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Comment by smoe | Hacker News Reader

I think the risk of direct NATO military intervention is very low, due to Ukraine not being a member state. As the Nato secretary said, they will support Ukraine, but made it clear the security guarantees are only for allies.

"I think also that we need to realize that Ukraine is a highly valued partner. We support them with military support, with political support, with the cyber defences, with equipment. Different Allies provide different types of support. But when it comes to NATO Allies, we provide absolute security guarantees. Meaning that we make it absolutely clear that an attack on one Ally will trigger a response from the whole Alliance. One-for-all. All-for-one."

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_192343.htm

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Not only is Ukraine not a member state, but Russia is a military power and NATO countries have a very low appetite for war (which is good so long as there are other options for resolving conflict).

For sure Putin has thought most scenarios through and have guessed correctly that the West will not intervene.

The West however cannot be seen to do nothing, so sanctions are the logical next step.

A part of me thinks that Putin at 69 years old, senses that he have to create a great legacy for himself and invading Ukraine seems like a perfect opportunity.

I sincerely hope that the sanctions will include removing Russia from all sports and excluded from as much trade as possible.

I agree. I definitely think Putin wants to be the hero who re-established the Russian empire or something. I really hope we hit hard with sanctions and they aren't just for show like various European weapon contributions (never mind Canada sitting on its hands in that regard and Germany actively blocking Estonia's weapons and instead sending helmets ffs).

That said, I'm worried that the sanctions will be weak/ineffectual as I doubt NATO countries will want to risk economic harm, especially in Europe where they've allowed themselves to become so dependent on Russian natural gas. Personally I think Ukrainian lives are worth an increase in energy prices.

Same here, but in Denmark many house owners are already struggling with prices on electricity going from DKK 2.000/month to 5.000/month. And this is before Putin invaded Ukraine.

And now gas and oil prices seem to be rising, triggering Biden to state that these increases will be dealt with.

So no, I'm not optimistic about sanctions even though I also think Ukraine must come first.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/ukraine-russ...

>I think the risk of direct NATO military intervention is very low

I agree the military intervention risk seems low, but what about economic intervention? Isn't this going to have some serious economic repercussions for Russia?

Russia has grown its gold reserves drastically over the last decade, has relatively little debt and is increasingly trading with China without using US dollars at all.

I'd say they've anticipated those serious economic repercussions to some extent. But I also suspect Russians may be more willing to tolerate things such as a weak economy if it helps achieve other goals. I kind of see it like a parallel with Russia shooting a bullet at its own economy, while the Soviet Union in the 20th century shot plenty of bullets at its own people...for various reasons.

I thought the last round of sanctions was so inpactful because they targeted russian oligarch investments rather than the russian state. Hurt the oligarchs and they get angry with putin.

It's proven to have an opposite effect. Cutting their ties with the west just consolidates their loyalty. It's painful for them once that happens, but long term effects are actually not serving the purpose.

Isn't something like 1/3 of their GDP energy exports though? Presumably most of the customers are European.

The flip side of that is that the Europeans are heavily dependent on those exports.

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission said they have spent weeks prior to this getting assurances from other countries to increase their gas deliveries. They named Azerbaijan, Egypt, Nigeria and Norway.

She said, they are now in a state, where they can't be pressured trough gas deliveries from Russia. Whether this is true, I have no idea.

Weeks? JFL.

You can't build LNG transfer depots to replace half of your pipeline deliveries in years, let alone weeks.

Just passing on what was said, I don't have much knowledge on this topic. As I understood, they were implying importing more gas from other countries on existing infrastructure, not building entirely new one.

Looking at this, Russian LNG imports makes up 20%. Doesn't seem to be completly impossible for the other countries on that list to cover for it at maybe a higher price. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51358

True, ultimately it comes down to which country is more willing to let their population suffer. I know where my money is.

It’s not even about that.

It looks like Putin is making the correct calculation that the west would suffer more.

Look at the Chinese reaction, it is very unlikely he would be making this move without at least tacit Chinese support. He has an outlet for all of that energy and grain.

Where will Europe recover that supply from?

From wherever China is buying it now.

You mean like Iran?

Oil is fungible to a significant degree, but oil politics are not.

Are you sure? Now Iran suddenly seems more likeable partner for oil trade than Russia. And Europe always wanted the JCPOA deal.

Yes, except now the Iranians also suddenly have significantly more leverage in negotiating a new treaty. Coming to a timely agreement there is not a foregone conclusion.

The key balance here is with the Iranians and the saudis. In all likelihood the nato response hinges on how much support they can count in the Middle East.

We're relatively economically powerless here. We've spent the last thirty years deindustrializing on behalf of China, which runs a trade surplus of a trillion dollars a year with the United States and can afford to use to keep Russia afloat in spite of whatever sanctions we think we can push.

As an aside, I wonder why more people (especially on this forum) aren't discussing the likelihood of increased cyber attacks, not just on government and military institutions but on private businesses. If we sanction Russia, they might hit our hospitals, banks, etc. Seems like we should start ratcheting up our security.

I work at the big fintech with a large footprint in Eastern Europe. We have been ramping up our cyberdefence capabilities intensively for over a week now based on various public and non-public advisories. As far as I see from my extended network, we are definetly not alone doing that.

I guess I was thinking every NATO country and the whole of the EU should be boosting its security posture.

For a week? You should have been preparing for years. Seriously.

I posted a link about that earlier but it got flagged.

