The lines on the map in the Ukraine war do not change in Ukraine's favor unless one or both of the following happen: 1) The United States gets directly involved, and/or 2) strategic weapons are used. The Europeans are not going to be willing to sacrifice their vast social programs for a massive defense build up. I think everyone realizes this, and I think the recent election results in multiple countries there make this point.
You are complaining, I think, about the style here. An argument in the Oval Office. Well, the United States is the main reason that Russia, after its disastrous and frankly juvenile attempt at an invasion, hasn't been able to gain additional territory after the war went into the defensive. Let me repeat that: The United States is the reason this war is still on-going. And as a result of this fact, The United States is the one that gets to dictate terms.
>>The Europeans are not going to be willing to sacrifice their vast social programs for a massive defense build up.
I think you might be very surprised about that, countries on the eastern end of the EU look ready to make that trade without hesitation, as they were invaded by Russia in the past themselves and can understand the risks. Poland is already at 5% GDP spending on defence, and by all indications that number will only grow. That's war-like levels of spending.
> countries on the eastern end of the EU look ready to make that trade without hesitation
I don't think so, there already are populist opposition parties in most of these countries that want 1. their country to be more pro-RU 2. to keep the welfare state for their populist supporters going
As someone who is from one of those countries - I don't see that at all. In fact I'd say that the national mood is such that if we were attacked the nation would overwhelmingly support going to war with Russia with or without NATO support.
That's the rub, isn't it. The bluster about willingness to face Moscow in a war is all because of Article V and the assumption that the Americans will come and participate in a nuclear exchange.
Yes, the US gets to try to force a Ukrainian surrender, we're all complaining that's a grossly immoral use of power. I don't think the Ukrainians are going to go along with it yet.
The Ukrainian terms are "all of the land back plus Crimea".
Do you understand that this does not happen without the following: massive American mobilization, 2/75 or the whole of the Ranger Battalions jumping, all US Armor units deploying to Eastern Europe, all of 4th, 5th, 6th, and honestly 7th fleet re-deploying to the Med for support operations. A massive amount of U.S. casualties.
Is this doable? No doubt. I am out of the Army, but a lot of my boys are still in, and they would love to do a peer fight instead of whatever it was we did in Afghanistan.
But I will be the adult here and point out that this is stupid.
What Ukraine needs and wants is a mechanism of a security guarantee that actually works (whether it's foreign troops stabilizing the eastern areas forever or get back enough nukes to keep Russia away). This is a life-or-death question to Ukraine because without plausible and enforceable security there will not be a Ukraine.
Ukraine can certainly give up their now rump states of Donetsk/Lugansk plus Crimea if they were getting something like that in exchange. But until there is even a remote possibility for such security all they have is their terms of getting all their land back. If Ukraine now agreed to "peace" where they give up the land to stop the war then they would have to deal even further in order to gain enough security to prevent the next war from ever happening.
1. Yes I know, the average age of the Ukrainian conscript is 45, which is why I referenced that number.
2. The “so what” is that it’s pretty hard to argue that the war is an existential event if you are not drafting the portion of the population best able to make war (young men).
Ukraine is desperate. It's (currently) a war of attrition, it keeps going until one side suffers too much and can't replace stuff. Each side has constantly shifting limiting factors.
This is also why we've seen multiple headlines about Russia running out of stuff: they did run out of some things, then shifted to other stuff and ran out of that, then shifted to other stuff… — Ukraine has a shortage of both guns and young people right now.
I don't agree how you would need so many forces or have many casualties given Russia is struggling right now even with Ukranians.
A no fly-zone alone would greatly diminish Russian capabilites, of which the West could easily do given the dire state of the Russian Air Force and their AAD. After that it's just a point it's a just mopping up any artillery duels and then letting the Ukranians advance in.
I know that it feels like the military situation is like that. In reality Russia is much weaker than people think. Three years of war will do that to a country.
All that is needed is sanctions and enough resources for Ukraine to defend itself. And the military intelligence as a force multiplier.
Thats exactly what we have been providing. And it was working. Russian inflation is a 20%+. They are running out of soviet era equipment. They are running out of easily conscriptable men. All of this is documented using open sources.
All that was needed was time. Time for Russia to implode.
But democracy is a fickle thing, and Putin was counting on this. America will have to live with this period of infamy for a long time. And the world will suffer the consequences.
Since the war began I've been hearing both that Russia is weak and about to collapse, and also that if the United States doesn't directly intervene the Russians will drive tanks into Berlin by Christmas. If they are as weak as you say they are, and I'm inclined to agree, then Europe can handle this, yes?
I never said they were pushovers. Just that they were weaker than people thought.
It is clear that Europe would have more difficulty going it alone, since it does not dispose of the intelligence assets that the US has. Spy satellites, SIGINT planes, logistics, etc. Having to go it alone would clearly also impact the morale and thus the political will. But if Putin would decide to invade for example Poland, there is no doubt how he would fare.
But from an industrial and economics point of view there is no comparing. Contrary to what mr Trump has been saying, Europe has paid for more than half of the expenses so far. The overall defense budget of Europe was 217B$ in 2019 and has been steadily increasing to 258B$ in 2021 [1]. For 2024 it is at 326B$ [2]
Compare that with Russia that had a 184B$ budget this year [3]. And that is whilst being on a war footing.
