Nordic neighbours release new advice on surviving war

In retrospect, it seems like it was a bad idea for Western countries to assume that things were going to remain peaceful after the fall of the USSR. Glad to see the threat of war being taken seriously.

Unfortunately it not "just" about war now. The changing climate has also significantly increased the risk for major disruptions on social services such as fresh water supply, electricity, sanitation, and roads/track. We now also need to add those to the list of real risks to prepare for.

Niall Ferguson recently gave a speech, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocYvwiSYDTA (Address to the 2024 CIS Consilium on the Gold Coast),

in which he says that WWIII may be a more urgent risk. It's a race.

This reminds me of Department of Defense Climate Risk Analysis from three years ago where they remind us that there will be increased international conflicts due to the effects of climate change:

https://media.defense.gov/2021/Oct/21/2002877353/-1/-1/0/DOD... (1.5 MB PDF)

Interesting (and very plain, understandable, commonsensical) - but of course some running conflicts are not not strongly related to climate change.

Of course, when Niall Ferguson spoke, it looked at the contingency: he sees a possibility of catastrophic consequences that may come much earlier than the climatic "Armageddon". (Well, in some news peices today they spoke about "before Xmas"... It makes the order of events very definite.)

Why would you say that when we have NATO?

What "assumption" are you talking about? There has been continuous work (even if some of it mistaken) to reduce the chances of that happening.

Definitely some elements of some western countries are guilty of what you're alleging, but I don't think enough to justify saying the countries themselves did.

I never understood why the west didn’t help more with the legitimate government forces in Russia, even if it meant more spies and what not. It was clearly crumbling and that’s when stuff like crime and corruption breed, even more so than in the old USSR, but we just sat back and patted ourselves on the back instead of seeking out allies in Russia.

And look how bare the arsenals have become to the point where supporting Ukraine has become difficult. European NATO is dependent on a US that starting Jan 20 will sit this one out.

Ok sure, but surely NATO wouldn't exist if there were some assumption Russia weren't a threat?

I feel the worst will be migration. This is going to be pretty ugly.

The West did prop up Yeltsin and his insane economic plan, because he was a useful idiot, and then at the eleventh hour, he named Putin his successor, just before he resigned due to... Taking a bribe of a few thousand dollars. Apparently (in a society full of grifters), that was enough to burn him, not attacking parliament with artillery and tanks and killing 200 people.

The problem wasn't lack of government power, the problem was that shock therapy was a fucking awful way to handle the transition, that Yeltsin was a shitty autocrat who carried out a successful, bloody coup (Which didn't stop him from enjoying Western support - which would overlook any autocratic power grab, as long as Russia under him underwent shock therapy. Friggin' Bill Clinton campaigned for him), and that NATO turned from a purely defensive alliance to an offensive alliance and started acting unilaterally in what Russia felt was it's sphere of influence. (After a few years of good relations and bilateral collaboration.)

All that turned out to be a great way to rebuild an antagonistic relationship.

If you really want to point fingers at, though, I suppose you could blame Gorbachev for failing to keep the USSR intact and resigning, handing over power to assholes like Yeltsin. Gorbachev was a far better statesman and general human being than his successors were.