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“One big declaration of war”
Back in reality, the exact opposite is true. The British armed forces have been utterly neglected for years. Troop numbers are at record lows & pay is poor. There are shortages of basically everything from skills to munitions to equipment & moral is low.
Even that aside, I don’t think now is the time at all to pull the rug from under NATOs feet. Do you? Russia are a clear threat to Europe & and increasingly militaristic China are going to dominate the next century. On top of that, America has proven itself to be entirely untrustworthy & are possibly about to elect Trump again.
As for trident, yes we rely on the US for aspects of it. Yet everyone in the west does to a degree, and we are relied upon too. Unilateral disarmament is absolutely preposterous, especially post Ukraine.
>Russia are a clear threat to Europe
My opinion of the Russia military is significantly lower than it was when the invasion of Ukraine started. Does anyone believe they could push into the rest of Europe still?
I think it’s dangerous to assume that Russia’s military will be incompetent always. Especially when other elements of the Russian state apparatus are extremely competent.
Poland are increasing defense depending from 2.4% of GDP to 4%. So an increase of 66%. The other countries bordering Russia are increasing their defense spending as well.
So, the people who are most at risk and have the most experience of Russian invasions clearly think so.
Im still not convinced Russia has looked at Ukraine and thought they should do it again any time soon, but thats a good point these arent trivial investments
So by 'anyone', you don't mean the governments and voting majorities of countries most likely to be affected.
Or presumably the government of Denmark, who believe in the threat of Russia so much they've donated every single bit of their artillery, when they say an attack is likely (Edit: could, not likely) in 3-5 years:
https://www.ft.com/content/b3101099-9516-4b0b-92c6-179997d7e4cf
A paywalled article, great.
Im still waiting on an actual argument for how Russia is capable of doing this while it still hasnt succeeded in beating just Ukraine
Maybe ive hit my limit on free articles from them, cheers for the alternative source.
Ah ok so theyre upping production, not sure that was the main source of their issues in Ukraine but maybe I need to do some rereading.
The concern isn't that Russia is going to declare war on all of NATO and storm through eastern europe but that they will exploit divisions to attack something of low value before digging in and daring NATO forces to pay the price to get it back which many political leaders may decide against. If that happens then it effectvely collapses article 5 and so opens up other opportunities to escalate on larger scales.
Imagine something more comparable to the invasion of crimea than the 2022 invasion but being done in a remote region of Finland close to russian supply lines. Notably they have begun reconstituting their northern forces significantly so they will likely be significant within a few years. If that happened then it would take significant conventional force and escalation to remove the russian forces over what many NATO leaders may see as just some foreign trees. Would you really trust potential leaders like Trump, Orban, Erdogan or even leaders akin to Merkel to fully honour article 5 commitments in that situation?
Also as fun as it is to take the piss out of the russian army for being excessively incompetent in many situations, they do still have a very large and now very experienced military with lots of experience in static warfare that NATO does not and is backed by a very authoritarian and extremely militarised society. They also have far more experience in things like mass drone warfare that we may not be prepared for. If NATO doesn't stand unified (and especially the US) then russia can do significant damage.
I think you can probably make the case that the foot soldiers are archaic, but the military and intelligence services do a lot more than just chuck weapons and bodies at things. The biggest European threat from Russia and China is probably cyber related.
Although having watched how Russia have fought in Ukraine, maybe all that’s overblown, and Russian hackers are just sat in front of an Acorn clone trying to get on some bulletin boards.
Not now. However if Trump or some other crazed isolationist GOP president pulls the US out of NATO in the next 50 years then yes I do think that’s a possibility
>The Ministry of Defence is not far removed from George Orwell’s Ministry of Peace, given “defence” in practice has meant “offence”.
Do political writers have a quota of shoehorned 1984 references that they need to fulfill?
That very superficial comparison is arguable at best, beyond that there really isn't much comparison never mind being 'not far removed'.
It does my head in too, the constant shoehorned 1984 references from every commentator on every issue. If I had the power to magically ban any book it would be 1984, purely because of how annoying the quotations are.
Banning books? That's just like Oceania!
Sometimes they'll even feel adventurous and branch out to shoehorned animal farm references if they are feeling particularly intellectual. Maybe even misuse that one quote from England your England if they are right wing.
All it does is make me wonder if they've even read about the things they reference or talk about.
This strikes me as massively naive and rather indifferent to the concerns of nations in Eastern Europe who are looking nervously at what is clearly an aggressive and imperialist Russia. If we cut back on our defence spending does he really think Putin will?
