Take a big dose of Realpolitik and leave the "ought to"s behind. There's no nanny to tattle to. Nuclear war is a losing move for us all. Don't encourage it's happening out of some sense of moral justice that will kill billions.
But. Nuclear weapons are far beyond the ken and capability of humans’ intuitive game theory, the hueristics we apply in escalatory conflicts of all scales. Applying such intuition risks thoughtless apocalypse; MAD is a novel idea because such weapons required either an entirely new paradigm in power politics, or humanity’s rapid suicide.
Nuclear weapons are a deus, or devil, sprung from the machine of human civilization.
The possibility of their use, even by a bully who wields them especially to intimidate us, must inspire some cowardice in any soul who cherishes humanity’s potential.
The west must find its moral courage within the contraints of antiquarian post-Congress of Vienna style Realpolitik, as others have stated. Partition of Ukraine and many decades applying a new strategy of containment is the most realistic ‘victory’ that can be sought.
We might hope that Russia’s once promising liberal civil society will revolt and save this decade for peace - in vain, I expect.
He's shown time and time again that from within Russia, he's untouchable and everyone who tries will either be killed or deported to gulag. No sources needed, just look it up quickly on your own.
I do not see an easy solution for dealing with him - left alone the assassination route.
It is up to Biden now to live up to his tough talk of Putin fearing him (from during the election, if you have forgotten) and other western leaders to find an end that doesn't involve bending over.
Why are you singling out "the west"?!? AIUI, Russia also signed that agreement.
Oh wait there was an attempt, people didn't accept a democratic vote and decided to go and find politicians to lynch. I'm still pretty shocked that there hasn't been a more severe reaction to that one.
Everyone saying "but we should let Putin do whatever he wants with lives of innocents because otherwise nuclear war" is Putin supporter, whether they know it or not.
What people are saying is that no one wants to get nuked to save Ukraine and I'd be hard pressed to blame them.
This isn't Call of Duty
But that's as far as it will go at this point. Russia invading Ukraine (again) has been universally declared a Dick Move, but since Ukraine is not an EU or NATO member and as far as I know there's no defense pacts either, there's nothing that they can do that would not be considered an unnecessary escalation.
Why think it will work this time?
EDIT: of course, my opinions are shaped by being in non-nuke-equipped country in Europe, so depending on West's response this time, we're next. I'm sure it looks differently for someone sitting in New Jersey or Australia.
Putin can be faulted for many things but not looking ahead isn't one of them and you can bet that he has priced this in already. If anything he is probably amazed at the lack of response.
> Russia invading Ukraine (again) has been universally declared a Dick Move, but since Ukraine is not an EU or NATO member and as far as I know there's no defense pacts either, there's nothing that they can do that would not be considered an unnecessary escalation.
Yes, there will be all kinds of justification for letting Ukraine burn, this one will be near top of the list for sure.
Then the NATO charter is useless.
What's happened in the last ~10 years was that Ukraine was Russia's proxy, then the West's, and now it will be Russia's again. That's a very different story than one that starts with "was a member of NATO".
Because when you admit state that has part of it's territory occupied into a defense pact, you are effectively declaring war on the occupying state.
Imo it's not quite arsehole thing to not start WWIII due to non-alliance country.
People are also forgetting that you can't just instantly admit Ukraine into NATO and instantly teleport all the alliance armies onto the battlefield. Trying to make it quicker would very likely just hasten the Russian invasion (because the head douche apparently wanted Ukraine all along), so it really boils down to "do you want to start throwing nukes for state that you never made nuke-backed promises to?"
It's appalling how many people here are not seeing bigger picture and would love to just try to end humanity just because some nation got dealt _really_ bad cards. Economically Russia is cratering, so the impatience to end it all here (or in 2014) is just irrational. They were already losing technology (e.g. see how their space program is faltering), this will just accelerate Russia's slide into irrelevance. Even their weapons tech is not keeping up, see the latest kerfuffle in Caucasus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_war
Also the wording is fuzzy when it comes to conventional war, but maybe the wiki has wrong wording. Either way, that is nowhere close to full defense pact which NATO is (with forward allied military bases and such).
EDIT: and wiki wording is unclear whether the treaty applies for conventional war. That's all I meant by "fuzzy"
NATO treaty itself does not talk about rapid response forces, joint bases and so on. All of that comes beyond the treaty. What stops key states from retreating back to basic treaty and then finding an excuse when Article 5 comes? E.g. if Russia comes as non-marked „rebels“?
Maybe NATO has also weak wording in the treaty itself. So ask yourself - why did Ukraine want so badly to be accepted into it? Why is Russia opposing NATO expansion so much?
Why did Baltic states or Poland wanted into NATO so much? It's one more treaty you can show to media when shit hits the fan. One more treaty your supporters can use debating governments for help.
In reality, if Russia attacks a NATO member, it won't be automatic full-on NATO response. It will still be debates. But certain people will be much more uncomfortable saying „no we won't defend NATO allies“. Yet some will still say it.
Russia wants it's own NATO, with black jack and hookers. And countries joining the real NATO obviously won't join theirs.
Baltic states are undefendable, even compared to Ukraine. If Ukraine is down, Poland is as indefendable as Ukraine. Then we are back to Cold War state where Germany is barely defendable.
Yes, Sherlock, that was exactly my point: Dodging that responsibility is what makes NATO an arsehole.
Avoiding nuclear war is the top priority.
Problem is, "Avoiding all-out war is the top priority" is exactly what Chamberlain thought in 1938, too. And look what that got him: all-out war.
Great analogy.
But, fine, let's play this game. The US is sends troops into the Ukraine. You do understand this is right at Russia's border. What does Putin do? He'll engage. Great, now we're in a shooting war with our nuclear rival. Now do you want to roll the dice this doesn't escalate further. Does Putin go after neighboring NATO countries? Now the US has to escalate further to defend an ally. And if the US/NATO pushes into Russia, does Russia go nuclear?
This is why the Cold War stayed COLD. We didn't directly engage Russia on anything close to their borders. Yes, we fought two proxy wars in Asia and just look how that turned out.
Do you really want to roll the dice and hope your neighborhood isn't a parking lot in the next five years?
https://twitter.com/kasparov63/status/1496865471995523080?s=...
And I am no HN founder, but I live in Eastern Europe. NATO planes and helicopters kept flying overhead all day and my house doesn’t even have a basement.
So I bet we are closer to the danger than you are. And I also bet that the ones doing the flagging and burying are other brave "class warriors" and "eaters of the rich" who can’t accept that their beloved ideology has created monsters like Putin while the capitalism they despise has given the world prosperity, (relative) peace and Elon Musk (the last one's a mixed blessing, I admit).
PG if you are reading this, I love you really, man. And if there's any room left down there for a resourceful fella, I will work for bunk and board. (In fact, I've been stockpiling tins since Feb 20, so I only need the bunk ;)
Putin took control of Chernobyl tonight, you know. How do you think he thinks about this stuff?
How long was it called that, and when did he start in the game?
I'm guessing most of his background is actually not FSB, but KGB.