If he drops a nuke on Kyiv I honestly don’t know how the world will or even “should” respond.
It really goes to show that nukes just shouldn’t exist- there’s no “counter” to them if the other side is suicidal
It really goes to show that nukes just shouldn’t exist- there’s no “counter” to them if the other side is suicidal
Unfortunately, Putin doesn't seem to care.
We need to stop thinking of nations as this one dimensional cult of personality of their leader.
I think Putin would have a very difficult time getting his generals to agree to nuking Kyiv.
That's the kind of order which leads to coups.
They just don’t know how much support they have
The default penalty for a slightly different perspective is 15 years in prison
The expected penalty is falling out of a first floor window
Everyone is surrounded by people vying for power that will double cross anyone to imprison their direct competitors
Its a prisoners dilemma that allows Putin to use his consolidated power unabated
Except if you would assassinate Putin.
>I am admittedly not even close to an expert to what's going on over there...
The Russians have legitimate fears about the encroachment of NATO and American weaponry right onto their doorstep. You might want to look up a historical event called 'The Cuban Missile Crisis' to see how the US has acted in the past, in a similar situation [see also Nicaragua, Venezuela, etc]
The Russians believe that a democratically elected and pro-Russian government in Ukraine was over-thrown by a US engineered coup [Euro Maidan] and replaced by a fiercely right-wing anti-Russian regime, which is hell-bent on joining NATO and thus having American missiles stationed there [and Ukraine is a lot closer to Russia than Cuba is to America]
The Russians also say their citizens in the two breakaway regions are being genocided. Although that is, at best, an exaggeration used to justify the invasion.
Now, before you accuse me of being a Russian supporter or apologist, I'm not. I'm as outraged by this invasion as anyone else. But to simply pretend that it's all happened because evil mad dictator Putin has suddenly turned into Adolf Hitler reincarnated, while Uncle Sam has been innocently sitting on the sidelines, polishing his halo, is to bring a play school level of critical thought process to bear on the situation.
Ukraine never joined NATO. Ukraine was never even given a membership action plan.
> and the west didn't care about his line drawing.
Neither did Putin; the moving red lines were about pretext, not reasoning.
THat's the point of nukes. Even if your economy and army suck, you still can be sure that no one will try to go through your borders to get some
There have been several proxy wars between USSR and USA during the Cold War.
Nukes have been around for less than a century, a blink of an eye in historical terms, and have already come close to obliterating the world multiple times. It only takes a single war to undue millennia of progress.