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Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

This has to be deescalated. The risk of even accidental nuclear war is just too great.

>"This has to be deescalated."

What do you mean by "this"? Do you mean the attack on Poland, the continuing war on Ukraine, or mutually assured destruction in general? What do you mean by "deescalated"? Do you mean someone should surrender? Who and why would they?

Whatever it takes to prevent nuclear war.

Because the alternative is everybody dies.

„Whatever it takes“ is so 1938. The only way is to stop Russia once and for at least some time.

How little we learn from history is disheartening.

What I learned: neville chamberlain made a huge error that had to be corrected by Churchill. Oh, and don't trust the Russians.

Operation Impossible vibes.

OK, but what does that look like?

The West largely took the "deescalate" approach when Russia invaded Georgia, seized part of Moldova, and took the Donbas then Crimea. It's very clear that these sorts of deescalations also serve to embolden future attempts.

Ala Ender's Game, the best deescalation may be to give the bully a spanking they'll never come back from.

"the best deescalation may be to give the bully a spanking they'll never come back from"

Assuming that works without sparking a nuclear war, that might be a real option... but there's a very real risk of a nuclear war (accidental or otherwise) breaking out over this.

Just how much nuclear chicken are NATO and Russia willing to play?

I'm afraid the world is going to find out before long.

There's a risk of nuclear war in not doing anything, too.

When someone gets blackmailed, it's rarely good to give in, because that tells the blackmailer they've got leverage. They get $100 out of you, and you're back to square one; they can demand another $100 now knowing it's worth at least that much. Eventually you wind up having to say no, and the consequence you were trying to avoid happens anyways.

Nuclear blackmail is the same. At some point, you have to draw a line in the sand and say "nope, you can't take that". If it's not the Ukranian border, it's the Polish one in a few years.

Russia is free at any time to withdraw their forces. If Russia launches a single nuke, at any point, that is their fault, their choice, and their responsibility.

Being able to point the finger of blame at someone will be of absolutely no consolation to the billions of people killed in an all-out nuclear war.

You don't have the right attitude. You have to have the mindset that even nuclear war is preferable to rolling over for Russia time and time again. Ironically, this is the attitude that best helps PREVENT nuclear war.

> Assuming that works without sparking a nuclear war, that might be a real option... but there's a very real risk of a nuclear war (accidental or otherwise) breaking out over this.

If you aren't ever willing to militarily confront Russia, even over an actual attack, because of the possibility of nuclear war, you thereby grant Russia—or any other nuclear power now or in the future—unlimited license for aggression and conquest.

So would you have us cede Ukraine, and Poland, and Lithuania, and Estonia to Putin? Because any direct conflict with Russia risks nuclear war? You can't give into nuclear blackmail because otherwise it makes a nuclear war _more likely_, as there will be an asymmetry in the willingness to use nuclear weapons.

Deescalation increases the risk of nuclear war. It's a hostage situation. There's a reason that the official policy of most governments is not to pay ransoms -- paying ransoms reduces the risk in the short term but increases the risk of further hostage situations, increasing the risk in the long term.

Geopolitics isn't a hostage situation, big influential states always project power on smaller ones, and the smaller ones always have fewer options to act independently on the world scene. That's why diplomacy exists as an alternative to power projection in the first place.

You’re wrong on… multiple levels.

First of all, deescalation and dialogue is what already prevented nuclear war several times since nuclear weapons were invented. We could go as far as saying that it’s the one single thing we know that works.

Claiming that it’s precisely this DE-escalation which increases risk is akin to claiming that having sex increases the risk of terminal virginity. Seriously, what were you even thinking when you wrote that?

Second of all, what does this situation have to do with hostage taking?! Who is the hostage? What is the ransom? Who is the party paying it?

De-escalation assumes there are two reasonable parties.

Russian policy of the last N decades is to start a conflict, scare everyone about nuclear war, then "de-escalate" and "reset".

This is fine, so long as the bombs aren't falling on your house.

