4 ms·

I really thought that Russia would use such a device to end the war in Ukraine. Hopefully they will not.

epistasis 4mo ago
If Ukraine had kept its nuclear weapons it would not have been attacked, but there was never any risk of Russia using nuclear weapons. This is just one of many many ways that people in the west fundamentally misunderstand Russia, and why so many people made fools of themselves thinking that Putin would not invade. The other really big one is that Russia never admitted that it lost the Cold War and thinks the war is still going on, and that it's the fault of the US and others that Russia is so backwards and poor, not a result of their own mismanagement, the weakness of their people, and the general corruption.
- rayiner 4mo ago
  > and that it's the fault of the US and others that Russia is so backwards and poor Why is Russia so backwards and poor? Russia and Iran are two countries that seem to way underperform their fundamentals.
  - p-e-w 4mo ago
    Brain drain at an unimaginable scale, which is a self-reinforcing mechanism because once it starts, governments will usually impose restrictions to try to stop it, which makes everyone else want to leave too.
  - whatever1 4mo ago
    Because their institutions are completely corrupt. There are no rules to the game so the powerful take everything. It is a smaller pie but if I can have it all, why do I care? Prosperity correlates with powerful institutions (not necessarily democratic). But ultimately you need a set of rules that even the state has to follow.
    - t-3 4mo ago
      It's ultimately a cultural issue. Russia never really experienced the liberalization and philosophical transformation of the enlightenment that occurred in Europe, they practiced monstrous feudalism until suddenly transitioning to socialism, which quickly became just as monstrous. Rules without ideology or philosophy are just things to be gamed - exactly as occurs often in those cultures without strong rule-of-law ideologies and societal game-theory countermeasures against corruption and malfeasance. Our politicians would rather twist the laws to make corruption legal than engage in illegal corruption because the drawbacks of illegality are so large. Russian politicians would rather do things extralegally because the system is facade and the real system is one of might makes right so the laws don't apply to them.
  - jltsiren 4mo ago
    With Russia it's precisely because of their fundamentals. Too much depends on the people in charge, because Russia never developed effective institutions to constrain their leaders. When they have a good leader, they take a step forward, and when they have a bad leader, they take three steps backward. Bad leaders are always more effective, because it's easier to make things worse. Medieval Russia was not too different from the rest of Europe, with all the little monarchies and merchant republics. The period of centralization that followed was also similar. But the accidents of history almost all went the same way. Monarchies defeating merchant republics and free cities. Muscovy being too good at conquering its neighbors, turning Russia into a huge centralized empire with little direct competition. The assassination of Alexander II before he could complete his reforms. The unholy mess of 1917–1922. The idealism of Gorbachev and Yeltsin that turned their reforms into a disaster.
  - hollerith 4mo ago
