4 ms·

Can we think on the next step then? A nuclear nation invades and annexes territories from a non-nuclear one, given the premise to avoid wars between nuclear pow

by piva00 2y ago

Can we think on the next step then? A nuclear nation invades and annexes territories from a non-nuclear one, given the premise to avoid wars between nuclear powers by proxy it means that a nuclear nation can then invade and annex anything in their surroundings with little repercussion, since we want to avoid any escalation towards nuclear powers at war. They settle for peace, the nuclear power gets what they want, stops for a while to re-arm, and then pushes to another non-nuclear nation. What would stop other nations from pursuing their own nukes if that's the case? It also would make any military alliance such as NATO moot, there are only 3 nuclear powers in the alliance, any other country in the alliance which gets invaded by a nuclear power wouldn't be able to call for help since we want to avoid nuclear confrontation. This only spirals more and more, countries without nukes are at a massive disadvantage, they will naturally seek nukes to protect themselves, just increasing the odds that a nuclear exchange will happen by sheer statistics. > This is why I will be voting for the candidate who was not endorsed by Dick Cheney. Proving my point that you don't think very rationally at all.

cynicalpeace 2y ago
You're claiming a compromised peace in the Donbas could spiral into a nuclear exchange. I'm claiming that continuing the proxy war between a jingoistic US government and a (probably) jingoistic Russian government could spiral into a nuclear exchange, and that the US government should be less jingoistic. Being jingoistic doesn't reduce the chance of nuclear war. I doubt we're going to convince each other, so I would challenge readers of the two claims to decide for themselves what makes more sense for preventing nuclear armageddon.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  It's a classic short-term vs long-term tradeoff. Letting Russia get away with an invasion of Ukraine decreases the risk of a nuclear war in the next couple of years but increases it in the following decades. I personally believe the long-term thinkers have the better argument
  - cynicalpeace 2y ago
    It's not long vs short term. It's money and conquest vs peace and compromise. The "long term" vision you're proposing is a decades long entrenched conflict with multiple nuclear states. Literally every single foreign policy disaster of the past 40 years has been orchestrated by following this exact playbook, by the exact same people. The "long term" vision I propose is normalizing relation with these nuclear states and we do business with them all without telling everyone how to live. This is actually how long term peace is achieved. We shouldn't be the world's policeman. We do much better as the world's businessman.
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      IOW the same plan we tried with Russia and China in the 90's, and failed miserably at?
- piva00 2y ago
  No. I'm claiming that a compromised peace in the Donbas with the annexation of territories of the Donbas and Crimea will further strengthen that if you have nukes you have a massive lever to use against non-nuclear nations. And Russia wants the Donbas, Crimea and the land bridge all the way around the Sea of Azov, that's a massive plot of land. You are only considering a narrow point in time, think ahead in terms of 20-50 years the repercussions of allowing an annexation to happen uncontested. Right now it's Ukraine, let's say next is Iran acquiring nuclear weapons over the next 20 years and moving towards Basra in Iraq + Kuwait for their oil fields, in this scenario they are a nuclear power, arming themselves for 20 years (and they already have ballistic missiles), to avoid a nuclear escalation between Iran and USA + Israel a negotiated peace happens. The Saudis see that happening and now they feel the need to arm themselves with a nuclear weapon, just in case Iran thinks of continuing this campaign. Multiply this across many other nations under similar low-level confrontations, African nations fighting for water sources, one of them arms themselves with a nuclear weapon (let's say Sudan) to have leverage to control a massively important water source, what's going to stop others around it to not arm themselves (like Eritrea) to not get invaded? It's a spiral, the moment you allow a nuclear power to use that status to force the hand of an opposing nation at war you open a can of worms. Since 1945 the world has been trying to control proliferation through other means, wars of annexation have been shunned, you really don't want that to come back into a world armed with nuclear weapons. I don't have an answer, I don't think anyone does. Putin has changed the world with this invasion, you are choosing to vote for Trump on a flimsy argument, you don't even know what the fuck he will do since he's a massive liar. On top of that you're jeopardising your country's democracy based on wishful thinking of what you project Trump will do, it's all from your head, not from his words.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    > based on wishful thinking of what you project Trump will do, it's all from your head, not from his words. Since we're off-topic already can I just emphasize this point? Pretty much everybody I know who has or will vote for Trump is like this. For example, I knew one guy who voted for Trump because he thought Trump would legalize marijuana.
    - 2y ago