Agreed, this is a terrifying prospect. Governments, hospitals, transport links.. anything.

Dams, hydro, iron smelters, steel mills…

What worries me is the idea that some ex-soviet apparatchik (someone like Vladimir himself) might want to take eye-for-eye, and reduce western infrastructure to the same level of ruin of the Soviet’s, after ‘89.

Their industry and economy was struggling and fell apart overnight but the West wasn’t happy to just win, it wanted to Win Big. We rubbed the unproductivity of it in their face, kicked the market wide open to fire sales and mass demobilization… these humiliations create resentment, and you never know who’s the more spitefully determined.

> Their industry and economy was struggling and fell apart overnight but the West wasn’t happy to just win, it wanted to Win Big. We rubbed the unproductivity of it in their face, kicked the market wide open to fire sales and mass demobilization

I'm not familiar with this; can you elaborate or link me to something?

Post-communist states sold off their remaining assets after 1989. Many people think (correctly in many cases) that there was a lot of corruption during the process. That allowed people (usually foreign) to buy a lot of key infrastructure and other stuff for nothing.

The OP seemed to imply that the West actively orchestrated this? Is that what is meant by "there was a lot of corruption during the process"?

In reality: not "the west", but people from the west who saw an easy opportunity. Which makes people here think it was "The West".

They are actively doing it anyway.

> Isn't this going to have some serious economic repercussions for Russia?

Russia's been sanctioned for nearly a decade. They're probably the most resource-rich nation on earth and have a nearly fully self-sufficient economy. What little they need they can get from China.

Also, when people look at Russia's GDP, they need to look at REAL numbers (ie. Adjusted for PPP). Russia's real GDP is ~3x higher than their nominal GDP (because sanctions drive down currency trade and make the nominal number basically useless).

> Russia's been sanctioned for nearly a decade. They're probably the most resource-rich nation on earth and have a nearly fully self-sufficient economy. What little they need they can get from China.

It might look so like we have a self-sufficient economy, but it's not true. We have lots of resources, but to mine them and produce things you need technology. We're mostly importing needed technology and it's not something that can be changed fast. And things didn't change much for the last 10 years. China is a good partner, they can produce and export all needed tech things, but I doubt that in the current world is a good option to depend on one partner.

I'm Russian and I don't understand the reasons for the invasion of Ukraine. And I don't agree with our country leaders' decisions. It doesn't look the peace could be brought by war and aggression. And I'm feeling that we already lost. We lost opportunities to partner with Ukraine and other countries. We lost momentum to grow our own economy.

> I'm Russian and I don't understand the reasons for the invasion of Ukraine. And I don't agree with our country leaders' decisions. It doesn't look the peace could be brought by war and aggression. And I'm feeling that we already lost.

When you talk with people around you in Russia, does support for the invasion feel like a wedge issue? No pressure to respond if you feel like it's not easy to talk about.

For a bit of context, where I live there's some controversy of whether or not the federal government needed use certain reserve powers. [1] I personally felt the government's actions were pretty measured, but I understand (at least on a theoretical or emotional level) why other people might not have been comfortable with it. I sometimes wonder if support for Russia's invasion is very polarizing internally. That said, I don't speak Russian or know much about the public consciousness there.

[1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-federal-gover...

> I don't understand the reasons for the invasion of Ukraine.

I think I do.

It seems to be the same as the reason for invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Ukraine also started a transformation, slipping away from Russia's influence and opening to West. Russia's rulers (whether that is Putin or whomever) understandably got pissed by this loss of influence "in their backyard" and they decided they have to do something.

It was clear to Russians for a long time now that NATO was fractured on Ukraine and that even the hawkish Western powers won't go into direct war with Russians because of Ukraine. It's not that important to anybody in the West.

Considering the fact West won't fight in Ukraine, and it did not provide any real concessions to Russia's demands, it is not surprising that Russia has taken initiative. It makes perfect sense, for Russians it is the only way to make sure NATO/EU won't happen and also win control and resources in Ukraine at the same time (which may be a substantial reason as well, despite the fact Putin does not talk about it).

Considering the disproportion in military powers, I think now it would be best for Ukrainians to capitulate, admit defeat and avoid unnecessary deaths. Also, the West bears some responsibility for this misery in Ukraine. Even from western point of view, West should have never started this overture process with false promises and predictable bad results. Unless the Russian invasion was actually a desired result in some secret mastermind plan made in the West... which does not seem likely.

Russia has been preparing for severe Western sanctions for the better part of a decade. Sanctions are obviously not a sufficient deterrent.

> Isn't this going to have some serious economic repercussions for Russia?

Russian economy is in decline since 2014. COVID-19 pandemic has increased its decline even further.

So it seems that the upcoming EU + US economic sanctions will be used by propaganda as the ultimate explanation of the decline. I mean Kremlin actually looks forward to more sanctions in order to have plausible explanation ("we are at war and our enemies made your life worse; we need to stay strong around our leader mr. Putin" shit).

> Russian economy is in decline since 2014.

The vast, vast majority of the growth in US and EU economies since 2014 (really, much earlier than that, though) has been in fundamentally non-productive sectors like finance, real estate, entertainment, social media, and hospitality.

This is all well and good in peacetime, but the GDP calculation changes dramatically when you're on a war footing and need to produce actual tangible things. Russia looks much, much, much better economically than GDP suggests in the context of its ability to produce theater materiel, power that materiel, and man that materiel.

