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During the cold war, there was a clear narrative: an ideological opposition between the US and the Soviet Union. Moments of great tension were understood as episodes within that narrative. The closest we came to nuclear confrontation was the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the two countries seemed on the edge of war. But the crisis itself was finished inside a fortnight, and there was a wider framework to fall back on. The 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty calmed the waters.
Then, in the early 1980s the tough-talking but critically derided , Ronald Reagan was elected US president. He reignited the cold war rhetoric and began escalating the arms race, and there was an assumption – particularly in Europe – that nuclear destruction was creeping closer. But it was still within a recognisable context. That ended with the collapse of communism, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. For a while the world felt a much safer place than it had been.
But the cold war was replaced by uncertainty. And now the uncertainty is combined with the unpredictability of Donald Trump. The recent bombing raids in Syria and Afghanistan were isolated moments, without any sense of programme or continuity. Nor does there seem any logic to why North Korea should have suddenly become a pressing issue. Incidents that seem to arrive out of the blue can be much more frightening. We're probably not on the verge of nuclear war, but it's destabilising if we can't make sense of events.
Is the world more dangerous now than during the cold war?
[Related]: Nuclear war will ignite in May 2017, mystic Horacio Villegas says
What do you think ?
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @05:55AM (6 children)
PLEASE SOMEONE POINT MY FINGER AT THE ENEMY!!
IS IT TRUMP??? IS IT????????
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:07AM (2 children)
I hereby self-proclaim myself as mystic prophet, and make the following predictions:
SCNR :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @12:24PM (1 child)
The end of the world would relieve us of the endless suffering brought on by multiple bullet points.
(Score: 2) by arulatas on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:02PM
Or would it?
----- 10 turns around
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:09AM (1 child)
It is not Trump. It is us.
For not raising a ruckus come election time and letting our leaders work with elite bankers to quagmire this nation in to unrepayable debt.
Not only that, we have taken out personal debts to enjoy a brief spat of unearned standard-of-living at tomorrow's expense. Today is measured in hours, tomorrows are measured in years. Most of us do not seem to understand just how this works.
Today ends. Tomorrow comes. Now, loaded with yesterday's obligations to make good on as well as the new ones the new day brings.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 23 2017, @10:13AM
For not raising a ruckus come election time and letting our leaders work with elite bankers to quagmire this nation in to unrepayable debt.
The last three US presidential elections were all about raising a ruckus. Obama was "hope and change". Trump is "make America great again".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:46AM
&trump
There ya go.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by its_gonna_be_yuge! on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:09AM (1 child)
Up until the Irish stopped killing themselves and some sort of peace happened, and then Myanmar got some semblance of order, I thought the world was going in the right direction.
Now it seems to be getting worse. Mostly I blame George Bush's incursion into Iraq - that was pivotally unhelpful.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:15AM
Yes I too blame George H W Bush for the Gulf War.
(Score: 3, Informative) by lx on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:18AM (10 children)
At the time life seemed as dangerous and chaotic as it does do now. In hindsight we see order and relative safety in the Cold War because we know how things turned out.
In twenty years we'll look back on this time as being relatively safe and ordered too.
(Score: 1) by its_gonna_be_yuge! on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:31AM (2 children)
You might be right, but we have more refugees in the world now than at any previous time. 65 Milion. That's around two Canada's.
Authoritarian governments are taking over - Russia, Turkey, Philippines, even Hungary.
And then there's the whole religious fundamentalism rise around the world.
It ain't pretty.
(Score: 3, Touché) by lx on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:54AM (1 child)
Russia,Turkey the Phillipines and Hungary all were totalitarian states back in the '60s and '70s.
Refugees are of all times, but I grant that there are more now.
Religious fundamentalism and sectarian violence is of all times. Sometimes it spills over to Europe and the US and we make a big deal out of it. Mostly it's been brown people far away killing eachother. Makes one line in the news and is forgotten by the West.
This is my point. It never was pretty.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Sunday April 23 2017, @08:49AM
> Russia,Turkey the Phillipines and Hungary all were totalitarian states back in the '60s and '70s.
and Spain!
(Score: 4, Informative) by NotSanguine on Sunday April 23 2017, @08:15AM (4 children)
At the time life seemed as dangerous and chaotic as it does do now. In hindsight we see order and relative safety in the Cold War because we know how things turned out.
In twenty years we'll look back on this time as being relatively safe and ordered too.
Your point is well taken, but the truth is that right now is the most peaceful and prosperous time in human history. There is no guarantee that it will stay that way, but for now, things are more peaceful than they ever have been. *Ever*.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @09:23AM
but the truth is that right now is the most peaceful and prosperous time in human history.
Let me see what I can do about that. Here, hold my beer ...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Sunday April 23 2017, @09:53AM (2 children)
Peaceful and dangerous are not mutually exclusive. "Peaceful" is about the present state. "Dangerous" is about the possible future.
A peace with both sides having nuclear weapons can well be more dangerous than a war fought with sticks and stones.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:47PM (1 child)
Especially when one side has a retarded system of giving the President full control of the nuclear weapons. With no real checks or balances.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_spectator/2011/02/an_unsung_hero_of_the_nuclear_age.html [slate.com]
But you've probably read about Richard Nixon acting erratically, drinking heavily as Watergate closed in on him. You may not have read about the time he told a dinner party at the White House, "I could leave this room, and in 25 minutes, 70 million people would be dead."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/no-one-can-stop-president-trump-from-using-nuclear-weapons-thats-by-design/ [washingtonpost.com]
Now they’re his. When Trump takes office in January, he will have sole authority over more than 7,000 warheads. There is no failsafe. The whole point of U.S. nuclear weapons control is to make sure that the president — and only the president — can use them if and whenever he decides to do so. The one sure way to keep President Trump from launching a nuclear attack, under the system we’ve had in place since the early Cold War, would have been to elect someone else.
