Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[brickhistory]

I have stated, repeatedly, that the risk of Putin using a tactical nuke inside Ukraine is not 0.  I posited a 1 in 4 chance.

And if he does, no additional nation is going to go to war with Russia, nor should they.

No nation is going to trade London for Kyiv.  Or Paris.  Or Berlin.  Or L.A. (although that might be a fair trade...).

If Putin uses a nuke and we declare war, he has, literally, nothing to lose by escalating with nukes outside Ukraine.

The only realistic hope, should Putin decide to order a nuclear strike, is some insanely brave Russian commander says "Nyet."

If something really big goes bang, the world will absolutely isolate Russia.  I would hope the quarentine makes NK look like Bermuda.  But some nations, in their national interests, won't play along,

Newsflash, the Bretton Woods world order is already changing with the U.S. declining as top dog.  With our economy so beholden to foreigners buying our debt, our dominance is severely degraded already.  Militarily, since WWII, what's our record?  Aside from Desert Storm, they'be been losses or, at best, draws.

Best bet is to keep stuffing Ukraine with as much logistics and weapons as they can use, plus more.

Pulling a trigger will end our worries about inflation really, really quickly.

Ukraine is not worth that.

I'm still waiting for the vital national interest to be identified to justify a hot war for the USA.

[hockeydork]

11 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

With the intelligencia increasingly convinced that nuclear weapons are a realistic possibility, what does the "hands off" crowd here think should be the response should Putin use a tactical nuke in Ukraine?

 

Is there any condition where Russian action within the Ukrainian border justifies an increased and direct global response? If so, explicitly spell out the red line.

 

Personally, I think any use of nuclear weapons justifies the immediate declaration of war with Russia. In fact, that goes for any country. And not economic war. War war. No nuclear counter response, that I believe can/should only be used in response to a nuclear attack on the US, but an immediate and total blockade of Russia, establishment of no-fly over the Western nations surrounding Russia (we aren't going to send US planes over China, but I think they'd join the West against Russia to protect their own nuclear assets), and immediate sanctions against any country that continues to trade with Russia. The only acceptable "surrender" is the removal of the Putin regime and the denuclearization of Russia. 

 

 

100 percent. However I think if he uses a tac in Ukraine, one needs to be used in retaliation on Russian forces in Ukraine. The idea of tac nuke deployment with zero return nuclear repercussions is unacceptable. That precedent will be too damn dangerous. If he lets a bird fly, than that can of worms is open and there is no going back, one needs to fly back or the future of the whole damn world is at stake. That is the code we've all agreed upon.

I think China may have Vlad on a leash. They know full well a nuke going off in their back yard is not at all in their best interests. Xi may be an autocrat, but "self preservation" is also high in his vocabulary. That's whats great about these people, if their willing to abuse their own people, you can bet your ass China will have no hesitation letting Russia choke itself out if they overstep.  He'd rather see Vlad go down alone than be dragged with him if this escalates. 

 

And if this goes genocide? No more pee pee slaps with Stingers and Javelins. Give the Ukrainians heavy weapons. Like Harpoons. Let them sink the Black Sea fleet. Two can play that game. 

[Lord Ratner]

2 hours ago, FLEA said:

So exactly this and what is terribly scary about it. 

A war of this magnitude would certainly change the world order. Unlikely the US comes out on top or even near the top. 

China wont be a problem that just has to wait; it becomes a problem we just have to accept. China's smartest move would be to stay quiet and let the US and Russia overtly remove each other from the world stage leaving China as the sole world super power. 

We need to swallow the pill that the US could be unrecognizable in the end.

But in general I agree that you can't allow Russia to use a nuclear weapon without a military response because it upends the rules of nuclear deterence and sets a precedent that would be worse to accept than the opposite. It's just a terrifying reality. 

I think China is wildly overrated, present day. There's certainly a  future I can see where they represent a real threat, and obviously anyone with nuclear weaponry poses a threat, but their entire existence is propped up on an even more spectacular financial magic trick than ours. Their military, while impressive in size is nowhere nearly as well equipped as ours, and unbelievable less trained. Further, there's been no examples of totalitarian regimes whose militaries perform better, man for man, then the militaries of the West (in particular the US). It would be one thing if we had to invade China (or Russia). That's a fight I don't want. But since the United States does not conquer other lands, we wouldn't have to.

