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There is still the threat of WW3...
by treprinum 3y ago
There is still the threat of WW3...
- ImHereToVote 3y agoDon't worry AGI will make all human modes of warfare disappear for all eternity.
- gregshap 3y agoHopefully that’s not the optimization function we pass the AGI!
- civilitty 3y agoBy disappearing the humans for all eternity. It’s all but a scifi cliche now.
- amelius 3y agoPoliticians don't watch scifi.
- ImHereToVote 3y agoA lot of science fiction has turned into science fact. Having this become science fact, just makes us extra silly goobers for ignoring the lessons in our own stories.
- mrob 3y ago100% successful elimination of all cancers too.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y agoExactly. Wars can't exist once humans are extinct.
- benterix 3y agoReally? Putin seems to slowly change his mind, even as far as the aims of his "special military operation" are concerned. It looks like he is slowly realizing what he got himself into and his aim is to keep Ukraine unstable to prevent its association with the EU.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoNo, there's a new mass troop mobilization coming, the grain deal was cancelled, Russia is firing on civilian shipping ports (including ones right on the border with NATO ally (EDIT: meant member) Romania), and Belarus is performing provocations across the Polish border. Unfortunately, I think things are just getting started.
- simiones 3y agoNATO member Romania, to be clear.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoSorry, meant that implied but didn't use the right language.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoWarning: rampant speculation. Why is Belarus performing provocations on the Polish border? Seems to me that Lukashenko is either doing it for himself, or for Putin. I can't see why he'd be doing it for himself. He might see Poland, flawed but still something of a democracy, as a threat to inspire those seeking democracy in Belarus. But it seems to me to be more likely that he's doing it for Putin. (This also might involve Wagner going to Belarus, not to escape Russia after the coup attempt, but in order to do a job for Russia.) But what's the point? Belarus isn't going to conquer Poland. Russia's not going to conquer the Baltics. So what's going on? If this is all a master plan, I think it's most likely that Putin is trying to create a war (or at least a real threat of war) with NATO, to give him an excuse to call for a mass mobilization in Russia. This in turn will give him enough force to at least keep what he has in Ukraine. (He's gambling - almost certainly correctly - that NATO has no stomach for anything beyond defending themselves. Think of the "Phony War" phase of the western front in WWII.) If I'm right, this is an extremely dangerous game that Putin is playing. Wagner could get out of hand (it already did once). The war could escalate. The Russian population could get fed up. The Russian elites could get fed up. But Putin may feel that he has no choice, because otherwise he would lose power, and because he may not survive a fall from power. (Wow, this has gone really far afield from a discussion of a promising cancer drug!)
- gumby 3y agoDoes not seem particularly high right now, TBH.
- simiones 3y agoIt's not particularly high when there is an active war between Russia and an almost-NATO country, supported by NATO, with fighting happening right at NATO borders? I would say it's perhaps never been higher since the Cuban missile crisis.
- midnitewarrior 3y agoThe beauty of nuclear weapons being possessed by both sides in a conflict is that it's in neither sides best interest to fire the first nuke. The West being aligned with Ukraine would prevent Ukraine from getting nuked in an extended conflict. That being said, there would have been no extended conflict for Ukraine without the West's assistance, they simply wouldn't exist without the international assistance, reducing the chance of Russia using a first strike against Ukraine to 0.
- reitanqild 3y ago> That being said, there would have been no extended conflict for Ukraine without the West's assistance, they simply wouldn't exist without the international assistance Don't underestimate Russia but don't overestimate them either: Russia lost against Afghanistan already back when they were a superpower and had Ukraine on their side. They will lose this time too even if they are even dumber this time and choose to waste all their conventional forces there.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> Russia lost against Afghanistan already back when they were a superpower and had Ukraine on their side. The mujahedeen fighting Russia in Afghanistan also had Western (US, particularly) support.
- incrudible 3y ago
- alexk307 3y agoSame as it’s been since the end of the last one…
- ajmurmann 3y agoNuclear war, maybe. WWIII would require two global superpowers, not a global superpowers and a country with the GDP of Greece that's struggling to remain a regional power.
- treprinum 3y agoYeah, OK, though a nuclear war waged over 2 days would likely cause more damage than WW2 + WW1 combined given the population density and destroyed economical value.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dragonwriter 3y ago> WWIII would require two global superpowers, No, it wouldn’t. You can have a World War without global superpowers on both sides (you need a wide geographic alignment of such power to, balanced for the relative difficulty of force projection on both sides, reach aggregate near-parity across a widely geographically dispersed set of conflict theaters, but you can do that with a global superpower on one side and a coalition of major regional powers in different regions on the other.
- ajmurmann 3y agoSo it's NATO against Russia, Belarus and who?
- dragonwriter 3y agoShould it expand beyond a major European war: Iran, Syria, North Korea, China are among the more obvious potential out-of-region Russian coalition partners; there's also quite a number of situations in Africa that could also be plausible areas of expansion of the same geopolitical conflict.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoEntirely depends on where China sits in this discussion. Luckily despite the last ten years of decline in relations and shift in China's positioning, the PRC still seems mostly motivated by trade rather than dick-measuring contests. Let's hope that continues.