It's going to be a fun day for us when our pathetic "service-based economy" workforce of ad spent optimizers, real estate agents, attorneys, starbucks baristas, ReactJS programmers, UI designers, Buffalo Wild Wings servers, twitch streamers, instagram influencers, and "hustlers" of all kinds get drafted to fight hardened alcoholic roughnecks who've spent the last 20 years actually building things, backed up by Chinese rangefinders, optics, and target acquisition systems.

Good luck to us.

You forgot to add some homophobia to your straw man depiction of the West.

You just depicted your world, not the West.

Russia does 5 times more trade with China than the US. Most of the west is reliant on Russian oil or Russian allies oil making it difficult to put down hard sanctions as Russia holds more power that the west would like to admit.

Military intervention is the best solution Russia has a large army but its old and would be unable to deal with western military, but there is no real path for that to happen.

Perhaps, but there are already significant economic sanctions in place since the previous invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Russia has survived those reasonably well. More sanctions will probably come but they can only be incremental. Several key NATO members are highly dependent on Russian energy supplies and can't afford to shut those off indefinitely.

We're talking about the 2 biggest nuclear powers here. A tiny mistake or misunderstanding is all that's needed. Google Vasily Arkhipov. After the EU sanctions overnight, it seems that Russia felt it had not much to lose, and they launched their attack.

This attack has been planned for months… EU sanctions have nothing to do with that.

I don't believe it was inevitable.

It was inevitable since 2014. The only thing that is surprising is that it took this long.

Whatever is inevitable for eight years is really not.

Well, if you were looking a bit more closely you would have noticed a lot of little steps all leading to that goal, so as far as I'm concerned it was inevitable, but you are of course entirely entitled to your own worldview.

Maybe not, if you're young enough to think eight years is a long time.

Then you did not listen to Putin's speech where he declares all territories which have once been part of the Russian empire as illegitimate states which should be forcibly reintegrated. He outright declared himself an Imperialist with dreams of empire. The only thing which would have dissuaded Putin was overwhelming force.

And what if Russia detonates a nuclear bomb over these incoming NATO troops?

Then there will be a hot nuclear war.

No something I welcome, but the calculations you are making don’t match up with reality.

How would you have it? Just let any nuclear armed state invade any country it wants? There has to be a place where the line is drawn.

I have trouble understanding your point of view. What are you suggesting? I hope not that US starts nuclear war with Russia over disagreement about Ukraine?

In the case that Russia drops a nuke on NATO troops, you believe that the US should just accept that with no response?

Russia has agency in this scenario. If they drop nukes first they are starting a nuclear war.

The only way it would have been avoidable is for the EU and NATO to withdraw their support (economic, political, military) from Ukraine, in order to enable the Kremlin to bring about a Russia-friendly regime by non-military means. Putin’s goal was always to turn Ukraine back into at least a vassal state of Russia. Given the western-oriented developments in Ukraine since 2014, the opportunity window was slowly closing, time was running out.

Official neutrality and a trade deal with both the EU and Russia?

You couldn’t prevent the Ukrainian people to predominantly prefer a western orientation, and to vote for a government with western values. The only conceivable way to really satisfy Putin would have been for the Ukraine to be controlled by Russia-aligned propaganda and media, probably with rigged elections, similar to Belarus.

Of course, Putin may have hoped that the Ukrainian public would "see the light" and realize that they are really Russian people (as Putin seems to think they ought to) and align themselves accordingly, but that would have been a pipe dream.

How, in your estimation, could it have been averted then?

The west doesn’t really hold the cards at the moment.

The West was ambivalent about eventual Ukraine membership in Nato for 8+ years. What has that achieved?

- If Nato had put a memorandum on Ukraine membership: Russia would have less of a reason to attack but Nato wouldn’t be able to help defend Ukraine in case of an attack

- Nato stays ambivalent about eventual membership: Russia is more likely to attack and, as stated by the Nato general secretary and the US president, Nato won’t help defend Ukraine in case of an attack

> memorandum

I assume you mean "moratorium"?

Yes :)

That's mostly because they have more to lose.

That doesn’t really answer the question.

You claimed that this wasn’t inevitable. From today’s vantage point, it seems pretty clear that this was Putin’s intent all along.

Ah, the good old “YOU made me do it” line. So, Putin had beed moving his 160,000 soldiers to the border for weeks because of the sanctions that were taken 2 days ago?

And NATO had been sending arms and advisors into Ukraine. And what good did that do for Ukrainians who by and large are sick of this conflict?

These arms are probably what will give them their country back in the end. Nobody is under any illusion that the Ukrainian army can defeat Russia in a conventional war. But Russia is signing up for possibly decades of guerilla and insurgencies and is going to bleed dry like the USSR did in Afghanistan.

You know of what Ukrainians are even sicker than this conflict? Russian imperialism. Each instance of sabre rattling brings them closer to the West.

Ukraine is not owned by Russia. If Ukraine invites NATO troops in, that is their right to do so. Ukraine does not want to be part of Russia, which is why Putin just had to launch an attack against the whole of the nation. Kharkiv is Russian-speaking majority and right next to the border, why didn't it voluntarily join Russia 5, 10, 20 years ago? It didn't want to is the correct answer.

Remember how the Russian government was recently talking about how what goes on inside of their borders is only their business? That they may move their troops anywhere they like inside of their borders (the obvious lie by Putin & Co that was obvious at the time)? Yeah, that's the same principle.