It doesn't matter whose house it lands on. Nobody's house is worth the end of the world.

When it falls on yours, and some smart guy from a long way away tells you to deescalate, I think then you can make that call.

War as practiced by real-world entities (of which Russia is one) does not work this way. We are talking about a barbaric, incompetent and highly belligerent enemy. You can't be thinking in terms of individual houses or short-term outcomes in situations like this.

From the polls that I’ve seen it precisely the people on whose houses bombs are falling that want the war to end - including by negotiation - whereas those living far away want to continue the fight.

Makes sense when one stops to think about it.

The path to de-escalation is easy. All troops leave Ukraine's territory and all attacks cease.

Try convincing the leaders of this. All they seem to want is war.

What you might not want to understand is that we were patient with them long enough. They did this in Georgia and Moldova and Ukraine before.

What it shows is that they dont stop. Now they want an entire very big country. So this is the line in the sand. Let them cross this and Poland and Romania might be next. And then maybe Hungary and Germany. And so on.

An wanna be empire/dictator does not stop at your border because they like you or they have mercy. They stop for reinforcements and then move on to you.

That is such an extremely low-effort proposal that it would already be rejected by kids in primary school.

De-escalation happens gradually and with steps taken by both sides. You may have noticed that there’s mixed signals coming from the US since Russia retreated from Kherson.

I agree. Once a for all. Destroying russian army. It's too dangerous to leave it as it is.

> This has to be deescalated.

So, no justice fo the dead. "Sorry".

Compensation is likely warranted but no one really wants to 'kill two of theirs to payback for two of ours', do they? That's not likely to lead to justice.

Imagine if Russia had struck an Alaskan village, killing two Americans. Would it be the same response?

People hate on Biden now, but if he lets something like that slide, he’d be torn apart on the White House lawn.

Yes, people might freak out over it, but whatever it takes to keep the world from ending is worth it.

There are no winners in an all-out nuclear war.

Ah, I see it's NATO's responsibility to deescalate? Not Putin's?

Yeah, let's just give up Europe and invite Putin to rule from the Pacific to the Atlantic -- the risk of nuclear war is just too great.

I'm glad that pacifists don't play a role in politics where it matters, or we'd long ago given up all hope of freedom.

"I'm glad that pacifists don't play a role in politics where it matters, or we'd long ago given up all hope of freedom."

This is a "we had to destroy the village to save it" type of situation.

There's no freedom if everyone is dead.

Giving up freedom to buy security does not work. Whatever temporary security you gain will be taken away from you tomorrow, because you've shown them that you will not resist.

Appeasement does not work, especially when you're dealing with a fascist state. You can sell out Poland today, but you will still not stop Russia from "accidentally" attacking the Baltic States tomorrow.

"Whatever temporary security you gain will be taken away from you tomorrow, because you've shown them that you will not resist."

Whatever you imagine that's going to look like, it's going to be better than the world ending.

That's a very subjective (and I assume unpopular) opinion. Western nations especially do not share you views, with popular addages being "better die on your feet than live on your knees," "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," etc.

Not that I think appeasement would work, but I think a chance of freedom is more important than a life of servitude for a lot of the west (most?)

You're talking about the end of the world. Pretty much everybody dying. All of the cultural products of our civilization: music, art, history, philosophy, architecture, math, writing... lost... perhaps for all time. For the survivors (if there are any): unimaginable horror and suffering compared to which virtually anything would be better. Most likely most of the survivors will just kill themselves.

It's horror on a scale that's just unimaginable to virtually anyone who hasn't been through a major war.. and it'll be infinitely worse than that.

It's just sheer insanity that we're getting so close to that and some people are just egging us on to total destruction.

One person is egging us on to total destruction, Putin. Who has talked about nukes but him? Everything you listed here except math will also be destroyed and replaced if Russia is successful. You will never know what’s true again.

So if Putin wanted the entire world except China and NK, you’d give it to him to stop from destroying everything?

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