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When the thug has nuclear weapons, responses get a lot trickier.
by jacobolus 5y ago
When the thug has nuclear weapons, responses get a lot trickier.
- nickpp 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lamontcg 5y agoCongratulations you just ended human life on the planet, would you like to play again?
- nickpp 5y ago[flagged]
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- ghostwriter 5y agowhich part of your own country are you willing to risk to be hit by nukes first? It's easy to be militarily bold at someone else's expense, more so if you don't serve in a regular army.
- nickpp 5y agoWhich friend or family member are you willing to sacrifice first so that you’ll be spared? It’s easy to try to appease aggressors thinking that somehow they will have enough eventually, but this is short term thinking. In the end they will only stop when you stand up and fight.
- ghostwriter 5y agoI'd try really hard not to get into a situation that requires taking this kind of choice in the first place. It means taking measures of reasonable appeasal. Diplomacy used to be a virtue, nowadays it's being replaced by acts of daring: Russia does it, the US does it, the Ukraine does it. > they will have enough eventually, but this is short term thinking. In the end they will only stop when you stand up and fight. There's such a thing as a lifespan. People come and go, and everyone should be proactively seeking long-term beyond-personality diplomacy and statesmanship. > In the end they will only stop when you stand up and fight. this is no longer a WW2 era, you can't just stand up and fight, nukes don't care if you stand up or lie down.
- nickpp 5y agoNukes are an ultimate weapon, equally destructive for both sides no matter who's using them. Threatening with nukes on the other hand is an almost as good weapon but only effective of you convince the other party you mean it and only countered by the others also being willing to use them. It's the MAD policy and it worked quite well during the cold war.
- ghostwriter 5y agoI disagree that it worked well during the Cold War, numerous declassified archives suggest a different picture of continuous escalation and bringing the world on the brink of total annihilation. The main reason it did not happen was a presence of people who were willing to de-escalate the peril by all means at key moments, including sacrificing their military ranks, political stances, and sometimes integrity of borders of their own countries. Borders have been moving and they will be moving in the future, a long-term strategy should be to never let politicians stake the humankind for the sake of the current polygons configuration on a world map.
- nickpp 5y agoI am guessing you are not in one of those "polygons" close to Putin on the map, so that is why you are so willing to sacrifice others for your well being. Did not work out that great for the appeasers in WW2 in the end.
- reitanqild 5y ago> which part of your own country are you willing to risk to be hit by nukes first? I hope to avoid a nuclear war. If we get bombed I hope to be in the middle of the first blast or far away. (I'm actually not sure which I'd prefer.) If it comes to the nuclear option it is that simple. I've tried to live a good life and asked God to forgive me what I either have misunderstood or haven't been able to do right. So for now I'll just try to focus on my assigned tasks: - take care of my family - take care of my customer - take care of my neighbors and everyone else - answer if my home country wants me back in uniform There's some wisdom in this even if one forgets who wrote it: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206%3A25-34&version=NIV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206%3A2...
- meragrin_ 5y agoIf Putin is going to use nukes over Ukraine, it is going to come to nukes eventually. No way he stops a Ukraine.
- meragrin_ 5y agoWould you rather wait for him to invade Germany before risking nuclear war? No way he stops a Ukraine.
- lamontcg 5y agoThere is no way he doesn't stop at Ukraine. He doesn't have enough troops to hold it against a population which will be against him. He has already bitten off more than he can chew. The idea of Russian tanks marching on Germany is delusional fantasy and hyperbole, even apart from Article 5.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
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- 8note 5y agoIt's possible for nuclear powered thugs to be beaten off. Just look at the Taliban. Destroying things is easy, but maintaining control is hard
- disillusioned 5y ago...Afghanistan isn't a nuclear state
- csee 5y agoUS has something to lose. That logic doesn't apply to a caged animal.
- jacobolus 5y agoIt is by no means clear that Russian military/state will “win” long-term in Ukraine. When there is significant local opposition to military occupation, it is indeed hard to maintain control. But in the mean time, they’ll be able to kill a whole lot of people and destroy a whole lot of lives, and wreck Ukrainian democracy and economic prosperity for years if not decades.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- asdff 5y agoThe US has a major security advantage in terms of mutually assured destruction in that its home to many people from around the world. There are like tens of thousands of Americans living in all of Russia or China. Meanwhile, there are millions of both Russian and Chinese Americans in the U.S.. This provides safety. Good luck finding morale in your military after you've just told them to nuke millions of their own people.
- NmAmDa 5y agomutually assured destruction will not leave you any functioning military to have morale after nuking US. And in this case we will test the nuclear winter theory. Hopefully we can avoid that.
- ant6n 5y agoThey don't care. Thousands of Russians and culturally Russian ppl will die on Ukraine, but the attack is still happening.
- ripvanwinkle 5y agoI'd say in this case everyone has nuclear weapons i.e. thug and bystanders with abundant second strike capabilities and also a healthy desire to live. With that level of mutually assured destruction, conflict if any would almost certainly stay conventional. In fact if NATO had moved in about 50 to 100K troops at the invitation of Ukraine sometime over the past 3 months, its really unlikely that Putin would have upped the ante. If anything the multiyear patience and planning on his part suggests he absolutely wants to win and wont take a chance if he thinks he might lose or draw
- 8ytecoder 5y agoI don’t know. Mr P would have made that the excuse to invade. In war perception and public sentiment is very important too. Biden would easily lose popular support in this hypothetical scenario. As is there doesn’t seem to be much support from the right at the moment.
- kqr 5y ago> With that level of mutually assured destruction, conflict if any would almost certainly stay conventional. It's useful to remember that "almost certainly" is a synonym for "not necessarily".
- nyokodo 5y ago> In fact if NATO had moved in about 50 to 100K troops at the invitation of Ukraine sometime over the past 3 months, Meanwhile Russia being right on the border quickly invades Ukraine before the NATO troops can arrive and now we have NATO troops entering a war zone or pulling back and looking even weaker. Also, this sounds eerily like the start of WWI although then it was Russia mobilizing and Germany then decided to move quickly into Belgium and North into Russia.
- lordnacho 5y agoThe thug also thinks his knife won't be needed. Often I wonder which of our leaders has ever played poker. It seems like Putin has figured out that we won't push all-in, ever, so he steals another pot. If the west really cared about this, the only way now is to retaliate way out of proportion to what's happened. Before this happened, the west also didn't act like it wanted to contain the Russians, so the Russians got brave. If there had been some sort of response the Russians would have backed off. It's somewhat stable for both sides to bluster about this or that minor victory. Can't do that now.
- chronofar 5y ago> If there had been some sort of response the Russians would have backed off. Are you sure about that? Are you really willing to risk your chips betting on a retreat? This sort of geopolitical chicken would be incredibly dangerous.
- dbingham 5y agoWhat if he never retreats and just keeps pushing? You have a o draw a hard line somewhere, and the longer you wait the harder it is to do it.
- xenocratus 5y agoI mean, Nato does have a real, physical border.... So if you have to draw a hard line somewhere, I guess it's already been done.
- flyinglizard 5y agoThat was something great about Trump; he could not be easily predicted, not even by his own circle. Although in this case I’m not sure he wouldn’t have sided with Putin.
- lordnacho 5y agoI'll give him that, you don't know what DJT would have decided. Maybe he'd fold, maybe he'd go direct to nuke. That baseline unpredictability is actually useful strategically (there's even an essay about how being rational isn't necessarily a good game theoretic strategy, can't recall the name now). There's at least one other world leader who clings to power because of this trait. Recent mutterings suggest Trump thinks highly of Putin though, so it's hard to tell.