Best unconventional warfare books according to redditors

There is an argument using evolutionary theory that agriculture was only adopted to increase group fitness at the cost of indivual fitness.

Lots of civilisation diseases started with the adoption of agriculture.

So there is the argument that agriculture made civilisation possible but at the cost of pure indivual strength and physical prowess.

There is lots of evidence that early agricultural societies had less than healthy members compared to hunter gatherers.

When you think about it, the indivual skills of a warrior in a large army is less important than pure numbers, most armies in the past were farmers called to war once a year, and yet the prevailed most of the time against nomad societies whos way of life made them formidable indivual warriors like the steppe people, just by numbers alone.

Edit:

If someone is interested where these theories come from, I recommend these books:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0452288193/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0452288193

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0996139516/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0996139516


https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Our-Success-Evolution-Domesticating/dp/0691178437/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=joseph+henrich&qid=1558984106&s=gateway&sprefix=joseph+henr&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Not-Genes-Alone-Transformed-Evolution/dp/0226712125/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=not+by+genes+alone&qid=1558984151&s=gateway&sprefix=Not+by+ge&sr=8-1

Recently I started reading Sex and War and in there the author points out that chimpanzee troops and human gangs share alot of similarities. They form strong bonds and defend each other while fighting against other groups.

Well then maybe you shouldn't read this or this. I am terrified of smallpox and ebola/hemorrhagic fevers thanks to Richard Preston.

I think it's too lake to stop it without a vaccine. For a good read on how we stopped hemorrhagic Smallpox (which has quite a few similar symptoms and death rate), I highly recommend this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Freezer-True-Story-ebook/dp/B000QCSANQ

It covers the story of using the ring vaccination technique to isolate the virus, which eventually killed it in the wild by the late 70s. It was a huge effort, but it worked, and I suspect it would work for Ebola too.

It appears to have been a chlorine gas and white phosphorus chemical weapon. More details here.


I worked in a bookstore back in 2002 during the lead up to the Iraq war, and was shelving Scott Ritter's 2002 book and decided to take a look. When he talks about WMDs I now listen. He was exactly right about Iraq's lack of WMDs. He is a former UN weapons inspector.

If you're interested in topics like contagions and the CDC, I highly recommend "The Demon in the Freezer" if you've never read it...it's about smallpox. It's a fascinating book and the story of stopping smallpox is a nail-biter. Highly recommend, link:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Demon-Freezer-True-Story/dp/0345466632

That's...completely wrong. The novochik line of chemical weapons was only developed in an isolated military installation in the Russian Federation territory of the Soviet Union. We know this thanks to defectors from the actual program involved.

this band

this book

this movie

this game

in general generic words are usualy bad things to call a franchise since they are hard to pin down culturaly, try to google "echo" and guess what work im talking about. "Alien" was more the exception than the rule.

I loved biomedical pop-sci with a passion when I was in high school. "Stiff" was on my bookshelf for sure. Didn't read Atul Gawande's stuff until later, but enjoyed them very much. My favorites from when I was a teen were:

• The Ghost Map, which is sort of about cholera, but really about epidemiology
  
  
• Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC
  
  
• The Hot Zone (Ebola) and The Demon in the Freezer (Smallpox)
  
  
• Flu: The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918
  
  and others, such as The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down. All are great reads.

b/c they did not follow OPCW guidelines(which required delivering a sample of the, which both the UK and Russia are signatories of). Second, Novichok does not imply Russian origin, since the formula is actually in public domain. You can literally buy the book here. Anybody could've made it. Lastly, what reason would Russia have to kill their former spies. They came to the UK through a spy exchange program, if they wanted them dead, they would've done it years ago.

Yeah, you can buy his book on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Secrets-Insiders-Chronicle-Chemical/dp/1432725661

Contains the formula.

> do you believe that harmful traits can't intentionally be added to organism via modern genetic engineering techniques?

I recommend you read Demon In the Freezer.

https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Freezer-True-Story/dp/0345466632

The concept of weaponizing biology is old.

"GMO" is an industry term for a certain type of crop, correct?

Recommended reading: Peter Turchin's War and Peace and War where he spends quite a bit of time discussing this idea originally from Ibn Khaldun.

I'd translate loosely as "socially cohesiveness" / "tribal loyalty".

And here's another book that discusses the potentially weaponized Russian smallpox strains in a lot more detail: http://www.amazon.com/Biohazard-Chilling-Largest-Biological-World-Told/dp/0385334966

I don’t think it was that tightly guarded https://www.amazon.com/State-Secrets-Insiders-Chronicle-Chemical/dp/1432725661

This concept was actually a really big interest of mine in my graduate career (though specifically as it related to the Roman Empire). Peter Turchin has written some good and approachable books on how political instability rises as populations approach their maximum possible density.

