I would feel as strongly about this man as I do today.  Now, I'm long past making any excuses for him.  He is the face of all the evil his party has wrought and continues to wreak.  May a likely non-existent God have mercy on his soul.

Oh, and a premature Happy Christmas* Ev'ryone !...


* Fuck political correctness now and forever.  Fuck Starbucks, regardless of how they decorate their cups.  And fuck 'Merry'...it's Happy dammit.

Rowson on Erdoğan the Bouncer

Far too long since I featured Martin Rowson's genius here methinks.

Our Allies and Enemies

From an article in the Graun. on the continuing disarray (never mind possible first step towards dissolution) of the European Union over the 'refugee crisis'.*

Merkel singled out Turkey as the key to a crisis management strategy and Juncker said the fund-raising would include a billion euros for Ankara.

But Tusk, just returned from Turkey, said money “is not the big problem. It is not as easy as expected.”

Ahmet Davutoğlu, the Turkish prime minister, wrote to the EU leaders on Wednesday demanding bold concessions from the Europeans as the price for Turkey’s possible cooperation. He proposed EU and US support for a buffer and no-fly zone in northern Syria by the Turkish border, measuring 80km by 40km.

This would stymy the Kurdish militias fighting Islamic State in northern Syria and would also enable Ankara to start repatriating some of the estimated 2 million Syrian refugees it is hosting. The militias are allied with the Kurdistan workers’ party (PKK) guerrillas at war with the Turkish state for most of the past 30 years. Ankara reignited the conflict in July after the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority in a general election.

“There are many people who doubt the sincerity of their motives,” said a senior EU official. “They’re not offering too much.”

Ah, our good friends in Turkey.  Not ones they to let a crisis go to waste.  Why not use the situation with the refugees as an excuse to further their military-campaign against the Kurds, to date, one of our few effective allies in the fight against ISIS ?  It's not as if the warzone in question were the source of most of the refugees in the first place, after all...Not as if undermining the Kurds would strengthen ISIS and help prolong the fucking war.  And a chance to bully the members of the union they so desperately want to one day join themselves into the bargain ?  Genius.

Er, we did check with the Russians didn't we about where they are operating in the country ?**  Might be good to know before we start trying to enforce a no-fly zone.  Oh, that's right.  We're not talking with Russia...or Iran...or Assad.  'Cos we don't like them.  They not nice.

Fucking grow up already.  Okay, so we have to work with Turkey, because they're 'our ally'...supposedly...not that that should extend to militarily supporting their ongoing efforts to deny the Kurds an independent state.  But just how many countries and factions are fighting in Syria now ?  Just how much more complicated is this likely to become ?  And whilst we are flinging bombs back and forth with abandon, then feigning surprise when vast swaths of the country become depopulated, who are the players on the ground here ?

• Pro-government forces ('Our Enemy')
• ISIS & related jihadist groups ('Our Enemy')
• Iran ('Our Enemy')
• Russia ('Our Enemy')
• The Kurds (Would-be allies, except that we'll sell them out to Turkey)
• Some random rag-tag non-jihadi anti-govt. forces.

No-one see a problem here ?  Not even a little bit ?

Psst...Kerry & Co...So this strategy of yours of not talking to forces we don't like...I'm not sure it's working out so well.  I'm not sure in the context of the current conflict that it isn't in fact totally fucking insane.

Ask yourself these questions: Is getting rid of Assad more important than defeating ISIS ?  Is constraining Russian or Iranian influence more important than defeating ISIS ?  What are our priorities here amidst the rise of this incredibly radical violent group that wants to establish an Islamic Caliphate, and amidst the biggest refugee-crisis since the Second World War ?  And would you not acknowledge that an end to this bloody war in which somehow you a) Limit Iranian & Russian influence in the region, b) Forcibly remove Assad, and c) Defeat ISIS, whilst d) Avoiding US so-called 'boots on the ground' is ever so slightly un-fucking-likely ?

Never mind the inherent lunacy of having the US & Russia acting in the same theatre of war without the strictest cooperation, without clear shared goals.

Admit you fucked up already.  Then get over it...and get serious.  We need pragmatism here, not pride.

