Snap General Election called

[Son of Mathonwy]

When would we use nuclear weapons? To defend Poland, the Baltic states, France?

Putin will push boundaries as far as he can. He has already invaded Ukraine, twice, and Georgia. He is trying to recreate the Russian empire and overcome the Cold War.

Encouraging him by reducing defence spending, as it appears you wish to do, it absurd. Even appeasement was designed to buy time to rearm.

And are the nuclear weapons more effective if there are individual British and French ones or would they work just as well as an Anglo-French joint effort?

Puja

We have far fewer warheads than the US, Russia might see a nuclear war as being winnable against just the UK and France. But even so, we re unlikely to unleash a nuclear apocalypse unless it’s the last resort. Which means defending Poland and other allies in Eastern Europe will need conventional forces, which are currently very under sized.

We have 225 warheads, France a similar number. Only an insane Russian leader would see a war like that as winnable. Yes, there would be more Russian survivors than In the UK or France. The UK and France would cease to exist. But Russia would also cease to exist as we know it - its cities destroyed, any concentrations of military forces similarly. It would be a fleet of nuclear submarines plus a wasteland and a fraction of its former population.

[Son of Mathonwy]

The RAND Corporation conducted a series of wargames to explore the shape and likely outcome of a Russian invasion of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The results were unambiguous and suggested that given the Baltic states’ military capabilities and NATO’s posture at the time, Russian forces could overrun the Baltic states within 36 to 60 hours. Such a swift defeat would leave NATO with unpalatable choices including: a bloody counteroffensive; a nuclear response; or the acceptance of Russian rule over the Baltics.

To avoid such a situation, the study recommended that seven allied brigades – including three heavy brigades – with appropriate air support and other enablers should be deployed to permanent bases in the Baltics.

These suggestions have never materialised. Although NATO has deployed a multinational battalion battle group to each Baltic state and Poland as part of its Enhanced Forward Presence, boosted the readiness of the NATO Response Force and the US has unilaterally forward deployed some heavy forces into the region, these efforts are not even close to matching the proposed force package. There are no signs that this situation will change in the future, meaning that the Baltic states are still in the same situation as the RAND study found them four years ago – their conventional militaries destroyed in less than three days and NATO struggling to choose from three unthinkable options.

https://www.tweedekamer.nl/downloads/do ... 2024D07122

This is a 2020 paper referencing a 2016 paper by RAND. The situation now is not materially different aside from the fact that Russia is currently bogged down in Ukraine, and of course Sweden and Finland are now in NATO. The Russian military industrial complex is in wartime mode of production, whereas we are not. If we let Russia succeed in Ukraine, the Baltics would be easy pickings.

Interesting paper. I would say though that things are materially different - the full-scale Ukraine invasion has had a huge impact on Russia's capabilities, positively and negatively. They have lost a huge number of men and weapons. But they have gained experience and have geared up their economy to a war footing. They are under much greater financial strain. NATO and the Baltic states have learned from the Ukraine war too. How all these changes add together to impact the vulnerability of the Baltic states is hard to determine but I wouldn't assume they are easy pickings, any more than Ukraine turned out to be.

[Zhivago]

The RAND Corporation conducted a series of wargames to explore the shape and likely outcome of a Russian invasion of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The results were unambiguous and suggested that given the Baltic states’ military capabilities and NATO’s posture at the time, Russian forces could overrun the Baltic states within 36 to 60 hours. Such a swift defeat would leave NATO with unpalatable choices including: a bloody counteroffensive; a nuclear response; or the acceptance of Russian rule over the Baltics.

To avoid such a situation, the study recommended that seven allied brigades – including three heavy brigades – with appropriate air support and other enablers should be deployed to permanent bases in the Baltics.

