Airbus CEO René Obermann called on European countries to acquire tactical nuclear weapons in response to the threat posed by Russian Iskander missiles, which are deployed in Kaliningrad and capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

“It appears that our Achilles’ heel is what Russia is openly threatening us with: more than 500 tactical nuclear warheads on 26 Iskander missiles deployed right on our doorstep in Kaliningrad, in addition to those recently deployed in Belarus. Germany, France, the UK, and other European countries willing to cooperate should agree on a joint, phased nuclear deterrence program, including at the tactical level. I believe this would be a powerful deterrent.”

This statement appears to be yet another attempt to blame Russia for the escalation, despite the deployment of Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad region back in 2018. It also appears that Obermann is acting as a talking head to shape public opinion among European citizens to justify yet another tax hike for the sake of general “security.”

  • Avicenna@programming.dev
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    5 days ago

    I mean it is not unimaginable that someone with low moral standards may be exaggerating the risks involved to fear monger governments etc to work with them. It is a general distrust of big corporations that make people here skeptical. If companies like meta, google, tesla etc have no reservations about doing extremely shitty and dodgy things and also able to come out of those with net positive effects, why wouldn’t this guy? When someone says “corporations should not set defense policy”, they don’t actually mean setting it on a governmental level. What they mean is that they should not even be able to inform policies because they are likely putting their interest above other ethical considerations.

    • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      So the most informed people should not be able to make public statements because people who make policies might listen to them? That’s an insane take.

      • Avicenna@programming.dev
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        47 minutes ago

        The question is more the following: can we trust them to use the information available to them honestly or are they more likely to distort or hide facts if it aligns more with their interests. If the latter is a common situation, then that is not an insane take.