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NATO does it's thing in the MAD game... but it's involvement in any European regional conflict can only be problematic or ineffective. Eg. a non-NATO EU army c

NATO does it's thing in the MAD game... but it's involvement in any European regional conflict can only be problematic or ineffective. Eg. a non-NATO EU army could get more involved in Ukraine, and maybe other wars int the Middle East and Africa to, if it weren't tied down to the big heavy NATO that would always go "but muh, can't do that, because global nuclear war".

ericmay 5y ago
The MAD thing really just applies to Russia (China too I guess?). France was in Africa pretty recently as a non-NATO involvement [1]. The United Kingdom faced off against Argentina in the 80s as well [2]. What do you envision a non-NATO EU army would be doing in Ukraine that isn't currently being done? Without the United States backing up the EU wouldn't Russia just threaten EU member states and make them back off? It kind of seems to me that NATO is what's keeping Europe from breaking out into a war outside of just Ukraine. Why wouldn't Russia invade Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia? What would Germany do about it? What if Russia sank France's aircraft carrier? Would they still continue the fight? Not to mention the ability of the U.S. to do logistics to help European countries supply weapons to Ukraine to help them fight. Hell, nobody in Europe believed Russia was going to do it while the United States and United Kingdom were screaming bloody murder about it. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/why-has-france-been-war-decade-west-african-desert-2022-02-17/ https://www.reuters.com/world/why-has-france-been-war-decade... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "The MAD thing really just applies to Russia (China too I guess?)." And North Korea, and soon possibly Iran. It's not clear how much longer the nuclear genie can be kept bottled up. Belarus is already asking for its nukes back from Russia. It's likely that other countries that feel threatened may start pursuing their own nuclear programs now that they see how vulnerable non-nuclear nations are to attack. In the long term, technological advances will concentrate ever more power in the hands of the few, and MAD may start applying to other technologies, not just nukes.
- js8 5y ago
  To the largest extent, MAD applies to Russia and USA, they have by far the most nukes. I am Czech and this war convinced me to be against our membership in NATO, which I think is ill-conceived, for the following reasons: 1. We should have our own defense, both on national and EU, and not rely on USA, who might have different interests, and is not always making us safer. USA might accidentally provoke Russia (their archenemy) or they might decide not to get involved in our defense for political reasons (actually, in democracy, it should be their right), leaving us exposed. 2. NATO causes proliferation of nuclear weapons, by expanding the trigger area, and also stations nukes in countries that don't own them. I favor a complete denuclearization of the world, IMHO MAD is a crazy theory that relies on rationality of people involved too much. 3. European NATO members are at this moment incapable of stronger (military) help to Ukraine, because of the nuclear (MAD) threat. NATO is now actually a reason why we cannot fight Russian invaders the same way Allies did fight against Nazi Germany.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > European NATO members are at this moment incapable of stronger (military) help to Ukraine, because of the nuclear (MAD) threat. NATO is now actually a reason why we cannot fight Russian invaders the same way Allies did fight against Nazi Germany. MAD is only the problem here to the extent one assumes that the US nuclear shield, and MAD, still protects you from nuclear escalation by Russia in the event of nuclear escalation by Russia if you are out of NATO. Otherwise, the problem shifts from MAD to unilateral assured destruction, which is an even bigger constraint on your action against Russia’s whims.
    - js8 5y ago