These suggestions have never materialised. Although NATO has deployed a multinational battalion battle group to each Baltic state and Poland as part of its Enhanced Forward Presence, boosted the readiness of the NATO Response Force and the US has unilaterally forward deployed some heavy forces into the region, these efforts are not even close to matching the proposed force package. There are no signs that this situation will change in the future, meaning that the Baltic states are still in the same situation as the RAND study found them four years ago – their conventional militaries destroyed in less than three days and NATO struggling to choose from three unthinkable options.

https://www.tweedekamer.nl/downloads/do ... 2024D07122

This is a 2020 paper referencing a 2016 paper by RAND. The situation now is not materially different aside from the fact that Russia is currently bogged down in Ukraine, and of course Sweden and Finland are now in NATO. The Russian military industrial complex is in wartime mode of production, whereas we are not. If we let Russia succeed in Ukraine, the Baltics would be easy pickings.

Interesting paper. I would say though that things are materially different - the full-scale Ukraine invasion has had a huge impact on Russia's capabilities, positively and negatively. They have lost a huge number of men and weapons. But they have gained experience and have geared up their economy to a war footing. They are under much greater financial strain. NATO and the Baltic states have learned from the Ukraine war too. How all these changes add together to impact the vulnerability of the Baltic states is hard to determine but I wouldn't assume they are easy pickings, any more than Ukraine turned out to be.

Ukraine is a much larger country. The possibility to conduct defence in depth existed. That is not so in the Baltics. Plus the Russians would immediately cut off the Suwalki gap and attack from three sides. There would be no logistics for NATO to support the Baltics, apart from sea. That would complicate any defence that NATO mounted.

[Zhivago]

And are the nuclear weapons more effective if there are individual British and French ones or would they work just as well as an Anglo-French joint effort?

Puja

We have far fewer warheads than the US, Russia might see a nuclear war as being winnable against just the UK and France. But even so, we re unlikely to unleash a nuclear apocalypse unless it’s the last resort. Which means defending Poland and other allies in Eastern Europe will need conventional forces, which are currently very under sized.

We have 225 warheads, France a similar number. Only an insane Russian leader would see a war like that as winnable. Yes, there would be more Russian survivors than In the UK or France. The UK and France would cease to exist. But Russia would also cease to exist as we know it - its cities destroyed, any concentrations of military forces similarly. It would be a fleet of nuclear submarines plus a wasteland and a fraction of its former population.

Depends on his counsel.

https://karaganov.ru/en/nuclear-war-can-be-won/
https://karaganov.ru/en/sergei-karagano ... tern-yoke/

[Which Tyler]

John Oliver on the UK's GE

[Sandydragon]

And are the nuclear weapons more effective if there are individual British and French ones or would they work just as well as an Anglo-French joint effort?

Puja

We have far fewer warheads than the US, Russia might see a nuclear war as being winnable against just the UK and France. But even so, we re unlikely to unleash a nuclear apocalypse unless it’s the last resort. Which means defending Poland and other allies in Eastern Europe will need conventional forces, which are currently very under sized.

We have 225 warheads, France a similar number. Only an insane Russian leader would see a war like that as winnable. Yes, there would be more Russian survivors than In the UK or France. The UK and France would cease to exist. But Russia would also cease to exist as we know it - its cities destroyed, any concentrations of military forces similarly. It would be a fleet of nuclear submarines plus a wasteland and a fraction of its former population.

Assuming they are all deployable at the same time. Due to how the submarines are rotated and serviced that isn’t the case.

And the key point is that a British or French leader may not choose to use nukes to defend Eastern Europe. I suspect the red line for both is much further west.

And the key point raised below is that some politicians and voters want to CUT defence expenditure. That’s at a time where we need a competent military and don’t want to send the wrong message to Putin, the same way we did to the Argentinians
.

[Mikey Brown]

Have Labour/Starmer actually given an explicit stance on defence spending?

I can understand if they haven’t, there are more pressing issues like making sure schools refuse to acknowledge the existence of trans people.

[Zhivago]

Have Labour/Starmer actually given an explicit stance on defence spending?

I can understand if they haven’t, there are more pressing issues like making sure schools refuse to acknowledge the existence of trans people.

