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I wish I could believe the argument that Russian corruption has reached the point at which their nukes are no longer a threat and the alternative view amounts t

I wish I could believe the argument that Russian corruption has reached the point at which their nukes are no longer a threat and the alternative view amounts to fear mongering. But it seems unlikely that they have regressed so far in the means of power in the last sixty years. As the Doomsday Clock moves ever closer to midnight it concerns me that its political salience has only diminished.

aa-jv 2y ago
It is never a good idea to believe ones own propaganda. The 'weakness' of Russia is a fallacy that need not be tested, ever, with aggression. A far better use of ones time is to wonder where all the diplomacy has gone.
- Etheryte 2y ago
  Strong disagree. There is no diplomacy to be had when one side insists of war, because that's what they want. See Ukraine, everyone who is anyone tried to prevent the war, but Putin still went ahead with it. The leaked call with Macron is a good example, it's circling on Youtube and a variety of news outlets.
  - aa-jv 2y ago
    War is the end of diplomacy. Name a single effective Western diplomat capable of preventing wars?
    - rcxdude 2y ago
      Do you think that diplomacy is just some magical spell that automatically makes everyone agree? It's not actually possible to just diplomacy harder in all situations and make things OK.
    - The_Colonel 2y ago
      Diplomacy is able to prevent wars stemming from miscommunication / misunderstandings. There's not much you can do if both sides understand the other side's strategic aims correctly and still want to go to war.
      - swores 2y ago
        There can still be things to be done, just not always. For example had NATO countries all offered 50% of their GDP for the next decade as gifts to Russia in return for Putin calling all his troops out of Ukraine, it's very likely he would have ended the war on day two. Of course, that's not an offer NATO countries would have been willing to make (and even if they had made a deal like that, at a price less ridiculously high than 50% of GDP, it could easily lead to Russia starting the exact same war a decade later, now with much better funding). I'm not suggesting the above as a serious "this should have been the way to deal with it", just as a random, over-exaggerated example that there are diplomatic options above and beyond preventing wars that stem from miscommunication / misunderstandings.
        The_Colonel 2y ago
        The nuance here is that it's not the diplomats saving the peace (they obviously can't make such offer on their own), it's the NATO countries dramatically changing their strategic posture (willing to become economic vassals) and diplomats communicating the change. Putin would likely agree to such proposal since it would still further his goal of Russia becoming a dominant power on the continent. This nuance is important, because sometimes people blame "weak diplomats" etc, but it's not their fault, they can't find equilibrium of strategic interests where there's none.
    - jajko 2y ago
      If anybody prevented war, it wasn't some last minute magic but rather slow and tedious effort years and decades before. Not something you get famous for.
      - swores 2y ago
        It is also possible for war to be prevented by last minute magic deplomacy, albeit I would agree that it's the much less likely of the two options. But it's also something that's much less likely to become public knowledge. Slow and tedious efforts over years and decades contains plenty of discussions of the sort that often can be made public to make both sides look good (or for each side to make themselves look good to their domestic audience), while last minute, last ditch deals to prevent a war that was about to happen is much more likely to involve deals/threats/whatever that one or both parties require remain classified for many decades.
    - QuadmasterXLII 2y ago
      Grandpa Buff
    - krisoft 2y ago
      > Name a single effective Western diplomat capable of preventing wars? I mean all of them? Today the USA is not bombing London, Berlin is not bombing Paris, Switzerland is not bombing Sweden, Finland is not bombing Norway, Turkey is not bombing India. If you only count the wars which happened then you ignore all the ones which were prevented.
  - mistermann 2y ago
