Are you expecting nuclear war in Europe? If so, what makes you believe it's impending?
[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/war-russia-ukraine-latvia-mo...
I was concerned that Russia had its eye on the Suwalki Gap around the time but since then I haven't seen any real movement towards the Gap to the Baltic states.
What is your point exactly?
There was a concerning level of global instability starting to bubble even before COVID hit. The US military didn't suddenly lose the ability to deter Russia in 2022. And China's growing military budget is also related because the US can't realistically manage a whole bunch of theatres simultaneously - so the Europeans are re-arming.
Of course the realignment caused by the Europeans having significant militaries can only be positive for EU-US relations. I can really only see the Europeans using their military to defend against the sort of aggressors who would go in and blow up things like the Nord Stream pipeline so there wouldn't be any cause for tension with the Americas.
I have some great deals on oceanfront property in Magnitogorsk that I'm willing to cut you in on.
Russia has invested heavily in its military and if the Ukraine war ended today there is a question of whether the military would be disbanded or refocused.
There is also an increase in turmoil in NATO countries. The UK still hasn't really figured out how to not be part of the EU and many countries, from the US to France and Belgium, are seeing an increase in support for populist parties. If Russia was interested in regaining former Soviet territory, NATO may currently look weak to them.
If it started a war against actual NATO it would end in Iraq-style massacre of their army. Even without significant USA support - European NATO countries have enough airpower to manage.
This is all PR to slow down help to Ukraine. They did the same in 2008 and in 2014.
More like with Hiroshima-style massacre of European cities.
There's more than that in Germany alone, and then you have 20 other countries in EU.
Russia is in an uniquely bad position to start a nuclear war.
The point is that Russia can't hope to win in either conventional or nuclear war. So they won't start it.
It really is that simple.
BTW the only reason they started war in Ukraine is that they thought they will win easily. They had an article prepared that praised the army for 3-day victory. It accidentally went live early in the war :)
They weren't alone in that miscalculation - NATO thought that too. Nobody serious thinks Russia can win a war against NATO. Even Russia does not pretend that. Instead they pretend to be crazy. But they are rational, just evil.
Russia judtifies the Ukraine exactly the same way. And honestly it's really impossible to dispute, if Russia believed that Ukraine and/or NATO was posing a fundamental risk to Russian sovereignty or the Russian people, was their invasion offensive or defensive?
I have my own opinion to that, and it's the opposite of what Russia would say, but that doesn't mean I'm right and they are wrong.
It can just go back to 1992 Ukrainian borders. Some bruised pride. Lots of money wasted. That's it.
> I have my own opinion to that, and it's the opposite of what Russia would say, but that doesn't mean I'm right and they are wrong.
This is just relativism. Very convenient to justify doing nothing. Ultimately there are facts. Nobody was going to invade Russia and you know it (and Russian government knew it).
You seem way more certain than me that NATO countries have the means and will to destroy Russia in short order. Maybe you're right, but I expect that would be a much more difficult and deadly war than Russia simply ceasin to exist.
> This is just relativism. Very convenient to justify doing nothing. Ultimately there are facts. Nobody was going to invade Russia and you know it (and Russian government knew it).
Even a bar fight isn't so black and white that you can easily say who started and when. Sure, if you want to consider recognizing that the events leading to a war are complex as relitivism then I'd argue that claiming it's easy to see Russia started this war and there are no mitigating factors muddying that water is absolutism.
Boiling complex situations down to simple, binary facts is a great way to justify doing whatever it is you want to do.
The balance is in the middle. I'm not arguing that Russia wasn't the agressor here, and I'm not arguing that they weren't the aggressor in 2008 or 2014 either. I am arguing, though, that one side can see unwarranted agression while the other side honestly believes they are responding to a threat that already existed.
