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The reason Putin is invading is because he knows the U.S. is weak, its leadership is politically weak, and there's very little it will do, and even if it does,

The reason Putin is invading is because he knows the U.S. is weak, its leadership is politically weak, and there's very little it will do, and even if it does, it doesn't have popular support. It's the effect of clear incentives. If the U.S. intervenes, a retaliatory cyber op from Russia against critical infrastructure would make america amish again. Then, wait until midterms when the president loses the house and senate and doesn't have the power to muster a draft when China takes Taiwan. This is one of those happening slowly and then all at once events in history I suspect.

awb 5y ago
I don’t think this is the full picture. Post-Vietnam the US hasn’t engaged in large scale active combat against communism or Russian-backed forces. It has instead favored selling weapons to Eastern European states and building the NATO alliance. Putin has been clear about the breakup of the USSR being a mistake in his eyes. He’s been annexing territories (or in his eyes, re-annexing) since 1999. He looks for countries with strong Russian cultural and linguistic backgrounds and props up allies that will take over. If that doesn’t work he ratchets up the pressure until he feels comfortable using military force. See: Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea and now Ukraine. The US is far stronger militarily than Russia, but with nuclear weapons in the equation, no one wins. It’s easy to be an arm chair hawk and say we should go fight, but it’s another thing to look you kids in the eye and explain they’re going to die from radiation fallout. Instead, the US will likely prop up the resistance once Ukraine falls and try to make occupation as costly as possible just like we did in Afghanistan.
- chii 5y ago
  > Instead, the US will likely prop up the resistance once Ukraine falls and try to make occupation as costly as possible just like we did in Afghanistan. a band-aid solution at best. The fact that putin has desires to resurrect the soviet superpower, is the problem, and i doubt there would be any possible diplomatic solution to that. Nobody likes war (least of all nuclear war), but if the threat of such weapons is shown to be a bluff, the peace brought about from it's use in WW2 would all but be in vain. Somebody must back down, and i would say putin and his ambitions must be the one to back down, or the US & allies must escalate. Otherwise, the next authoritarian country is going to want in.
  - awb 5y ago
    The moral of this era seems to be: no one attacks a country with nuclear weapons. France has nukes, so this isn’t going to be Hitler 2.0 with Putin posing by the Arc de Triumph. There are several ex-Soviet countries that are NATO members, so that’ll be the real hot spot if it gets there as the US et. al. will be required to act militarily in their defense (in theory).
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > The moral of this era seems to be: no one attacks a country with nuclear weapons. Though, now that the invasion has started (again),
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      Doesn't even make sense for Putin strategically because the alliance will get consolidated by this. On the other hand there are just few diplomatic tools. They were all used up more or less.
      - chii 5y ago
        > the alliance will get consolidated by this. the alliance is already pretty consolidated. I think putin sees a NATO ukraine as more dangerous imho - esp. if ukraine becomes more and more democratic. The invasion would be successful if the west does not deploy troops and intervene. I say the west has already failed, and this sets a precedent to which china would follow. And if the west waits for too long, the military edge that the west has would diminish. Unfortunately, the public is reluctant to commit to war, because in the minds of those who are used to peace, diplomatic solutions seems to be the only cost they're willing to pay.
        SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
        The West has failed at what, though? All wars are tragedies, but nobody promised they were going to protect Ukraine in the first place, and it’s a long standing international precedent that two countries can go to war without everyone on the planet sending troops.
- graphpercolator 5y ago
  This is a total turn of the page of history. A Russian break with the West to focus East. We have no will to fight a war over this in the US. Any talk of that is absurd. I keep thinking about the Scorpions song Wind of Change. That spirit is now completely dead. I just can't believe it.
brundolf 5y ago
> and even if it does, it doesn't have popular support Anecdotally, I've never seen so many people in my (wildly different) social circles agree on something political.
Bouncingsoul1 5y ago
I don't think Putin has a single reason, the reason you stated is one in particalur an US one. From a Western European view, my best guess is, he also wants to destabilize EU (with a lot of NATO memebers). Remember Syria an the refugee crisis? This gave TailWind to a lot of right wing parties, which are mostly ProRussia (AFD, FPÖ etc). Incidentally left wing parties, "Die Linke" comes to mind, are also Putin fans. So any polarization within EU will help Russia to sell its resources and don't get sanctioned to much. IMO Putin is playing the divisor.
raxxorrax 5y ago
> If the U.S. intervenes, a retaliatory cyber op from Russia against critical infrastructure would make america amish again. Cyber crimes with significant impact are still in the realm of fiction. Scare mongering about it does not help. That said, one should not make stupid decision how to connect and control such infrastructure and you should prepare with working backups instead of another security product.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Have family that are vp cybersecurity in infrastructure; I wish you were correct, but the free market went for quick and cheap implementations, not secure. Basically, no one wanted to bear all the costs of having secure infrastructure components, this is the tragedy of the commons that government is supposed to solve, but when all the leaders are over 70, it’s hard for them to grok the new reality.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    Sure, it could happen. There were hospitals that got knocked out for weeks with as simple ransomware attack. If you have a dedicated hacker with means to acquire exploits, security is probably almost impossible. This is why effective mitigation is very likely the safer approach. Manual overrides or air gapped systems would help too. But it is wrong to panic about it. The best mitigation is boring, but yes, some investment in IT could really help.
  - oauea 5y ago
    Got a link to a news article about such an event?
    - motohagiography 5y ago
      https://www.controleng.com/articles/throwback-attack-lessons-from-the-aurora-vulnerability/ https://www.controleng.com/articles/throwback-attack-lessons...
      - 5y ago
tasha0663 5y ago
> doesn't have the power to muster a draft when China takes Taiwan And rightly so. I don't care enough about Taiwan to instate a draft. I don't care enough about much of anything for that.
- coffeeisyummy 5y ago
  Amen. The rank hypocrisy of the generation that fought their draft starting WW3 and a draft would be incredible.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    You mean "fought their draft" in the sense of "avoiding being sent to Vietnam"? Sure, that would make hypocrites of those who were draft dodgers back then, and advocate the draft now. But how many of those are there? I'd guess the vast majority of baby boomers who now advocate the draft weren't draft dodgers. And AFAIK, compared to those who went, draft dodgers were a small minority.
    - coffeeisyummy 5y ago
      >You mean "fought their draft" in the sense of "avoiding being sent to Vietnam"? No... fought their draft as in "We think the draft is bull, this war is bull, and we don't want to go." Hey, I could be wrong - I wasn't there to observe first hand what happened in the 60s and 70s. I only assumed the Vietnam draft was unpopular based on pop culture. Maybe boomers didn't sit around college campus blocking up traffic, chanting slogans, and smoking pot? Maybe there were never peace marches? The soundtrack of Boomer's youth? Largely works of fiction! 80s anti-war films? Anti-American propaganda! If you're telling me only those who actively avoided the draft were against it, I believe you. I should have just used my own eyes and ears to observe what Boomers have done since then. Baby Boomers in Congress and in the White House sent troops to Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, with overwhelming approval at the time. Yes, there was lots of backtracking and second guessing after we stuck of fingers in those pies, but I guess that's a development that's arisen after Vietnam. Maybe the problem with those wars was there were no Commies to shoot. I just didn't realize how much blood-lust Boomers held deep inside. I stand corrected. Thank you for setting me straight.
joncrane 5y ago
This would be true if we were still on the previous administration, but I think we're back to our regularly scheduled programming now.

