Bill Burns calls Vladimir Putin a ‘bully’ whose ‘sabre-rattling’ should not always be taken literally
Western leaders should not be intimidated by Kremlin threats of nuclear escalation, the head of the CIA said on Saturday, and be willing to consider allowing Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles to be used inside Russia.
Bill Burns, on a visit to London alongside the head of MI6, said the US had brushed off a previous Russian nuclear scare in autumn 2022, demonstrating that threats from Moscow should not always be taken literally.
“Putin’s a bully. He’s going to continue to sabre rattle from time to time,” Burns said. “We cannot afford to be intimidated by that sabre rattling … we got to be mindful of it. The US has provided enormous support for Ukraine, and I’m sure the president will consider other ways in which we can support them.”
I’m not worried about being nuked, necessarily. I’m more worried about our nukes becoming their nukes, by way of installing one particular treasonous orange asshole as president. Again.
Putler is [most likely] a sociopath. He's has no morals but he's not clinically insane. The only thing using nukes would guarantee for him is his own death, which he must certainly be aware of.
Re: your second, we know Russia has functioning nukes because, at least until a year and a half ago, we used to go and inspect them on a regular basis.
The inspections did not test nav, propulsion or detonation functionality. The inspections only confirmed existence.
Russia's weapons have been maintained by notorious black market scalpers for decades now. Nearly every gram of fuel, every PCB and every detonation component on the black market in the last 50 years has been from Russian equipment. The world's intelligence community has noticed and done a little math on the subject.
Coupled with the West's advanced defense systems, Russia poses almost no real nuclear threat to any ally at this point. Their delivery systems would be more effective if they were DHL deliveries.
Somehow the threat of nuclear war, billions of deaths and the collapse of society, alongside a climate changing nuclear winter just isn’t that concerning when I already know climate change is going to do as much damage already.
They said the same thing when he was repeatedly lining up troops along Ukraine's border.
It's not a problem until it is. They need to be making more progress on peace talks. It's unacceptable this war has gone on for this long and killed this many people.
Agreed, but that's not happening. It's wild that the only possible options anybody sees right now are all-out war or Putin suddenly having a change of heart, and anybody who considers there might be other avenues to pursue is ridiculous.
Fine, the war goes on, and we'll see hundreds of thousands of people continue to die. Nothing else anybody in the entire world can do, it all rests on Putin changing his mind, and we'll just have to wait it out. Sucks to suck for all of those people, their families, and their descendants who are going to grow up in a country that's going to take generations to rebuild.
They said the same thing when he was repeatedly lining up troops along Ukraine’s border.
Who's 'they'? The US warned the world repeatedly that Putin was planning an invasion. They spent a month prior to the full-scale invasion herding skeptical cats in Europe trying to get everyone on the same page.
What would be achieved by peace talks? Putin will dig deeper into the lands they occupy and get more time to rebuild their army and strike even harder. It's been proven that he can't be trusted.
It is not possible for a conservative like Putin to enter any negotiation in good faith. Every word uttered by a conservative is deception or manipulation.
There is no negotiating with a conservative. It is simply not possible as their words mean absolutely nothing. When dealing with a conservative, there is only submit or fight. "Negotiating" with a conservative is submission.