Remember Why You Have a Three Day Weekend

It isn't just to mark the start of summer.

The UK and France Are Ready to Jump on the Bandwagon

William Teach at Pirate's Cove has an update on our "allies" and their ability (or lack thereof) to aid with war. LOL: Starmer And Macron Try To Stay Relevant With Post-War Strait Of Hormuz Shipping Plan

Yeah, so, once the United States gains control of the Strait and eliminates all naval and land dangers from Iran, which we mostly have, these weenies think they can waltz in and provide security? Hell, they can barely project sea power now, despite the size of their navies, France ranked 8, UK 9. Most EU navies are for defense of nation only, not for deploying power. Italy, Germany, and Spain are the only other top 20, and they cannot project power. France with 1 aircraft carrier and Britain with 2 aren’t exactly powers. They, like Canada, pretty much rely on the United States.

Click thru for the details.

Robert Stacy McCain Has a Personal Story

The Other McCain brings us Thinking About Mogadishu

This is a story about his son, Staff Sgt. Robert McCain. It starts with remembering Black Hawk Down.

The intensity of that movie, which I took Bob and his twin brother Jim to see when it first came out, sort of caught me by surprise at the time. I grew up watching war movies like The Longest Day, and the TV series Combat, and playing with G.I. Joes, and so the thought of taking my kids to see a war movie seemed like a great idea. The graphic realism of Black Hawk Down was, as Bob later told that reporter, maybe too much for a 9-year-old, even if it did inspire his future career ambitions. In case you haven’t subscribed to my Substack newsletter yet, you may not understand why I bring that up now, given that I start today by talking about the war in Ukraine.

You can find the full story at the link, and the full story on Ukraine at the Substack post: Is Ukraine Winning Now?

Britain’s Naval Preparedness

Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog has an update on our ally's readiness. “The Shocking State Of Britain’s Navy In 2026”

Many have criticized the Royal Navy for not doing more to assist the U.S. against Iran, even after Iranian missiles hit an RAF base on Cyprus. But Mark Felton tells us the reason why, just as he did last year with The Navy With More Admirals Than Warships: The Royal Navy is so radically shrunk that it’s already inadequate even for the tasks it’s already assigned to carry out.

This is the Mark Felton Productions video The Shocking State of Britain's Navy 2026

The Once Great British Navy Is a Joke

William Teach at Pirate's as some info on the Place Where Great Britain Used to Be. Trump To Starmer: “We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!”

If Trump has any sort of foreign policy doctrine, it’s FAFO. This can go anywhere from FriendlyAFO to FoolAFO to FuckAFO. It’s up to them to see which Trump they’ll receive. Trump keeps them guessing. Now Starmer will either have to dig in or kiss Trump’s ass.

Britain once ruled the seas. Now they cannot get a ship to sea in the face of an emergency. And aside from what we are doing, British bases in Cyprus are under missile attack, and they cannot deploy a single destoryer to provide missile defense. Not one.

From Lone Star Parson we get that update. The Royal Navy

In 1935 the Royal Navy had something like 12 battleships, 3 battlecruisers, 7 carriers, 66 cruisers, 184 destroyers and 60 submarines. Britannia ruled the waves and employed over 300,000 men to do so. Now the Royal Navy has maybe 63 active ships and submarines in various states of disrepair, of which 2 are carriers, 6 destroyers, 7 frigates and 10 submarines.

This is a sad state of decline.

Where are the 300 Spartans?

Actually, I think that might have been a completely different war. (College was a long time ago.)

pic.twitter.com/THRDb2DOou

— Alex Sakalis (@alexsakalis) March 2, 2026

Russia Threatens War

From the Irish Mirror: Russia threatens to 'punish Europe severely' in nuclear Armageddon warning

A top Russian strategist has warned that Europe could face nuclear attack if Moscow suffers defeat in Ukraine

I haven't followed Russian rulers beyond Putin for a long time. I'm not familiar with how much power Russia's Council for Foreign and Defense Policy has, though it could be he is acting as a mouthpiece for the government.

Vladimir Putin's henchman, in charge of Russia's defence policy, has called on the country's leader to unleash nuclear weapons and 'punish Europe and the UK severely' for its support of Ukraine.