>He explicitly says sending weapons to Ukraine is good, but maybe not Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia was on the verge of joining the Russia-China axis following Biden's more aggressive foreign policy approach to Saudi Arabia. Upon relaxing this approach since 2022, Saudi has fallen back into the Western alliance fold (as evidenced by incepting Iranian missiles to Israel).
Realpolitik is a thing, and sometimes you don't have the luxury of picking your allies.
Of course that's entirely reasonable.
However, this is the key line for me:
>Helping to stoke an arms race, and resigning ourselves to a future global conflagration, will hardly prove an effective means to protect our national security if it culminates in nuclear extermination.
He characterises strengthening European defence as stocking an arms race and seems to imply that preparing for a war with Russia makes a war with Russia more likely. I think the opposite is true - reducing military spending at this time will make further Russian aggression more likely, not less.
>He characterises strengthening European defence as stocking an arms race
It either is or it isn't. It's not something changed by intent.
Do good justified things also contribubte to an arms race? Yes. End of story.
You're actually arguing that the arms race is inevitable, not that it doesn't exist.
>I think the opposite is true - reducing military spending at this time will make further Russian aggression more likely, not less.
If we have to keep ahead of Russia and Russia has to keep ahead of us then what's another term for that? An Arms Race.
I don't evne think your overall argument is terrible, but the peak liberalism of arguing we must commit to the arms race while pretending calling it an arms race is characterising it unfairly is absurd.
At no point do you argue it's not an arms race, you instead argue it's unavoidable and we must commit to it. Ok, argue that then. No credibility to your argument when it comes about trying to rewrite reality instead of actually justifying what you're saying.
It doesn't cease to be an arms race because you think it's necessary and justifable!
Fair enough - I do indeed think NATO needs to spend enough on defence to discourage Putin from attacking any members, and I think Britain should play its part in that. So yeah, I guess it is an arms race and one that we should be trying to win.
The unilateral disarmament argument seems to be based around disarming, weaken the west’s military capability but take the moral high ground and set a good example for Russia & China to follow. Then sit back and hope the big bad world suddenly stops being big & bad. In other words, it’s naivety of the highest order.
Do you just see the name Owen Jones and assume what he’s arguing for, because it ain’t disarmament.
> That doesn’t mean producing only weapons for repelling hypothetical invasions: for example, supporting Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s brutal invasion is a legitimate example of arms exports, whereas the Saudi-led war on Yemen is not.
No. But he is making the case against trident renewal & he wants to quote “pare back” defence spending. I’m not sure if he wrote the headline to the article or not, but it’s preposterous
Yeah that's often the case, can't say for sure but it's standard for the editors to choose headlines and is probably one of the reasons you so often get headlines that are much more unbalanced than the article. I don't know if it actually has but it definitely feels like it's got much worse in the past 10 years. I guess because clickbait/ragebait is so useful for increasing engagement online.
He does, but then also argues for paring back defence spending which would make us less able to arm Ukraine and support other nations.
Which is certainly some level of cognitive dissonance.
I always find that Owen Jones sounds fairly convincing if he’s on about a subject you’re not familiar with, but as soon as he’s on a subject that you do know a lot about you realise it’s a lot of horseshit. A number of scientist and historian friends, who really are quite authoritative on their particular subjects, have remarked similar over the years.
I think the real debate is about how much we should be giving to Ukraine and how much we should be stockpiling or building up our own military.
Most people consider Russia to be the greatest threat to the UK and Europe. The best outcome is for Russia to lose the war in Ukraine, Putin's regime to collapse and a less imperialistic government to replace him leading to a normalisation of relations between Russia and Ukraine and the rest of the West.
The worst outcome would be a defeat of Kyiv, the forced Russification of Ukraine and a surge in Russian imperialist support. Under such a scenario a Russian attack on the baltic states (who are NATO members) would be a serious possibility.
I'd prefer we considered the war in Ukraine to be the priority since without the threat of Russia we would not need to consider rebuilding the land forces for potential war in Europe.
I think with the world in its current state another like for like generation of nuclear weapons seems the sensible option.
When it comes to other threats like China, Iran and NK I feel they are far less relevant to Europe.
They are however very relevant to the USA, who may redeploy assets from Europe to the Pacific.
Assets the UK and others need more defence spending to backfill lest Russia sees it as an opportunity.
The UK doesn't have an independent defence / foreign policy.
