" I think the real danger will be a first strike, with or without deniability, from the West when it sees its power start to slip away beyond retrieval...
I'm sure the graun will find a way to justify it as a perhaps wrong-headed but ultimately well-intentioned humanitarian act."


-If the West attempt a "first strike" there wont be a Guardian newspaper to justify it nor a Guardian reader to read it. It, them and we will mostly be incinerated.

These gung-ho fools apparently dont even consider basic facts of modern deterrence like Russia's extensive submarine fleet armed to the teeth with nuclear ballistic missiles.
Even in the case of an apparently "successful" Western powers "first strike" against Russia: which would actually be the greatest act of mass-murder ever committed, the Russian submarine fleet would in short order make it an "unsuccessful first strike" for as Putin has said:
'Why Do We Need a World if Russia Is Not In It?'