The drums of war are beating. Vladimir Putin threatens to burn us all in a nuclear fire.
In response, a weak, cash-strapped European Union is scrambling to muster an army after decades of enjoying an imaginary peace dividend.
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Donald Trump wants to turn the world order upside down Credit: Getty
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Ukraine war now unwinnable by President Volodymyr ZelenskyCredit: Getty
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Even crazy Vlad Putin isn’t crazy enough to go nuclear Credit: Reuters
Alarm bells are ringing for the first time since the Cold War as Ukraine fires UK and US missiles deep into Russia, raising the risk of a pan-European conflict.
Terrible times.
But are we really facing the Third World War?
To quote my dad’s Army Corporal Jones: “Don’t panic!”
At least not yet.
However, frontline states like Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland are taking the threat seriously.
Peacenik Germany has finally woken up to the Russian threat and invited 800,000 NATO troops to conduct war exercises on its soil.
In America, you can buy “affordable bunkers to survive the apocalypse now – fallout shelters that won’t break the bank” – for $140,000.
Here in Britain, online newspapers capture the mood with survival tips such as: “How to stop skin melting” and “Why you should keep your mouth open to prevent your eardrums from bursting. . .”
One wrong step away from global conflict
Nothing sells better than a horror story.
Watch the Explosive Moment ‘Britain’s Storm Shadow Missiles Strike Inside Russia’
It is true that the world is paying dearly for the absurd power difference of 76 days between the election of Donald Trump as US President on November 5th and his inauguration on January 20th.
The vacuum is being filled by the rattling of guns as both sides in the Ukraine conflict seek to make irreversible gains before Trump enters the White House.
The crisis was fueled by the wily Joe Biden, who belatedly handed Ukraine long-range missiles that it may have used earlier to end the war.
Instead, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s attacks deep inside Russia provoked the Kremlin to threaten nuclear retaliation.
On Thursday, after striking the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a nuclear-capable Oreshnik hypersonic missile, Putin said Britain and the US could now be targets for Russia.
We need to calm down.
Not even Mad Vlad is crazy enough to bomb the West.
And if he did, China would not allow him to do so.
Moscow and Beijing could join forces in an attempt to defeat the mighty American colossus.
But Beijing dictator Xi Jinping intends to achieve this secretly and forcibly – not allowing his junior partner to start the Apocalypse today.
This is not to underestimate the disturbingly sinister risk to world peace.
We have learned from two catastrophic world wars — and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 — that we are always just one terrible misstep away from global conflict.
In the midst of this crisis, we find ourselves in the hands of the most unpredictable and unpredictable world leader of the modern age.
Donald Trump has fueled tensions by threatening to turn the world economic, diplomatic and military order upside down.
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Beijing dictator Xi Jinping wants to defeat the US secretly and forcibly Credit: AFP
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Doddery Joe Biden took too long to approve missiles in UkraineCredit: Getty
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Why is Sir Keir Starmer suspending defense projects? Credits: PA
He is ready to break heads in the Middle East, sink Chinese exports and start trade wars with Europe.
But first, Ukraine. The 47th president-elect is ready to walk away from a European conflict that he insists has absolutely nothing to do with the US.
Yet while European Union leaders hesitated and wringed their hands, American taxpayers shelled out £140 BILLION in aid and arms to Ukraine.
Enough is enough, says Trump.
This could be the bluff of the world’s greatest bluffer. But only a fool would invite him.
Which explains why Kiev leader Zelensky is grabbing every weapon he can get his hands on to defeat the Russian bear while there is still time.
They include America’s long-range ATACMS and, thanks to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Britain’s deadly Storm Shadow cruise missiles, already deployed with devastating effect this week.
And yet, as admirable as this may be in defense of a brave Ukraine, it only prolongs an unwinnable war.
Putin, himself a prodigious negotiator, has raised the stakes by insisting that the foreign-made weapons used against Russia are the basis for nuclear retaliation.
This leaves the EU dangerously exposed. Despite overlapping NATO membership, the 27 EU member states have become languidly powerless.
For half a century, trillions of taxpayers’ money were squandered on social welfare expenditures, while little money was allocated for the military.
Armies are exhausted while naval and air defenses run on fumes.
Faced with the greatest threat to peace since World War II, Europe is effectively helpless today.
During his first term, President Trump planted a bomb under EU leaders, forcing them to cough up more money for military spending. But not enough.
