VLADIMIR Putin is overseeing exercises involving the launching of ballistic missiles, according to the RIA news agency. This news comes with a numbing inevitability. From the very beginning of the nuclear arms race this was predictable.
At the end of 1945, in Operation Paperclip, more than 1,600 rocket scientists, engineers, and technicians were sneaked away from Germany to the US. These unrepentant Nazis (notably Werner Von Braun) all received US citizenship and gave America dominance in the nuclear arms race. Four years later, the Soviet Union responded by developing their own Bomb in 1949, and our race to nuclear extinction began.
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This was a terrible fulfillment of the prophetic words of Hitler’s minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, who said: “Even if we lose, we will win, because our ideas will have penetrated the hearts of our enemies.” The Nazi idea of total or genocidal war is alive and flourishing in our nuclear war plans. Faslane is our superBelsen.
We rabbit on about deterrence. But there is a fatal flaw in the theory of deterrence. The enemy must feel genuinely threatened by us. So I must develop characteristics in my weaponry that make this fear real. Greater kill power, stealth delivery systems, undetectability etc are thus inevitable. But if I develop characteristics of usability, the weapons become more, er, usable, and just another tool in the box.
The only escape from this nightmare is to not play the mad game. “No” is the hero’s word. I referenced World War Two when sourcing our woes. In truth, our problem is older, much older. We read in Deuteronomy: “I call heaven and earth to witness this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose therefore life, that you and your children may live.”
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Our progress in the technology of industrialised killing is mind-blowing. When I was young, a bomb could be dropped from a plane. Now you can rain guided missiles from outer space. We have hypersonic weapons, drones that kill without human involvement, all sorts of new ways of killing people. So every day we are choosing death.
At this, the eleventh hour, can we not repent and choose life? We must stop blaming the other because “I have seen the enemy, and he is us.” We can renounce our gods of metal and abandon our nuclear idolatry. We could join the non-nuclear majority, sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and have a future – if only we have the courage to change.
Brian M Quail
Glasgow
JC from Fife (Letters, Feb 19) misrepresents several issues.
Nato is not a single country but composed of a number of independent sovereign states who feared the threat from the Soviet Union, or Warsaw Pact as it was. The remaining threat post-1989 comes from Russia as a single state. Nato is not set up to invade other countries at the whim of any one single leader.
Nato has not aggressively expanded, and certainly not by invading other countries. The Baltic and other small states wished to join Nato after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union. Ukraine has also asked, some years ago, but contrary to the rose-tinted view of Russian supporters Nato has declined, recognising that it would put Russia into an uncomfortable position.
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It is in fact Russia that has amassed a huge army surrounding Ukraine and it is Russia that has already annexed part of Ukrainian territory. What Russia needs to do is not bully its neighbours – its current actions are highly unlikely to give any comfort to Ukrainians or indeed any of the other surrounding states. While Russia does have legitimate security concerns, recognised by Nato, aggressive bullying actions do not gain friends. Nato has not and will not be invading Russian territory and it cannot annexe states.
Nick Cole
Meigle, Perthshire
THE letter from JC concerning the Ukraine crisis was so pro-Russian that it could have been written by Putin himself. He even claimed that the illegal annexation of Crimea was justified because the Russians did not like the Ukrainian government.
He implied that Russia was only reacting to Nato expanding eastward and yet there were no Nato forces in any former Soviet bloc countries before the annexation of Crimea, and it was only because these countries bordering Russia appealed for support that a few hundred Nato troops were deployed there. There are currently 150,000 Russian troops threatening Ukraine.
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Only a fool would think that Ukraine or Nato plan to invade Russia. (Or someone who intended to create a false scenario.) JC completely ignores the fact that Putin is a ruthless dictator who has completely suppressed the Russian media, many of whose journalists have been killed or jailed. All opposition leaders have been jailed, including heroic Navalny, and Putin’s agents have murdered a British citizen in Salisbury and fatally poisoned a Russian opponent in London.
JC should open his eyes and look at the murderous gang who are Putin and his kleptomaniac cronies.
James Duncan
Edinburgh
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