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Comment by quickthrowman | Hacker News Reader

> Deploy troops to Ukraine it wont trigger nuclear war.

I’m not as eager as you are to test the resolve of Putin re: nuclear weapons. Once the button is pressed, the game is over for everyone.

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Putin isnt going to nuke over a defensive deployment of troops. As long as they dont cross over into russia its not an escalation. He has already broken this line by bringing in NK troops and EU spec ops have broken this line by operating in ukraine the past 4 years.

Is not the whole plan to put troops as meat shields and hope that Russia will be afraid to attack them? So yeah, Putin won't nuke countries that deployed troops but those troops are going to become targets as same as Ukrainian troops and mercenaries are now. And then what? Send more troops? More of the same result. Retaliatory strike on Russia? Nuke.

You have no other option, really. If you play chicken, you open yourself up to endless blackmail. If you're going to take a stand eventually, it's better to do it sooner than later, because if your adversary knows that you will eventually draw a line, allowing them to discover that line gradually encourages further pressure on you. Establishing the boundary early makes the threat more credible and reduces the incentive to test it.

It's like standing up to a bully the first time he pushes you, instead of giving in and calming yourself that one day you'll stand up to him. The Putins and Trumps of this world are simple creatures; such middle-school analogies describe them well.

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