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Right now, for better or worse, Ukraine is fighting for the whole of Europe and maybe for the world's future. The fact that they are alone and we aren't doing a

by nickpp 5y ago

Right now, for better or worse, Ukraine is fighting for the whole of Europe and maybe for the world's future. The fact that they are alone and we aren't doing anything to help them will hunt Western (and NATO) countries forever.

xibalba 5y ago
From the article: > * Ukraine is not a NATO ally, and the alliance is not treaty-bound to protect it.* I suspect risking a military engagement between NATO and Russia would be to risk a world war.
- QuarterReptile 5y ago
  You would hope that invading Ukraine would also be understood as risking a world War. But clearly that would be a misunderstanding.
  - xibalba 5y ago
    I don't think that is sound logic. As disgusting and insane as this invasion of Ukraine is, the current state of European treaties would not necessitate a world war as an outcome. Putin, the evil war making scum that he is, has been explicit for DECADES that the armament and NATO flirtation with Ukraine is completely unacceptable to Russia, Russia sees Ukraine as a buffer zone against the West, and that Ukraine belongs in the Russian sphere of influence. History does not disagree with him. Ukraine was for centuries part of the Russian empire and then the Soviet Union. Ukraine has a large population of ethnically and/or culturally Russian peoples. All of these facts have been known and communicated for many years. In fact, these are some of the reasons Ukraine has never been on the path to NATO membership. In other words, while we can and should condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it does not, per se, set us on a deterministic path to a world war. Quoting Obama circa 2016: "The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do."
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    A very obvious misunderstanding. For the last 15 years NATO and Russia have been extremely clear and consistent on the point. Russia has consistently announced that it will invade Ukraine to stop NATO membership. NATO has consistently announced that it will not defend Ukraine, but it is Ukraine's' decision if it wants to be a member. You might not like the situation (I don't), but the cards have always been on the table. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
This seems well intentioned but overly dramatic to the point of being false. Other nations have been training Ukrainian Troops and supplying Stinger missiles and so on. Lots of diplomacy and financial sanctions happening. The step to actually involve an external Army in killing Russian soldiers has big ramifications that shouldn't be ignored.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- robert_foss 5y ago
  Germany sent 5000 hats to Ukraine. It also prevented the export of actual military equipment to Ukraine from the baltics. And it shot down sanctions related to the SWIFT banking system. With friends like Germany, who needs enemies.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > With friends like Germany, who needs enemies. Threaten to cut them off from SWIFT and kick them out of NATO. Their military is a joke, and they're clearly freeloading.
  - RealityVoid 5y ago
    They must be scared of losing gas access. And they need gas more than Puțin needs money. That's why he allowed himself this gamble at this time. And it seems to be working.
    - robert_foss 5y ago
      This is surely the cause. Germany has foot-gunned itself horrifically when they gutted their nuclear power generation. The idea was to replace it medium-term with natural gas. Natural gas is also quite common in germany for building heating + cooking.
    - PickledHotdog 5y ago
      Bingo.
fireflymetavrse 5y ago
It's not like NATO to deploy forces there to fight the Russians. This is a more complex military, strategic and political issue with many implications.
nickpp 5y ago
Here are Garry Kasparov's suggestions. None of them imply boots on the ground: https://twitter.com/kasparov63/status/1496865471995523080?s=21 https://twitter.com/kasparov63/status/1496865471995523080?s=... Kasparov wrote the book "Winter is Coming" back in 2015.
sebow 5y ago
Ukrainians are definitely not alone.A lot of them are coming here(a EE,NATO/UE country) and other neighboring countries and they're received well: most people in EE naturally dislike russia for obvious reasons. I understand somewhat US not doing much of anything militarily speaking, and it's nothing new: happened before, it's precisely why Putin does it: he dares the west to do something, because (and this is the bigger, more overlooked picture) he knows he's mainly there to play a role: to distract the west from Taiwan, Kazakhstan[people already forgot about this one, it's critical for China's development of the 'Silk road' train route], etc. If sh1t hits the fan, he also knows China backs Putin.That's why also the Chinese are threatening TW lately: the western leadership(Biden, Germany's Scholz,somewhat even Boris & Macron) is weaker right now.
- nickpp 5y ago
  What if China's future moves in Taiwan are being determined by the Ukrainian outcome? A Russian victory (I think) will show a weakened, divided West and will embolden China.
  - sebow 5y ago
    I think china's plans for tw are not necessarily determined by Ukraine, mainly because getting TW hurts the west and empowers China way more.(chips,obviously) It's a reasonable assumption to make and personally I think China wants tw regardless. Hybrid wars that are being started and slowed down : I.e. joggling with your opponent's forces are very dangerous.
alistairSH 5y ago
Assuming "we" is either the US or the entirety of the western world, I'd disagree. Any decision to engage Russia with NATO or NATO-adjacent forces must be lead by the nations of Europe. There are still other sanctions that can be applied. Removal from the Swift network is probably the nuclear option in terms of financial sanctions. But, Germany and Italy (at least), as of yesterday, were opposed because of the likely impact on their own economies.
it_does_follow 5y ago
I'm surprised to see so many moral narratives, like this one, surrounding war start popping up. I thought it was pretty well understood and established that the narratives we tell about war are mostly propaganda/myth making after the fact. War is about resources and control. That's it. There are no "good/bad" guys (or more specifically they're all "bad" guys). We're not participating in some grand moral struggle, we're taking calculated risks to maximizes gains when the opportunity appears and minimize losses when we have no other options. For the last 70 years world power has be set so there was primarily one global hegemon (the US) so there was not much movement on the world stage among powerful nations. Economic strategies remained the safest way to control resources among world powers, but military actions still dominated in cases of extreme power asymmetry. The US has been invading and bombing countries and regions virtually continuously for the last few decades. The resource situation is starting to change, so risks that made no sense suddenly start to seem more reasonable. But absolutely none of what we're seeing now has anything to do with some silly narrative about NATO powers and Russia. Russia has ceased the opportunity of low risk acquisition of resources, NATO powers have worked to minimize their own loses given the risk of any major action is high. As resources grow more scare we'll see increased military conflict. The severity of which will be proportional to the scarcity. None of this will "haunt" anybody, it's just a game to survive which as been fairly easy the last few decades and that is changing.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > I thought it was pretty well understood and established that the narratives we tell about war are mostly propaganda/myth making after the fact. I suppose that includes the one you just spent five paragraphs expounding upon? > NATO powers have worked to minimize their own loses given the risk of any major action is high. NATO is avoiding short term losses to risk long term ones.
- nickpp 5y ago
  Don't you think conflicts and wars also have an ideological/cultural component? Freedom vs dictatorship, communism vs capitalism, democracy vs authoritarianism?
  - 5y ago
GoodJokes 5y ago

