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The worst outcome is nuclear war. The second worst outcome is teaching Putin - and all other nuclear armed authoritarian governments - that all you need to do

The worst outcome is nuclear war. The second worst outcome is teaching Putin - and all other nuclear armed authoritarian governments - that all you need to do is threaten usage of nuclear weapons and you get what you demand. Within months China will demand Taiwan be handed over under threat of nuclear attack. Maybe eventually they'll demand the same of Australia - easy to do if you want the resources and know that threat of nukes gets you a country handed on a platter. What do you propose can be done to resolve this? Probably China and India are the only parties now able to influence Putin to back down.

ta123456789 4y ago
China and India are the only nuclear powers with a no-first-use policy.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > China and India are the only nuclear powers with a no-first-use policy Moscow also guaranteed Ukraine’s security in the Budapest memorandum. Stated policy is a poor predictor of their actions.
  - ta123456789 4y ago
    How is that relevant to the comments you are replying to? China does not need nuclear weapons to take Taiwan, and for both military and political reasons it would be incredibly stupid for them to resort to nuclear threats. And as mentioned they have a no-first-use policy.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > How is that relevant to the comments you are replying to? It gives credence to Moscow’s no-first use commitment ringing hollow.
      - ta123456789 4y ago
        Russia does not have a "no-first-use commitment". The only countries with such a commitment are China and India.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > Russia does not have a "no-first-use commitment" Sorry, you are correct. My general point was what Moscow says about its nuclear policy isn't particularly informative for predicting its behaviour. China has analogy in its breached commitments to Hong Kong.
- bitL 4y ago
  Putin said that dealing with street gangs in his youth taught him that when a fight is inevitable, he should strike first. Now we have a significant nuclear escalation on its way to Ukraine.
- soheil 4y ago
  Russia's list of what is acceptable use of nuclear power is actually pretty vague and includes "use of conventional weapons to pose an existential threat to Russia."
typon 4y ago
Replace "threaten usage of nuclear weapons" with "threaten exit from the global finance system under the force of the largest military ever assembled on earth" and you have US policy for the past century.
- nosianu 4y ago
  There is not even remotely an equivalence. Only one of them includes threatening the end of the world.
olivermarks 4y ago
@andrewstuart Resolution is the same as the way all wars eventually end (or preferably never start) - diplomacy and agreements. We are in a period of catastrophic diplomatic failures after decades of successful MAD standoff balance
- nosianu 4y ago
  > the same as the way all wars eventually end As a German, that's not how our last war ended. Neither did the more recent Iraq war, or Libya. Plenty of wars end with the utter defeat of the opponent.
  - dralley 4y ago
    Russia won't be "utterly" defeated in the same way as Iraq, Germany or Libya. But they don't have to be to be brought to the negotiating table by the lack of ability to continue.
    - nosianu 4y ago
      > Russia won't be "utterly" defeated Who cares? I didn't say that, nobody wants that, and it is completely unnecessary. The US was not "utterly defeated" when they left Vietnam o Afghanistan either, and the withdrawal of the US from those countries was not negotiated. It is perfectly enough to throw out the aggressor or make their losses to big for them to want to stay. Diplomatic solutions would mean to give something to the aggressor. That is not necessary, you can just beat their military and force them out. This kind of bad-faith argument of trying to find something in the words to argue against when you very well know what we are talking about is making public discussion such a chore.
      - remarkEon 4y ago
        >The US was not "utterly defeated" when they left Vietnam o Afghanistan I was in Afghanistan, and yes we were. I walked I don't know how many patrols in that country and watching how we left was a remarkable embarrassment that makes me finally understand what Vietnam Vets felt like, which is the last war the United States truly lost. >Diplomatic solutions would mean to give something to the aggressor. That is not necessary, you can just beat their military and force them out. I can't parse what this means, but I do speak a little German if you want to clarify. To "beat" the Russian military at this stage would require full NATO mobilization and World War III. I've made other comments on this website expressing my skepticism of the wisdom of NATOs involvement here, but I'll sum it up as this: Ukraine is not worth a bunch of cities in eastern Europe turning to glass. That's the reality, and you should note that the US Military has a pretty severe recruiting problem right now. We can't fight this war without a draft, and at some point the true nature of NATO will show through the clouds, which is that the United States has been paying for the continental security of the entire European continent for 50+ years. Rheinmetall designed the new main gun for the M-1 Abrams, I guess.
airforms 4y ago
> Probably China and India are the only parties now able to influence Putin to back down. The problem is, if Putin loses the war, he will lose power, and possibly even his life [1]. This makes him more likely to use nukes, as his life is endangered without a victory. Under this circumstance the only way out is to give him a "small victory". [1] https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/09/30/exp-gps-1002-khodorkovsky-on-putins-mindset.cnn https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/09/30/exp-gps-1002-khodor...
- jdhendrickson 4y ago
  Ah yes appeasement, it's always worked so well before.
  - gfodor 4y ago
    Hitler didn’t have nukes. The minimum level of appeasement to prevent the deployment of nuclear weapons may be the optimal strategy. There is no guarantee that the post nuclear game theory doesn’t converge on dictators grabbing all land that isn’t part of an existing nuclear defense pact.
    - hackerlight 4y ago
      This is downvoted but is clearly true game-theorerically. If you have an autocratic governance structure, the logic of nuke use is highly specific to the preferences of the individual in power and the context of the situation. Appeasement (however defined) may be the optimal strategy depending on that person's age and other factors.
  - naasking 4y ago
    > Ah yes appeasement, it's always worked so well before. Given we haven't all died in nuclear fire yet, I'd say diplomatic tactics have worked just fine.
    - nosianu 4y ago
      When the Soviets tried installing nukes in Cuba the US escalated big time to get to a successful resolution.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
As someone from the balkans... what do you do when some other nuclear superpower decides to bomb eg. yugoslavia or invade eg. afghanistan or syria, libya, iraq, iraq again, etc?
- cycrutchfield 4y ago
  Maybe stop genociding my neighbors?
- hackerlight 4y ago
  Stop genociding Albanians, it was as simple as that. Not all wars and interventions are morally equal.
newaccount2021 4y ago
soheil 4y ago
The answer certainly is not nihilism and therefore proceeding with teaching Putin a lesson as we are now.
- aeternum 4y ago
  Perhaps if the lesson we're trying to teach him that he must either die or launch nukes? Those will likely be his only two options very soon if not already.
unity1001 4y ago