Also. Let's not forget that the US, together with the EU (and Russia) offered security guarantees to Ukraine, in return for them giving their nukes to Russia (since that was making everyone anxious). Our support for them is not some sort of "gift" out of the goodness of our hearts. It is a solemn promise that we made, in return for our peace of mind. Surely the US is not the sort of country that does not honor it's commitments, but backs down when the going gets tough?
You mean a memo, with no enforcement mechanism and no treaty stipulations. There were no guarantees involved. Everyone understood this at the time but for whatever reason that particular piece of paper comes up time and again and it gets equated with actual binding treaties. It was not.
I understand what you’re saying but appeals about “solemn promise[s]” comes across as emotional blackmail and, for Americans at least, doesn’t have the same rhetorical weight anymore.
Man this "Russia is running out of XXX" tale is becoming quite old and not being taken seriously nowadays - year by year goes with the same narrative and it's only getting objectively worse for Ukraine...
Any single force that drops a nuke today [1] will get retaliated by _all_ the other nuclear powers, even allied ones, at once.
Why? Because that will be the only, short moment, where each other will have the single opportunity to:
1/ affirm they are able and disciplined to use it (credibility),
2/ disarm the offender (own security)
3/ reinstate the balance of mutual dissuasion (global security)
Playing it diplomatic would be a hint of either submission, fear, or incapacity to act against the offender - which none of the nuclear power would want to give.
And however strong, a country can defend against one strategic attack, not against a multisided one.
[1] doesn't matter what the target is: as soon as it's another country, you're toast.
You're saying you believe the response to Russia dropping a nuke on Ukraine would itself be nuclear in nature? There's no way anyone would do that, it would trigger a nuclear WWIII. No nuclear power (Russia or the others) would just sit by and let a nuke get dropped on their own head. They would immediately escalate back.
That’s exactly the doctrine in mutual dissuasion: offensive use of a nuclear weapon breaks the statu quo, where the equilibrium is only ensured if no one uses it.
The first that breaks the statu quo is not a reliable power anymore in this equilibrium and must then be disarmed.
Multilateral escalation ensues as a logic step. There’s no WWIII because this happens and is « settled » in a matter of a few hours.
Don’t want it to happen? Don’t ever use a nuclear weapon. Simple as that.
I still don't follow why the first response has to be nuclear. You could respond conventionally, and if another nuke gets used 1-2 more times, then escalate. You can get the point across without actually responding in kind the first time.
Because it’s a matter of both time (if you don’t react definitely, that means that you may have the weapons but not the discipline to use it, so no credibility), and deterrence (conventional destruction is not a deterrent in this case, and you will only refrain from using your nukes if your are confident that the response will be more nukes towards you - in which case, your initial military objective is void, because the consequence of your action is that you don’t exist anymore).
I'm sorry, I still don't follow. Both of those just sound incorrect on their face.
> if you don’t react definitely, that means that you may have the weapons but not the discipline to use it, so no credibility
You can react "definitely" with conventional weapons. I don't get it. If for some reason you really think they won't get the message that your threat is credible, you could even run a nuclear test somewhere. I see no reason why you have to perform a nuclear attack here.
> conventional destruction is not a deterrent in this case
Sure it is. Destroying/disabling your enemy's nuclear facilities would jeopardize their security, no matter how it's done -- which is absolutely a deterrent. If anything, doing so with conventional weapons should make your enemy worry more, not less.
> and you will only refrain from using your nukes if your are confident that the response will be more nukes towards you - in which case, your initial military objective is void, because the consequence of your action is that you don’t exist anymore
> I see no reason why you have to perform a nuclear attack here.
You reason like a person here, not as a state.
It’s not a matter of life and death for a few single individuals in a triangle. It is of millions of individuals at once, and whole countries.
You do not want to leave the option of a potential other nuclear attack, the scale of the damage is nothing comparable. You do not want the statu quo to be broken, to have been broken. The fact is was shows that the state in front of you (which triggered the initial nuke) effectively lost its sound mind. There is a single solution to that, however brutal it is. And that’s the perspective of this single solution that is at the core of the deterrence: if you shoot, you have the absolute guarantee that you’ll be dead in return. So you don’t shoot.
If there is no such guarantee of retaliation, you have no incentive not to use it.
> It’s not a matter of life and death for a few single individuals in a triangle. It is of millions of individuals at once, and whole countries.
OK, I think this is why we disagree -- because this isn't the scenario I was positing. I was thinking of a case where a "small" (tactical) nuke would get dropped during battle on military forces, to get them to stop fighting. Not a strategic nuke in a population center actually trying to kill millions of people. Those will provoke very different responses in my mind, and I don't think the strategic case is likely. The tactical case is what I'm not so sure Russia will shy away from.
It’s been made very clear to them by the OTAN (https://www.nato.int/cps/fr/natohq/topics_192648.htm?selecte... ) that it was the red line before a « fundamentally change the nature of the conflict ». That’s the diplomatic way to say: you want to nuke? Just try it, something might happen to you, fast.
China also discouraged Russia to use it, even small ones.
The OTAN capacity may seem reduced without the USA, but escalation is very much more likely since Europeans realize/accept that Russia only speaks/understands « strong language ». They got the memo several times from the US that appeasement seems not to be a working response at this time.
> It’s been made very clear to them by the OTAN that it was the red line before a «fundamentally change the nature of the conflict».
