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I think he's bluffing with the nukes. He knows that if he launched one, 3-4 other countries would launch theirs at him. It's also been made exceedingly clear th

• seanw444 5y ago
  China doesn't want to get involved in Europe, but Taiwan is sure looking tasty right now for them. They've been wanting it for decades, and now the world is preoccupied with Europe.
  • warent 5y ago
    China needs Russia's support vs. Taiwan. It seems like this is would be a horrible time to try something
    • Koshkin 5y ago
      > China needs Russia's support When Russia gets kicked out of UN, they won’t.
  • rootusrootus 5y ago
    AFAIK China lacks sufficient military resources to actually take Taiwan. You can't just drive tanks and people across the strait.
    • deleted 5y ago
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  • scottLobster 5y ago
    I'm sorry, when did the US Navy withdraw from SE Asia? Plus right now the US is making a show of strength against invasions by authoritarian dictators, and Biden has stated that we have "obligations" to Taiwan, although he was intentionally vague he basically said the silent part out loud. It would be political suicide to not respond to a Chinese invasion, and we could respond quite decisively from a military perspective. China will wait for a more opportune moment.
    • threatofrain 5y ago
      I'm not sure it would be political suicide, since although Taiwan is becoming more popular with Americans, does that translate to a stomach for WW3?
      • scottLobster 5y ago
        Americans in general are stubborn to a fault and full of ourselves internationally. It would be less altruism to save Taiwan and more "fuck China". The sanctions on Russia are predicted to make gasoline prices soar, especially on the West Coast, and it's anecdotal but the conversations I'm hearing are less polite versions of "fine, I'm willing to pay a little more at the pump to stick it to Putin". Although I'm not on the west coast I'd agree with the sentiment. Then you have Republicans, right now they're deriding Biden for going soft on Putin and blaming him for this crisis (not sure how many are buying it outside of Trump's base, but that's the line). So going soft on a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would play right into that message. No way Biden could do it for that reason alone, let alone the myriad of other motivations.
        • seanw444 5y ago
          It's not a "fuck China" thing. It would be a severe short-term tactical blunder to lose Taiwan, not even considering the moral perspective. Modern military cannot function without semiconductors. And yes, we could (and are starting to) move those facilities to the US, but that takes a lot of time to complete. Not only to complete, but to get up to speed and running efficiently. If Taiwan is lost, our enemies bolster their semiconductor supply, and we lose the majority of ours.
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • nly 5y ago
    Tawain is being handed back anyway. China is patient
• mongol 5y ago
  Also, while this conflict seems to be about Russia vs the west / NATO, other influencial parts of the world have absolutely no interest in a nuclear exchange. China for example. What roles are they currently playing? Can they moderate Putin's temper? And Saudi Arabia? India? And so forth. He must have powerful allies that can bring him down from his own paranoia and delusions. Time for some geopolitical therapy sessions for him.
  • brundolf 5y ago
    Yeah. To be honest I think the greatest risk to the rest of the world - if there is a risk - would be Putin acting irrationally (due to temper, or mental health, or desperation). I see no remotely rational course that could lead him to launch nukes or to move troops past Ukraine. As an aside, I'm really very glad this didn't happen a couple years ago when we had our own mad-man with the launch codes.
    • jacquesm 5y ago
      He's been acting quite irrationally already in the recent past. > As an aside, I'm really very glad this didn't happen a couple years ago when we had our own mad-man with the launch codes. Weirdly enough: the risk of spillover would be lower, the danger to Ukraine much higher. But that is also why we are where we are today: without Trump undermining the whole situation in Ukraine would be quite different and Putin would not have embarked on this thing in the first place.
      • radford-neal 5y ago
        "without Trump undermining..." What are you talking about? There was the controversy about his talk with Zelenski of course, but the end result is described here: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-admin-approves-sale-anti-tank-weapons-ukraine/story?id=65989898 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-admin-approves-sale-an... And delay in sending weapons to Ukraine is not unknown for the Biden administration: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/18/white-house-ukraine-military-lethal-weapons-495169 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/18/white-house-ukraine... So maybe your point is that sending weapons to Ukraine was a bad idea that just annoyed Putin, and that's why it's Trump's fault? Looking at broader economic issues, how could you possibly think that Trump's support for energy development in the West helped Russia, which relies on high oil prices to support its economy, as compared to Biden's shutting down of energy development?
• mdoms 5y ago
  > He knows that if he launched one, 3-4 other countries would launch theirs at him. Would they, though? And even if we take it as given that they would, do we believe that he believes that? The West, and especially USA, has made a number of empty threats over the past couple of decades it's not hard to see why he may not consider this one credible.
• c7DJTLrn 5y ago
  You can't reason with a madman. There are rumours that Putin has a terminal illness and is trying to finish what he started while he can. If he doesn't get what he wants, who knows what he's capable of. I said he was bluffing when amassing troops on the border and I was totally wrong. I'm also not convinced that his forces in Ukraine are failing. I hope they are. But it's more likely Russia is only sending in the bare minimum they think will be necessary to minimise losses. They might have underestimated but Russia can win if they're playing the long game.