Sergey Karaganov, head of Russia’s Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, added that, if the UK and Nato's defence of Ukraine resulted in a victory for Volodymyr Zelensky, then Putin "would use nuclear weapons and Europe would be finished physically".

One thing I do know, is that Russia NEVER considered nuclear war unwinnable. The Soviet Union build blast and fallout shelters almost continuously from the 1960s on. Maybe it was from the late 1950s. That stopped for a while after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the Warsaw Pact, but started up again under Putin, shortly after he came to power in 1999. They never bought into Mutually Assured Destruction, accept that they never thought they had enough of an edge to win. Americans refuse to believe this. (It would mean we should be spending money on Civil Defense, not trains to nowhere, or sending hundreds of millions of dollars to countries that will launder it for us, and send back 10% for the Big Guy™)

Also Putin is reported to have cancer, so it's not like he has a lot to lose personally. He does have a family, namely children and grandchildren.

James Howard: The One Man Air Force

Let's start with an article from We Are The Mighty. The ‘One Man Air Force’ took on dozens of enemy fighters even after his guns ran dry

James Howard started his World War II combat career before the United States ever entered the war. He would end the war with a Medal of Honor and the nickname: the “One Man Air Force.” He was a naval aviator who flew with the Flying Tigers, then joined the Army Air Forces, where he became an ace in two different aircraft in two different theaters. He would eventually retire as a Brigadier General—quite an impressive bucket list.

James Howard had been a pilot in the US Navy. But he left to join the Flying Tigers to fight in China before America joined the war. He as going to rejoin the navy, but a bureaucrat, pissed off by his stint in the Flying Tigers, pissed off Howard in turn. So he joined the US Army Air Corps as a captain.

By January of 1944 he had been promoted to major.

On the day of the fight in question, which was January 11th, Howard had been separated from his unit, when he encountered a formation of bombers being attacked by German interceptors and fighters. He was alone. He attacked.

When asked about the decision to face that many planes, he answered...

I seen my duty and I done it.

This is a video about James Howard's flight on 11 January 1944. The Flying Killer That Made the Luftwaffe Look Like a Joke

U.S. Attacks Venezuela, Captures Maduro

The US Military invaded Venezuela, and Captured Maduro in about 3 hours this morning. Or maybe it started before midnight, but however you look at it, it didn't take very long.

Several people - most people? - have been writing something about this. Here is The Other McCain as a first step. BREAKING: U.S. Strikes Venezuela UPDATE: Maduro Captured, Trump Says

Wow. The regime is over in Venezuela.

The man is dedicated to journalism. Either that or he is just one of those insane morning people, because he was posting this stuff at 5 AM.

Went to bed early Friday, woke up at 3 a.m. and checked my phone to discover that the U.S. military is striking Venezuela:

OK, so I have been known to check my phone in the middle of the night.

Go read his post. He has a complete - as much as possible due to "Fog of War" - timeline.

William Teach at Pirate's Cove has US Captures Maduro In Overnight Operation

In which he asks how the Democrats will respond.

Now we await the moonbats to go moonbat over this. Oh, and this

There is also a bit of speculation on "next steps."

There are more blog posts, and social media is, of course, on fire.

As the legacy media and left-wing politicians condemn the arrest of Maduro, this is how ALL of Venezuela feels… pic.twitter.com/uA7GkXO3WR

— Inevitable West (@Inevitablewest) January 3, 2026

They Accuse the Conservatives of Subverting Democracy

But it is the liberals, specifically the UK Labour government, that are canceling elections. From the BBC: New mayoral elections to be delayed in four areas of England

Elections for newly-created mayors will be delayed in four more areas of England, the BBC has confirmed, pushing back regional devolution plans.

New mayors were expected to be elected in Greater Essex, Norfolk & Suffolk, Hampshire & the Solent, and Sussex & Brighton in May next year, but will now have to wait until May 2028.

The need time to organize, or something.

Opposition parties are crying foul, and it is odd that the plans are changing just as membership in Labour seems to be on the decline.

From the Financial Times: Labour membership plummets since general election

Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK becomes the largest political party by members

That's not suspicious at all. The guy who was the face of Brexit, which the right-thinking technocrats in the government hated, is now head of a popular political party. Well, we can't have elections under those circumstances. The "right people" might not get elected.