​

His first book on the subject that reads very nicely: https://www.amazon.com/War-Peace-Rise-Fall-Empires/dp/0452288193

​

A short (though fairly jargon-y) article on these effects on Roman instability: http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_SDEAS_2005a.pdf

www.amazon.com/The-Demon-Freezer-True-Story/dp/0345466632

I read this in high school. Shit was bananas

Irony is that Spicer has a tiny tiny scrap of history that kinda backs him up.

Germany had new version of chemical weapons that is much better than what allies were using. But allies didn't know that these new 'nerve agents' even existed. And so German scientists like Fritz Haber were hamstrung by Hitler to not use these weapons because 1. he was a survivor of Mustard Gas in WWI, and 2. he also worried that he might win chemical battle with his new Tabun and Sarin gasses, but he'd lose the chemical war as the Allies would drop the tons and tons of stockpiled Mustard we had back then.

So Spicey probably was told this little nugget of truth and he forgot about Zyclon B being used in the Holocaust and then realized he just violated Godwin's law on behalf of the United States / President.

Stupidity like this should be painful.

SOURCE: War of Nerves or just ask me, an Army Chemical Officer.

This is correct. Hitler was gassed. Read in this book. Great book given to me about history of chemical ware care. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1400032334/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=41kvrF5b0wL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL100_SR100%2C100_&refRID=139QJPBB4DBKY84MKVFV

A lot of fiction in this thread, I'd like to mention some non-fiction:

1. The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB by Milton Bearden and James Risen - Excellent story of the CIA and KGB from early 80s through the fall of the Soviet Union. Really covers in depth US operations inside the Soviet Union, important defections by senior Soviet military and intelligence personnel, and significant counterintelligence failures (Aldrich Ames). The best part is this is not a history review written by some academic third party, it was written by the guy who actually worked Moscow Station for the CIA during the period and knew Ames and handled many key defections. Moreover it contains a lot of detail on actual tradecraft methods.
   
   
2. The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy by David Hoffman. This book really goes in depth on the Soviet chemical, biological, and radiological program, as well as the effort towards disarmament. What the Soviets dreamed up was actually quite frightening and they did much of it despite treat obligations. This book is interesting for two reasons: 1) The Soviets (And as conveyed by Phillip and Elizabeth in the Americans) really believed Reagan was a nut whom wanted to leave them on the ash heap of history, which drove their paranoia and pursuit of WMD; 2) It shows behind the scenes that Reagan actually wanted to reduce nuclear weapons and loathed the idea of nuclear war. A significant portion of the book focuses on the impact of key Soviet defectors that provided the US insight in to the Soviet WMD program.
   
   
3. Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century - Sergei Kostin, Eric Raynaud. Farewell was the code name for Vladimir Vetrov, a Soviet KGB Line X (Just like Oleg), whom was responsible for conducting S&T collection operations against the US. He became an agent for the French, and turned over heaps of information on Soviet S&T intelligence objectives and operations worldwide. His intelligence was passed on to the UK and US, and was important to Reagan in negotiations with the Soviet Union. His betrayal caused 100+ Soviet S&T intelligence officers to be expelled from US, the UK, and France. Excellent discussion on the motivation of an agent and stresses at maintaining two lives (Vetrov, in addition to working for the French, was also cheating on his wife... talk about stressful). Also a lot of interesting information on tradecraft such as signals for meetings and dead drops.

For more info, read Richard Preston's Demon in the Freezer. It's a fascinating (and scary as fuck) book that also covers smallpox.

He did. And the book is available on Amazon or Google Books. Link 1, link 2.

I made the mistake of reading it right before I read The Demon in the Freezer, which, even though I know that Preston has a tendency to exaggerate (as was mentioned in Spillover, actually), made for a profoundly depressing few days. "If the bats animals don't kill us, we're going to kill us. ohgodwhy."

But noone stops to ask: If Russia wanted to get away with a highly political murder, why the fuck would they use a nerve-agent solely used by Russia? They might aswell drop a calling-card on the corpse.

Either it wasn't Russians, or they wanted to get caught.

So why the hell would they want to get caught?

Further still, the nerve-agent isn't even solely available to Russians: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/what-novichok-nerve-agent-center-russian-ex-spy-poisoning-n856001

>"The Novichok agents are thought to be far more difficult to detect during manufacturing and far easier to manufacture covertly, because they can be made with common chemicals in relatively simple pesticide factories,"

The creator of the agent: https://www.yahoo.com/news/russians-says-chemist-uncovered-existence-novichok-075342077.html

>The only other possibility, he said, would be that someone used the formulas in his book to make such a weapon.