awb 5y ago

I don’t think this is the full picture. Post-Vietnam the US hasn’t engaged in large scale active combat against communism or Russian-backed forces. It has instead favored selling weapons to Eastern European states and building the NATO alliance. Putin has been clear about the breakup of the USSR being a mistake in his eyes. He’s been annexing territories (or in his eyes, re-annexing) since 1999. He looks for countries with strong Russian cultural and linguistic backgrounds and props up allies that will take over. If that doesn’t work he ratchets up the pressure until he feels comfortable using military force. See: Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea and now Ukraine. The US is far stronger militarily than Russia, but with nuclear weapons in the equation, no one wins. It’s easy to be an arm chair hawk and say we should go fight, but it’s another thing to look you kids in the eye and explain they’re going to die from radiation fallout. Instead, the US will likely prop up the resistance once Ukraine falls and try to make occupation as costly as possible just like we did in Afghanistan.

chii 5y ago
> Instead, the US will likely prop up the resistance once Ukraine falls and try to make occupation as costly as possible just like we did in Afghanistan. a band-aid solution at best. The fact that putin has desires to resurrect the soviet superpower, is the problem, and i doubt there would be any possible diplomatic solution to that. Nobody likes war (least of all nuclear war), but if the threat of such weapons is shown to be a bluff, the peace brought about from it's use in WW2 would all but be in vain. Somebody must back down, and i would say putin and his ambitions must be the one to back down, or the US & allies must escalate. Otherwise, the next authoritarian country is going to want in.
- awb 5y ago
  The moral of this era seems to be: no one attacks a country with nuclear weapons. France has nukes, so this isn’t going to be Hitler 2.0 with Putin posing by the Arc de Triumph. There are several ex-Soviet countries that are NATO members, so that’ll be the real hot spot if it gets there as the US et. al. will be required to act militarily in their defense (in theory).
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > The moral of this era seems to be: no one attacks a country with nuclear weapons. Though, now that the invasion has started (again),
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    Doesn't even make sense for Putin strategically because the alliance will get consolidated by this. On the other hand there are just few diplomatic tools. They were all used up more or less.
    - chii 5y ago
      > the alliance will get consolidated by this. the alliance is already pretty consolidated. I think putin sees a NATO ukraine as more dangerous imho - esp. if ukraine becomes more and more democratic. The invasion would be successful if the west does not deploy troops and intervene. I say the west has already failed, and this sets a precedent to which china would follow. And if the west waits for too long, the military edge that the west has would diminish. Unfortunately, the public is reluctant to commit to war, because in the minds of those who are used to peace, diplomatic solutions seems to be the only cost they're willing to pay.
      - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
        The West has failed at what, though? All wars are tragedies, but nobody promised they were going to protect Ukraine in the first place, and it’s a long standing international precedent that two countries can go to war without everyone on the planet sending troops.
graphpercolator 5y ago
This is a total turn of the page of history. A Russian break with the West to focus East. We have no will to fight a war over this in the US. Any talk of that is absurd. I keep thinking about the Scorpions song Wind of Change. That spirit is now completely dead. I just can't believe it.