The Labour party has lost about 100,000 members since last year’s general election, underscoring the dramatic fall in Sir Keir Starmer’s popularity and the surge in support for smaller parties.

This is against a backdrop of the British and the French telling people that they might have to face a war with Russia.

From the BBC again: Outcry at army chief's warning France must prepare to 'lose children' in war

The French don't want to fight wars. That's why they started the Foreign Legion. (Does that still exist?) That's why they pretend to support NATO.

A stark warning from France's new army chief about the country "losing its children" in a potential war with Russia has sharply divided political opinion.

Gen Fabien Mandon, who took over as army chief-of-staff in September, told a congress of mayors on Tuesday that France's biggest weakness in today's dangerous times was the lack of a will to fight.

And it isn't just France. From Sky news: UK 'rapidly developing' plans to prepare for war

Underlining the role civilians would have to play in a major conflict, Al Carns said armies, navies and air forces respond to crises but "societies, industries and economies win wars".

Al Carns is a Member of Parliament, and was a Colonel in the Royal Marines, and is now in their reserves.

I would have to do some serious research, but my guess is that neither the French or the British military are in any state to fight against Russia. For decades NATO countries have not met their commitments to funding their military budgets to the levels specified by NATO. They just rely on the US to foot the bill. Germany has been particularly lax, so that at one point before the COVID lockdowns, the German military didn't have enough guns to outfit the German army. Poland, and one other country that I can't pull out of memory, were meeting their commitments during the 1st Trump administration.

Looking back at these stories, two things occur to me.

The first is that the Left is projecting their own attitudes and desires on the Right when they say conservatives are threat to democracy.

And the second thing that comes to mind is ...

Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
    — George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

More like Airstrip One every day. And they have an emergency to justify the cancelling of even more elections.

It Is Long Past Time For Europe to Handle Its Own Defense

They should think of it as growing up. From 1819 News - 'Bass Pro Shops has more guns': U.S. Senate candidate Morgan Murphy bashes military capabilities of NATO allies

In the late 1940s and even into the 1950s and '60s, it made sense for the US to provide all or most of the security for Western Europe. You can argue about when it stopped making sense, but certainly after the fall of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, Europe should have been able to handle its own defense. There are more Western Europeans than Americans, after all.

"It's unbelievable that our European partners aren't stepping up to take care of this war that is in their own backyard," Murphy told the host. "This is a European war, and frankly, we've got 20 European nations out there that have a smaller army than the average number of guns at a Bass Pro Shop. Literally, I'd rather go to war [on the side of] Bass Pro Shops than 20 of our 31 NATO partners. They're more better armed."

It's a classic rant. Click thru. (Hat tip to Keep and Bear Arms.)

This is not a new gripe of mine. I have been mad at the fact that the US has been funding Europe's security since before the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Here are just a couple of posts from March of this year, mostly on Germany, the largest economy in Europe. (Or it was before they decided to sacrifice their industrial base on the alter of Net Zero.)

• The State of German Military Readiness
• Germany Gets a Wack to the Side of the Head
• Europe Finally Increases Defense Spending

There are more, but that is enough to be going on with.

Venezuela Prepares for War. Or Something

From Stephen Green, the Vodkapundit, at PJ Media we get the following. VIDEO: Venezuela Is Training for World War III and I Can't Stop Laughing

So, another great way to prepare your military for combat with an American aircraft carrier strike group and assorted stealth jets is by firing fake rocket-propelled grenades off a rooftop and into a busy metropolitan area in broad daylight.

I wish I were kidding, but we have the video.

According to an X post, it was part of an effort by Venezuela to conduct military training.

“Military” and “training” are punching way above their weight in that post.

Obama and Company decided to end the Monroe Doctrine, which has lead to China, Russia, and Iran seeking footholds in the Western Hemisphere. Now we are trying something new. Or old. Whatever.

Click thru for a smile.

Does Putin Face a Growing Crisis?

From The Telegraph: Putin fears another coup as Russia finally begins to buckle

In 2003 Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested by the forces of Putin's Russia. It probably marked the start of Russia's return to being a totalitarian state.

