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War may be coming. Are we psychologically ready?
- piloto_ciego 14d agoWar is already here, just at least in America we haven’t realized it yet.
- Ekaros 14d agoWar has always been here. It sadly just have been too removed from those countries doing it. Not enough enemy combatants have died on their own land.
- johnnyApplePRNG 14d agoYou guys literally started it.
- verelo 14d agoAs always, in the last 70 years at least.
- verelo 14d agoAlso - Downvote me all you want you...the US is an awful influence on the world and if you disagree with that, you're part of the problem. I grew up thinking the US was the good guys, what a absolute load of shit that turned out to be.
- piloto_ciego 14d agoThere are no good guys buddy. That’s the problem. Not us, not the Canucks? The Brits nor the Iranians nor the Russians. People are great, countries are pretty much all evil.
- verelo 14d agoCompletely agree. Up close everyone is great, far away, like from space, everything looks great. It's the middle distances that are problematic.
- thomassmith65 14d agoThat reads a little like the zeal of the convert. The US is still a more humane nation than most, though it's not immune to the diseases that come from being a great power.
- verelo 14d agoI don't know about that. Honestly, idea of Americans self-ranking themselves as more humane is the kind of absurdity that lead us to where we are today. How many people making such claims have actually travelled to the nations they villainize? For a long time I wanted to believe you, and in the past I'd have looked at work camps in China and said "thats bad". Now i look at the US prison industry and go "Is it really that different?". The examples don't end there...
- piloto_ciego 14d agoWell, your thought process is "fine" we are still evil, but right now it's a matter of picking the least evil guys, and hoping they win. I'm an American and sometimes I'm not sure which is the "least evil game here." Like, the Iranians and Russians are pretty evil, the IRGC killed a lot of people last winter and I'm friends with quite a few Ukrainians. But then also we have the ongoing insanity with ICE and the Epstein files... The way I see it right now, we have "The Epstein Alliance" versus "The Axis of A-holes." Nobody involved in this is great, but I would rather live in America or the EU than Russia, or Iran. To be fair, as an American, I don't know enough about what life is actually like in China to form an educated opinion? But by the sounds of it, they suck too. My intuition is that this whole charade will come crashing down over the next few years as AI starts replacing more and more jobs.
- sillystuff 14d agoMartin Luther King Jr. famously said, that the US was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. True then, and true today. The ignorance of the American people enables this violence-- this is by design. William J. Casey, CIA director under Reagan, "We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false". The CIA has employed many hundreds of journalists working at major networks and newspapers like CBS, the Washington Post and the New York Times. Reading the comments on this story, it appears that much of what Europeans believe is false, as well. Someone presented a detailed and accurate account of the recent* history leading up to the illegal, but absolutely provoked, Russian invasion of Ukraine but was accused of lying. Several comments indicate a complete lack of concern about provoking the nation with the largest nuclear stockpile in the world into a direct hot conflict. Even if it stayed conventional, which appears unlikely, Russia has a much larger military than all of Western Europe combined. Insane. * The history should start much earlier, with US assurances to Russia that NATO would not expand, and then Clinton and all subsequent US administrations betraying these promises.
- arcanemachiner 14d agogovernment != population
- afpx 14d agoOur congress is taken over, in case you haven’t been paying attention to the complete lack of justice on Epstein. It’s not all that difficult to see who is in charge.
- erulabs 14d agoRussia invaded Ukraine. You can make the (somewhat weak) case that Russia was provoked, but the first violent strike was made by Russia and Russia alone.
- piloto_ciego 14d agoWe certainly didn’t help - but I’m wondering if this wasn’t inevitable after the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Totally not a fan of the guy we have driving the bus right now, I didn’t vote for him, and oppose all war. But now that we’re in it, I’m a bit concerned that this is going to be quite a bit more violent and terrible than we have the stomach for? I mentioned above I work with some Ukrainian refugees. We are not prepared mentally for what is coming.
- Lumich 14d ago[flagged]
- piloto_ciego 14d agoCIA mass murder at Maidan? The Ukraine? Account is 35 days old? Miss me with this stuff. I actually have been to Ukraine.
