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Putin threatens nuclear war whenever he wants something. Nobody believes it. You think Putin will commit suicide - both for himself and his people - over Ukrain

Putin threatens nuclear war whenever he wants something. Nobody believes it. You think Putin will commit suicide - both for himself and his people - over Ukraine, which by now quite obviously doesn't want him, even to his own citizens?

lazide 5y ago
You assume too much about Russia and Putin. Historically, the wests lack of understanding of motives and hard lines for Russia has almost caused several nuclear annihilation events. People sometimes have hard lines that are surprising, and will cause them to do things that no rational person would do. Militaries and organizations do too. War causes confusion, stress, anxiety, etc. which magnifies everything. It doesn’t require ‘sane putin’ to push a button for someone somewhere to THINK it makes sense for him to and push the button in their exhausted and freaked out state of mind. Putin didn’t start this invasion because he was bored. Dictators generally do things because their internal power base demands something, but that is rarely visible to us, so we don’t know if a series of hardliner generals need this, or the base of paranoid hardline folks is getting angsty and he knows if he doesn’t appease them he is in trouble. Near as I can tell, the senior leadership has already seen the writing on the wall re:getting frozen out of the west (sanctions and other stuff), and is seizing Ukraine for it’s strategic importance to Russia - food, energy, year round port, buffer against a land invasion to Moscow. They probably see this as now or never. We don’t know how desperate the leadership or Putin may be. Ukraine, like Poland has historically been caught in the middle of these kinds of things, which sucks. it also isn’t their first time.
- mda 5y ago
  Well, honestly this is another no man no problem situation, solution is clear..
- stickfigure 5y ago
  I appreciate your perspective. Yet, the west is playing the same game that Putin is - what line is too far to cross? The west has already armed and continues to supply Ukraine, which is probably part of the reason Putin's assault is struggling. I'm sure the west is also supplying satellite and other intelligence to Kyiv. So the "intervene and I nuke you" line has already been crossed, depending on your definition of "intervene". AFAICT nobody is suggesting putting troops on the ground in Russia. Nobody in the west has any desire to conquer Russian territory. There's a big spectrum between "stand back and watch" and "march troops to Moscow". Obviously "supply Ukraine" is already in progress. "Bomb Russian logistics convoys in Ukraine" could be too. Hell, the west doesn't even have to admit it. "We have no idea why your tanks are flaming wrecks, maybe their car warranty has expired?"
  - quattrofan 5y ago
  - samstave 5y ago
    What I am super intrigued to know ; What is the state of Cyber Warfare (True State) that is occurring? Will there be any major infra attacks? On who, by whom? The anon thing is cool and all - but many suspect that is intelligence agencies masquerading, but who knows about that.. I just hope this thing cools down and fast...
    - stickfigure 5y ago
      I'll go out on a limb and call that cyberattacks prove to have zero benefit other than emotional catharsis. They will have no effect in the outcome of this war.
      - ninkendo 5y ago
        https://xkcd.com/932/ https://xkcd.com/932/
  - cozzyd 5y ago
    With drones, it's hard to know who's even doing the flying...
  - lazide 5y ago
    The way a lot of the western news is tilted, the ‘madman with nukes’ line is pretty clear. If Russia hits a nuclear waste storage depot (oops, already happened), or hints at using nukes (well, moving them to Belarus, that already happened) - when does it seem to make sense to ‘intervene’ by marching troops to Moscow? Many folks on the internet clearly already are. It’s easy for that to get way out of control, very very quickly.
    - stickfigure 5y ago
      > It’s easy for that to get way out of control, very very quickly. I generally agree, but there are emotional limits to this kind of thing. Americans have historically been very willing to commit airplanes and bombs to righteous causes, but marching to Moscow would be a very different matter. I assume the same thing is happening with Russia's conscripts: "Why the fuck are we doing this?"
- samstave 5y ago
  Completely agree ; Personally, I think this was all about Odessa, and really Putin's plan was to seize the eastern territory along with Odessa, as truly he is after the port, and believed that he could turn immediately to negotiations and "peace" so long as he keeps Odessa (the Crimea playbook) and it COMPLETELY backfired on him... Which I think ties to my other theory ; What if the reason it is backfiring in such a spectacular way, is that, perhaps, Putin was not playing along with the WEF great reset agenda. While Putin was planning the Crimean Copy for grabbing Odessa, the NWO took this as the opportunity to knock him out of the way?
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    If Putin wanted Odessa, he and his military leadership didn't design the offensive to support that goal. IMHO, that was never in the cards, because an effective amphibious assault would have required obscene and internationally-outrageous damage to civilians and shipping. Or unexpectedly optimistic progress on the Crimean front, which by its positioning needed to fight north and east. Odessa would have added west.
- hansthehorse 5y ago