This month, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) accused Khodorkovsky, who now lives in exile in London, and 22 members of Russia’s Anti-War Committee of plotting a coup.

According to the FSB, the committee, which was created to oppose Russia’s war in Ukraine, is vying for “the violent seizure of power and overthrow of the constitutional order in the Russian Federation”.

Khodorkovsky says the allegations are lies. Kremlinologists say it is a clear sign of a new sense of vulnerability at the heart of the Russian state.

The article goes on to list all the reasons Putin should be worried. From the economic, to the military, to the political and the diplomatic. While I like The Telegraph, I would take all of this with a grain of salt. Which is to say, I've heard a lot of this before, and he is still in power. (Hat tip to Newsmax and Putin Faces Growing Financial Crisis Amid Sanctions) The one thing that will eventually stop Putin, is time. It's rumored that he has cancer, and he is not a young man. But then what? What, or who, comes next?

Green Berets v Russian Mercenaries in Syria in 2018

The battle between Russian forces and US forces you've never heard of.

This is your history lesson for the day. You might learn something. (It will only hurt for a minute.)

50 US operatives. Delta force and Marine JTAC were positioned to guard an oil installation in Syria, when Wagner Group decided to come out and start something. It didn't go well for Wagner.

This is Popo Medic's video Delta Force CLAPPED Silly Lil Wagner Group in 2018... The subtitel is "The Battle of Khasham."

And let's be honest, the public information surrounding this engagement is simply the information they allowed us to know.

The video is 11 minutes, so grab a coffee.

Modern Warfare is Logistical Problem

It seems to be something that is forgotten from time to time. So let us revisit a lesson from World War II.

Some will say that World War 2 doesn't qualify as "modern warfare." And there have been changes. The drones deployed by Ukraine have been a game changer in many ways, but a lot of the targets those drones seek are tanks, troop carriers, and planes. And Ukraine has done some targeted attacks on the rail system and the bridges supporting the Russian army.

This is the WW2 Tales video German Colonel Captured 50,000 Gallons of US Fuel and Realized Germany Was Doomed. It is a comparison of US versus German fuel supplies during the Ardennes Offensive (The Battle of the Bulge), 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945.

On just one aspect of that fight, Patton's Third Army move north to relieve the Siege of Bastogne.

The American response demonstrated industrial warfare at its peak. Patton's third army pivot north required 350,000 gallons just for redeployment. Considered impossible by German standards, yet accomplished in 3 days.

Fuel, bullets (or Javelin warheads or whatever), and food. Modern armies cannot maneuver without fuel. They cannot fight without ammunition. They cannot fight if the troops are starving, though that isn't a modern constraint, as it was Frederick the Great who said that an army travels on its stomach.

Operation Watch on the Rhine failed through immutable mathematics of industrial warfare. The offensive consumed approximately 2.8 million gallons, 40% overall allocation, the difference from captured supplies. During the same period, Americans consumed 267 million gallons, nearly 100 times more.

The video is 38 minutes.

I cannot embed that video here because of policies by the video owner. The images included in the video are interesting, but it is the audio that is most interesting.

Russia Seems to Want WWIII

Putin has never made any secret of what he intends to do. Poland shoots down Putin’s drones and warns it’s ‘closer to conflict than at any time since World War II’

Almost from the day the Berlin Wall fell, and certainly since he came to power Vladimir Putin has said that the Soviet Empire should never have been abandoned, and should be rebuilt. His invasions of Georgia, the Crimean peninsula, and lately the rest of Ukraine should have proven that. Now his forces are violating NATO airspace in Poland.

Poland has warned it is closer to conflict than at any point since the Second World War following an unprecedented incursion into Nato territory by Russian drones.

The country’s air defences were scrambled after 19 projectile UAVs entered its airspace during a major attack on western Ukraine, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said.

Poland shot down some of those drones, and it provided photos of at least one. Click thru.

Mr Tusk has invoked Article 4 of the Nato treaty, demanding consultation with its member states.

All the politicians are issuing soundbites, or statements; it is hard to tell them apart today.

Time to make sure the emergency supplies are up to snuff, and maybe order some iodine pills. Your gourmet pink salt is fine and all, but you should be consuming some iodized salt.

And that is the Polish flag above. I'm sure some people will wonder.