- lovich 14d agoDamn, haven’t seen this blatant of Russian propaganda in a while. Are the Ukrainians Nazis with no real culture too?
- piloto_ciego 14d agoYeah, check the account age... I've seen a TON of astroturfing and bot activity on HN over the last 2-6 months or so? I suppose it's only to be expected after cheap AI agents... but it's kind of crazy how this corner of the internet has been made irrelevant too. It's really quite sad to be totally honest.
- lynndotpy 14d agoThis is a BBC article about the UK being at war. Not the USA. That said, it argues that the various pre-war preparations fail to include "psychological preparedness". I think this is largely true for America as well, since war is something that the USA almost exclusively engages in offensively in distant countries, with only one small exception for one day on 9/11.
- piloto_ciego 14d agoI know, I read the article I’m just saying, we Americans have no idea how big of a conflict we’re in right now, and we are not psychologically prepared for what it will mean to be bombed by hypersonic missiles or shaheds or what have you either. I work with some Ukrainian refugees, we are not prepared.
- blinkbat 14d agoit's funny to write a headline like this and put it behind a paywall. just objectively kind of funny.
- deleted 14d ago[deleted]
- engineer_22 14d agohttps://archive.ph/YDwhy https://archive.ph/YDwhy
- codeulike 14d agoIts not behind a paywall if you're in the UK
- nik282000 14d agoIt's only behind a paywall for US users, for making their country great again a second time.
- SoftTalker 14d agoI'm in the US; opened fine for me. Though I am using uBlock origin.
- azan_ 14d ago[flagged]
- gradus_ad 14d agoThe simple truth many have come to realize is a European leadership that insists mass migration is not a problem and head-in-the-sand denies the critical importance of cultural unity and shared identity for the maintenance of stable and liberal democracies is a much clearer and present danger than Russia. War a nation can recover from, but from an erosion of cultural unity and shared identity it cannot.
- bdangubic 14d agoCultural unity and shared identity is cause of many (many) wars…
- Lumich 14d agoThey're not. Rather, the organizers of war – typically rich and powerful people in or close to London or Washington – use their propaganda networks to play these popular cards of culture and identity. Don't confuse the cause and the means.
- bdangubic 14d agoyea, you are right, I recall from my high school education when Hitler came to Washington and then London, fun times
- holyxharvey 14d ago[dead]
- ves 14d agoRemind us what happened last time Europeans got too obsessed with cultural unity and shared identity?
- net01 14d agowho would want to go to war with nato ? > china ? why ? they just want taiwan > russia ? lol, they can't even manage Ukraine ( with our aid ) > iran ? why ? they just want to kill you know who This is just a fearmongering article.
- azan_ 14d ago> russia ? lol, they can't even manage Ukraine ( with our aid ) And that's why they want to attack Europe. They hope that it will either cause eu to stop supporting Ukraine or at least that it will give them good negotiation position (e.g. we'll stop attacking baltic countries but Ukraine has to let go of their territory).
- net01 14d agoif they end up attacking Nato, I think we would just go until boots are in Moscow. our tech is better and we have more men ( we dont need North Koreans to fight)
- torben-friis 14d agoIf our boots get anywhere near Moscow we get nuked. That's the issue, a belligerent neighbor that permanently sabotages you but which you can't ever get too close to losing.
- troupo 14d agoRussia has been probing NATO for several years now. NATO is a paper tiger that seems to be content to do nothing. As long as the probing is in the lesser members: the Baltics, Romania. When (likely not if) Russia decides to attack the Baltics, NATO will just shrug and send a strongly worded memo.
- elygre 14d agoProbes are not worth going to war for. Russian boots on Baltic grounds would be.
- behole 14d agohttps://archive.ph/YDwhy https://archive.ph/YDwhy
- epolanski 14d agoKinda tired of all this warmongering and constant increasing of pressure on civil society. It does not help that we keep electing extremely selfish strong appearing individuals in winner-takes-all democracies.
