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Attempts to meet this expansion with appeasement will end in WW3. A forceful response (something akin to what's happening now, only more and faster) can foresta

Attempts to meet this expansion with appeasement will end in WW3. A forceful response (something akin to what's happening now, only more and faster) can forestall it by ensuring Russia loses. It has to lose, and it has to be unequivocally seen to lose, for this fascist fantasy to end. I'm a fluent Russian speaker and sometimes I watch a few Russian nightly "talk-shows", start to finish, to get a feel for how Putin's propaganda machine is changing over time. Well, since February, it's been in such overdrive, pumping Russians full of vicious hatred of all things "Western" and delusions of grandeur, that I honestly think it's possible for the regime to lose control. They are convincing the riff-raff that they're about to take on NATO and win. Maybe they don't have intentions of starting WW3, but what if Putin is offed or dies suddenly and the populace, driven to such jingoist frenzy that it lost all sense of reality and actually believes they can take on NATO and win, puts an even more evil and reckless "rebuilder of empire" on the throne? Even authoritarian dictatorships are affected by the mood of the mob.

lupire 4y ago
What is the difference between a forceful response (Russia vs the world) and WWIII?
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  The difference is not engaging in the fight openly, but otherwise giving Ukraine everything it needs to fight. e.g. what the Soviets did in Vietnam (which is even more than what the West is doing for Ukraine right now).
- hedora 4y ago
  I'm surprised they haven't seen core infrastructure within Russia collapse due to "independent" actors. (E.g., power grid shutdowns in Moscow; refineries venting poison gas into populated areas; perfectly timed forest fires; pretty much everything the DHS says would be trivial for terrorists to do in the US.)
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > I'm surprised they haven't seen core infrastructure within Russia collapse due to "independent" actors In the first couple months of the war, there were lots of explosions/fires at major Russia industrial or infrastructure sites that got reported; I’ve seen fewer reports recently, but I don't know if it is happening less or Russia has clamped down on the news more effectively.
  - Siddarth1977 4y ago
    One aspect of that which is a bit apples to oranges, is that the US is both incredibly easy for foreigners to enter and travel throughout, as well as being diverse enough that such travel wouldn't raise any eyebrows. At any given moment there are a million foreign people freely traveling around the US- some on vacation, some visiting family, some for school, some for work, some for medical treatment, etc. It's relatively trivial for a nefarious organization to find a person who speaks English and can legally enter the US. For Russia (among other places) none of this is true. Visas to enter the country are harder to acquire, movement within the country on such a visa is still constrained, a smaller number of foreigners means easier for intelligence to monitor, and far fewer people have the language skills or physical characteristics to blend into the local populace.
    - hedora 4y ago
      There are many ethnic Ukranians living in Russia. I have no idea how closely they're surveiled, how many of the "troublemakers" moved to Ukraine decades ago, etc.
  - kspacewalk2 4y ago
    I don't think the US is going to engage in this, even indirectly via Ukraine, because this does have some potential to escalate to WW3. And it's hard to see how it'll substantially help Ukraine without killing scores of Russian civilians. >refineries venting poison gas into populated areas Hard to think of a better way to become the villain in the story. This has not occurred, but not necessarily because the means of making it happen aren't there.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  A second front
ASalazarMX 4y ago
> but what if Putin is offed or dies suddenly and the populace, driven to such jingoist frenzy that it lost all sense of reality and actually believes they can take on NATO and win, puts an even more evil and reckless "rebuilder of empire" on the throne? That seems like a job for the Russian propaganda machine. Just as they manipulated malleable minds towards one idea, they can do it towards another: "We were never at war with NATO".
dragonwriter 4y ago
> > This expansion will only end with WW3. > Attempts to meet this expansion with appeasement will end in WW3. Or, perhaps, this war already is WW3, the question is how it ends, not whether it starts. (Yeah, most of the big powers aren't openly directly engaged, just supporting one of the belligerents with military and economic aid and intelligence and sanctions on the opposing belligerent. But that's a choice of how to fight the war, and that's been made very clear—the US explicitly invoking lend-lease in naming it's aid bill for Ukraine couldn't be a more pointed declaration of how it sees the situation.)
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  It absolutely is. People often forget how the abrupt action at the beginning of WW2 then subsided into an uncomfortable but relatively quiet new status quo for a good 8 months, with only minor skirmishes around the margins until Hitler moved against France and the low countries. Movies and TV mostly emphasize the kinetic and chaotic action of pitched battles, but through 1939-40 the public in multiple allied nations were perplexed by the idea of a conflict where nothing much seemed to be happening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War#Terminology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War#Terminology