by nickpp 5y ago

xibalba 5y ago

From the article: > * Ukraine is not a NATO ally, and the alliance is not treaty-bound to protect it.* I suspect risking a military engagement between NATO and Russia would be to risk a world war.

QuarterReptile 5y ago
You would hope that invading Ukraine would also be understood as risking a world War. But clearly that would be a misunderstanding.
- xibalba 5y ago
  I don't think that is sound logic. As disgusting and insane as this invasion of Ukraine is, the current state of European treaties would not necessitate a world war as an outcome. Putin, the evil war making scum that he is, has been explicit for DECADES that the armament and NATO flirtation with Ukraine is completely unacceptable to Russia, Russia sees Ukraine as a buffer zone against the West, and that Ukraine belongs in the Russian sphere of influence. History does not disagree with him. Ukraine was for centuries part of the Russian empire and then the Soviet Union. Ukraine has a large population of ethnically and/or culturally Russian peoples. All of these facts have been known and communicated for many years. In fact, these are some of the reasons Ukraine has never been on the path to NATO membership. In other words, while we can and should condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it does not, per se, set us on a deterministic path to a world war. Quoting Obama circa 2016: "The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do."
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  A very obvious misunderstanding. For the last 15 years NATO and Russia have been extremely clear and consistent on the point. Russia has consistently announced that it will invade Ukraine to stop NATO membership. NATO has consistently announced that it will not defend Ukraine, but it is Ukraine's' decision if it wants to be a member. You might not like the situation (I don't), but the cards have always been on the table. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