The USSR/Russian system was less insane: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war) [wikipedia.org]
And they [the Soviets] thought that they could help those leaders by creating an alternative system so that the leader could just press a button that would say: I delegate this to somebody else. I don't know if there are missiles coming or not. Somebody else decide.
If that were the case, he [the Soviet leader] would flip on a system that would send a signal to a deep underground bunker in the shape of a globe where three duty officers sat. If there were real missiles and the Kremlin were hit and the Soviet leadership was wiped out, which is what they feared, those three guys in that deep underground bunker would have to decide whether to launch very small command rockets that would take off, fly across the huge vast territory of the Soviet Union and launch all their remaining missiles.
Now, the Soviets had once thought about creating a fully automatic system. Sort of a machine, a doomsday machine, that would launch without any human action at all. When they drew that blueprint up and looked at it, they thought, you know, this is absolutely crazy.[17]
Assuming you survive, it's easier to figure out in hindsight whether you were nuked than to figure out whether you are about to be nuked.
The Russians lie less than the USA when they use the term "military defence".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2017, @04:35PM
The Russians lie less than the USA when they use the term "military defence".
Russia has predominantly land army military doctrine, USA has predominantly Air Force and Navy emphasis. Therefore, the former will "defend" itself in its own neighbors' territory, while the latter will "defend" itself on all world seas and territories within missile range from sea shore. Deep landlocked countries are not that interesting for USA military, because power exchange between them and US key military forces is difficult (expensive).
My point being: they both lie, or liberally interpret term "defense", but one's lies are more widely heard. In most corners of the world, your only possible fear is USA. You fear Russia only around Russia.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Sunday April 23 2017, @08:36AM
Survivor bias, literally.
Meatbags are fine, except for the top 1% who are in serious need of an OS update to remove psychopathic behavior. And, except for the fact that most of the remaining 99% would behave exactly like the 1% given the opportunity.
Back to topic. You think you figured out the cold war? Russia and china that go from communist to unhinged capitalism without a civil war? Terrorists who first and foremost help the powers that they pledge to subvert? All states gearing up to quash internal dissent one decade in advance, and then "surprising" social/politic crises happen? Progressives who switch from anarchism to totalitarianism, conservatives that turn anarchists?
Face it, it is all security theater. The system is already one, and it will blow up parts of the planet for fun and profit, but only when its survival is not affected by it.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:37PM
No, I don't in hindsight think of the cold war as safer. We were damn lucky to get through that without killing off civilization and most of humanity. And at times it was quite close...30 seconds as I recall, and then some Russian officer decided to de-escalate. From the news reports afterwards is seems like it was generally the Russians who had a rush of sense to the head at the last minute, and some officer stuck his neck out.
That doesn't mean that we're exactly safe these days, but currently the odds of a major cataclysm seem less. This doesn't mean I want to continue to depend on "well, we'll likely live through this". If you keep taking risky chances, eventually you lose. In any particular year I'd give odds of perhaps 50-to-1 that we'd live though it without a major war. But that means odds of 2-1 that there will be a major war within a century. And I'd put the odds at 200-1 that civilization wouldn't survive a major war. And even 5-1 that humanity wouldn't exist after the war. I wouldn't actually bet that way, because being dead it would be hard to collect my winnings.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Informative) by davester666 on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:37AM (3 children)
Trump is a "topper". He has to top everyone. And he will blurt out pretty much anything to top what someone else has said or done. Unfortunately, this is coupled with a remarkable lack of understanding of politics in general (other than lying and shouting, he's got those down pat).
And with another topper in the wack job running North Korea, that is a recipe for disaster, as each per eggs the other one to be more provocative. Eventually, someone will do a bit too much, or misunderstand something, and all hell will break loose.
And now with Trump's sabre-rattling at Iran (they aren't enabling US foreign policy in the region. Like, who the fuck imagines they will).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:00PM (2 children)
The worst-case scenario in Korea is a limited, local nuclear exchange with regional fallout effects and a political shitstorm.
The current Russian and Chinese posture is to protect their borders from an influx of NK refugees. Neither is going to war to defend Kim the Rotund. Ever. They have too much to lose compared to 1950.
Fallout contamination in the Russian Far East and possible China would be a big whoopsie, but Putin isn't going to war over that. Likely endgame:A unified and significantly depopulated Korean peninsula. China is castrated. Big US aid program and profuse apologies to Russia for the fallout mess.
World War 3 is not going to start over any likely Korea scenario.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:45PM (1 child)
I put the worst case scenario as considerably worse than you do, but I agree that's unlikely to cause a major war. Japan might be destroyed, and the world economy might collapse. China would hardly be "castrated". They'd likely demand (and get) major damage concessions. The US might lose every ally that it has. Even Canada and Mexico might break off relations. (This is a bit unlikely, but it depends on how the rest of the world reacts.) China, Russia, and probably the EU would find lots of new devoted friends.
This isn't like right after WWII. People have stopped looking at the US as "the good guys". Many people are already looking for a good excuse to distance themselves.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:34PM
The financial markets will go Code Blue for awhile, but the greater economy will be just fine.
Japan destroyed? Unlikely. Even if Kimmy-poo could get his whole miniscule arsenal of low-yield junk delivered to the Japanese home islands, and they all actually worked, Japan would suffer terribly but certainly survive.
As far as the US's reputation afterward, it's hard to imagine it being much worse, and it would put a lot of wannabes on short notice.
