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Comment by rightbyte | Hacker News Reader

No. This is not how things work. We need to get back the cold war mindset. Moral and righteousness will get us all killed. Screw that.

The "West" response need to be carefully thoughtout to not trigger an escalation while protecting our borders like a knife wielding psycho that somehow still tolerates "mistakes".

Todays western politicians are acting in an insane way. Look how India and China instinctively stay out of this.

Putin will be dead or out of power in 10 years. There is a tomorrow without him too.

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> Look how India and China instinctively stay out of this.

Because money, not cooler heads.

> Look how India and China instinctively stay out of this.

I donno how instinctive it is given the hard lessons they have been learning.

The countries have stationed tens of thousands of soldiers backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets along their de facto border, called the Line of Actual Control. In 2020, 20 Indian troops were killed in a clash with Chinese soldiers involving clubs, stones and fists. China said it lost four soldiers.

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14520971

This is correct. Russia is a bear that is not worth poking. Take a look at Soviet tactics in both World Wars. This wouldn't be asymmetrical warfare, which is NATO's bread and butter, this would be hell on earth, and humans have only gotten better at war since the 1940s.

Your comment is a bit historically illiterate with respect to World War I. All of the fighting was done by the Russian Empire, the Soviets by contrast immediately signed a disadvantageous peace treaty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Brest-Litovsk).

> Putin will be dead or out of power in 10 years. There is a tomorrow without him too.

So, as the planet, shall we let him be? Or what's the right course of action?

I don't know. Something like, throw Ukraine (yes I know it is a terrible thing ...) to the wolfs and maybe only field NATO infantry to the Baltic states (no armor or planes).

The important part is to give the Russian state a fake victory. They know it is fake. We know it. But it is still a victory.

Prepare for a post-Putin Russia and prevent chaos when he dies by economic support and a hug. We don't want those nukes in the hand of a regional warchief ...

I don’t think the Ukrainians would be down with that.

They’re crazy/brave enough to defend their democracy and organize militias to bolster their armed forces and have already taken out a Chechen special forces unit and a Spetznaz Maj Gen.

I’ll let you explain your plan to them.

Here, I’ll explain it.

Ukraine is not a vital interest to the West nor NATO, but it is to Russia, and short of WWIII which generates a very real risk of a nuclear exchange in Europe the situation in Ukraine is not changing. This is the same opinion Barack Obama held in 2014. People need to think about this on a timeline longer than their emotional attachment to this issue demands.

Recall when prominent American leaders, Hillary Clinton among them, demanded a NATO enforced no-fly zone over Syria as an addendum to arming Islamists in the country. This absolutely would’ve resulted in NATO and Russian direct combat, and with it war. Cooler heads prevailed then and I pray they do so now.

How is a neutral democratic Ukraine a security threat to Russia? Not Putin. Russia.

IMO the best reasonable outcome I see for this war is for Russia to annex the Donbas, and possibly the Azov coast. Ukraine will commit to neutrality from NATO and no missiles, but leave open the possibility to join the EU as an economic partner.

Ukraine is shattered right now. There is no good reason to further seal their fate by handing Zelenskyy to that short arsed madman on a silver platter and turning them into a shithole like Russia.

> How is a neutral democratic Ukraine a security threat to Russia? Not Putin. Russia

Their analysis does not have to be correct for them acting on it. Was Iraq a significant security threat to the US? Or, did the war decrease it?

I agree on your best outcome.

> IMO the best reasonable outcome I see for this war is for Russia to annex the Donbas, and possibly the Azov coast. Ukraine will commit to neutrality from NATO and no missiles, but leave open the possibility to join the EU as an economic partner.

This looks "nice" on paper, but how would this neutrality be actually enforced? I'd imagine that a situation where Ukraine has a relatively small army and commits to not hosting either NATO or Russian military bases would be a) quite uncomfortable for Ukrainians and b) highly unstable, with the balance bound to tip to one of the sides sooner or later. Are there any historical precedents of a similar arrangement that worked?

> I don’t think the Ukrainians would be down with that.

Biden and Putin are the only players with agency here.

Furthermore, RemarkEon's answer is excellent.

This seems like it incentivizes egomania and Putin type behavior and, to skip straight to Godwin's law, seems like the same mindset with Poland and such back in the day, no?

I'm also to really sure why should it be different when Russia decides it wants to invade, say, Estonia? Obviously, they'e in NATO, but so what? Why shouldn't we throw them to the wolves as well? Better that than to risk nuclear war, yeah?

Godwin's law is sadly (or ironically) applicable here, as Gestapo / NKVD were collaborating in 1939. And NKVD and KGB are in the lineage of current day FSB. They adapted it to current time but the purpose and their methods aren't much different.

Regarding second paragraph, would existence of NATO even make sense if it won't defend one of its members?

> The important part is to give the Russian state a fake victory. They know it is fake. We know it. But it is still a victory.

This clearly doesn't work if you look at the history, both with Russia and other similar states.

They are power hungry and will try to take more land after a few years, all the while engaging in psypops and propaganda to destabilize their enemy and its allies

I am glad I was neither flamed nor downvoted to oblivion. Had I wrote this some days ago I certainly would have been. (Not aimed at you specifically).

I feel many people think this happening is Hitler invading Checkoslovakia were he should have been stopped with the benefit of hindsight. There is no reason to believe history has to be repeating it self. A fair warning, yes. A profetia, no.

I don't know what we should do, but take it chill and cold is one of those things.

> I am glad I was neither flamed nor downvoted to oblivion. Had I wrote this some days ago I certainly would have been. (Not aimed at you specifically).

You shouldn’t censor yourself because of meaningless internet points. Getting downvoted doesn’t hurt, I promise.

Ye but if you get downvoted enough your post is effectively censored (greyed out, collapsed and at the buttom).

Seems like the initial anger is being replaced with fear among people, which gives room for cold reasoning. A good thing I guess ...

That is what I meant with I was glad I was not downvoted.

> The important part is to give the Russian state a fake victory. They know it is fake. We know it. But it is still a victory.

Somebody already told that, but when one looks to Russia's history, they'll see that, the goal is to get bigger and bigger for centuries. They want access to warmer waters (i.e. Mediterranean waters) for at least two centuries now.

So, there's no fake victory, and there's no stopping for them. Also, this is not related to Putin only. Russia is one of the countries which have a stable strategy for at least a century, and they just want to make their goals a reality.

> Also, this is not related to Putin only. Russia is one of the countries which have a stable strategy for at least a century, and they just want to make their goals a reality.

This reads like a personal take on things. Russia doesn't have a strategy lasting much longer than the life of its current leader. It is as chaotic as any other large organization.

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