by piva00 2y ago

cynicalpeace 2y ago

You're claiming a compromised peace in the Donbas could spiral into a nuclear exchange. I'm claiming that continuing the proxy war between a jingoistic US government and a (probably) jingoistic Russian government could spiral into a nuclear exchange, and that the US government should be less jingoistic. Being jingoistic doesn't reduce the chance of nuclear war. I doubt we're going to convince each other, so I would challenge readers of the two claims to decide for themselves what makes more sense for preventing nuclear armageddon.

bryanlarsen 2y ago
It's a classic short-term vs long-term tradeoff. Letting Russia get away with an invasion of Ukraine decreases the risk of a nuclear war in the next couple of years but increases it in the following decades. I personally believe the long-term thinkers have the better argument
- cynicalpeace 2y ago
  It's not long vs short term. It's money and conquest vs peace and compromise. The "long term" vision you're proposing is a decades long entrenched conflict with multiple nuclear states. Literally every single foreign policy disaster of the past 40 years has been orchestrated by following this exact playbook, by the exact same people. The "long term" vision I propose is normalizing relation with these nuclear states and we do business with them all without telling everyone how to live. This is actually how long term peace is achieved. We shouldn't be the world's policeman. We do much better as the world's businessman.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    IOW the same plan we tried with Russia and China in the 90's, and failed miserably at?
piva00 2y ago
No. I'm claiming that a compromised peace in the Donbas with the annexation of territories of the Donbas and Crimea will further strengthen that if you have nukes you have a massive lever to use against non-nuclear nations. And Russia wants the Donbas, Crimea and the land bridge all the way around the Sea of Azov, that's a massive plot of land. You are only considering a narrow point in time, think ahead in terms of 20-50 years the repercussions of allowing an annexation to happen uncontested. Right now it's Ukraine, let's say next is Iran acquiring nuclear weapons over the next 20 years and moving towards Basra in Iraq + Kuwait for their oil fields, in this scenario they are a nuclear power, arming themselves for 20 years (and they already have ballistic missiles), to avoid a nuclear escalation between Iran and USA + Israel a negotiated peace happens. The Saudis see that happening and now they feel the need to arm themselves with a nuclear weapon, just in case Iran thinks of continuing this campaign. Multiply this across many other nations under similar low-level confrontations, African nations fighting for water sources, one of them arms themselves with a nuclear weapon (let's say Sudan) to have leverage to control a massively important water source, what's going to stop others around it to not arm themselves (like Eritrea) to not get invaded? It's a spiral, the moment you allow a nuclear power to use that status to force the hand of an opposing nation at war you open a can of worms. Since 1945 the world has been trying to control proliferation through other means, wars of annexation have been shunned, you really don't want that to come back into a world armed with nuclear weapons. I don't have an answer, I don't think anyone does. Putin has changed the world with this invasion, you are choosing to vote for Trump on a flimsy argument, you don't even know what the fuck he will do since he's a massive liar. On top of that you're jeopardising your country's democracy based on wishful thinking of what you project Trump will do, it's all from your head, not from his words.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  > based on wishful thinking of what you project Trump will do, it's all from your head, not from his words. Since we're off-topic already can I just emphasize this point? Pretty much everybody I know who has or will vote for Trump is like this. For example, I knew one guy who voted for Trump because he thought Trump would legalize marijuana.
  - 2y ago