* Not to say that there isn't a refugee-crisis, just that what European countries refer to with that phrase, is more to do with the hundreds of thousands crossing European borders, as opposed to the overall crisis to which everyone simply turned a blind eye, so long as it was occurring somewhere else.

** Rhetorical question

*** Feel obligated to include an image of some kind, if only for the mobile version of Blogger.  And that 'toon is Rall at his edgiest best.

Morten Morland: State of the Union

Ben Jennings on the Continuing Dismemberment* of Greece

* Would rape be too harsh a word ?

Calais

From the Independent, which didn't provide attribution for the foto.  It's an evocative picture, however you feel on the subject.  And I suspect, stands better on its own, aside from any, likely futile analysis or policy-proposals.

The Country We Pretend Doesn't Exist

Seems like every other day or so, there is another encouraging story of countries in the vicinity of what we still insist on calling the South China Sea (we really need a rebranding of that body of water, that should never have been given such a misleading name in the first place) asserting their rights against the attempted landgrabs and colonisation of the PRC.

I'd noticed the earlier stories, such as the Japanese patrols, and the reopening of Subic Bay, but honestly, couldn't think of anything specific to say on the matters.  This, on the other hand, struck me about the story regarding Taiwan:

Taiwan, which lacks the diplomatic ties to negotiate with the other five governments with claims in the South China Sea, has installed $1.29 million worth of solar panels on Taiping Island since 2011 to light a cluster of buildings and provide power for construction of a 200-meter (yard) pier due for completion by year's end, the head of the island's coast guard said Friday.

Taiwan has been an independent country for almost seventy years.  Not a country we choose to pretend to be independent, like 'Palestine', but an actual fully-functioning autonomous entity.  The US (which likes to pretend that international borders haven't changed since the second world war), and most countries in the EU, granted quick recognition to Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008.  And yet, the vast majority of the countries on the planet, maintain the fiction that Taiwan, seven decades of actual independence regardless, is still* a province of the People's Republic of China.

Some of these countries used to recognise Taiwan, as the ROC (Republic of China), but later switched their recognition to the PRC.  I've never understood this 'choice' -- How was recognition of the obvious independence of mainland China from Taiwan ever dependent on rejecting the obvious independence of Taiwan from mainland China ?  Were we not capable of recognising both East and West Germany ?  Are we not capable of distinguishing between North and South Korea ?

Of course, I'm being a bit disingenuous here, as if I didn't know full well the political intent of forcing countries that wanted closer economic ties with the PRC to reject Taiwan.  As if I didn't understand their economic motivations in betraying a country that may have been, and may yet prove to be a valuable ally.

It still stinks.  We in the West scarcely dare say boo to the PRC, even when they steal from us, spy on us, threaten us and our allies militarily, engage in cyber-terrorism even.  Because we're so desperate for access to their markets and their cheap labour.  Meanwhile, we turned our back on a peaceful ally in Taiwan and officially embraced the insane One-China dogma of those on the mainland who would willingly destroy the Taiwanese utterly rather than allow them their rightful independence.

And now here we are, with the PRC threatening the sovereign waters of Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, et al.  And the country similarly and more historically thus threatened, Taiwan, 'lacks the diplomatic ties to negotiate with' them, because they, like so many other cowardly governments worldwide, stabbed Taiwan in the back, so greedy were they for relations with the PRC at any cost.

Here's the countries, according to Wikipedia, that have recognised, mostly in the last few years, 'The State of Palestine':

Image: Wikipedia, User Night w  CC SA 3.0

OTOH, the tiny few remaining countries in green below have official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, whilst those cowards in blue maintain some sort of unofficial relations.

Image: Wikipedia, User Alinor  CC SA 3.0

As I said above, it is encouraging to see countries in the 'South China Sea' pushing back against the PRC's aggression just off their shores.  But if they wanted to truly send a signal to the PRC of their displeasure, then decades-long belated recognition of their neighbour and potential ally in Taiwan would be a hell of a place to start.