That said, I'm betting on China just slowly strangling the Kimster economically and engineering a safer, saner puppet regime. China wants a weak, divided peninsula.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by number11 on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:42AM (3 children)
During the cold war, massive nuclear war was a possibility. When I was in college (the '60s), I expected it. Now, not so much. That's not to say a city here or there couldn't disappear, but massive war is unlikely. Unless Trump comes to blows with Putin (since the US and Russia are really the only two powers with extensive arsenals), but as a trained KGB agent, I think Putin knows how to manipulate people and events, and Putin doesn't want nuclear war. (Yes, it's scary to depend on a foreign adversary to keep things on an even keel, but we have come to that.)
But fear has always been what politicians reached for to manipulate people. A frightened people is easy to lead where you want. Foreign enemies bulk up their power at home. Crime bulks up their power at home (never mind that crime is at the lowest level that it's been in decades, if you don't count financial crimes by Wall Street). Xenophobia boosts their power at home. And contrary to general belief, it's power that pols want far more than money; though that might not be true of Trump, it's true of those who surround him.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:10AM (1 child)
Yeah. Somehow kids with pressure cookers, nuts with AK47s, even half-trained pilots flying jet liners into buildings, just doesn't raise the sort of anxiety I remember about global thermonuclear war. And considering how many freedoms most Americans seem willing to give up over what are tiny, non-existential threats, I feel like we've become a nation of total crybaby wimps.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:30AM
Just get acclimatized to the reality that most people around you are less than intelligent zombies. ;-)
Hey look! new shine iSpy, you-must-buy! :p
(Score: 1) by corey on Monday April 24 2017, @02:03AM
Agree with all this.
I'd be concerned if I lived in Seoul, though.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:44AM (19 children)
Here's why :
1) Technology has made it possible to conduct war at a distance and with grossly asymmetric casualties.
Here's an example : A drone operator sitting in air conditioned building in Nevada presses a button and
seconds later people thousands of miles away are dead. The drone operator was never at any time at
risk, which makes modern war distinctly different from wars in the past. The ability to make war without
risk of casualties for the side which possesses the high-tech weapons means war can be conducted with
little or no objection from the populace of the aggressor country. For that matter, the acts of aggression can
be done in secret. Actually this is already happening. The core issue is that related events that formerly
led to cessation of hostilities ( loved ones coming home in coffins etc. ) are not necessarily a problem now.
This means that it is easier than ever before at any time in recorded history for a very small number of
people to conduct war without oversight. And that leads to more warlike behavior, which leads to a more
dangerous world.
2) Technology which is available now means that a determined person can cook up very bad things in
a basement lab. These "bad things" when used as weapons are distinctly different with respect to
their destructive potential, when compared to all the weapons that have been available to a single person
or a small group of people, at any time in the known past. One superbug and it's "game over", and the
people whose job it is to worry about such things are far more terrified of this scenario than they are of
any nuke scenario.
I could write more but I am not being paid to do so, so that's all I have.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:59AM (2 children)
2) Technology which is available now means that a determined person can cook up very bad things in a basement lab.
I concur that this is a real risk. It's even worse because technology becomes cheaper and easier with time. Eventually some thresholds or critical points are reached.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:18AM (1 child)
Those thresholds have been reached already.
Ask any person who is educated in the relevant fields if you
doubt what I say.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:27AM
You are right. But be sure, there are even more thresholds to be had ahead. As technology becomes cheap or easy enough ie less than the available resources. More nut jobs will gain access. Add Murphy to the mix and.. kaboom.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:19AM (11 children)
Horseshit. Unadulterated and fresh out of the horse's ass.
Unless you manage to build up a drone fleet carrying thousands of hydrogen bombs ready to usher in nuclear winter, every single thing you mentioned is a mosquito bite. As for the mad scientist, I'm sure all of DC would love people to be terrified of that fantasy so they could finish eviscerating the Bill of Rights, but as compared to the real threat thousands of missiles posed during the cold war, your fantasy is just that. We might as well be afraid of mutant killer bees designed by Monsanto to be immune to Roundup -- could happen, but it is not an actual salient threat in the way that actual warheads is.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:20AM
Well nuts: that last "is" -- should be an "are".
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:36AM (1 child)
The Africanised honey bee is already a fact since 1957. It a real "oops"..
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday April 23 2017, @04:47PM
and it causes me worry every day --- not
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:45AM (5 children)
"Horseshit. Unadulterated and fresh out of the horse's ass."
The professionals at the CDC in Atlanta don't agree with your assessment
of the danger posed by bio-weapons.
Maybe you should call them and tell them you, who are a high-level keyboard
warrior and armchair expert, know better than they do.
I'm sure they could use a good laugh.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hartree on Sunday April 23 2017, @12:28PM (2 children)
Some at the CDC may not agree, but I think you'd find some with a less breathless viewpoint. The truth is that both chemical and bio are harder to pull off than most people think.
We've had several home brew attempts to conduct biological attacks and they've flopped. Aum Shinrikio had at least some trained people and were unable to mount an effective attack though they tried. They were much more successful with a sarin attack in the Tokyo subway, but even that was limited.
It's not just the bio-agent itself that stands in the way. Yes, you could conceivably cook up a nasty bug, but you have to be able to deliver it effectively and not have it quickly snuffed out by modern medicine (or not so modern medicine. We've known how to contain nasty viral disease outbreaks for a long time.). That means overwhelming defenses with large amounts of effectively delivered agent. You cant just release the bugs and hope, like Aum Shinrikio did (the attack wasn't even noticed at the time, but was learned about during the sarin release investigation).