So where can i get his book? On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/State-Secrets-Insiders-Chronicle-Chemical/dp/1432725661

So anyone with an amazon-account and access to a laboratory can create the agent.

Yeah, i aint buying it. Someone is banging on the drums of war, and i dont like it.

I’m probably going to take a lot of shit for suggesting a nonfiction novel rather than a scholarly source but I think Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone
and The Demon In The Freezer do a good job of laying out the current situation and making for exciting reading. (That said, IANAVirologist.)

Wiki pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon_in_the_Freezer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hot_Zone

Biological weapons!

http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Freezer-True-Story/dp/0345466632?ie=UTF8&keywords=the%20demon%20in%20the%20freezer%20by%20richard%20preston&qid=1462893057&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

I've read this from multiple sources, most recently: http://www.amazon.com/Uranium-Energy-Rock-Shaped-World/dp/0670020648

I'm sure some uranium came from Canada, as they needed a tremendous amount of 238 to produce enough 235 to make a viable bomb (99.3% of all uranium is 238, and you only get .7% 235 from that if you process it as well as possible), but not all of it and more then likely not even most of it.

In fact Wikipedia details this saying most of the uranium was from Africa or possibly captured, Canada is not mentioned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy Go down to Development of the bomb
"Most of the uranium necessary for the production of the bomb came from the Shinkolobwe mine and was made available thanks to the foresight of the CEO of the High Katanga Mining Union, Edgar Sengier, who had 1000 tons of uranium ore transported to a New York warehouse in 1939. A small amount may have come from a captured German submarine, U-234, after the German surrender in May 1945.[24] Other sources state that at least part of the 1100 tons of uranium ore and uranium oxide captured by US troops in the second half of April 1945 in Stassfurt, Germany, became 235U for the bomb.[25] The majority of the uranium for Little Boy was enriched in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, primarily by means of electromagnetic separation in calutrons and through gaseous diffusion plants, with a small amount contributed by the cyclotrons at Ernest O. Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory. The core of Little Boy contained 64 kg of uranium, of which 50 kg was enriched to 88%, and the remaining 14 kg at 50%. With enrichment averaging 82.68%, it could reach about 2.5 critical masses. "Fat Man" and the Trinity "gadget", by way of comparison, had five critical masses."

I'll try to speak to that from a genetics standpoint, since I got zero experience with your situation.

Here's some slapdash data from different sources. I don't claim to be correct, just offering some ideas:

Biology and gender are not a binary state. There are numerous triggers in the genome that each control (directly and indirectly) physical and emotional aspects we call gender. These triggers can often have a range of value, and could be at odds with each other.

As a tangential example, there are theories about the genetic basis for male homosexualism. Statistically, it appears to correlate somewhat with being born as the n'th male child of one mother. Why would this matter? Well, perhaps it's advantageous, once you already have a number of masculine children who can defend the family and procreate, to start genetically hedging your bets towards aspects that masculine males don't perform as well at. You still have a being that is able to procreate as a male if needed, but maybe better fills roles that the manly male children perform poorly at.

Remember, that children of one parent all carry mostly the same genes. Even if the homosexual male child himself never produces children, if his presence in the family enhances the survival of the family and the other children and grandchildren, the genes survive and are passed along.

Go read Matt Ridley, Sex and the Red Queen:
http://xenon.arcticus.com/red-queen-sex-and-evolution-human-nature-matt-ridley

Then go read Sex and War by Potts and Hayden:
http://www.amazon.com/Sex-War-Biology-Explains-Terrorism/dp/1933771577

You'll have a much better idea of what makes us keep ticking as a species, and of the fact that you are what you are and you should find yourself happiness in being who you are, regardless of what that is.

We have a lot of cultural baggage over gender and sexuality as a result of our (usually religious) traditions that seek to out-breed competing cultures. "Gotta marry the other sex, and crank out as many kids as possible without any inhibition." This mandate is good for the success of the culture, but not necessarily good for the happiness of every individual in the culture. So, be selfish and look out for who is important to you. I hope you find peace and happiness with whatever gender you identify with.

This book authored by the man that was on the team that created the nerve agent. https://www.amazon.com/State-Secrets-Insiders-Chronicle-Chemical/dp/1432725661

https://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Secrets-Insiders-Chronicle-Chemical/dp/1432725661/

US petroleum companies cashed in big time on Iraq. Also, immediately following the 2003 invasion, Iraqi oil was summarily switched from being sold in Euros to being sold only in USD. Who do you thing that benefits?

It was known by reputable sources, including two professional weapons inspectors (one a US citizen even) that Iraq had no threatening WMD capability in 2003. Read this 2002 (pre invasion) book if you want an example of accurate predictions.