 

The economic warfare being waged on Russia would be far more catastrophic on China. Russia is deeply reliant on trade, but China exists in its present form solely because of it. If anything, I think the economic damage being done to Russia, married with the incredibly poor performance of their military (which is more experienced than China) has given China reason to perhaps push back their ambitions a couple more decades.

There's a lot of smart money out there that's anticipating a Chinese economic catastrophe that rivals Japan's in 1989. I think xi jinping himself is deeply concerned, as his moves to rein-in real estate speculation, possibly too late, indicate a fairly significant level of concern.

Since there are no longer localized recessions, the United States or China going into a recession will send the rest of the world with China relies on growth numbers that we haven't seen in generations, and those numbers are not looking good. Couple that with their version of the baby boomer wave and the population catastrophe the one child policy created, well, let's just say I'm not so sure our position as the top dog is in any short or medium term risk.

Be that as it may, humanity is long overdue for a true war. I think Ukraine shows that it wasn't only the West that wildly underestimated how awful a real war can be. Perhaps it will turn out that Putin did us a favor, giving us a much smaller war to forestall the big one.

 

[Lord Ratner]

1 hour ago, hockeydork said:

That precedent will be too damn dangerous.

I don't think it's quite that simple. Once nukes are used there's no precedent that's good. But responding with a nuke just because someone else used one is also setting a bad precedent. With so many smaller countries getting nuclear weaponry, I don't think we want to set the precedent that using a tactical nuke guarantees nuclear annihilation.

But it should still guarantee annihilation (of the offending government). There are other ways to accomplish that, and no matter how many tactical nukes Russia uses in Ukraine, it is still not the same as launching an ICBM into New York.

The problem with brickhistory's logic is that weakness emboldens aggressors. When it becomes clear that you will avoid something at all costs, you no longer have any leverage against someone whose desires do not overlap your own. In this case, Putin can wave nukes around and therefore, we can no longer intervene. Well. What if he decides to start using nukes if we don't lift the economic sanctions? What if he threatens to use nukes if we keep supplying Ukraine with stingers and javelins?

 

Isolating Russia, similar to North Korea would not be an acceptable solution to the use of nuclear weaponry. Deterrence only works if annihilation follows, so the current regime would have to be destroyed. Anything short of Putin's head would be an endorsement of the use of nuclear weaponry to the tyrants of the world.

 

Of course, the response to this would be that we are guaranteeing war. But that's also bullshit. We're not guaranteeing anything, we're just responding to the world we exist in. It's self-flagellating to claim any sort of responsibility to this by the United States. We're the first non-imperial power of this magnitude in history, and just because we didn't disband NATO after the USSR collapsed (though we absolutely did attempt to get Russia to join the West, and they refused), doesn't mean we have any responsibility for what's going on in Ukraine. Bumbling and missteps do not equal guilt, the guilt lies squarely with the Russian government, and should they decide on this path, that will be their fault as well.

Edited March 21, 2022 by Lord Ratner

[HeloDude]

The US in a nuclear war with Russia to defend Ukraine?  Have you guys lost your minds?

 
I’m mostly with Brick on this one (usually am)—no US city or American overseas base (ie Ramstein) is worth Kyiv.  It’s bad enough that we’re still a member of a Cold War treaty (when the Cold War is over) in which we agreed that an attack on one certain country is automatically seen as an attack on all members (alliances for no other reason can be dangerous…WW1 anyone?), but now we’re literally saying that potentially more than a million American lives should be on the table if a million Ukrainian lives are taken?  I would love to see Biden get on stage and say those very words…the support for Ukraine will quickly change.