- deleted 14d ago[deleted]
- d0mine 14d ago“Strong appearing individuals“ just expose what is already there. That is why Voldemort always comes back in real life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIv1f2AwFCI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIv1f2AwFCI
- pier25 14d agoRussia will never start an open war with the UK or any EU country. They can barely handle Ukraine imagine that plus any other country.
- deleted 14d ago[deleted]
- Lumich 14d agoIf it were only the Ukraine the war would have long been over. The West block has supplied more than $500 billion in aid to the Ukraine, that's more than twice the US lend/lease to the Soviet Union in 2026 dollars. Plus intelligence information and probably other things I'm forgetting. The more dollars are sent to Kiev, the more blood and lives the Ukrainians are expected to invest. That's the deal.
- cosmicgadget 13d ago... because American or European boots on the ground would be viewed as escalatory by an extremely embarrassed Russian state.
- TiredOfLife 14d ago"Russia will never start an open war with Ukraine" Was the common talking point even in early february of 2022
- pier25 13d agoThe current situation is completely different to 2022. To begin with Russia is almost exhausted after these years of war.
- fatbird 13d agoRussia has a million man standing army that's now thoroughly blooded and well versed in modern warfare, and an industrial base that's retooled to supply such an army (i.e., drones and missiles). The only problem for them is that they're facing the only other large, experienced army in the world. Imagine if tomorrow, Russia went on the defensive and froze its lines in Ukraine, setting up Surovikin lines everywhere, then withdrew half the forces it has currently committed. Now imagine that a half million Russian soldiers show up on the border of Estonia, Finland, Kazhakstan, or Georgia. Yes, Russia is exhausted and doing deep structural damage to its economy. It still has one of the best land forces in the world at the moment. The way Ukraine always smokes NATO forces in exercises is a strong indicator of what would happen if Russia decided to "liberate" the Baltics.
- deleted 14d ago[deleted]
- nickdothutton 14d agoIt is my current view that this BBC article and the recent announcement by national security advisor Powell are conditioning the public mind not for an actual hot war, but for a "tough winter" of eye-watering price rises, possible shortages, and maybe even utility supply problems if we are particularly unlucky. While talk of war increases, a glance at the state of the military suggests to me this is unlikely. What we have is rather limited, and even that is only about 1% deployable within 6 months. Much of Europe the same (Poland being an exception). That said, I also believe that there is fairly widespread, low intensity, grey-zone action across Europe at the moment. Not every random fire or infrastructure failure is "The Russians", but I'd be surprised if none of them were. Indeed some of them have already been formally attributed.
- distances 14d agoIt is, however, correct to attribute all sabotage and random failures to Russia until proven otherwise. No matter if we like it or not, Russia has decided to be hostile, and is actively committing sabotage. It would be foolish to still just wring our hands about it. We have to name the enemy, Russia, and both support Ukraine's fight and do our own active hybrid actions on Russian soil. And yes, military buildup is required. And to be clear, this will not end anytime soon. The war in Ukraine is but one aspect of Russia's imperial ambitions. It's fully possible we will not see friendly relations again in our lifetimes.
- xandrius 14d agoIt is incorrect to blame everything onto some entity, otherwise we'll miss the real things due to being desensitised. It's a version of boy who cried wolf but crying Russia.
- Zenul_Abidin 14d agoThe correct answer.
- jchip303 14d ago[dead]
- largbae 14d agoSeems off-topic for HN, but let's look at it technologically: if Ukraine and Iran have demonstrated anything, it is that drones are like guerilla warfare squared: even the smallest player can land hits and deny areas to the largest forces. It might be tending towards impossible to achieve regime change militarily at this point. Maybe we all should just figure out how to get along.
- justinhj 14d agoRussia is a nuclear power
- notaigenerated 14d agoSo are UK and France.
- justinhj 13d agoSo it's obvious we will not have a conventional war
- ajb 14d agoThis article shows the biasses of the press. Everything is about public perception, so the problem is that the public don't perceived that there might be a war. This is stupid, public perception can shift very quickly. The actual problem is not maintaining investment and critical industries. The UK was able to shift commercial manufacturing to wartime production for world war II. That doesn't work if you've offshored everything.
