Mad, not MAD.

 

Russian TV audiences are treated to a graphic presentation showing how British civilisation will be targeted by the thermo-nuclear warheads of their owl ballistic missiles. Other state-supported broadcasts use AI to merge familiar London scenes with clips of nuclear detonations, demonstrating how the Houses of Parliament, Buck Palace and Trafalgar Square will cease to exist. All of which, of course, is indisputable. Yes, Bloodymire Putin is capable of inflicting enormous damage to the seven UK cities shown on the presentation, including London. A third of the UK’s population will be wiped out in the attack, and a third more will die in the aftermath. The remaining twenty or so million people will face a lifetime of hardships; and for generations, the effects of radioactive fallout, the pollution from those missiles that are shot down or fail to explode - plus the long-term effects of infrastructure damage – will blight the UK archipelago’s inhabitants, probably leading many of them to become refugees. And where on earth will they go?

Though Mr Putin’s assurance that British civilisation will consequently be destroyed is less certain. True, Greece will never get back the marble sculptures that Thomas Bruce (7^th earl of Elgin) hacked and stole from the Parthenon. The hull of HMS Victory (Admiral Nelson’s flagship from the battle of Trafalgar) will be reduced to a cloud of ashes scattered across the Channel. Universities such as Oxford will go unvisited for some time; the grounds of stately homes ploughed up to grow cabbages and potatoes; and the original manuscripts, canvases and celluloid archives of many libraries and museums vanish for ever. Some regional accents will disappear, while others fuse into newfangled mongolots. Will Hay, Bessie Braddock and Agatha Christie – for lack of research and enthusiasm - might be utterly forgotten; and other cultural remnants - such as the rivalries of London, Manchester and Glasgow football teams - may lose all significance. Such will be the shared trauma of the remaining population that differences of race & colour, class & wealth, and North & South could wither far sooner than otherwise. Government as we know it might fizzle on for a long while, while distrust of a UK supra-nationality will have communities reverting to their pre-Celtic, anarcho-feudality. Survival will depend on co-operation in matters of food production, energy, housing and transport on the one hand; and on defences against overseas marauders on the other. The fallout from Putin actually carrying out his mad threat – nuclear, chemical, biological and ephemeral - will persist for centuries.

Meantime, the Royal Navy will have been alerted to the attack and its response will be more or less automatic. I know this. There is no question of some conscience-struck captain of the HMS Stick-It-Up-Your-Jumper-Mate failing to carry out orders. How do I know this? My father was the carpenter who built the captains’ cabins of two nuclear submarines constructed at Camel-Lairds shipyard in Birkenhead in the 1960s: the Polaris sub “Renown” and the hunter-killer “Conqueror”. When prime minister Margaret Thatcher, in a fit of jingoistic rage, ordered Conqueror to sink the Argentinian cruiser “Belgrano” in 1982, the captain didn’t hesitate much. He carried his orders in good faith. My father was sick to his stomach, saying, “That was not what we built those subs for!” He had taken on the job with a bellyful of trepidations; and as he worked away panelling the bulkheads in teak and mahogany, he was doubleplus careful never to leave any irritating fault, no screwhead swarf or unbevelled edge, nor any untoward crossgrains that would disturb the occupant of that tiny, undersea living space. So, when Conqueror sent the young, conscript crew of the Belgrano to the bottom of the South Atlantic, Harold Lee cursed Mrs Thatcher. Having been away to sea himself - his ship the RMS Baltic came to the rescue of the schooner “Northern Lights” in 1929 – he had seen for himself what drowning in such circumstances meant. And then it came as no surprise to him when Argentina responded in kind, sinking six British ships, including “The Atlantic Conveyor” – which was a merchantman with a civilian crew. As a result of Thatcher’s anger, ten times the casualties were suffered in the recovery of those godforsaken islands.

I was a fulltime anti-nuclear campaigner at the time of the Falklands War, and my father and I had discussions about the rights and wrongs of deterrence. On the whole, he agreed with my opposition to the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, such as the Cruise Missiles at Greenham Common and the Pershing IIs. But, even after the South Atlantic War was long over, he would support the upgrading of Britain’s deterrent to Trident. I still think the UK should have taken a different pathway back then, but realpolitik, ie the reality of world we live in, dictates how these things are played out. Bloodymire should never doubt that the Royal Navy will do its D U T Y.

Oh, you might ask, isn’t there some kind of dual key, here? Won’t Downing Street be on the blower to Donald J Duck, squatting deep in their brickbuilt shitehouse, for a quick consultation? Even if there was time (which there won’t be) between the launch of Russian missiles and the UK’s response, there is nothing a lame US president could do to restrain its number one ally’s response. Nor is there anything the Pentagon could do. Even Musk - with his vast array of satellites – could only warn the Russians of what they were already well aware: that their automated RSVP was safely due to arrive within minutes.

