I think it's weird you don't think anyone involved in the problem has thought of your proposed solution, or that you don't think there's any potential negative effects from antagonizing an unhinged despot with his finger on the nuke.
"Oh those stupid idiots are scared of nuclear war"
For NATO the borders of its members are red line.
For Putin the red line is borders of Russia, that include Crimea and L/DPR for now.
There is no way Putin leaves Crimea and nukes are not send to the Washington.
The borders of Russia end where Russia gets a bloody snot.
That's truly moronic.
Uh, yeah?
If you have nukes you can pretty much do whatever you want, short of launching them at another nuclear power. That's just like, reality.
Remember this the next time everyone bellyaches about "unfair sanctions" or whatever when some country even hints that they're pursuing a nuclear program.
There was something about liberty and safety and deserving neither that some US president said long time ago that I think might very much apply here.
"Henry Kissinger, who wondered in his 1957 book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy if extending the American deterrent to all of Europe at a time when the threat of total destruction hung over the US itself would actually work: ‘A reliance on all-out war as the chief deterrent saps our system of alliances in two ways: either our allies feel that any military effort on their part is unnecessary or they may be led to the conviction that peace is preferable to war even on terms almost akin to surrender... [1]"
In summary, the concern you raise is actively discussed in security circles. Post Ukraine, it's increasingly common to see the absolute nuclear taboo questioned.
Until the first nuclear power lobs a tactical nuke and doesn't suffer reprisal, we'll be in an uncomfortable transition period, analogous to the time immediately preceding MAD. (And let's be honest. If Putin lobbed a tactical nuke at Ukraine, does anybody seriously think he'd face military force?)
Given the performance of the Russian military what makes you think that Russian nukes (and the people who operate them) are any better?
US intelligence and capabilities are likely much more effective than anyone knows.
Putin invading Ukraine was impossible because he's not unhinged and it would be an insanely stupid thing to do. He's just gathering his armies next to the border because he's flaunting his strength.
>I'm afraid that conviction is actually growing
Based off your in-depth research of casually browsing NY Times headlines?
First, not everyone, Ukrainians knew. Second, after the end of WW2 we lived (wanted to live) under a spell that conquering whole countries with some opportunistic genocide on top is not going to happen anymore, or at least not in the "civilized" Europe. Now, I hope the spell is off, we can see the world more clearly, and it's a raw power competition in which Putin thinks he has the winning cards or can at least out bluff everyone.
That's completely false. Just read the news from February.
U.S. Intelligence was warning Ukraine that Putin was planning to invade while Zelensky was in denial.
The invasion began on Thursday Feb. 24. On Monday Feb. 21, Zelenky was insistent that Putin wouldn't be crazy enough invade Ukraine.
Here's some articles from right before the invasion
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60174684
- https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220206-us-officials-war...
- https://nypost.com/2022/01/28/zelensky-rebukes-western-panic...
And yes, no one was sure that this Feb military build up results in war cause there was already a build up in April before that. But this invasion was inevitable with the current Russian leadership, UAF underwent a series of reforms since 2014 to prepare for it.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2022/01/29/1076699748/ukraine-russian-at...
That's an absurd take. He was clearly completely unprepared for the invasion and was not expecting it in the slightest.
If he was expecting it, he wouldn't have been in complete denial of US intelligence and wouldn't decried it as "the West sowing panic for political gains".
> In some random interviews he said Ukraine is prepared
I have no idea why you're looking at "random interviews" when you can just look at exactly what happened.
Ukraine was completely unprepared for Russian invasion and they were clearly shocked when the Russians invaded.
Did Zelenky evacuate any civilians beforehand? Nope. Did he ask NATO countries for aid? Nope, it was the exact opposite.
NATO countries were offering aid and he was calling them alarmist.
Sounds like you were not following the events because invasion was effectively "announced" by US Intelligence weeks before the actual declaration of war. Besides, this was not the only sign and if you know the way Putin talks and you listened to him days before the invasion (talking about Russian Empire's old glory) you'd see that he already made his mind up way before the actual day of invasion. Of course, it's easy to see things in hindsight (and I did truly predict the invasion before it happened) but sounds like you're not even aware of all the available data.
Again, just read the news articles from January/February of this year.
