What's new
Frozen in Carbonite

Welcome to FiC! Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

UK Politics The Brexit thread (or All -not- quiet on the western front)

Should have spent that time in the EU learning words from EU members.


Today's word
Schadenfreude: the feeling of EU members while watching the UK undergoing a slow-motion Brexit crash out
Illustration for the word-impaired:

DiscreteWellmadeGangesdolphin-size_restricted.gif


Of course, this is what we feel for Brexiters, the rest of the country causing actual sadness.
 
No, the moment that Russian SSBNs send up their satellites to find more targets, they'll nuke NZ until it's glass just to ensure no one would be able to rule the ashes.

Pfft, please. Russia will end up nuking Somewhere else because they don't know what New Zealand is.

1772

Basically the NZDF doctrine, and it works.

Honestly, I know very little about New Zealand. They never really make the news that I read/watch.

See? Stealth
 
The Story So Far
UKGov: "Hey! We're fucking leaving, so give us a deal!"
EU: "OK. Here is a deal. [mostly scribbling of "get fucked"]"
UKGov: "Let us vote on our wonderful deal."
Parliament: "No. This is terrible. Go get a better deal. No other options."
UKGov: "Give us a better deal!"
EU: "Nah."
UKGov: "OK, so the deal isn't changing. Let us vote on this slightly less wonderful looking deal."
Parliament: "Why would we change our minds? No."
UKGov: "Maybe we will try to vote on this again in a little bit."
Parliament: "[eye rolling in British]"
UKGov: "Do you think that we should maybe make sure that we are not destroying ourselves? We could ask the people again."
Parliament: "Never!"
UKGov: "How about an extension, so we can find out a way to repackage the same deal in a way that you will vote yes."
Parliament: "Worth a try. Let's go with the useless extension, though we totally will never accept a deal where we don't get one over on the EU."
UKGov: "So,.. we voted for an extension, 27 member states. Be a pal and accept, will ya, guv?"
EU: "[muffled laughter]"

...to be continued.
 
Pfft, please. Russia will end up nuking Somewhere else because they don't know what New Zealand is.
You can't really hide from satellites unless you dig underground. So, a Typhoon would find your pockets of civilization and then nuke it until it glows.
 
There's only one Typhoon and it's probably going to be busy nuking New York along with the other SSBNs. They aren't going to waste a prime first strike weapon like that on New Zealand, it'll be deployed against targets that can hurt it. Russians don't have thousands of missiles like th egood old days, just a few hundred now and you can guess where that are going.
 
There's only one Typhoon and it's probably going to be busy nuking New York along with the other SSBNs. They aren't going to waste a prime first strike weapon like that on New Zealand, it'll be deployed against targets that can hurt it. Russians don't have thousands of missiles like th egood old days, just a few hundred now and you can guess where that are going.
Nope, the Soviets (and likely the Russians) slated several SSBNs for this explicit task of basically extra-spiteful spite from what I've heard.
 
They don't have enough SSBN for this these days. Their budget crumbled pretty hard since the Cold War.
But one of the few things that they've kept pouring money into is their strategic forces. Conventionally Russia is a paper tiger. In the case of a nuclear war however? Not so much.
 
aren't most Russian nukes housed in so much metal cheese on top on now inert solid fuel these days?
 
aren't most Russian nukes housed in so much metal cheese an top on now inert solid fuel these days?
Not that I know of, given that their strategic arsenal is the only non-paper tiger thing about the USSR/Russia for much of the Cold War. They've been starting to replace their older systems with newer ones over the last decade or so as well, partially to keep their institutional knowledge around and partially to keep their strategic arsenal up to date.
 
they have on the order of 3-400 missiles, it is questionable how many are operational but lets say all of them. Most of them carry multiple warheads so thats where you get your fireworks from, but while each missile may have several nukes all of them are going to come down in the same rough location. i.e you can't hit both the US and Brazil with one missile body.
So to target one of the other countries you have to expend a missile which represents a good chunk of your combat capacity especially as your ground silos are almost certainly aimed at your main enemies because they're the prime target in any counter force attack and hold your biggest booms. Your subs are also almost certainly going to be used on your main foes as they have much shorter flight times making them your go to first strike weapon. They are also very likely dead after they shoot, so you won't waste them on sheep farmers.

Also consider Russian ICBM and warheads had a pretty high failure rate so you'll be at least doubling up on your targets to ensure a hit and it doesn't leave a lot of those missile bodies spare for spite attacks. You have mobile launchers too but less than 20 I think and again you wouldn't waste them on sheep, they are your best second strike weapon so will almost certainly be fired at NATO cities. Now I'm sure the Russians had plans for Japan and Oz etc, but the question is if they can actually make them happen today with their thirty year old SSBNs that are tracked as a matter of routine by Euro/US SSNs, and their fixed silos which are going to be B2 and US ICBM bait.

Most nuke plans are based on either second strike or fire on confirmation and in both cases they expect to lose plenty of weapons on the ground so always task multiple missiles to the targets they need to kill, Russia has a decent number of weapons but not armageddon level anymore.
 

Try to top this.

Nathalie Loiseau, France's minister for European affairs, told Le Journal du Dimanche this week that she has named her cat "Brexit" because he is often reluctant to leave.

"He wakes me up every morning meowing to death because he wants to go out, and then when I open the door he stays put, undecided, and then glares at me when I put him out," Loiseau said.
 
For some more fun, now the boozy heifer is ruining the plan. Ruin!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/brexit-monday-negotiations-1.5060827
British Prime Minister Theresa May cannot make a third attempt in the House of Commons to try to win support for her European Union divorce deal unless the contents of the plan are substantially different, the Speaker said on Monday.

House Speaker John Bercow cited a 415-year-old parliamentary precedent in explaining his rationale.

"This is my conclusion: if the government wishes to bring forward a new proposition that is neither the same, nor substantially the same as that disposed of by the House on the 12th of March, this would be entirely in order," he said.

Considering that the EU has effectively said that they will not be making any significant changes, the only real way to ever get the deal approved is to wait until the next parliamentary session.

Which would require that extension. A longer extension than the British people would like, but about as long as the EU is willing to give since they don't want this all to happen again in a couple of months.

But then we also have the EU saying:
Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders agreed, saying: "We are not against an extension in Belgium, but the problem is — to do what?"

...which basically acknowledges that there is nothing more to discuss, so either the Brits accept the deal, drop the idea of Brexit entirely, or crash out. With less than two weeks to get all the other 27 EU nations to ratify an extension, I'm thinking that this is not going to go well at all.

Or as we like to say "Brexit business as usual".
 
Back
Top Bottom