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Comment by danielheath | Hacker News Reader

Nukes are a possibility, but MAD has stopped us all using them for many years so far.

As far as conventional arms go: Russia has quite a few planes, tanks, and artillery; however, so long as the USA wills it, the Ukraine will have more anti-air missiles, more anti-tank munitions, and more long-range rockets.

In any long-range fight, being able to locate your enemy is key; the pentagons ability to identify the location of Russian positions appears to be unsurpassed. So long as they are passing this intel to the Ukraine, along with long-range weapons to act on it, any attempt at a Russian advance will be done without access to local command/supply posts.

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Does MAD really protect Ukraine?

Edit: suppose the old man has properly lost it.

If Putin drops a tactical nuke on a Ukranian military position, will Nato really respond in kind? Seems like damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

well, be damned

It might not be MAD but there is a really strong incentive from everyone else to maintain the nuclear taboo. Russia can expect NATO to get directly involved in the conventional war as well as losing their remaining allies if they do that. Whether that leads to further escalation or not is up to them.

Speculation city, and Biden did clarify precisely a response to that a few days ago. The strength of the response depends upon the relative strength of the attack. Putin has been threatening nuclear holocaust for months now, and he would be wise to not do foolish things from his petulant temper tendencies. Bullies can’t accept people standing up to them, but them typically show themselves to be spineless cowards when the medicine is returned in force. It’s kind of characteristic of how bullies are formed from weak oppressed victim types who go sour and decide inflicting pain downstream is some solution to what ails their souls.

Perhaps not, but China and India would definitely stop supporting Russia after that. China has a nuclear-equipped little madman of its own, so it needs to show what the consequences are for using nukes. India is also a nuclear country, bordered by another one, and can't imply Pakistan can just use nukes without consequence.

As if Pakistan is waiting for the global etiquette on the usage of nuclear weapons to change so they can nuke India!!

Both countries can’t use nukes because the other has them too. India has a fast growing economy at stake and Pakistan may be an economic disaster but Pakistani elites have huge assets in the west which can be frozen.

Usage of nukes in the Indian subcontinent has easily calculable first order effects.

In Ukraine it’s entirely different. It is ridiculous to suggest that the US will welcome the destruction of the entire human race if Putin even nukes civilian centres in Ukraine. They won’t. But there are second and third order consequences of such actions which are not in favour of Russia and certainly not in favour of Putin and his friends.

I think NATO would respond, but non-nuclear. There is no need to answer tactical nuclear weapons with a nuclear strike. There are tons of NATO air forces available to strike against Russian troops in Ukrainian territory. They would just obliterate any Russian troops there.

It was a small but interesting news item, that a few days before the invasion, some of the US stealth bombers were moved to Rammstein air force base. So at any time there would be the capability of a forceful answer. But this also shows how ridiculous the claims were, that the NATO would seek to attack Russia, as that is the thing the NATO has tried hard to avoid so far.

No it doesn’t. It seems Putin wants to conquer Ukraine and more importantly for the west to get over it. They certainly won’t if he nukes Kiev or does some such stupid shit.

The new Cold War will be sealed and it will be game over for his regime. He wants western apathy and social disorder to continue. And he wants a disaster zone in Ukraine as his personal entry point into Europe proper.

I am massively concerned that Trump may actually win next elections. I keep hearing that's not possible, Americans are not that stupid and so on. But he almost won second time and republicans across whole spectrum seem to love him despite his massive character flaws.

If that happens, US helps to Ukraine stops, period. I would expect Europe is left on its own and that may be a bad time for Ukraine and actually not only Ukraine.

I certainly hope all this is incorrect since I have family and life in Europe.

Bullshit. I’ve no interest or opinion on whether Trump is good for America or whatever. But he will go in harder against Russia. He was the one who warned the Germans about their increasing fuel dependency on the Russians in the first place.

> In any long-range fight, being able to locate your enemy is key; the pentagons ability to identify the location of Russian positions appears to be unsurpassed.

Just what Russians are waiting. HIMARS flying over Ukrainian border into Russia and Balarus. Get some other allies involved, declare it a WW3 as pretext to invade Baltics.

No, Russia isn't waiting for a reason to invade the Baltic states. If they wanted, they could have come up with it any time. However, that would mean a war with NATO, which they couldn't possibly win. So far they are struggling badly with the few modern weapons delivered by the NATO to Ukraine.

They are obviously provoking NATO for some unclear reason. Well it is pretty clear - annex any land possible - by hook or by crook.

> Just what Russians are waiting. HIMARS flying over Ukrainian border into Russia and Balarus. Get some other allies involved, declare it a WW3 as pretext to invade Baltics.

How does Russia plan to take the Baltics when they cannot even take a city less them 300km from their border in 6 months?.

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