      No, the hope is, if say, Germany and all the North and Eastern Europe is out of NATO, they would make their own coalition, which would be non-nuclear and could go to war directly, to defend Ukraine better. The MAD not working properly complicates the situation, yes, but then our only other choice is capitulation to Russia. As I said, long-term, I favor complete nuke ban in which NATO is not helping (largely due to lack of US willingness), unfortunately.
jeffjobs4000 5y ago
France has nukes though. So I think you still have the MAD issue. Maybe France doesn't have enough of a stockpile to destroy all humanity 8x over, but not sure how much that changes the game theory.
- catchclose8919 5y ago
  They wouldn't have to share them with an EU army, they could leave them for "national use" only and avoid any possibility of escalation. Now the EU Army being a non-nuclear entity would make anyone using nuclear army against them "the villain" and onward one could easily justify using "all means" (there's stuff there I'd say even nastier than nuclear...) against them, so a "moral" deterrent could work fine in practice (since everyone knows you're technologically capable of developing the really nasty stuff if anything motivates you to...).
  - nradov 5y ago
    Moral deterrents have never worked for long. Which "stuff" is even nastier than nuclear? Chemical weapons aren't very effective against modern militaries. Biological weapons are nearly as dangerous to the user as to the target.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    > They wouldn't have to share them with an EU army, they could leave them for "national use" only and avoid any possibility of escalation That's not true, Macron explicitly stated he's open sharing the responsibility and power of French nuclear power with the EU.
    - catchclose8919 5y ago
      > the responsibility and power probably it's more like sharing "the COST of maintaining and upgrading it" :)) ...EU Army funds would probably be better spend on tech for urban/guerrila warfare + next gen UAVs, eg. stuff you'd actually end up using in a real war! Heck Russia would probably have the military capability to actually win this war cleanly and quickly of they didn't have to invest billions in their strategic weapons that will (hopefully) never be used. If the current world leaders are competent, they are probably only pretending to properly maintain and upgrade strategic WMDs while covertly diverting the funds to other secret operations... If WMDs are actually used, we've all lost anyways, so it probably only makes sense to keep a huuuuuge stash of the cheapest + most destructive and suffering-maximizing stuff around (I imagine some hellish bio thing) for pure revenge end-game.
paganel 5y ago
> Eg. a non-NATO EU army could get more involved in Ukraine, That would trigger a nuclear bomb from Russia, the same as with NATO's involvement. When a nuclear power gets involved (and an EU army would posses nuclear weapons) then we enter the MAD scenario even if we want it or not. Re-labelling the Europe-based part of the NATO forces as "EU Army" I'm afraid won't foul the Russians.
- ISL 5y ago
  A nuclear power is already involved.
  - paganel 5y ago
    I meant a nuclear power (EU, in my example) against another nuclear power (that would be Russia).
- xdennis 5y ago
  > That would trigger a nuclear bomb from Russia There is no reason for Russia to do so. Ukraine is not part of Russia. There already is a precedent for military operations in a country occupied by Russians (when Trump bombed Syria).
  - gpt5 5y ago
    You could claim that Putin was bluffing, but he recently said that if NATO tries to take back crimea, he will use nukes and it will be bad for everyone.
  - _dain_ 5y ago
    The Russians were there at the request of the Syrian government.
  - t-3 5y ago
    Syria is a proxy war that's been ongoing since 2011. Russians were invited in by the government of that country. We are thus supporting the rebels.
- 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
thereddaikon 5y ago
Are you really suggesting that Russia wouldn't be willing to launch nukes if just Europe went to war with it instead of Europe + America? I don't see how that follows.