Syria doesn't have oil, but it is a choke point in natural gas distribution.

I haven't actually seen the formula for the precursors, but I read somewhere that they and/or the nerve agent itself produce HF in the presence of water. Like you'd want to be around that.

Quick Google, finds a book written in 2007 that talks about novichoks and mentions HF as a hydrolysis product.

Seems Murray is wrong about nobody even knowing if Novichoks existed.

Here is the book.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Handbook-Chemical-Biological-Warfare-Agents-ebook/dp/B0093UMLTG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521324793&sr=1-1&keywords=9781420003291

There's a terrifying and fascinating book called Demon in the Freezer that's a true accounting of a small pox outbreak. Its been years since I read it but one snippet that comes to mind is that a patient's window was left open on the first floor of a hospital while they were waiting for him to die and it infected a patient on the 3rd floor who also had their window open and pretty much killed everyone in the hospital. Nature can be quite scary sometimes.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QCSANQ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Demon in the Freezer

You will spend the next few weeks trying to figure out how to move to an isolated place, where no human being will ever find you again. And it's all freakin, true...

Have you read Demon in the Freezer and/ or The Hot Zone? http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Freezer-Richard-Preston/dp/0345466632/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291143784&sr=1-1 Good stuff.

I have read that the Soviets were better soldiers than the western allies, though, because they were used to following orders without asking questions and because they were far more likely to have lived through heavy fighting. I read that in Max Hastings' book Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945.

1)Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1926-1945 - David Kennedy

2)From Colony to Superpower: US Foreign Relations Since 1776 - George Herring

3)History of Economic Thought: A Critical Perspective - E. K. Hunt and Mark Lautzenheiser

4)When Washington Shut Down Wall Street: The Great Financial Crisis of 1914 and the Origins of America's Monetary Supremacy - William Silber

5)Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond

6)A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present - Howard Zinn

7)20th Century Baseball Chronicle: A Year-By-Year History of Major League Baseball (what? you asked for history books sitting on my shelf)

8)Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, and Pyrotechnics : The History of the Explosive That Changed the World - Jack Kelly

and currently I've just started working on U.S. Bank Deregulation in Historical Perspective - Charles Calomiris. Should be interesting since it was published in 2000...

edit: I like Drited's idea, so I'll take some time to add on some stuff. 1, 2, 4, and 6 give me perspective on how government institutions interact with each other and with the public they are supposed to serve as time and events take place, shaping the history of the US. 3 has given me insight into the evolution of Neoclassical and Labor-value (Marxian) economics. Though Hunt writes with a very heavy labor bias, his book has shown me how a persons beliefs affect there analysis, even when claiming to be value-free. In it he discusses the origins of marginal productivity and efficient markets, and his writings have allowed me to grasp in economic terms why certain ideas are flawed, even though I already knew them to be false after I had studied Psychology. 5 and 8 are a bit different because to me, they remind me that it's not what actually happened that matters, our interpretation of history relies solely on the importance we give those events. All and all, the above texts give me a longer time frame in which to view current events. In fact that's why I like companies such as GOOG and GS so much is because the above readings allow me to look beyond balance sheets, and gives me alternative ways to judge a potential investment. I understand GOOG's importance to the internet world, and the internets importance to our world, and how that relationship might continue on into the future. Stuff like that

It's infectivity is very low compared to other diseases and especially viruses. One big concern could be smallpox though. I've heard The Demon in the Freezer is a good read for this.

Don't misunderstand, Matt Ridley is a legitimate academic and approaches the subject as a scientist would. He clearly adopts a neoclassical view of economics which not everyone would agree with (and there are aspects that I don't agree with), but that doesn't make him a partisan.

Others have written on the subject as well. Friedman wrote Hot, Flat, and Crowded and Sex and War by Malcolm Potts also provides a scientists perspective on the subject.

If you want more peer reviewed stuff, population economics is an entire sub-discipline. Just look into the citations of the above authors.

mp3 the only one

used copy of physical book Demon in the freezer. I believe there are a few "very good" condition for a penny!

Thanks for the contest. And good luck with the bike! (fingers crossed)

I'd recommend the book "The Dead Hand" by David E. Hoffman. It's an incredibly well-researched, very readable story of the Cold War arms race, much of it told from a Soviet perspective. One of the accounts is of a microbiologist named Igor Domaradsky, who was forced to research and produce biological weapons such as anthrax. The accounts of his research and experiences with the Politburo and the KGB are chilling.

I got some funny looks reading How to Build a Nuclear Bomb, but nothing came of it, hehe.

Instead, read The Hot Zone and/or Demon in the Freezer. They're scarier.

>A very rare chemical only produced in quantity by Russia.

For which the formula can be found in this book on Amazon.