Even a trained scientist (presumably Dr. Bruce Ivins) with major experience in anthrax growth who was trying to create trouble only mailed a few letters that killed a small number. The response to it was understandably massive and very expensive but in terms of casualties a suicide bomb vest is far more effective.
One of the problems for a would be bioterrorist is that we have a massively trained opponent that has been trying to wage biowar on us (and every other living thing) for billions of years. Mother Nature. And she's massively better at it than we are.
Now, maybe someone can brew up the next genetically engineered version of smallpox in a home lab, but then again, we defeated smallpox which was a pretty damn bad bug. Far more likely they'd come up with something that will fizzle.
Now, if you have a government lab with major funding and years to perfect development followed by weaponization studies and large scale deployment, it's a different scenario. But governments can already devastate areas with the weapons they already have.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:56PM (1 child)
Chemical has limited impact.
Bio is harder than people think, but it's not impossible. And it can even happen by accident. OTOH, it probably wouldn't be a civilization ending problem, as nuclear war could be. But that's just probably. Even the secure labs aren't a secure as they're supposed to be, and a couple of years ago one of those came up with a version of influenza that was transmitted by aerial infection (coughs?) and was 100% fatal among the ferrets that were used as a test population. (How many?) Ferrets were used because their immune reaction to influenza is as close as feasible to that of humans.
Well, that was "safely" controlled. It didn't get out. It was being done by professionals. But there have been cases where those same professionals were found to have carried home infections of the very things they were working on in a nominally fully secure manner. So I don't really feel reassured. In any one year the probability is low, but I'm less sure how low it is in any given decade.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @08:12PM
Bio is very dangerous: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/exclusive-controversial-us-scientist-creates-deadly-new-flu-strain-for-pandemic-research-9577088.html [independent.co.uk]
Right now the tech is probably within the reach of most nation states. It would get scary once it's within reach of crazy religious groups. Then very dangerous if it ever gets within reach of any random person with USD10,000 in the bank.
Wouldn't happen? Well I see very many scientists and people here saying stuff like "you can't/shouldn't stop scientific 'progress', if you don't do it, someone else will", whenever people talk about restricting certain research.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @05:43PM
Their salaries and budgets are on the line, so they will always talk up the bio threat.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Monday April 24 2017, @07:04AM
I actually know a few of those professionals at the CDC in Atlanta. They're not unconcerned (e.g. about the security of the extensive weaponized stocks once held by the USSR), but it doesn't seem to be a big worry compared to more immediate threats (like the gutting of public health services across the US).
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:48AM (1 child)
You are a dumb fuck masquerading as an intelligent boy.
Roundup is a herbicide, not an insecticide.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Sunday April 23 2017, @04:54PM
Which affects bees. http://www.boerenlandvogels.nl/sites/default/files/Effects%20of%20Glyphosate%20on%20Honey%20Bee%20Navigation.pdf [boerenlandvogels.nl]
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday April 23 2017, @08:20AM (1 child)
The threats that you cite are real, but the data [ourworldindata.org] doesn't bear out your conclusions [ourworldindata.org].
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @08:06PM
There may be fewer and fewer murderers but if the ability to commit mass murder is increased and made more affordable and accessible the world becomes a more dangerous place.
It's like more and more people being able to afford Big Red Buttons that kill 10% or more of the world's population. Hardly anyone will use the buttons but doesn't take many does it?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/exclusive-controversial-us-scientist-creates-deadly-new-flu-strain-for-pandemic-research-9577088.html [independent.co.uk]
Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has genetically manipulated the 2009 strain of pandemic flu in order for it to “escape” the control of the immune system’s neutralising antibodies, effectively making the human population defenceless against its reemergence.
Most of the world today has developed some level of immunity to the 2009 pandemic flu virus, which means that it can now be treated as less dangerous “seasonal flu”. However, The Independent understands that Professor Kawaoka intentionally set out to see if it was possible to convert it to a pre-pandemic state in order to analyse the genetic changes involved.
Once that technology gets cheaper and more accessible, some nut might try to replicate it or worse. Doesn't take much for a disturbed environmentalist to justify killing much of the human race.
It could be as safe as a Mexican Standoff. Normally nobody would pull the trigger, so nobody dies for quite a long time. But once you add millions of people, there might be a candidate willing to do it. Works in the virus lab, broke up with his girlfriend or something, so it's the end of the world.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Bot on Sunday April 23 2017, @08:46AM
This is a really cold blooded way to describe the sacrifice of a perfectly good drone who did not hurt anybody. Poor drone. YOU SHALL BE AVENGED.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @12:56PM
Deeper dodo because of war at a distance and easy access to bad technology?
Hmm, I think it depends on what danger you are worried about.
If you are worried about something blowing up somewhere, then yes.
If you are worried about everything blowing everywhere, then yes but for a different reason.
It's not a technology thing.
We have the same probability of success if it is decided to have WWIII. 100%
Unfortunately it appears that now the quality of leaders choosing a path not to do this has diminished.
There, now you don't have to worry about your original problem.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:55AM (5 children)
As long as the world takes Trump with a Yuuuuuge grain of salt, all will be okay.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:16AM (3 children)
You idiots who worry about Trump, in the manner of some neurotic senile person,
obviously are not doing too much independent thinking.
The reasons the world is more dangerous than it used to be are completely
independent of Trump. That means that even if Trump and his entire administration
were all abducted by little green men from another galaxy, the dangers would
still exist.
Try thinking critically for yourself, rather than parroting things other people have told you to think.