Germany, which used to arm its troops with broomsticks instead of rifles, is the biggest culprit.
Despite its role as the economic dynamo of the EU, the conflict in Ukraine has shown that it is completely dependent on Russian oil and gas.
Now, while the heat is on, Berlin is offering to host 800,000 NATO troops on its soil to defend the homeland if Russia attacks Finland or the Baltic states.
According to Article 51 of the NATO alliance, an attack on any of the 32 member states is considered an attack on all.
Former pacifist regimes now realize that the only way to preserve peace is to prepare for war.
In the 1960s, we practiced diving under the table
Late in the day, European liberal elites in countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands ordered industrial and agricultural interests to stockpile food, fuel and vital equipment including diesel generators.
Which highlights the madness of Keir Starmer’s declaration of war on hard-pressed British farmers. We may soon need every acre to plant crops and dig to win.
Nor can Labor now justify its decision to shut down our coal, gas and oil resources at a time of soaring energy prices in pursuit of Ed Miliband’s insane Net Zero deadline.
Voters will also wonder why this Government is scrapping five Royal Navy warships, dozens of military helicopters and drones, and perhaps even our two brand new aircraft carriers.
If our busy prime minister has learned anything from his incessant meetings abroad with world leaders, it is surely that socialism is no substitute for a proper defense policy.
We’ve been through similar crises in the past, not least through the decades-long Cold War when the Kremlin really posed a nuclear threat to our survival.
In the 1960s, we lived with the possibility of an imminent attack, announced only by the “four-minute warning” of the old war sirens.
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Government advice booklets from the 1970s Credit: Alamy
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The nuclear device known as the Badger, a 2,000-kiloton bomb, tiny by today’s standards, was detonated at a US Department of Defense test site in Nevada in 1953. Credit: Alamy
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Zelensky is grabbing every weapon he can get his hands on to defeat the Russian bear while there is still time, including the long-range US ATACMSCredit: Alamy
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Britain’s deadly Storm Shadow cruise missiles have already been deployed with devastating effect this week
We practiced diving under the dining room table or standing on doors that were more likely to survive an explosion.
The best-selling book On the Beach portrayed Australians awaiting their “last days on Earth” after nuclear war in the northern hemisphere.
Peter Sellers made us laugh nervously in dr. To Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Women protesting against the Polaris missile camped out at RAF Greenham Common for years, while “Red Ken” Livingstone falsely declared London a “nuclear-weapon-free zone”.
By the 1980s, East-West negotiations had reached the basis of an uneasy truce.
It was literally MADNESS — “Mutual Assured Destruction”. Press the red button and we all die.
In my early days as political editor of The Sun, I accompanied Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to Moscow for various talks with Soviet leaders.
I had a ringside seat at one of the most important disarmament summits between Russia’s Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan.
The leaders of the superpowers agreed on huge, if symbolic, missile cuts, shown on the front page of The Sun with an image of nukes being launched harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean.
“We have reaffirmed our solemn belief that nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” the two world leaders said in 1988.
The Berlin Wall fell a year later, marking the so-called End of History.
But nuclear weapons are undetectable. Mutually assured destruction remains the only bulwark against Armageddon.
Fortunately, Donald Trump is a master of The Art Of The Deal.
Putin is desperate to be treated with respect on the world stage, not as a global pariah.
For all his bombast, he knows that his country has suffered catastrophic losses in blood and treasure because of his failed attack on Ukraine.
A tough call for the so-called European superstate
Sanctions have blocked Russia’s stagnant economy from Western technological advances.
A permanent ceasefire can be negotiated, but only if Putin is not humiliated.
A deal could be struck that will revive Russia’s lucrative oil and gas trade.
Putin will want to be re-admitted to the top ranking of the world’s most powerful economies, making the G7 the G8 again.
Brave Ukraine cannot fight without allied support.
Nor should it be left to exist in a “frozen war”, constantly intimidated by Russia.
This is where the European Union must step in.
Ukraine is now Europe’s responsibility, not America’s.
EU member states must find means to guard their own borders.
They can rely on NATO – which includes the US and the UK – but only if they increase defense spending by billions.
This is a tough call for Europe’s so-called superpower, which has spent the last five decades effectively disarming itself.
A lack of will at this crucial point would be disastrous.
If Putin gets down to business with Ukraine, we could find ourselves buying “affordable bunkers to survive the apocalypse.”
Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: HIS Education