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Comment by belter | Hacker News Reader

If we are going to discuss the diplomatic and international implications of the ICC, it is important to note that the security—and even the continued existence as independent, sovereign entities—of the countries supporting the court is overwhelmingly reliant on the U.S. military umbrella. Without this protection, their sovereignty would quickly be at risk.

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I'm not sure you are right. Take a look at this map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court . I don't think "overwhelmingly reliant on the US" is an accurate description of the green countries on that map. Partially reliant sure. But not overwhelmingly.

You don't? I suggest you look at the figures for who is providing aid to Ukraine and ask yourself why the green nations in Europe are paying so much less than the US to fight Russia.

This is why Trump won again, by the way. Because Europe expected the US to fund their defense in this war, and people who do not live in cities with access to the global market see no benefit to aiding Europe and voted that Europe should pay for its own defense.

I guess now we'll get to see what happens when the US lets those European nations that are shaded green defend themselves without us.

> ask yourself why the green nations in Europe are paying so much less than the US to fight Russia

Oh, this is simple. Ukraine would be able to defend itself if it kept nuclear weapons. However they signed a treaty with USA, UK and Russia and gave up their nuclear weapons in exchange for some security guarantees. Russia did not honor that agreement. If USA and UK fail to provide adequate support, nobody will sign such treaties again. What’s even worse, nuclear arms are becoming the only real security guarantee, so the fate of Ukraine defines the fate of nuclear non-proliferation.

Ukraine couldn't have kept nuclear weapons. It needs a lot of technical expertise to do that, particularly in today's world where you only test them in simulation which means you need great ability to trust your simulations. Ukraine didn't even have the keys to use the weapons they had (Russia did) which means they needed to first rebuild each with new keys. Not that Ukraine couldn't do all that, but they just don't have the money to do that and everything else they also need to do. Nuclear weapons are an obvious first thing to go because they are only useful in a situation where you want to end the world. In almost all cases it is better to be able to defend yourself without ending the world.

North Korea is poorer country with less resources, yet they manage to work on their own nuclear program. It is not impossible task, just a matter of priorities. And it’s a really good deterrent.

Ukraine built those nuclear weapons.

No. It was Soviet Union. Most part of the nuclear program was done in what is modern Russia.

No countries in Africa and Latin America would enforce the ICC arrest request for Putin. Concerning the rest of Europe, with the exception of the only military power left: France, are you arguing they could defend their sovereignty without the USA military big stick?

"Why Europe Is Unprepared to Defend Itself" - https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-nato-armed-forces/

Who does Europe need to defend itself against? Russia can't invade Ukraine, and it has 1/10 the population (less?) and arms that are leftovers from European armories (and US armories). Is China going to roll troops across a continent?

If North Korea does, why not China?

Also worth mentioning that without the United States the present continental European militaries would struggle even against the battered ground forces of Russia. Can't really fight back with GDP of your service economy alone.

North Korea is being being paid by Russia to supply troops. Russia cannot afford Chinese troops. And even if they could afford them, China is throwing its weight around Asia and wants its military intact there.

Sure, and North Korea wants to man its border for the eventuality of war with the South. At least that's what everyone would have said before it happened. NK troops in Ukraine weren't on anyone's bingo card.

North Korea is involved in it for the same reason countries send military observers to conflicts.

It hasn't fought a war in decades, and it needs to figure out whether or not any of its shit/doctrines/etc works. It doesn't actually give a rat's ass about Crimea or Ukraine or Russian claims.

It fully relies on friendly logistics to participate in the conflict.

Will your opinion change, when you see a photo of Polish soldiers looking at North Korean battalions across their fence border?

Absolutely not. North Korea is essentially selling mercenary services to Russia. They're the only country that will really do that, and they will have to rely on the pretty broken Russian supply lines to do so. And Russia probably won't even be able to afford to pay for a second wave from North Korea.

What the war in Ukraine is showing is that Russia is capable of running a wartime economy, cranking out artillery shells etc at replacement rates, while Europe, so far, has not demonstrated the ability to do so, which is why supplies are dwindling - you can only run so far on existing stocks.

It should also be noted that Ukraine has been preparing for this exact scenario since 2014, building massive fortifications in the east (which is precisely why the Russian advance there has always been such a grind).

In the event of an open confrontation between Russia and European countries currently backing Ukraine, it's not at all a given that the latter can hold significantly better than Ukraine does today, without American help. European armed forces are generally in a pathetic shape, grossly undermanned and underfunded, and would simply run out of materiel before Russia runs out of bodies to throw at them.

Russia's economy is tanking fast. Their wartime economy, in addition to crushing the civilian economy, has already hit it's peak. Russia is pretty much running low on bodies just in Ukraine. They've already emptied the jails.

Europe doesn't produce artillery shells because NATO (even NATO minus US) can drop bombs after air superiority instead.

Most importantly, Ukraine is doing this well with politically imposed limits on what they can do with those weapons. In a Russia vs. NATO minus US war, Russia will have to defend against deep strikes on critical infrastructure.

The problem with all this stuff is that we've heard "Russia's economy is tanking fast" already during the first year of the war, and yet...