Imagine Mexico for any reason would invite Russian army. What answer do expect from US in such case?

And you don't have to imagine, just remember Cuban missile crisis (in response to US deploying missiles in Turkey, Italy)

> Imagine Mexico for any reason would invite Russian army.

I've heard this "analogy" brought up several times in the last couple days, but I just don't find it persuasive or similar, or really actually matter.

If Mexico decided to invite the Russian army in for whatever reason, that is their choice as a sovereign nation. I (as an American) would be super worried about that, but I would also think that the US should probably be asking itself why Mexico had chosen to do this instead of allying itself with the US.

And that's really the heart of this for me: despite Ukraine's history with Russia, they seem to feel that joining NATO is better for their security and safety. Russia should take a hard look at themselves and ask why that's the case, and maybe adjust their behavior so they'd be considered a more trustworthy partner.

But of course that would never happen; instead we have a dictator who believes Russia has some natural right to Ukraine's lands, and will take it by force if necessary. If the US were behaving that way toward Mexico, I absolutely wouldn't blame them for looking for outside help. It would be irresponsible for them not to.

Ukraine is not getting nuclear weapons on its territory. If that were really the issue, Putin would have invaded the Baltic states and Poland. You know, where the weapons actually are.

You are suggesting to attack NATO countries. Do you want WW3?

In which way does what I want matter? I merely point out Putin's hypocrisy, consisting in attacking a country that gave up voluntarily its nuclear weapons and that would not be getting American weapons at all if it weren't for its aggressive neighbour. If Putin were really frightened by NATO, he would not be destabilising Ukraine, he would be undermining Poland.

Ah, yes. It's a pity the Ukrainians did not pick the right side back in 2014 before they ousted Yanukovych.

Most certainly. This will end Russia's ability to continue to grow in any way.

I'm reasonably convinced that the only reason for anyone relevant to float around the idea of a NATO-Ukraine relationship was to drag an already economically fragile Russia into a conflict that they may "win" but at a high cost for Russia and for Ukraine. I say "win" because Russia will poison Ukraine for NATO, making it less (or not at all) desirable for NATO but will pay a heavy price. Overall that's a win for NATO as many (most?) members can breathe a lot easier around a weakened Russia.

Ukraine had been interested in joining NATO and the EU for 10 years now. The west has used this conflict very well but that is not the reason for the conflict. The reason for the conflict is entirely in Putin's head.

> Ukraine had been interested in joining NATO and the EU for 10 years now

When Ukraine was flirting with the idea of a relationship with the EU in 2013-2014 the Crimean invasion happened. It was absolutely predictable even at that time and in fact many EU officials I have spoken to (including high ranking ones) agreed as much since back then. The signs of a regime which doesn't stand any proximity of a threat to their rule was obvious.

> The reason for the conflict is entirely in Putin's head

I have never been in Putin's head, nor met or talked to him. But to my pride I do forget more history every day than most people will learn in their lifetime and can't think of similar example of a superpower happily accepting adversaries at their border.

In recent history look no further than when the US ordered a naval blockade on Cuba after Cuba's request for Russian missiles to be placed on the island to defend in the event of another US invasion attempt. Putin is literally taking a page from that book.

I don't need to be in Putin's head because he's not some brilliant tactician doing something unheard of, he's just playing an old song to a new audience. If it's the first time you hear it you just have to pay more attention to what came before today.

> But to my pride I do forget more history every day than most people will learn in their lifetime and can't think of similar example of a superpower happily accepting adversaries at their border.

Not to burst your bubble, but the USSR accepted Turkey with nukes on their border, and before them, Japan. China accepts being essentially surrounded by hostile powers, many of whom are part of NATO.

The Black Sea separates Russia and Turkey while an invasion staged from Ukraine could cut Russia off from the Black Sea in a few days. Very different security concerns.

(Of course “Turkiye” becoming a member of Nato in these times would have been a joke considering Erdoğan. But maybe I’m just showing my naivete.)

They said USSR and they did share a small land border.

Fair. I guess Georgia? Crossing the Caucasus Mountains is harder than crossing the European Plains.

I don't like bubbles anyway :). All those countries have consistently acted exactly with the same methods you see now. Trying to avoid direct war but with no issues interfering with each other's conflicts and "buffer countries".

Georgia, Syria, Libya, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan are all places Russia and Turkey banged heads one way or another. Just like Russia is taunting NATO to bang heads in Ukraine. China, US, India, Pakistan, Israel, Russia, Turkey are other powerful countries constantly putting out a fire and starting another one. The single larger difference being that the sphere of influence of most of those countries expands far less than US' so their conflicts are generally closer to their actual geographic border rather than on the other side of the world. Otherwise they're all fighting to maintain that buffer in all possible ways.

And at a completely different scale, people in rich neighborhoods rarely accept inconvenient buildings or neighbors right next to them as long as they can do something about it. It's not an indictment on either the people or the countries named above. Just the state of things.

Perhaps the only place with nukes and no sabre rattling today is Western Europe. Then again they have the US to do the rattling for them and pay for the service. The picture will be a lot clearer when this too becomes history.

China is in the midst of a decades long effort to not be surrounded by hostile powers. They went to war over Korea & would have over Vietnam if the US had invaded the north.

China started a war with Vietnam almost immediately after USA surrendered. (Not contradicting you; if anything supporting the point...)

