Maybe if the soviets Russians spent a few more dollars figuring out how to blast some fucking sunshine into Siberia, and a few less dollars (or ruples, or whatever backwards currency they’re using these days) on figuring out new and ingenious ways to create megadeaths, like the new Father of All Bombs, the country wouldn’t be wallowing in its 10th decade of abject poverty.

Pictures showed what looked like a flattened multi-storey block of flats surrounded by scorched soil and boulders. “The soil looks like a lunar landscape,” the report said.

“The defense ministry stresses this military invention does not contradict a single international treaty. Russia is not unleashing a new arms race.”

No arms race, indeed. No, Russia is unleashing an eco-friendly weapon of mass-destruction, which doesn’t contaminate the environment like its radiological cousins. Then again, when we’re talking about turning the earth into a “lunar landscape,” who cares?

Because superior firepower is the only way to “reassert” one’s role in international politics. War is, was, and will be the life of all States. Who tells you that States don’t build their houses on a foundation of violence and threats, is lying.