ericmay 5y ago

The MAD thing really just applies to Russia (China too I guess?). France was in Africa pretty recently as a non-NATO involvement [1]. The United Kingdom faced off against Argentina in the 80s as well [2]. What do you envision a non-NATO EU army would be doing in Ukraine that isn't currently being done? Without the United States backing up the EU wouldn't Russia just threaten EU member states and make them back off? It kind of seems to me that NATO is what's keeping Europe from breaking out into a war outside of just Ukraine. Why wouldn't Russia invade Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia? What would Germany do about it? What if Russia sank France's aircraft carrier? Would they still continue the fight? Not to mention the ability of the U.S. to do logistics to help European countries supply weapons to Ukraine to help them fight. Hell, nobody in Europe believed Russia was going to do it while the United States and United Kingdom were screaming bloody murder about it. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/why-has-france-been-war-decade-west-african-desert-2022-02-17/ https://www.reuters.com/world/why-has-france-been-war-decade... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War

pmoriarty 5y ago
"The MAD thing really just applies to Russia (China too I guess?)." And North Korea, and soon possibly Iran. It's not clear how much longer the nuclear genie can be kept bottled up. Belarus is already asking for its nukes back from Russia. It's likely that other countries that feel threatened may start pursuing their own nuclear programs now that they see how vulnerable non-nuclear nations are to attack. In the long term, technological advances will concentrate ever more power in the hands of the few, and MAD may start applying to other technologies, not just nukes.
js8 5y ago
To the largest extent, MAD applies to Russia and USA, they have by far the most nukes. I am Czech and this war convinced me to be against our membership in NATO, which I think is ill-conceived, for the following reasons: 1. We should have our own defense, both on national and EU, and not rely on USA, who might have different interests, and is not always making us safer. USA might accidentally provoke Russia (their archenemy) or they might decide not to get involved in our defense for political reasons (actually, in democracy, it should be their right), leaving us exposed. 2. NATO causes proliferation of nuclear weapons, by expanding the trigger area, and also stations nukes in countries that don't own them. I favor a complete denuclearization of the world, IMHO MAD is a crazy theory that relies on rationality of people involved too much. 3. European NATO members are at this moment incapable of stronger (military) help to Ukraine, because of the nuclear (MAD) threat. NATO is now actually a reason why we cannot fight Russian invaders the same way Allies did fight against Nazi Germany.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > European NATO members are at this moment incapable of stronger (military) help to Ukraine, because of the nuclear (MAD) threat. NATO is now actually a reason why we cannot fight Russian invaders the same way Allies did fight against Nazi Germany. MAD is only the problem here to the extent one assumes that the US nuclear shield, and MAD, still protects you from nuclear escalation by Russia in the event of nuclear escalation by Russia if you are out of NATO. Otherwise, the problem shifts from MAD to unilateral assured destruction, which is an even bigger constraint on your action against Russia’s whims.
  - js8 5y ago
    No, the hope is, if say, Germany and all the North and Eastern Europe is out of NATO, they would make their own coalition, which would be non-nuclear and could go to war directly, to defend Ukraine better. The MAD not working properly complicates the situation, yes, but then our only other choice is capitulation to Russia. As I said, long-term, I favor complete nuke ban in which NATO is not helping (largely due to lack of US willingness), unfortunately.

jeffjobs4000 5y ago

France has nukes though. So I think you still have the MAD issue. Maybe France doesn't have enough of a stockpile to destroy all humanity 8x over, but not sure how much that changes the game theory.

catchclose8919 5y ago
They wouldn't have to share them with an EU army, they could leave them for "national use" only and avoid any possibility of escalation. Now the EU Army being a non-nuclear entity would make anyone using nuclear army against them "the villain" and onward one could easily justify using "all means" (there's stuff there I'd say even nastier than nuclear...) against them, so a "moral" deterrent could work fine in practice (since everyone knows you're technologically capable of developing the really nasty stuff if anything motivates you to...).
- nradov 5y ago
  Moral deterrents have never worked for long. Which "stuff" is even nastier than nuclear? Chemical weapons aren't very effective against modern militaries. Biological weapons are nearly as dangerous to the user as to the target.
- sofixa 5y ago
  > They wouldn't have to share them with an EU army, they could leave them for "national use" only and avoid any possibility of escalation That's not true, Macron explicitly stated he's open sharing the responsibility and power of French nuclear power with the EU.
  - catchclose8919 5y ago
    > the responsibility and power probably it's more like sharing "the COST of maintaining and upgrading it" :)) ...EU Army funds would probably be better spend on tech for urban/guerrila warfare + next gen UAVs, eg. stuff you'd actually end up using in a real war! Heck Russia would probably have the military capability to actually win this war cleanly and quickly of they didn't have to invest billions in their strategic weapons that will (hopefully) never be used. If the current world leaders are competent, they are probably only pretending to properly maintain and upgrade strategic WMDs while covertly diverting the funds to other secret operations... If WMDs are actually used, we've all lost anyways, so it probably only makes sense to keep a huuuuuge stash of the cheapest + most destructive and suffering-maximizing stuff around (I imagine some hellish bio thing) for pure revenge end-game.

paganel 5y ago

> Eg. a non-NATO EU army could get more involved in Ukraine, That would trigger a nuclear bomb from Russia, the same as with NATO's involvement. When a nuclear power gets involved (and an EU army would posses nuclear weapons) then we enter the MAD scenario even if we want it or not. Re-labelling the Europe-based part of the NATO forces as "EU Army" I'm afraid won't foul the Russians.

ISL 5y ago
A nuclear power is already involved.
- paganel 5y ago
  I meant a nuclear power (EU, in my example) against another nuclear power (that would be Russia).
xdennis 5y ago
> That would trigger a nuclear bomb from Russia There is no reason for Russia to do so. Ukraine is not part of Russia. There already is a precedent for military operations in a country occupied by Russians (when Trump bombed Syria).
- gpt5 5y ago
  You could claim that Putin was bluffing, but he recently said that if NATO tries to take back crimea, he will use nukes and it will be bad for everyone.
- _dain_ 5y ago
  The Russians were there at the request of the Syrian government.
- t-3 5y ago
  Syria is a proxy war that's been ongoing since 2011. Russians were invited in by the government of that country. We are thus supporting the rebels.
5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

thereddaikon 5y ago

Are you really suggesting that Russia wouldn't be willing to launch nukes if just Europe went to war with it instead of Europe + America? I don't see how that follows.