> The most revolutionary thing is to "Trust but Verify", as GamerGate has popularized as a social concept.

Fun fact the "trust but verify" originated apparently in Russia and Gorbachev introduced it to Reagan during their initial attempt of nuclear disarmament talks. It apparently became a favourite of Reagan and he kept using it a lot. Source

edit: I see a lot of downvotes but not a lot of convincing arguments hahaha

and this, kids, is how wars get started on nothing but empty soundbites and herd mentality...

 

> No motive for anyone else to do it

As a matter of fact, Russia is the one country that stands to gain the least from all of this. But seeing that you are so fucking sure about yourself why don't you enlighten us with Russia's motive?

I know, they did it to "send a message". What message, exactly? That they went into a lot of trouble to hide an illegal program from OPCW watch dogs only to reveal it months later?

https://www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-director-general-commends-major-milestone-as-russia-completes-destruction-of-chemical-weapons-stockpile-under-opcw-verification/

If they really wanted to send a message to the spy community and possible defectors, they wouldn't have use a fucking megaphone, a simple whisper would suffice.

 

>Governmental level of knowledge to produce this poison

Propaganda bullshit.

>>Scientists who worked on the Novichok project disclosed details from 1992 onwards. They stated that the project goals included developing weapons that:

>> could not be detected by the then standard NATO chemical weapons detection sensors

>> have potential to circumvent the Chemical Weapons Convention

>> would be easier to produce using methods and materials prevalent in pesticides industries

>> were designed from the outset to be “binary” chemical weapons (where two relatively non-toxic materials are mixed together just before dispersal to minimise the danger to the personnel delivering the weapons).

Also to keep in mind, what is the point of developing a program designed to be "secret" just to advertise it to the whole world by using it to poison a literal nobody?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-we-know-about-novichok-the-newby-nerve-agent-linked-to-russia/

The details are also published on a book that anyone can get from amazon or other stores.

https://www.amazon.com/State-Secrets-Insiders-Chronicle-Chemical/dp/1432725661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520920301&sr=8-1&keywords=vil+mirzayanov


We know, for a fact, that it has been developed outside Russia.

http://www.ieee.es/en/Galerias/fichero/docs_opinion/2012/DIEEEO33-2012_AnalisisAmenazaQuimicaBiologicaSiria_RenePita_ENGLISH.pdf

 

>It fits with a pattern of Russia killing its traitors

No it does not. Russia has been engaged in spy swapping for decades and if they really tried to kill a double agent it would seriously hinder their ability to attract defectors from other countries and their ability to swap agents in the future.

https://nypost.com/2018/03/08/putins-latest-murder-breaks-the-biggest-rule-of-the-spy-game/

 

>Britain and its partners don't have licences to kill any more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Chc1U04bRM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent

> To circumvent the Chemical Weapons Convention list of controlled precursors, classes of chemical and physical form

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=1693

https://www.amazon.com/State-Secrets-Insiders-Chronicle-Chemical/dp/1432725661

> The big area of interest here seems to be about Phosphorylated Alkanoyl Chloride Oximes, from Zhurnal Obshchei Khimii. The Trialkyl Phosphate should be relatively easy to prepare, as it is seen in the syntheses of many nerve agents:

> PCl3 + ROH --(CCl4)--> P(OR3) + RCl + HCl

> As for the second reactant, X-C(R1)2-NO2, What if the two R1 groups were substituted with Cl and F, respectively? Alternately, if they were ALL substituted with Cl, then it becomes a very familiar compound--Chloropicrin. The question then is whether or not this would react in the same way.

> If so, then the reaction to produce a very dangerous Nerve Agent looks to be unbelievably simple:

> PCl3 + ROH --(CCl4)--> P(OR)3

> P(OR)3 + CCl3NO2 --(CCl4)--> PO4R2(N=CCl2)

One of the reason Soviets wanted it was precisely because it would be easy and legal to make, thus available anywhere

Thanks for your apprehension and let me add some thoughts to your list:

-First of all, Skripal.

He was arrested in 2004. In 2006 he was sentenced to 13 years in prison and was pardoned and freed as part of spy swap between UK and Russia in 2010.

So, if Russia wanted him dead, why not to kill him silently in prison? Why pardon him?

He did not pose a danger for Russia as they freed him. Consequently, it seems irrational for Russian gov/specs to hunt him instead of many pain-in-the-ass defectors who really cooperate with UK, US.

-The gas.
Inventor of Novichok lives in US for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vil_Mirzayanov

He even wrote a book https://www.amazon.com/State-Secrets-Insiders-Chronicle-Chemical/dp/1432725661 where he tries to publish Novichok's formula (not exact though).

Novichok was produced mainly at Nukus site in Uzbekistan (it was part of USSR at the time).

