Russia is harmless on their own. Why do think they are aligning themselves with China and Iran. (Platitudes excluded for Casby)
Doesn't Russia still have a few hundred ICBMs topped with multi-megaton thermonuclear warheads targeted at major US cities?
Yeap. and the US has a few thousand fully maintained, ready to launch multi-megaton thermonuclear warheads targeted at major Russian cities, military bases and Ivan's bar and grill. Russia is not aligning themselves with anyone. Seems they held some military exercises a couple of years back with, come on, you can guess . . . Yeap, NATO.
yeah cuz I'm sure the NRO building over there near Westfields wouldn't be a target...Centreville would be TOAST
Dude, this entire area for 200 miles in every direction would be a radioactive, smoldering hole in the earth. But I'd win
now that we're living in Clarendon we're in the truly vaporized zone...being out in WV, I'd have to deal with living for a bit then kicking it.
I worry more about present day Russia than the old Soviet Union. At least the Soviets were a monolithic, conservative bunch of autocratic thugs that had no interest in their own destruction. Putin and his successors? I'm not so sure they will give a shit. And they are so cash starved and corrupt that I could see a nuke being put on Russian ebay. But at least we don't have to worry about the Soviets financing and underwriting all sorts of evil shit around the globe on the scale of the 50s, 60s and 70s.
Sorry, Papa, your reply got lost in the noise. IMO Putin initially attempted reform in Russia, abandoning the old ways, including misinformation, etc. The Kursk incident showed he was weak (or, maybe more accurately, not as strong as he thought he was), caving to the pressure to resist telling the truth about what happened early on. The effect has been dramatic IMO, he's been battling (somewhat unsuccessfully) to maintain public trust in the government ever since.