3 ms·

I bet we’d go “liberate” them.

simonh 5y ago
There's no way NATO or the US would risk direct confrontation with Russian troops. Potentially Nuclear armed Russian troops. Bear in mind Russian military doctrine places the decision on using tactical nuclear weapons with local commanders. The people you would be shooting at and bombing. In any case Russia has many bases in foreign countries, and as far as I can remember there's only ever been a risk of direct conflict over it once, with Cuba, and that was specifically over nuclear missiles, not jut having a military base.
- fock 5y ago
  I recommend you check out info on Syria, where German-armed, NATO-integrated Turkish troops did a little special operation (and failed in a similar way against much worse equipped Kurds/Islamists) and American and Russian special forces stopped their vehicle chases short of blowing each other up. Then also, NATO already risked direct confrontation in Ukraine, sending large training units to a country at war with Russia. As we speak US AWACS is providing early warning across large swaths of western Ukraine and the Black Sea, one wonders if missile sites actually use their early warning radars in the case where they most likely have a notebook with a nice situation log besides their soviet terminals. In this situation I wonder why noone is pushing conspiracy theories around the Moskva sinking (which could still be Ukrainian luck combined with Russian ineptitude) which embed these facts. Apparently this ship was hit at the extent of the Neptunes range. Is it that much of a stretch to think that such thing might have been made much easier, when the ships SatNav was spoofed by a Globalhawk leading it towards shore, while the Ukrainians knew exactly where to look when they flared up their targeting radar?
  - simonh 5y ago
    Ukraine is at war with Russia? Surely not, do you really think this 'special military operation' might escalate that badly? In any case I don't believe there are any NATO troops currently in Ukraine, not officially anyway. Western military aims in Syria are not to change the regime, they're just to support allies and suppress enemies like IS. There is no way US operations in Syria could possible be described as seriously attempting to topple Assad or drive Russia out of the country, that's simply not tenable. As you point out, US and Russian forces, when in the same vicinity, backed off from each other. As Ukraine amply shows when one side, either the west or Russia, heavily commits militarily to a country the other side limits itself to interference operations only. That's been true ever since the Cuban missile crisis. Nobody wants a repeat of that.
fvdessen 5y ago
Russia is doing a log more than 'liberating' them, with intentional targeting of civilians, mass graves, mass deportations & a borderline genocidal rhetoric. The USA did terrible war crimes in the past, but the cynicism about it should not blind us that this war is on an entirely different level in terms of atrocities & bad reason to go to war.

There's no way NATO or the US would risk direct confrontation with Russian troops. Potentially Nuclear armed Russian troops. Bear in mind Russian military doctrine places the decision on using tactical nuclear weapons with local commanders. The people you would be shooting at and bombing. In any case Russia has many bases in foreign countries, and as far as I can remember there's only ever been a risk of direct conflict over it once, with Cuba, and that was specifically over nuclear missiles, not jut having a military base.

fock 5y ago
I recommend you check out info on Syria, where German-armed, NATO-integrated Turkish troops did a little special operation (and failed in a similar way against much worse equipped Kurds/Islamists) and American and Russian special forces stopped their vehicle chases short of blowing each other up. Then also, NATO already risked direct confrontation in Ukraine, sending large training units to a country at war with Russia. As we speak US AWACS is providing early warning across large swaths of western Ukraine and the Black Sea, one wonders if missile sites actually use their early warning radars in the case where they most likely have a notebook with a nice situation log besides their soviet terminals. In this situation I wonder why noone is pushing conspiracy theories around the Moskva sinking (which could still be Ukrainian luck combined with Russian ineptitude) which embed these facts. Apparently this ship was hit at the extent of the Neptunes range. Is it that much of a stretch to think that such thing might have been made much easier, when the ships SatNav was spoofed by a Globalhawk leading it towards shore, while the Ukrainians knew exactly where to look when they flared up their targeting radar?
- simonh 5y ago
  Ukraine is at war with Russia? Surely not, do you really think this 'special military operation' might escalate that badly? In any case I don't believe there are any NATO troops currently in Ukraine, not officially anyway. Western military aims in Syria are not to change the regime, they're just to support allies and suppress enemies like IS. There is no way US operations in Syria could possible be described as seriously attempting to topple Assad or drive Russia out of the country, that's simply not tenable. As you point out, US and Russian forces, when in the same vicinity, backed off from each other. As Ukraine amply shows when one side, either the west or Russia, heavily commits militarily to a country the other side limits itself to interference operations only. That's been true ever since the Cuban missile crisis. Nobody wants a repeat of that.

fvdessen 5y ago

Russia is doing a log more than 'liberating' them, with intentional targeting of civilians, mass graves, mass deportations & a borderline genocidal rhetoric. The USA did terrible war crimes in the past, but the cynicism about it should not blind us that this war is on an entirely different level in terms of atrocities & bad reason to go to war.