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Sorry to distract you from climate chaos and a grim UK election, but there is a quietly rocketing risk of nuclear war which it is as well to pay attention to

prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/insid…
2/
For 50 years binding treaties have contained the nuclear arms race, but the last such treaty lapses within 2 years & there is no credible plan to replace it explains world-leading expert @ArmsControlWonk

prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/insid…
3/
The most obvious risk of an unconstrained arms race is huge and ruinously expensive stockpiles of humanity-obliterating weapons. But this is NOT in fact the most sinister effect

prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/insid…
4/

The real rot, which started with George W Bush walking away from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, or perhaps even with Reagan’s “Star Wars,” is the refusal to accept the protective logic of Mutually Assured Destruction

prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/insid…
5/

It’s hard to argue against “missile defence”, but if you credibly threaten to destroy the rival power’s ability to retaliate, then you ramp up the pressure on them to strike first. Greatly ramping up the overall risks of war

prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/insid…
6/
Will Trump’s chumminess with Putin save us? Sadly not.

Putin has recently displaying a “bizarre menagerie” of nuclear weapons quietly developed since Bush’s vandalous move in 2002.

& Trump? He’s said “let there be an arms race”

prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/insid…
7/

The rising importance of China’s stockpile & the treat hackers pose to nuclear control systems greatly complicate the practicalities of controlling the risks - even if we had leaders who cared about the dangers, high it’s not clear we do

prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/insid…
8/
Genuinely sorry to add to the gloom of the hour, but this is the definitive piece in a terrifying problem that we can’t ignore. Might be the most important thing you’ll read all year

ENDS

prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/insid…
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Tom Clark
@prospect_clark
1/ Yes @YouGov did well last time with their model, but having just spent the evening with a whole bunch of pollsters and political scientists, the interest this one exercise is attracting worries me
2/ as it happens, their projected headline number of Con seats is very close to what I put in the office sweep stake. So I certainly aren’t saying it’s wrong. Only that I don’t know, and neither do they
3/ as the fella who wrote the notorious Guardian front page on Election Day 2015 (headline: “it couldn’t be closer”!) I fear we’re still to absorb the real lessons of that trauma for the pollsters and pundits
Read 11 tweets
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Tom Clark
@prospect_clark
1/ Corbyn stunned the pundits in 2015, then in 2017—could he do now so again?

When so much reporting can’t see beyond the latest Westminster shambles, it’s hard to say

But @hackneylad dives into the movement behind the man

prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/what-…
@hackneylad 2/ Corbynism has two tribes

The 80s Bennite left—boomers who often bought houses at the right time, & are now starting to draw public sector pensions

The children of the crash—who’ve paid tuition fees but discovered that only insecure work and housing follows
@hackneylad 3/ The tribes have different ideas

Souped up social democracy — eg build more council houses

V

A bolder transformation—eg a “right to buy” off private landlords
Read 8 tweets
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Tom Clark
@prospect_clark
Watching News at Ten a spectacular corrective to the anti-Brexit echo chamber on Twitter.

To apolitical voters, the main impression tonight will simply be that the PM has pulled off something “they said couldn’t be done”
Interesting how content-free the story is ... there are just these abstract “things” — “Brexit,” the “deal”, people who hate them, people who like them, MPs who will & wont back them

No discussion of any substance about what any of it will do at all
11 minutes in we get to a brief explainer on what it means — the dull but important details which many will have switched off from by now
Read 5 tweets

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Tom Nichols
@RadioFreeTom
While I am loath ever to amplify anything D'Souza says, I'll just put my #nuclear expert hat on and say: It didn't happen because it was something that had to be created by all-out nuclear war. So, he's right that it didn't happen. Because all-out nuclear war didn't happen. /1
Whether "nuclear winter" would have happened in the wake of a huge nuclear exchange is still debatable, since it depended on any number of scenarios to dump enough ash into the sky to blot out the sun. I never thought much on it because "all-out nuclear war" was enough for me. /2
But it's still worth thinking about now that we have people talking about "small" exchanges, which would likely raise ecological hell of a similar kind. But none of that is related to D'Souza's moronic point. Thank you for coming to this Pu-239 fueled TED talk. /3x
Read 3 tweets
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Tom Nichols
@RadioFreeTom
Okay. Those of you who want an explainer about why Elizabeth Warren's answer on #nuclear weapons wasn't crazy - and is basically a restatement of current U.S. policy - here it comes. Those of you who think Liz Cheney is right, I can't help you. /1
So, Warren said she would not use U.S. nuclear weapons preemptively. This is a word that's not as obvious as it seems. But to understand this, you need to understand "first use" and "first strike" and "no first use." That requires a quick trip back to the Cold War. /2
During the "missile age," post-1960, the question was: "When is it okay to fire your missiles in retaliation for an attack on yourself?" The problem is that if you go too soon, you might be jumping the gun on just a warning, but if you go too late...well, you're too late. /3
Read 25 tweets
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Filomena Rocha
@Filomen03258997
7. United States decided to label #IRGC terrorists. But who are the real terrorists? Who created, trained, armed & financed the worst terrorist groups in the world?

#Hypocrites #DoubleStandards #Liars #Warlords #USRealTerrorists
1. United States decided to label #IRGC terrorists. But who are the real terrorists? Who created, trained, armed & financed the worst terrorist groups in the world?
🤨👇🏼
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2. United States decided to label #IRGC terrorists. But who are the real terrorists? Who created, trained, armed & financed the worst terrorist groups in the world?
🤨👇🏼
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1121015…
Read 108 tweets
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Bob Kerns
@BobKerns
On Jan 3, the Dems ought to introduce a bill to strip Trump of nuclear first strike authority, and insist it be signed into law before any discussion of a wall.

It's a matter of national security.

@RepRoKhanna @RepAdamSchiff @SenMarkey @RepTedLieu @RepKarenBass
Now is your chance, @RepRoKhanna
As he becomes more unstable, @RepKarenBass, it is critical Congress preempt such a strike.
Read 15 tweets
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Patrick Galey
@patrickgaley
Just returned from Bangkok, where nations made little progress towards finalising the Paris agreement on climate change that aims to limit global temperature rises over the next 80 years.

It was my first @UN #climate change rodeo and there were a few things I wasn't aware of
Under Paris, countries agreed to a fairly detailed set of promises to keep global temperature rises under 2C by 2100.

It was the first time all nations - both developed and developing economies - signed up to the same set of climate rules. But they weren't binding
Parties gave themselves in effect 3 years to come up with a text agreed by everyone, ratified, and translated into national law on a state-by-state basis. The idea is the accord isn't legally binding, but the rulebook it provides could be on a national level
Read 23 tweets
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Mark Grondin
@SpectrumPulse
I feel like driving up some controversy, so how about a thread of Hot Takes/Unpopular Opinions! You know the drill, one like = one take/opinion.

Start easy: the blunt awkwardness/cringe of 'Blurryface' is the point of taking the piss out of Tyler. I stand by my light 9/10.
2. I don't hate Nickelback's 'Dark Horse' - it's easily a record for them at their most tasteless, but the frat-bro swagger of it helps some of their better hooks.
3. 'Fireflies' by Owl City is a genuinely terrific song that captures precocious, starry-eyed wonderment better than few others in the 2000s.

It is SPECTACULARLY lame, but that's why it works.
Read 177 tweets

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