And it's very clear. Both NATO and Russia estimate that NATO won't invade Russia. If you disagree - notice that Russia moved its army from Finnish border to Ukraine after Finland joined NATO. And it moved its army from Kaliningrad (border with Poland and Lithuania) to Ukraine. Russian least militarized borders are those with NATO countries.
If Russia actually thought NATO is going to invade - they would be scared shitless to start anything (because it makes them vulnurable and provides an excuse for intervention). Instead they leave their NATO borders naked because they estimate (correctly) that the last thing NATO wants is a war.
"The balance is in the middle" is a fine way to prove 2+2 is 4.5.
I only raised the consideration of who starts it because you mentioned it in an earlier comment mentioning why Russia wouldn't start it. I agree with you that it doesn't matter who starts it and was only trying to point out that with war it's often so complicated that you can't really ever pin it on one side starting it out of the blue.
I also agree that NATO isn't planning on invading Russia, if I implied that somewhere along the way I just misspoke.
I don't actually think an invasion is how the next world war would start anyway, well likely end up launching tons of drones at each other before the war is reduced to soldiers on the battlefield.
> "The balance is in the middle" is a fine way to prove 2+2 is 4.5.
I'm not sure the connection there. Are you proposing that we should strice to view complex situations as a binary rather than a spectrum?
As for 2+2 - my point is that some things are simple, and making them seem complex is an excuse not to do anything about them.
This is what happened in 2014. It was simple imperial land grab. It was preventable. But Russia and useful idiots muddled the water long enough that the help never arrived.
This is what I think should be prevented. Because every time the west appeases Russia it makes ww3 more likely.
Russia has mobile ICBMs and, if I'm not mistaken, their deadman switch system is still in use.
NATO wouldn't be able to take out Russia's entire nuclear capability before Russia responds. Even if we technically could, that's absolutely not a world I would want to live in anyway.
Fast forward a few decades and you have like 50 countries with nukes. Good luck maintaining peace then.
The problem with appeasement is that people ignore the alternative costs. It always looks good when you assume only your actions have consequences. But inaction also have consequences - you can't just assume status quo remains when you do nothing.
We only have another arms race if countries decide to join the race.
You mean like Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria?
>The problem with appeasement
Putin decided two years ago that he is done appeasing the West and look where we are now.
The US will not risk getting involved at this point.
Looking at russian success rate in Ukraine at shooting down these - 2 will suffice :)
[0] https://www.atomicarchive.com/almanac/facilities/french-faci...
For one thing, Russia almost certainly wouldn't be as restrained with what targets its going after or the tactics they use. The Kremlin has to be aware that they can win a war of attrition here, especially if they can lean in to erode western support for Ukraine.
With both the wars in Ukraine and Gaza it seems like many observers have forgotten just how bad wars can get. We're counting deaths in Gaza by the thousands, and though military deaths in Ukraine have been estimated into the hundreds of thousands for both sides, civilian casualties are almost nonexistent.
Instead we let them think they will win easily. The easiest way to avoid further wars in Europe is to help Ukraine win quickly.
When the Russians made clear it wasn't them entering Ukraine, we should have gotten them on the phone to confirm and make them aware that we have bombers in the air scrambled to hit all invading forces that have crossed the border.
We also would have to follow through with that threat, Obama's red line with Syria was a pointless mess that just made us weaker. If Russia really wouldn't claim the invading force, who would say we were out of line for helping Ukraine defend their soverign borders from an invading paramilitary force?
This also suffers from presentism - situation today is not the same situation as in a year, two or 10, but we need to start preparing now for eventualities anyway. In a year, with Trump at the helm, there might not even be any NATO anymore ...
He's none of those things, and NATO's not going anywhere, even if the US leaves it. (And odds are good it won't.)
The war will end with Ukrainian capitulation in a couple of months if NATO were to stop all intelligence, communications and material support for the Ukraine.
One example from 2008: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/15/russia.poland....
It must be Monday.
(Frankly, we are all rather board of it.)