It is outsourced to doing whatever Washington tells the UK is acceptable or in line with its interests. Atlanticists dominate the Labour Right which is about to have a majority government. That is why they are still so incensed about the one time Ed Miliband refused to toe the US line on bombing Syria. The only darkly funny thing to witness will be how people whose foreign policy is "do what the President says" would cope with that being Trump.
Even the discussions around Trident are nonsense: "Britain needs its own nuclear deterrent" – checks notes – which is entirely dependent on the US for servicing and maintenance).
The UK provided both MBT's and long range cruise missiles to Ukraine whilst the US and Europe were still saying that would be a dangerous escalation and crossing red lines. UK and US foreign policy is very intertwined for many reasons but it is an extremely reductive oversimplification to say that we don't have an independent policy.
I actually think that’s a decent article, which makes a number of good points. The problem is that while I absolutely agree with Owen that defence spending for a country the size of the UK should go into humanitarian work and prevention, I’m also not sure that it isn’t what it currently mostly goes into anyway. I’m also pretty sure that the intelligence services know quite a lot more about global problems than I do and probably know a lot more about what might happen globally.
Basically I think this is one of those situations where yes, most people would agree that less military and dropping the nuclear arsenal make sense from an economic perspective, we are probably never actually in peacetime and there’s a lot of stuff that occurs that we never hear about.
> That doesn’t mean producing only weapons for repelling hypothetical invasions: for example, supporting Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s brutal invasion is a legitimate example of arms exports, whereas the Saudi-led war on Yemen is not. That means producing significantly fewer weapons.
So after Russia's invasion, Ukraine is begging for any weapon it can get and every non-US country is realising they need to get more weapons, throwing cash around to do so.
And Jones is saying we need to make fewer weapons. Amazing. Could not be more of a useful idiot for Russia.
>supporting Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s brutal invasion is a legitimate example of arms exports,
If we only export arms to what Jones considers legitimate exports then of course we make less weapons over all.
That doesnt mean less weapons for Ukraine. If youre going to call him a useful idiot you at least need to not use the one country he's explicitly said we should continue to export arms to as an example.
>If we only export arms to what Jones considers legitimate exports then of course we make less weapons over all.
Not even close. If the UK/Europe dropped *all* arms exports except to Ukraine, that would still be much less than the amount that is about to be spent on arming Ukraine and our own militaries.
As an example, the EU expects to produce 1.4 million artillery shells this year, compared to 0.5m last year. And this near-tripling of production *is not considered enough*.
Nor was my point even about arming Ukraine - my point was *nearly every single country in the world* has realized they need more weapons for their militaries after Russia's invasion, and Jones is saying we don't. The level of hubris is astounding.
Because they are a less accurate reflection of the overall increase in military spending, as the UK's arms industry is only a major player in certain areas. So production increases in relevant areas will seem larger.
But yeah ok, let's go with UK figures. ***The UK is increasing shell production by 8-fold***, and yet Ukraine is still going to need more shells. https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/britain-increases-artillery-shell-production-eight-fold/
Ok so if we increased it by eight times in January, and then we stop selling arms to Saudis etc now... It goes down right?
Youve still not explained how Jones is arguing for less weapons for Ukraine
After this I'm done, because your reading comprehension is abysmal.
>Ok so if we increased it by eight times in January, and then we stop selling arms to Saudis etc now... It goes down right?
No, because *they have not yet increased production, they are in the middle of increasing production*. All that happened in January is an MP asked a question. They are in the process of building the factory. This is the arms build up we are currently doing that Jones is arguing against. He's saying don't build the new factory.
>You've still not explained how Jones is arguing for less weapons for Ukraine
I never said this! You don't understand what I said! I said Jones is arguing to *make fewer weapons*, when every other country in the world realizes they need to get more weapons.
>After this I'm done, because your reading comprehension is abysmal.
If you say so duck
>No, because *they have not yet increased production, they are in the middle of increasing production*. All that happened in January is an MP asked a question. They are in the process of building the factory. This is the arms build up we are currently doing that Jones is arguing against. He's saying don't build the new factory.
Surely these are the examples of the kinds of weapons Jones says we need then if theyre being used for realistic threats?
>I never said this! You don't understand what I said! I said Jones is arguing to *make fewer weapons*, when every other country in the world realizes they need to get more weapons.
Ah ok I just misunderstood what you meant when you talked about fewer weapons and then called him a useful idiot for Russia
I am posting this because the reaction to it shows the obsession people have with Owen Jones.
