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Does the west actually believe that Russia has money or resources to expand? It can barely fight in Ukraine. It's a broke country with a superiority complex and

Does the west actually believe that Russia has money or resources to expand? It can barely fight in Ukraine. It's a broke country with a superiority complex and any thought of expansion is just nonsensical.

synu 4y ago
Their words are backed by nuclear weapons.
- celsoazevedo 4y ago
  So are the words of other countries.
  - synu 4y ago
    They seem more willing to play chicken with them.
- cduzz 4y ago
  Nuclear weapons are just the fastest way they can destroy the world. They also have a huge amount of oil and natural gas and coal. They also have plenty of brilliant people who are happy to work on a variety of projects where the outcome maybe a rapidly spreading drop tables computer virus or possibly even a rapidly spreading virus virus, certainly they've got a variety of boutique poisons for all occasions. Having fewer resources than everyone else isn't a serious constraint if you're not constrained morally or legally, and vlad the underware poisoner isn't constrained by anything except possibly father time.
  - soco 4y ago
    Neither nuclear weapons nor viruses help you conquer the world. Destroy it? Sure. But you won't be there either to conquer the world after using them.
    - Koshkin 4y ago
      Well, hasn't Russia been conquering Ukrainian towns by destroying them?
      - belltaco 4y ago
        The difference is radioactive fallout that lasts a long time, and nuclear war ensuring the complete destruction of Russia as well. Even Russia knows it that they have contingency plans for Putin and other military/govt officials to try and escape it by fleeing to the barely populated parts like Siberia assuming(or hoping) that those population centers won't be nuked. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44814/flurry-of-government-aircraft-activity-over-russia-draws-attention-we-break-it-down https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44814/flurry-of-govern... Nuclear winter and the fallout will probably weaken or destroy much of the rest of the world, but if places like China/India/Africa survive them better, maybe they can rebuild faster and"conquer" what's left of the current first world in a century or two.
        xyzzyz 4y ago
        > The difference is radioactive fallout that lasts a long time, Depends on the type of the bomb. For Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was mostly over in a matter of months.
  - pvaldes 4y ago
    > they've got a variety of boutique poisons for all occasions Yes, but this sword can cut both ways and time is not in the side of Russia. Once the Pandora box is opened, is opened and you don't need to poison massively people to face retaliation. If millions of people in many countries of Africa would start starving by one man stealing and blocking all the grain, is practically guaranteed that Moscow would meet casually a lot of African diseases not previously seen in the area. In any case, the words of Putin are just propaganda to convince more naive Russian men to join the army and die for his delusions of grandeur.
- warning26 4y ago
  I'd just like to appreciate your Ghandi-in-Civ reference
  - weikju 4y ago
    Nitpick: in the original (computer) Civ game, any leader gaining nuclear weapons would come up to the human player and say (write) these words. That it got associated with Ghandi in the long run is because of software bugs, but it wasn't exclusively his line in the beginning...
- tomatotomato37 4y ago