It sounds like you weren't paying any attention to this in Feb and are just trying to come up with arguments to support your points.
The only thing they can end with nukes are themselves. What was even the point of attacking Ukraine, if you want to make it a nuclear wasteland?
This sentiment is nuts, in my opinion. Russia isn't the only nation that has nukes folks... everyone around Russia has them too...
If Putin were to nuke a major metropolitan area, it would be the end of Putin (literally) and likely the end of Russia (at least it's current government). The unification of NATO, the EU, and the entire "west" would be so strong and unanimous, there would be no positive outcome for Russia.
Let's stop cowering because one dude threatened the entire world... the world is much bigger than Russia.
It's genuinely amazing to see the mental gymnastics here to come to the conclusion that buying fewer weapons is exactly what the defense contractors are lobbying for.
It requires no mental gymnastics whatsoever. Actually the counter argument is where you need to twist yourself to believe otherwise.
Sending more and more weapons only prolongs it and adds to the body count. A humanitarian mission to remove those at risk from the areas Russia wants to invade would be a far better response. Sanctioning Russia is fine but shooting ourselves in the foot by refusing to buy their fuel is ridiculous and destroying our economies leading to real people losing their livelihoods here.
As they say, citation needed.
Why are some people rooting for more and more needless death and destruction?
Maybe ask on a Russian forum?
Second, letting Russia win will not stop further death and destruction when Putin continues his expansion westward, only then with Ukrainian conscripts as a cannon fodder.
The breakdown in diplomacy with Russia is the worst part. The previous administration at least had diplomacy. The current one just pushed them into this.
If by diplomacy you mean kowtowing to everything Russia does, I'm not sure that's much better.
Trump and Stoltenberg argue on camera (<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpwkdmwui3k>). Who turned out to be right? Who turned out to completely, totally, 100% wrong?
But he didn’t have the decorum.
Russia literally had a 0% chance of losing this thing in the end. Ukraine did well to defend early and Russia certainly mismanaged the strategy. Going at the mainland was stupid and indefensible and the Ukraine fighters should be commended. But it was never the main objective and the truth is, Russia is on the verge of accomplishing their main objective.
It's time to stop fighting.
It's time to stop losing lives and to try diplomacy.
It's important to remember that this war has really been going on since 2014. Eastern rebel forces were starting to crumble until Russia began offering direct military assistance (Not just material but also boots-on-the-ground. Ukraine captured VDV and Spetsnaz POWs and would regularly exchange Russian troops with the DNR/LPR for POW swaps).
Edit: One of the big lessons Europe learned during the first half of the 20th century is that nationalist/ethnic conquests over land and border disputes makes everyone worse-off (World War I), and such acts should be powerfully deterred - through force, because capitulation doesn't work (World War II).
It seems people are forgetting these lessons.
Donbas is the location from which the Nazis launched the attack on the USSR which almost lost them WW2. Its strategic significance cant be understated. Finland and Sweden are not as important.
The thing about the Cuban missile crisis is that Kennedy was able to get Russian missiles AWAY from the United States. Russia's actions are getting hardware placed closer.
And why is that? Probably because Russia will tolerate it in exchange for territorial expansion. Even after the 2014 invasion of Crimea there was open talk about how NATO was obsolete and a waste of money and effort. Russia could've probably eliminated any NATO threat without firing a single shot. It was already seen as a relic of the cold war. Instead, Russia's actions have given a renewed justification for NATO's existence.
It only happened in the first place because the US put missiles in Turkey. Take them away and suddenly the soviet union is ok with removing the cuban nukes.
In this case a simple "Ukraine wont be joining NATO" would have prevented this war.
>Russia's actions are getting hardware placed closer.
The strategic significance of the other locations is far less than the donbas. Note the whole "location where they almost lost ww2" thing. It's kind of important. The US/NATO wanted a base in Mariupol because its the perfect location to threaten Russia, and they almost got it. Finland was the consolation prize.
Honestly, since the Soviet Union collapsed, NATO has only expanded and crept closer and closer to Russia. How are they supposed to feel? As for this particular thing - the areas they are want are mainly Russian anyways and recent Ukrainian pol's have done everything they can to marginalize the people and their Russian cultures in these regions.
Russia isn't perfect but this is a nuanced thing and was preventable through diplomacy.