"Fundamental change in the nature of the conflict" sounds to me more like "you will now be fighting NATO", not "NATO will immediately retaliate with its own nuclear weapons." And even if they did mean what you're saying, I don't see NATO or any member following through with this.
To be clear, I don't think anyone's use of nuclear weapons is likely. I'm just saying that if Russia ends up in a situation where its only avenue for "winning" ends up being the use of nuclear weapons, I wouldn't be surprised if it actually uses one.
Note that NATO talks about the « nature », not the « scope » or region of the conflict.
I don’t think nuclear is likely either. Because of the deterrence.
But again, if Russia thinks its only way of winning is firing a nuke, I do believe they will not have the time to be disappointed about their miscalculation.
Because the retaliation is a no-brainer (and again, the scenarios have been discussed and examined for decades, and the procedures are all ready to run).
It will not be about only Russia/Ukraine or Russia/NATO afterwise but about the whole world doctrine on nuclear arsenals and their use.
If we're scared of that why don't the US surrender.
If that's the fundamental issue, everyone needs nukes, every small country.
You don't want that. Living in a small Scandinavian country, I.do think we should at least discuss it now. We can't win any war, but we could ensure nobody else can.
Whatever makes you think they're able to drop a nuke? They have tried to threaten with that by running trials and the tally is two out of three times there was a catastrophic failure, of which one failure was in the silo itself.
Because they don't want to start a nuclear war. It's really as straightforward as that. If we assume they are willing to go for a nuclear exchange then it's a different kind of conversation, but no military expert considers this a likely scenario.
But even Russians indicate that their mid range ballistic missiles don't need nuclear wareheads to cause untold destruction - it was Putin who said that even without nukes their new missiles can level a city. He seems pretty confident in that, despite western intelligence indicating that the missiles are most likely a bluff as they are barely operational.
That's not what military experts are saying. If the nuclear fallout reached NATO countries NATO policy would require a "proportional" response, which again, military experts suggest would be a small scale nuclear strike on a Russian facility of proportional impact. The big question then is what would happen next - either both sides cool down and see where this is going, or Russia starts attacking targets within NATO at which point we're at full WW3 level. The "nobody is going to drop a nuke back" is either extremely optimistic or extremely naive.
Keep in mind article 5 says "react as it deems necessary".
> will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary
If Poland triggers Article 5, just because fallout came to its borders, other members are free to send them iodine tablets and lead tents, rather than starting WW3.
Again, the point is - at that point we're guessing. If Poland gets radioactive fallout on its terittory we don't know how exactly NATO would choose to react.
>>It's not a start nuclear Armageddon article.
I didn't say it was - but Russia "dropping a nuke" brings us closer to the possibility of nuclear war, not futher away from it. And according to people who are actually working with/for NATO, military generals in eastern european countries, it is not completely unlikely that NATO would decide that a strike into Russia(nuclear or not) wouldn't be off the cards if Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine brought fallout into NATO countries - and if such a strike was conducted, we don't know how that ends.
While Poland can trigger Article 5, and current US admin will most likely tell them to shove it, maybe deploy some forces there. US weakening ties with EU is going to make nuclear war less likely.
Even if the next US president was very gung ho about it, the fact that Trump got elected again means the US isn't a stable partner. You don't want to enter a ten years war where every 4 years your ally might just decide to leave you hanging.
> you really wanna weigh your odds of nuclear devastation on a guess?
No. But my point is you are oversimplifying it. Article 5 isn't a go to war button.
If Poland was to consider it an attack, that's not important. The question is would other members consider it an attack. To that the answer would more likely to be no.
I don't know of an adjacent country going to war because wind blew the fallout/chems its way.
> other non-EU countries are already producing Nukes as preparation. I'm unsure about that.
It could be US divestment leads to lower chance of WW3 in 5-20 years, but greater chance of WW3 in 20+ years.
>>I don't know of an adjacent country going to war because wind blew the fallout/chems its way.
You remind me of a semi-famous study that the American army did at one point. They wanted to estimate the risk of accidental detonation of a nuclear weapon, and concluded that the risk is zero because it never happened so far.
> They wanted to estimate the risk of accidental detonation of a nuclear weapon, and concluded that the risk is zero because it never happened so far.
Given it didn't happen so far, I'd say they were right on the money.
While mishandling and accidents did happen, the number of failsafes guarantees you have to purposefully activate it. Most nuclear weapons nowadays just don't have a way to reach criticality outside of nano-second controlled timing array.
> military experts suggest would be a small scale nuclear strike on a Russian facility of proportional impact
You could attack those facilities with conventional weapons too. What would be the point of using nukes to achieve the same purpose? All it would do is to make it more likely they'd escalate back.
on the contrary, even China would retaliate. It's the american equivalent of going into a texas bar and shooting a clip. You are now a proven reckless danger to everyone else and they will retaliate at once in your direction, regardless of if you were being stupid or had a specific target.
They do that because the alternative is a shootout at everone and many people in the bar will die. No single person/country is going to take those odds in an era where there are thousands of nuclear warheads now.
Yes. Because resorting to nuclear weaponry is very specific.
Doing so, you break the statu quo on mutual dissuasion, and not one nuclear power wants that.
If one country drops a nuclear bomb (especially after a long escalation as we are in), other nuclear powers will _have to_ reinstate the previous dissuasion statu quo, as well as assert their status of equal nuclear powers.