* Almost got myself there

** Oh, and in case it is brought up at some point, no, the situation with the South China Sea is not the same as that with Russia and Eastern Ukraine, the latter conflict being largely if not primarily created by Western hostility against and encirclement of Russia, which hardly relates to the circumstances of the Chinese Civil War in the 'forties.  And the differing attitudes towards the PRC & Russia, both being motivated overwhelming by corporate greed, with geopolitical principles bent at will to whichever attitude might bring about the greatest possible profit in the short to medium term, even if in the long term, those attitudes might lead to global thermonuclear war.  Much as the likes of idiots such as John McCain (or, for that matter, even Vladimir Putin himself) might like to fantasise about a 'new Soviet Empire', Russia is in fact a much lessened nation, than its Soviet predecessor, responding more in the manner of a cornered animal, but no less dangerous for that.  If you want to find yourself a new imperial project (other than the perpetual one of the United States of course), Southeast Asia is where you will find it.

*** Assuming in all of this that the Taiwanese would not be so insane as to assert the same made-up 'nine-dash' claims for their own nation, which would be equally absurd as the same claims of the PRC.

Speaking of Risky Business...

This piece seems to be making the rounds regarding the situation in Greece.  Especially this:

With respect to Greece, the precise thing that European elites did to set the current chain of events in motion was to replace private debt with public during the 2010 first “bailout of Greece”. Prior to that event, it was obvious that blame was multipolar. Here are the banks, in France, in Germany, that foolishly lent. Not just to Greece, but to Goldman’s synthetic CDOs and every other piece of idiot paper they could carry with low risk-weights. In 2010, the EU, ECB, and IMF laundered a bailout of mostly French and German banks through the Greek fisc. Cash flowed into Greece only so it could flow out to rickety banks. Now, suddenly, the banks were absolved. There were very few bad loans left on the books of European lenders, everyone was clean, no bad actors at all. Except one. There were the institutions, the “troika”, clearly the good guys, so “helpful” with their generous offer of funds. And then there was Greece. What had been a mudwrestling match, everybody dirty, was transformed into mass of powdered wigs accusing a single filthy penitent (or, when the people with their savings in just-rescued banks decide to be generous, a petulant misbehaving child).

I won't claim to understand all the economic arguments involved, but I do think it speaks well to the degree to which the EU's handling of the Greek crisis is symptomatic of an overall disintegration over the last few years in any sense of solidarity between European countries.  Not so much a Union increasingly as a real-life franchise of Big Brother, wherein the various roommates squabble more and more over time as their proximity in a shared household (to the upkeep of which the various roommates' contributions vary wildly) breeds enmity.

The complete disunity over how to handle the refugees from North Africa is another example, what with Britain refusing to participate in any apportionment of the refugee-populations, and Denmark reintroducing border-controls.

When the game was up, when the global house of credit cards collapsed in the late Aughts, European leaders had a choice. They had knowingly and purposefully brought weak states into the Eurozone, because they genuinely, even nobly, wished to build a large, strong, United Europe. When they did so, they understood there would be crises. A unified Europe, they had always claimed, would be forged one crisis at a time. The right thing to have done for Europe at this point would have been to point out the regulatory errors and misaligned incentives that encouraged profligate lending and enabled corruption and waste among borrowers, and fix those. Banks that had made bad loans would acknowledge losses. The banks themselves would have to be restructured or bailed out.

But “bank restructuring” is a euphemism for imposing losses on wealthy creditors. And explicit bank bailouts are humiliations of elites, moments when the mask comes off and the usually tacit means by which states preserve and enhance the comfort of the comfortable must give way to very visible, very unpopular, direct cash flows.

The choice Europe’s leaders faced was to preserve the union or preserve the wealth, prestige, and status of the community of people who were their acquaintances and friends and selves but who are entirely unrepresentative of the European public. They chose themselves. The formal institutions of the EU endure, but European community is now failing fast.

It is difficult to overstate how deeply Europe’s leaders betrayed the ideals of European integration in their handing of the Greek crisis. The first and most fundamental goal of European integration was to blur the lines of national feeling and interest through commerce and interdependence, in order to prevent the fractures along ethnonational lines that made a charnel house of the continent, twice. That is the first thing, the main rule, that anyone who claims to represent the European project must abide: We solve problems as Europeans together, not as nations in conflict.