    > See Ukraine, everyone who is anyone tried to prevent the war Another rumour is that a peace deal of some sort deal was available to Ukraine but "the West" advised otherwise. Who knows what the truth of the matter is, but what can be known is that we don't know, although that requires certain skills and some conscious effort, which seems to be a bit much to ask of people when the war drums are banging (state propaganda, 2nd order citizen propaganda like on HN, etc).
    - brabel 2y ago
      That's not a rumour, there were several peace talks already, it was all over the news at the time but people seem to always forget every time. Wikipedia has a list of all of them so far: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_negotiations_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_negotiations_in_the_Russ...
      - mistermann 2y ago
        I think it is incredibly fascinating how easily smart people can be confused by simple, repetitive propaganda. And they are big talkers about the narrative, but can be silenced (the only remaining option being a downvote), essentially without exception, with the mere unusual usage of language. Imagine if someone was to weaponize, and then scale, this simple trick.
    - rcxdude 2y ago
      There's always some sort of peace deal available to any participant in a war: surrendering to your opponent's demands. War happens when those demands are not acceptable. Roughly speaking the difference between Ukraine's and Russia's demands is that Russia wants Ukraine to remain isolated from the west and militarily weak (which would make it easy for them to just go for it again), and Ukraine wants to align as tightly with the west as necessary to ensure Russia doesn't invade again, or failing that build up a credible enough deterrence themselves to achieve the same result.
      - mistermann 2y ago
- rcxdude 2y ago
  War's ultimate purpose is to shift the situation into a point where diplomacy can happen. It occurs when both sides disagree on the situation strongly enough that they prefer war to any diplomatic option available, and it continues until a diplomatic option can be agreed. Currently, Ukraine and Russia's diplomatic goals are still incompatible, and both believe they will be able to shift the balance of the war in their favor.
  - aa-jv 2y ago
    >War's ultimate purpose is to shift the situation into a point where diplomacy can happen. Sorry but that is just plain nonsense. The purpose of diplomacy is to avoid war. War destroys any reason for diplomacy.
    - rcxdude 2y ago
      If that were true, wars would never end.
      - aa-jv 2y ago
        And? Multiple wars are happening today: because diplomacy failed.
        rcxdude 2y ago
        And many more wars have ended, because the war eventually brought both sides to the table (even if that is an unconditional surrender).
        XorNot 2y ago
        What do you think diplomacy is? Why do you think it accomplishes anything? It certainly does, but you are discussing it as though it is not something that is formed against a backdrop of self-interest, geography, history, and military capability. Diplomacy is distinctly not "just talking nicely".
    - ranger207 2y ago
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > 'weakness' of Russia is a fallacy that need not be tested What? We've already seen a real-world test of Russia's military prowess. It's why every customer of Russian military kit that has the option to replace them is.
batushka5 2y ago
They are corrupt. Next time Russia will colapse and ask for food aid (see Bush Legs 1990), we should exchange it for nukes. Food for nukes, sounds sweet.
- tryauuum 2y ago
  I always wondered about the bush legs were there given to Russia for free? Or were they sold to Russia for cheap? Are there any documents about the numbers online?
  - sedan_baklazhan 2y ago
    They were being imported and paid for. It's funny that this is being considered as "help".
    - rolph 2y ago
      someone please chime in, if im totally off base, but i have developed the impression that, if you keep all the wealth your economy generates and dont pay down your debts, you get reduced credit rating from world bank. "helping" other nations is one way of spreading wealth, to those in need, with incumbency to pay it forward. please be gentle.
- beAbU 2y ago
  AS long as the nukes don't go to the US.
- kleton 2y ago
  Russians now pay a third or less what you are probably currently paying for eggs.
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    I don't mind paying a little more for my eggs, personally, if I get to enjoy living in an actual civilization as a bonus.
  - 2y ago
rcxdude 2y ago