  - kspacewalk2 4y ago
    It is nothing like Phoney War. Plenty of action involving Britain and France took place - Saarland campaign, invasion of Norway, etc. That was obviously a war that hasn't reached its deadliest phase. This, on the other hand, is not a war in which NATO is anything like a belligerent.
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  Why wasn't Vietnam "already WW3" then? The USSR was doing a lot more to help the North Vietnamese, without all the navel-gazing about the dangers of WW3. They correctly figured that if their SAMs openly shoot down American jets - that's dangerous. But if the same SAMs with the same Soviet operators covertly shoot down American jets, without acknowledgement of their presence - the US will swallow that.
saiya-jin 4y ago
> It has to lose, and it has to be unequivocally seen to lose, for this fascist fantasy to end. Can't agree more on this part, its a bully that understands only force of the stronger, any concept of law, fairness, democracy etc. are simply not present there. Soft approach is publicly maybe welcomed, but privately laughed at as clear show of weakness. I am vastly disappointed by Macron's attempts to still please him, to have some sort of 'graceful loss' like something similar is possible right now or acceptable by either side. I guess you can afford some pompous PR bullshit like that if there are multiple big countries between you and the invader. A bit sad considering France didn't have it rosy with germans in WWII but I guess that memory is too old now, and its more important to get french car factories in Russia again running (or honestly I can't get another good reason for such stance, EU is facing by far biggest military threat since its existence and such stance is completely irrational when looking on it from long term perspective).
- soco 4y ago
  I didn't see any concessions having been offered by Macron. Talking at lengths on the phone? Yes, and I'm fine that - a phone call is a phone call and nobody dies because of that. Much better than a ww3 by any measure. I couldn't care less about what Putler is laughing at in private, important is that Russia, maybe maybe, stops killing.
  - effie 4y ago
    Good point. It costs so little to keep the channels open. Provided we keep the deterrence effective. It is okay to talk, if we at the same time demonstrate we aren't weak and are not afraid.
- sofixa 4y ago
  I think Macron is coming from a realistic position. Ukraine cannot win in the traditional sense (capturing Moscow (although even that was insufficient for Napoleon) and forcing a surrender). It has to force Russia's surrender through other means - making the war unpopular, too costly in men and money, etc. This could literally take years since Russia is a dictatorship with lots of humans to sacrifice. Giving Putin an "honourable out" is probably the fastest way to bring the war to a stop. It's highly unlikely it will work, on multiple levels - Russia wouldn't agree, Ukraine sure as hell won't, and even if they did, it wouldn't last. Still, you can see where Macron is coming from - be it for humanitarian or practical reasons ( like the fact that the EU needs Russian gas for the foreseeable future and keeps paying to Russia, or that pushing an unhinged man with nuclear weapons to desperation might not end well). In any case, yes, Russia must lose decisively, Germany WWII style, not Germany WWI style where the population didn't get it.
anigbrowl 4y ago
Russian nightly "talk-shows" I've been really struck by how one of the most popular shows features presenters and guests standing on a stage discussing or arguing about the day's news in front of an audience; literally news theater. Of course, one could argue that western TV formats are also theatrical in their way; sitting around or behind desks to give an air of collegiality or authority, respectively; or just explaining visual events with a disembodied voice, inviting its adoption as internal monologue. Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media was written early the cold war and though it's dated in many respects, it was sufficiently forward thinking that it's still a useful and thought-provoking read today: his basic idea is that there are different paths toward the construction of meaning in the mind of audience members, and that the way in which information is presented is often far more important than the content of the information.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > I've been really struck by how one of the most popular shows features presenters and guests standing on a stage discussing or arguing about the day's news in front of an audience; literally news theater. So, they've copied CNN Crossfire (first aired in 1982), but added “standing up”?
trhway 4y ago
> Russian nightly "talk-shows", start to finish, to get a feel for how Putin's propaganda machine is changing over time. Well, since February, it's been in such overdrive, pumping Russians full of vicious hatred of all things "Western" and delusions of grandeur the recordings of those shows will be a class material for the classes on modern nazism for the decades to come. A "master-nation" constantly talking on TV about getting rid of "ukraininess" while the Putin's SS force "Russian Guard" abducts and disappears on the occupied territories Ukrainian business an political leadership, activists and armed forces veterans (the same approach what USSR did in 1939 in Poland) - after days of torture some of them appear back very lifelessly claiming change of views and becoming pro-Russian and collaborating with the occupant regime while others just disappear probably into the mobile crematoriums and mass graves like in Bucha.