  I expect a negotiated peace where the world gives away the eastern third of Ukraine and the west goes home patting themselves on the back but Ukraine is left with losing Crimea and it's eastern third. It's then just a matter of time before we repeat this whole mess and Ukraine is chipped away at until it's gone.
  - patentatt 5y ago
    Not a Russian apologist here, but is that the worst outcome? It does appear that there is some separatist movement in the disputed territories, right? In the spirit of self-determination, why shouldn't they be allowed to cleave off and join Russia? These borders are less than 30 years old, it's not inconceivable that there could be adjustments, right? Just trying to think of a way out of this mess with the fewest casualties.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      > is that the worst outcome? Yes. History has shown that you need to stop conquerers at the earliest opportunity. Famously, both Western Europe and Russia made deals with Hitler, thinking they had bought peace. > Not a Russian apologist here, but is that the worst outcome? It does appear that there is some separatist movement in the disputed territories, right? In the spirit of self-determination, why shouldn't they be allowed to cleave off and join Russia? These borders are less than 30 years old, it's not inconceivable that there could be adjustments, right? Those are some of the Russian talking points, FWIW. It has nothing to with such movements; Russia just uses them (and creates them to a large extent) as excuses to invade - following the exact tactics of many conquerers throughout history: 'We have people living across the border!' Many Americans live in the north of Mexico, and many Mexicans live in southwestern US. We could do the same with every border in the world, just about. And then there are the Russians living in the rest of Europe, who no doubt need protection. What about Cyprus and London? If they didn't (create and) use those excuses, they'd create and use others. > why shouldn't they be allowed to cleave off and join Russia? We have no evidence that it's desired. But most of all, countries aren't smartphone brands - 'I'm tired of Apple, I'm switching to Samsung!' There's a reason that you ever (hardly ever?) hear of such a thing happening. We already have neighboring conquerers using the excuse described above; now we give a big carrot to neighbors fomenting rebellions. And the chaos of international borders changing, with all the geopolitical issues and crises involved. The clearly better solution would be people moving themselves to the other country.
- clusterfish 5y ago
  > seizing Ukraine for it’s strategic importance to Russia - food, energy, year round port, buffer against a land invasion to Moscow. Wow, that's literally the worst take I've heard on this. - Russia has food to spare, exports tons of wheat, and has declining population - Russia produces tons of energy and exports tons of oil and gas - Russia already has several year round ports in the Black Sea. You think upgrading one of them to whatever they wanted is more expensive than waging fucking war? - How much of a speed bump do you think a "demilitarized and neutral" Ukraine would be to forces that are doing a land invasion on the largest nuclear power? Also, Baltics are already in NATO, and the drive from there to Moscow is same distance on similarly flat terrain. Also, Finland and Sweden might join NATO too now thanks to this war. Also, nobody is ever doing a land invasion on a nuclear Russia. If the nukes didn't even assure that, nobody would keep spending billions on maintaining them.
  - kavalg 5y ago
    It is not only about what you have, but also about what you don't want your foe/customer to have. Lots of natural gas was discovered in Ukraine around 2011-2016. Donbass is famous for its coal mining too and you should also consider the numerous NPPs that provide about half of Ukraine's electricity. Imagine all these assets in the hands of US/EU companies. Now that sounds like becoming less energy dependent from Russia. You should inquire about some of the reasons for Syrian war too. It all looks like a big blatant chess game and you will be very lucky if you are just a spectator. Btw current mainstream media reporting from both sides is mostly useless.
hnaccount_rng 5y ago
You assume, that suicide and loosing are two different things for Putin. There is no retirement option for him though!
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  Putin can't do much if other people aren't convinced that their least-bad course of action is following him. You seem him calling on the Ukraine military to overthrow the government (which is probably not a great sign of how well his “demilitarize Ukraine” operation is going)? That option isn't available on only one side of the conflict.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  I had this conversation the other day, but my friend did make a good point in that he could seek asylum and retire. He knows the day he steps down and stays in Russia though that he is a dead man walking. He has too many enemies to stay alive very long.
  - lazide 5y ago
    Asylum where? If anything, Russia is probably safer than most other countries.
  - shrimpx 5y ago
    Maybe he could grow a mustache and buy a coffee farm in South America. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(World_War_II_aftermath) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(World_War_II_after...
stjohnswarts 5y ago
What if Putin has a brain tumor and doesn't care any more? or is truly turned psychotic like Hitler?
- lazide 5y ago
  That depends on how likely the next couple layers below him are to recognize it, and think that ignoring him is better than not. I don’t know how that would shake out.