And there's a single path to that: radically disarm the offender country, as soon as possible. There's indeed a risk of global nuclear war, but the most probable risk is the annihilation of the offender country + a few other casualities.
The scale of time in this matter is not in days, it's in a few hours at most: it's already been scripted in procedures for years, rehearsed, and it's already been shared among nuclear powers. If we're still able to discuss it, it's because of this doctrine of mutual dissuasion precisely.
And what about the longer term? No one wants to commit to this fight, how much worse is it next time? What lesson does Putin learn when he can take Ukraine? Because even if he only takes part of it on paper, he’ll end up with the whole lot. That’s what the mineral “deal” with the US really is - it’s a bribe: “when we’re in control, you’ll still get the minerals”.
How stable will the world be when Russia wins, Putin is able to rebuild, and then they want somewhere else?
You tell me, which fight is more winnable? This one or the next one?
we all remember how trustworthy his words were right before the full scale invasion: UK intelligence services warned in public about Russian tanks, supplies etc amassing near the Ukrainian border, warning about what looks like preparations for invasion.
What did the Russians claim?
"Nyet invasion, just some push-ups next to border!"
So far in 3 years of war the US has, for something like <10% of their military budget, destroyed a huge chunk of Russian military capabilities, without having to set a single US boot on the ground or losing a single US citizen. On purely selfish terms, that's an undeniably great investment.
But it's not only that. The US has an immense amount of soft power that it squanders if it completely mistreats, and even blackmails, its own allies — which it is doing right now — to appease hostile powers like Russia.
So with that being said:
It's ridiculous to jump to "we're gonna have to deploy x y and z batallions" when the US administration is not even doing the BARE MINIMUM, many tiers below that: they are publicly praising Putin and berating Zelensky. So it's pointless to talk as if this was about direct military intervention when in fact even soft diplomacy is going to the way of appeasement.
Part of the issue with tech people discussing this is that they assume there is a tech solution to "human meat sacks are needed in order to control a geography". There isn't, at least not yet or anytime soon.
>massive American mobilization, 2/75 or the whole of the Ranger Battalions jumping, all US Armor units deploying to Eastern Europe, all of 4th, 5th, 6th, and honestly 7th fleet re-deploying to the Med for support operations. A massive amount of U.S. casualties.
You did not take note that the Russian military is collapsing: they need north corean soldiers to come to keep up. They need Iranian drones to keep up.
Russia has NO defensive capacity left on either other borders, neither internally.
Putin, as well as Trump play it like they have a strong hand because they know they don’t really have it and they are scared others would notice it.
It is not immoral, it is amoral. There is no moral in geopolitics and international relations.
The US are not doing anything new. It's just that Trump's style is very "in your face" and that the public have been fed so much BS about "good", "moral", "democracy", etc in international relations that they actually believe it.
It's just as irrelevant as saying that state of individual cells is something you should ignore when establishing diagnostics of a herd.
There's a difference between low pondering and null influence within equations. And if the complexity of the phenomenon exceeds what we can forecast relevantly with equations, then pretending that we know which factor will have significant role all along the development of the situation and which are meaningless is not acting with much sagacity.
It's not a narrative. It's really a statement of fact and very relevant. That's how it works: countries act to further their interests whatever the "moral" might be.
The US, like other countries, have sacrificed tens of thousands of people or more, even entire countries, in pursuit of interests amd broader objectives, for instance.
OK, if we can dictate terms, let's tell both sides to be at peace... and while we're at it, Russia should join NATO, and let's get a side of Freedom Fries. ;-)
I understand that you are joking, but part of the problem with how people talk about this issue is that they are either not serious (you) or are imagining that this conflict is similar to things they have seen in a Marvel comic book movie (most of the rest of this thread).
I feel like that's how most people talk about most issues these days. I blame the comic book movies. Alongside a host of other innocuous looking factors that add up to the total disempowerment of the individual. The hell can any of us do, other than...?
It's exactly for those reasons. Just google Putin's speech in Munich's security conference. First, note in what year it has happened and then just listen to his speech, it isn't even long.
I will listen to it, but first tell me - are you suggesting that Russia is an autocratic oligarchy where any dissent is immediately crushed because Russia wasn't allowed into NATO? If it was in NATO, it would suddenly have fair democratic elections?
No, I'm not suggesting that at all, but oligarchy and lack of democracy mostly hurts the country in internal politics, not external. The war would just not have happened. As for how bad the oligarchy in Russia is now / would be (if it joined NATO) - it's no one's business but the Russians'.
The thing is - you might be right. Or you might be completely wrong - these discussions happened almost 30 years ago - even if Russia was allowed into NATO when it was originally planned, its descent into autocracy might have caused it to be kicked out, or it might have left on its own accord. Or it might have decided to attack Ukraine anyway, even while itself still in NATO. I wouldn't be so hasty to declare that if only Russia was let into NATO 30 years ago this war wouldn't have happened - we don't know.
I'm sorry, but that makes no sense to me. An attack has to have very strong reasons, as any attack is very costly, no oligarch would spend money for no reason.
So they would seek some gain then, right?
What could an oligarch possibly gain from starting a war with an allied neighboring country?
And why doesn't U.S. attack other NATO members now?
Surely it has (and had) as much oligarchy (if not more) as Russia has. (I hope you won't argue it doesn't? Since even something as ridiculous as the fact of having lobbying being absolutely legal - just can't coexist with the lack of oligarchs quite by nature/definition).