- specproc 14d agoWe've been in one war or another for most of my adult life. We are in a perilous position right now in Europe, very close to a major escalation of the Ukraine conflict. This would entail direct conflict between nuclear-armed powers. I find it deeply troubling that no mainstream party in most European countries seems to think this is a bad idea.
- sgt101 14d agoI think all of them do, but the alternative is to let the Russians do what they want and that ends worse for all of us.
- specproc 14d agoYeah, that's precisely the attitude.
- notaigenerated 14d agoLetting russians take the Crimea without any consequences in 2014 is what led the world to all of this. I dare to say, ALL of it, not just the war in Ukraine. Letting them do even more horrible lawlessness will only lead to worse outcomes.
- notaigenerated 14d agoWhat is a bad idea? Defend yourself against an unprovoked military aggression?
- specproc 14d agoHot war in Europe. We're doing incursions well into Russia. Attempts have been made on the life of Putin and Zelensky, a drone was dangerously close to a bunch of very senior Europeans the other day. It's dangerously out of control. We should be seeking de-escalation for our own sakes. The last two major European wars destroyed empires. We're playing with fire here. I do not want to live through, or die in WW3. I'm worried it's already started.
- chmod775 14d ago> Threat from Russia Right. Mighty Russia that has been fought to a standstill by its much smaller neighbour is going to provoke a military alliance absolutely dwarfing it into outright war. Not even China is going to back that after having a look at who the more valuable trading partner is. Being ready for war is reasonable, being afraid or worried is a waste of time, and even irrational in this case.
- deleted 14d ago[deleted]
- tzs 14d agoFrom the article, starting in the next paragraph after the one your quote was in: > But what is the threat? In 1940 the danger of a German invasion of the UK was very real. But the chances of Russian tanks rolling up Whitehall are surely negligible. > "It's not the tanks you need to worry about," says historian Margaret MacMillan, author of War: How Conflict Shaped Us. > "It's the cutting of cables on the ocean floor. It's the hacking into systems on which so many things depend. The possibility for asymmetric war, for cyber war, is growing by leaps and bounds."
- keeda 14d agoCase in point, Russia has been fought to a standstill by its much smaller neighbor using asymmetric warfare. There is no reason Russia would not turn around and do the same to other countries. One may argue it has already done so in the past via election interference, except now it also has AI in its arsenal, which won’t even need ICBMs to be delivered to its targets.
- notaigenerated 14d agoDude, you have no idea about the modern warfare. The only country Russia is actually afraid of is the USA. And nobody except probably the USA or maybe Turkey is even remotely ready for modern war. Russia is having "military operation" right now. If they start the "war". Second of all, the "much smaller neighbour" is any European country to them. Ukraine is the biggest country on European continent if we include the occupied territory. And it's actually has the most capable armed forces military-wise. Russia took over 116k sq km of Ukraine. All three Baltic states are 175k sq km combined and they literally can't defend themselves in case USA decides to withdraw. And last but not the least, Russia's war is irrational. It makes no sense from any rational viewpoint. So relying on common sense in this case is wrong. You need to understand russian ideology and Putin's specifically.
- DANmode 14d agoWar is here. It is clear we are not generally physiologically ready.
- 50208 14d agoAnswer: NO
- elmer2 14d ago[flagged]
- nullorempty 14d agoRussian war with Europe would be ‘very short’ – Lavrov https://www.rt.com/news/645860-lavrov-eu-nato-putin/ https://www.rt.com/news/645860-lavrov-eu-nato-putin/
- elygre 14d agoAs would the special military operation. Three days short, it was promised.
- nullorempty 14d agoWell, then may be you should volunteer.
- deleted 14d ago[deleted]
- carefree-bob 14d agoThat was promised by US General Miley, not by any Russian official or citizen. So we have in this nugget an example of why you shouldn't trust western media, but not an example of why the west wont fold like a cheap deck.