lupire 4y ago

What is the difference between a forceful response (Russia vs the world) and WWIII?

kspacewalk2 4y ago
The difference is not engaging in the fight openly, but otherwise giving Ukraine everything it needs to fight. e.g. what the Soviets did in Vietnam (which is even more than what the West is doing for Ukraine right now).
hedora 4y ago
I'm surprised they haven't seen core infrastructure within Russia collapse due to "independent" actors. (E.g., power grid shutdowns in Moscow; refineries venting poison gas into populated areas; perfectly timed forest fires; pretty much everything the DHS says would be trivial for terrorists to do in the US.)
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > I'm surprised they haven't seen core infrastructure within Russia collapse due to "independent" actors In the first couple months of the war, there were lots of explosions/fires at major Russia industrial or infrastructure sites that got reported; I’ve seen fewer reports recently, but I don't know if it is happening less or Russia has clamped down on the news more effectively.
- Siddarth1977 4y ago
  One aspect of that which is a bit apples to oranges, is that the US is both incredibly easy for foreigners to enter and travel throughout, as well as being diverse enough that such travel wouldn't raise any eyebrows. At any given moment there are a million foreign people freely traveling around the US- some on vacation, some visiting family, some for school, some for work, some for medical treatment, etc. It's relatively trivial for a nefarious organization to find a person who speaks English and can legally enter the US. For Russia (among other places) none of this is true. Visas to enter the country are harder to acquire, movement within the country on such a visa is still constrained, a smaller number of foreigners means easier for intelligence to monitor, and far fewer people have the language skills or physical characteristics to blend into the local populace.
  - hedora 4y ago
    There are many ethnic Ukranians living in Russia. I have no idea how closely they're surveiled, how many of the "troublemakers" moved to Ukraine decades ago, etc.
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  I don't think the US is going to engage in this, even indirectly via Ukraine, because this does have some potential to escalate to WW3. And it's hard to see how it'll substantially help Ukraine without killing scores of Russian civilians. >refineries venting poison gas into populated areas Hard to think of a better way to become the villain in the story. This has not occurred, but not necessarily because the means of making it happen aren't there.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
anigbrowl 4y ago
A second front

ASalazarMX 4y ago

> but what if Putin is offed or dies suddenly and the populace, driven to such jingoist frenzy that it lost all sense of reality and actually believes they can take on NATO and win, puts an even more evil and reckless "rebuilder of empire" on the throne? That seems like a job for the Russian propaganda machine. Just as they manipulated malleable minds towards one idea, they can do it towards another: "We were never at war with NATO".

dragonwriter 4y ago

> > This expansion will only end with WW3. > Attempts to meet this expansion with appeasement will end in WW3. Or, perhaps, this war already is WW3, the question is how it ends, not whether it starts. (Yeah, most of the big powers aren't openly directly engaged, just supporting one of the belligerents with military and economic aid and intelligence and sanctions on the opposing belligerent. But that's a choice of how to fight the war, and that's been made very clear—the US explicitly invoking lend-lease in naming it's aid bill for Ukraine couldn't be a more pointed declaration of how it sees the situation.)

anigbrowl 4y ago
It absolutely is. People often forget how the abrupt action at the beginning of WW2 then subsided into an uncomfortable but relatively quiet new status quo for a good 8 months, with only minor skirmishes around the margins until Hitler moved against France and the low countries. Movies and TV mostly emphasize the kinetic and chaotic action of pitched battles, but through 1939-40 the public in multiple allied nations were perplexed by the idea of a conflict where nothing much seemed to be happening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War#Terminology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War#Terminology
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  It is nothing like Phoney War. Plenty of action involving Britain and France took place - Saarland campaign, invasion of Norway, etc. That was obviously a war that hasn't reached its deadliest phase. This, on the other hand, is not a war in which NATO is anything like a belligerent.
kspacewalk2 4y ago
Why wasn't Vietnam "already WW3" then? The USSR was doing a lot more to help the North Vietnamese, without all the navel-gazing about the dangers of WW3. They correctly figured that if their SAMs openly shoot down American jets - that's dangerous. But if the same SAMs with the same Soviet operators covertly shoot down American jets, without acknowledgement of their presence - the US will swallow that.