As a sort of redux, I guess my feeling is that obviously, every state would prefer to be surrounded by allies, or better still, by seas.

However, the idea that all superpowers inevitably go to war to preserve this state is just wrong. If you consider superpowers starting from antiquity to today, the only state that has achieved this situation (at any point?) is the USA. Every other has had at least one significant land border with an adversary.

(PS: Probably the biggest one is, of course, between the USSR and China, which was a very hot border since the sino-soviet split).

In general, I think you are correct. Neighboring states will learn to coexist or at least one of them will cease to exist as a state. Some Americans imagine that "exceptionalism" exempts us from this dynamic, but most of us are wiser.

PS: it was nice while it lasted... https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/russia-and-chin...

Russia isn't a superpower, by most commonly accepted definitions only the US is and someone called "Vladimir Putin" has stated that too, for whatever that's worth. China, India and the EU have a better claim to that title though they're not superpowers either.

"In recent history look no further than when the US ordered a naval blockade on Cuba after Cuba's request for Russian missiles to be placed on the island to defend in the event of another US invasion attempt. Putin is literally taking a page from that book."

Well, except for the fact that the US never actually invaded Cuba.

It was a grave mistake for Ukraine to give up the nuclear weapons they inherited from the USSR.

then what was the bay of pig invasion?

That was an "invasion" by anti-Castro Cubans backed by the US government, but can't hardly be considered an US invasion.

Yes... US "only" financed, coordinated, and offered active military support for the invasion. Then imposed a blockade on Cuba for asking for nuclear help from the USSR.

And in 2014 forces which were definitely just pro-Russian militias as they clearly had no Russian insignia invaded Crimea the moment Ukraine started contemplating a relationship with the West/EU.

This kind of rationalization or nit-picking in order to reach the conclusion you had already settled on has no value, just because there are sides doesn't mean you have to blindly take one. Education and critical thinking help.

It only offered very limited military support. You entirely ignore that Castro came to power under a different pretext than communism but Cubans only learned this too late. Unfortunately Kennedy didn't give the air support needed. Cuba could have been in much better shape today.

Don't compare an authoritarian regime sending militias to conquer the territory of a democratic country to a democratic country training and supporting exiles to get rid of their tormentor. Intent matters.

Let's not kid ourselves with this kind of rationalization. Intent matters when you failed to achieve your claimed results. When you need to explain why the crap you pulled smells so much better than the same crap the other guy pulled. But it's still crap and rationalizing it from a safe place where you just get to send thoughts and prayers rather than taking it is not only completely worthless but also insulting to anyone who ever had to suffer from someone else's "good intentions", particularly a superpower's. You'd appreciate those intentions a lot less if you were at the wrong end of them.

When you do a good job you don't need to explain your intentions. It's a lesson you learn the very first time you do a good job.

Not if Russia takes Ukraine and controls the majority of wheat following into EU.

Near term impacts of climate change will very likely leads to crop failures in many of the EU's largest producing regions.

When you don't have enough food to feed your people, politics and economic sanctions become extremely flexible.

When resources run low controlling food and oil will be a very big deal.

This is delusional.

Curious what's delusional about this?

Russian and Ukraine combined account for 29% of global wheat exports, much of that to the EU.

Near term climate change will most certainly lead to massive crop failures, particularly in currently bountiful parts of the EU.

Countries like the UK (I know not EU) already cannot feed their people without imports, something like 50% of the UKs food supply is imported.

It is nearly certain that within a few decades, perhaps even sooner, we will be at a point where there is not enough food. We've already see notable crop failures in the EU.

Most of us have grown up in a time of plenty, but that time is running short.

All of this is fairly well established, so is my "delusion" in that Putin is aware of this and acting on it?

One obvious answer is that the US massively overproduces food on a scale that's hard to fathom, which is part of why we make extremely inefficient biofuels (corn ethanol) out of a big chunk of it and use it for inefficient meat production.

After some conversion through various bad units of measure (bushels->pounds->calories), and assuming ~2250 calories a day average), it looks to me like current US corn production could feed somewhere around 1.6 billion people their entire yearly caloric needs, if it was actually directed entirely at feeding people as efficiently as possible.

And that is rather obviously not the only crop or source of food originating in the US.

Math sources:

https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2022/01-12-2022.php - corn output.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-defense-of-... - bushel/pound/calorie conversion

------

In short, I don't think it's very realistic to think that Europe is going to face a literal inability to get enough food even if the entirety of Ukraine never grew another plant again.

Most of the Russian and Ukraine wheat exports don't go to the EU but Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, Bangladesh and regions there around.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/17/infographic-russia-...

France exports 15,228,664 tonnes of wheat, not far behind the Ukraine with 17,314,278.

Other significant wheat producers in the EU include Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland and Lithuania.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wheat_exp...

What climate change would let crops fail in all corners of the EU, but not Ukraine and Russia?

I agree with this assessment, and predicted this to be the year when consolidation around resources begins.

Yeah, I've already had my fill of hot takes from uninformed people on the internet, and this war isn't even 24 hours old.

Links to actual expert analyses, on the other hand, would be much appreciated.

Additionally, Russia has a significant nuclear arsenal. The word on the tweets is that NATO going head-to-head with Russia would mean two significant nuclear powers fighting directly, making a significant risk of escalation. (NATO contesting air superiority over Ukraine would mean launching attacks on Russian air defenses over the border, for example.)

Think for a moment about the signal this sends to all the other non-NATO members around the world.