Yeah, it's not particularly plausible. Even if you believe that they are in a truly atrocious state of repair, that, say, 95% of them will fail to land on target and detonate, a nuclear strike from Russia would still be catastrophic. The main reasons most observers are not super worried about nukes in the context of their invasion of Ukraine, is that MAD is still an effective policy against an all-out attack against NATO, and NATO (especially the US) has a credible red line of any attempt at a 'small-scale' use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine that will bring them into the war. The main effect of nukes, though, is to make Ukraine's allies nervous about the collapse of the russian government, because that is a plausible situation in which nukes could be used. The US, especially, seems to by trying to help Ukraine win, but not win so hard that Russia collapses, and it's not obvious that a level of support exists that would satisfy both outcomes.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Yes, this is arguably one of the points of overkill. Nukes are so powerful, and major powers have 100s to 1000s of them. Only 1 needs to get through to change history.
- gosub100 2y ago
  One thing that worries me is what if Putin gets a terminal illness? What incentive would he not have to go out by pushing the button?
  - rightbyte 2y ago
    His daugther?
    - potato3732842 2y ago
      And his country and his legacy. World leaders don't do bad things "because YOLO". They do bad things as a means to some other end.
  - XorNot 2y ago
    Because if he was, why not do it now? If your plan is to burn your country and the world to the ground, then there's not much reason to delay. Putin is saving his own life first and foremost with his actions, so he's not suicidal. But then secondly if you listen to the man it's apparent he believes he's rebuilding the Soviet Union as he imagined it when he was stationed in Berlin as a young KGB officer, and that belief is powered by a very specific lens he casts over Russian history. Which is to say: he doesn't want to destroy the empire he see's as his legacy (which is notably different to whether he actually cares at all about the Russian people in it - the Russian government historically does not overly concern itself with dead Russians unless politically convenient to). EDIT: The third element of course is that there's not literally "a button". No leader has unilateral release control of strategic nuclear weapons, so the reality is one "mad man" can't fire them - orders have to be issued, codes input etc. If Russia was going to launch it's ICBMs, then you can't do it by waking up in a bad mood one day unless at least a few of your top generals agree with you.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
I don't think that U.S. corruption is something to be ignored either. It surprises me that people are concerned about Putin pushing the button, but don't consider Trump pushing the button.
- Thorrez 2y ago
  You're using "corruption" in a different way than delichon. delichon is using it to mean government members take so much money for themselves that the bombs and the rest of the military stop functioning.
- krisoft 2y ago
  > It surprises me that people are concerned about Putin pushing the button, but don't consider Trump pushing the button Great many people are concerned about that. There are similar concerns that some boastful and bellicose messaging from him might be misinterpreted by adversaries and that triggers a nuclear exchange. This is the plot of the speculative fiction novel titled "The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against The United States" by Dr Jeffrey Lewis for example. > I don't think that U.S. corruption is something to be ignored either. Thorrez's comment is correct. It appears that you mean "corruption" in a different sense than the one discussed. Corruption here is not about the politicians being up to no good, but in a more specific sense. For example if a significant percentage of the missiles don't launch because the grease which should have been used to lubricate the turbopumps have been sold on the black market. Or the metal body of valves was replaced with cheaper inferior kind which causes those valves to seize up. And of course the answer here is not binary. It is not that every missile will fail, or every missile will succeed. It is about the probabilities. Will 5%, 10% 45%, or 95% be a dud? Obviously the Russian state is trying to work hard to push that percentage down, while entropy and corruption is "working" to push it up.