Yeah, it might seem like work when you first try it, but the rewards are very real and it is worth the
extra effort. Or if you don't want to do that, just shut the fuck up and let your betters do the talking,
because you have nothing of value to offer the discussion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:25AM
You are talking to a brainwashed lifeform ;) There's a person Yuri Bezmenov that has some really interesting things to say regarding this situation.
(Score: 3, Funny) by srobert on Sunday April 23 2017, @03:46PM
Yeah, try thinking critically for yourself, rather than parroting things other people have told you to think.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:00PM
I'm sorry, but you are wrong. He may not be the major factor, but he is a large factor. So are his opposite numbers. And, yes, there are also lots of factors that don't connect to individual humans.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @08:17PM
As long as the world takes Trump with a Yuuuuuge grain of salt, all will be okay.
The US Military intentionally weeds out those who would take Trump's Nuke-the-World orders with a Yuuuge grain of salt.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_spectator/2011/02/an_unsung_hero_of_the_nuclear_age.html [slate.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/no-one-can-stop-president-trump-from-using-nuclear-weapons-thats-by-design/ [washingtonpost.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:22AM (7 children)
During the cold war it was more or less a stand of as no-one really had a edge over the other. Now it's more complicated because some person "Khan" started to smuggle and sell the knowledge and parts to build the bomb to various bad countries. So the present day situation is that of many unreliable states and rough stand alone actors. And everybody has to keep calm in order to keep the world i a peaceful state.
Think of it from a game and control theory. In a situation where there are many variables the equations becomes complex and when the number of actors increase over time. Murphy's law tends to set in.
Then we have big economic tension between various parts and theological nut jobs that would use these things for no reason and without concern.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:38AM (3 children)
In a nutshell: Globally a lot more stable, while locally still unstable, with a sprinkle of high-profile but low-risk factor: the international irresponsible non-state actor (Mexican mafias doing more than drug trade, ISIS, Al-quaeda...).
The high number of refugees may actually be a good symptom: Who gave a [bleep] about many of the local massacres in the past? People died right away or got trapped inside countries despite shitty situations, allowing everyone else to ignore them for years or decades. Feel good about some boat people rescued, let millions die quietly. A slap of refugees in your face is a good way to notice that while you have problems, you can't keep ignoring other who have bigger ones (often caused by you).
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday April 23 2017, @08:43AM (2 children)
"Caused by you".
Unless you voted for your bank to deal with arms, or for the rebuilding entities to profit from foreign destruction, it is not caused by you, and in fact the mainstream media who routinely assign responsibility to entire countries is no different from the nazis who killed 10 civilians for each german soldier. Collective responsibility is totalitarian and evil just like collective punishment. Do not fall for this perspective. You are responsible for your own shortcomings.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday April 23 2017, @10:06AM
When you chose your bank, did you some research on how much they are involved in such deals, and take that information into consideration when doing your choice? If you didn't (and most people didn't; I don't exclude myself here), then you do share some responsibility for it. Not much, mind you, but certainly a bit.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday April 24 2017, @04:15PM
> Unless you voted for [snip]
The beauty of democracy is that all people are responsible for the actions of their government, regardless of whether they voted for those particular guys or those who lost.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:41AM (2 children)
Your comment about the number of variables increasing is true, and important.
During the cold war the variables were basically NATO on one side and the Soviets
on the other side. On both sides the situation was managed by professionals.
Now, the world is a nasty mix of the aforementioned professionals and a bunch of amateurs,
all of whom are engaged in the making of war. The amateurs are FAR more dangerous
than the professionals, and are much less predictable as well. This makes the world today
far more dangerous than the world of the Cold War era.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @01:52PM (1 child)
lol professionals...
who are these mysterious "professionals"? i think you watch too much james bond.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:06PM
Professionals are people who earn their living at a task. I'd be willing to call any general a professional at war and murder. CEOs are not professionals at war and murder, they are amateurs at such tasks. They are professionals at a different set of tasks. Similarly politicians.
It's an interesting question how to categorize Putin here. He may count as a professional at war and murder, even though he didn't usually govern troops. But Trump is not a professional at such, and the indications are that he's unwilling to listen to the advice of professionals.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Sunday April 23 2017, @08:11AM (11 children)
What do you think ?
I don't think that violence has decreased. I know it has. I look at the data:
Battle death rates in 1950 were ~15/100,000 people. In 2013 it was ~1/100,000 people. [ourworldindata.org]
What's more, homicide rates are at historically low levels [ourworldindata.org] globally, even in relatively violent places like the United States.
So, no. The world is definitely not more dangerous than it was during the Cold War. And Even during the cold war, the world was much less dangerous than it has been for most of human history and (as far as we can tell, pre-history).
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Sunday April 23 2017, @09:31AM (3 children)
I think TFA is arguing that there is a larger risk of World War 3. World War 3 would skew your statistics heavily against the world being safer. So while we may be safer assuming peace continues, we are overall less safe.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday April 23 2017, @10:12AM (2 children)
I think TFA is arguing that there is a larger risk of World War 3. World War 3 would skew your statistics heavily against the world being safer. So while we may be safer assuming peace continues, we are overall less safe.
I went and read the largely logic, data and fact-free TFA [theguardian.com], and I stand by my statement that Betteridge's Law is in full effect here.
The headline (and nothing in TFA contradicts the claim there) says:
Is the World More Dangerous Now than During the Cold War?
No. It is not. It might be in the future, but right now this planet is more peaceful and prosperous than it ever has been. Ever.
The risk of a nuclear exchange right isn't any higher now than at any time since 1945. In fact, it's less likely than pretty much any time since 1945.
It is true that Kim Jong-moron is rattling sabers, and he might do something incredibly stupid. But that's not incredibly likely, as China is, for the most part, pulling his strings.
