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Some say that the Spanish Civil War was the rehearsal for WWII. No doubt, the war in Ukraine is just such a situation.
by k310 1y ago
Some say that the Spanish Civil War was the rehearsal for WWII. No doubt, the war in Ukraine is just such a situation.
- cosmicgadget 1y agoAs long as TACO doesn't dissolve NATO or try to invade Canada, the optimist in me believes a global conventional war is highly unlikely.
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoDissolving NATO is beyond his power. He could maybe withdraw the US from it.
- snovymgodym 1y ago> He could maybe withdraw the US from it. realistically speaking, this destroys NATO
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoUnder current circumstances, I doubt it. NATO has extremely fresh evidence of why it needs to continue to exist, and what happens if it doesn't.
- roenxi 1y agoWWII was pretty compelling evidence of why Britain needed a global empire, but nonetheless the empire was dissolved. There is a pretty good argument here for at a minimum reforming NATO. Some major points include that the US appears to be bluffing about having useful support to offer Eastern Europe through the NATO structure, also appears to have different defence priorities than Europe does, NATO itself failed to preserve peace and Europe looks like it has militarily atrophied to a pretty significant extent under NATO. It is not clear how the situation will ultimately be interpreted, but the US's involvement here is pushing Europe towards being the next middle east. That isn't a great outcome.
- tim333 1y agoWhy did Britain need a global empire? I sit here in Britain with no global empire and things seem to continue.
- roenxi 1y agoExactly. Very similar situation to NATO - there isn't any evidence it needs to exist. The premise depends on an assumption that the status quo is necessary, when in fact it is not.
- ben_w 1y agoThe Empire ended because WW2 was a Pyrrhic victory for the UK, that left the UK in a bad shape economically and heavily dependent on the USA. The USA didn't like the Empire, but the UK government didn't fully realise how much things had changed until the Suez Crisis. Also, WW2 happened despite the Empire, and the UK wasn't really in a good place to fight it when they did — as in "we don't have enough guns and uniforms for everyone" not ready, despite having ended the military cutbacks 5 years before the war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_rearmament_before_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_rearmament_before_Worl..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Small_Arms_Company#Second_World_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Small_Arms_Company#..., https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/8-facts-about-clothes-rationing-in-britain-during-the-second-world-war https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/8-facts-about-clothes-rationi...
- euroderf 1y agoTimothy Garten Ashe of Oxford says that NATO needs about five years to adapt to the loss of the USA.
- tim333 1y agoI don't think it destroys NATO. Weakens it of course. But we had an trial when Trump acted like he was abandoning Ukraine when they had a go at Zelensky in the White House and cut information sharing to Ukraine. Rather than the defences collasing, European leaders made it clear they'd take over. We don't have much choice really. Western Europe + Turkey are not going to put up with Russia rolling into Western Europe or Turkey. We have nukes and more money, people and kit than Russia.
- Gud 1y agoNo, but a withdrawal of it's by far most aggressive partner will make it a defence alliance again.
- erupt7893 1y agoYou are naive if you think global conventional war is highly unlikely at this point. A nuclear weapon capable country is being backed in to a corner
- cosmicgadget 1y agoA nuclear power is backed into a corner so you're predicting a global conventional war?
- CamperBob2 1y ago[flagged]
- dmix 1y agoThat's a dangerous prediction to make. Russia spends a ton of money supporting it's nuclear weapons/fleet ($10B in 2022 alone). Even if half fail it wouldn't make a difference.
- CamperBob2 1y agoPut yourself in the shoes of a senior Russian official in charge of spending that money. There's no way for him to get caught. If his superiors ever find out that he 'misplaced' the funding needed to keep their nuclear weapons ready for action, tracking him down will be the least of their concerns.
- dmix 1y agoThere's multiple different types of nukes in Russia. So again it's dangerous to assume every part of their large organization is corrupt. Especially given how important this stuff is.
- tim333 1y agoYeah judging by their other kit, even if 50% doesn't work, the other 50% can do a lot of damage.
- dragonwriter 1y agoWhy would he dissolve NATO? That would just encourage something else to form where the US doesn't have a veto over all decisions.
- mmooss 1y agoRecent decisions don't seem to follow that agenda and rationale.
- tim333 1y agoActually I'd say events did kind of follow that agenda. Trump looked at abandoning Ukraine and backing Russia which would have been close to abandoning NATO but it became clear Europe would fight on without him.
- shepherdjerred 1y agoEveryone who has played Hearts of Iron knows that Spain is where you train your units for 1939