After USSR collapsed and Uzbekistan become independent state, Nukus site was dismantled and decontaminated with help of US Department of Defence (ref: wikipedia page on Novichok).

According to this, it's hard to say that only Russia had access to Novichok.

-Motivation

Personally, I don't see any benefits from this event for Putin, only drawbacks.

Why kill him just before elections? He will easily win without world scandal.

Why kill him just before World Cup? Russia spend a lot of money to prepare for WC.

Today's Russia reputation is well-known. Russia is under sanctions. Why risking much heavier sanctions or even WW3 just to 'send message'?

Instead. Someone in this thread noted that West has united against Russia. Paraphrasing Voltaire, "if Russia did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it".

Da nakon sto su izvrsili svoju "istragu", nakon sto su izneli svoje zakljucke i osude i nakon sto su sazvali savet bezbednosti.

Ono, obicno kazna i osuda dolaze nakon nezavisne istrage, ali jebiga nema potrebe sada :)

I to doslovno za sada sve sto imamo jeste rec UK da je koriscen uopste taj nervni gas. Niko drugo nije to potvrdio. Britanija je sada spremna na saradnju kazu sa OPWC, ali OPWC jos ili nije dobio uzorke ili nisu jos testirali, jer od njih zvanicne reci nema.

Eksperti iz velike britanije i bivsi OPWC naucnici doslovno kazu da uopste koriscenje ovog nervnog gasa bi bilo nemoguce i detektovati.

Takodje Rusija nije jedina koja moze da stvori ovaj gas

>"The Novichok agents are thought to be far more difficult to detect during manufacturing and far easier to manufacture covertly, because they can be made with common chemicals in relatively simple pesticide factories," the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons says in its Weapons of Mass Casualties and Terrorism Response Handbook.

Lik koji tvrdi da je dizajnirao gas je objavio knjigu na amazonu

https://www.amazon.com/State-Secrets-Insiders-Chronicle-Chemical/dp/1432725661

Prema njemu ako neko razume knjigu dovoljno mogao bi sam da napravi...

> I think humans have a natural aversion to violence, that just makes sense from a self-preservation aspect, I think the glorification of violence is something that is taught to us.


You have that backwards, violence is a base urge, it comes from instincts, a desire for peace has been in bedded through education and human conscientiousness.


Humans will also never change.


If you want a better understanding you could buy this book, I highly recommend it.

Just to say, there's a book by Richard Preston called Demon in the Freezer that goes into detail on how smallpox was eradicated from nature. And how it was lost into the unknown. Quite a nice read and the author really does his job well. It's somewhat of a mix of fiction and non-fiction but both parts are scary believable.

The Collapse of Complex Societies

War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires

Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall

Genes, Peoples, and Languages

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution

The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood

I'll add to that list The Devil in the Freezer, a nonfiction account of the struggle to eradicate smallpox and how it's likely that multiple strands of the stored copy in the Maximum Containment Laboratory in Siberia may have wound up elsewhere.

The United States Military, to the extent that DARPA is a part of it, has been researching super-soldier type tech for a while. One book that comprehensively profiles this work is Mind Wars by Jonathan Moreno.

The U.S. is no stranger to EEGs, tDCSs, other brain-electronic interfaces, optimal nutrition, cognitive offloading to computers, and drugs. Some of these technologies are considered essential developments for future warfighting due to the increased processing capacity required for managing the larger host of sophisticated technologies and the increased information input that they give. Funny enough I don't believe this is where the interesting developments lie. For that I would have to give credit to hackspaces, particularly the biology oriented ones, for being endlessly perverse.

I might know too much but all of this information is in the public domain.

If you want to be more disturbed read Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston

Actually I have Demon in the Freezer to read next. https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Freezer-True-Story/dp/0345466632. It’s about anthrax.

You should read The Demon in The Freezer. As someone studying genetics from a Russian Cold War defector, this book scared the crap outta me. My prof. said he could engineer a deadly super bug with homemade equipment in his basement. It is scary how simple and deadly genetic engineering can be.

>> It's classified because it has potentially dangerous information about Chemical Weapons
>
> 12 : The name and structure of the identified toxic chemical are contained in the full
classified report of the Secretariat, available to States Parties.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Secrets-Insiders-Chronicle-Chemical/dp/1432725661

You can go to Amazon to find out the formulae of these agents. £5.89 for a kindle edition.
How can telling us what chemicals be a leak of "potentially dangerous" information?

It's all circumstancial "evidence" strung together very carefully to try to ignore all the inconvenient evidence as a massive propaganda exercise to try to kick Russia of the UNSC.

I'm not the one misleading, you are.