    A lot of it is because transportation is quite difficult. Even today huge tracts in Russia are without any roads. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the US, where even before the railroad and the automobile, transportation was quite easy, with navigable rivers flowing through the best farmland in the world. Another big piece is how easy it is to invade; how hard it is to defend. History records 50 invasions of Russia. For centuries Russian looked in envy at the very fertile land in what is now Southern Russia and Eastern Ukraine, but dared not farm it because it was swept regularly by quite fierce nomads on horses. That farmland became secure enough to farm only about 250 years ago. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Great Britain, which has been successfully invaded, but not after Britain got serious (about 4 centuries ago?) about having a good navy. When the risk of the investment's being destroyed by an invading army is low, more investment happens. And a navy profits more than an army does from technological investment: 100 years before Britain's industrial revolution, London was investing heavily in copper mining and copper refining so that it could give all of its warships a copper bottom. The US is even more secure than Great Britain because any great power or middle power contemplating an invasion of the US would need to cross either the Atlantic or the Pacific to start the attack. (Yes, the invader could try to get Mexico to agree to host the invading army, but the US would probably find out about that plan and respond by either blockading Mexico or invading it if it doesn't immediately abandon the plan.) Policies that work great for secure countries like the US and Britain work terribly for countries like Russia, China, Iraq or Iran that must always worry about a land invasion. The basic strategy the US and the UK used in WWII had been worked out by Britain during the Napoleonic wars. Japan and Australia can follow the same basic strategy. Russia cannot because except for a few heady decades during the Soviet Union and maybe in the 1890s, the best way to increase Russian security was always to invest more in the army what with the country's being so hard to defend against a hostile army.
    - soco 4mo ago
      On the other hand, this doesn't explain why Poland, which was even wiped off the maps for a few times, has a GDP per capita almost twice of Russia, which wasn't really invaded much throughout more-or-less-recent history (au contrary).
  - tim333 4mo ago
    They'd be quite well off just now if they'd taken the resources spent invading Ukraine and spent them on developing their own country instead. Why they feel the need to keep invading everyone is a more interesting question.
xiphias2 4mo ago
It would not, but it's clearly not just a war with Ukraine. Europe is sending the jet engines for the drones that are shooting Moscow, and Germany is very actively preparing for war with Russia. It's not the first time in history that this has been done, and Russia still remembers.
- soco 4mo ago
  Then said Russia could withdraw their multinational troops, stop their international drones, and enjoy peace for the first time in their history. Because Russian drones have European parts as well (and Chinese and and), and the army recruits are not only Russian either.
  - xiphias2 4mo ago
    I think you just implicitly agreed with me that Europe is in proxy war with Russia and it's escalating.
    - soco 4mo ago
      I think you just implicitly agreed that what I said is true - that it would be enough for Russia to go back home and everybody would be at peace.
      - xiphias2 4mo ago
        Sure, that's what a war is about
- tim333 4mo ago
  The troops are Ukrainian on one side and Russian plus North Korean on the other. The fact both countries have supporters even if only a handful in Russia's case doesn't make them very at war.
tim333 4mo ago
Russia could end the war in Ukraine tomorrow by just going home. They could use nukes as part of their campaign of imperial expansion but they'd get a lot of push back from the rest of the world.

