This is a googly or, if you are an American, a curve ball of a topic suggested by Shackman for this week’s 2 on 1 Blog Post.
I am not Buffy and do not have big bads in my life except for those that I keep reading about in our news papers or WhatsApp messages. I had to think hard and long to come up with an answer and after that too, I am not fully satisfied that it is the correct answer to this question.
I would choose Vladimir Putin for two reasons. You can read all about the first reason here and the second, here.
I have given enough reading material in the two links to support my conclusion and I have nothing more to add.
Please do go over to Shackman’s blog to see what he has to say about the question that he has raised. I will be very surprised if he and I agree on the answer.
No synchronicity this week. And you are wrong about my choice-read between the lines. The lack of civility in the civil discourse in the USA is what caused/allowed Trump to explode upon the political scene. He is a symptom of the big bad, but if he survives and wins re-election in 2020 he will likely earn a promotion to the Big Bad.
I personally believe Russia and Putin have something on Trump. There is NO pother logical reason for his Russian policies to appear to be scripted by Vlad himself.
I am sick of the hatred in our discourse. I may well be the target of some because of this week’s blog. We shall see.
No, there is no synchronicity this week indeed and I did realise that I was wrong by reading between the lines in your post. Since posting out two takes, further developments have indeed pushed the world into a more dangerous position and we can only hope that the bad old days do not return.
I don’t see where you’re coming from in the articles on Putin. You condemn him and ignore Trump (or rather, his handlers). There are so many big bads in the world as well we know, so much torture, starvation, famine. So much genocides caused by US interference. The US worries me more than any other country for many, many reasons and I do believe Russia is holding Trump’s reins. Whether that be good or bad is another matter and remains to be seen.
XO
WWW
I am sorry if I sounded as if I condemned Putin and ignored Trump. Between the two I would still vote for the former for being the big bad in today’s conditions and developments in the last couple of days only go to further my belief.
I wasn’t even thinking of “men/people” either…but in a way, people may have caused much of the “bad” all round… a difficult question to comment upon, each of will be thinking same or vastly different…
It was indeed a difficult topic to write on and I toyed with the idea of requesting Shackman to change it. I however decided at the end to choose who I thought was the big bad and wrote about him.
Another viewpoint….
Trump is building up the US’s nuclear firepower
2019-02-02
The number of nuclear weapons possessed by the US and Russia is a fraction of what it was during the height of the Cold War. Successive presidents on both sides, since the time of John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, have feared their destructive power. Their supposed value, so called Mutually Assured Destruction, known by its capitals, MAD, is in fact valueless. They cannot be used, and nearly everyone accepts that. Yet they continue to exist and, as President Mikhail Gorbachev and his ally in nuclear arms control, President Ronald Reagan, both said, there is the fear of a false alarm or two errant officers in the silo entering simultaneously their keys which allows the firing of the rocket.
Yet here we are in 2019 with a new American nuclear initiative just announced last weekend. (I doubt that US President Donald Trump is in the clutches of Russia. Otherwise, why would he be pushing for such a significant anti-Russian policy?) The Americans are planning a new deployment of nuclear rockets and the radar to go with them, this time supposedly aimed at Iran but with also the range to reach Moscow.
Yet here we are in 2019 with a new American nuclear initiative just announced last weekend. (I doubt that US President Donald Trump is in the clutches of Russia. Otherwise, why would he be pushing for such a significant anti-Russian policy?)
How can Iran ever be a threat is the first of many questions. Voluntarily, in an agreement negotiated with the Administration of President Barack Obama, Iran has forsaken the technical wherewithal to manufacture nuclear weapons. Even if it didn’t observe the treaty it has no rockets that could carry a nuclear or serious conventional payload as far as Europe. No wonder the Russians wonder what the Nato plans are all for, and come to a reasonable conclusion- they are meant for them.
The initial defensive screen, according to the New York Times, “rests upon a network of early-warning satellites, a new high-powered X-band radar based in Turkey, and at least one on an Aegis-equipped US warship, deployed in the Mediterranean, capable of shooting down incoming missiles. Two land-based missile defence sites are also planned- first in Romania, and later in Poland.” When Obama decided to modify this latter part of the deployment, President Vladimir Putin expressed his thanks. But the deployment appears to have crawled on to the agenda again.
Some Russian generals have said that Russia will deploy the nuclear-capable Iskander missiles against any Nato missile sites constructed in Poland and Romania.
To what extent does Russia have a point? Dmitri Trenin, the Russian director of the (American) Carnegie Center in Moscow, “sees US ballistic defence plans as global in scope”. Their concern, he believes is that “strategic defence impacts upon strategic offence, devaluing the deterrent value of Russia’s own nuclear arsenal.”
in an agreement negotiated with the Administration of President Barack Obama, Iran has forsaken the technical wherewithal to manufacture nuclear weapons. Even if it didn’t observe the treaty it has no rockets that could carry a nuclear or serious conventional payload as far as Europe
“Moscow wants both formal assurances and an insight into the system’s parameters, to be confident that the US has no intention of degrading Russia’s own deterrent power, and that the Nato system has no capability against Russian strategic missiles. Washington’s reluctance to give assurance about either raises Moscow’s suspicions.” Trenin believes that Washington must engage Moscow before both sides get entrenched with their plans.
For all its hostile rhetoric, Russia must be somewhat relaxed as it can see that the kind of missile the US plans to use if attacked is the so-called
Standard-3 missile.
Professor Theodore Postol, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, America’s leading scientific university, an expert on Nato’s nuclear policy, says, “All the tests have been characterized by extraordinary efforts to eliminate all objects that could possibly confuse the kill vehicle. For these reasons and others it is overwhelmingly likely that if it is used in real combat it will be a total failure”. Of course, the paradox is that even when they don’t work, potential adversaries will treat them as if they do. This produces the worst of all possible worlds- no defence but build-ups of offensive weapons to deal with these defences.
The missile has only been tested under non-combat conditions”.
For those with long memories we recall Reagan’s “Star Wars” speech. He said the US would deploy weapons in space to shoot down incoming Soviet missiles. This would be a missile shield. Thus nobody would get hurt. 36 years later there is no sign of such a system working.
At the same time Trump has threatened to withdraw from the 1987 INF treaty that eliminates short-range missiles in Europe. So far it’s been a great success. Trump says Russia is cheating. But American defence experts who have held high positions in the Defence Department and Congress argue that it would be a grave mistake to terminate the treaty.
As for the Russians they see an overlap between the radar and missiles to be deployed against Iran and the weapons banned by the INF treaty.
The Iran dimension of all this could be solved if Trump would recognize the treaty signed by Obama and Iran to halt Iran’s bomb research.
Time is running out for sensible decision making.
Hi Rummy,
The only Bad Guys I know are the terrorists. All the rest, details.
Cheers
Some terrorists are simply suited and booted!