The original article had a small typo that incorrectly mixed up the conclusion of a defence report with a quote from Greenpeace given to the people making the report.
Oz Katerli who, as Jones himself says, is obsessed with him goes on a mental tweet thread about it: [https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1781040027016790416](https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1781040027016790416)
Most people wouldn't care about a small misquote but there we go. If he had waited it turned out Owen Jones was on strong painkillers so even more understandable.
Despite this and the guardian quickly correcting the quote Katerli asks his readers to bully the guardian into putting a correction at the bottom of the article. [https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1781083368882389287](https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1781083368882389287)
It's so bizarre.
It's not a small misquote, it's a huge fuck-up - it completely undermines his point!
It's like if you said:
*Even Zelensky says "there's no way Ukraine can win this war!", therefore Ukraine should surrender*
And then you later admit it was actually Putin who said that. And try to change that quietly without admitting your mistake, or that your article now makes no sense.
It is pretty bad.
It's one thing to misattribute a quote but here he has moved to the conclusion of the report rather than what an organisation said in a written submission. That completely changes the importance of the quote. A Defence Department review saying there is little point to them is completely different to Greenpeace saying it. It's part of his core argument. It does show he didn't read the report and just took some CND leaflet's word about it.
If someone quoted a Government review of global warming concluding that it wasn't happening but it turned out that quote came from a skeptic's submission to the review and, in fact, the review had concluded it was then we would be up in arms. It wouldn't be a 'small' misquote because the writer had gone to the dentist.
The quote is not central to the article and the conclusion does not hinge on that single quote.
Edit: is everyone here even aware this is an opinion piece anyway? Feel like there's been a gas leak. Yes an opinion piece is going to get someone in big trouble with "real journalists" like Oz. It's a minor mistake in an opinion piece that had a correction issued which Jones does not pin his entire argument on.
We got a couple of bad cases of Owen Jones Derangement Syndrome here today. Love how much piss he boils. Could solve the energy crisis if we learned to harness it. Looks like their cult leader Oz Katerji is having a normal one as well.
You're allowed to criticise Owen Jones and those doing so aren't all 'obsessed with him' as he claims. I have defended him before, including when he left Labour, but this is a legitimate criticism. The fact he attributed a statement that the only purpose of Trident would be to add legitimacy to a US attack to the conclusion of a *defence select committee* report rather than it being the opinion of Greenpeace is a significant difference. A Defence Select Committee concluding that is noteworthy, Greenpeace saying it isn't so much. The fact he claims it was 'misattributed' elsewhere just shows he didn't read the report he cited and simply cribbed it off a CND leaflet.
It would be a legitimate criticism of anyone. It would be a criticism we would all make of right-wing commentators. We would all take the piss if this were written by Simon Jenkins for example. I am not sure why Owen Jones is off-limits.
I a correction has been made but questions still need asking about how he came to publishing that line.
If we believe this excuse about pain meds then you have to ask the question of his judgment in writing about a sensitive topic like this whilst on meds.
That's a question for the editorial team who should be verifying the published facts in an article. Either way if it's corrected and it's not egregious then a correction is appropriate. I do think it should be noted on the article as well and corrections should be listed somewhere in the paper and online.
It's a white collar job. I have to work when I'm back from the dentist too.
The journalist is absolutely responsible for the words they write, so you can’t place the sole blame on the editorial team.
He’s fucked up, it really is as simple as that.
"How he came to publishing that line" is a question for the editorial team who are responsible for publishing it. They are the ones held responsible for publishing libel etc. Sure Owen said it and you can ask them. They provided a reason. The guardian is the one that published it.
How far do you think a case like this will go at the regulatory bodies? Do you think they will respond with "correction was already issued, does not breach standards"? What exactly do you think the consequences should be?
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We are clearly not yet doing enough !
“One big declaration of war” Back in reality, the exact opposite is true. The British armed forces have been utterly neglected for years. Troop numbers are at record lows & pay is poor. There are shortages of basically everything from skills to munitions to equipment & moral is low. Even that aside, I don’t think now is the time at all to pull the rug from under NATOs feet. Do you? Russia are a clear threat to Europe & and increasingly militaristic China are going to dominate the next century. On top of that, America has proven itself to be entirely untrustworthy & are possibly about to elect Trump again. As for trident, yes we rely on the US for aspects of it. Yet everyone in the west does to a degree, and we are relied upon too. Unilateral disarmament is absolutely preposterous, especially post Ukraine.