What signal? That NATO is a defensive alliance and not the world's police?

No, that for instance China is free to take Taiwan and that we won't do a thing about it.

The world's police has abdicated a while ago. This is the kind of thing that happens in the vacuum left behind.

But, unlike Ukraine, the US has taken a stronger stance on Taiwan:

"Asked twice during CNN's town hall whether the US would protect Taiwan if China attacked, Biden said it would." [1]

Contrast that to the stance on Ukraine:

"We have no intention of fighting Russia."[2]

From other statements, it seems clear the administration thinks Taiwan is a critical national interest while Ukraine is not.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/21/politics/taiwan-china-biden-t...

[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/23/biden-troops-russia...

> From other statements, it seems clear the administration thinks Taiwan is a critical national interest while Ukraine is not.

This is true. And it is the main driver behind the United States' renewed interest in domestic fab capability:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/7178

Taiwan isn't explicitly mentioned but it plays a large role in the reasoning behind this.

Your domestic fab capability can't run without thousands of consumables, and services only available in Asia. USA is not semiconductor self-sufficient since eighties, and cannot be any more, just like anybody else.

Semi is the most globalised industry spanning 28 countries, with USA, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, SK, Japan, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands being able to singlehandedly stop the whole of it.

It's a naive thinking "once TSMC will complete Arizona megafab, we can abandon Taiwan." There, are as I said, hundreds of critical single supplier globally pieces of equipment, services, and materials that most of the world had zero idea about. How about nanoneedle probes capable of testing M0 the entire industry depends on, for which there is 1 small company for the entire world.

The USA has a long, long history of being able to move when it has to. I'm pretty sure that if they want to re-create a particular level of expertise that they will be able to do so, given enough time.

Time is the crucial part, IMO.

The DoD has identified the loss of manufacturing capability as a national security risk. Maybe lower labor costs were the impetus of off-shoring manufacturing, but nearly 40 years since globalization took hold there's also a lot of manufacturing that has to go overseas simply because America is no longer able or willing to do it. Could the US bring back that capability? As you said, even if there was the will it wouldn't happen overnight.

I think you have no idea what entails what you are talking about. The world of semi has moved enormously since eighties, when the only country outside of USA with serious chip industry was Japan. Aside from "end of the pipe" fabs, and fab owners, everything else moved out, or never ever been a thing in USA.

US semiconductor equipment from LAM, and Applied Materials are more than half imported parts. US semi industry never used OSATs, until it had to ship their chips to Asia for that, and thus missed out on most of new packaging, and test tech which evolved outside of the US. Similarly for almost everything else.

Replacing Asian material suppliers for the US will be as hard as for China to develop a domestic photolithography stepper.

> I think you have no idea what entails what you are talking about.

Ok, then we'll stop talking.

I am not telling you to shut up, and I am telling you to take a deep breath, and think this over after reading up on topic a bit.

"We will betray our allies, and they will leave us alone" is a form of defeatism, and entertaining others into this way of thinking is not what a citizen of NATO country should do, let alone a public figure.

I don't think the argument should really be framed that the goal is for the US to become fully fab self-sufficient. Rather, this is about a very specific risk scenario. I think the distinction is that Taiwan is in a particularly precarious situation with a rising superpower openly wanting to reclaim it. And that rising superpower has some cultural distinction that make it a liability to US interests. The other single-point failures in the supply chain don't appear to be at that level of risk.

This was my thinking as well. Even the verbiage is similar to what China has said in the past about Taiwan, except now it is Russia saying it about Ukraine.

China is has a much weaker military and smaller nuke arsenal. Tangling directly with Russia is incredibly dangerous. China too, but less so.

China is estimated to have approximately 100 nuclear warheads and delivery systems that can reach the continental United States, anything over that would not make much sense anyway. Smaller is a relative term, in absolute terms this is a devastatingly powerful set of weapons.

China has a more powerful military than Russia at this point and vastly superior manufacturing and economic means to sustain it and push further. China's nuclear arsenal is merely smaller, but so what, nobody needs 10,000 nukes anyway. A thousand well-aimed nukes will do the job.

It makes sense. Helping the Ukrainian coup of 2014 doesn’t cost the US much but a direct war with Russia would be catastrophic.

You know how anti-vaxx trolls have certain key words and phrases they apparently can't stop themselves from using, which gives them away?

For their pro-Putler colleagues, one of those phrases is "Ukrainian coup of 2014".

>No, that for instance China is free to take Taiwan and that we won't do a thing about it.

This was already the case though this does make it clear to me that Taiwan will likely fall in short order.

I wouldn't be so sure. Taiwan is different in that they have TSMC which is definitely of extreme strategic interest to NATO.

And I once again asking the age-old question: Are you really sure that the people in power would choose a military conflict with China to stop the invasion, when simply destroying TSMC can be the alternative? Surely, if the fabs are destroyed, half of the world’s semiconductor market would evaporate, but the cost of a military conflict with a superpower like China is extremely high as well.

There have been unsubstantiated rumors for years that the Taiwanese military has outfitted TSMC fabs with explosives that can be rigged to go off in the event of a mainland invasion in order to deny China access to TSMC capabilities. Even physical destruction may be unnecessary. Due to the complexity of the semiconductor supply chain, many say that an embargo of materials and the removal of experts are enough to paralyze the fabs for many years.