Like it or not, Putin is a bad dude and seems capable of just about anything, and he commands a force that is not some 3rd world country of goat herders or some rich oil nation of slackers in the Middle East.  If we go to war with Russia then this will be the first of its kind since the 1940s and of the nuclear age.  Why so many would be eager to see it happen to defend Ukraine is beyond me—nuke or no nuke hitting Ukraine.  And as for potential genocide, yeah, it’s horrible, but now we care about it when Russia is the aggressor?  I don’t recall seeing too many on here wanting to go to war with China or Turkey over their atrocities…what about Myanmar, are we going to war with them?  At some point you have to stop being the world’s policemen.
 

I don’t know how the Ukraine/Russia thing ends, but I’m for whatever outcome that is best for the US.  Hopefully that involves Ukraine staying strong and Russia finally pulling back and realizing that it was a mistake and then that’s that (more/less); but hope is not a strategy.  The more realistic best scenario is for Russia and Ukraine to “negotiate” (I know, it’s a crappy word when you’re invaded) and Ukraine allows some of the pro-Russia eastern areas to break away and Russia pulls out its troops and most (if not all) the sanctions are lifted and things quiet down that way.  And then as for Russia, in terms of their internal politics, time will tell.

Again, what does Putin want?  You can’t say he gets nothing unless you’re willing to deal with the consequences of him not giving up and potentially being even more dangerous than he already is…and then what happens?  If we’re willing to have “peace” discussions with the Taliban, then we have to be willing to do the same with one of the most powerful countries in the world.  Hopefully this will alleviate the need for nukes to be a legitimate concern.

Watching/reading the msm (yes, even Fox News), you would think that the Ukraine story is the most important thing affecting Americans right now…I’m much more concerned with our economy.  But for the left, this is a good distraction and allows someone else (Putin) to take the blame for our woes.  And who doesn’t love a good war on tv? Fox viewers and the neo-cons love it.

Thanks for tuning into my rambling, flame away.

[hockeydork]

1 hour ago, Lord Ratner said:

A) With so many smaller countries getting nuclear weaponry, I don't think we want to set the precedent that using a tactical nuke guarantees nuclear annihilation.

B) But it should still guarantee annihilation (of the offending government). There are other ways to accomplish that, and no matter how many tactical nukes Russia uses in Ukraine, it is still not the same as launching an ICBM into New York.

C) Of course, the response to this would be that we are guaranteeing war. But that's also bullshit. We're not guaranteeing anything, we're just responding to the world we exist in.

A) I guess I was looking at it through the lens of it would actually encourage smaller countries to arm up with nukes even more. If they see a big bad country use a nuke on a little guy (for no reason, which makes this scenario even worse) without getting nuked back, what country on earth is ever going to feel secure without having their own nukes? I really don't want to see tac nuke employment becoming a new "normal" element of battle. I honestly don't know, but seeing a country employ nukes in an offensive manner and getting away with it is terrifying.  

B) This would work, but how do we ensure it? Would the entire world unite and basically be like "yea this government has to go"? Would China green light terminating Putin? What if Xi says no? China may not have the best military, but they sure are big and could make a real mess in their sphere. No real way to know, uncharted waters. 

C) Yea this fight for sure would have chosen us. Russia's fault, Putin had his late life crisis and made a huge mess and thinks the world is his personal game board since he himself doesn't have to worry about dying in Ukraine. How someone in his inner circle who maybe has terminal cancer or something hasn't clipped him and taken one for the team at this point beats me. He's annihilating his own country economically, and for what strategic gain exactly besides an ego boost I have yet to figure out. 

[hockeydork]

2 hours ago, brickhistory said:

 

If Putin uses a nuke and we declare war, he has, literally, nothing to lose by escalating with nukes outside Ukraine.

The only realistic hope, should Putin decide to order a nuclear strike, is some insanely brave Russian commander says "Nyet."

 

What do you think about about supplying Ukraine with a tac nuke? This isn't a rhetorical question and i'm not trying to prove a point, I honestly don't know. It just seems letting a nuke fly without getting checked by somebody is no bueno for future conflicts. Might as well just start future wars off with slinging tac nukes at your opponent. 

[brickhistory]

Again, I am patiently waiting for someone to show me a vital national interest to the U.S. that requires us to be in any kind of a shooting war over Ukraine, let alone one that would escalate quickly to over the Pole exchanges.