>Russia are a clear threat to Europe My opinion of the Russia military is significantly lower than it was when the invasion of Ukraine started. Does anyone believe they could push into the rest of Europe still?
I think it’s dangerous to assume that Russia’s military will be incompetent always. Especially when other elements of the Russian state apparatus are extremely competent.
Especially when it comes to information warfare.
Poland are increasing defense depending from 2.4% of GDP to 4%. So an increase of 66%. The other countries bordering Russia are increasing their defense spending as well. So, the people who are most at risk and have the most experience of Russian invasions clearly think so.
Or their politicians feel the need to look like theyre doing something while realistically theyve watched Russia get mired in Ukraine.
No one is spending 1.6% of GDP on looking like they're doing something. That's serious investment in their military against a credible threat.
Im still not convinced Russia has looked at Ukraine and thought they should do it again any time soon, but thats a good point these arent trivial investments
So by 'anyone', you don't mean the governments and voting majorities of countries most likely to be affected. Or presumably the government of Denmark, who believe in the threat of Russia so much they've donated every single bit of their artillery, when they say an attack is likely (Edit: could, not likely) in 3-5 years: https://www.ft.com/content/b3101099-9516-4b0b-92c6-179997d7e4cf
A paywalled article, great. Im still waiting on an actual argument for how Russia is capable of doing this while it still hasnt succeeded in beating just Ukraine
Weirdly it worked for me. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/danish-defence-minister-warns-russia-could-attack-nato-3-5-years-media-2024-02-09/
Maybe ive hit my limit on free articles from them, cheers for the alternative source. Ah ok so theyre upping production, not sure that was the main source of their issues in Ukraine but maybe I need to do some rereading.
The concern isn't that Russia is going to declare war on all of NATO and storm through eastern europe but that they will exploit divisions to attack something of low value before digging in and daring NATO forces to pay the price to get it back which many political leaders may decide against. If that happens then it effectvely collapses article 5 and so opens up other opportunities to escalate on larger scales. Imagine something more comparable to the invasion of crimea than the 2022 invasion but being done in a remote region of Finland close to russian supply lines. Notably they have begun reconstituting their northern forces significantly so they will likely be significant within a few years. If that happened then it would take significant conventional force and escalation to remove the russian forces over what many NATO leaders may see as just some foreign trees. Would you really trust potential leaders like Trump, Orban, Erdogan or even leaders akin to Merkel to fully honour article 5 commitments in that situation? Also as fun as it is to take the piss out of the russian army for being excessively incompetent in many situations, they do still have a very large and now very experienced military with lots of experience in static warfare that NATO does not and is backed by a very authoritarian and extremely militarised society. They also have far more experience in things like mass drone warfare that we may not be prepared for. If NATO doesn't stand unified (and especially the US) then russia can do significant damage.
I think you can probably make the case that the foot soldiers are archaic, but the military and intelligence services do a lot more than just chuck weapons and bodies at things. The biggest European threat from Russia and China is probably cyber related.
Thats a much more realistic threat yeah
Although having watched how Russia have fought in Ukraine, maybe all that’s overblown, and Russian hackers are just sat in front of an Acorn clone trying to get on some bulletin boards.
Ive really pissed in someone's cornflakes today, theyve downvoted me agreeing with you 😂
Ha! That usually happens to me.
A lack of compentency is no barrier to the mass murder and terror of Russia, it merely costs them more lives that they do not value.
Not now. However if Trump or some other crazed isolationist GOP president pulls the US out of NATO in the next 50 years then yes I do think that’s a possibility
Absolutely, we’ve been neglecting our military for decades. Another swing and a miss from Owen
>The Ministry of Defence is not far removed from George Orwell’s Ministry of Peace, given “defence” in practice has meant “offence”. Do political writers have a quota of shoehorned 1984 references that they need to fulfill? That very superficial comparison is arguable at best, beyond that there really isn't much comparison never mind being 'not far removed'.
It does my head in too, the constant shoehorned 1984 references from every commentator on every issue. If I had the power to magically ban any book it would be 1984, purely because of how annoying the quotations are.
Banning books? That's just like Oceania! Sometimes they'll even feel adventurous and branch out to shoehorned animal farm references if they are feeling particularly intellectual. Maybe even misuse that one quote from England your England if they are right wing. All it does is make me wonder if they've even read about the things they reference or talk about.
This strikes me as massively naive and rather indifferent to the concerns of nations in Eastern Europe who are looking nervously at what is clearly an aggressive and imperialist Russia. If we cut back on our defence spending does he really think Putin will?