Increase but not urgently

[Son of Mathonwy]

We have far fewer warheads than the US, Russia might see a nuclear war as being winnable against just the UK and France. But even so, we re unlikely to unleash a nuclear apocalypse unless it’s the last resort. Which means defending Poland and other allies in Eastern Europe will need conventional forces, which are currently very under sized.

We have 225 warheads, France a similar number. Only an insane Russian leader would see a war like that as winnable. Yes, there would be more Russian survivors than In the UK or France. The UK and France would cease to exist. But Russia would also cease to exist as we know it - its cities destroyed, any concentrations of military forces similarly. It would be a fleet of nuclear submarines plus a wasteland and a fraction of its former population.

Assuming they are all deployable at the same time. Due to how the submarines are rotated and serviced that isn’t the case.

And the key point is that a British or French leader may not choose to use nukes to defend Eastern Europe. I suspect the red line for both is much further west.

And the key point raised below is that some politicians and voters want to CUT defence expenditure. That’s at a time where we need a competent military and don’t want to send the wrong message to Putin, the same way we did to the Argentinians
.

That's a different point (and a perfectly reáonable one). But that doesn't rely on us having only about 500 warheads between the UK and France, rather on how willing we are to use them.

I agree that reducing the number we have might not be a great idea (less than 100 usable warheads feels too low to me) especially if France's fall into the hands of Le Pen.

[Son of Mathonwy]

https://www.tweedekamer.nl/downloads/do ... 2024D07122

This is a 2020 paper referencing a 2016 paper by RAND. The situation now is not materially different aside from the fact that Russia is currently bogged down in Ukraine, and of course Sweden and Finland are now in NATO. The Russian military industrial complex is in wartime mode of production, whereas we are not. If we let Russia succeed in Ukraine, the Baltics would be easy pickings.

Interesting paper. I would say though that things are materially different - the full-scale Ukraine invasion has had a huge impact on Russia's capabilities, positively and negatively. They have lost a huge number of men and weapons. But they have gained experience and have geared up their economy to a war footing. They are under much greater financial strain. NATO and the Baltic states have learned from the Ukraine war too. How all these changes add together to impact the vulnerability of the Baltic states is hard to determine but I wouldn't assume they are easy pickings, any more than Ukraine turned out to be.

Ukraine is a much larger country. The possibility to conduct defence in depth existed. That is not so in the Baltics. Plus the Russians would immediately cut off the Suwalki gap and attack from three sides. There would be no logistics for NATO to support the Baltics, apart from sea. That would complicate any defence that NATO mounted.

Absolutely. The Baltics are not Ukraine. Also I think there was a fair possibility that the defence of Kyiv might have failed if had circumstances been only slightly different - luck was involved.

I just don't think things are quite as desperate for the Baltic states as you suggest. Russia's situation is weaker in a number of ways (if stronger in others) since the Ukraine invasion began.

[Son of Mathonwy]

John Oliver on the UK's GE

Bloody good.

[Zhivago]

Interesting paper. I would say though that things are materially different - the full-scale Ukraine invasion has had a huge impact on Russia's capabilities, positively and negatively. They have lost a huge number of men and weapons. But they have gained experience and have geared up their economy to a war footing. They are under much greater financial strain. NATO and the Baltic states have learned from the Ukraine war too. How all these changes add together to impact the vulnerability of the Baltic states is hard to determine but I wouldn't assume they are easy pickings, any more than Ukraine turned out to be.

Ukraine is a much larger country. The possibility to conduct defence in depth existed. That is not so in the Baltics. Plus the Russians would immediately cut off the Suwalki gap and attack from three sides. There would be no logistics for NATO to support the Baltics, apart from sea. That would complicate any defence that NATO mounted.

Absolutely. The Baltics are not Ukraine. Also I think there was a fair possibility that the defence of Kyiv might have failed if had circumstances been only slightly different - luck was involved.

I just don't think things are quite as desperate for the Baltic states as you suggest. Russia's situation is weaker in a number of ways (if stronger in others) since the Ukraine invasion began.

