By the way how will we "feel" when the Chinese or some Russian billionaire launches their own "Starlink" which will also be operating over the US? From what I have read there are several such systems in the pipeline in China.
"@elonmusk , while you try to colonize Mars — Russia try to occupy Ukraine! While your rockets successfully land from space — Russian rockets attack Ukrainian civil people! We ask you to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations and to address sane Russians to stand."
https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/14977014840032133...
It's irrelevant whether a private corporation software update or the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand causes a world war to break out, it must be avoided.
Perhaps we can to have systems, like the "we're testing an ICBM" system we have in place, to avoid escalations that will draw us into WW3. There must a way to get a reasoned, thoughtful and cooperative answer to this question. For example, let's say we place 5 test satellites in orbit and if you shoot one (?) of those down, you get to request blocking internet service in a geographical region, without escalating things into a space war.
Unfortunately any real hope for that ship has sailed down the toilet at hypersonic speeds. Its not about the amount of good, smart, moral etc. folks that are still in Russia, in relatively educated population of 160 million there will always be quite a few of those.
But this layer is, and will be marginal and powerless in Russia unless its already part of government and thus on side of corruption, theft and organized murder. Mainstream applauds Putin genocide or not, or in best possible scenario indulges in complacency, preferring seemingly strong dictator over any uncertainty that more freedom can bring. Weakening any russian influence and strength is by far the best course of action, short term and especially long term.
Only a fool comes again and again with open hands for an embrace to a sociopath wielding blood stained knife.
Its a mistake when trying to apply western thinking and actions to Russia, they are very far from it and getting further away as we speak.
All this, and much much more. Plus yeah, Putin is a mass murderer, allies didn't negotiate much with Hitler neither. He also said and put in contracts whatever gave advantage at that moment, only to break it at first occasion.
But then we've essentially already set the stage for a re-run.
I don't really see the problem with having a foreign Starlink operating over your country. It just provides communication, doesn't it?
What if a chinese Starlink provides services in Afghanistan and the Taliban use it while the Americans attempt to control the country?
Would you be ok with it?
He's the thing with these services: if they're controlled by a single government with the intend of using them as leverage over others, that means that at some point they're going to be denied to the people. I would strongly prefer redundancy in such systems to increase their reliability.
Take GPS, for example. The US controls it, and at least initially, their goal was to be able to reduce the accuracy of GPS for other parties. Europe has its own competing Galileo satellites to increase reliability for ordinary citizens. I'm strongly in favour of that. I don't see military applications as a higher purpose than civilian use.
It’s been accepted that as long as troops from one of the side are not directly shooting at uniformed troops from the other side (sides here being US/Russia!), it’s a proxy conflict, not a direct one.
Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korean War being some of the larger versions of this.
With Russian troops on the ground right now, adding any NATO or US troops would mean it isn’t a proxy conflict anymore once someone from the US or NATO side shoots at someone in a Russian uniform. But providing weapons to Ukrainians has a lot of precedent as being ‘not a war’ between them. Even if the Ukranians use them to shoot Russians.
So is it a strategic move to be the first to attack?
In this case for instance, if NATO had moved in before Russia into Ukraine however, that would be really, really bad.
A big factor behind this war already is Russian insecurity about NATO strength and being frozen out of traditionally Russian territory.
It would be a bit like Russia occupying some of the Aleutians all the sudden. Not likely to go well. Sudden double flashes not well.
So can we expect other similar moves from Russia into countries that are not part of NATO and which have no common frontiers with US?
They’ve been threatening countries like Finland, Sweden, etc. every time they consider it too.
When it was non-western aligned Soviet breakaway republics, it was easier to ignore.
The invasion of Ukraine was too obvious and ham handed. Moscow has doubled down on the threats to those on the fence since then, enough to push folks back over to the other side.
Which likely just pushes Russia more solidly into doubling down/existential threat mode.
Here is some timely news on the topic.
[https://news.yahoo.com/finland-and-sweden-moving-toward-poss...]
Yes, that's another dimension in this complex problem.
During the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Soviet pilots engaged in dogfights with Americans, which makes the amount of handwringing over just sending weaponry being a escalation laughable.
Also MacArthur’s pursuit of the North Koreans across the 38th parallel brought China directly into the war and precipitated a much, much larger conflict, and cost a great many American and UN Allie’s lives. It got him (rightly, IMO) fired. But that was too late.
[https://www.marshallfoundation.org/articles-and-features/mar...]
If everyone agrees that shooting at each other’s pilots isn’t a ‘direct conflict’, then it isn’t.
The US didn’t want to officially care to that level that Chinese jets (or troops) were killing US troops, because the US could waltz back home and Korea would be the one to take the hit. At least one of the parties could accept a failure, somewhat.
The stakes for Russia here (and especially for Putin), like when MacArthur crossed the 38th, are much, much higher for them. A well armed, actively hostile (well earned hostility or not), and aligned with the west Ukraine is right on their doorstep, with no meaningful geographic barriers. Historically a scary situation for Russia.
And Europe, which has a lot (depending on if we’re counting countries or $$) of influence over NATO and is nuclear armed themselves, is also existentially threatened by Russia doing what they are doing. Russia has a recent and very painful history with many of those countries. And even if the WW2 push west from Russia was precipitated by Nazi Germany, nothing they did afterwards left a warm and fuzzy feeling.
The hand wringing is because after a long period of peace that people became accustomed too, this is a real and present danger to a lot of folks livelihoods and safety even if nothing goes nuclear.
And this turns up the dial on stress in a way that no one can look at it and really be sure the other side wouldn’t go nuclear over the next step or two.
Would he be super stupid and self destructive? Yes.
But when in an information bubble and when threatened by existential threats is exactly when folks are most likely to do stupid and self destructive things.
Would you be willing to bet there is no (crazier) MacArthur, potentially one that has access to a nuke or dirty bomb or the like, in the power structure somewhere there, or even in Ukraine if you really looked?
Madmen need to be checked. Getting nuked is also terrible. Starting WW3? Just yikes.
Forecasts say, this will change in nearest decades, but at the moment machines considered incapable.
Some people have other opinion, but for us important, that Russian govt agree with what I write.
In this case it is extremely dangerous to err on the side of caution, or Putin will be able to apply salami tactics and get whatever he wants.
Unfortunately that is not true anymore [1]. Otherwise I 100% agree with the sentiment of your post.
[1] https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/21-april-pentagon-says-new-800...
This is a former-USSR internal kerfuffle, it’s the “Yugoslav” civil war translated to the former Soviet space. Thankfully we’re a not a former Soviet republic. I wouldn’t want to live in Estonia or Lithuania right now, though.
You fail to spot the real enemy though: it's not a WWIII between Russia, China and USA/UK. It's a war between a little oligarchy and the rest of the humanity. War between USA/UK +submissive allies and Russia is just a war between two oligarch cohort, war for Taiwan and south Pacific in general (perhaps Solomon and Chagos Islands (see Diego Garcia) just toward the Philippines will probably follow again for more practical purposes like the China desperate need for food vs the USA/UK desperate struggle to keep dominance of the seas. Those wars though are not much WW wars, they are just some big&powerful confronts to remain in power/increase it. The real global war is the classic élites vs the people. Time since first nazi-fascism series against socialism is enough to restart a new nazi-fascist era and that's precisely what happen now.