Anonymously contributed
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- Russia turns up the nuclear rhetoric -
Financial Times of London - May 24, 2012
Before Dmitry Medvedev’s valedictory speech earlier this month, the outgoing president awarded medals to dozens of Russians, including a theatre director, a policewoman and the chairman of the Russian hockey federation. Then, taking the podium in a glittering Kremlin ballroom, Mr Medvedev declared that Russia’s younger generation needed positive role models to inspire them towards “success in literature, art, education, and” – he paused wistfully – “nuclear weapons”.
“They may still come in handy,” he said, apropos, seemingly, of nothing. “We’re not going to use them, but let’s still keep them around, because we have a big country, a complex country. We must value it and protect it.”
....In speech after speech this month, Russian officials have tried to out-Dr Strangelove each other in warning of a potential nuclear conflagration. The rhetoric, which US analysts tend to dismiss as harmless, coincided with the test launch on Wednesday of a new generation of strategic missiles....
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/698334c8-a4d9-11e1-9908-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1vzcccVVc
Comments
The US version
We are a big country, though a simple country. We're all on prescriptions drugs, fat and are dying younger and younger. We are lazy, slothful and do not vote. Our prison population is the worst of the developed world. 50 percent of us do not believe in evolution. We privatize our national laboratories and make our banks public. We borrow all our money from China so we can use the money for defense spending against...China? But we're special.
Moral equivalency makes me puke. If you hate it here, please leave. We'll both be much happier.
In America, they are now seen almost as being criminals. At the very least, they are seen as Dr. Strangelove freaks who are not to be trusted and who have little relevance left to US national security.
That's the sad point that we've come to here in the US. Our nuclear weapons complex is crumbling away and the employee morale is very low.
N = 7
May 27, 2012 11:40 AM
Russia obviously knows it has nothing to fear militarily from the US or China, minor border disputes aside. What it (i.e., Putin) fears is the loss of respect, influence, and relevance in the world. It is a classic response of bullies and despots. Especially ones that are weak (in this case, economically and societally) at their core.
N = 7
May 27, 2012 9:35 AM
N=7+0=7
May 27, 2012 9:28 AM
God forbid that a Russian nuclear scientist would meet Knapp. The only thing that Knapp might impress him with is revving his Turbo Porsche, showing his number of frequent flyer trips back to Livermore, or his surfboard.
It only gets worse for LANL once this man with a big ego and a tiny brain assumes his "rightful" place as the next Director of Los Alamos. What a sick joke LANS (Bechtel) is playing! Wake up, Washington. The for-profit LLCs are destroying your weapon labs from the inside! They're doing a much more thorough job of it than any Red Chinese spy every managed to do.
Meanwhile, the Administration has said they want to get rid of the ICBM leg of the US triad.
In addition to this, the White house has been shopping the idea to disarm beyond the START II count of 1500 warheads all the way down to only 300 warheads with no similar actions being asked of the Russians in exchange for a radical reduction on the US side.
WAKE UP FOLKS!!
June 9, 2012 8:35 PM
No one is listening. They're all thinking about what to bring to next week's barbeque at Sam and Judy's house. You should get a life too.