  Nuclear weapons of their ancestors, which since then require a lot of money and maintenance to remain nuclear weapons. To put it another way, around 8 years ago the U.S. found its own nuclear arsenal had deteriorated due to the usual organization reasons, to the point that only a singular wrench existed for servicing the MinuteMan warhead and thus had to be constantly FedEx-ed between bases like a stupid game of hot potato[1]. In response, the U.S. is undertaken one of the largest overhaul of it's arsenal ever, that's planned to take place over the next 30 years. The first decade of this program is estimated to have cost $348 billion dollars and will ultimately come out to around trillion once all is said and done[2]. The current entire military budget of Russia is $65 billion. A budget they have masterfully used to buy cheap Chinese tires, moldy MREs, cardboard ERA, and funny tank cages. Despite this, they claim to maintain an aresenal of 4500 warheads, or around 700 more than the global hyperpower that ran out of wrenches. [1]https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-wrench-nuclear-bases/story?id=26916107 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-wrench-nuclear-bases/stor... [2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renovation_of_the_nuclear_weapon_arsenal_of_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renovation_of_the_nuclear_we...
  - effie 4y ago
    You can't compare budgets between US and Russia. Price of materials, labor and skill are much lower in Russia. And with nuclear weapons, the exact number of them is not that important. Even if Russia's working warhear number is 1/10 of the declared one, it is still a valid deterrent.
gjs278 4y ago
skc 4y ago
Are there any reliable information sources covering how the war is actually going? On any given day you can read both that Russia is struggling and that Ukraine is ceding territory fast.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > Are there any reliable information sources covering how the war is actually going? Plenty, yes. FT, Reuters, Guardian, etc. Fast is pretty relative. Considering the fact we've been hearing about fighting in Severodonetsk for what, a week, at least, now? Russia's advance is dangerous, brutal, but very narrow and slow compared to the initial "blitzkrieg" they tried to pull of. But not WWI ten meters a day slow.
  - grishka 4y ago
    > Russia's advance is dangerous, brutal, but very narrow and slow compared to the initial "blitzkrieg" they tried to pull of. We coined the word "blitzcringe" (блицкринж) to describe this situation.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      That's a very good term for it.
- gwbas1c 4y ago
  Ukraine is very large. It can gain and lose territory in different parts at the same time.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > On any given day you can read both that Russia is struggling and that Ukraine is ceding territory fast. Those aren't incompatible situations in this kind of war. Russia is advancing fairly quickly (though not without significant reverses) since focusing on taking a strip of southern territory rather than decapitating and forcing the surrender of the Ukrainian regime. There are also still taking insanely high casualties and material losses that cannot be replenished on any reasonable timescale (Ukraine is taking high casualties, proportionately more than Russia, but also defending their homes; this matters in terms of casualties that can be taken without collapsing the populations will to fight; and Ukraine is getting a flood of material from outside supporters.) While there's wide variance in estimates, Russia's casualties in its four month war look to be at least in the neighborhood of those the Soviet Union took in its decade long war in Afghanistan, which was widely seen as the USSRs Vietnam and a major contributor to the fall of the country, and the USSR was much bigger than Russia. And it's ever worse when you look at the casualties among senior officers and combat pilots.
walrus01 4y ago
it can sure do a lot of damage trying, such as if they attempted to steamroll the baltic nation states
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> Does the west actually believe that Russia has money or resources to expand? It can barely fight in Ukraine. Doesn't seem to be stopping them. The problem with crazy is it will do things not in its self interest.