ta123456789 4y ago

China and India are the only nuclear powers with a no-first-use policy.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> China and India are the only nuclear powers with a no-first-use policy Moscow also guaranteed Ukraine’s security in the Budapest memorandum. Stated policy is a poor predictor of their actions.
- ta123456789 4y ago
  How is that relevant to the comments you are replying to? China does not need nuclear weapons to take Taiwan, and for both military and political reasons it would be incredibly stupid for them to resort to nuclear threats. And as mentioned they have a no-first-use policy.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > How is that relevant to the comments you are replying to? It gives credence to Moscow’s no-first use commitment ringing hollow.
    - ta123456789 4y ago
      Russia does not have a "no-first-use commitment". The only countries with such a commitment are China and India.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > Russia does not have a "no-first-use commitment" Sorry, you are correct. My general point was what Moscow says about its nuclear policy isn't particularly informative for predicting its behaviour. China has analogy in its breached commitments to Hong Kong.
bitL 4y ago
Putin said that dealing with street gangs in his youth taught him that when a fight is inevitable, he should strike first. Now we have a significant nuclear escalation on its way to Ukraine.
soheil 4y ago
Russia's list of what is acceptable use of nuclear power is actually pretty vague and includes "use of conventional weapons to pose an existential threat to Russia."

typon 4y ago

Replace "threaten usage of nuclear weapons" with "threaten exit from the global finance system under the force of the largest military ever assembled on earth" and you have US policy for the past century.

nosianu 4y ago
There is not even remotely an equivalence. Only one of them includes threatening the end of the world.