...

The fact of the matter is no country, not Germany, not France, would voluntarily put up with the sort of “adjustment” that has been forced on Greece, for the good reason that gratuitous great depressions are not actually helpful to an economy. Creditors have had five years to mismanage Greece and they’ve done a startlingly effective job. Syriza has had five months to object. However much you may dislike their negotiating style, however little you think of their competence, Greece’s catastrophe was not Syriza’s work. If creditors respond to Syriza’s “intransigence” with maneuvers that cause yet more devastation, that will be on the creditors. Blaming victims for having insufficiently perfect leaders is standard fare for apologists of predation. Unfortunately, understanding this may be of little comfort to the disemboweled prey.

Europe’s creditors are behaving exactly as one might naively predict private creditors would behave, seeking to get as much blood from the stone as quickly as possible, indifferent to the cost in longer-term growth. And that, in fact, is a puzzle! Greece’s creditors are not nervous lenders panicked over their own financial situation, but public sector institutions representing primarily governments that are in no financial distress at all. They really shouldn’t be behaving like this.

I think the explanation is quite simple, though. Having recast a crisis caused by a combustible mix of regulatory failure and elite venality into a morality play about profligate Greeks who must be punished, Eurocrats are now engaged in what might be described as “loan-shark theater”. They are putting on a show for the electorates they inflamed in order to preserve their own prestige. The show must go on.

Austerity may or may not be a viable option* for a country like the UK, but Greece is not the UK.  Greece's GDP is in freefall, and its ability to repay debtors will only worsen even more the longer this is dragged out, no matter what reforms are put in place.  It needs to be able to default, with all the consequences that brings, and/or inflate its currency.  If we had any sense we'd have let it do so long ago.  But Deutschland et al want to maintain the image of Europe, the illusion.  And letting Greece default or exit the Euro makes for bad optics.

Of course, were this truly a Union, then the debts of one would be the debts of all...


* Last time I checked, most patients who received a treatment of leeching didn't actually die.

Survey on Europeans' Views of Ukraine

War, Russia, Poverty: Europeans ‘negative’ view of Ukraine

It was French writer Gustave Flaubert who said there is no truth, only perception. According to the Institute of World Policy in Kyiv, Europeans have a rather negative image of Ukraine.

In a recently released report war, Russia and poverty appear to be the three key words that average citizens of Europe’s most populous countries associate with the country.

The Orange revolution appears to be better known by the respondents than the Maidan protests which spun Ukraine towards Brussels, but European perceptions of Ukraine are beginning to change, if slowly, according to Olena Hetmanchuk, head of the Institute of World Policy.

“I don’t think that they (the Europeans) associate or consider Ukraine to be a part of Russia as they perceived some time ago. In my opinion, the association with Russia is primarily related to Russia’s aggression. That’s a logical association as this issue has been one of the main topics of European media for the last year.”

On the subject of Ukraine eventually joining the EU, the French are the most skeptical while, the British are largely indifferent.

In order for Ukraine to create a better image in these countries, political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko told euronews the country “needs to compensate for this with the successful implementation of reforms in the country; the promotion of Ukraine’s history that should be considered as a part of European history. That will increase the percentage of people who will perceive Ukraine as a part of Europe, not only geographically, but also politically and historically.” * **

It's actually somewhat surprising to me that they chose to headline this survey the way they did, given that the results they report overall paint a picture of a European populace very open to Ukraine joining the EU in the future, Russia be damned.  Of course, this is a report from an organisation whose 'vision is that Ukraine should be integrated into the EU and NATO', and the report itself was funded by the US government (USAID), so take it with a grain of salt if you will.

Oh, and as for this:

The survey will help to identify problems in the EU-Ukraine relations and to bring to light concerns of ordinary Europeans. These findings are strikingly important in terms of Russia's powerful efforts to sow division among European nations fracturing their unity with respect to Ukraine.

Europeans can make up their own minds thank you very much.  Kremlin propaganda be damned.  American propaganda be damned.  And what the fuck is this 'unity with respect to Ukraine' of which you speak ?  What unity ?  Since when ?