What makes you think that's already the case? The administration has openly said it would defend Taiwan

Taiwan has never been a NATO member. Taiwan has semiconductors western industry depends on. And the primary reason for AUKUS and giving the Aussies nuclear sub tech is precisely so their subs will have the range to help counter China. China just "sanctioned" (largely performative) Lockheed and Boeing over a $100 million arms sale to Taiwan.

Never mind various economic measures from all parts of the West. The developed world is already doing things about China's Taiwan ambitions, and have motivations far stronger than altruism to continue doing so. Ukraine by contrast is not as well integrated as Taiwan, and it's their desire to be integrated that set Putin off in the first place. If said integration meant nothing, Putin wouldn't be invading.

Well, let's see what happens when Taiwan applies to NATO then.

> Taiwan has semiconductors western industry depends on.

For once it isn't about oil.

> And the primary reason for AUKUS and giving the Aussies nuclear sub tech is precisely so their subs will have the range to help counter China.

I'm sure the Chinese are most impressed. But Australia too will stand by when the Chinese invade Taiwan.

> China just "sanctioned" (largely performative) Lockheed and Boeing over a $100 million arms sale to Taiwan.

You need to separate out the economic incentives from the political ones there to get a clearer picture of what is happening.

> Never mind various economic measures from all parts of the West. The developed world is already doing things about China's Taiwan ambitions, and have motivations far stronger than altruism to continue doing so.

China doesn't care about any of that: they care about the United States and them alone because that is the only country that can credibly put up enough force projected into that region to put a stop to it if they decide to move.

> Ukraine by contrast is not as well integrated as Taiwan, and it's their desire to be integrated that set Putin off in the first place.

You could Swap Ukraine and Taiwan and substitute Xi and you have a winner at some point in the future, provided Taiwan would express a desire to join NATO.

> If said integration meant nothing, Putin wouldn't be invading.

Put would invade regardless, and this is the mistake that everybody is making: the NATO approach is a figleaf, that only happened after things had already started to slide inside Ukraine. But I'm pretty sure that only a very small fraction of HN is aware of that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych

Was placed to serve as a Russian puppet to keep Ukraine out of the influence of the West, which the country overwhelmingly wanted. After being tossed out (he's since moved to Russia) the whole separatism affair started fueled by Russia. Ukraine had every right to do so, and the occupation and subsequent invasion are proof positive that Ukraine was right about Russia's intentions, not the other way around.

You will find a lively corresponding sentiment in lots of other former USSR states.

I don't think Taiwan will apply for NATO membership. They'll run out strategic ambiguity as long as possible.

Regardless, when I say "western integration" I don't mean hard NATO membership. Taiwan is a greater economic player than Ukraine, and a very defensible island, with a very different set of political entanglements. The situations may look similar in the abstract, but it's comparing oranges to lemons.

I'm also not sure why you think the Aussies would stand by. They're already in their own economic war with China and by joining AUKUS have made their position abundantly clear. New Zealand would probably stand by, but honestly they don't matter that much militarily.

China is making enemy after enemy on the assumption that their enemies are fundamentally weak/corrupt and can be rolled over, while uniting under an ethno-nationalist/cult of personality leadership. They aren't the first in history to make that mistake. And if they continue down that road it ends in bloody defeat.

...was placed to serve as a Russian puppet to keep Ukraine out of the influence of the West, which the country overwhelmingly wanted. After being tossed out...

Could some trouble have been avoided if Yanukovych had left office via election rather than via coup? How many Ukrainians really considered his negotiation tactics with EU so unbecoming that he should have been summarily removed via "extralegal" means?

I refer the gentleman to my (amicus curiae) reply in the matter of Arkell vs Pressdr-- eh, avgcorrect vs mise_en_place: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30539581

Someone else chooses to reply to a simple question with something other than an answer to that question... one wonders why? Who benefits?

It's not "a simple question", it's a simpleton question. Either in the sense that it's posed by a simpleton, or that it's posed by someone who hopes that the recipients are simpletons.

Either way, the reason it can't have a simple answer is that it's an invalid question, since it presupposes something which isn't true. (As further explained in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30539775 .)

And IMO it's a bit suspicious that so many of the "simple questions" on this subject just happen to be couched in Putlin propaganda terms.

He didn't leave via a coup, he was voted out 328 to 0.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity

We can click through and read wikipedia just like you did. They held that vote after he had fled the nation due to the violent occupation of many government buildings. In fact they held that vote while the parliament building was so occupied.

The order isn't what mattered. What mattered is that he was a Russian stooge that fled rather than that he was prosecuted for selling out the country.

I'm not really sure what you are trying to argue here, this is pretty much settled history.

"Settled history" is for fools. I'm on the side of Ukrainians who want to live in peace and prosperity rather than suffering violence and privation. For that particular interest, it seems that holding elections could be superior to violently occupying government buildings. This "Revolution of Dignity" smelled even more CIA than January 6 did. Mrs. Robert Kagan was just one of the many spooks who left her bloody fingerprints on this supposedly sovereign nation. You call Yanukovych a stooge literally because he negotiated too firmly with EU. This seems similar to Trump being impeached because he delayed sending the same armaments to Ukraine that Obama had refused to send his entire time in office. (It seems maybe those armaments have not had the advertised effect?) Any molehill can be puffed up to a mountain, when the USA military-industrial complex might thereby grind more human lives into dollars...

> I'm on the side of Ukrainians who want to live in peace and prosperity rather than suffering violence and privation.

