Trump Takes Social Security Hostage In His Latest Coronavirus Stimulus Demand
Btw, I am a Democrat and not a socialist.
Chris Matthews spoke for me when he spoke out against Democrats bragging stupidly about being socialists and the idea of a Democratic candidate who had even that same week cosied up to Castro.
And given the truth about their attitude towards journos and the press his charge socialists back in the later days of the cold war would have shot people like him in Central Park if they had ever taken over America was right on target.
He wasn't talking about Michael Harrington. He was talking about Angela Davis or, in earlier days, Gus Hall.
Showing posts with label The Cold War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Cold War. Show all posts
Thursday, May 7, 2020
Saturday, August 3, 2019
Undermining NATO?
Setting a moral view above realism and practicality?
Sanders backs Warren after Liz Cheney attacks 'no first use' nuclear policy
This issue was fought out during the Cold War, when the view emerged that a first use of nukes would be immoral and the US and NATO publicly and even ostentatiously refused any commitment to a "no first use" policy.
Both they and the Warsaw Pact nations knew the latter would quickly crush the former in a purely conventional war.
The only way NATO could effectively deter that was by leaving the door open to first use of nukes on the battlefield.
And so they did.
The issue was not, I must say, first use of strategic nuclear weapons against anybody, against any Warsaw Pact nation or, in particular, against the Soviet Union.
Lacking a first strike capability as everybody then was, a threat of that sort would be (a) a threat to commit suicide and hence (b) not very credible.
The NATO theory was that first use of tactical nukes on the battlefield would cause any Warsaw Pact invasion of the West to fail without so endangering the Soviet Union as to provoke them into use of strategic nukes against anyone on the NATO side and setting off a global thermonuclear war.
And that the Russians, knowing this, would not launch such an invasion.
Reagan's deployment of cruise missiles was also a necessary piece of the deterrence puzzle, given the unwillingness or inability of the NATO countries to match or surpass the conventional forces on the Soviet side.
Maybe all that has changed with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the partial dismemberment of the Soviet Union, leaving behind a considerably smaller and less powerful Russia with a much enlarged NATO crowded right up against its borders, but I don't know that it has.
Anyway, the current flap seems to be about a different issue, first use of strategic nuclear weapons, what people used to call a first strike.
And that seems odd.
Nation A was said to have a first strike capability against nation B just in case A could launch a strike that would prevent significant nuclear retaliation by B.
Back in the day, it was considered destabilizing and hence highly undesirable that either side, NATO or the Warsaw Pact, should have such a capability.
So far as I know, that is still the standard view and nobody actually has a first strike capability.
So I don't really see what this is about or how it fits into the strategic picture.
Bernie Sanders has defended his rival for the Democratic presidential 2020 nomination, Elizabeth Warren, after her policy against pre-emptive use of America’s nuclear weapons was attacked by the daughter of one of the architects of the Iraq war.
Warren reiterated her support for a “no first use” policy on nuclear weapons during the second round of Democratic presidential debates this week.
“It makes the world safer,” the Massachusetts senator said during the debate. “The United States is not going to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively, and we need to say so to the entire world.”
Liz Cheney, a Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, attacked Warren’s policy on Twitter, asking “which American cities and how many American citizens are you willing to sacrifice with your policy of forcing the US to absorb a nuclear attack before we can strike back?”
Cheney's attack was inconsequent enough, but Sanders' rejoinder was equal to it.
“Taking national security advice from a Cheney has already caused irreparable damage to our country,” Sanders wrote on Friday, in response to Cheney’s attack on Warren.
Cheney’s attack on Warren echoed the [equally mystifying- PV] response of one of Warren’s Democratic rivals during the debate, the Montana governor, Steve Bullock, who said he did not support a “no first use policy” because, “I don’t want to turn around and say, “Well, Detroit has to be gone before we would ever use that.”
Sanders backs Warren after Liz Cheney attacks 'no first use' nuclear policy
This issue was fought out during the Cold War, when the view emerged that a first use of nukes would be immoral and the US and NATO publicly and even ostentatiously refused any commitment to a "no first use" policy.
Both they and the Warsaw Pact nations knew the latter would quickly crush the former in a purely conventional war.
The only way NATO could effectively deter that was by leaving the door open to first use of nukes on the battlefield.
And so they did.
The issue was not, I must say, first use of strategic nuclear weapons against anybody, against any Warsaw Pact nation or, in particular, against the Soviet Union.
Lacking a first strike capability as everybody then was, a threat of that sort would be (a) a threat to commit suicide and hence (b) not very credible.
The NATO theory was that first use of tactical nukes on the battlefield would cause any Warsaw Pact invasion of the West to fail without so endangering the Soviet Union as to provoke them into use of strategic nukes against anyone on the NATO side and setting off a global thermonuclear war.
And that the Russians, knowing this, would not launch such an invasion.
Reagan's deployment of cruise missiles was also a necessary piece of the deterrence puzzle, given the unwillingness or inability of the NATO countries to match or surpass the conventional forces on the Soviet side.