Anyways, it's an interesting survey, propaganda or not, and I do love me a nice word-cloud:

Almost thought they'd forgotten Yulia, but no, there she is.  They're still missing one important word though: IMF.


* In other words, erase the long history with Russia going all the way back to the Rus' ?

** Bolding mine.  Text from the EuroNews site is almost, but not exactly a transcript of the video.

Fair Observer* on Ukraine's Financial Difficulties

Ukraine on Brink of Financial Collapse

Will Europe allow a bankrupt Ukraine to fall back under Russian domination?

Ukraine is lost either way.  It's become an expendable pawn in the new Cold War.  Sorry.

Ukraine is on the brink of financial collapse. The country is unable to meet interest payments. Its gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 6.8% in 2014 and is expected to fall by an even greater extent this year. Meanwhile, it has to defend itself against a neighbor that guaranteed its borders as recently as 1994.

That sucks.

Instead of stepping forward to help Ukraine financially, the European Union (EU) and the United States are both leaving the job to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

I'm shocked.

The IMF is offering Ukraine $40 billion, whereas the EU says it can only manage $2 billion.

No !  Not the IMF !  Never !

The European Union has already extended 40 times as much credit to Greece as it has given to Ukraine, whose population is four times that of Greece. If this ratio reflects the EU’s real priority, it is unbalanced. GDP per head in Greece is about three times that of Ukraine.

Did I not mention already that the West doesn't give a shit about the people of Ukraine ?

Like Greece, Ukraine has a lot to do in order to create a functioning and efficient legal and administrative system, stamp out corruption and collect taxes fully and fairly. But Ukraine has to do this while recovering from the effects of a communist system that was imposed on it from outside since 1919, whereas Greece has been the democratic shaper of its own policies for many years.

Fuck you.

Of course, Greece is in the EU and the euro and Ukraine is not, but both countries are in Europe and aspire to a democratic European future.

Aspire away, do...for so long as the Union lasts anyways.

Furthermore Ukraine had it borders guaranteed in the Budapest Declaration of 1994 by EU countries, Russia and the US, in return for giving up nuclear weapons.

Ukraine trusted the West to come through on its promises ?  Bless.

Despite this, Ukraine was invaded and a portion of its territory was annexed in 2014 by Russia, because Kiev wanted to make a modest cooperation agreement with the EU.

That's what happened alright.

Notwithstanding this, the EU is now being stingy in helping Ukraine manage its financial crisis, while instead being fixated on the drama in Athens.

Urm, it was stingy, then.  No, 'stingy' doesn't do it justice.  They were willing to let Ukraine crash and burn rather than work with Yanukovych on any kind of open terms.  They willingly let Putin hold the country's economy hostage.

Ukrainians believe they have a European destiny and are prepared to die for it.

Are they really ?

The Russian leadership, on the other hand, believes that Ukraine, with its Russian-speaking minority, is in their sphere of influence. Moscow sees a link up of Ukraine with the European Union as a form of foreign interference in its own backyard.

Yup.  That's exactly right.  And they made that 100% clear from the beginning.

One would have to respond that this view is not in accordance with Russia’s guarantee to Ukraine in 1994, nor with international law.

Nuclear weapons trump international law every time.  Nations seek them for a reason.  The established powers want to maintain a monopoly on them for a reason.  Oh, and the Russians lied.

The entire post-World War II European security order rests on acceptance of international law. Similarly, any prospect of voluntary nuclear disarmament in the future depends on solemn obligations—like the 1994 Budapest Declaration—being honored.

Clearly, we're fucked.


*  No, I'd never heard of them before either.

Madness

Well you lunatics in DC & the EU wanted a new Cold War, and now you have it.  Good news for the military-industrial complex.

MOSCOW — Russia's military will add over 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles this year alone that are capable of piercing any missile defenses, President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday in a blunt reminder of the nation's nuclear might amid tensions with the West over Ukraine.