You mean 'under the Russian boot'. They already know what that is like, hence their resistance to a repeat performance.

The rest of the alternative reality stuff I'll not respond to, feel free to take that any way you want.

Goodness, it's enlightening to be told what I mean. Yes you've consistently avoided answering the question with which I started this thread: are elections better than violent coups?

One guess how I'm inclined to take that...

The vast majority of Ukrainians are not responsible for their misfortunes over the last decade. Certainly they have my sympathy. Violent coups usually harm the societies in which they occur, so the tiny minority of Ukrainians who took part in that coup have harmed their nation and their fellow Ukrainians. That harm has taken the form of a Russian invasion, but if it had happened somewhere else at some other time (e.g. Iran, in 1953) the harm would have come anyway.

Eventually, if we survive long enough, humans will learn to organize (and re-organize!) ourselves without large-scale violence. Some had imagined that democracy might be a part of that, but few today seem to agree.

In case anyone in the West wants to actually learn about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHH10jIRJmQ

Ukrainians (and Georgians, and elderly Hungarians) are already well aware...

This is a false equivalence, Ukraine and Taiwan are completely different geopolitical theaters. Different histories and different oceanic alliances.

USA has gone on record saying it will fall on the sword for Taiwan. [0]

USA never said any such thing for Ukraine. The closest commitment is Biden saying "we will defend every inch of NATO territory." [1]

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59005300

[1] https://news.yahoo.com/biden-warns-russia-us-defend-21054732...

The problem is that Taiwan is 20 miles from China and 5,500 to the U.S. (6,500 to the lower 48). It's easy to say that we will defend Taiwan now when the war would be a quick victory. Less so as China continues to close the military gap making it a difficult war. Even less so when victory becomes questionable or impossible.

The US made their commitments when their opponents were at their nadir neglecting that they'd be challenged when the opponents were at their strongest. Walking back those commitments to what the US is willing and able to defend will continue to be the challenge of the 21st century. There needs to be a strategic re-evaluation of what the US should defend and what they can defend.

IMHO, ultimately the either should not or can not defend Eastern Europe bordering Russia, The Caucasus, Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan. How to wiggle out of those commitments without giving Russia, China, & Iran ideas is the tough part.

A bigger concern to me is that Taiwan is probably more disposable to China than it is to the rest of the world. China would significantly benefit its internal semiconductor industry by destroying fabs in Taiwan while the rest of the world would be starved of critical semiconductors, and given the active US sanctions towards Huawei in China... The balance of invade vs don't invade for China regarding Taiwan is slowly shifting.

The possible what-if scenarios arising from unchecked expansion of superpowers is disturbing.

[0] clarified to be within TW relations act, i.e. help TW defend itself, aka, basically no boots on ground in Ukraine tier of promise. US has even less capability of defending TW within first island chain then it does Ukraine. The idea of course is there will be some sort of naval contest, but that will likely change once PRC expands nuclear arsenal to the point of "That’s a world war when Americans and China start shooting at one another".

> USA has gone on record saying it will fall on the sword for Taiwan.

I'll believe that when I see it, under Biden, maybe. But that may also just be posturing and probably won't last longer than the moment that the USA can become independent of Taiwanese manufacturing capabilities at which point it would actually be in the US' interest if Taiwan would no longer be able to produce.

I am very concerned about exactly this. I think it would be very well at this moment to visibly increase our support for Taiwan, and our preparations for a confrontation with China.

The US-led invasion of Iraq was an unprovoked, aggressive war built on lies. I.e. a war lead by the so-called constabulary.

Yes it was.

The US would definitely defend Taiwan.

i thought the same about Ukraine back in 2014 when Russia took the Crimean peninsula. after all we told them we would defend them if they handed over their nuclear missiles. I thought the west would do something about Hong Kong... I have thought a lot of things I was sadly wrong about.

That having nuclear weapons is literally the only way to prevent a neighbor from annexing your country.

Most countries outside the US and Western Europe has been mostly measured in their statements on today's events, see for eg Israel, Turkey etc.

>I think the risk of direct NATO military intervention is very low.

Because Joe Alzheimer is the weakest dictator in the US history.

> As the Nato secretary said, they will support Ukraine

With words.

EU has also supported Ukraine with words recently.

I've seen ads on the telly making an emotional statement that "Ukraine is Europe".

Europe as a continent does not exist: it is a small corner of Asia. Eurocentricism needs to stop. This us-vs-them game needs to stop.

This invasion is terrible for normal people, Ukrainian (bombs), Russian (sanctions) and everyone else (instability, high prices). It could have been prevented if the "west"/NATO was not "pulling on" (arming) Ukraine. The NATO already have plenty places to make bases on Russian border.

See what happened to Cuba. The US/NATO also do not like bases on their border. They should have understood Russia also does not like that.

But then I believe NATO is more into the business of war then the business of peace.

> With words.

According to Wikipedia, many NATO members are either Arms or non-lethal aid suppliers.

""" Arms suppliers: Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States

Non-lethal military aid: Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Sweden, European Union, Belarusian opposition """[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukrai...

Yeah but it's symbolic. It won't stop Russians, just prolong the suffering of people.

> Yeah but it's symbolic.

The US alone provided $2.5 Billion of aid [2]. That doesn't include Biden's $200 Million military aid package in 2022 [2].

[1] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/can-jaw-jaw-in-the-west-r...

[2] https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2022/01/25/200m-in-jave...

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