Maybe all that has changed with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the partial dismemberment of the Soviet Union, leaving behind a considerably smaller and less powerful Russia with a much enlarged NATO crowded right up against its borders, but I don't know that it has.
Anyway, the current flap seems to be about a different issue, first use of strategic nuclear weapons, what people used to call a first strike.
And that seems odd.
Nation A was said to have a first strike capability against nation B just in case A could launch a strike that would prevent significant nuclear retaliation by B.
Back in the day, it was considered destabilizing and hence highly undesirable that either side, NATO or the Warsaw Pact, should have such a capability.
So far as I know, that is still the standard view and nobody actually has a first strike capability.
So I don't really see what this is about or how it fits into the strategic picture.
Bernie Sanders has defended his rival for the Democratic presidential 2020 nomination, Elizabeth Warren, after her policy against pre-emptive use of America’s nuclear weapons was attacked by the daughter of one of the architects of the Iraq war.
Warren reiterated her support for a “no first use” policy on nuclear weapons during the second round of Democratic presidential debates this week.
“It makes the world safer,” the Massachusetts senator said during the debate. “The United States is not going to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively, and we need to say so to the entire world.”
Liz Cheney, a Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, attacked Warren’s policy on Twitter, asking “which American cities and how many American citizens are you willing to sacrifice with your policy of forcing the US to absorb a nuclear attack before we can strike back?”
Cheney's attack was inconsequent enough, but Sanders' rejoinder was equal to it.
“Taking national security advice from a Cheney has already caused irreparable damage to our country,” Sanders wrote on Friday, in response to Cheney’s attack on Warren.
Cheney’s attack on Warren echoed the [equally mystifying- PV] response of one of Warren’s Democratic rivals during the debate, the Montana governor, Steve Bullock, who said he did not support a “no first use policy” because, “I don’t want to turn around and say, “Well, Detroit has to be gone before we would ever use that.”
Friday, August 2, 2019
Undermining US commitments
Do they really want to encourage Trump to further disenchantment with the usefulness, to the US, of our Cold War alliances?
Wary of Trump’s Hard Line on Iran, Europeans Decline to Join Escorts in Gulf
This does not help.
Wary of Trump’s Hard Line on Iran, Europeans Decline to Join Escorts in Gulf
This does not help.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
A natural ally for the nationalist parties of Europe
Italian PM to address claims League sought money from Russia
The Cold War is soooo over.
And in European eyes, Communism is just gone.
Russian power, much diminished in any case, is no threat at all to capitalism or representative government, and Russia is not exporting any sort of revolutionary and crazy ideology just the thing to terrify everyone.
And Putin's authoritarianism, for these folks, just doesn't much matter; if it's anybody's problem, it's the Russians'.
Fewer Europeans, every day, have any interest in NATO and its Cold War II.
More and more people, not just in America but in Europe, and anywhere on the political spectrum but notably on the right, when asked "Should you or your kids be willing to fight and die in a full-scale, pan-European and maybe even global war for the independence of Estonia?", are inclined to answer with a wholly unabashed, "No."
They are equally skeptical of NATO and wholly opposed to the EU superseding Europe's individual nations as a military power.
And just as European parties of the West were not much bothered by, and often actually colluded in, American meddling in their elections to keep power out of the hands of anybody soft on defense against the Soviet bloc back in the day, some parties now seek or tolerate Russian meddling on behalf of nationalists seeking to lead their countries away from the old Cold War alliances and even, sometimes openly and specifically, the power of the US.
The Cold War is soooo over.
And in European eyes, Communism is just gone.
Russian power, much diminished in any case, is no threat at all to capitalism or representative government, and Russia is not exporting any sort of revolutionary and crazy ideology just the thing to terrify everyone.
And Putin's authoritarianism, for these folks, just doesn't much matter; if it's anybody's problem, it's the Russians'.
Fewer Europeans, every day, have any interest in NATO and its Cold War II.
More and more people, not just in America but in Europe, and anywhere on the political spectrum but notably on the right, when asked "Should you or your kids be willing to fight and die in a full-scale, pan-European and maybe even global war for the independence of Estonia?", are inclined to answer with a wholly unabashed, "No."
They are equally skeptical of NATO and wholly opposed to the EU superseding Europe's individual nations as a military power.
And just as European parties of the West were not much bothered by, and often actually colluded in, American meddling in their elections to keep power out of the hands of anybody soft on defense against the Soviet bloc back in the day, some parties now seek or tolerate Russian meddling on behalf of nationalists seeking to lead their countries away from the old Cold War alliances and even, sometimes openly and specifically, the power of the US.
Sunday, July 21, 2019
A brilliant and learned specialist in an oddly forgotten history
Anne Applebaum, Communism, and the Cold War
Take a look at her write-up on Scammell's bio of Arthur Koestler.
And at this marvelous review of Spies.
And here is something we might share with AOC, given her personal concern with the matter.
Take a look at her write-up on Scammell's bio of Arthur Koestler.
And at this marvelous review of Spies.
And here is something we might share with AOC, given her personal concern with the matter.
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