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Comment by otterley | Hacker News Reader

Consider instead that Donald Trump may be more like Neville Chamberlain, who wanted to appease Hitler ("peace in our time"). Your family may well have perished instead of been liberated had Chamberlain's doctrine remained in effect, and you may well have never been born.

It's not that Trump is a Nazi himself, but rather that Trump is enabling other tyrants like Vladimir Putin to pose grave threats like the ones to Ukraine today. If liberation is something you really care about in light of your family’s journey, Ukraine is a great team to cheer for.

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The first Trump administration lifted Obama's ban on lethal aid to Ukraine and supplied and trained Ukrainians on Javelin anti-tank missiles, night vision devices, counter-battery fire radar systems, and secure battlefield communications equipment among other things. The proposition that Trump is an appeaser does not bear scrutiny. Neither does the speculation that Russia might be capable of or interested in a wider war with Europe, let alone the USA.

> The proposition that Trump is an appeaser does not bear scrutiny. Neither does the speculation that Russia might be capable of or interested in a wider war with Europe, let alone the USA.

OK, then why shouldn't we call Russia's bluff and tell them to get out of Ukraine, or else? That would surely restore peace if you are correct.

You can tell Russia whatever you want, but you can't threaten the existence of the Russian state with American military might backed by the credible threat of nuclear weapons. That has a significant chance of provoking a nuclear Russian response.

I’m struggling to understand the logic of your thinking.

Suppose we left Ukraine empty-handed. What do you think will happen next? What do you think the best case and worst case scenarios are? What if the best-case scenario doesn’t come to pass? Would you regret it if Russia expanded its invasions further?

>Suppose we left Ukraine empty-handed. What do you think will happen next?

I don't really care.

>Would you regret it if Russia expanded its invasions further?

They're not invading NATO with refurbished T-62s. This is an insane boogeyman.

Why should they be invading any country with refurbished T-62s? And in your precious post you said you were concerned about them using nukes. Which is it?

Why does your care for others begin at NATO borders?

Geopolitics is about more than feelings wrapped around complex, poorly-understand conflicts halfway around the world.

This statement adds nothing to the conversation and doesn’t answer my questions. And in my experience, a person who can’t answer pointed questions usually understands the situation less than the ones who can.

I’m out.

I don't have a duty of care to every corrupt foreign country with complex, long-running border disputes and interests orthogonal to my own. Does that answer your pointed question?

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