NATO has 2200 troops in Estonia, 4000 in Latvia, and 3700 in Lithuania. Russia currently has 470,000 ground troops active in Ukraine.

[Puja]

Ukraine is a much larger country. The possibility to conduct defence in depth existed. That is not so in the Baltics. Plus the Russians would immediately cut off the Suwalki gap and attack from three sides. There would be no logistics for NATO to support the Baltics, apart from sea. That would complicate any defence that NATO mounted.

Absolutely. The Baltics are not Ukraine. Also I think there was a fair possibility that the defence of Kyiv might have failed if had circumstances been only slightly different - luck was involved.

I just don't think things are quite as desperate for the Baltic states as you suggest. Russia's situation is weaker in a number of ways (if stronger in others) since the Ukraine invasion began.

NATO has 2200 troops in Estonia, 4000 in Latvia, and 3700 in Lithuania. Russia currently has 470,000 ground troops active in Ukraine.

There is the fairly major difference that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are members of NATO and the EU. Even if we assume a Trump that guts NATO, the EU is bound by mutual defence treaties and those countries have over 1.5 million troops in active forces, with technology and materiel and training of much higher quality than that available to the 470,000 ground troops that Russia has in Ukraine who are a) still involved with Ukraine, b) missing a lot of quality equipment and experience from the fact that they've been fed into Ukrainian mincers on occasions and had their replacements from convicts and draftees.

Can we stop Russia from taking the Baltic States if they were to launch a surprise attack? No, probably not, although I suspect moving those 470,000 troops northwards might be noticed and met with a troop build-up of our own. Would Russia be able to win a conventional warfare battle against just the EU nations? No, probably not. If the rest of NATO joined in? Absolutely not.

Puja

[Puja]

Just looked a bit further into Clacton and my hopes of Labour winning the seat have taken a nose-dive. Their candidate is young, black, university-educated, which are all things the constituency is adamantly not, and has been parachuted in from London (which will not endear, considering Clacton regards Londoners as either bloody tourists ruining our town or not touristy enough and abandoning the British seaside for cheap flights abroad, depending on how much your job depends on the tourism trade). He seems like an excellent candidate who would win most seats, but the constituency has an average age of 51, is 97% White British (literal stat, not hyperbole), is highly insular, and I cannot see them voting for someone named Jovan Owusu Nepaul.

I hope to be proven wrong, but I don't have faith in the place where I grew up not to be incredibly racist.

Puja

Oh FFS, what is the matter with Starmer HQ? Admittedly, they didn't know this was going to be THE fight with Reform UK, but they should have tried to field a suitable candidate. Maybe this is why Farage picked the seat.

Oh, and it gets so much worse: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... in-clacton

Maybe Clacton wasn't winnable once Farage got involved, but on the other hand, maybe it could've been! Have the frothing racist vote split between Reform and the Tories and campaign on the "Dear gods, do you really want Farage representing you?!?!" ticket and there's a route to victory there. Even if there isn't, at least they'd've *tried* to stop the literal worst person from winning. I suspect they have looked at it without ethics or morals being involved, decided that they're interested in trying to knock the Tories' MPs as low as possible, and a Reform win achieves that just as well as a Labour one does.

Puja

[Zhivago]

Absolutely. The Baltics are not Ukraine. Also I think there was a fair possibility that the defence of Kyiv might have failed if had circumstances been only slightly different - luck was involved.

I just don't think things are quite as desperate for the Baltic states as you suggest. Russia's situation is weaker in a number of ways (if stronger in others) since the Ukraine invasion began.

NATO has 2200 troops in Estonia, 4000 in Latvia, and 3700 in Lithuania. Russia currently has 470,000 ground troops active in Ukraine.