Nations/people have been killing each other since we climbed down from the trees.  Nukes changed the rules for those who got into the ownership club.

Diplomacy is the chess/checkers (Administration dependent) part of national power.  Use of force is the poker game.  The problem with threatening with nuclear weapons, even as a response to one being used elsewhere, is that your bluff will eventually be called.

If we and/or NATO say that if Putin uses a nuke in Ukraine, we will use, or allow the Ukrainians to use (which, think about that idea of turning a US weapon over to any other nation, let alone one not formally allied to us.  Wonder why we have the MUNS sites for NATO-designated weapons...) a U.S weapon on Russian troops in Ukraine.

Pretty dramatic declaration of war if you use it and one that will bring the nuke's ICBM big brothers to the fight.

Again, not gonna happen.  Nor should it.

And if we threaten to retaliate with a nuke but then don't, our nuclear credibility is absolutely and irrevocably shot.  Until we start lobbing nukes which kinda means game over anyway...

In Korea and Vietnam, who was feeding (literally) the Norks and the North Vietnamese with ammo, weapons of all types, SAMs, and MiGs?  Why was that any different than us throwing stuff to Ukraine?  We didn't threaten China and/or USSR with a nuke for their actions.

And when USSR invaded Afghanistan/Hungary/Czechoslovakia/et al, did we threaten nuclear?  Nope, because it would've been a hollow bluff.  Just as betting your stack on the Ukraine deal is.

We vaguely nuke threatened Iraq pre-Desert Storm 1 to ensure it didn't use chemicals against us.  It worked, but then Iraq didn't have nukes (oh, the irony there...).

Deterrence works if your opponent believes you will.  We won't over Ukraine.  And we shouldn't.  As tragic as it is, it is NOT our fight.  I'm betting Putin believes that as well.

To be absolutely clear, I am not saying "avoid at all costs."  I am saying the price to be paid needs to be worth the U.S.' sacrifice in physical destruction, the humanitarian mess left behind, the economic destruction, and the reversion to a Walking Dead society before committing to major warfare with a nuclear-armed adversary.  

They nuke the U.S. or assets?  3,2,1, keyturn...

They use a tactical nuke on a Ukrainian city?  Tragic and we most likely will lead the world's response in cleaning up afterwards.  But trade Ukraine for U.S.?  Oh, hell no.

Why is this our fight to shed blood and treasure?  Selective Service agency is still a thing...

Edited March 21, 2022 by brickhistory

[Prozac]

45 minutes ago, brickhistory said:

We didn't threaten China and/or USSR with a nuke for their actions.

Funny you mention that because it’s wrong. It’s been well established that Eisenhower stated in his memoirs that if the N. Koreans didn’t agree to peace at the bargaining table in 53 then the best action to end the war would be to nuke the Chinese & Russian bases they were operating from with impunity. He even lamented the horrible losses that would occur when Japanese cities were hit in retaliation ‘cause the soviets didn’t yet have a reliable intercontinental capability. 
 

Also, don’t assume just because we presumably operate in a certain way that the Russian thought process is remotely similar to ours. The possibility remains that the current conflict will be escalated onto NATO territory by Russia regardless of our actions. We’d better have a plan when/if it does. 

[Lord Ratner]

3 hours ago, HeloDude said:

The US in a nuclear war with Russia to defend Ukraine?  Have you guys lost your minds?

Nope. As repeatedly stated, it's a war over the use of nukes at all. Ukraine becomes immaterial.

 

2 hours ago, brickhistory said:

Again, I am patiently waiting for someone to show me a vital national interest to the U.S. that requires us to be in any kind of a shooting war over Ukraine, let alone one that would escalate quickly to over the Pole exchanges.

See above. It is vital that the nuclear stalemate be maintained.

Secondarily, the extreme wealth of the West, and the world at large, is reliant on the concept of sovereignty. Going back to the bad-old-days of empire building will make us much, much poorer as a nation if we have to recalibrate our trading economy around countries that can be conquered at the whims of tyrants. 

