Zero=Zero

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So, what to make of the current escalations in the Ukraine war? Will Putin's Russia deploy their much-threatened nuclear arsenal at the 'wider West'? The temperature of the conflict is undoubtedly rising, and the election victory in the US of Donald Trump can do little to allay fears of the destabilisation of NATO: after all Trump is a fanböi of Putin and is currently shaping up to withdraw US support from the alliance. He sees everything through the lens of business [I might add badly as he's more crook than entrepreneur] and wants to ally himself with the money rather than engage with international politics or even his own people. His self-interest is glaringly obvious to those from whose eyes the scales have fallen, or indeed the rest of us who already see clearly what he represents. But what of the threat of nuclear war by Russia? In a world dominated by zero-game mentality one would think that this pointless winner-takes-all mindset would inevitably prevail, no matter what.

But really? Where's the gain for Putin, or indeed Trump, in supporting him? The self-interested no more want to die than the rest of us: they exist to accrue simply more and more personal wealth: it's just what they do; so where is the profit motive in a nuclear war? Short answer: none. When, as described in John Cox's 1977 book, 'Overkill', 'A 'limited nuclear war' could have more more casualties than the First and Second World Wars combined...' and '... a tactical nuclear weapon can be bigger than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima...', one wonders at what the possible motivation for such an escalation could be. Destroy half the world and who do you do business with, seeing that the accumulation of wealth is your raison d'etre? I don't buy it. I can't see the point. And I just hope that they see likewise and desist from this path...

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