Petulance Among the Superpowers.

First the bad news from Russia: Mr Putin has announced that forty super modern ICBMs will be brought into service over the next year. ICBMs are the WWIII weapon, the weapon of Mutually Assured Destruction – the scenario which we all thought had dissolved like yesterday’s nightmare after Perestroika and the end of the Cold War. Given that the Russian economy is, by all accounts, not in the best of health at the moment, why would Mr P be committing to this expense if he was not genuinely open to the possibility of using them?

Informed opinion has it that the move is an attempt to counter NATO’s proposed plan to move heavy military equipment into Eastern Europe. Well, we on our side of the line would say that we wouldn’t be doing so if Mr P didn’t appear to be trying to re-establish the USSR starting with Ukraine. Mr P is clearly the aggressor here, not us. So if we’re going to have the same old nightmare come back to haunt us, let’s hope we wake up soon. Or maybe we can hope that it’s all just childish posturing.

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And now the bad news from America, which is maybe even worse: Donald Trump is to seek the Republican nomination for the 2016 election. Imagine the prospect of President Trump. Better still, don’t. One superpower nightmare is quite enough. Apparently he told his supporters (he has supporters?) that his fortune will help him be an effective President. If that doesn’t sound chillingly sinister, I don’t know what does. When the Scots put him in his place over his golf course plans, I gather he became very angry and indulged in a lot of petulant posturing, but at least it proved he could be beaten.

I was going to suggest that we in Europe start building a thousand ocean liners named Mayflower 2-1001, so that all decent Americans possessed of brains and hearts could make the return trip if Trump comes up trumps, but maybe that wouldn’t be any good. If we get to a point where Vladimir is in control in the Kremlin and Donald is occupying the White House, I doubt there would any place on earth worth running to.