Hacker News Reader

Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

Are you suggesting that neighboring countries should go to war to defend Ukraine? If I see a street mugging then I'll call the police but I'm not going to risk getting shot in order to intervene in a random street crime.

This is obviously a terrible situation for the Ukrainian people but at the same time they could have done a lot more to prevent it. They essentially let their military deterrent collapse years ago through a mix of corruption and apathy. If they had had a real combat effective military back in 2014 then Russia probably wouldn't have invaded in the first place.

View on HN

> at the same time they could have done a lot more to prevent it.

I'm skeptical. Russia has been harrying and undermining Ukraine for many years. Remember Viktor Yanukovych and all the turmoil of that era? It's not like Ukraine has been through a period of decadence where they slacked off — they've never caught a break.

And now the full force of Russian imperialism is crashing down on them.

They trusted the American guaranty of their safety in exchange for them becoming a nuclear non-proliferation country and giving up their inherited nukes. American's failure to stay ahead of the situation and deliver on the guaranty we promised them caused this, and I think is going to lead to nuclear proliferation going up now.

Does it need to be "go to war"? How many NATO aircraft would it take to give the Ukrainians on the ground the upper hand? For all his bluster, do you think Putin really wants to escalate beyond Ukraine? He's playing a game of chicken with the west and winning.

Hitler did the same thing right up until 1939. From what I've read he was actually surprised that the allies finally called his bluff after Poland, considering they just rolled over after the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.

> do you think Putin really wants to escalate beyond Ukraine? He's playing a game of chicken with the west and winning.

Have you read his recent announcement? He warned every foreign nation not to meddle or else:

> To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside - if you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history,’ he said on a television broadcast around 6am Moscow time.

What do you expect him to say? Do you think you can trust his word?

are you willing to put your region at stake to try to discover whether he meant it?

Your region is already at stake? What's the chance that Putin is interested in "just this one piece of land" and is also willing to escalate to WW3 to get it? If he's truly that dedicated, this is just the beginning. Estonia shares a nice long border with Russia.

How popular do you think Putin will be at home when he announces he's going to full war with NATO? How would he even do that? You think he's going to launch ICBMs?

> How popular do you think Putin will be at home when he announces he's going to full war with NATO?

Putin is not elected by a popular vote, the voice of the people does not matter there.

Estonia is a NATO member already, the current conflict has been escalated because of the previously announced red line demands (Ukraine never getting into NATO) that the US diplomats discarded. It is their job to negotiate peace in the region too. Negotiations is a nasty business and the outcomes are nasty too. Those who seek easy and pretty solutions that satisfy all parties in one step are destined to escalate the situation further up.

The voice of the people always matters to some degree. Especially if said dictator wants you to risk your life or the life of your loved ones for his conquests.

Yes.

The alternative is to let him repeat 1939.

The lesson learned should be that if you don't stop the thug with force, then he will eventually become strong enough to stop you.

> The lesson learned should be that if you don't stop the thug with force, then he will eventually become strong enough to stop you.

this is a lesson of a past war, the world has moved, this is no longer a WW2 era, if you try to apply a similar foreign intervention now the chances are you'll get a nuke on your lawn.

I think you can call the bluff. Putin wants to build an empire not have Russia leveled. Of course you are playing a high stakes game in actually doing this though.

No one, and I mean, no one... Wants to ne the first firer of nukes in anger. I could see a State nuking themselves before nuking anyone else to keep that fuse from getting lit.

You don't get to put that one back in the bottle, and you're going to have to have more faith than the Pope to think that no one will respond.

Nuclear War isn't like Civilization. It's a momentary bang followed by a lot of whimper.

That's why you need your own nukes first.

I'm pretty confident that Putin doesn't want to go down in history as the guy who started the nuclear war that ended Russia (and much of the rest of the world). We can call that bluff.

NATO aircraft doing what? If they shoot at Russian forces then the Russians will shoot back, and then we're in an escalating war.

I think Putin wants to escalate beyond Ukraine and conquer at least parts of the Baltic countries. Hopefully NATO will stand firm against that.

No, he'll take Ukraine only temporarily and then retreat back and hold smaller parts of it.

He will retreat after installing a puppet regime.

Germany could have stopped the situation from deteriorating further weeks ago, but the new government are idiots.

How? Policies regarding Russia haven't changed. It started in the Schroeder-era.

They could have kept the lid down on the situation and prevented the East European nations from inflaming the situation further. They could have offered to veto Ukraine. The new government did not defend German interests and let it become a pawn in great power politics.

I don't see how that would have either lowered Putin's desire to annex Ukraine or increased the cost of doing so.

What can they realistically do? Send German troops there? It won't happen ever, we both know it. Shutdown Nordstream 2 earlier? It's unlikely to have any effect. Direct supply of weapons into Ukraine? Earlier and preemptive sanctions? None of that will deter Putin, in fact it will probably just encourage him to act faster.

You also have to take into consideration the last 2 times Germany entered a conflict it didn't work out too well for them, so they have all the more reasons to be reserved.

Yeah because the totally competent CDU/CSU politicians would have solved this way better. Totally!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com