One of the four HMS Vanguard submarines is permanently at sea, and if tensions (as they probably would be) were at a heightened state, probably a second would have been scrambled. One sub, though, is all it takes. And whereas the Russians’ equipment is ageing, and has not been upgraded with the latest technology, Britain’s American supplied missiles are the last word. A Vanguard submarine can launch sixteen rockets that lift their nuclear payload into a low orbit, before each of which re-enters the atmosphere as eight retargetable warheads. You may do the maths on that yourself. But the weapons themselves are not American, they are British designed at AWRE Aldermaston and assembled at nearby ROF Burghfield (both places I have peace-camped at). Let’s say that as with the output of Russia’s rusting, land-based silos (post-Soviet Russia has not been able to maintain a seaworthy fleet of nuclear submarines) - 25% of these miss their targets, and a further 25% are somehow ack-acked. That leaves 100-plus warheads raining down to airburst in clusters of five or ten above Moscow, St Petersburg, Volgograd, Billy-Omsk and Bally-Tomsk (the Ural mountains will not get in their way). Bang, bang, bang.

The UK is a relatively small target, with its cities closely packed on the main island, so the kill-rate will be unspeakable. Russia, however, spans seven time-zones, taking up around a third of the Northern Hemisphere’s circumference. Its Western provinces are where most of the population, industry and infrastructure lie. So, unlike when targeting the UK, there will be vast areas unaffected by the blasts. Possibly, then, only about a fifth of the population will die at first, with another fifth following in the aftermath of the attack. To counter Mr Putin’s threat to destroy a civilisation, however, the upshot of Britain’s response won’t be so very different. The Kremlin will be gone, as will the Winter Palace, the Ballet Rus and the Nevsky Prospekt. The Moscow tocsin will melt into the ground it stands on. Infrastructure - from Arkangel to the Black Sea - will collapse. Most electronic equipment will fail because of the effects of Electro-Magnetic Pulse. No doubt, Putin and his henchmen will be safely ensconced underground. Maybe even a land line or two will remain and, if he chooses, the Russian leader will still be able to call a similarly hold-down Starmer on the phone and take things from there.

Tolstoy and Shakespeare will survive intact - as far as their works are concerned. As will recordings of Benjamin Brittain and Dimitri Shostakovich, copies of images made by Marc Chagall and David Hockney, and the steps of Swan Lake retraced by such UK dancers who take its fancy (and are still on their two feet).

Some people say things like ants or cockroaches will inherit the Earth. I’ve never bought that bogey-man’s tale. Humanity’s self-destructive tendencies, no matter how awesome, are just not effectively targeted at enough of its roots. In fact, I don’t see how such a Final Solution could be managed, without outside (ie Alien) intervention.

Anyhow, I’m talking about Russia attacking the UK and the UK responding, as it certainly will. I’m not counting on Amurrican or even NATO involvement. Perhaps if every single nuclear armed state decided to deploy all its nuclear, chemical, biological and conventional weapons in one fell swoop (as it were), some kind of tipping-point would end humanity’s hold on existence. That does sound a bit stage-managed, doesn’t it?

At the end of the Peloponnesian War when Greeks - having seen off the mighty Persians - turned on fellow Greeks and nearly tore each other apart, Athens must have seemed a pretty desolate place. Most domestic animals had been slaughtered to feed a starving populace, the vineyards burnt, wells poisoned, farms denuded of their workers (ie the slaves had run off), temples desecrated and womenfolk left tearing their hair out at the stupidity of it all. And yet, that era was a high-point for what we call civilisation. Senseless destruction went hand-in-hand with the creation of what we call history. OK, the scale of warfare we are facing now is on an exponential upwards curve. Losing our nerve in the face of ruthless dictatorship on one side and senseless populism on the other, we might be forgiven for cowering underground, crossing our fingers and hoping that the worst will somehow blow over, leaving just a few of our children’s childrens’ children to emerge into a Brave New World. But that is all that’s going to happen. ALL? Isn’t that enough? OK, get yourself a bolt-hole. But don’t cower, it doesn’t suit us.

Putin isn’t Hitler. If he were, he would have used The Bomb by now. Hitler would’ve had no qualms putting nuclear warheads on his Doodle-bugs or V2 Rockets - if he’d had them. Putin is a Stalinist, and Stalin quietly killed far more people than Hitler could boast of. Hitler actually ordered his architect Speer to destroy what was left of Germany as the allies closed in on the Reich. Speer, who masterminded the use of slave labour, was spared the gallows because of this. The point is, who’s going to carry out his last orders? Not the Russian navy, they’ll be too busy saving their own bacon rinds. And there may never be a Nuremburg Trial at which Putin and his gang are arraigned. So what!

Amurrica - ever late to the party - having watched all the lights going off across the UK, will finally step in and finish the job in Russia. Then China and India will rub their hands and grab the territories to their north. The Turks will welcome Bukhara and Alma-Ata back to the fold. The Northwest Frontier will move towards the Arctic Circle. The Global South will heave a sigh of relief. Believe me, you don’t have to be one of those right-wing, populist crazies to realise this. There is no MAD, nothing is assured except a great tide of death and destruction. Ukraine might even come out of it relatively unscathed to annex Belarus; and Finland get back Eastern Karelia. In other words, the world will go mad, not MAD.

No Mad No!