saiya-jin 4y ago

> It has to lose, and it has to be unequivocally seen to lose, for this fascist fantasy to end. Can't agree more on this part, its a bully that understands only force of the stronger, any concept of law, fairness, democracy etc. are simply not present there. Soft approach is publicly maybe welcomed, but privately laughed at as clear show of weakness. I am vastly disappointed by Macron's attempts to still please him, to have some sort of 'graceful loss' like something similar is possible right now or acceptable by either side. I guess you can afford some pompous PR bullshit like that if there are multiple big countries between you and the invader. A bit sad considering France didn't have it rosy with germans in WWII but I guess that memory is too old now, and its more important to get french car factories in Russia again running (or honestly I can't get another good reason for such stance, EU is facing by far biggest military threat since its existence and such stance is completely irrational when looking on it from long term perspective).

soco 4y ago
I didn't see any concessions having been offered by Macron. Talking at lengths on the phone? Yes, and I'm fine that - a phone call is a phone call and nobody dies because of that. Much better than a ww3 by any measure. I couldn't care less about what Putler is laughing at in private, important is that Russia, maybe maybe, stops killing.
- effie 4y ago
  Good point. It costs so little to keep the channels open. Provided we keep the deterrence effective. It is okay to talk, if we at the same time demonstrate we aren't weak and are not afraid.
sofixa 4y ago
I think Macron is coming from a realistic position. Ukraine cannot win in the traditional sense (capturing Moscow (although even that was insufficient for Napoleon) and forcing a surrender). It has to force Russia's surrender through other means - making the war unpopular, too costly in men and money, etc. This could literally take years since Russia is a dictatorship with lots of humans to sacrifice. Giving Putin an "honourable out" is probably the fastest way to bring the war to a stop. It's highly unlikely it will work, on multiple levels - Russia wouldn't agree, Ukraine sure as hell won't, and even if they did, it wouldn't last. Still, you can see where Macron is coming from - be it for humanitarian or practical reasons ( like the fact that the EU needs Russian gas for the foreseeable future and keeps paying to Russia, or that pushing an unhinged man with nuclear weapons to desperation might not end well). In any case, yes, Russia must lose decisively, Germany WWII style, not Germany WWI style where the population didn't get it.

anigbrowl 4y ago

Russian nightly "talk-shows" I've been really struck by how one of the most popular shows features presenters and guests standing on a stage discussing or arguing about the day's news in front of an audience; literally news theater. Of course, one could argue that western TV formats are also theatrical in their way; sitting around or behind desks to give an air of collegiality or authority, respectively; or just explaining visual events with a disembodied voice, inviting its adoption as internal monologue. Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media was written early the cold war and though it's dated in many respects, it was sufficiently forward thinking that it's still a useful and thought-provoking read today: his basic idea is that there are different paths toward the construction of meaning in the mind of audience members, and that the way in which information is presented is often far more important than the content of the information.

dragonwriter 4y ago
> I've been really struck by how one of the most popular shows features presenters and guests standing on a stage discussing or arguing about the day's news in front of an audience; literally news theater. So, they've copied CNN Crossfire (first aired in 1982), but added “standing up”?

trhway 4y ago

> Russian nightly "talk-shows", start to finish, to get a feel for how Putin's propaganda machine is changing over time. Well, since February, it's been in such overdrive, pumping Russians full of vicious hatred of all things "Western" and delusions of grandeur the recordings of those shows will be a class material for the classes on modern nazism for the decades to come. A "master-nation" constantly talking on TV about getting rid of "ukraininess" while the Putin's SS force "Russian Guard" abducts and disappears on the occupied territories Ukrainian business an political leadership, activists and armed forces veterans (the same approach what USSR did in 1939 in Poland) - after days of torture some of them appear back very lifelessly claiming change of views and becoming pro-Russian and collaborating with the occupant regime while others just disappear probably into the mobile crematoriums and mass graves like in Bucha.