There is the fairly major difference that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are members of NATO and the EU. Even if we assume a Trump that guts NATO, the EU is bound by mutual defence treaties and those countries have over 1.5 million troops in active forces, with technology and materiel and training of much higher quality than that available to the 470,000 ground troops that Russia has in Ukraine who are a) still involved with Ukraine, b) missing a lot of quality equipment and experience from the fact that they've been fed into Ukrainian mincers on occasions and had their replacements from convicts and draftees.

Can we stop Russia from taking the Baltic States if they were to launch a surprise attack? No, probably not, although I suspect moving those 470,000 troops northwards might be noticed and met with a troop build-up of our own. Would Russia be able to win a conventional warfare battle against just the EU nations? No, probably not. If the rest of NATO joined in? Absolutely not.

Puja

Not sure where you're getting that from, I see in the FT something about 300,000 being the more realistic number they would be able to mobilize.

Here's an article referring to the FT article:
https://www.azerbaycan24.com/en/western ... crisis-ft/

[Mikey Brown]

Just looked a bit further into Clacton and my hopes of Labour winning the seat have taken a nose-dive. Their candidate is young, black, university-educated, which are all things the constituency is adamantly not, and has been parachuted in from London (which will not endear, considering Clacton regards Londoners as either bloody tourists ruining our town or not touristy enough and abandoning the British seaside for cheap flights abroad, depending on how much your job depends on the tourism trade). He seems like an excellent candidate who would win most seats, but the constituency has an average age of 51, is 97% White British (literal stat, not hyperbole), is highly insular, and I cannot see them voting for someone named Jovan Owusu Nepaul.

I hope to be proven wrong, but I don't have faith in the place where I grew up not to be incredibly racist.

Puja

Oh FFS, what is the matter with Starmer HQ? Admittedly, they didn't know this was going to be THE fight with Reform UK, but they should have tried to field a suitable candidate. Maybe this is why Farage picked the seat.

Oh, and it gets so much worse: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... in-clacton

Maybe Clacton wasn't winnable once Farage got involved, but on the other hand, maybe it could've been! Have the frothing racist vote split between Reform and the Tories and campaign on the "Dear gods, do you really want Farage representing you?!?!" ticket and there's a route to victory there. Even if there isn't, at least they'd've *tried* to stop the literal worst person from winning. I suspect they have looked at it without ethics or morals being involved, decided that they're interested in trying to knock the Tories' MPs as low as possible, and a Reform win achieves that just as well as a Labour one does.

Puja

For fucks sake.

Honestly I am trying not to be so negative about what Labour are offering, but I’m struggling to read this as pragmatic rather than simply pathetic.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Oh FFS, what is the matter with Starmer HQ? Admittedly, they didn't know this was going to be THE fight with Reform UK, but they should have tried to field a suitable candidate. Maybe this is why Farage picked the seat.

Oh, and it gets so much worse: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... in-clacton

Maybe Clacton wasn't winnable once Farage got involved, but on the other hand, maybe it could've been! Have the frothing racist vote split between Reform and the Tories and campaign on the "Dear gods, do you really want Farage representing you?!?!" ticket and there's a route to victory there. Even if there isn't, at least they'd've *tried* to stop the literal worst person from winning. I suspect they have looked at it without ethics or morals being involved, decided that they're interested in trying to knock the Tories' MPs as low as possible, and a Reform win achieves that just as well as a Labour one does.

Puja

For fucks sake.

Honestly I am trying not to be so negative about what Labour are offering, but I’m struggling to read this as pragmatic rather than simply pathetic.

This is insane. Taking the candidate away from the seat he's fighting for??? Being angry with him for running a successful social media campaign??? Jesus Christ. I mean this election is falling into their lap but if they come up against anyone good at politics next time they won't stand a chance.

[Sandydragon]

Absolutely. The Baltics are not Ukraine. Also I think there was a fair possibility that the defence of Kyiv might have failed if had circumstances been only slightly different - luck was involved.

I just don't think things are quite as desperate for the Baltic states as you suggest. Russia's situation is weaker in a number of ways (if stronger in others) since the Ukraine invasion began.