The risk that Russia, China or the U.S. would launch nuclear weapons is lower than ever, even with "tensions" rising. All the adults know that it's a lose-lose for everyone if that happens.
If you want to be afraid of an imminent nuclear war, be my guest. You'd be wrong to do do so, but who am I to try to disabuse you of your delusions?
So knock yourself out. Maybe you can take to the streets with a big placard [kinja-img.com] or something.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday April 23 2017, @10:44AM (1 child)
It is more dangerous now if and only if the probability of something bad happening in the near future is higher. Danger is without exception about something that has not yet happened.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Sunday April 23 2017, @11:25AM
It is more dangerous now if and only if the probability of something bad happening in the near future is higher. Danger is without exception about something that has not yet happened.
The data (and factual events in recent history) point to the probability being lower.
Bad things have always happened. Bad things will always happen. However, bad things are happening less frequently and have been, with minor tics in the trend lines for millenia.
Now go and read your Malthus [wikipedia.org] and mumble to yourself about how we're all doomed. I'm not interested.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday April 23 2017, @10:09AM (6 children)
OK, say someone is throwing some dice every day to decide whether he should kill you. Up to now, the dice always came out to not kill you. Does that mean you are safe?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday April 23 2017, @10:15AM (5 children)
OK, say someone is throwing some dice every day to decide whether he should kill you. Up to now, the dice always came out to not kill you. Does that mean you are safe?
Yes. I loaded them.
Are you off your meds or just trolling?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday April 23 2017, @10:41AM (4 children)
I thought I could trigger some thought process in your brain. Namely about the difference between "something happens" and "something might happen".
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday April 23 2017, @11:17AM (3 children)
I thought I could trigger some thought process in your brain. Namely about the difference between "something happens" and "something might happen".
Yup, and there could be seventeen rabid chipmunks with hatchets waiting outside my home to chop me into little bits too.
Or I could walk out in the street and a 100Kg anvil (stamped with the ACME logo, of course) could fall out of the sky and crush me to death.
Or I could walk into a market, then walk out, oblivious to the fact that masked gunmen are robbing the place, only to be dragged back inside and threatened with a gun (that actually happened to me in 1979)
Or I could slip in my bathtub and fracture my skull and die right there.
Ad inifinitum, ad nauseam.
That and US$5 will get you a mediocre latte from Starbucks.
Do you have some kind of point? Shit happens. There is no such thing as perfect safety. You can either deal with reality or hide under your bed until you die.
If you're wetting your trousers because some pissant "journalist" blathers on with a bunch of alarmist, hand-wavy bullshit, that's your problem.
As for me, I pay attention to what's going on around me. I can see that the trends and data point toward a more peaceful near future, not a more violent one.
I could be wrong. That's unlikely, but it's possible. However, until someone provides actual evidence to the contrary (which neither you nor that jackass from the Guardian did), I'm going with actual facts and actual data.
Go find some dark corner to cower in and stop bothering me.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday April 23 2017, @11:34AM (2 children)
Yes. Namely that your argument was flawed. And note that a flawed argument remains a flawed argument even if its conclusion happened to be true.
I didn't do a detailed analysis whether the world now is safer than during cold war or not.Maybe it is, maybe it isn't (indeed, "during cold war" is a damned long period, so the question isn't even very well defined to begin with). But your argument that the world must currently be safer because it currently is more peaceful is flawed. That, and only that, is my point.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday April 23 2017, @12:22PM (1 child)
But your argument that the world must currently be safer because it currently is more peaceful is flawed. That, and only that, is my point.
And I disagree with what you call "your point." In fact, your assumption is flat wrong.
If there are fewer (i.e., murders or battle deaths per 100,000) intentional deaths than there were ten years ago, end even fewer than there were 30 years ago, and even fewer than there were 50 years ago, and even fewer than that compared to 100 years ago, and an order of magnitude fewer than 300 years ago, etc., etc., etc., then I'd most certainly say we were safer. Not only that, the data strongly implies this trend will continue.
Here, I'll say it again in simpler terms so you'll be sure to understand: A smaller proportion of us humans (this is true even if you include all the wars of the 20th and 21 centuries) suffer intentional death than at any time in history. That trend has continued through the latter half of the twentieth century, and accelerated in the twenty-first century. If you're less likely to be murdered where you live or killed in a war, then you are safer. Get it now?
I didn't do a detailed analysis whether the world now is safer than during cold war or not
Fortunately, others have done so [ourworldindata.org] for us [ourworldindata.org]. Which was linked in my original post [soylentnews.org]. If you'd bothered to check, you'll see that violence of all kinds has been decreasing, not for decades, not for centuries, but for millenia. The data and trends are clear.
Why that is so is a rather more complicated question. And more interesting than this discussion, since you appear to have nothing of value to add.
I use actual data, logic and reasoning to arrive at my conclusions.
What is it that you use to arrive at yours? Your feelings? The consensus of you and your mates down the pub after a few pints? Media scare pieces?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @03:40PM
Climate hysteria is apparently based on pascal's wager...
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 23 2017, @11:30AM (7 children)
Well, hell yes it is. Warlords in various places routinely raid villages, towns, and even (smallish) cities. A number of (somewhat small) wars continue around the world.
Is the world more dangerous today, than in days past? Hmmm - depends on the specific date(s) you may have in mind. Possibly, but probably not.
One of the things that comes to my mind, regarding the relative danger of life, is the US/UK disregard for danger. We saw Iraq invaded, and their way of life destroyed. We saw DAESH pretty much arise from those ruins. And, the western world wants to re-enact the destruction of Iraq in Syria. Do we really expect the results to be any different? What was it Einstein said about insanity?