As far as "running out of bodies", the more accurate statement would be "running out of volunteers". While much has been made of Russia emptying its prisons, this ignores the fact that the majority of its fighting force are people who come to fight willingly, largely because of pay. Ukraine, on the other hand, has to rely on forced mobilization. At some point, Russia will do the same if needed - and yes, the regime doesn't want to do it because of political cost associated with it, but they absolutely can pull that off if and when they needed.

The notion that you can "just drop bombs after air superiority" hinges on the ability to establish said air superiority. US might be able to pull that off against Russia, but I very much doubt that Europe can. Not to mention that bombs also run out.

Obviously bombs can run out. But that's why major NATO countries have stockpiles of bombs and the ability to produce them. The fact that they didn't maintain large scale artillery shell production isn't relevant to whether they maintained bomb production. I would guess that European NATO could maintain air superiority. The Ukrainians seem to have denied Russia air superiority without the benefit of anywhere near as large an air force.

Russia has been importing soldiers from third-party countries. It does not speak well for the state of your armed forces if every growing percentages of your troops aren't even your own citizens.

Meanwhile, Russia's economy has been collapsing over the past two years. Their central bank has a 21% interest rate, there a million jobs they cannot fill because those people are off fighting a war (it may only be 500,000 jobs, accounts differ). It's backstopped by being a petrostate so they have oil money as a country, but that only papers over things for so long.

Like I said, we've heard "Russia's economy is collapsing" for 3 years straight now. I even believed it myself for the first year, but I have relatives actually living there - who aren't even pro-war - and the picture painted in the Western press has little to do with realities on the ground. Right now the economy is booming as far as most people are concerned. How sustainable it all is, is a good question, but given that the same people making the doom and gloom predictions long ago, I don't see why I should continue listening to them.

As far as Ukraine being able to deny Russian air superiority, that is evidence towards my point that Russia would similarly be able to deny air superiority to any European force. Westerners are way too used to fighting colonial wars against people whose best AA weapon is an old Stinger, but these things work very differently against a more or less modern power.

The lack of manpower is, again, for political reasons. Mobilization wouldn't be any more popular in Russia than it is in Ukraine. So they want to avoid it if they can by hiring mercs as replacement troops, whether from the heretofore neglected Russian province or from abroad like with NK forces. But make no mistake, Russia can do mobilization if it needs to, and they have more enforcement mechanisms for it compared to Ukraine, not to mention larger reserves. This is partly why the higher-ups are okay with such high losses, and it takes truly massive screw-ups for generals to get kicked out - the government doesn't see those losses as unsustainable.

If that was the case, Putin shouldn't have holed up in Russia during the BRICS conference in South Africa earlier this year.

You're making two arguments it seems, 1. Who is enforcing the arrest warrant against Putin, which I don't get, how should Europe or an African or Latin American country enforce the warrant enforce the warrant without Putin travelling there? I seriously doubt Putin would travel to a country where risks arrest. Or are you suggesting countries should invade Russia to arrest Putin. I don't see anyone including the US (thankfully) doing that. AFAIK that would also constitute a violation of international law (mind you many western countries really only care as long as it suits them, the whole Israel situation being a clear example). 2. The question if Europe could defend itself against invasion without the US. Defend against whom I have to ask, the only possible aggressor would be Russia, but Russia is struggling with their Ukraine invasion, a much smaller, less trained, less equipped force than Nato even without the US. The suggestion that Russia is in any position to threaten Europe is absolutely laughable. The only way that would happen is using nuclear weapons, and once we go down that path the whole world is f*ckd.

No countries in Africa and Latin America would enforce the ICC arrest request for Putin.

That's your straight-up speculation.

Meanwhile, the fact that he hasn't visited any of those countries -- suggests he knows better.

It's not entirely speculation; South Africa certainly wanted to avoid it.

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/south-africa-asks-icc-...

> South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has asked permission from the International Criminal Court not to arrest Russia's Vladimir Putin, because to do so would amount to a declaration of war, a local court submission published on Tuesday showed.

Brazil waffled, too.

https://www.reuters.com/world/up-brazils-judiciary-decide-pu...

> On Saturday, while in India for a Group of 20 nations meeting, Lula told a local interviewer that there was "no way" Putin would be arrested if he attended next year's summit, which is due to be held in Rio de Janeiro.

74 countries across the two regions, last we checked.

You've got 72 to go.

Only one - Chile - has affirmatively stated they’d execute the warrant.

Small countries try not to piss off large nuclear powers with a history of polonium use.

So it's not "No countries in Latin America", then.

And if we're going to use your dataset to extrapolate anything: probably half of them will enforce the warrant.

More substantially: I don't see where you're going with these objections. It's not like I think the warrant will be hugely successful. But it has to be issued and -- until Putin shows a significant readiness to bend -- it has to be kept in place. And it will have some effect. The exact percentage of countries that can be counted on to enforce it on continent X is obviously irrelvant.

I only jumped in because of the obviously vacuous, extremified formulation ("No country will ..."). Obviously they didn't mean it literally, but to underscore their point; but still -- it's a weird habit people unfortunately have on HN.

> And if we're going to use your dataset to extrapolate anything: probably half of them will enforce the warrant.

Even Chile's stated willingness is probably a bit like "if I were a billionaire I'd do <great things>" - easy to say when it's not an actual decision ready to be made.

I like being pedantic as much as the next person, but "small developing countries don't love pissing off big angry ones with nukes" isn't the outrageous conclusion you're portraying it as.

Except I'm not making that portrayal.

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