NATO has 2200 troops in Estonia, 4000 in Latvia, and 3700 in Lithuania. Russia currently has 470,000 ground troops active in Ukraine.

There is the fairly major difference that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are members of NATO and the EU. Even if we assume a Trump that guts NATO, the EU is bound by mutual defence treaties and those countries have over 1.5 million troops in active forces, with technology and materiel and training of much higher quality than that available to the 470,000 ground troops that Russia has in Ukraine who are a) still involved with Ukraine, b) missing a lot of quality equipment and experience from the fact that they've been fed into Ukrainian mincers on occasions and had their replacements from convicts and draftees.

Can we stop Russia from taking the Baltic States if they were to launch a surprise attack? No, probably not, although I suspect moving those 470,000 troops northwards might be noticed and met with a troop build-up of our own. Would Russia be able to win a conventional warfare battle against just the EU nations? No, probably not. If the rest of NATO joined in? Absolutely not.

Puja

Without the US we won’t have the ammunition to last that long. And you seem to think that all NATO armies are equally competent, that’s far from the truth.

The Baltic states aren’t defensible in the long term. I doubt very much that we would poor in troops to defend them, there isn’t the space to trade for time to soak up Russias numerical advantage. For them we are hoping a token presence and the threat of nukes will suffice.

And of course reducing defence spending will encourage Putin to try his arm still further. Sending the signal that if you don’t hurt us we won’t hurt you, as we the Green spokesman, send the message that we won’t honour our nato commitments when severely pressed.


What we need is a united approach and strong commitment to collective defence.

[Zhivago]

NATO has 2200 troops in Estonia, 4000 in Latvia, and 3700 in Lithuania. Russia currently has 470,000 ground troops active in Ukraine.

There is the fairly major difference that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are members of NATO and the EU. Even if we assume a Trump that guts NATO, the EU is bound by mutual defence treaties and those countries have over 1.5 million troops in active forces, with technology and materiel and training of much higher quality than that available to the 470,000 ground troops that Russia has in Ukraine who are a) still involved with Ukraine, b) missing a lot of quality equipment and experience from the fact that they've been fed into Ukrainian mincers on occasions and had their replacements from convicts and draftees.

Can we stop Russia from taking the Baltic States if they were to launch a surprise attack? No, probably not, although I suspect moving those 470,000 troops northwards might be noticed and met with a troop build-up of our own. Would Russia be able to win a conventional warfare battle against just the EU nations? No, probably not. If the rest of NATO joined in? Absolutely not.

Puja

Without the US we won’t have the ammunition to last that long. And you seem to think that all NATO armies are equally competent, that’s far from the truth.

The Baltic states aren’t defensible in the long term. I doubt very much that we would poor in troops to defend them, there isn’t the space to trade for time to soak up Russias numerical advantage. For them we are hoping a token presence and the threat of nukes will suffice.

And of course reducing defence spending will encourage Putin to try his arm still further. Sending the signal that if you don’t hurt us we won’t hurt you, as we the Green spokesman, send the message that we won’t honour our nato commitments when severely pressed.


What we need is a united approach and strong commitment to collective defence.

We simply must not let Ukraine lose. The consequences really are dire. I don't understand people who don't get this. People like Puja who worse still, want to scrimp on our defence budget and give up our nuclear power status.

We have a saying in the Netherlands. Goedkoop is duurkoop. It means cheap is expensive. If we spend less now, it'll just be more costly in the longer term.

[Puja]

There is the fairly major difference that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are members of NATO and the EU. Even if we assume a Trump that guts NATO, the EU is bound by mutual defence treaties and those countries have over 1.5 million troops in active forces, with technology and materiel and training of much higher quality than that available to the 470,000 ground troops that Russia has in Ukraine who are a) still involved with Ukraine, b) missing a lot of quality equipment and experience from the fact that they've been fed into Ukrainian mincers on occasions and had their replacements from convicts and draftees.

