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Comment by adriancr | Hacker News Reader

Studying S400 weaknesses can be done without buying it and deploying it. (And likely has been done in plane design)

> Apart from that, china seems a bigger threat.

Russia is a direct threat of invasion for most European countries and yet they're not taken seriously (except neighbors which some have been invaded). The fact that S400 is even debated is proof of that...

US for better or worse can take both Russia and China militarily on itself... but it feels a bit pointless if the countries it protects are shooting themselves in the foot.

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"Studying S400 weaknesses can be done without buying it and deploying it. "

How? Spycraft? Sounds a lot harder than having the gear at hand.

"US for better or worse can take both Russia and China militarily on itself.."

I hope we never find out, but I am sceptical. The US budget is surely way higher, but china and russia can produce, develope and sustain their military gear a lot lot cheaper. And have more manpower.

"Russia is a direct threat of invasion for most European countries"

And well, I live in germany and I don't feel threatened by russia. I know for Lithuania it is a bit different - but they are in the EU and NATO and the ukraine is not. So the lithuanian people I know don't really feel threatened by russia either and rather are annoyed by the new iron curtain, as well.

> And well, I live in germany and I don't feel threatened by russia.

While "most European countries" is excessive, there are some countries that are very much under threat; Poland is the prime example.

So you really think russia would invade a NATO country triggering a direct NATO response, with all the nukes still around?

Do you know something I don't that makes this scenario likely?

> So you really think russia would invade a NATO country triggering a direct NATO response, with all the nukes still around?

Trump threatened to pull US out of NATO which would make it meaningless

Regardless of intentions, If that were ever to happen, it would put even Germany under threat from Russia's green men.

France/UK's nukes are a deterrent but its doubtful they would be used

US with troops in those countries make it pretty clear a conventional war with green men would be repelled with heavy losses on Russian side.

There are still lots of nukes in the NATO without the US.

And germany does not have russian speaking and feeling areas, who would (at least partly) welcome green man, which was the case in east ukraine and crimea.

And as far as I know, Trump is gone.

I meant without the NATO present.

>Russia is a direct threat of invasion for most European countries lmao

Yes, I'm pretty sure Ukrainians find it funny as well.

Crimea is very complicated issue with no clear answer.

This can be said about any geopolitical area if you look far enough into the history. Saying "it's complicated" is a very poor excuse for the annexation. Similarly "complicated" are Taiwan, Tibet, Kashmir and tens of other regions in the world. There will never be peace if we're OK with actions like this.

Sure, but on the other hand, it is maybe not helpful to oversimplify.

Because then your actions will not lead to more peace and just complicate things further.

Territorial integrity is often at odds with self-determination. In the case of Georgia and Ukraine the west argued with sacred territorial integrity - and in the case of Kosovo with self-determination. And russia argued reverse.

I have not been in all those areas, so I don't want to judge, but I do know that there was lots and lots of propaganda going on and allmost nobody really asked the actual people living there, what they actually want - which is what I prefer to apply in most conflicts. But this not so easy either, because ... does the vote of a person living there since only 2 years count the same as one whose family has been there since centuries? Where to draw the line?

Otherwise it gets ridiculed when for example occupying russian soldiers in chechenya gets the same vote as the people who actually lived there.

Crimea is an utterly simple issue with a crystal clear answer.

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