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I am very confused by your comments. Could it be that you imagine that a few thousand Navy Seals could "disarm [Russian] nuclear capability by force"? If not, p
by hollerith 2y ago
I am very confused by your comments. Could it be that you imagine that a few thousand Navy Seals could "disarm [Russian] nuclear capability by force"? If not, please describe how you would do it if you were in command of the US military.
I mean, the US couldn't even disarm the Taliban or keep it from ruling Afghanistan after spending trillions of dollars. And the Taliban didn't even have any powerful friends: i.e., none of Russia, China, Great Britain, France or India had any interest in helping or supporting them. I don't think even Iran did. (I realize that parts of the Pakistani national-security apparatus supported them, and they got money from Saudi donors, but still.)
Separately my impression is that the Kremlin hasn't been behaving badly or has been behaving only mildly badly -- for a sovereign nation. It is important not to apply intuitions acquired from interpersonal relations to the international level: in the interpersonal realm (except for anarchic situations like for example Somali in the 1990s) there is always a "night watchman" of some sort that a person can appeal to when he has been mistreated by another person. On the national level, in contrast, what night watchmen formally exist are almost completely toothless. So for example, on the interpersonal level, it is never ethical for me to attack one of my neighbors out of fear that in the future, that neighbor will invite onto his property a third person who will launch a devastating attack on me. On the international level, it is not intrinsically unethical IMHO. The Cuban missile crisis would be a good example here: I don't consider it unethical for the US to have blockaded Cuba until Moscow or Havana promised not to keep Soviet missile forces on the island.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoI will think on how NATO could accomplish this with some measure of success. As a sovereign nation, I believe the Kremlin has already gone too far with what has happened in Ukraine, and they could still do much worse, both in Eastern Europe and the world. The world must be prepared for what escalation comes next. Better to have a plan and not need it vs needing a plan and not having it imho. To be clear, I do not believe this is warmongering; this is asking if and when we’ll disarm a warmonger (if at all). If the consensus is we’re going to let them run roughshod over civil society until they’re gone, them the breaks I guess.
- hollerith 2y ago>Better to have a plan and not need . . . this is asking if and when we’ll disarm a warmonger (if at all). Well, sure, but the plan goes into action only after the Kremlin has done some grievous harm to US interests, e.g., by causing thousands of nuclear warheads to explode over US city centers. We shouldn't as a nation embrace some totally impractical code of ethics that even we do not follow and try to use our military forces to punish transgressions of that code as if we are the world police.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoWe agree to disagree then on global military projection and policy, which is fine. We should use military projection when innocent people are in harm’s way. That’s what the annual DoD budget, military hardware, and weapons systems are for. Sometimes, might makes right, and peace through superior firepower, because there will always be bullies.
- hollerith 2y agoWhat is your stance on nuclear readiness? If we as a nation (the US) are going to confront nuclear powers like Moscow, shouldn't US civilians be a whole lot more prepared for a nuclear war than we actually are? The chances of a nuclear attack are very low even if we keep on confronting Moscow, but if the very-low-probability outcome actually does come to pass, literally millions of lives would be saved by a cheap investment in readiness now.
- pegasus 2y agoSo, an act is only unethical if you can be caught, everything else is fair game. Strange notion of ethics you got there.