This seems well intentioned but overly dramatic to the point of being false. Other nations have been training Ukrainian Troops and supplying Stinger missiles and so on. Lots of diplomacy and financial sanctions happening. The step to actually involve an external Army in killing Russian soldiers has big ramifications that shouldn't be ignored.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
robert_foss 5y ago
Germany sent 5000 hats to Ukraine. It also prevented the export of actual military equipment to Ukraine from the baltics. And it shot down sanctions related to the SWIFT banking system. With friends like Germany, who needs enemies.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > With friends like Germany, who needs enemies. Threaten to cut them off from SWIFT and kick them out of NATO. Their military is a joke, and they're clearly freeloading.
- RealityVoid 5y ago
  They must be scared of losing gas access. And they need gas more than Puțin needs money. That's why he allowed himself this gamble at this time. And it seems to be working.
  - robert_foss 5y ago
    This is surely the cause. Germany has foot-gunned itself horrifically when they gutted their nuclear power generation. The idea was to replace it medium-term with natural gas. Natural gas is also quite common in germany for building heating + cooking.
  - PickledHotdog 5y ago
    Bingo.

fireflymetavrse 5y ago

It's not like NATO to deploy forces there to fight the Russians. This is a more complex military, strategic and political issue with many implications.

nickpp 5y ago

Here are Garry Kasparov's suggestions. None of them imply boots on the ground: https://twitter.com/kasparov63/status/1496865471995523080?s=21 https://twitter.com/kasparov63/status/1496865471995523080?s=... Kasparov wrote the book "Winter is Coming" back in 2015.

sebow 5y ago

Ukrainians are definitely not alone.A lot of them are coming here(a EE,NATO/UE country) and other neighboring countries and they're received well: most people in EE naturally dislike russia for obvious reasons. I understand somewhat US not doing much of anything militarily speaking, and it's nothing new: happened before, it's precisely why Putin does it: he dares the west to do something, because (and this is the bigger, more overlooked picture) he knows he's mainly there to play a role: to distract the west from Taiwan, Kazakhstan[people already forgot about this one, it's critical for China's development of the 'Silk road' train route], etc. If sh1t hits the fan, he also knows China backs Putin.That's why also the Chinese are threatening TW lately: the western leadership(Biden, Germany's Scholz,somewhat even Boris & Macron) is weaker right now.

nickpp 5y ago
What if China's future moves in Taiwan are being determined by the Ukrainian outcome? A Russian victory (I think) will show a weakened, divided West and will embolden China.
- sebow 5y ago
  I think china's plans for tw are not necessarily determined by Ukraine, mainly because getting TW hurts the west and empowers China way more.(chips,obviously) It's a reasonable assumption to make and personally I think China wants tw regardless. Hybrid wars that are being started and slowed down : I.e. joggling with your opponent's forces are very dangerous.

alistairSH 5y ago

Assuming "we" is either the US or the entirety of the western world, I'd disagree. Any decision to engage Russia with NATO or NATO-adjacent forces must be lead by the nations of Europe. There are still other sanctions that can be applied. Removal from the Swift network is probably the nuclear option in terms of financial sanctions. But, Germany and Italy (at least), as of yesterday, were opposed because of the likely impact on their own economies.

it_does_follow 5y ago

I'm surprised to see so many moral narratives, like this one, surrounding war start popping up. I thought it was pretty well understood and established that the narratives we tell about war are mostly propaganda/myth making after the fact. War is about resources and control. That's it. There are no "good/bad" guys (or more specifically they're all "bad" guys). We're not participating in some grand moral struggle, we're taking calculated risks to maximizes gains when the opportunity appears and minimize losses when we have no other options. For the last 70 years world power has be set so there was primarily one global hegemon (the US) so there was not much movement on the world stage among powerful nations. Economic strategies remained the safest way to control resources among world powers, but military actions still dominated in cases of extreme power asymmetry. The US has been invading and bombing countries and regions virtually continuously for the last few decades. The resource situation is starting to change, so risks that made no sense suddenly start to seem more reasonable. But absolutely none of what we're seeing now has anything to do with some silly narrative about NATO powers and Russia. Russia has ceased the opportunity of low risk acquisition of resources, NATO powers have worked to minimize their own loses given the risk of any major action is high. As resources grow more scare we'll see increased military conflict. The severity of which will be proportional to the scarcity. None of this will "haunt" anybody, it's just a game to survive which as been fairly easy the last few decades and that is changing.

tablespoon 5y ago
> I thought it was pretty well understood and established that the narratives we tell about war are mostly propaganda/myth making after the fact. I suppose that includes the one you just spent five paragraphs expounding upon? > NATO powers have worked to minimize their own loses given the risk of any major action is high. NATO is avoiding short term losses to risk long term ones.
nickpp 5y ago
Don't you think conflicts and wars also have an ideological/cultural component? Freedom vs dictatorship, communism vs capitalism, democracy vs authoritarianism?
- 5y ago

GoodJokes 5y ago