brundolf 5y ago

> and even if it does, it doesn't have popular support Anecdotally, I've never seen so many people in my (wildly different) social circles agree on something political.

Bouncingsoul1 5y ago

I don't think Putin has a single reason, the reason you stated is one in particalur an US one. From a Western European view, my best guess is, he also wants to destabilize EU (with a lot of NATO memebers). Remember Syria an the refugee crisis? This gave TailWind to a lot of right wing parties, which are mostly ProRussia (AFD, FPÖ etc). Incidentally left wing parties, "Die Linke" comes to mind, are also Putin fans. So any polarization within EU will help Russia to sell its resources and don't get sanctioned to much. IMO Putin is playing the divisor.

raxxorrax 5y ago

> If the U.S. intervenes, a retaliatory cyber op from Russia against critical infrastructure would make america amish again. Cyber crimes with significant impact are still in the realm of fiction. Scare mongering about it does not help. That said, one should not make stupid decision how to connect and control such infrastructure and you should prepare with working backups instead of another security product.

mensetmanusman 5y ago
Have family that are vp cybersecurity in infrastructure; I wish you were correct, but the free market went for quick and cheap implementations, not secure. Basically, no one wanted to bear all the costs of having secure infrastructure components, this is the tragedy of the commons that government is supposed to solve, but when all the leaders are over 70, it’s hard for them to grok the new reality.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Sure, it could happen. There were hospitals that got knocked out for weeks with as simple ransomware attack. If you have a dedicated hacker with means to acquire exploits, security is probably almost impossible. This is why effective mitigation is very likely the safer approach. Manual overrides or air gapped systems would help too. But it is wrong to panic about it. The best mitigation is boring, but yes, some investment in IT could really help.
- oauea 5y ago
  Got a link to a news article about such an event?
  - motohagiography 5y ago
    https://www.controleng.com/articles/throwback-attack-lessons-from-the-aurora-vulnerability/ https://www.controleng.com/articles/throwback-attack-lessons...
    - 5y ago

tasha0663 5y ago

> doesn't have the power to muster a draft when China takes Taiwan And rightly so. I don't care enough about Taiwan to instate a draft. I don't care enough about much of anything for that.

coffeeisyummy 5y ago
Amen. The rank hypocrisy of the generation that fought their draft starting WW3 and a draft would be incredible.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  You mean "fought their draft" in the sense of "avoiding being sent to Vietnam"? Sure, that would make hypocrites of those who were draft dodgers back then, and advocate the draft now. But how many of those are there? I'd guess the vast majority of baby boomers who now advocate the draft weren't draft dodgers. And AFAIK, compared to those who went, draft dodgers were a small minority.
  - coffeeisyummy 5y ago
    >You mean "fought their draft" in the sense of "avoiding being sent to Vietnam"? No... fought their draft as in "We think the draft is bull, this war is bull, and we don't want to go." Hey, I could be wrong - I wasn't there to observe first hand what happened in the 60s and 70s. I only assumed the Vietnam draft was unpopular based on pop culture. Maybe boomers didn't sit around college campus blocking up traffic, chanting slogans, and smoking pot? Maybe there were never peace marches? The soundtrack of Boomer's youth? Largely works of fiction! 80s anti-war films? Anti-American propaganda! If you're telling me only those who actively avoided the draft were against it, I believe you. I should have just used my own eyes and ears to observe what Boomers have done since then. Baby Boomers in Congress and in the White House sent troops to Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, with overwhelming approval at the time. Yes, there was lots of backtracking and second guessing after we stuck of fingers in those pies, but I guess that's a development that's arisen after Vietnam. Maybe the problem with those wars was there were no Commies to shoot. I just didn't realize how much blood-lust Boomers held deep inside. I stand corrected. Thank you for setting me straight.

joncrane 5y ago

This would be true if we were still on the previous administration, but I think we're back to our regularly scheduled programming now.