synu 4y ago

Their words are backed by nuclear weapons.

celsoazevedo 4y ago
So are the words of other countries.
- synu 4y ago
  They seem more willing to play chicken with them.
cduzz 4y ago
Nuclear weapons are just the fastest way they can destroy the world. They also have a huge amount of oil and natural gas and coal. They also have plenty of brilliant people who are happy to work on a variety of projects where the outcome maybe a rapidly spreading drop tables computer virus or possibly even a rapidly spreading virus virus, certainly they've got a variety of boutique poisons for all occasions. Having fewer resources than everyone else isn't a serious constraint if you're not constrained morally or legally, and vlad the underware poisoner isn't constrained by anything except possibly father time.
- soco 4y ago
  Neither nuclear weapons nor viruses help you conquer the world. Destroy it? Sure. But you won't be there either to conquer the world after using them.
  - Koshkin 4y ago
    Well, hasn't Russia been conquering Ukrainian towns by destroying them?
    - belltaco 4y ago
      The difference is radioactive fallout that lasts a long time, and nuclear war ensuring the complete destruction of Russia as well. Even Russia knows it that they have contingency plans for Putin and other military/govt officials to try and escape it by fleeing to the barely populated parts like Siberia assuming(or hoping) that those population centers won't be nuked. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44814/flurry-of-government-aircraft-activity-over-russia-draws-attention-we-break-it-down https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44814/flurry-of-govern... Nuclear winter and the fallout will probably weaken or destroy much of the rest of the world, but if places like China/India/Africa survive them better, maybe they can rebuild faster and"conquer" what's left of the current first world in a century or two.
      - xyzzyz 4y ago
        > The difference is radioactive fallout that lasts a long time, Depends on the type of the bomb. For Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was mostly over in a matter of months.
- pvaldes 4y ago
  > they've got a variety of boutique poisons for all occasions Yes, but this sword can cut both ways and time is not in the side of Russia. Once the Pandora box is opened, is opened and you don't need to poison massively people to face retaliation. If millions of people in many countries of Africa would start starving by one man stealing and blocking all the grain, is practically guaranteed that Moscow would meet casually a lot of African diseases not previously seen in the area. In any case, the words of Putin are just propaganda to convince more naive Russian men to join the army and die for his delusions of grandeur.
warning26 4y ago
I'd just like to appreciate your Ghandi-in-Civ reference
- weikju 4y ago
  Nitpick: in the original (computer) Civ game, any leader gaining nuclear weapons would come up to the human player and say (write) these words. That it got associated with Ghandi in the long run is because of software bugs, but it wasn't exclusively his line in the beginning...
tomatotomato37 4y ago
Nuclear weapons of their ancestors, which since then require a lot of money and maintenance to remain nuclear weapons. To put it another way, around 8 years ago the U.S. found its own nuclear arsenal had deteriorated due to the usual organization reasons, to the point that only a singular wrench existed for servicing the MinuteMan warhead and thus had to be constantly FedEx-ed between bases like a stupid game of hot potato[1]. In response, the U.S. is undertaken one of the largest overhaul of it's arsenal ever, that's planned to take place over the next 30 years. The first decade of this program is estimated to have cost $348 billion dollars and will ultimately come out to around trillion once all is said and done[2]. The current entire military budget of Russia is $65 billion. A budget they have masterfully used to buy cheap Chinese tires, moldy MREs, cardboard ERA, and funny tank cages. Despite this, they claim to maintain an aresenal of 4500 warheads, or around 700 more than the global hyperpower that ran out of wrenches. [1]https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-wrench-nuclear-bases/story?id=26916107 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-wrench-nuclear-bases/stor... [2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renovation_of_the_nuclear_weapon_arsenal_of_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renovation_of_the_nuclear_we...
- effie 4y ago
  You can't compare budgets between US and Russia. Price of materials, labor and skill are much lower in Russia. And with nuclear weapons, the exact number of them is not that important. Even if Russia's working warhear number is 1/10 of the declared one, it is still a valid deterrent.

gjs278 4y ago

skc 4y ago

Are there any reliable information sources covering how the war is actually going? On any given day you can read both that Russia is struggling and that Ukraine is ceding territory fast.

sofixa 4y ago
> Are there any reliable information sources covering how the war is actually going? Plenty, yes. FT, Reuters, Guardian, etc. Fast is pretty relative. Considering the fact we've been hearing about fighting in Severodonetsk for what, a week, at least, now? Russia's advance is dangerous, brutal, but very narrow and slow compared to the initial "blitzkrieg" they tried to pull of. But not WWI ten meters a day slow.
- grishka 4y ago
  > Russia's advance is dangerous, brutal, but very narrow and slow compared to the initial "blitzkrieg" they tried to pull of. We coined the word "blitzcringe" (блицкринж) to describe this situation.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    That's a very good term for it.
gwbas1c 4y ago
Ukraine is very large. It can gain and lose territory in different parts at the same time.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> On any given day you can read both that Russia is struggling and that Ukraine is ceding territory fast. Those aren't incompatible situations in this kind of war. Russia is advancing fairly quickly (though not without significant reverses) since focusing on taking a strip of southern territory rather than decapitating and forcing the surrender of the Ukrainian regime. There are also still taking insanely high casualties and material losses that cannot be replenished on any reasonable timescale (Ukraine is taking high casualties, proportionately more than Russia, but also defending their homes; this matters in terms of casualties that can be taken without collapsing the populations will to fight; and Ukraine is getting a flood of material from outside supporters.) While there's wide variance in estimates, Russia's casualties in its four month war look to be at least in the neighborhood of those the Soviet Union took in its decade long war in Afghanistan, which was widely seen as the USSRs Vietnam and a major contributor to the fall of the country, and the USSR was much bigger than Russia. And it's ever worse when you look at the casualties among senior officers and combat pilots.

walrus01 4y ago

it can sure do a lot of damage trying, such as if they attempted to steamroll the baltic nation states

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> Does the west actually believe that Russia has money or resources to expand? It can barely fight in Ukraine. Doesn't seem to be stopping them. The problem with crazy is it will do things not in its self interest.