> And why doesn't U.S. attack other NATO members now?
They are. Commercially first. Through technology second (the dependance of the world upon US software and hardware technology is the perfect kill switch - and the scale and pace at which we are going to need to get out of it is immense now that it is intimately tied to our professional and personal lives... but we have no choice).
And they might go further if those firsts are not enough.
It is not a matter of concurrence. The European market is going to be a closed, dead market to US technology.
We in Europe would never have invested so massively to rely on USSR or post-2008 Russia software/hardware tech, for obvious reasons
But we did on USA tech, for obvious reasons too (common history and values, democracies, multiple war allies, cooperation, and... US used to be the beacon of progress and freedom), that have all been brutally thrown out.
"An attack has to have very strong reasons, as any attack is very costly, no oligarch would spend money for no reason."
So why did this current attack start? It's been 3 years and there's a dozen theories as to why exactly, there is no "strong reason" anywhere to be seen.
"What could an oligarch possibly gain from starting a war with an allied neighboring country?"
Again, why is Russia in Ukraine then? They went from being brethren to portraying Ukrainians as fascist scum that need to be exterminated. Why is that?
"And why doesn't U.S. attack other NATO members now?"
Because it has more to gain by not doing so.
Again - I really can't see how you can confidently say that if only Russia was let into NATO 30 years ago this current situation wouldn't have happened.
> So why did this current attack start? It's been 3 years and there's a dozen theories as to why exactly, there is no "strong reason" anywhere to be seen.
> Again, why is Russia in Ukraine then?
The strong reason for this attack was Russia's security concerns got ignored and stepped on by a military alliance (NATO).
The military alliance that claims Russia to be their most probable enemy and thus a military alliance AGAINST Russia.
The military alliance first broke some spoken agreement with Russian of non-expansion of said military alliance. Then did that again and again to the point where NATO wanted to advance in its expansion so much far as to the neighboring country to Russia.
This is simply not acceptable for Russia, so it had to prevent that expansion, which it did. It could only be done by force, if the other side refused to drop possibilities of joining NATO. They didn't drop them - they got invaded for demilitarization. They resist - they die. The ones who don't resist (civilians) - aren't targeted at all (however, in a war there are always casualties among civilians).
> They went from being brethren to portraying Ukrainians as fascist scum that need to be exterminated. Why is that?
Because that's what Ukrainian officials policy was towards Russian natives living on their land and daring to speak their native Russian language.
> I really can't see how you can confidently say that if only Russia was let into NATO 30 years ago this current situation wouldn't have happened.
How is that not clear? If Russia would be part of NATO - it would have 0 security concerns of NATO expanding up to its borders. If there would be no security concerns - it wouldn't start the special operation, there simply would be no reason to, as Ukraine would probably in that case be a part of NATO as well (as well as Belarus and probably Kazakhstan and some other ex-USSR *stans)! Just that simple.
> The strong reason for this attack was Russia's security concerns got ignored and stepped on by a military alliance (NATO).
If it were a simple individual somehow escalating to nation state level, I could understand them being initially forced to use deception, but not so for an entity that is already a nation state. Especially not so for a nuclear nation state!
Right before the outbreak of the full scale war (ignoring ~2014), Western intelligence services observed troops, tanks, military materiel amassing on the Russian / Ukranian border. In an attempt to dissuade Russia from invading the UK intelligence services decided to predict Russia's invasion publicly.
Russia repeatedly claimed "Nyet, nyet, no invasion, just some push-ups next to border!"
If a nuclear power were acting on existential security concerns, the last thing it would do is hide the connection to security concerns and pretend just doing some push-ups on border.
To me this invalidates this whole theory of yours and imcritic
>>This is simply not acceptable for Russia, so it had to prevent that expansion, which it did. It could only be done by force, if the other side refused to drop possibilities of joining NATO
Russia can't and shouldn't have any say in what pact or alliance a sovereign country on their border wants to join. They have no right to. And well done preventing NATO expansion - where now thanks to their actions NATO did expand right to their border. Really 4-dimensional chess play guys.
>>The ones who don't resist (civilians) - aren't targeted at all
Yes I'm sure all these bombs falling on Ukrainian hospitals are just targeting errors.
> The strong reason for this attack was Russia's security concerns got ignored and stepped on by a military alliance (NATO).
If it were a simple individual somehow escalating to nation state level, I could understand them being initially forced to use deception, but not so for an entity that is already a nation state. Especially not so for a nuclear nation state!
Right before the outbreak of the full scale war (ignoring ~2014), Western intelligence services observed troops, tanks, military materiel amassing on the Russian / Ukranian border. In an attempt to dissuade Russia from invading the UK intelligence services decided to predict Russia's invasion publicly.
Russia repeatedly claimed "Nyet, nyet, no invasion, just some push-ups next to border!"
If a nuclear power were acting on existential security concerns, the last thing it would do is hide the connection to security concerns and pretend just doing sonme push-ups on border.
To me this invalidates this whole theory of yours and imcritic
That's a convenient narrative but it overlooks the desire to prevent normalization of hostile takeovers.
Russia tried to pretend that its satellite states and NATO were similar arrangements (with the latter thus being under US control), because that would make it seem like they were on even ground.
To the extent it ends up being true, it will be due to Russia's influence (conveniently allied with others' authoritarian tendencies).
The strong reason for this attack was Russia's security concerns got ignored and stepped on by a military alliance (NATO).