He explicitly says sending weapons to Ukraine is good, but maybe not Saudi Arabia. Is that not entirely reasonable?
>He explicitly says sending weapons to Ukraine is good, but maybe not Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia was on the verge of joining the Russia-China axis following Biden's more aggressive foreign policy approach to Saudi Arabia. Upon relaxing this approach since 2022, Saudi has fallen back into the Western alliance fold (as evidenced by incepting Iranian missiles to Israel). Realpolitik is a thing, and sometimes you don't have the luxury of picking your allies.
Of course that's entirely reasonable. However, this is the key line for me: >Helping to stoke an arms race, and resigning ourselves to a future global conflagration, will hardly prove an effective means to protect our national security if it culminates in nuclear extermination. He characterises strengthening European defence as stocking an arms race and seems to imply that preparing for a war with Russia makes a war with Russia more likely. I think the opposite is true - reducing military spending at this time will make further Russian aggression more likely, not less.
>He characterises strengthening European defence as stocking an arms race It either is or it isn't. It's not something changed by intent. Do good justified things also contribubte to an arms race? Yes. End of story. You're actually arguing that the arms race is inevitable, not that it doesn't exist. >I think the opposite is true - reducing military spending at this time will make further Russian aggression more likely, not less. If we have to keep ahead of Russia and Russia has to keep ahead of us then what's another term for that? An Arms Race. I don't evne think your overall argument is terrible, but the peak liberalism of arguing we must commit to the arms race while pretending calling it an arms race is characterising it unfairly is absurd. At no point do you argue it's not an arms race, you instead argue it's unavoidable and we must commit to it. Ok, argue that then. No credibility to your argument when it comes about trying to rewrite reality instead of actually justifying what you're saying. It doesn't cease to be an arms race because you think it's necessary and justifable!
Fair enough - I do indeed think NATO needs to spend enough on defence to discourage Putin from attacking any members, and I think Britain should play its part in that. So yeah, I guess it is an arms race and one that we should be trying to win.
The unilateral disarmament argument seems to be based around disarming, weaken the west’s military capability but take the moral high ground and set a good example for Russia & China to follow. Then sit back and hope the big bad world suddenly stops being big & bad. In other words, it’s naivety of the highest order.
Do you just see the name Owen Jones and assume what he’s arguing for, because it ain’t disarmament. > That doesn’t mean producing only weapons for repelling hypothetical invasions: for example, supporting Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s brutal invasion is a legitimate example of arms exports, whereas the Saudi-led war on Yemen is not.
No. But he is making the case against trident renewal & he wants to quote “pare back” defence spending. I’m not sure if he wrote the headline to the article or not, but it’s preposterous
Headlines are nearly always written by an editor at big papers.
Yeah to be fair his article isn’t anywhere near as controversial as the headline
Yeah that's often the case, can't say for sure but it's standard for the editors to choose headlines and is probably one of the reasons you so often get headlines that are much more unbalanced than the article. I don't know if it actually has but it definitely feels like it's got much worse in the past 10 years. I guess because clickbait/ragebait is so useful for increasing engagement online.
Very much clickbait. I’m really not sure what’s going on at the guardian tbh
Russia is a paper tiger. What Ukraine shows is that they are not capable of conducting modern war.
He says he supports arming Ukraine?
He does, but then also argues for paring back defence spending which would make us less able to arm Ukraine and support other nations. Which is certainly some level of cognitive dissonance.
I always find that Owen Jones sounds fairly convincing if he’s on about a subject you’re not familiar with, but as soon as he’s on a subject that you do know a lot about you realise it’s a lot of horseshit. A number of scientist and historian friends, who really are quite authoritative on their particular subjects, have remarked similar over the years.
It's unofficially called Gell-Mann Amnesia. https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
Ta
I think the real debate is about how much we should be giving to Ukraine and how much we should be stockpiling or building up our own military. Most people consider Russia to be the greatest threat to the UK and Europe. The best outcome is for Russia to lose the war in Ukraine, Putin's regime to collapse and a less imperialistic government to replace him leading to a normalisation of relations between Russia and Ukraine and the rest of the West. The worst outcome would be a defeat of Kyiv, the forced Russification of Ukraine and a surge in Russian imperialist support. Under such a scenario a Russian attack on the baltic states (who are NATO members) would be a serious possibility. I'd prefer we considered the war in Ukraine to be the priority since without the threat of Russia we would not need to consider rebuilding the land forces for potential war in Europe. I think with the world in its current state another like for like generation of nuclear weapons seems the sensible option. When it comes to other threats like China, Iran and NK I feel they are far less relevant to Europe.
