Comment by lovelyviking | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lovelyviking | Hacker News Reader

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>Shooting down a drone usually doesn't do it partly because of the political implications: it would be deeply unpopular to put "boots on the ground" over a shot-down drone.

Supposedly there are political implications for not responding to the shooting down the drone too. How are those taken into account I wander?

It seems that there is a deep believe in the US that if they wouldn’t “provoke” then russia would not attack as it would not have a reason to do it.

While I understand the logic it is still a very serious and dangerous miscalculation because “provocation” happens within russian head independently of the reality. russia can simply claim it was provoked/attacked by NATO so I really do not understand how “trying not to escalate to avoid provoking” works as deterrence.

From what I observed it doesn’t and only gives green light message to russian aggression and this could be hardly seen as a desirable political goal for US as I understand.

I don't think the downing of that drone increased Russian aggression. Russia doesn't want a war with the US but seems to want to push boundaries as far as possible and win it's war in Ukraine. The US response of giving weapons to Ukraine and putting Russia under sanctions is pretty aggressive, it's about as far as the US can go without actually fighting in Ukraine. It's probably serving the west well politically to ignore Russian probing as much as possible. Russia wants to provoke some kind of instability to wedge between western allies.

America can help Ukraine (I'm not from either place) with their side of the war all they want, imo. If Russia wants to treat gay men like me as second class citizens/animals, along with all of the other atrocities they perpetuate then I fully support whoever is on the other side of that mess.

But yes, Russia seems to use this "poking" tactic quite often, trying to provoke a response.

Well, US could (and should!) send much more weapons than it did so far - a lot of really useful surplus kit still laying around in warehouses all around the US.

Exactly! Ukraine is loosing the best Ukrainians as we speak due to the lack of weapons and it’s heart breaking to say the least. Those people in front like need much more support then they get. It’s a moral obligation of the west among other reasons.

I support Ukraine in this like all civilized people, but we have absolutely no moral obligation to Ukraine whatsoever. When the Iron Curtain fell and pretty much everyone who was behind it ran to NATO for protection from Russia as fast as they could, even countries that don't even share a border with Russia, Ukraine was like "nah, Russia's not that bad, don't wanna take sides between them and NATO, what's the worst that could happen?" Well, they got to find out. It's too late to change your mind once it's too late.

I would argue that quite contrary is true - we do have moral obligation to stop genocide of Ukrainians by Russia.

Your description is also not factually correct considering multiple revolutions in Ukraine that tried to set the course toward NATO and EU but you have to also take into account that Ukraine is also too important for Russia and Ukraine was actively attacked by Russian intelligence services and finally direct war against Ukraine in 2014 to prevent it joining NATO.

We should also take into account deceptive manipulations by the West like the Budapest memorandum that created an impression of false security.

But even regardless of this, not supporting Ukraine would be incredibly dumb move for US that will seriously hurt its geopolitical position. War in Ukraine, multiple coups in Africa, Hamas attack on Israel, now these attacks on ships.

Look to where just cowardly moving out of Afghanistan has taken us.

Another humiliating retreat would be a colossal blow to US.

"Look to where just cowardly moving out of Afghanistan has taken us.

Another humiliating retreat would be a colossal blow to US."

It's not about humiliation at this point. The US actually cannot beat these countries straight up in a shooting war anymore. The combination of post-Cold War deindustrialization, the lack of morale after 2 decades of fruitless wars, and the politicization of the military reducing its appeal to its traditional recruits, especially in the rank-and-file, have shown their fruits in the collapse of American deterrence ability in the 2020s. Russia wouldn't have dared to attack Ukraine in the first place if the US was stronger, and NATO's performance has only been good enough to avoid Russia steamrolling Ukraine, not to significantly retake Russia's gains. Russia can make more artillery shells than NATO combined. Ukraine is even more at risk now that the West's attention has wandered to the Middle East, endangering the aid that's kept them in the war so far.

Some would blame this on the current president, but I think the rot is much broader and deeper. If there is a future of the American military, it will probably consist of Anduril taking it over.

Yes, you are correct, but only partially. Nothing stopped NATO countries to ramp up their military production - defense industry is awaiting for it. Where are the shells promised to Ukraine by EU countries? They are not available because companies can't make them fast enough, no, they are not available because politicians haven't made large enough orders. It is not that Western countries can't ramp up their production. If Russia can, so can they for the fraction of cost for their economies. Unfortunately we have a period of impotent politicians in West instead of period of strong politicians. Hopefully we'll survive.

Well, the companies can't make them fast enough because the political establishment doesn't see maintaining readiness as a priority when money could be spent on other things. Nor did much of the population - I remember it used to be very popular to compare the American military budget unfavorably to the lower budgets of European countries - shouldn't we put that money to social programs? Now though, as much as the American military has fallen, at least it is still legitimately powerful - most European armies these days are Potemkin forces. All of which is to say, I agree with your comment.

>happens within russian head independently of the reality.

Are you talking about the drone or NATO adding Ukraine?

The funny thing about reality is there is none except our own observations. Not to get too philosophical, but Russians "reality in their heads" is exactly what everyone experiences.

Not OP, but I read their words as neither of the options you suggest.

Claiming "I was provoked" as justification means some arbitrary line was crossed. That line will be different for you and me, and as such it's not an objective measure. Ergo, it is disconnected from the objective reality of the situation, and much more connected to the subjective interpretation of the situation.

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