[Scott from the Left Coast]

We are "armed to the teeth and pacifist to the core"

The need for popularity, the need to hand the masses their happy fictions so as to maintain your own exalted and safe position amongst the political elite, aka Chamberlain's overwhelming popularity in 1938, will be the demise of western democracy as a governing concept. And that demise will result in a devastating dark age.

[Billthedrill]

I do think there's a significant chance we are looking at the world's first nuclear war here. I also think there are several national governments who'd like to see it just to see what will happen. I place the governments of Russia and China firmly in that category and sadly, there are governments within the EU who are equally sanguine about the whole thing despite lip service to the contrary.

Easier to let it happen than to stop it. And if Russian and North Sea oil triples in price as a consequence, well, that's a bad thing for the consumers and a good thing for the sellers. And China has been very, very friendly with Iran with just that in mind.