  • mongol 5y ago
    He has children. Does he not care about them? They are adults, perhaps he has grandchildren even. Is he really so deranged that he is willing to give up the world? I don't know. It is very puzzling.
    • cedws 5y ago
      Who knows, maybe he doesn't. Psychopaths have children. Maybe he will find himself backed into a corner and will want to go out with a bang so he at least goes into the history books. Megalomania is not to be underestimated. Getting some flak for my OP. Not sure why, did I say something controversial?
    • jacquesm 5y ago
      Narcissists don't really care about other people. They only care about themselves. Think 'Jim Jones', not 'Elder statesman with children'.
    • nate_meurer 5y ago
      Stalin had a wife and kids, and there were times he appeared to care about them, such as his efforts to keep Beria away from his young daughter. But otherwise, Stalin clearly cared nothing for human life in general. He stopped the Great Purge of his own people in 1937 only after it became clear that it was starting to drag down the economy. Putin has given no indication that he's any different from Stalin in this regard.
• firebaze 5y ago
  He's bluffing with Crimea. Oh wait! He's bluffing with separatist regions. Oh wait! He's bluffing with invading Ukraine. Oh wait! He's bluffing with actual war. Oh wait! ... TL;DR: Putin thinks a nuclear war is winnable. https://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war https://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war NB: do you really think Putin cares how you feel?
  • scottLobster 5y ago
    Nuclear war is a HUGE step up from any of the previous steps. Like you could build a binary system based on those principles, with Nuclear War being 1 and the rest being noise that's equivalent to 0. The only way he'd entertain it is if he's truly lost his marbles, and if that's the case then this timeline just got a whole lot shittier regardless of whether we capitulate to the madman with the nukes or not. I sincerely doubt western institutions are going to show their bellies because of Putin's nuclear threats, so we'll see if he's bluffing one way or another.
    • firebaze 5y ago
      Go for it. I took care of my family, ~50miles away from the next big city, rivers, farmland and enough supplies around us. I'd rather laugh on my stupidity later on.
      • altdataseller 5y ago
        Sorry, but unless you got a deep bunker with years of supplies, you probably won't survive a large scale nuclear war.
    • hrunt 5y ago
      You are assuming a rational actor. Putin may not be a rational actor.
      • selfhoster11 5y ago
        That's normally my comment. For those that still insist that Putin is rational, there's one way to model his current behaviour: his utility function prioritises "make Russia great again", or at the very least, geopolitical concerns. He's willing to take whatever hit he needs to take, whether economically or in the lives of soldiers and civilians, to achieve this goal.
• GameOfFrowns 5y ago
  >I think he's bluffing with the nukes. I read this a lot but I also read some historical analysis about the Cuban Missile Crisis that a lot of the escalation stemmed from a fundamental misunderstanding about their opponent's strategy. It might be a huge oversimplification but it goes something like this: Americans are playing poker (with all its specific tactics like bluffing) and are judging their opponents based on that, while Russians are playing chess and therefore assume "the bluff" is in fact their opponent's next escalation move.
  • jacquesm 5y ago
    At that time the Russians had more sane leaders.
    • ch4s3 5y ago
      Not really, the whole security apparatus was run be insanely paranoid men who were convinced that capitalist imperialist forces were secretly plotting to destroy the Soviet Union despite never finding real evidence of such a plot.
• mach1ne 5y ago
  Launching a nuke to Kiev in the current situation is very much within the realm of possibilities, if unlikely. No other country would intervene with military force even if they did, because nobody wants a two-sided nuclear war.
  • firebaze 5y ago
    The next move will be a tactical nuke. Maybe targeting the black sea, any target not causing real casualties.
    • tamaharbor 5y ago
      Just the radioactive fallout.
      • throwaway6532 5y ago
        They can do a clean detonation if they detonate high enough in the atmosphere for the blast to not kick up and irradiate any dust. For a while now I've been convinced that a show of force like this is part of his plan in order to force a change in the calculus of his adversaries and get them on the back foot.
  • jacquesm 5y ago
    > No other country would intervene with military force even if they did, because nobody wants a two-sided nuclear war. That is a serious underestimation.
    • mach1ne 5y ago
      No, it's a fact. The West is not going to risk the Apocalypse for Ukraine. Unless Russia directly attacks a NATO country, there is practically nothing they can do to trigger a war between NATO and Russia.
      • password54321 5y ago
• password54321 5y ago
  I think being optimistic in this situation is actually harmful. It really is worth considering looking for a shelter because Putin has already proven with this war he does not care about anyone's life from any side. And if he is to lose this, to him it may even be as good as being dead. The optimism reminds me of the time we first found out about the Coronavirus and we went on with our head in the sand until it hit hard.
• dzhiurgis 5y ago
  What would be the tell tales of actual nuclear war? Surely he'd go then for baltics, USA, whole of europe. He'd also place his military in predictable locations to have best chances of protecting Russia after - something that is easily tracked via sats.