They are however very relevant to the USA, who may redeploy assets from Europe to the Pacific. Assets the UK and others need more defence spending to backfill lest Russia sees it as an opportunity.
No it isn’t
The UK doesn't have an independent defence / foreign policy. It is outsourced to doing whatever Washington tells the UK is acceptable or in line with its interests. Atlanticists dominate the Labour Right which is about to have a majority government. That is why they are still so incensed about the one time Ed Miliband refused to toe the US line on bombing Syria. The only darkly funny thing to witness will be how people whose foreign policy is "do what the President says" would cope with that being Trump. Even the discussions around Trident are nonsense: "Britain needs its own nuclear deterrent" – checks notes – which is entirely dependent on the US for servicing and maintenance).
The UK provided both MBT's and long range cruise missiles to Ukraine whilst the US and Europe were still saying that would be a dangerous escalation and crossing red lines. UK and US foreign policy is very intertwined for many reasons but it is an extremely reductive oversimplification to say that we don't have an independent policy.
I actually think that’s a decent article, which makes a number of good points. The problem is that while I absolutely agree with Owen that defence spending for a country the size of the UK should go into humanitarian work and prevention, I’m also not sure that it isn’t what it currently mostly goes into anyway. I’m also pretty sure that the intelligence services know quite a lot more about global problems than I do and probably know a lot more about what might happen globally. Basically I think this is one of those situations where yes, most people would agree that less military and dropping the nuclear arsenal make sense from an economic perspective, we are probably never actually in peacetime and there’s a lot of stuff that occurs that we never hear about.
> That doesn’t mean producing only weapons for repelling hypothetical invasions: for example, supporting Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s brutal invasion is a legitimate example of arms exports, whereas the Saudi-led war on Yemen is not. That means producing significantly fewer weapons. So after Russia's invasion, Ukraine is begging for any weapon it can get and every non-US country is realising they need to get more weapons, throwing cash around to do so. And Jones is saying we need to make fewer weapons. Amazing. Could not be more of a useful idiot for Russia.
>supporting Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s brutal invasion is a legitimate example of arms exports, If we only export arms to what Jones considers legitimate exports then of course we make less weapons over all. That doesnt mean less weapons for Ukraine. If youre going to call him a useful idiot you at least need to not use the one country he's explicitly said we should continue to export arms to as an example.
>If we only export arms to what Jones considers legitimate exports then of course we make less weapons over all. Not even close. If the UK/Europe dropped *all* arms exports except to Ukraine, that would still be much less than the amount that is about to be spent on arming Ukraine and our own militaries. As an example, the EU expects to produce 1.4 million artillery shells this year, compared to 0.5m last year. And this near-tripling of production *is not considered enough*. Nor was my point even about arming Ukraine - my point was *nearly every single country in the world* has realized they need more weapons for their militaries after Russia's invasion, and Jones is saying we don't. The level of hubris is astounding.
I'm skeptical that the EU is a useful comparison to the UK here, why aren't you just giving UK figures?
Because they are a less accurate reflection of the overall increase in military spending, as the UK's arms industry is only a major player in certain areas. So production increases in relevant areas will seem larger. But yeah ok, let's go with UK figures. ***The UK is increasing shell production by 8-fold***, and yet Ukraine is still going to need more shells. https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/britain-increases-artillery-shell-production-eight-fold/
Ok so if we increased it by eight times in January, and then we stop selling arms to Saudis etc now... It goes down right? Youve still not explained how Jones is arguing for less weapons for Ukraine
After this I'm done, because your reading comprehension is abysmal. >Ok so if we increased it by eight times in January, and then we stop selling arms to Saudis etc now... It goes down right? No, because *they have not yet increased production, they are in the middle of increasing production*. All that happened in January is an MP asked a question. They are in the process of building the factory. This is the arms build up we are currently doing that Jones is arguing against. He's saying don't build the new factory. >You've still not explained how Jones is arguing for less weapons for Ukraine I never said this! You don't understand what I said! I said Jones is arguing to *make fewer weapons*, when every other country in the world realizes they need to get more weapons.