aa-jv 2y ago

It is never a good idea to believe ones own propaganda. The 'weakness' of Russia is a fallacy that need not be tested, ever, with aggression. A far better use of ones time is to wonder where all the diplomacy has gone.

Etheryte 2y ago
Strong disagree. There is no diplomacy to be had when one side insists of war, because that's what they want. See Ukraine, everyone who is anyone tried to prevent the war, but Putin still went ahead with it. The leaked call with Macron is a good example, it's circling on Youtube and a variety of news outlets.
- aa-jv 2y ago
  War is the end of diplomacy. Name a single effective Western diplomat capable of preventing wars?
  - rcxdude 2y ago
    Do you think that diplomacy is just some magical spell that automatically makes everyone agree? It's not actually possible to just diplomacy harder in all situations and make things OK.
  - The_Colonel 2y ago
    Diplomacy is able to prevent wars stemming from miscommunication / misunderstandings. There's not much you can do if both sides understand the other side's strategic aims correctly and still want to go to war.
    - swores 2y ago
      There can still be things to be done, just not always. For example had NATO countries all offered 50% of their GDP for the next decade as gifts to Russia in return for Putin calling all his troops out of Ukraine, it's very likely he would have ended the war on day two. Of course, that's not an offer NATO countries would have been willing to make (and even if they had made a deal like that, at a price less ridiculously high than 50% of GDP, it could easily lead to Russia starting the exact same war a decade later, now with much better funding). I'm not suggesting the above as a serious "this should have been the way to deal with it", just as a random, over-exaggerated example that there are diplomatic options above and beyond preventing wars that stem from miscommunication / misunderstandings.
      - The_Colonel 2y ago
        The nuance here is that it's not the diplomats saving the peace (they obviously can't make such offer on their own), it's the NATO countries dramatically changing their strategic posture (willing to become economic vassals) and diplomats communicating the change. Putin would likely agree to such proposal since it would still further his goal of Russia becoming a dominant power on the continent. This nuance is important, because sometimes people blame "weak diplomats" etc, but it's not their fault, they can't find equilibrium of strategic interests where there's none.
  - jajko 2y ago
    If anybody prevented war, it wasn't some last minute magic but rather slow and tedious effort years and decades before. Not something you get famous for.
    - swores 2y ago
      It is also possible for war to be prevented by last minute magic deplomacy, albeit I would agree that it's the much less likely of the two options. But it's also something that's much less likely to become public knowledge. Slow and tedious efforts over years and decades contains plenty of discussions of the sort that often can be made public to make both sides look good (or for each side to make themselves look good to their domestic audience), while last minute, last ditch deals to prevent a war that was about to happen is much more likely to involve deals/threats/whatever that one or both parties require remain classified for many decades.
  - QuadmasterXLII 2y ago
    Grandpa Buff
  - krisoft 2y ago
    > Name a single effective Western diplomat capable of preventing wars? I mean all of them? Today the USA is not bombing London, Berlin is not bombing Paris, Switzerland is not bombing Sweden, Finland is not bombing Norway, Turkey is not bombing India. If you only count the wars which happened then you ignore all the ones which were prevented.
- mistermann 2y ago
  > See Ukraine, everyone who is anyone tried to prevent the war Another rumour is that a peace deal of some sort deal was available to Ukraine but "the West" advised otherwise. Who knows what the truth of the matter is, but what can be known is that we don't know, although that requires certain skills and some conscious effort, which seems to be a bit much to ask of people when the war drums are banging (state propaganda, 2nd order citizen propaganda like on HN, etc).
  - brabel 2y ago
    That's not a rumour, there were several peace talks already, it was all over the news at the time but people seem to always forget every time. Wikipedia has a list of all of them so far: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_negotiations_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_negotiations_in_the_Russ...
    - mistermann 2y ago
      I think it is incredibly fascinating how easily smart people can be confused by simple, repetitive propaganda. And they are big talkers about the narrative, but can be silenced (the only remaining option being a downvote), essentially without exception, with the mere unusual usage of language. Imagine if someone was to weaponize, and then scale, this simple trick.
  - rcxdude 2y ago
    There's always some sort of peace deal available to any participant in a war: surrendering to your opponent's demands. War happens when those demands are not acceptable. Roughly speaking the difference between Ukraine's and Russia's demands is that Russia wants Ukraine to remain isolated from the west and militarily weak (which would make it easy for them to just go for it again), and Ukraine wants to align as tightly with the west as necessary to ensure Russia doesn't invade again, or failing that build up a credible enough deterrence themselves to achieve the same result.
    - mistermann 2y ago
rcxdude 2y ago
War's ultimate purpose is to shift the situation into a point where diplomacy can happen. It occurs when both sides disagree on the situation strongly enough that they prefer war to any diplomatic option available, and it continues until a diplomatic option can be agreed. Currently, Ukraine and Russia's diplomatic goals are still incompatible, and both believe they will be able to shift the balance of the war in their favor.
- aa-jv 2y ago
  >War's ultimate purpose is to shift the situation into a point where diplomacy can happen. Sorry but that is just plain nonsense. The purpose of diplomacy is to avoid war. War destroys any reason for diplomacy.
  - rcxdude 2y ago
    If that were true, wars would never end.
    - aa-jv 2y ago
      And? Multiple wars are happening today: because diplomacy failed.
      - rcxdude 2y ago
        And many more wars have ended, because the war eventually brought both sides to the table (even if that is an unconditional surrender).
      - XorNot 2y ago
        What do you think diplomacy is? Why do you think it accomplishes anything? It certainly does, but you are discussing it as though it is not something that is formed against a backdrop of self-interest, geography, history, and military capability. Diplomacy is distinctly not "just talking nicely".
  - ranger207 2y ago
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> 'weakness' of Russia is a fallacy that need not be tested What? We've already seen a real-world test of Russia's military prowess. It's why every customer of Russian military kit that has the option to replace them is.

batushka5 2y ago

They are corrupt. Next time Russia will colapse and ask for food aid (see Bush Legs 1990), we should exchange it for nukes. Food for nukes, sounds sweet.