Putin spoke at the opening of an arms show at a shooting range in Alabino just west of Moscow, a huge display intended to showcase Russia's resurgent military.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg accused the Russians of "nuclear saber-rattling," and said that was one of the reasons the western military alliance has been beefing up its ability to defend its members.

So, something the Russians just announced in response to your recent promise of permanently placing more tanks and heavy artillery in Eastern Europe is the reason for you doing the same ?  What crazy circular logic is that ?  It's called tit-for-tat you fools.  And it's as stupid a game in which to participate as Russian roulette.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, briefing reporters via teleconference from Boston, where he is recovering from surgery on a broken leg, called Putin's announcement concerning.

"We're trying to move in the opposite direction," Kerry said. "We have had enormous cooperation from the 1990s forward with respect to the structure of nuclear weapons in the former territories of the Soviet Union. And no one wants to see us step backwards."

You lying sack of shit !  Sorry, but chutzpah doesn't describe it.  There just isn't a word sufficient for such shameless lying.  Not that our stenographer-media in the West will call him on it.

But now that the nasty Russians are building more missiles, you'll have to announce another escalation on your part, won't you ?  To which the Russians will respond, to which you will respond, and so on...

...Until mushroom-clouds grace the skylines of every major metropolis.  Whee !

Rammstein: Du Hast

Fantasies of a few years ago are at this point less terrifying than the day-to-day reality of ordinary politics.  And from the United States to the United Kingdom, we find ourselves celebrating what was once the right-wing as liberal emancipators.  We are so very fucked.

Terrifying Numbers for NATO

And yes, they terrify me, critic as I may be of our general insanity towards Russia post-Cold War, and our specific insanity regarding the situation in Ukraine.

Public opinion in some European countries could be reluctant to support collective defence for fellow Nato members if they were to be attacked by Russia, according to a new international survey.

The report by the Pew Research Center - a non-partisan US think-tank based in Washington DC - surveyed attitudes in North America and across Europe as well as Ukraine and Russia to assess public attitudes towards the current Ukraine crisis.

...

Among Western allies, it includes Europe's six largest Nato members (France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK) as well as the United States and Canada.

While some of its findings are in keeping with other recent surveys, it also throws up what may be noteworthy trends.

What is particularly striking is the reluctance among many of those surveyed in Europe to get drawn into a deeper military conflict with Russia - either in Ukraine, or elsewhere on European soil.

Perhaps the most interesting finding is in answer to the question: "If Russia got into a serious military conflict with one of its neighbouring countries which is a Nato ally, should our country use force to defend it?"

This relates to a core principle of Nato's founding treaty of 1949, the "Article Five" which states that: "An armed attack on one… shall be considered an attack against them all".

On average in Europe, only 48% of those polled - less than half - backed the idea of their country using force to come to the aid of another Nato country attacked by Russia.

Among the countries surveyed Germany is the most reluctant: 58% of those polled said they did not think their country should use military force to defend a Nato ally against Russia.

France too was unenthusiastic - 53% of those polled were opposed.

Even in Britain - often seen as a staunch Nato member - less than 50% supported the idea of using force to help another member of the alliance under attack.

Although maybe the complete disconnect between public attitudes towards Russia and support for military action helps explain why so many fail to understand how fundamentally dangerous the expansion of NATO is and was.

Just What the Hell Do You Idiots Think a Military Alliance is for, People ?  It's not a social club !

An Attack On One is an Attack On All.  Which is why we (should) very carefully consider membership.  There is no right to membership in a military alliance.  There is no fundamental obligation to extend membership in a military alliance.  This is Life & Death here.  Quite possibly the survival or not of the entire Human Fucking Race at stake if we get it wrong.

And lest we forget, the entanglement of military alliances is how we started the Great War (aka World War I) just over a century ago.  Will we ever learn ?...

Taking Piss-Taking to a Whole New Level

Belgium Commemorates Waterloo With a Coin, and France Is Not Pleased

LONDON — Perhaps befitting a battle that ended French hegemony in Europe, Paris, it seems, has been outflanked once again.

After it objected to a decision in March by Belgium to introduce a new 2 euro coin to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, the Belgians retreated, scrapping 180,000 coins they had already minted.

But victory for France is proving elusive.