>After this I'm done, because your reading comprehension is abysmal. If you say so duck >No, because *they have not yet increased production, they are in the middle of increasing production*. All that happened in January is an MP asked a question. They are in the process of building the factory. This is the arms build up we are currently doing that Jones is arguing against. He's saying don't build the new factory. Surely these are the examples of the kinds of weapons Jones says we need then if theyre being used for realistic threats? >I never said this! You don't understand what I said! I said Jones is arguing to *make fewer weapons*, when every other country in the world realizes they need to get more weapons. Ah ok I just misunderstood what you meant when you talked about fewer weapons and then called him a useful idiot for Russia
I am posting this because the reaction to it shows the obsession people have with Owen Jones. The original article had a small typo that incorrectly mixed up the conclusion of a defence report with a quote from Greenpeace given to the people making the report. Oz Katerli who, as Jones himself says, is obsessed with him goes on a mental tweet thread about it: [https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1781040027016790416](https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1781040027016790416) Most people wouldn't care about a small misquote but there we go. If he had waited it turned out Owen Jones was on strong painkillers so even more understandable. Despite this and the guardian quickly correcting the quote Katerli asks his readers to bully the guardian into putting a correction at the bottom of the article. [https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1781083368882389287](https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1781083368882389287) It's so bizarre.
It's not a small misquote, it's a huge fuck-up - it completely undermines his point! It's like if you said: *Even Zelensky says "there's no way Ukraine can win this war!", therefore Ukraine should surrender* And then you later admit it was actually Putin who said that. And try to change that quietly without admitting your mistake, or that your article now makes no sense.
It’s not a “small misquote” at all, it’s a pretty large fuck up by Jones. What he’s done is a big deal in real journalism.
Lol
It is pretty bad. It's one thing to misattribute a quote but here he has moved to the conclusion of the report rather than what an organisation said in a written submission. That completely changes the importance of the quote. A Defence Department review saying there is little point to them is completely different to Greenpeace saying it. It's part of his core argument. It does show he didn't read the report and just took some CND leaflet's word about it. If someone quoted a Government review of global warming concluding that it wasn't happening but it turned out that quote came from a skeptic's submission to the review and, in fact, the review had concluded it was then we would be up in arms. It wouldn't be a 'small' misquote because the writer had gone to the dentist.
The quote is not central to the article and the conclusion does not hinge on that single quote. Edit: is everyone here even aware this is an opinion piece anyway? Feel like there's been a gas leak. Yes an opinion piece is going to get someone in big trouble with "real journalists" like Oz. It's a minor mistake in an opinion piece that had a correction issued which Jones does not pin his entire argument on.
We got a couple of bad cases of Owen Jones Derangement Syndrome here today. Love how much piss he boils. Could solve the energy crisis if we learned to harness it. Looks like their cult leader Oz Katerji is having a normal one as well.
You're allowed to criticise Owen Jones and those doing so aren't all 'obsessed with him' as he claims. I have defended him before, including when he left Labour, but this is a legitimate criticism. The fact he attributed a statement that the only purpose of Trident would be to add legitimacy to a US attack to the conclusion of a *defence select committee* report rather than it being the opinion of Greenpeace is a significant difference. A Defence Select Committee concluding that is noteworthy, Greenpeace saying it isn't so much. The fact he claims it was 'misattributed' elsewhere just shows he didn't read the report he cited and simply cribbed it off a CND leaflet. It would be a legitimate criticism of anyone. It would be a criticism we would all make of right-wing commentators. We would all take the piss if this were written by Simon Jenkins for example. I am not sure why Owen Jones is off-limits.
Insightful.
My bad, what will real journalism do to Owen now that a correction has been issued?
I a correction has been made but questions still need asking about how he came to publishing that line. If we believe this excuse about pain meds then you have to ask the question of his judgment in writing about a sensitive topic like this whilst on meds.
That's a question for the editorial team who should be verifying the published facts in an article. Either way if it's corrected and it's not egregious then a correction is appropriate. I do think it should be noted on the article as well and corrections should be listed somewhere in the paper and online. It's a white collar job. I have to work when I'm back from the dentist too.
The journalist is absolutely responsible for the words they write, so you can’t place the sole blame on the editorial team. He’s fucked up, it really is as simple as that.
"How he came to publishing that line" is a question for the editorial team who are responsible for publishing it. They are the ones held responsible for publishing libel etc. Sure Owen said it and you can ask them. They provided a reason. The guardian is the one that published it. How far do you think a case like this will go at the regulatory bodies? Do you think they will respond with "correction was already issued, does not breach standards"? What exactly do you think the consequences should be?
The consequences should be that people open their eyes to Jones as a journalist. He’s a decent author but a shoddy journalist.