lazide 5y ago

You assume too much about Russia and Putin. Historically, the wests lack of understanding of motives and hard lines for Russia has almost caused several nuclear annihilation events. People sometimes have hard lines that are surprising, and will cause them to do things that no rational person would do. Militaries and organizations do too. War causes confusion, stress, anxiety, etc. which magnifies everything. It doesn’t require ‘sane putin’ to push a button for someone somewhere to THINK it makes sense for him to and push the button in their exhausted and freaked out state of mind. Putin didn’t start this invasion because he was bored. Dictators generally do things because their internal power base demands something, but that is rarely visible to us, so we don’t know if a series of hardliner generals need this, or the base of paranoid hardline folks is getting angsty and he knows if he doesn’t appease them he is in trouble. Near as I can tell, the senior leadership has already seen the writing on the wall re:getting frozen out of the west (sanctions and other stuff), and is seizing Ukraine for it’s strategic importance to Russia - food, energy, year round port, buffer against a land invasion to Moscow. They probably see this as now or never. We don’t know how desperate the leadership or Putin may be. Ukraine, like Poland has historically been caught in the middle of these kinds of things, which sucks. it also isn’t their first time.

mda 5y ago
Well, honestly this is another no man no problem situation, solution is clear..
stickfigure 5y ago
I appreciate your perspective. Yet, the west is playing the same game that Putin is - what line is too far to cross? The west has already armed and continues to supply Ukraine, which is probably part of the reason Putin's assault is struggling. I'm sure the west is also supplying satellite and other intelligence to Kyiv. So the "intervene and I nuke you" line has already been crossed, depending on your definition of "intervene". AFAICT nobody is suggesting putting troops on the ground in Russia. Nobody in the west has any desire to conquer Russian territory. There's a big spectrum between "stand back and watch" and "march troops to Moscow". Obviously "supply Ukraine" is already in progress. "Bomb Russian logistics convoys in Ukraine" could be too. Hell, the west doesn't even have to admit it. "We have no idea why your tanks are flaming wrecks, maybe their car warranty has expired?"
- quattrofan 5y ago
- samstave 5y ago
  What I am super intrigued to know ; What is the state of Cyber Warfare (True State) that is occurring? Will there be any major infra attacks? On who, by whom? The anon thing is cool and all - but many suspect that is intelligence agencies masquerading, but who knows about that.. I just hope this thing cools down and fast...
  - stickfigure 5y ago
    I'll go out on a limb and call that cyberattacks prove to have zero benefit other than emotional catharsis. They will have no effect in the outcome of this war.
    - ninkendo 5y ago
      https://xkcd.com/932/ https://xkcd.com/932/
- cozzyd 5y ago
  With drones, it's hard to know who's even doing the flying...
- lazide 5y ago
  The way a lot of the western news is tilted, the ‘madman with nukes’ line is pretty clear. If Russia hits a nuclear waste storage depot (oops, already happened), or hints at using nukes (well, moving them to Belarus, that already happened) - when does it seem to make sense to ‘intervene’ by marching troops to Moscow? Many folks on the internet clearly already are. It’s easy for that to get way out of control, very very quickly.
  - stickfigure 5y ago
    > It’s easy for that to get way out of control, very very quickly. I generally agree, but there are emotional limits to this kind of thing. Americans have historically been very willing to commit airplanes and bombs to righteous causes, but marching to Moscow would be a very different matter. I assume the same thing is happening with Russia's conscripts: "Why the fuck are we doing this?"
samstave 5y ago
Completely agree ; Personally, I think this was all about Odessa, and really Putin's plan was to seize the eastern territory along with Odessa, as truly he is after the port, and believed that he could turn immediately to negotiations and "peace" so long as he keeps Odessa (the Crimea playbook) and it COMPLETELY backfired on him... Which I think ties to my other theory ; What if the reason it is backfiring in such a spectacular way, is that, perhaps, Putin was not playing along with the WEF great reset agenda. While Putin was planning the Crimean Copy for grabbing Odessa, the NWO took this as the opportunity to knock him out of the way?
- ethbr0 5y ago
  If Putin wanted Odessa, he and his military leadership didn't design the offensive to support that goal. IMHO, that was never in the cards, because an effective amphibious assault would have required obscene and internationally-outrageous damage to civilians and shipping. Or unexpectedly optimistic progress on the Crimean front, which by its positioning needed to fight north and east. Odessa would have added west.
hansthehorse 5y ago
I expect a negotiated peace where the world gives away the eastern third of Ukraine and the west goes home patting themselves on the back but Ukraine is left with losing Crimea and it's eastern third. It's then just a matter of time before we repeat this whole mess and Ukraine is chipped away at until it's gone.