Gunpowder by Jack Kelly. It was fascinating to learn how many scientific discoveries, modern inventions, and social changes were influenced by the discovery of black powder.

you should also read BIOHAZARD by Ken Abilek. he ran Biopreparat in the old Soviet Union. he defected after the breakup. it gives first hand accounts of the Soviet bioweapons program, and is scary as hell.

Richard Preston has already written it

> The Soviets also spent a considerable amount of effort to weaponize smallpox in a variety of different ways

Biohazard by Ken Alibek is a terrifying read about their work on this. Very much worth reading if you would like to know what the Soviets were up to in the 70s-80s with bioweapons.

If you want a good, nonfiction book about this disease that will scare the living crap out of you, you can't do better than this one:

The Demon In The Freezer

Foolish humans! You can't stop a cat by denying him a library card because of This

The Demon in the Freezer
The Quiet Room

Again, lets compare reading lists and see who retained more. Here are the last 3 I read, how about you?

http://www.amazon.com/Uranium-Energy-Rock-Shaped-World/dp/0670020648

http://www.amazon.com/Candy-Machine-Cocaine-Took-World/dp/0141034467

http://www.amazon.com/Continent-Taking-Tragedy-Hope-Africa/dp/0375414614

Almost forgot the very last one I read, it even mentioned Reddit and subreddits!

http://www.amazon.com/Epic-Win-4chan-Army-Conquered/dp/1590207106/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321971038&sr=1-1

I have not read these but just what I turned up through the places I typically look for books.

• The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy - might not have much espionage
  
• Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 - includes a timeframe outside yours

You might want to read this.

The history of Uranium is actually pretty interesting.

Another good read is this book.
https://www.amazon.com/Uranium-Energy-Rock-Shaped-World/dp/014311672X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495955279&sr=1-1&keywords=Uranium

https://www.amazon.com/State-Secrets-Insiders-Chronicle-Chemical/dp/1432725661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520920301&sr=8-1&keywords=vil+mirzayanov

Published in this book by a russian defector who used to work on it. You can also google when and where the recipe got released and it all comes back down on this book.

Rabid, The Demon in the Freezer, and The Ghost Map are all books I've found fascinating about various diseases.

I would second /u/Amprvector's suggestion of both The Emperor of all Maladies, and The Selfish Gene as well.

What do you mean I necro'ed this comment? I don't even know what that means. Why would I be afraid of your response? I'm not pushing for any narrative here, I'm actively seeking answers and giving you the opportunity to share the evidence.
Here is the "TV show" and as it turns out, its an interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5nHrCMExaQ&ab_channel=RT Why don't you check your own sources?
First of all, Novichok originated in Russia yes. But it might surprise you that this Russian chemist Vil Mirzayanov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vil_Mirzayanov exposed the formula to the public which anyone can use to create their own Novichok, you can even buy a book on amazon that details its production https://www.amazon.com/State-Secrets-Insiders-Chronicle-Chemical/dp/1432725661 This chemist now lives in the US. Also the OPCW concluded that they could not find evidence against Russia, so you are wrong that "all" intelligence agencies confirmed it was Russia that did it. Which agencies are you talking about anyway?
No I am not, this has got to be the worst attempt at straw manning I have ever encountered.... I actually feel ashamed for you..
Really, all I am asking is for evidence and I am still patiently waiting.

https://www.amazon.com/Biohazard-Chilling-Largest-Biological-World-Told/dp/0385334966

The Ken Alibek book was also a great read.

Craig Murray was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004.

Further - since you apparently didn't bother reading.

He simply saved me the typing of the evidence from Dr. Robin Black, Head of the Detection Laboratory at the UK’s only chemical weapons facility - you know the guy in charge of the only facility in the UK's government that could make the claim that is being made by May.

Oh, and then he also provided evidence from The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) - THE UN body in charge of classifying and enforcing international Chemical Weapons bans - you know the people that we used to justify wars in Syria, Iraq, etc.

OH - and... the evidence claims this "Newcomer" agent came from Soviets working in Uzbekistan... you know, the country that this "no name blogger" was the British Ambassador to when:

>And finally – Mirzayanov is an Uzbek name and the novichok programme, assuming it existed, was in the Soviet Union but far away from modern Russia, at Nukus in modern Uzbekistan. I have visited the Nukus chemical weapons site myself. It was dismantled and made safe and all the stocks destroyed and the equipment removed by the American government, as I recall finishing while I was Ambassador there. There has in fact never been any evidence that any “novichok” ever existed in Russia itself.

In case you missed it:

>#while I was Ambassador there

But yeah, scraping the bottom of the barrel with a complete nutter on the Internet here.

OH, and lest I forget:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Secrets-Insiders-Chronicle-Chemical/dp/1432725661

The fucking formula is in that book, you can go buy it right now.