NATO is a defensive pact. Putin invaded Ukraine because he wants their port, arable land, and because he wants to go down in history as "reuniting" the Russian empire. Also, Russia has wanted to exterminate the Ukrainian cultural identity, which they've tried to do since before the Soviet Union:
Putin's whining about NATO is pure bullshit propaganda. Just like his claims of Nazis in Ukraine. It's all fiction, where he writes Russia as the victim.
There are Russian nationals that live in almost all the countries all around the world. So that's not bonkers, the logic is sound.
Now what's important is when some region has mere fractures of a percent vs when its something like 25%. If your country has 25% Russians and you oppress them - I think Russia has obligation to defend them.
That's exactly what it is and I have no idea what sort of insane, convoluted logic you use to come up with any other idea.
but then it turns out that its arms can be used OUTSIDE of that block
Ohhhh, I see. You believe that defending from an invading force means that you can't attack anything beyond the border? So Russia could just build an ammunition factory right across the border and Ukraine is somehow morally bound not to attack it? Completely insane.
> A defensive pact provides weapons to a country defending itself. What is so hard to understand?
Whom was Ukraine defending by killing people in its own Donbass and Lugansk regions? Surely not the people living there, as the bullets and rockets were flying towards them from Ukrainian soldiers.
> Not to mention that actual NATO countries are afraid that Putin won't stop on Ukraine
It looks like it's better if they in fact fear that. Less wars that way. If only they stayed neutral, not anti-Russia. But no, they all wanted to provoke the bear for some reason.
Well, hear it roar now.
> Dude you need to lay off Russian propaganda for a minute. But you know what really happens? Russia forcibly issuing native Ukrainians with Russian passports to say "look these are russian citizens now, we need to defend them!" and kidnapping Ukrainian children to forcibly integrate them into Russian society. Not to mention all of the murder and rape, but that's standard fare for the Russian army.
Dude, you need to lay off Ukrainian propaganda for a minute. But you know what really happens? Russia gives money, homes and jobs to the people that voluntarily agree to relocate to it. No one is forces to. And there are lots of reports from those people being thankful to Russia and condemning Kyiv and Zelensky, because what in fact happened is that it was Kyiv that either targeted those civilians or used them as a shield (lots of videos of Ukrainian combatants taking positions right next to houses full of civilians).
How can anyone forcibly issue a passport to someone? Just try to think from time to time. Children get evacuated to safe zones. Of course the safes zones are in Russia now, but no one is held prisoner/captive - they are free to move wherever they like whenever they like. You just painted a humanitarian mission as terrorists kidnapping children. That's just disgusting.
> Yes, Azov batallions were a huge problem in Ukraine.....and they got completely eliminated and people put behind bars before the original 2014 invasion.
Lol what? Who eliminated them? Could you give a few links to the news where Ukrainian officials imprisoned any Azov combatants for their nazism and nazist swastika tattoos?
As far as I know - they were mostly killed in battles between 2014 and now by separatists and Russians. Ukraine never reprimanded any of their nazi battalions for wearing swastikas. They never prohibited their 'trezubets' (trident) SS nazi symbol of that battalion and nazi 'black sun' symbol (that is just quite common among nazis, not especially Ukrainian ones).
Please don't cross into personal attack, no matter how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. Also, if you could please avoid name-calling and flamebait in your posts here, we'd appreciate it - you've been doing quite a bit of that as well, unfortunately.
>>But no, they all wanted to provoke the bear for some reason.
Maybe the bear should stay within its borders. No one provoked Russia to do anything.
>>How can anyone forcibly issue a passport to someone? Just try to think from time to time.
You deny them any services until they apply for a Russian passport as again, we know happened.
>>Russia gives money, homes and jobs to the people that voluntarily agree to relocate to it. No one is forces to. And there are lots of reports from those people being thankful to Russia and condemning Kyiv and Zelensk
You're free to gaslight yourself into believing this along with the rest of complete lunacy in your post.
>>Children get evacuated to safe zones.
If you think this is what happens you're drinking the Russian cool aid swallowing the straw along with it.
Could you please stop posting in the flamewar style like this (in addition to not posting personal attacks, as I've asked elsewhere - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43224164)?
It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
1. NATO, while being openly hostile towards Russia (you may read the current NATO's doctrine where Russia is named as the #1 probable enemy of NATO), attempted to expand to Ukraine, which is just not acceptable (to Russia) at all.
2. Russian nationals (and Russian speaking Ukrainian nationals) got oppressed in Ukraine, but that happened mostly as a result of the division of country into two parts where one was pro-Russian and the other was pro-West (EU, NATO).
I don't think the 2nd reason would even occur, since if Russia was in NATO - it would rather even seek Ukraine then joining it too. There would be no 'maidans' (coups) in Ukraine, there would be no division of the country and thus the oppression of Russian nationals (and Russian speaking Ukrainian nationals) just wouldn't have taken place then.
I think the conflicts concerning Russia then would rather shift towards Middle East (like Turkey having some beef with Russia over who supports whom in Iran, Palestine, Israel and so on) and maybe towards China/India.
> NATO, while being hostile towards Russia attempted to expand to Ukraine, which is just not acceptable at all.
That literally didn't happen. Ukraine and Georgia sought NATI membership, and in the 2008 NATO summit were (largely at Russia’s urging) rebuffed from being given Membership Action Plans; Russia immediately invaded Georgia, and Ukraine abandoned pursuit of NATO membership.