- elygre 14d agoSome people said two days, some said ten days. Russian officials thought they would get a short war, and they were wrong. Wikipedia will point you to a bunch of references. A Russian war with Europe would not be the short war that the original poster alludes to by invoking statements from a Russian official.
- cosmicgadget 13d agoOh it was Milley who sent the Russian column of armor toward Kyiv with no logistical support. Thank you for clearing that up.
- azan_ 14d ago
- Lumich 14d ago[flagged]
- mmooss 14d agoA major difference, IMHO, is the abandonment of the rules-based, rights-based, international order. Within it, international war (as opposed to civil war) was nearly impossible - it hardly existed for generations. While you need to prepare for the worst, you need to work for the best, for progress, like so many generations before us in much more difficult circumstances. Preparing for warfare doesn't mean accepting it; we must also work for freedom, including a just peace. It doesn't happen without work. Again in this era, reactionary and nationalist messaging has dominated and somehow, despite generations of extraordinary success, despite being born into it and seeing its success and superiority, many/most think such an order is infeasible or even undesireable. At the same time, I've seen American leaders in the military industry advocate for becoming accustomed to mass destruction and death. And shockingly, even the experts and practioners abandoned it and at nearly the height of its success. It's as if a messaging campaign insisted cloud computing was impossible and absurd, and so everyone just stopped using what was obviously working. For the rules- and rights-based order, yes there were outliers and setbacks and threats; that's life. But the entire free, wealthy, industrialized world subscribed, and were untouchably allied, free, safe and prosperous. Now, having abandoned it, all those things have diminished. What's missing is not acceptance of warfare but ultimate commitment and work for freedom and peace.
- nullorempty 14d ago[flagged]
- fabian2k 14d agoRussia is the aggressor, is it that weird to consider it necessary and right to defend against the invasion of a sovereign country?
- nullorempty 14d ago[flagged]
- azan_ 14d ago[flagged]
- nullorempty 14d agoI never said I was russian or not ukranian. But your attitude is exactly the problem - remember, people are all equal as per western democratic values. And the way to solve the differences is by talking! And yes, I am ready to talk to russians about democracy as well as ukranians. It looks like you are not, discarding them based on ethnic grounds.
- azan_ 14d ago> And the way to solve the differences is by talking! Why did you attack Ukraine instead of talking then?
- nullorempty 14d agoRussia and USA had elaborate discussion on the precipice of war late in 2021, but also continued discussions since the very breakup of the soviet union and the voluntary dissolution of the Warsaw pact. Negotiations didn't go anywhere unfortunately. And it's not Russia that takes the blame.
- giardini 14d agoThis is a British article for Britons. The British press is nuts: everything is taken to extremes: events, statements and political moves. Unfortunately, every day the USA press grows more like the British press, moving leftward and increasingly alarmist. Look at what happened to Drudgereport, It once supported Trump and now it's practically a British tabloid of its own. Take Rolf Dobelli's advice - don't listen to the news: https://www.dobelli.com/en/books/ https://www.dobelli.com/en/books/
- dofm 14d ago> Unfortunately, every day the USA press grows more like the British press, moving leftward and increasingly alarmist. The British press is not, on aggregate, left-leaning. That's just a weird weird wrong idea.
- nullorempty 14d agoHere is a strange idea: the sides should negotiate!
- dingaling 14d agoRussia wants a non-NATO buffer zone around its western periphery. None of those countries want to be 'unaligned' no-man's-lands. There is nothing to negotiate.
- cosmicgadget 13d agoPeripheral countries are demilitarized but maintain Article V status, Putin is exiled to Saint Helena and required to spend the remainder of his life lecturing Tucker Carlson on Russian history.
- cindyllm 14d ago[dead]
- jaggs 14d agoOh for goodness sake, stop feeding the Russian bots. They love it too much!! :)
- nergoo 14d agoUK elite tries to distract from the class war about to explode, more at 11. Or perhaps that's what he really meant.
- KevinMS 14d agosomebody wants some extra funding