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The US has lost three wars without resorting to nuclear weapons; Russia has lost two wars (once as the USSR, once as Russia) similarly without resorting to nucl

The US has lost three wars without resorting to nuclear weapons; Russia has lost two wars (once as the USSR, once as Russia) similarly without resorting to nuclear weapons. A loss in Ukraine wouldn't even be the most "backed in a corner" a superpower has been since WWII.

xtian 4y ago
Russia has explicitly stated multiple times that they will use nuclear weapons in response to an existential threat, but you want to call their bluff?
- aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 4y ago
  Resisting their incursion into a sovereign country somehow constitutes a credible threat to the _existence_ of the Russian nation?
  - xtian 4y ago
    Read the comments in this thread and others. See how many slack-jawed jackals are slavering over the idea of overthrowing Putin, ‘decolonizing’ Russia, Russia descending into anarchy, etc. These halfwits are merely echoing the myopic fantasies fed to them via the US media apparatus from the highest echelons of state power. Do you really think all these dark fantasies originated a year ago? Or is there maybe something else going on?
TexanFeller 4y ago
> A loss in Ukraine wouldn't even be the most "backed in a corner" a superpower has been since WWII Perhaps not for the country, but it could be for Putin. It's dangerous to make a man with the nuke codes desperate toward the end of his life.
- wiseowise 4y ago
  That’s not how nuclear codes work. There’s a long chain of people before ICBM is launched.
  - TexanFeller 4y ago
    How long? A decision that must be made in an hour can't have too long a chain of command. There are several historical instances where we or Russia almost launched by mistake.
    - _kbh_ 4y ago
      > How long? A decision that must be made in an hour can't have too long a chain of command. There are several historical instances where we or Russia almost launched by mistake. The chain is even longer then the higher ups decision to actually launch a nuke though. Would you press the button to nuke another country knowing that doing so will very likely kill your entire family and you?, or would you ignore the order?.
- xdennis 4y ago
  > It's dangerous to make a man with the nuke codes desperate toward the end of his life. You always talk about the nukes because it's all you have left. Western leaders will never bow to the nuclear threat because doing so means Russia/China can get their way in everything if they just use the nuclear threat.
  - TexanFeller 4y ago
    > You always talk about the nukes because it's all you have left. I talk about nukes because I believe it's the biggest danger the world faces and have for a long time. I grew up in the shadow of the cold war being drilled on how to hide under my desk when the missiles came. Far before Ukraine I was mystified by everyone's ability to forget that threat still exists. It seems possible and even likely to me that nuclear catastrophe will come before and be far greater in magnitude than any AI or climate catastrophes, for me it overshadows every other threat. Apparently I'm not the only one that perceives a threat: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/ https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/
    - baybal2 4y ago
      [dead]
hospitalJail 4y ago
>The US has lost three wars Are we calling Iraq and Afghanistan losses? Sure would be great if we established a liberal democracy in Afghanistan, but it seems like after Osama was killed, Americans mentally declared victory and we were just burning money and lives. Iraq had their leader overthrown and a new government established. Its really hard to call that a loss, even if it wasnt a perfect liberal democracy like we want.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  In 2003-13 I never would have said this but it sure looks like Iraq came out better. Neither came out great but both are stable, Iraq is not destabilizing the region and Afghanistan isn't harboring people who want to attack the west and have the capability to. That said, we never should have invaded Iraq and we probably could have accomplished what we accomplished in Afghanistan and more had we more seriously pursued diplomatic options in 2001.
  - Zach_the_Lizard 4y ago
    For Afghanistan, I think the use of special forces and the like to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda terrorists would have been expedient. We got him in Pakistan even after all the trouble to invade and occupy Afghanistan. Throw in some shock and awe on Taliban forces if we wanted to make more of a point, I suppose. The mood in 2001 was one where diplomacy was impossible short of unconditionally handing over everyone in Al Qaeda to the US.
    - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
      >The mood in 2001 was one where diplomacy was impossible short of unconditionally handing over everyone in Al Qaeda to the US. That wasn't an unreasonable request all things considered. We should have tried much harder to get the Taliban to accept that deal. They needed to look like more legitimate government with a stronger grip on power. We needed Al Qaeda. It should have been an easy deal to make. Marketing it would have been harder. We've made the same deal a dozen times before. It's not like we didn't have the playbook ready to go. All we had to do was translate the end user guides from Spanish and replace "commies" with "Al Qaeda". Obviously the details would have needed to be hammered out but it's not like the precedent wasn't there.
ghostwriter 4y ago
> The US has lost three wars without resorting to nuclear weapons; None of which was happening anywhere close to US borders. In finance they say that past performance is no guarantee of future results, but you're eager to bet everything you have on this war outcome nonetheless.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  Ah yes, but the war Russia (as Russia, and not the USSR) lost was fought on Russian soil.
  - ghostwriter 4y ago
    Russia didn't lose in Chechnya, there were two campaigns and three rival military insurgent groups to combat. Eventually, the most prominent one was dealt with, and Khattab and all of his Saudi and Afghani terrorist field commanders were eliminated.
    - jcranmer 4y ago
      That was the Second Chechen War, though, not the First Chechen War, was it not?
      - ghostwriter 4y ago
        The three insurgent groups acted across two campaings (two hot war phases). The first phase was dealing with Dudayev & Maskhadov and their following specifically. The second phase acted on the Kadyrovs group and the Khattab & Basayev group. The former essentially were bought out and negotiated out of the war via rivalry with Maskhadov, financial incetives, and several regional autonomy promises (they have their own militia and army divisions like the 141 Special Motorized Regiment). The latter Khattab group effectively became the most prominent force during the second phase, it had several field commanders from Middle East who organized acts of terror in major Russian cities. [1] The war ended with elimination of all the leaders and field commanders of the two separatist groups. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Khattab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Khattab

xtian 4y ago

Russia has explicitly stated multiple times that they will use nuclear weapons in response to an existential threat, but you want to call their bluff?

aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 4y ago
Resisting their incursion into a sovereign country somehow constitutes a credible threat to the _existence_ of the Russian nation?
- xtian 4y ago
  Read the comments in this thread and others. See how many slack-jawed jackals are slavering over the idea of overthrowing Putin, ‘decolonizing’ Russia, Russia descending into anarchy, etc. These halfwits are merely echoing the myopic fantasies fed to them via the US media apparatus from the highest echelons of state power. Do you really think all these dark fantasies originated a year ago? Or is there maybe something else going on?

TexanFeller 4y ago

> A loss in Ukraine wouldn't even be the most "backed in a corner" a superpower has been since WWII Perhaps not for the country, but it could be for Putin. It's dangerous to make a man with the nuke codes desperate toward the end of his life.

wiseowise 4y ago
That’s not how nuclear codes work. There’s a long chain of people before ICBM is launched.
- TexanFeller 4y ago
  How long? A decision that must be made in an hour can't have too long a chain of command. There are several historical instances where we or Russia almost launched by mistake.
  - _kbh_ 4y ago
    > How long? A decision that must be made in an hour can't have too long a chain of command. There are several historical instances where we or Russia almost launched by mistake. The chain is even longer then the higher ups decision to actually launch a nuke though. Would you press the button to nuke another country knowing that doing so will very likely kill your entire family and you?, or would you ignore the order?.
xdennis 4y ago
> It's dangerous to make a man with the nuke codes desperate toward the end of his life. You always talk about the nukes because it's all you have left. Western leaders will never bow to the nuclear threat because doing so means Russia/China can get their way in everything if they just use the nuclear threat.
- TexanFeller 4y ago
  > You always talk about the nukes because it's all you have left. I talk about nukes because I believe it's the biggest danger the world faces and have for a long time. I grew up in the shadow of the cold war being drilled on how to hide under my desk when the missiles came. Far before Ukraine I was mystified by everyone's ability to forget that threat still exists. It seems possible and even likely to me that nuclear catastrophe will come before and be far greater in magnitude than any AI or climate catastrophes, for me it overshadows every other threat. Apparently I'm not the only one that perceives a threat: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/ https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/
  - baybal2 4y ago
    [dead]

hospitalJail 4y ago

>The US has lost three wars Are we calling Iraq and Afghanistan losses? Sure would be great if we established a liberal democracy in Afghanistan, but it seems like after Osama was killed, Americans mentally declared victory and we were just burning money and lives. Iraq had their leader overthrown and a new government established. Its really hard to call that a loss, even if it wasnt a perfect liberal democracy like we want.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
In 2003-13 I never would have said this but it sure looks like Iraq came out better. Neither came out great but both are stable, Iraq is not destabilizing the region and Afghanistan isn't harboring people who want to attack the west and have the capability to. That said, we never should have invaded Iraq and we probably could have accomplished what we accomplished in Afghanistan and more had we more seriously pursued diplomatic options in 2001.
- Zach_the_Lizard 4y ago
  For Afghanistan, I think the use of special forces and the like to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda terrorists would have been expedient. We got him in Pakistan even after all the trouble to invade and occupy Afghanistan. Throw in some shock and awe on Taliban forces if we wanted to make more of a point, I suppose. The mood in 2001 was one where diplomacy was impossible short of unconditionally handing over everyone in Al Qaeda to the US.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    >The mood in 2001 was one where diplomacy was impossible short of unconditionally handing over everyone in Al Qaeda to the US. That wasn't an unreasonable request all things considered. We should have tried much harder to get the Taliban to accept that deal. They needed to look like more legitimate government with a stronger grip on power. We needed Al Qaeda. It should have been an easy deal to make. Marketing it would have been harder. We've made the same deal a dozen times before. It's not like we didn't have the playbook ready to go. All we had to do was translate the end user guides from Spanish and replace "commies" with "Al Qaeda". Obviously the details would have needed to be hammered out but it's not like the precedent wasn't there.

ghostwriter 4y ago

> The US has lost three wars without resorting to nuclear weapons; None of which was happening anywhere close to US borders. In finance they say that past performance is no guarantee of future results, but you're eager to bet everything you have on this war outcome nonetheless.

jcranmer 4y ago
Ah yes, but the war Russia (as Russia, and not the USSR) lost was fought on Russian soil.
- ghostwriter 4y ago
  Russia didn't lose in Chechnya, there were two campaigns and three rival military insurgent groups to combat. Eventually, the most prominent one was dealt with, and Khattab and all of his Saudi and Afghani terrorist field commanders were eliminated.
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    That was the Second Chechen War, though, not the First Chechen War, was it not?
    - ghostwriter 4y ago
      The three insurgent groups acted across two campaings (two hot war phases). The first phase was dealing with Dudayev & Maskhadov and their following specifically. The second phase acted on the Kadyrovs group and the Khattab & Basayev group. The former essentially were bought out and negotiated out of the war via rivalry with Maskhadov, financial incetives, and several regional autonomy promises (they have their own militia and army divisions like the 141 Special Motorized Regiment). The latter Khattab group effectively became the most prominent force during the second phase, it had several field commanders from Middle East who organized acts of terror in major Russian cities. [1] The war ended with elimination of all the leaders and field commanders of the two separatist groups. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Khattab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Khattab