Where's George Smiley when you need him?

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If there were sufficient traces of the nerve agent left it may be possible to trace its origins from the stable isotopic signature of the material itself or its chemical precursors as explained in this article. Given time they might even be able to pinpoint the laboratory in which it was made but its very unlikely we would ever be privy to that information of course. ;)
Tracing A Threat | February 6, 2012 Issue - Vol. 90 Issue 6 | Chemical & Engineering News
 
The security services know exactly what chemical agent was used, Porton Down will have identified it and it's source within hours.
 
All very commendable chaps but at the end of the day....so what.

The police etc can tell us where the poison was made, how it was administered, what it was and of course who did it.

They can probably tell us the price of his house in bloody Surrey but then?
Nothing.

‘We can’t offend Putin old boy, can we now?
 
Don't think anyone here was talking retaliation but every so often its useful to remind ourselves who the bad guys really are ?
 
I wonder what opinion would be like if it was the other way around and a Brit who was spying for Russia was bumped off in Moscow?
 
I wonder what opinion would be like if it was the other way around and a Brit who was spying for Russia was bumped off in Moscow?

Historically we seemed to leave the likes of Philby well alone ....

And if Blunt is anything to go by then we can even make deals with those who bretray us and stay on home soil and let them live out rather long natural lives.
 
On that subject I recall the shock of watching excellent The Fourth Protocol thriller for the first time and seeing, totally unexpectedly, the British traitor Kim Philby getting bumped off in deepest Russia, by the Russians. It _suggests_ that Russia bumps off our traitors, as well as their own...

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Another reason Brexit is a bad idea.

Seriously? How on earth do you infer that?

Litvenko and this incident happened while we were *in* the EU.

And going back further even the Markov poisoning .... after we joined the EU.

So if you really want to go into this sort of area and get silly about it - you might blame the EU and say that it was another reason why Brexit is a good idea.

And if you did that I'd refute the logic on that too.
 
Its pretty obvious that a divided Europe is going to work in Putin's favour. In a similar fashion Trump's "America First" isolationist foreign policy is probably why the Russians worked for him to win. The alacrity with which the former Comecon countries wanted to join the EU following the fall of Communism was perhaps an indication that the so called " unelected overbureaucratic nightmare" that is the EU was still infinitely preferable to the alternative they had previously. :rolleyes:
 
Its pretty obvious that a divided Europe is going to work in Putin's favour.

I think a 'united' Europe in its current form is actually the underlying problem.

Why?

It acts as if it were a cohesive political block - but isn't. It displaces NATO but can't replace it. It dithers on security and foreign policy. It sits adjacent to Russia acting like an economic superpower but not a military one. It still depends on the US for its security - and the US no doubt looks at the size of the EU and asks itself why it should carry the security burden?

And at the same time the EU has been provocative - reaching eastward and pulling the likes of Ukraine towards it and giving mixed messages to Turkey for several years.

I don't think Russia is scared of Europe any more - I think politically it was during the 90s - and it is now just biding its time. It doesn't need to be very powerful to grab bits if it wants to - it just needs to be decisive and let its decisiveness dominate the indecisiveness that pervades the EU.

If the EU wants security then it needs to up its game significantly. Or it needs to start beefing up NATO.
 
I think a 'united' Europe in its current form is actually the underlying problem.

Why?

It acts as if it were a cohesive political block - but isn't. It displaces NATO but can't replace it. It dithers on security and foreign policy. It sits adjacent to Russia acting like an economic superpower but not a military one. It still depends on the US for its security - and the US no doubt looks at the size of the EU and asks itself why it should carry the security burden?

And at the same time the EU has been provocative - reaching eastward and pulling the likes of Ukraine towards it and giving mixed messages to Turkey for several years.

I don't think Russia is scared of Europe any more - I think politically it was during the 90s - and it is now just biding its time. It doesn't need to be very powerful to grab bits if it wants to - it just needs to be decisive and let its decisiveness dominate the indecisiveness that pervades the EU.

If the EU wants security then it needs to up its game significantly. Or it needs to start beefing up NATO.

NATO is not the military wing of the EU.

They are entirely different bodies with different member nations and it is not within the gift of the EU to "start beefing up NATO".
 
The Russians really are an enigma. What we see from the wests perspective is institutionalised cheating sanctioned by a hard man bully at the helm of a fake democracy. Surely real Russian's are not all like Putin.
 
NATO is not the military wing of the EU.

They are entirely different bodies with different member nations and it is not within the gift of the EU to "start beefing up NATO".

I think you have misread or misunderstood something in my post.

You might note the phase "It displaces NATO but can't replace it" - it's a bit difficult for the EU to dispalce it's own wing with itself.

And it is "within the gift" of the member of the EU that are members of NATO to focus their resources on it.
 
pesconato-1128344.jpg
 
Now there's some confusion over the woman with Skripal. CCTV shows him with a blonde, eye witness state he was with a blonde but his daughter is brunette?
Presumably you’ve worked out by now that women all over the world change their hair colour from time to time.
 
I think you have misread or misunderstood something in my post.

You might note the phase "It displaces NATO but can't replace it" - it's a bit difficult for the EU to dispalce it's own wing with itself.

And it is "within the gift" of the member of the EU that are members of NATO to focus their resources on it.

I simply don't understand your post and your assertion that the EU "displaces NATO but can't replace it".

The EU is an economic and political entity with zero military capability whereas NATO is a purely military one. The EU has neither the wish nor the capability to displace NATO and its expansion eastwards has been driven by economics alone.

And contrary to your post, nor can the EU "start beefing up NATO". Individual members (many of whom don't meet the required level of defence spending that NATO requires) may choose to spend more but that would be entirely their decision as sovereign states and not an EU one.
 
I simply don't understand your post

So we concur on one thing at least.
 

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