Sure, NATO protects Western Europe, but you don't want NATO to exist, so by your logic every country without a superior military can be taken over by Russia or China, and we are to allow it unless there is a direct interest. And since you clearly will avoid a nuclear exchange at all costs, no direct interest is going to override that fear. There are a lot of Asian countries we do business with. But if China wants to take them, cool. What's the problem?

And you think the world, and especially the US, will be better for this? That sounds like an Ayn Rand fantasy.

It seems like the libertarian/isolationist wing of the right has joined the left in pretending that the things we did to create the present-day world didn't actually contribute to creating the most prosperous period in human history. It just happened *despite* our power projection. It's nonsense. The South Koreans sure are better off. Taiwan is better off. Kuwait is better off. Israel is better off. And all the countries that weren't invaded as a direct result of the United States military umbrella are better off. And we are better off.

 

Most of your post is a reply to things no one said or scenarios that don't apply.

2 hours ago, brickhistory said:

Nations/people have been killing each other since we climbed down from the trees.

A whole lot less than historically. Why is that?

2 hours ago, brickhistory said:

If we and/or NATO say that if Putin uses a nuke in Ukraine, we will use, or allow the Ukrainians to use (which, think about that idea of turning a US weapon over to any other nation, let alone one not formally allied to us.  Wonder why we have the MUNS sites for NATO-designated weapons...) a U.S weapon on Russian troops in Ukraine.

I explicitly stated we shouldn't respond with a nuke. We don't need to.  Here we agree, and giving a nuke to Ukraine would not lower the tensions. A nuke or two aren't much of a deterrent anyways.

 

2 hours ago, brickhistory said:

In Korea and Vietnam, who was feeding (literally) the Norks and the North Vietnamese with ammo, weapons of all types, SAMs, and MiGs?  Why was that any different than us throwing stuff to Ukraine?  We didn't threaten China and/or USSR with a nuke for their actions.

We didn't lob nukes in Vietnam. Also, why was it different? Is this some sort of relativism nonsense? If you can't see the difference between how the West interacted with the world and how the communist regimes interacted with the world, to include the very disparate body counts, you've gone down a path that has no underlying logic. You either believe there is right and wrong in the world or you don't, which doesn't mean you always start a fight when something wrong happens or always do the most righteous thing, but when you start making comparisons as though there is parity between communist China and the United States, then the underlying assumptions have rendered the rest of this conversation pointless.

2 hours ago, brickhistory said:

And when USSR invaded Afghanistan/Hungary/Czechoslovakia/et al, did we threaten nuclear?  Nope, because it would've been a hollow bluff.  Just as betting your stack on the Ukraine deal is.

They did not use nukes, so how does that compare? Ironically, Putin is in fact threatening the use of nukes, but you don't consider that a hollow bluff. Why?

 

2 hours ago, brickhistory said:

They nuke the U.S. or assets?  3,2,1, keyturn...

So again, is this the only line? That leaves every country on the planet available for conquest, and given the sad state of Europe's military, Asia, Africa, South America, and the Middle East aren't the only countries that would be at great risk under this philosophy.  Essentially, India, Pakistan, North Korea, China, and Russia are free to invade as they see fit. And we will be better off staying out?

 

I think maybe one of the primary disconnects here is that the isolationists (and I don't mean that as a pejorative) seem to think Ukraine is an isolated incident. I certainly don't. I see Ukraine as the logical outcome of a Western coalition that has lost faith in itself and allowed its strength to atrophy. I think Ukraine is just the first symptom of a much deeper disease. Fortunately it turns out Russia's military sucks balls, but no one in the West or East thought they were that bad off. I don't suspect China, just based off their numbers alone, would be facing the same type of stalemate if they had invaded Ukraine or a similarly sized country.

 

The USSR was not a fluke. And while the West has evolved into a triumph of human cooperation and restraint, unanimously agreeing to abandon the goal of empire building, not everybody has signed on to that arrangement.

 

If you believe that China and Russia would be content with merely establishing trading agreements with the countries in their sphere of influence, you have to ask yourself why they haven't just joined the West, since that's exactly what we do in the West. I submit that it's because they have far greater ambitions, namely, rebuilding ancient empires by force.