The Bombing of Nagasaki: 9 August 1945

Three days after "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima, a bomb, code-named "Fat Man" was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. Manhattan Project: The Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki, 9 August 1945

This was stolen shamelessly from myself, from a few years back. (The image is a replica of the Fat Man device from the U.S. Department of Defense by way of WikiMedia.) And I'm a day early because of reasons.

After problems with weather, a uranium implosion bomb (similar to the first atomic bomb, The Gadget, detonated on July 16th of that year) was dropped on the industrial city of Nagasaki. It was later determined that it was 21 kiloton equivalent explosion.

A small conventional raid on Nagasaki on August 1st had resulted in a partial evacuation of the city, especially of school children. There were still almost 200,000 people in the city below the bomb when it exploded. The hurriedly-targeted weapon ended up detonating almost exactly between two of the principal targets in the city, the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works to the south, and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Torpedo Works to the north.

Water line breaks hampered firefighting efforts, and the damage done to the two Mitsubishi plants was described as "spectacular." Though the bomb was 40 percent larger than the Hiroshima bomb, it did less destruction. But the destruction it caused was still extreme.

The best estimate is 40,000 people died initially, with 60,000 more injured. By January 1946, the number of deaths probably approached 70,000, with perhaps ultimately twice that number dead total within five years. For those areas of Nagasaki affected by the explosion, the death rate was comparable to that at Hiroshima.

The effects of radiation poisoning are truly hideous. A high enough exposure and you are dead – you are just waiting for the mechanics of dying to be complete. You can find descriptions of the gruesome details elsewhere. All I will say here is that I would not want to wait around for that end.

The day after Nagasaki was bombed, Japan surrendered - almost unconditionally.

One of the things that always amazes me is the fact that it was less than a month from the first detonation of an atomic bomb at Trinity on 16 July, to the two bombings of Japanese cities.

As I mentioned in my post on Hiroshima, I don't know if anyone will pay attention to this anniversary. It has been 80 years since the end of World War II, and the media seems to be incensed about Orange Man Bad more than anything else. I haven't even seen much on the War in Ukraine lately.

The Bombing of Hiroshima - 6 August 1945

Tomorrow marks a notable anniversary. (Shamelessly stolen from myself, from a few years ago…)

Just a few weeks after the first atomic bomb was detonated by the Manhattan Project in the desert Southwest (on 16 July 1945) the US Army Air Force dropped an atomic bomb, code named “Little Boy” on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Manhattan Project: The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, 6 August 1945

At 8:15 in the morning local time, a 15 kiloton uranium gun-trigger bomb was dropped on a city of 300,000 people.

The blast wave filled the air with broken glass. The flash from the detonation burned the shadows of people onto the walls left standing. 9 out of 10 people within half a mile of ground zero were dead.

The photo above is of the city center some weeks after the bombing. Click for a larger image.

In those areas most seriously affected virtually no one escaped serious injury. The numerous small fires that erupted simultaneously all around the city soon merged into one large firestorm, creating extremely strong winds that blew towards the center of the fire. The firestorm eventually engulfed 4.4 square miles of the city, killing anyone who had not escaped in the first minutes after the attack.

Those farther away had other problems as they thought their buildings had been bombed. Make-shift rescue parties started working shortly after the blast. Outside relief was slow to arrive, because the Japanese high command didn’t understand what happened. They couldn’t imagine destruction on that scale. It wasn’t until the US announcement 16 hours later that the true nature of what happened came to light.

While some things started to get back to normal in a few days, the effects of radiation sickness started to show itself.

Power in undamaged areas of the city was even restored on August 7th, with limited rail service resuming the following day. Several days after the blast, however, medical staff began to recognize the first symptoms of radiation sickness among the survivors. Soon the death rate actually began to climb again as patients who had appeared to be recovering began suffering from this strange new illness. Deaths from radiation sickness did not peak until three to four weeks after the attacks and did not taper off until seven to eight weeks after the attack.

The effects of radiation poisoning are truly hideous. A high enough exposure and you are dead – you are just waiting for the mechanics of dying to be complete. You can find descriptions of the gruesome details elsewhere. All I will say here is that I would not want to wait around for that end.