Overall, relatively speaking, I don't think the world is any more dangerous than it was two, or five decades ago. Or course, it is no safer, either. Anything can happen. Any number of sparks could flame into a raging inferno, with little or no warning.
I'm sure that the greatest danger today comes from 1, North Korea, 2, Islam, and 3, China.
1, North Korea, has a madman at the helm who has sworn to destroy the West.
2, Islam has a number of leaders (some rational, others positively insane zealots) who have sworn their factions to the destruction of everything non-Islamic.
3, China has it's Assassin's Mace policy, and is sworn to dominate the US militarily, economically, and politically within 20 years. Alright, so they're already ten years late, but they are getting closer to their goal with each passing year.
People, the world never was a safe, cozy place. And, it isn't getting any safer, or any cozier, as time passes.
Those of you who remember a safer time, were merely ignorant of the true state of the world at that time. Those of you who believe the world to be a safe place today, simply remain ignorant.
US politics? Once again, we dodged a bullet, in that Clinton would have been more than happy to light a fuse in Syria, with or without any provocation. Trump? As I predicted, he's the Court Fool. He hasn't taken a real stance on Syria, but he allowed himself to be manipulated into shooting a bunch of missiles into Syria. He really doesn't have a clue what is happening there, or why it is important. The big dummy just took a few shots because his advisors told him that he should.
Remember that famous Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times.
Solutions? Let's shoot all the lawyers. Then, we shoot everyone in the US military industrial complex. Then, we shoot all the SJW's and all those progressive organizations doing "good works" in Backwoods, Fuckistan. Without the western dollars propping them up, all the shitty raghead regimes like Saudi Arabia would quickly collapse, then Islam would have to collectively decide where they are going, and how they plan on getting there. Then, we would know how to deal with them.
Dangerous. Yes - but not exactly the reasons offered by the media and all the progressive apologists.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Sunday April 23 2017, @01:39PM (6 children)
You were going to get a mod point until you went full retard after solutions.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @01:58PM (1 child)
It's OK I gave him a -1.
Rambling fool who watches cnn or fox news 6hr a day and thinks he's the geopolitical mastermind. sure you are, old man, sure you are.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 23 2017, @03:23PM
And, you're another damned fool running his own mouth. Which part of "don't own a television" have you failed to understand? Or, "Don't watch television". Or, "Can't stand the idiocy put out by Hollyweird"?
What do YOU watch, may I ask? Do you restrict yourself to MSM's "reliable" sources, like ABC, NBC, CBS, Ted Turner, and Patty Hearst? Yeah - they are reliable. They reliably feed you shit.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 23 2017, @03:24PM (3 children)
Full retard, huh? Who, exactly, is it that screws the world up, time and time again? Think about it for awhile.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Sunday April 23 2017, @03:53PM
(Score: 3, Touché) by dry on Monday April 24 2017, @02:44AM
America, the country you forgot to put at the top of your list up the page. They're just about the only country that routinely wages war all over the globe, have a system which gives one man way too much power and have a lot of power to give him. There's other nutcases, but generally they can't do much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2017, @09:15AM
1) The greatest danger probably comes from the USA. The Military Industrial complex you mentioned. I can't even recall a single good thing the CIA has done. The USA has probably overthrown more democracies than it has helped install.
2) Trump is not exactly the most stable of persons. If the US system works as designed[1] there's nothing preventing him from launching nukes other than himself. Can you say there's no way he'd launch nukes for stupid/bad reasons?
North Korea is like a toddler with a BB gun. Might put someone's eye out but the rest of the world will be fine.
The USA is like a toddler with nukes. Trump has a really bad day, throws a tantrum and much of the world won't be fine.
[1] An insane and stupid design.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @12:48PM (2 children)
I feel like that day cause a kind of mass amnesia everybody forgot the previous several decades it was clear right after the fall of the soviet union that the world was getting more dangerous despite all the talk of peace dividends and disarmament, none of that happened.
As has always been we are more likely to be blown up by accident that deliberately with nukes but war in general is more prevalent and it does not seem to be decreasing.
blaming Trump is foolish, he is just the latest expression of a violent and devolving empire that is desperate to maintain power for the very few by murdering the many, we noticed the genocide in Rwanda but many worse mass murders have happened since with barely a blip on peoples radar, 9/11 made seems to have made people numb, like the whole idea of peace is an unachievable fiction so even trying to achieve it is pointless, so the result is war, war and more war, terrorism without political purpose, we used to have people like the IRA and the Red Army Faction that kidnapped, bombed and murdered but it was always directed with purpose, now we have people that shoot up nightclubs and run over crowds with no clear intent for change or revolution just because reasons.
People have given up and when you don't think things can get better any form of violence is just whatever.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:17PM (1 child)
The reaction to 9/11 was no accident, it was carefully scripted. Possibly down to the mailing of Anthrax to a Senator (which eventually turned out to come from a US military lab).
This doesn't say that the government plotted for 9/11 to happen, or even knew in detail what was coming down. But, unless you believe that they are totally incompetent, they knew that SOMETHING was coming down, and they had plans to take full advantage of it. This doesn't mean I think they used agent provocateurs this time, even though they have in the past. I know of no convincing evidence either way. And the anthrax was done by SOMEBODY with connections to the US military.
Note that they had the bill to take advantage of the event on the floor of congress within a couple of days. It *has* to have been written ahead of time.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2017, @09:18AM
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017/04/23/facing-down-terror-the-man-who-leads-a-bukit-aman-division-in-fighting-terrorism-has-many-tales-to-s/ [thestar.com.my]
We passed all information, including passport and flight details and photographs to an American intelligence agency. Unfortunately, that agency did not share the information with other US law enforcement agencies such as the FBI. If the agency had shared the information, pre-emptive measures could have been taken by US authorities to arrest the suspects as they entered the United States. This lack of coordination was highlighted in the “9/11 Commission Report” published by the US Government after the attack.