And they both have nukes, so what exactly are we going to do to stop them?

Edited March 21, 2022 by Lord Ratner

[HeloDude]

12 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

Nope. As repeatedly stated, it's a war over the use of nukes at all. Ukraine becomes immaterial.

If you had to guess, what percentage of American voters would agree with you?  That is, if Russia uses a nuke in Ukraine, that the next move for us would be to use a nuke against Russian forces, even if that means getting into an all out nuclear war with Russia? 

My guess is that you would be in a very small minority, and thankfully so.  And yet I’m the weird one for being against conscription.  
 

Perhaps I misunderstood your response to my post?

[Prozac]

8 minutes ago, HeloDude said:

If you had to guess, what percentage of American voters would agree with you?  That is, if Russia uses a nuke in Ukraine, that the next move for us would be to use a nuke against Russian forces, even if that means getting into an all out nuclear war with Russia? 

My guess is that you would be in a very small minority, and thankfully so.  And yet I’m the weird one for being against conscription.  
 

Perhaps I misunderstood your response to my post?

Is some sort of direct referendum what you really want to see when discussing war strategy?

General: “Mr President, our forces in Poland are coming under fire from positions inside Ukraine and Belarus. Recommend we neutralize enemy fires with air strikes & cruise missiles.”

President: “Sure. We’ll have a national vote next week and get back to you. Hang tough ‘till then.”

There’s a reason it doesn’t work that way. 

[HeloDude]

14 minutes ago, Prozac said:

Is some sort of direct referendum what you really want to see when discussing war strategy?

General: “Mr President, our forces in Poland are coming under fire from positions inside Ukraine and Belarus. Recommend we neutralize enemy fires with air strikes & cruise missiles.”

President: “Sure. We’ll have a national vote next week and get back to you. Hang tough ‘till then.”

There’s a reason it doesn’t work that way. 

So does that mean that the national debate on the issue should not occur now?  You know…when that attack is not happening?  When those not on the left and the non-neocon war hawks start asking these tough questions they’re branded as being pro-Putin.  As for our forces being in Poland, would be upset if Russia had forces in Mexico or Cuba? 

Funny how just over a year ago the left was so worried that a president they didn’t like was going to do X, Y, or Z…and now suddenly it’s wrong to question what our president/his team may or may not do wrt attacking another country, nuclear weapons, etc.  Or is it “different” this time?  See the link below.
 

The good news is that Biden is weak on foreign policy, so fortunately he won’t get us involved in anything too serious…it just so happens that not escalating is the right move, so I’ll take weakness in this case.  Then again, I was wrong on Putin attacking past the eastern areas of Ukraine and likewise I was wrong on Biden cutting off Russian oil.  Hopefully I’m right that Biden won’t want to engage Russia militarily—fingers crossed.
 

https://nypost.com/2021/09/29/milley-admits-he-would-tell-china-if-us-launched-an-attack/

 

[FLEA]

1 hour ago, Lord Ratner said:

Nope. As repeatedly stated, it's a war over the use of nukes at all. Ukraine becomes immaterial.

 

See above. It is vital that the nuclear stalemate be maintained.

Secondarily, the extreme wealth of the West, and the world at large, is reliant on the concept of sovereignty. Going back to the bad-old-days of empire building will make us much, much poorer as a nation if we have to recalibrate our trading economy around countries that can be conquered at the whims of tyrants. 

Sure, NATO protects Western Europe, but you don't want NATO to exist, so by your logic every country without a superior military can be taken over by Russia or China, and we are to allow it unless there is a direct interest. And since you clearly will avoid a nuclear exchange at all costs, no direct interest is going to override that fear. There are a lot of Asian countries we do business with. But if China wants to take them, cool. But it problem?

And you think the world, and especially the US, will be better for this? That sounds like an Ayn Rand fantasy.