This week, Belgium decided to circumvent French resistance by invoking a little-known European Union rule that allows countries to issue euro coins of their choice, provided they are in an irregular denomination.

That led to the unveiling of a €2.50 coin — a first in Belgium — and 70,000 of them have now been minted. The coins, which can only be spent inside Belgium, display a monument of a lion atop a cone-shaped hill on the site of France’s humiliation, as well as lines indicating where troops were positioned when forces led by Britain and Prussia defeated Napoleon in the countryside near Brussels.

Well, it's an original solution, I guess.

Johan Van Overtveldt, the Belgian finance minister, insisted on Monday that the new coins were not meant to provoke Gallic anger.

Uh huh...

Seems like time for some music, maybe.

War Is Peace, Freedom is Slavery

These two sentences piqued my interest in this piece about Jeb Bush.


Bush advisers say Poland is an economic success story, a home to outsourced labor of German manufacturers that's warily watching Russia's aggression toward former Eastern bloc states. 

&

"Both the United States and the European Union are confronted by legitimate security concerns and middle-class concerns, including lack of wage growth," said Kristen Silverberg, a Bush adviser and former ambassador to the European Union during President George W. Bush's second term. 


Yes, the United States and the European Union are very concerned about 'middle-class concerns' such as 'lack of wage growth.'  So much so that they consistently pursue policies that will inevitably keep wages low.

Such as new mass trade-deals.  Such as the United States looking the other way during the first decade of the new century, whilst millions and millions of illegal immigrants flooded across the southern border, providing cheap and compliant labour on the low-end of the labour-market (and whilst also using visas and outsourcing agreements on the higher end).  And such, as the European Union expanding ever further eastwards in the pursuit of amongst other things, cheap labour.

Those Polish workers can work for less than the Germans they displaced, in part because of a lower cost of living.  But inevitably they are going to want a higher standard of living, are going to be more choosy in what work they do and under what conditions.  And as their standard of living equalises with the likes of Deutschland, there's inevitably pressure for new frontiers in cheap labour.

And there, right to the east of Poland is Ukraine.  What is the Western interest in Ukraine ?  Well, four things really*:

1. Containment of Russia (all ridiculous claims to the contrary aside)
2. New markets for Western goods
3. Natural resources, and...
4. Cheap labour.

For the West, Ukraine must join the EU.  Turkey must join the EU.  Georgia, which doesn't even have a foothold on the European sub-continent, must join the EU.  Why ?  Because, profit.  Even more so than the desire to contain Russia, profit.  Always profit über alles.

And one of the biggest drags on profits is always those pesky workers with their whining about wanting living wages, whining about wanting time off because they had babies, then wanting time off to spend with their children, wanting healthcare for their families, education for their children, wanting to be able to one day retire without having to live in a freezing apartment in winter subsiding on catfood.  Damn greedy workers !

And so the European Union is seemingly willing to risk everything, even possibly nuclear war, over adding the largest possible prize in the subcontinent into its mix.  A union that was created in the aftermath of the Second World War explicitly as an attempt to prevent further war.  But...profit.


* You may note that there is no mention on this list of Ukrainian aspirations for freedom, for more democracy, for a better life.  That is because the West frankly does not give a shit.

We Are All Collectively Insane

U.S. might deploy missiles in Europe to counter Russia

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration is weighing a range of aggressive responses to Russia's alleged violation of a Cold War-era nuclear treaty, including deploying land-based missiles in Europe that could pre-emptively destroy the Russian weapons.

The Russians' violations of Cold War-agreements huh ?  You really want to go there ?  Really ?  No, no,...really...?

This "counterforce" option is among possibilities the administration is considering as it reviews its entire policy toward Russia in light of Moscow's military intervention in Ukraine, its annexation of Crimea and other actions the U.S. deems confrontational in Europe and beyond.

The options go so far as one implied - but not stated explicitly - that would improve the ability of U.S. nuclear weapons to destroy military targets on Russian territory.

Yippee !!!

Wait, what weapons exactly are we talking about here ?  That word, pre-emptive...I don't like that word.  It calls to mind another era, in a very very bad way.