And they started down that road earnestly in the 1990s. But it required extensive military and certain Democratic reforms Russia didn't want to commit to so they abandoned it. And that's totally fine: nobody is required to join NATO. Ultimately, since the early 90s, Russia helped form the CSTO which serves a similar function.
> recent Ukrainian pol's have done everything they can to marginalize the people and their Russian cultures in these regions.
The current Ukrainian president is a native Russian speaker and was quite popular in Russia. They have spent the last 8 years dealing with a Russian-instigated (and supported) civil war with the so-called LPR and DPR. Is the southern United States oppressed because the Union didn't allow it to secede? That certainly was the argument people used to justify segregation!
Anyway, the stated justification for this war is not NATO expansion but "denazification"
Given the myriad of non-NATO excuses, including outright restoration of Russian imperial territory, that have been cited by Putin since day one, if you pay attention to anything besides the message crafted by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Western audiences (and faithfully relayed by Russia’s useful idiots in the West), and Russia pattern of aggression against it's neighbors, that doesn't really seem likely.
(It's more likely that simply letting Ukraine skip ahead straight to joining NATO would have stopped the war.)
For the integrity of Russian borders theyd sacrifice 100,000 in the blink of an eye. And have to ensure Mariupol wont ever host a NATO base.
If Putin simply wanted to invade only for territory he would have taken it years ago when it would have been militarily easier. He invaded because the military threat it posed was slowly growing as Ukraine formed ever closer links to NATO.
>if you pay attention to anything besides the message crafted by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Western audiences
I monitor all sides (neutral, russian, western), but the above analysis I read from a military analyst who hates Russia.
Your idea of what constitutes Russian propaganda and "useful idiot" is comically out of whack.
It's also pretty hard to get exposed to Russian propaganda accidentally despite what a bevy of Americans raised on 1950s red scare tactics seem to think.
>It's more likely that simply letting Ukraine skip ahead straight to joining NATO would have stopped the war.
Yep, but NATO doesnt actually give a fuck about any of the countries bordering Russia and isnt willing to start a hot war with Russia over any of them. The decades long drawn out application process is simply to let them gradually up the threat to Russia without having any real obligation until its certain that obligation wont have to be invoked.
This is slowly starting to dawn on Zelensky, I think. He's pretty mad at us right now for providing restrained help against the onslaught.
He did invade and take the most important territory years ago (as soon as there wasn't a Russian puppet governing Ukraine), when Ukraine was incapable of much resistance, and then paused to complete the integration of the territory seized at the time.
Did you miss that?
This is genocide. Not resisting means millions killed and tens of millions brutally oppressed, a whole nation and its culture erased from existence, and an invitation for further imperialistic wars and atrocities, because evil unpunished only leads to more evil on a larger scale.
This is not genocide, you're exaggerating here. Honestly, if anything the Russian culture of the Eastern regions Russia is about to take was being wiped out. That was the actual genocide. It's why there are so many Russian supporting people there.
When Russia came into Kiev I agree, it was a step too far and the Ukrainian's needed to fight. But now Russia is only attempting their main mission of taking Donbas, etc. It's time to cease fire and negotiate and stop the pointless death at this point.
It's reasonable for Americans to want to drag this conflict out, as they are more insulated from the direct effects of the war, and a pro-American Russia would bring a lot of benefits. But it is clearly having a destabilizing effect on the rest of the world and this may spill over into western europe as well.
It's saying that we, keyboard warriors on a programming forum, are just as knowledgeable as e.g. Biden who has the full briefing and resources of the CIA
Or didn't know what was going on until well after the war was underway. U.S. tactical intelligence has no match on earth. American strategic intelligence is almost predictably garbage. From Iraq to Kabul to Kyiv, we've consistently called the shots wrong.
When's the last time any major power fought a near peer?
I would have said we're getting solid evidence of American intelligence supremacy out of Ukraine. But given the incompetence of the Russian military it would be embarrassing to put them in the same league as China.
Ah. Got it.
More of that was luck than the State Dept will ever admit, but here we are, and I'll be damned if I know where we are 'going'. There's a tendency for armchair commentators to imagine an opponent 'disappearing' once beaten. If you can make 6.6 million square miles of country disappear, then we should all be kneeling before you and calling you Zod.