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Most experts agree that the best way to de-escalate conflict with Russia is to show them overwhelming force. Diplomacy, compromise and all soft stuff that does

Most experts agree that the best way to de-escalate conflict with Russia is to show them overwhelming force. Diplomacy, compromise and all soft stuff that doesn't work with Russian culture. They see it as weakness, and push further. But when you show them force, that they can respect.

somenameforme 2y ago
Historically US policy towards the USSR up until 1983 was escalation as a means of showing dominance. And it put the world on the brink of nuclear apocalypse that indeed would likely have happened if not for a single man. [1] But in 1983 we ran one of the most elaborate wargames ever played - Proud Prophet. [2] In that wargame a large number of strategies to defeat the USSR were trialed - limited nuclear strikes (or demonstrative strikes), decapitation strikes, and so on. And literally every single outcome led to the defacto end of the world, or at least the Northern Hemisphere. Following the outcome of those wargames we shifted to a policy of de-escalation and negotiation - by 1991 the Soviet Union would collapse, their leaders hand in hand with American leaders. At one point Russia was even interested in joining NATO. We could be living in a very different timeline had we chosen to maintain positive ties with mutual respect of interests. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Prophet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Prophet
- bgnn 2y ago
  I'm so surprised how people forgot all of these. The current escalation is not only the fault of current Russia, but to a large extent US and European countries which decided to take the current path. Russia and other iron curtain countries didn't need to end up being plundered and left at the hands of oligarchs. Let's forget about Russia for a moment abd look at eastern Germany. Current voting behavior there cannot be blamed on anything other than failure of the West after the collapse of communism to seize the opportunity to create a better integrated Germany. The west German capitalist choose to plunder it, buy old factories and sell the scrap metal instead of keeping them operational and gradually modernizing. All the wealth of the people there were just evaporated after unification. Now we have the political crisis as a result.
- rougka 2y ago
  Only when forgetting that the US was extremely naive towards Stalin after-WW2, breaking promises and taking over eastern europe. This now classical approach where the US is some absolute evil confronted by the nice guy Stalinists could be funny if not widespread
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    I don't think the US is evil, nor any country nice. Rather I think countries are driven by their own self interest. The problem is that sometimes those self interest, at one level, seem reasonable, but at a larger scale lead to catastrophe. That was the entire point of the wargame, to see if the path the US was taking was actually even in its own self interest - and it turned out that it was not. I feel that in recent times this degree of objectivity, and even humility, has largely been lost. It perhaps started most clearly with the wargames around a conflict with Iran - 'Millennium Challenge 2002'. [1] The problem we had is that the US lost that wargame, badly. So rather than learn from that, we changed the rules and the entire expensive exercise turned into a scripted event where the good guys naturally won and the bad guys naturally lost. Another issue is I think an increasingly large number of countries being coerced into no longer acting in their own self interest. This is a sure-fire way to enter into catastrophe because the reality is that the coercer often cares very little for the coerced, even more so when the coerced's loss is the coercer's gain. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
gruez 2y ago
>Most experts agree that the best way to de-escalate conflict with Russia is to show them overwhelming force. Source?
leobg 2y ago
Yeah. Like in 1961. Good the U.S. invaded Cuba to show them Communists force. I’m being sarcastic. This didn’t happen, though many people advised Kennedy to do exactly that. Had the U.S. done it, we very likely wouldn’t be here today.

somenameforme 2y ago

Historically US policy towards the USSR up until 1983 was escalation as a means of showing dominance. And it put the world on the brink of nuclear apocalypse that indeed would likely have happened if not for a single man. [1] But in 1983 we ran one of the most elaborate wargames ever played - Proud Prophet. [2] In that wargame a large number of strategies to defeat the USSR were trialed - limited nuclear strikes (or demonstrative strikes), decapitation strikes, and so on. And literally every single outcome led to the defacto end of the world, or at least the Northern Hemisphere. Following the outcome of those wargames we shifted to a policy of de-escalation and negotiation - by 1991 the Soviet Union would collapse, their leaders hand in hand with American leaders. At one point Russia was even interested in joining NATO. We could be living in a very different timeline had we chosen to maintain positive ties with mutual respect of interests. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Prophet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Prophet

bgnn 2y ago
I'm so surprised how people forgot all of these. The current escalation is not only the fault of current Russia, but to a large extent US and European countries which decided to take the current path. Russia and other iron curtain countries didn't need to end up being plundered and left at the hands of oligarchs. Let's forget about Russia for a moment abd look at eastern Germany. Current voting behavior there cannot be blamed on anything other than failure of the West after the collapse of communism to seize the opportunity to create a better integrated Germany. The west German capitalist choose to plunder it, buy old factories and sell the scrap metal instead of keeping them operational and gradually modernizing. All the wealth of the people there were just evaporated after unification. Now we have the political crisis as a result.
rougka 2y ago
Only when forgetting that the US was extremely naive towards Stalin after-WW2, breaking promises and taking over eastern europe. This now classical approach where the US is some absolute evil confronted by the nice guy Stalinists could be funny if not widespread
- somenameforme 2y ago
  I don't think the US is evil, nor any country nice. Rather I think countries are driven by their own self interest. The problem is that sometimes those self interest, at one level, seem reasonable, but at a larger scale lead to catastrophe. That was the entire point of the wargame, to see if the path the US was taking was actually even in its own self interest - and it turned out that it was not. I feel that in recent times this degree of objectivity, and even humility, has largely been lost. It perhaps started most clearly with the wargames around a conflict with Iran - 'Millennium Challenge 2002'. [1] The problem we had is that the US lost that wargame, badly. So rather than learn from that, we changed the rules and the entire expensive exercise turned into a scripted event where the good guys naturally won and the bad guys naturally lost. Another issue is I think an increasingly large number of countries being coerced into no longer acting in their own self interest. This is a sure-fire way to enter into catastrophe because the reality is that the coercer often cares very little for the coerced, even more so when the coerced's loss is the coercer's gain. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

gruez 2y ago

>Most experts agree that the best way to de-escalate conflict with Russia is to show them overwhelming force. Source?

leobg 2y ago

Yeah. Like in 1961. Good the U.S. invaded Cuba to show them Communists force. I’m being sarcastic. This didn’t happen, though many people advised Kennedy to do exactly that. Had the U.S. done it, we very likely wouldn’t be here today.