Can we stop Russia from taking the Baltic States if they were to launch a surprise attack? No, probably not, although I suspect moving those 470,000 troops northwards might be noticed and met with a troop build-up of our own. Would Russia be able to win a conventional warfare battle against just the EU nations? No, probably not. If the rest of NATO joined in? Absolutely not.

Puja

Without the US we won’t have the ammunition to last that long. And you seem to think that all NATO armies are equally competent, that’s far from the truth.

The Baltic states aren’t defensible in the long term. I doubt very much that we would poor in troops to defend them, there isn’t the space to trade for time to soak up Russias numerical advantage. For them we are hoping a token presence and the threat of nukes will suffice.

And of course reducing defence spending will encourage Putin to try his arm still further. Sending the signal that if you don’t hurt us we won’t hurt you, as we the Green spokesman, send the message that we won’t honour our nato commitments when severely pressed.


What we need is a united approach and strong commitment to collective defence.

We simply must not let Ukraine lose. The consequences really are dire. I don't understand people who don't get this. People like Puja who worse still, want to scrimp on our defence budget and give up our nuclear power status.

We have a saying in the Netherlands. Goedkoop is duurkoop. It means cheap is expensive. If we spend less now, it'll just be more costly in the longer term.

I was going to copy your post and just paste in "climate emergency" in all the apposite places, but it felt cheap and I think my point can be made without it. Cheap is expensive in-fucking-deed, yet when it comes to budgets and spending, it's always "Can we afford to spend on Net Zero?" not, "What use is having our own individual nuclear penis to wave around if the world is on fire?"

Puja

[Zhivago]

Without the US we won’t have the ammunition to last that long. And you seem to think that all NATO armies are equally competent, that’s far from the truth.

The Baltic states aren’t defensible in the long term. I doubt very much that we would poor in troops to defend them, there isn’t the space to trade for time to soak up Russias numerical advantage. For them we are hoping a token presence and the threat of nukes will suffice.

And of course reducing defence spending will encourage Putin to try his arm still further. Sending the signal that if you don’t hurt us we won’t hurt you, as we the Green spokesman, send the message that we won’t honour our nato commitments when severely pressed.


What we need is a united approach and strong commitment to collective defence.

We simply must not let Ukraine lose. The consequences really are dire. I don't understand people who don't get this. People like Puja who worse still, want to scrimp on our defence budget and give up our nuclear power status.

We have a saying in the Netherlands. Goedkoop is duurkoop. It means cheap is expensive. If we spend less now, it'll just be more costly in the longer term.

I was going to copy your post and just paste in "climate emergency" in all the apposite places, but it felt cheap and I think my point can be made without it. Cheap is expensive in-fucking-deed, yet when it comes to budgets and spending, it's always "Can we afford to spend on Net Zero?" not, "What use is having our own individual nuclear penis to wave around if the world is on fire?"

Puja

For the record, climate change policies are also necessary. I know the budget is finite, but I don't think it is so finite that we can only increase spending on one if we cut the other.

The climate change threat is probably greater, but more distant in the future. The geopolitical threats are rather more urgent though.

[Son of Mathonwy]

For what it's worth I wouldn't want the Greens setting our defence policy*, although I'd like them to set everything else.

But since they're so far, far, far removed from the chance of getting into even double figures in parliament I'm comfortable with arguing to increase that number.

* on balance I'd go Lib Dem on defence. Tories and Labour are too war-mongery and happy to support states committing war crimes.

[Zhivago]

For what it's worth I wouldn't want the Greens setting our defence policy*, although I'd like them to set everything else.

But since they're so far, far, far removed from the chance of getting into even double figures in parliament I'm comfortable with arguing to increase that number.

* on balance I'd go Lib Dem on defence. Tories and Labour are too war-mongery and happy to support states committing war crimes.

They are the most sensible party. I'm either for them or Plaid.

[Son of Mathonwy]

The latest Electoral Calculus prediction has the LibDems on 71 seats and the Tories on 65.
Oh please let this come true . . .

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/pre ... _home.html

[Puja]