Hacker News Reader

Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

Probably having the three major powers have regular contact with each other rather than pretending they're not there and refusing to take their calls.

View on HN

Thank you for actually advocating for the most rational and realistic response to this situation. While one cannot expect peace from this, it is better to be in open communication than to be left to create images of what they think they are up against.

Seems like a great idea. What can people in the US do to facilitate this you think?

Couldn't hurt to vote for the party who aren't Russian assets

Bayesian priors need updating

Seems that a lot of people prefer the approach of "surrender absolutely everything to Putin preemptively". Granted America is at basically zero risk of a Russian invasion, but letting Putin roams free means that Ukraine would only be the first step. I don't really know what Putin's Europe once he gets it all would look like but I don't expect human rights to be a part of it.

Which people?

People saying helping Ukraine should be avoided.

The people advocating the "approach of surrender absolutely everything to Putin preemptively" and "people saying helping Ukraine should be avoided" are very different - and are both still pretty strong interpretations. Instead of looking at cartoonish arguments people have - what's the best argument you've come across for not supplying Ukraine with weapons? Have you heard any that seem reasonable at all to you? Which is the most reasonable?

I'm confused. Surely if one side is a Russian asset it would be less likely we go to war with them?

> Surely if one side is a Russian asset it would be less likely we go to war with them?

Difficult to estimate because the situation is de-stabilising--the assurances of MAD no longer hold if one side thinks it can prevent the other from launching.

Why would Russia attack the US if the US was under their thumb? It makes no sense. MAD prevents countries who are opposed to each from attacking each other. The reason the US and the UK don't go to war is not because of MAD.

Not sure it has to make sense. It just has to convince people long enough for people who are driving for war to get their war. Hardly any of it seems to make any sense at all.

Well, Trump fired a bunch of diplomats, and never hired replacements (or replaced them with donors with no relevant experience), which hollowed out US foreign policy.

The Biden administration largely turned the lights back on in the parts of the government you are asking about, I think. They tried, at least. The GOP tried to block re-hiring foreign policy experts towards the beginning of his administration.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/30/trump-us-amb...

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/13/1055575802/lack-of-american-a...

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/18/903199848/under-trump-more-bi...

Every admin gets to set up their State Dept. Biden could have done whatever he wanted with regard to stationing diplomats.

Moreover, The Russia and China embassies were not affected And importantly there were not active conflicts, saber rattling and serious instigations as we have now. I mean, who gives a rat's arse about the ambassador to Paraguay.

Just the other week, the admin told the USN to prep for war against China in '27.

> there were not active conflicts

We assassinated an Iranian major general [1]! We were occupying Afghanistan, supporting Riyadh in its war on the Houthis and ramping up troops deployed in Syria and Iraq [2].

> saber rattling and serious instigations as we have now

The Trump administration wasn't instigating China [3]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Qasem_Soleima...

[2] https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/12/01/566798632/...

[3] https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/re...

About as much as the Russian citizenry. The problem is the system, not people. Our operating system is out of date.

Vote out neocons for whom war is money is happiness as well as their congressional supporters.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com