tryauuum 2y ago
I always wondered about the bush legs were there given to Russia for free? Or were they sold to Russia for cheap? Are there any documents about the numbers online?
- sedan_baklazhan 2y ago
  They were being imported and paid for. It's funny that this is being considered as "help".
  - rolph 2y ago
    someone please chime in, if im totally off base, but i have developed the impression that, if you keep all the wealth your economy generates and dont pay down your debts, you get reduced credit rating from world bank. "helping" other nations is one way of spreading wealth, to those in need, with incumbency to pay it forward. please be gentle.
beAbU 2y ago
AS long as the nukes don't go to the US.
kleton 2y ago
Russians now pay a third or less what you are probably currently paying for eggs.
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  I don't mind paying a little more for my eggs, personally, if I get to enjoy living in an actual civilization as a bonus.
- 2y ago

rcxdude 2y ago

Yeah, it's not particularly plausible. Even if you believe that they are in a truly atrocious state of repair, that, say, 95% of them will fail to land on target and detonate, a nuclear strike from Russia would still be catastrophic. The main reasons most observers are not super worried about nukes in the context of their invasion of Ukraine, is that MAD is still an effective policy against an all-out attack against NATO, and NATO (especially the US) has a credible red line of any attempt at a 'small-scale' use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine that will bring them into the war. The main effect of nukes, though, is to make Ukraine's allies nervous about the collapse of the russian government, because that is a plausible situation in which nukes could be used. The US, especially, seems to by trying to help Ukraine win, but not win so hard that Russia collapses, and it's not obvious that a level of support exists that would satisfy both outcomes.

steveBK123 2y ago
Yes, this is arguably one of the points of overkill. Nukes are so powerful, and major powers have 100s to 1000s of them. Only 1 needs to get through to change history.
gosub100 2y ago
One thing that worries me is what if Putin gets a terminal illness? What incentive would he not have to go out by pushing the button?
- rightbyte 2y ago
  His daugther?
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    And his country and his legacy. World leaders don't do bad things "because YOLO". They do bad things as a means to some other end.
- XorNot 2y ago
  Because if he was, why not do it now? If your plan is to burn your country and the world to the ground, then there's not much reason to delay. Putin is saving his own life first and foremost with his actions, so he's not suicidal. But then secondly if you listen to the man it's apparent he believes he's rebuilding the Soviet Union as he imagined it when he was stationed in Berlin as a young KGB officer, and that belief is powered by a very specific lens he casts over Russian history. Which is to say: he doesn't want to destroy the empire he see's as his legacy (which is notably different to whether he actually cares at all about the Russian people in it - the Russian government historically does not overly concern itself with dead Russians unless politically convenient to). EDIT: The third element of course is that there's not literally "a button". No leader has unilateral release control of strategic nuclear weapons, so the reality is one "mad man" can't fire them - orders have to be issued, codes input etc. If Russia was going to launch it's ICBMs, then you can't do it by waking up in a bad mood one day unless at least a few of your top generals agree with you.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago

I don't think that U.S. corruption is something to be ignored either. It surprises me that people are concerned about Putin pushing the button, but don't consider Trump pushing the button.

Thorrez 2y ago
You're using "corruption" in a different way than delichon. delichon is using it to mean government members take so much money for themselves that the bombs and the rest of the military stop functioning.
krisoft 2y ago
> It surprises me that people are concerned about Putin pushing the button, but don't consider Trump pushing the button Great many people are concerned about that. There are similar concerns that some boastful and bellicose messaging from him might be misinterpreted by adversaries and that triggers a nuclear exchange. This is the plot of the speculative fiction novel titled "The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against The United States" by Dr Jeffrey Lewis for example. > I don't think that U.S. corruption is something to be ignored either. Thorrez's comment is correct. It appears that you mean "corruption" in a different sense than the one discussed. Corruption here is not about the politicians being up to no good, but in a more specific sense. For example if a significant percentage of the missiles don't launch because the grease which should have been used to lubricate the turbopumps have been sold on the black market. Or the metal body of valves was replaced with cheaper inferior kind which causes those valves to seize up. And of course the answer here is not binary. It is not that every missile will fail, or every missile will succeed. It is about the probabilities. Will 5%, 10% 45%, or 95% be a dud? Obviously the Russian state is trying to work hard to push that percentage down, while entropy and corruption is "working" to push it up.