olivermarks 4y ago

@andrewstuart Resolution is the same as the way all wars eventually end (or preferably never start) - diplomacy and agreements. We are in a period of catastrophic diplomatic failures after decades of successful MAD standoff balance

nosianu 4y ago
> the same as the way all wars eventually end As a German, that's not how our last war ended. Neither did the more recent Iraq war, or Libya. Plenty of wars end with the utter defeat of the opponent.
- dralley 4y ago
  Russia won't be "utterly" defeated in the same way as Iraq, Germany or Libya. But they don't have to be to be brought to the negotiating table by the lack of ability to continue.
  - nosianu 4y ago
    > Russia won't be "utterly" defeated Who cares? I didn't say that, nobody wants that, and it is completely unnecessary. The US was not "utterly defeated" when they left Vietnam o Afghanistan either, and the withdrawal of the US from those countries was not negotiated. It is perfectly enough to throw out the aggressor or make their losses to big for them to want to stay. Diplomatic solutions would mean to give something to the aggressor. That is not necessary, you can just beat their military and force them out. This kind of bad-faith argument of trying to find something in the words to argue against when you very well know what we are talking about is making public discussion such a chore.
    - remarkEon 4y ago
      >The US was not "utterly defeated" when they left Vietnam o Afghanistan I was in Afghanistan, and yes we were. I walked I don't know how many patrols in that country and watching how we left was a remarkable embarrassment that makes me finally understand what Vietnam Vets felt like, which is the last war the United States truly lost. >Diplomatic solutions would mean to give something to the aggressor. That is not necessary, you can just beat their military and force them out. I can't parse what this means, but I do speak a little German if you want to clarify. To "beat" the Russian military at this stage would require full NATO mobilization and World War III. I've made other comments on this website expressing my skepticism of the wisdom of NATOs involvement here, but I'll sum it up as this: Ukraine is not worth a bunch of cities in eastern Europe turning to glass. That's the reality, and you should note that the US Military has a pretty severe recruiting problem right now. We can't fight this war without a draft, and at some point the true nature of NATO will show through the clouds, which is that the United States has been paying for the continental security of the entire European continent for 50+ years. Rheinmetall designed the new main gun for the M-1 Abrams, I guess.

airforms 4y ago

> Probably China and India are the only parties now able to influence Putin to back down. The problem is, if Putin loses the war, he will lose power, and possibly even his life [1]. This makes him more likely to use nukes, as his life is endangered without a victory. Under this circumstance the only way out is to give him a "small victory". [1] https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/09/30/exp-gps-1002-khodorkovsky-on-putins-mindset.cnn https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/09/30/exp-gps-1002-khodor...

jdhendrickson 4y ago
Ah yes appeasement, it's always worked so well before.
- gfodor 4y ago
  Hitler didn’t have nukes. The minimum level of appeasement to prevent the deployment of nuclear weapons may be the optimal strategy. There is no guarantee that the post nuclear game theory doesn’t converge on dictators grabbing all land that isn’t part of an existing nuclear defense pact.
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    This is downvoted but is clearly true game-theorerically. If you have an autocratic governance structure, the logic of nuke use is highly specific to the preferences of the individual in power and the context of the situation. Appeasement (however defined) may be the optimal strategy depending on that person's age and other factors.
- naasking 4y ago
  > Ah yes appeasement, it's always worked so well before. Given we haven't all died in nuclear fire yet, I'd say diplomatic tactics have worked just fine.
  - nosianu 4y ago
    When the Soviets tried installing nukes in Cuba the US escalated big time to get to a successful resolution.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

As someone from the balkans... what do you do when some other nuclear superpower decides to bomb eg. yugoslavia or invade eg. afghanistan or syria, libya, iraq, iraq again, etc?

cycrutchfield 4y ago
Maybe stop genociding my neighbors?
hackerlight 4y ago
Stop genociding Albanians, it was as simple as that. Not all wars and interventions are morally equal.

newaccount2021 4y ago

soheil 4y ago

The answer certainly is not nihilism and therefore proceeding with teaching Putin a lesson as we are now.

aeternum 4y ago
Perhaps if the lesson we're trying to teach him that he must either die or launch nukes? Those will likely be his only two options very soon if not already.

unity1001 4y ago