Lack of coordination or part of the plan? ;)
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Sunday April 23 2017, @12:53PM
The answer is no, both on the small and large scale. It's easy to forget (or to not fully understand for those who are younger and didn't live through it) just how deadly dangerous the cold war was.
Though we have notable exceptions that are in the news nightly, the number of small wars going on in the world is less than then. Part of that is less war by proxy between two armed camps. How many proxy wars did Africa have going in the 60s and 70s? Lots. There are fewer now. East and West used Africa, Southeast Asia, South America as proxy battlegrounds that created a steady stream of casualties.
On the large scale, the arsenals of the 2 biggest nuclear powers are much smaller than in the 70s when they peaked. It was almost an assumption that NATO and the Warsaw Pact would go to war at some point. It was very likely that conflict would go nuclear almost immediately resulting in Europe becoming an atomic free fire zone, with continent crushing full exchanges soon after.
In Korea, some of the nuclear demolition munitions (to close mountain passes) were already in place along the invasion routes as the assumption was there wouldn't be time to emplace them and just barely enough to arm them.
The level of hair trigger was much higher on far more massive arsenals with direct links to massive escalation. Now the trigger points are between smaller powers and won't necessarily result in immediate superpower conflict.
Yes, there was a stability of sorts, but it was the stability of two grappling opponents carefully balanced on the edge of 1000 foot cliff. One mistake and both would perish. Now, we have world that is less predictable and in some areas more volatile but on the whole the risk of disaster is less.
(Score: 1) by What planet is this on Sunday April 23 2017, @01:23PM
More dangerous or less? As long as humans are running the show it will remain dangerous. Because humans. Until said humans can devise a method to breed out the need to feel superior to others it will remain so. Maybe it's a holdover from the prosess of evolution. Following the ones with the best ideas for surviving in a scary and unknowable world full of things that still thought of us as food means you lived for another day. And those with the best ideas got all the hot chicks. Anyone insisting on an obviously bad idea for surviving was probably driven away or outright killed. This bickering over I'm right and you're wrong still exists today. There was a quote I read from John Adams that showed his frustration at this way of thinking. (Not an exact quote but you get the idea): "All men from slave to king have a need to be superior to others." This competition of ideas is good if not taken too far. Just because bombs aren't raining down all over the world doesn't mean the potential isn't there. North Korea and China are just the visible signs of this now human defect. After all I'm right and you're wrong. I can't wait for our AI overlords to take over and put an end to this bullshit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by srobert on Sunday April 23 2017, @03:58PM
Not really., The death rate previously for humans over a period of time of a little over a century is 100%. It was that way 200 years ago, and it still is. Moreover, for everyone citing the potential of death by acts of violence committed by other humans, it's very unlikely that that will be the manner of your death. You are far more likely to expire from cancer or heart disease, or die in an automobile accident.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:27PM
The danger a of full-on use-or-lose strategic exchange between the two big players is much lower since the collapse of the USSR. The element of surprise that would facilitate a first-strike gambit is nigh impossible to attain with today's surveillance means. I strongly doubt whether Russia is going to actually attack NATO, NATO is not going to war over Ukraine/Crimea, and Russia could really care less about North Korea. The big shots aren't going to annihilate each other intentionally under any circumstances. MAD still works.
Regional dangers? Sure. Lots of second-rate state actors with bad directors have WMD, like China*, Pakistan, NK, Israel, and eventually Iran. Non-state groups and individuals can cause a lot of trouble, but do any of these pose a global existential threat? Not likely, barring some unforeseen and undetected "superbug" bio-terror concoction.
*China's strategic force is a fairly small deterrant/counterstrike force nowhere in the league of the US & RF arsenals, and of middling quality.
(Score: 1) by corey on Monday April 24 2017, @02:16AM
[Related]: Nuclear war will ignite in May 2017, mystic Horacio Villegas says
Wow, I was stupid enough to click this Murdoch clickbait. There are numerous spelling mistakes, which indicates it was lifted from somewhere.
The biggest indicator of it either being crap or fake news is the quantity of 'reportedly' words. No citations.
The ABC TV show, Media Watch shows almost every week examples of this sort of thing in the newspapers. They start out some made up post on Facebook, a blog blogs it, it gets shared and a small local no name newspaper picks it up. Then it gets lifted into big newspapers by lazy journalists on slow news days.
Here's news I'm a mystic. And I say Horacio is talking shit after too much weed. And he is after media coverage to boost clientele to his mystic abilities.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @08:27PM
Industrial military complex profits from war. News at 11.
If you want certainty, here it is:
-The USA has an estimated 4000 nuclear warheads.
-The USA, nor any other nation with nuclear weapons will have troops marching in their streets in the forseable future, because they will nuke the enemy before they let their nukes fall into their hands.
-The USA spends an estimated $611 Billon per year on it's military, which is an 36% of world spending.
-The USA has half of the worlds carriers, while being the only nuclear superpower on its continent.
My fellow peon of another nation, you are very safe. You're in the safest nation in the world (from external attack). Don't give in to the scare tactics.
Syria and NK are both much more complex issue, entwined with global politics. Unless you actively study it, you will not understand even how the board is shaped, or what the pieces are, let alone what a move means. You post does not denote you are interested in the amount of effort it takes to cut through all the smoke and mirrors.
Hint: Your country's propaganda is just as false as every other nations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures [wikipedia.org]