- patentatt 5y ago
  Not a Russian apologist here, but is that the worst outcome? It does appear that there is some separatist movement in the disputed territories, right? In the spirit of self-determination, why shouldn't they be allowed to cleave off and join Russia? These borders are less than 30 years old, it's not inconceivable that there could be adjustments, right? Just trying to think of a way out of this mess with the fewest casualties.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    > is that the worst outcome? Yes. History has shown that you need to stop conquerers at the earliest opportunity. Famously, both Western Europe and Russia made deals with Hitler, thinking they had bought peace. > Not a Russian apologist here, but is that the worst outcome? It does appear that there is some separatist movement in the disputed territories, right? In the spirit of self-determination, why shouldn't they be allowed to cleave off and join Russia? These borders are less than 30 years old, it's not inconceivable that there could be adjustments, right? Those are some of the Russian talking points, FWIW. It has nothing to with such movements; Russia just uses them (and creates them to a large extent) as excuses to invade - following the exact tactics of many conquerers throughout history: 'We have people living across the border!' Many Americans live in the north of Mexico, and many Mexicans live in southwestern US. We could do the same with every border in the world, just about. And then there are the Russians living in the rest of Europe, who no doubt need protection. What about Cyprus and London? If they didn't (create and) use those excuses, they'd create and use others. > why shouldn't they be allowed to cleave off and join Russia? We have no evidence that it's desired. But most of all, countries aren't smartphone brands - 'I'm tired of Apple, I'm switching to Samsung!' There's a reason that you ever (hardly ever?) hear of such a thing happening. We already have neighboring conquerers using the excuse described above; now we give a big carrot to neighbors fomenting rebellions. And the chaos of international borders changing, with all the geopolitical issues and crises involved. The clearly better solution would be people moving themselves to the other country.
clusterfish 5y ago
> seizing Ukraine for it’s strategic importance to Russia - food, energy, year round port, buffer against a land invasion to Moscow. Wow, that's literally the worst take I've heard on this. - Russia has food to spare, exports tons of wheat, and has declining population - Russia produces tons of energy and exports tons of oil and gas - Russia already has several year round ports in the Black Sea. You think upgrading one of them to whatever they wanted is more expensive than waging fucking war? - How much of a speed bump do you think a "demilitarized and neutral" Ukraine would be to forces that are doing a land invasion on the largest nuclear power? Also, Baltics are already in NATO, and the drive from there to Moscow is same distance on similarly flat terrain. Also, Finland and Sweden might join NATO too now thanks to this war. Also, nobody is ever doing a land invasion on a nuclear Russia. If the nukes didn't even assure that, nobody would keep spending billions on maintaining them.
- kavalg 5y ago
  It is not only about what you have, but also about what you don't want your foe/customer to have. Lots of natural gas was discovered in Ukraine around 2011-2016. Donbass is famous for its coal mining too and you should also consider the numerous NPPs that provide about half of Ukraine's electricity. Imagine all these assets in the hands of US/EU companies. Now that sounds like becoming less energy dependent from Russia. You should inquire about some of the reasons for Syrian war too. It all looks like a big blatant chess game and you will be very lucky if you are just a spectator. Btw current mainstream media reporting from both sides is mostly useless.

hnaccount_rng 5y ago

You assume, that suicide and loosing are two different things for Putin. There is no retirement option for him though!

dragonwriter 5y ago
Putin can't do much if other people aren't convinced that their least-bad course of action is following him. You seem him calling on the Ukraine military to overthrow the government (which is probably not a great sign of how well his “demilitarize Ukraine” operation is going)? That option isn't available on only one side of the conflict.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
I had this conversation the other day, but my friend did make a good point in that he could seek asylum and retire. He knows the day he steps down and stays in Russia though that he is a dead man walking. He has too many enemies to stay alive very long.
- lazide 5y ago
  Asylum where? If anything, Russia is probably safer than most other countries.
- shrimpx 5y ago
  Maybe he could grow a mustache and buy a coffee farm in South America. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(World_War_II_aftermath) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(World_War_II_after...

stjohnswarts 5y ago

What if Putin has a brain tumor and doesn't care any more? or is truly turned psychotic like Hitler?

lazide 5y ago
That depends on how likely the next couple layers below him are to recognize it, and think that ignoring him is better than not. I don’t know how that would shake out.