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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 23-Dec-2016
23-Dec-16 World View -- Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin both call for nuclear weapons increase

Web Log - December, 2016

23-Dec-16 World View -- Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin both call for nuclear weapons increase

Germany criticized for too few CCTV cameras, and Britain for too many

by John J. Xenakis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin both call for nuclear weapons increase
Germany criticized for too few CCTV cameras, and Britain for too many

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin both call for nuclear weapons increase

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin pointing, earlier this year

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin pointing, earlier this year

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday tweeted that the United States should increase its nuclear missile arsenal:

"The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes."

Several hours earlier, Russia's president Vladimir Putin had made a similar call for Russia:

"We need to strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defense systems.
We must carefully monitor any changes in the balance of power and in the political-military situation in the world, especially along Russian borders, and quickly adapt plans for neutralizing threats to our country."

US State Dept. John Kirby responded to a question of Trump's tweet:

QUESTION: "During the campaign there was a lot of discussion, especially from the Clinton side, about how Mr. Trump didn’t have the temperament to handle the nuclear weapons arsenal, that he was unpredictable and impulsive. Is this – does this kind of tweet, especially coming a few hours after Mr. Putin said something similar without any kind of policy statement or thinking to back it up – does that reinforce concerns that he might not be a steady hand?"
KIRBY: "Not for me to say, Barbara. I can’t speak for what – the president-elect’s nuclear views or his policy going forward. That’s for his and his team to speak to. What I can speak to is the approach that this Administration has taken to trying to get us on a path to a world without nuclear weapons."

This is a particularly laughable and moronic statement.

As long-time readers are aware, Generational Dynamics predicts that the US and Russia will be allies in the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war. Russia will be allied with India and the United States, while China will be allied with Pakistan and China and the Sunni states. Iran will also be allied with India and Russia, as Shia Muslims and Hindus have been allied against Sunni Muslims at least as far back as the Battle of Karbala.

As I've been describing for many years, China is engaging in a massive military buildup, developing multiple new nuclear weapons systems with the purpose of destroying American cities, military bases, and aircraft carriers. According to a Pentagon report issued in May of this year, China has been on a weapons binge, with quality improving even faster than quantity. Although the US military was confident in the past that it could successfully defend against a Chinese attack, the report suggested that China's military is at a tipping point, where it could overwhelm American defense forces.

Russia's officials must also be getting alarmed by the massive buildup in weapons by its historic enemy, China. Thus, Thursday's statements by Putin and Trump should be viewed not as presenting a danger of nuclear war between Russia and the US, but as a sign that the both the US and Russia are moving to protect themselves from the inevitable preemptive nuclear missile attack by China. AFP and AP and State Dept. and NBC News

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Germany criticized for too few CCTV cameras, and Britain for too many

German police have announced that the perpetrator of Monday's truck-ramming attack on a market in Berlin was Anis Amri, 24, a Tunisian asylum seeker who arrived in Germany last year. Amri has a criminal record in Italy and Tunisia, spent four years in an Italian prison. It took many hours for the police to figure out what happened, allowing Amri to be able to escape. There is now a major manhunt across Europe for Amri.

Many analysts are astonished that Berlin police have been unable to produce any CCTV (closed-circuit TV) footage that recorded the event, and that the police have to depend on asking the public for any available mobile phone footage.

Privacy laws are very strict in Germany, and Germans are particularly sensitive of state surveillance by any means, because of their collective memories of state surveillance by the Stasi secret policy in Communist East Germany and by the Gestapo in the Nazi era. So Berlin in particular is almost barren of CCTV cameras. According to the Berlin police union chief, "We would know a lot more about the perpetrator by now if we had been allowed to install video cameras." If cameras had captured the event, then Amri might have been identified much more quickly, before he had a chance to escape.

There's a particular irony to this situation, in that the EU just gave Britain one more reason for Brexit. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Wednesday struck down a UK's surveillance laws on the grounds that they violate the EU's privacy laws. The ruling did not specifically apply to CCTV, but it said that e-mail and internet records from the general public had to be destroyed within a year.

Undoubtedly, all of these privacy laws will be debated again, to balance privacy against public safety. However, it's worth noting that technology is improving rapidly to the point where it will be possible for the police to identify each person in CCTV footage, and use that information to track every person's movements on a daily basis. Daily Mail (London) and Telegraph (London) and International Business Times

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Terror in Berlin and Ankara as Russia's ambassador to Turkey shot dead (20-Dec-2016)

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-Dec-16 World View -- Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin both call for nuclear weapons increase thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (23-Dec-2016) Permanent Link
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Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin both call for nuclear weapons increase

Germany criticized for too few CCTV cameras, and Britain for too many

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 23-Dec-2016
23-Dec-16 World View -- Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin both call for nuclear weapons increase