The Doomsday Clock

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock  Quoting:

The Doomsday Clock is a symbol which represents the likelihood of a man-made global catastrophe. Maintained since 1947 by the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Board, the clock represents an analogy for the threat of global nuclear war. Since 2007, it has also reflected climate change and new developments in the life sciences and technology that could inflict irrevocable harm to humanity.

The clock represents the hypothetical global catastrophe as "midnight" and The Bulletin's opinion on how close the world is to a global catastrophe as a number of "minutes" to midnight. Its original setting in 1947 was seven minutes to midnight. It has been set backward and forward 23 times since then, the smallest-ever number of minutes to midnight being two (in 1953 and 2018) and the largest seventeen (in 1991). As of January 2018, the clock is set at two minutes to midnight, due to "the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change", and due to the United States reducing its common-ground leadership role.

https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/
https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-announcements/

Iron Maiden wrote a song about it:

Spoiler:

Now the clock is 1m 40s to Midnight.

How do you think the Russian invasion of Ukraine will play out?

As terrible as it is, and I support all the anti-Russian measures that have been taken, I do think the West is partly to blame for it by taking advantage of the collapse of the USSR in the 90s and expanding NATO and the EU into Russia's former territories. I think this is a good article which provides a balance to the whole issue :

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10555573/PETER-HITCHENS-West-acts-tough-Russia-just-feeble-stand-China.html  Quoting:

"I have never seen any attempt by anyone to reply to the urgent condemnation of this decision, made in 1998 by one of the greatest diplomats who ever lived, George Kennan. Mr Kennan, inventor of the successful strategy of ‘containment’ of the Soviet Union, came out of retirement to protest. He said Nato expansion was folly, and correctly predicted it would create nationalist backlash in Moscow. Did the neo-conservatives who created this policy really think Russia, with its huge intelligence services and vast, sophisticated foreign policy establishment, would not notice that it was being targeted?

Russia guards its interests, as do all nations, just as rain falls downwards and water is wet. Out of this realisation came Vladimir Putin, the direct consequence of the Wolfowitz doctrine. We created him."

There's even a bit of truth to Putin's statements about Ukraine being controlled by Nazis:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10530885/PETER-HITCHENS-Granny-gets-gun-bunch-shameless-neo-Nazis.html

I think that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is going to get very ugly and drag out for many years, resulting in death for hundreds of thousands of innocent people. In the end Russia will prevail.
I hope that the Ukrainian people will see this and cut their losses. They are no match for Russia and getting the whole world involved is a dangerous strategy.

I fear that this war is going to escalate and go nuclear.

After just exiting a twenty year war in Afghanistan, which ended in humiliation for the United States, you would think that Americans would take pause and not want to jump into another conflict which is going on half way around the world.

There was an American military analyst on GB News last night making the point that if Putin cannot achieve his aims by conventional means then he is quite likely to resort to weapons of mass destruction, including nukes. He thinks the West has got the balance right so far but that we must be careful not to push Putin into a corner. As bad as it is for Ukraine, I think it would be too risky and irresponsible for NATO to become directly involved - escalating things to the brink of World War III is just not an intelligent option. So whether it's called appeasement or not, I think Ukraine should at least agree to recognise Russia's control of the Crimea and pledge to stay out of NATO for at least twelve years.


This article looks to the future:

https://unherd.com/thepost/is-the-us-prepared-for-a-united-states-of-eurasia/  Quoting:

War is hardly a game. Nevertheless, in trying to discern the true winner of a conflict, we should always look to the edge of the board. If a power is present but not directly involved, then it is well-placed to benefit. Having not paid the price of war — or at least not the heaviest price — it has a head start when it comes to winning the peace.

A recent example is Iran after the US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Wars that were meant to make the world safe for democracy strengthened the Ayatollahs instead. Prior to the invasions they were hemmed in by hostile governments in Baghdad and Kabul. But with the Saddam and Taliban 1.0 regimes obligingly removed by the Americans, Iranian influence was able to expand across the Middle East.

Another example is the aftermath of the Second World War. Obviously, the USA and USSR were both involved in the war itself. But, crucially, they were still present and potent when the total defeat of Germany, the humiliation of France and the bankruptcy of Britain created a power vacuum across Europe. We also can see this effect in the aftermath of the First World War too. Though Germany was a defeated combatant, it was left standing with most of its territory intact. That’s in contrast to Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed altogether. Meanwhile a third empire, Russia, drew back and became the Soviet Union. That left a power vacuum in central and eastern Europe, which Germany, under Hitler, tried to take advantage of.

And thus we need to think about the vacuums being created by the Russia-Ukraine war. The most immediate is the one created by the collapse of European — and, especially, German — delusions. The idea that the EU could be an empire of soft power alone has been cruelly exposed. NATO — and the Atlanticism that was so recently written-off — is rushing in to fill the gap. Then there are the vacuums on the other side. Even if Russia prevails in Ukraine and/or Putin holds on to power, the delusions of the Kremlin have also been exposed. The whole world can see that Russia is diplomatically isolated, militarily dysfunctional and on the brink of economic ruin.

So who will fill those gaps? The answer, of course, is China. As Marshall Auerback explains ... the trade war between the West and Russia, will draw the latter ever-closer into China’s economic orbit. The came goes for the countries whose economies are deeply integrated with Russia’s. They will suffer collateral damage — and also turn to Beijing for help. This is especially true of the Central Asian republics, which are on China’s doorstep.  

After the invasion of Iraq, the Americans were caught out by the rising power of Iran. But this time there can be no excuses. The opportunities for the expansion of Chinese influence are obvious. The United States of America must prepare itself to face the United States of Eurasia.