Then, in 2014, the Ukrainian people threw out the pro-Russian leadership that had come to power in the interim. Russia invaded large swathes of the country and, after that, Ukraine’s government again started seeking NATO membership.
There were no approaches by either side being made before the invasion. Pro-Russian propagandists like to pretend the 2022 escalation was the initial Russian invasion, ignoring most of the time the war has been being fought, so that they can blame the war starting on Ukraine’s response to the invasion by which Russia actually started the war.
Nobody gave the slightest fuck about Russia. Even the annexation of Crimea and the proxy war in the Donbas was mostly ignored.
There was ZERO chance of Ukraine joining NATO. Do you really think that Hungary, Germany, Slovakia..... would vote for Ukraine membership while there are still disputes in the Donbas and about Crimea?
@2) Sure, and Hitler also only saved the Sudetendeutschen.....
Putin himself said 2002 that he would have no problems with Ukraine joining NATO:
“I am absolutely convinced that Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day the decision [on Ukraine joining NATO] is to be made by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners.”
Considering that Trump now, all but disbanded NATO there should be no more reason for further Russian attacks, no?
But really, just read and watch Russian media, listen to their politicians. The aggressive imperial aim is very open, transparent and also accepted by the people.
It really is tiring listening to the Russian apologetics coming from other posters in this thread.
"Russia felt threatened"
No. Nobody wants to invade Russia.
The deal since the end of the cold war has been this: Russia can do whatever the hell it likes inside its own borders. Its oligarchs with Putin at the front can rob and pillage the country to their hearts content. Putin can use his loyal FSB to suppress the opposition, rig elections, and dominate the domestic media and brainwash his population to believe whatever he want them to believe. The rest of the world will do no more about this than hand out tiny wrist slaps, while holding their noses and trading with Russia. They kept their seat in the UN security council. They were invited into G7. They were treated as an equal to larger, richer, liberal, democracies.
The only reason there is war in Ukraine is because this incredibly generous deal was not enough for Putin and his ilk, they wanted more. More influence, more power, more vassals. They want to restore the mythical glory of the Russian empire, or the Soviet empire, or both. They want all the territories that Russia has ever held dominion over. Getting control over Ukraine would have given that dream a big territory, population, and economical boost.
Are you Russian top military executive or a president of Russia?
No? Then don't speak what Russia did or did not feel.
> No. Nobody wants to invade Russia.
Then don't name Russia as the most probable enemy in your militaristic charts in your military alliance that keeps on expanding beyond reasonable limits.
And don't expand your military alliance that close to Russia's borders.
> The deal since the end of the cold war has been this: Russia can do whatever the hell it likes inside its own borders.
The other side of the deal was NATO not getting any expansions packs. But oh, shoot, it just slipped and happened to expand to... how many countries since Soviet Union got dissolved? ah?
Destroying Soviet Union was not enough for the West and so it wants a piece of Russia now? If you think so - then come and die in Ukraine, you are welcome there.
“I am absolutely convinced that Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day the decision [on Ukraine joining NATO] is to be made by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners.”
Why should nations be beholden to verbal agreements that were never ratified by their elected officials, between parties that didn't exist any more in the case of the Warshaw pact and whose legal successor nation official stated they had no problem with it.
Thats silly.
Should NATO have never had any talks with Russia about a possible NATO membership because of that verbal agreement with the leader of the Warshaw Pact Gorbachev?
That was in 2002, when it looked like after years of cold war U.S. and Russia can finally become good allies. That was before U.S. along with a group of other (mostly NATO) countries invaded Iraq in 2003 without any mandate in U.N. and which Russia has opposed to and before the invasion of Libya in 2011, before U.S. carried out Arab Spring in 2010-2012 and before U.S. carried out colour revolutions, especially Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 and... Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004.
It is not a secret at all that U.S. carried those out and then it became quite clear that U.S. installs marionette regimes here and there and one of the places was... Ukraine.
Right after all those Russo-American relations going up, up and up merely some years ago.
Russia didn't like being stabbed in the back at all.
You can't really bring non binding, non serious agreements that were never put in writing or ratified and that all parties declared no longer relevant back from the dead and feign moral outrage. That's ridiculous.
What does "legally binding" do good at all? There are no other laws other than the rule of the strength.
U.S. was strong for a long time. It did whatever it liked.
Now Russia restored some of its strength to the point it can show others that sometimes you have to listen to when a bear warns you (quite calmly and nicely first).
Many people (even Americans) claim U.S. is not a democracy. Every country has corruption to some degree. The only backing and staying power there is - is the force a country has and its willingness to use it to defend something.
Easily imaginable: every country with big enough nuclear arsenal could be viewed as a country holding the fate of the world in its hands.
But since there can be multiple such countries at the same time and since no one has stopped developing arms/tech even further - I wouldn't call it a paradox when one nuclear country feels threatened by another group of both nuclear and non-nuclear countries coming closer and closer to its borders.
The difference between a rational person and a narcissist is this: one recognizes the sufficiency of world-destroying power, the other will always demand more, regardless of the absurdity.
NATO is the "Keep Russia At Bay Club". Why on Earth do you think it would welcome Russia into it!? That's like the Neighbourhood Watch letting the local criminal gangs join.
There's a reason Sweden and Finland joined NATO recently.
