[shaki-dora]

This is the sort of totally obvious prisoner’s dilemma that just a tiny bit of international cooperation could easily avoid, if only Russia (and now the US) had not gone down the road of pseudo-macho brutalism in politics.

With the beluga cat now out of the bag, any maritime conflict will be liable to justify the wholesale slaughter of large marine mammals, just as 60 years of preservation efforts have been showing some good results, and incidentally proving that international cooperation actually can work.

On the plus side, nothing was gained. Whales as a weapons, or reconnaissance, platform may have worked as a tactical surprise. But it is useless once it’s known. Killing all the whales in the Atlantic is a day’s worth of fun for bored sailors.

Instead, everyone could have just played солитер all day in the safe knowledge that they are doing the best work of their life.