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It seems like the current system is working, since it hasn't really happened? Otherwise wouldn't Russia have just walked into Ukraine with a nuke saying "we're

• ceejayoz 2y ago
  Russia has consistently used nuclear blackmail in Ukraine. The West has responded with a very slow, incremental ramping up of aid to avoid triggering it. If Russia didn't have nukes, the situation in Ukraine would look very different.
  • IncreasePosts 2y ago
    Why is Russia fighting an actual war with half a million casualties if nuclear blackmail works?
    • ceejayoz 2y ago
      Nuclear blackmail is what stops NATO from ending the war overnight tomorrow with a massive air assault on Russian troops in Ukraine. Instead, we ship arms over the border and wring our hands with every small ratcheting up of aid calibrated to hopefully not trigger it. Blackmail doesn't have to be perfect to be functional. The West has correctly assessed "they're not going to nuke us over x" so far, but it remains a consideration.
      • lostlogin 2y ago
        A less charitable view of the strategy is that the west is letting Ukraine bleed out defending itself with too little support to win, and too much to lose.
        • petre 2y ago
          The current war situation is quite convenient for the US. They watch the Russians screw themselves up in Ukraine while mostly supplying it with aging weapons that were mostly sitting around close to being decomissioned. O handy way to get rid of old inventory and also to push Eastern European NATO members to update their stuff: donate your USSR-made scrap to Ukraine and we'll give/sell you more modern NATO compatible equivalents. Putin was dumb enough to start a war and enable this. And this time the US reacted with more than just sanctions.
          • aguaviva 2y ago
            Things may very well work out that way for the arms industry. But it's not just like US policy in Ukraine is just a big sham to get these countries to buy modern weapon systems, if that's what you're insinuating.
            • petre 2y ago
              Of course it's not a big sham, we want more modern US or NATO weapons systems. Most of us also want our Soviet inventory donated to Ukraine and getting used against the Russians. I'm not insinuating anything, just stating a fact.
              • aguaviva 2y ago
                Ah, okay - my mistake. At least the excess inventory will finally be put to good use, then.
                • paulryanrogers 2y ago
                  It's a sad day that machines of war are better when "put to use" than recycled or left to rott in museums. But I agree that use against an unprovoked invader is more just than 'peace' under the boot of a dictator.
        • llamaimperative 2y ago
          “The US” isn’t doing that. Democrats are trying to defend our ally, and Republicans are trying not to. The net result is a rather incoherent US position, not a malicious one. Totally coincidentally, Republican media figures are being discovered to be essentially Russian stooges. It’s very shocking, if you happened to ignore their constant purveyance of Russian propaganda.
  • jonplackett 2y ago
    Another way to think about it though is without nukes there’d be nothing stopping NATO and Russia blowing the crap out of each other. That might not actually be better.
    • ceejayoz 2y ago
      If we ignore nibbling up bits of various sovereign nations while we look away and hope it stops, sure. Russia isn’t gonna stop with Ukraine just like they didn’t with Georgia and Moldova.
    • lostlogin 2y ago
      NATO has completely undermined itself by watching Russia attack its neighbours and responding so weakly. What’s the point of a nuclear deterrent if your key strategy is going to be appeasement?
      • petre 2y ago
        Did you read up about MAD and how computers evolved because the US was calculating what to nuke in the USSR in the event of a nuclear strike? The point of nuclear deterrent is to have it, not to use it. If one has too much of it they'll go bankrupt like the USSR. None and they'll get attacked or invaded. That's why nobody attacks North Korea and Iran mainly uses proxies to attack Israel.
        • lostlogin 2y ago
          That’s a bit simplistic. Plenty of countries have no nuclear weapons and aren’t attacked. The USSR didn’t fall because it had too many nuclear weapons. Plenty of nuclear armed countries have been attacked or invaded.