Because if it provided the resources that were requested from the start Russian offensive would have been pushed out of the country 2 years ago. America(and most European countries too, to be fair) sat on their hands for ages before approving actual military aid. Famous thing about Germany sending helmets while other countries were sending tanks etc.
But also because if JD Vance wasn't such insufferable prick without an ounce of tact there's a good chance the agreement yesterday would have been signed. That is not Ukrainian fault, it's 100% the fault of current American administration.
Letting your interests always go last, and letting people who depend on you and have worked against you(remember Zelenski campaigned against Trump), demand things and reproach you in public, is not tact.
The one who lacked tact was Zelenski, not Vance. As Trump said, "You're in no position to dictate what we're gonna feel."
As for aid, the arrogance in assuming the aid was mandatory and failing to give what you want the way you want is wrong and evil, does not endear people to aid you.
And besides, any delays in aid had a much lesser effect than the EU countries buying russian gas at exorbitant prices. The sanctions imposed were immediately sabotaged by buying russian gas.
As for aid, the arrogance in assuming the aid was mandatory and failing to give what you want the way you want is wrong and evil,
This is insane. He's been constantly begging and thanking the US for support for years. At no point has he even come close to "assuming the aid was mandatory".
To claim that Zelenski lacked tact while Vance did not is similarly nuts. Anyone who watched the video would understand that.
Some of the spending actually is mandatory, because it was passed and apportioned by Congress (but may not have been dispersed yet), and I think Zelensky can be forgiven for having some level of expectations on more aid given the bilateral security pact Biden signed last July and the overall glowing reception he gets in the press.
Hard disagree. The way he treated Zelenskyy who was their guest is unacceptable and completely tactless. He acted as if he was scolding Zelenskyy. The entire comment from Trump "look he dressed up!" was juvenile, showing zero respect. But then he called him a dictator not long ago so I don't know what I expected.
>>The sanctions imposed were immediately sabotaged by buying russian gas.
Because it wasn't possible for EU to stop buying it on a dime, not without letting its citizens freeze and go without electricity. You can argue that well, they should have gone cold if they care about it so much - I'd argue that the EU countries have stopped buying Russian gas and resources as soon as they possibly could.
>As for aid, the arrogance in assuming the aid was mandatory
That's not what I said - I said if the aid was provided when it was requested the war would have ended already.
Zelenskyy famously stopped wearing civilian suits, and is always wearing military-style clothes in public appearances to symbolise how he's defending his nation in a time of war. It's a reminder to other leaders that it's not just another trade deal, that this is a real shooting war and people are dying.
Trump hates this, and thinks it's disrespectful that Zelenskyy doesn't wear a suit when he comes to the US on official visits.
Trump generally can't stomach a real fight, and Zelenskyy can... visibly.
Hence the reaction from Trump. Zelenskyy made him feel shame through his mere dress, his shirt, so he had to do something or say something to feel in control again, to feel powerful.
>Zelenskyy famously stopped wearing civilian suits, and is always wearing military-style clothes in public appearances to symbolise how he's defending his nation in a time of war. It's a reminder to other leaders that it's not just another trade deal, that this is a real shooting war and people are dying.
>Trump hates this, and thinks it's disrespectful that Zelenskyy doesn't wear a suit when he comes to the US on official visits.
That's why they invited dress uniforms...the ones with the jackets and ties.
No, there's definitely no "dress code" in those circles.
A dress code is specifically something you impose to lower-ranking ones. That's why Trump did not like it, and why this journalist seemed upset: they couldn't bear that Zelenski was not submitting to their, very closed-minded WASP dress code for underlings.
When you're the head of state, or in power circles, there's something else, that's called a _dress standing_, which is different and opens a much wider area of possibilities.
And by that standard, boy, did Zelensky outfit outranked everyone else's in the office!
Yeah, no. Nothing in that discussion was tactful on America's side. This is oligarch's trying to gaslight, lie, and extort a country while getting cozy with an enemy they fought for decades. And their remarks were absolutely juvenile. THat's not how we treat allies (or at worst, ,enemy of an enemy).
I would also like to mention that quoting past military service in a discussion on geopolitics is boot as fuck. So is referring to your trade by it's ID number and not just it's name.
That would be incorrect. It refers to the embarassing shit people in the military do, typically right out of basic (boot camp). Everyone is a little bit boot in the beginning, you just learn to cut it out.
And no, the infantry aren't stupid. Thinking that qualifying as an Infantry Officer means your qualified to run the entire war is stupid.
You’re right, one should not need extensive ground combat experience or PhD level fluency on this topic to be equipped to identify that the war is in the defensive (my initial claim, still true), and changing the equilibrium requires a massive escalation from the United States (also still true). You can continue with your name calling, if you like.
The lines on the map in the Ukraine war do not change in Ukraine's favor unless one or both of the following happen: 1) The United States gets directly involved, and/or 2) strategic weapons are used. The Europeans are not going to be willing to sacrifice their vast social programs for a massive defense build up. I think everyone realizes this, and I think the recent election results in multiple countries there make this point.
You are complaining, I think, about the style here. An argument in the Oval Office. Well, the United States is the main reason that Russia, after its disastrous and frankly juvenile attempt at an invasion, hasn't been able to gain additional territory after the war went into the defensive. Let me repeat that: The United States is the reason this war is still on-going. And as a result of this fact, The United States is the one that gets to dictate terms.