Americans are usually in tune with anniversaries that end in 5 or 0. This year marks 80 years since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As I type this it is a couple of weeks before the date in question, so I don't know if this year anyone will mark the anniversary. Somehow I doubt that it will break thru the fog of Orange Man Bad.

The Srebrenica Massacre — 11 July 1995

It kills me that I forgot this anniversary, because if I forgot, I'm sure most people forgot. Why bother about it? It was a long time ago. It was far away. It it worth remembering because it was a massacre carried out with help from the United Nations Peacekeeping troops that were supposed to stop exactly this kind of thing.

What follows is a copy of what I posted in 2022, so the days are wrong. (The 11th of July was a week ago.) But the links in the post still work, and the facts haven't changed. I would remind people that the UN was created expressly to be sure that genocide and ethnic cleansing never happened again. 30 years ago they were helping out, and yet we still support this organization. Why? I don't know. This certainly isn't the only time the UN failed to prevent genocide. It may be the only time they helped out.

---

I will be very surprised if governments do anything to mark this anniversary on Monday, because it was in many ways the failure of government. It is certainly a failure of the United Nations. Bosnia's Srebrenica massacre 25 years on - in pictures - BBC News. The referenced article is from 2 years ago.

The UN had promised safety, enforced by its "Peace Keepers" (so called). That didn't work out too well.

On 11 July 1995, Bosnian Serb units captured the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In less than two weeks, their forces systematically murdered more than 8,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) - the worst act of mass killing on European soil since the end of World War Two.

Ratko Mladic, commander of the Bosnian Serb units, told the terrified civilians not to be afraid as his forces began the slaughter. They did not stop for 10 days.

The Bosnian War broke out in the early 1990s as Yugoslavia disintegrated after the fall of the Soviet Union. There were a couple of interim states, but today, what was formerly Yugoslavia is divided between Bosnia and Herzegovina (one country), Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, and North Macedonia. Early on, Serbia did not accept some of the divisions, and declared war on Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serbia instituted a policy of ethnic cleansing to remove Bosniaks from the area in an effort to create Greater Serbia.

Srebrenica was a town in Bosnia and Herzegovina established as a UN safe zone. However the Useless Nitwits at the United Nations only could assign a lightly armed, quite small force of Dutch soldiers to provide "peacekeeping" force for Srebrenica.

In April 1993, the UN Security Council declared the enclave a "safe area... free from any armed attack or any other hostile act".

That sounds nice, but the UN (useless nitwits) did almost nothing to make that statement true. Srebrenica had been under siege since 1992. In 1993 supplies for both the citizens and the Dutch peacekeeping force gave out. People started dying of starvation. I don't know about you, but classic siege warfare sounds like fairly "hostile act" to me.

That is the beauty of the debating society known as The UN. They can say whatever the hell they want. Doesn't make it true.

On 6 July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces attacked Srebrenica in earnest. UN forces surrendered or retreated into the town, and Nato air strikes, called in to help, did little to slow the advance.

Five days later the city fell, and the killing began. 20,000 people were able to escape to the main UN base, but not all escaped.

Under-equipped Dutch soldiers witnessing the Serb aggression did nothing and about 5,000 Muslims sheltering at their base were handed over.

The Dutch military and government would later be blamed for 350 of the 8,000 deaths. The UN was never held accountable for anything.

Ratko Mladic would be captured in 2011, and convicted in the Hague in 2017. Serbia has apologized for the incident, but continues to deny that it constituted genocide.

The citizens of the disintegrating Yugoslavia in the 1990s, like the citizens of Ukraine in 2022, were not allowed to own arms. When a hostile neighbor decided that they were better off dead, there was little they could do, but put their faith in the UN and NATO. That didn't work out so well.

This is not a new phenomenon.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

That is an excerpt from "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" by Rudyard Kipling (1919)

Does Mutually Assured Destruction Deter Crazy People?

Probably not. M.A.D. v. Mad: There is a difference. - by Miguel Gonzalez

Russia may or may not use nukes. Is anybody with some amount of rationally brain is willing to bet that Iran will not use nukes once they make them?

Russians are sane. Even their craziest leaders were mostly sane. They don't want their country to glow in the dark. Can you say the same about radical Islam?

Miguel G. considers the problem. Click thru.