Very, very unlikely. 9/10ths of the German army's casualties were on the Eastern Front. US forces on D-Day faced shattered remnants of the once proud Wehrmacht, and made a very poor showing in general even against this remnant. US domestic opinion would simply not have tolerated the blood sacrifice necessary to fight Germany on their own, and there would have been a negotiated peace, assuming Stalin didn't invade Germany in June 1942, which it would have. See Max Hastings' Armageddon: the Battle for Germany for details.

I recommend Biohazard. On the edge of my seat most of the time. Author defected to US and wrote the book. I had hoped you had read it. I wanted to hear your take on it.

Ever listen to Art Bell, the radio host?

GMU Huh. Chain Bridge road. 123. Favorite DC monument. Mine is the einstein bronze sculpture and the Awakening.

Biohazard - non fiction book link
http://www.amazon.com/Biohazard-Chilling-Largest-Biological-World-Told/dp/0385334966

If you really want to know...

You should totally read this book. Or maybe The Hot Zone or Demon in the Freezer. All are very entertaining and terrifying reads.

These sorts of weapons are scary because in some cases their use is probably strategically preferable because they can destroy populations without destroying infrastructure, which is useful if you want to invade somewhere. Also, they can get out of hand and spread on their own once deployed, unlike a bullet.

I'm in no way an expert; just speculating.

I had the same New Year's resolution a few years ago and ended up reading 65 books that year. I ran out of books I wanted to read and scrambled to find more. So you'll have weeks you'll read anything you can get your hands on which can be hit or miss, but I liked being taken out of my normal, nonfiction, reading patterns.

Here are a few If my favorites:

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston

Demon In The Freezer by Richard Preston

The Snakehead by Patrick Keefe

John Dies At The End by David Wong

Into Thin Air by John Krakauer

Death's Acre by Dr. Bill Bass

Biohazard by Ken Alibek

Random Question - You said you loved the cold war, right? I just finished "Uranium the rock that shaped the world". Very very interesting in depth history presented in a good journalist first person mixed 3rd person format, about the history of Uranium, from it's early reaches all the way through WW2, Cold War and into the current middle east crisis, check it out

http://www.amazon.com/Uranium-Energy-Rock-Shaped-World/dp/014311672X

The Demon in the Freezer

"The Dead Hand" by David E Hoffman

It has a lot to do with past and current nuclear issues. It also won the pulitzer prize!

http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Hand-Untold-Dangerous-Legacy/dp/0385524374

You want studies or a book?

One of the most profound books i have ever read is this on how states rise and fall. It's the most enlighting thing I have ever read, it changed how I view the world fundamentaly

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0452288193/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0452288193

Its a popular book without the mathematical models behind it

Here is the mathematical version

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691116695/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0691116695

But its quite expensive and only available as hardcover but there should be a different version coming out soon


For the study on cooperation this

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0996139516/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1517513099&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Peter+turchin&dpPl=1&dpID=41Ux9xQvfIL&ref=plSrch


On cultural evolution this books makes an incredible strong argument

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691178437/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0691178437


On how religion influences pro social behaviour this

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691169748/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517513482&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Ara+Norenzayan&dpPl=1&dpID=61TgLU80vIL&ref=plSrch

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0385334966?pc_redir=1411972918&robot_redir=1 I've been wanting to read this, it seem interesting

Why did we invade Iraq? I'm not sure how that became the topic, but here are the answers.

As for the WMD, you are simply mistaken. I knew full well that every single claim the Bush administration was making about the WMD were tendentious, at best, if not false. I knew that our best nuclear scientists, at Oak Ridge, had declared the aluminum tubes absolutely fucking worthless for enriching uranium. I knew the "unaccounted for stockpiles" were, at best, sludge for the previous 5 years, and probably never existed. If one read Vanity Fair one knew that the Niger uranium connection was bullshit.

Don't tell me it was all classified, so CNN had to run those stories.

It was all public, and CNN decided to carry water.

I was making god damnit $200/K year when we invaded Iraq and I quit my job the morning we actually invaded. I knew it was bullshit.

This book was published a half year before the invasion.

As for the al-Qaeda connection, my fondest memory of that was the time Doug Feith decided to leak his own research on the Iraq-al-Qaeda connection. The fucking Department of Defense shut that snow job down! Go DoD! What a bunch of lies.

CNN coverage of the Iraq War was cheerleading from the get-go.

Anyone could've bought Mirzayanov's book from 2008. To think that government agencies that spend trillions on defence do not have the capability to buy a book and recreate it is naive. Honestly, I think they'd have the knowledge even without it - for a state to recreate a nerve agent is nothing sophisticated really.