If Ukraine had kept its nuclear weapons it would not have been attacked, but there was never any risk of Russia using nuclear weapons. This is just one of many many ways that people in the west fundamentally misunderstand Russia, and why so many people made fools of themselves thinking that Putin would not invade. The other really big one is that Russia never admitted that it lost the Cold War and thinks the war is still going on, and that it's the fault of the US and others that Russia is so backwards and poor, not a result of their own mismanagement, the weakness of their people, and the general corruption.

rayiner 4mo ago
> and that it's the fault of the US and others that Russia is so backwards and poor Why is Russia so backwards and poor? Russia and Iran are two countries that seem to way underperform their fundamentals.
- p-e-w 4mo ago
  Brain drain at an unimaginable scale, which is a self-reinforcing mechanism because once it starts, governments will usually impose restrictions to try to stop it, which makes everyone else want to leave too.
- whatever1 4mo ago
  Because their institutions are completely corrupt. There are no rules to the game so the powerful take everything. It is a smaller pie but if I can have it all, why do I care? Prosperity correlates with powerful institutions (not necessarily democratic). But ultimately you need a set of rules that even the state has to follow.
  - t-3 4mo ago
    It's ultimately a cultural issue. Russia never really experienced the liberalization and philosophical transformation of the enlightenment that occurred in Europe, they practiced monstrous feudalism until suddenly transitioning to socialism, which quickly became just as monstrous. Rules without ideology or philosophy are just things to be gamed - exactly as occurs often in those cultures without strong rule-of-law ideologies and societal game-theory countermeasures against corruption and malfeasance. Our politicians would rather twist the laws to make corruption legal than engage in illegal corruption because the drawbacks of illegality are so large. Russian politicians would rather do things extralegally because the system is facade and the real system is one of might makes right so the laws don't apply to them.
- jltsiren 4mo ago
  With Russia it's precisely because of their fundamentals. Too much depends on the people in charge, because Russia never developed effective institutions to constrain their leaders. When they have a good leader, they take a step forward, and when they have a bad leader, they take three steps backward. Bad leaders are always more effective, because it's easier to make things worse. Medieval Russia was not too different from the rest of Europe, with all the little monarchies and merchant republics. The period of centralization that followed was also similar. But the accidents of history almost all went the same way. Monarchies defeating merchant republics and free cities. Muscovy being too good at conquering its neighbors, turning Russia into a huge centralized empire with little direct competition. The assassination of Alexander II before he could complete his reforms. The unholy mess of 1917–1922. The idealism of Gorbachev and Yeltsin that turned their reforms into a disaster.
- hollerith 4mo ago
  A lot of it is because transportation is quite difficult. Even today huge tracts in Russia are without any roads. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the US, where even before the railroad and the automobile, transportation was quite easy, with navigable rivers flowing through the best farmland in the world. Another big piece is how easy it is to invade; how hard it is to defend. History records 50 invasions of Russia. For centuries Russian looked in envy at the very fertile land in what is now Southern Russia and Eastern Ukraine, but dared not farm it because it was swept regularly by quite fierce nomads on horses. That farmland became secure enough to farm only about 250 years ago. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Great Britain, which has been successfully invaded, but not after Britain got serious (about 4 centuries ago?) about having a good navy. When the risk of the investment's being destroyed by an invading army is low, more investment happens. And a navy profits more than an army does from technological investment: 100 years before Britain's industrial revolution, London was investing heavily in copper mining and copper refining so that it could give all of its warships a copper bottom. The US is even more secure than Great Britain because any great power or middle power contemplating an invasion of the US would need to cross either the Atlantic or the Pacific to start the attack. (Yes, the invader could try to get Mexico to agree to host the invading army, but the US would probably find out about that plan and respond by either blockading Mexico or invading it if it doesn't immediately abandon the plan.) Policies that work great for secure countries like the US and Britain work terribly for countries like Russia, China, Iraq or Iran that must always worry about a land invasion. The basic strategy the US and the UK used in WWII had been worked out by Britain during the Napoleonic wars. Japan and Australia can follow the same basic strategy. Russia cannot because except for a few heady decades during the Soviet Union and maybe in the 1890s, the best way to increase Russian security was always to invest more in the army what with the country's being so hard to defend against a hostile army.
  - soco 4mo ago
    On the other hand, this doesn't explain why Poland, which was even wiped off the maps for a few times, has a GDP per capita almost twice of Russia, which wasn't really invaded much throughout more-or-less-recent history (au contrary).
- tim333 4mo ago
  They'd be quite well off just now if they'd taken the resources spent invading Ukraine and spent them on developing their own country instead. Why they feel the need to keep invading everyone is a more interesting question.

xiphias2 4mo ago

It would not, but it's clearly not just a war with Ukraine. Europe is sending the jet engines for the drones that are shooting Moscow, and Germany is very actively preparing for war with Russia. It's not the first time in history that this has been done, and Russia still remembers.

soco 4mo ago
Then said Russia could withdraw their multinational troops, stop their international drones, and enjoy peace for the first time in their history. Because Russian drones have European parts as well (and Chinese and and), and the army recruits are not only Russian either.
- xiphias2 4mo ago
  I think you just implicitly agreed with me that Europe is in proxy war with Russia and it's escalating.
  - soco 4mo ago
    I think you just implicitly agreed that what I said is true - that it would be enough for Russia to go back home and everybody would be at peace.
    - xiphias2 4mo ago
      Sure, that's what a war is about
tim333 4mo ago
The troops are Ukrainian on one side and Russian plus North Korean on the other. The fact both countries have supporters even if only a handful in Russia's case doesn't make them very at war.

tim333 4mo ago

Russia could end the war in Ukraine tomorrow by just going home. They could use nukes as part of their campaign of imperial expansion but they'd get a lot of push back from the rest of the world.