It seems like the libertarian/isolationist wing of the right has joined the left in pretending that the things we did to create the present-day work didn't actually contribute to creating the most prosperous period in human history. It just happened *despite* our power projection. It's nonsense. The South Koreans sure are better off. Taiwan is better off. Kuwait is better off. Israel is better off. And all the countries that weren't invaded as a direct result of the United States military umbrella are better off.

 

Most of your post is a reply to things no one said or scenarios that don't apply.

A whole lot less than historically. Why is that?

I explicitly stated we shouldn't respond with a nuke. We don't need to.  Here we agree, and giving a nuke to Ukraine would not lower the tensions. A nuke or two aren't much of a deterrent anyways.

 

We didn't lob nukes in Vietnam. Also, why was it different? Is this some sort of relativism nonsense? If you can't see the difference between how the West interacted with the world and how the communist regimes interacted with the world, to include the very disparate body counts, you've gone down a path that has no underlying logic. You either believe there is right and wrong in the world or you don't, which doesn't mean you always start a fight when something wrong happens or always do the most righteous thing, but when you start making comparisons as though there is parity between communist, China and the United States, then the underlying assumptions have rendered the rest of this conversation pointless.

They did not use nukes, so how does that compare? Ironically, Putin is in fact threatening the use of nukes, but you don't consider that a hollow bluff. Why?

 

So again, is this the only line? That leaves every country on the planet available for conquest, and given the sad state of Europe's military, Asia, Africa, South America, and the Middle East aren't the only countries that would be at great risk under this philosophy. Philosophy. Essentially, India, Pakistan, North Korea, China, and Russia are free to invade as they see fit. And we will be better off staying out?

 

I think maybe one of the primary disconnects here is that the isolationists (and I don't mean that as a pejorative) seem to think Ukraine is an isolated incident. I certainly don't. I see Ukraine as the logical outcome of a Western coalition that has lost faith in itself and allowed its strength to atrophy. I think Ukraine is just the first symptom of a much deeper disease. Fortunately it turns out Russia's military sucks balls, but no one in the West or East thought they were that bad off. I don't suspect China, just based off their numbers alone, would be facing the same type of stalemate if they had invaded, Ukraine or a similarly sized country.

 

The USSR was not a fluke. And while the West has evolved into a triumph of human cooperation and restraint, unanimously agreeing to abandon the goal of empire building, not everybody has signed on to that arrangement.

 

If you believe that China and Russia would be content with merely establishing trading agreements with the countries in their sphere of influence, you have to ask yourself why they haven't just joined the West, since that's exactly what we do in the West. I submit that it's because they have far greater ambitions, namely, rebuilding ancient empires by force.

And they both have nukes, so what exactly are we going to do to stop them?

Just curious, where was all this furor to uphold sovereignty and depose of dictators in Iran, Cuba, Syria (cold War), Afghanistan (cold War), Haiti, Albania, Indonesia, Congo, Iraq (1963), Vietnam, South Korea (was an authoritarian dictatorship we strongly supported until 1988), Chile, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Argentina, Grenada, Paraguay, Yemen....man I'm certain there are others as well.....

 

Edited March 21, 2022 by FLEA

[pawnman]

11 minutes ago, HeloDude said:

So does that mean that the national debate on the issue should not occur now?  You know…when that attack is not happening?  When those not on the left and the non-neocon war hawks start asking these tough questions they’re branded as being pro-Putin.  As for our forces being in Poland, would be upset if Russia had forces in Mexico or Cuba? 

Funny how just over a year ago the left was so worried that a president they didn’t like was going to do X, Y, or Z…and now suddenly it’s wrong to question what our president/his team may or may not do wrt attacking another country, nuclear weapons, etc.  Or is it “different” this time?  See the link below.
 

The good news is that Biden is weak on foreign policy, so fortunately he won’t get us involved in anything too serious…it just so happens that not escalating is the right move, so I’ll take weakness in this case.  Then again, I was wrong on Putin attacking past the eastern areas of Ukraine and likewise I was wrong on Biden cutting off Russian oil.  Hopefully I’m right that Biden won’t want to engage Russia militarily—fingers crossed.
 

https://nypost.com/2021/09/29/milley-admits-he-would-tell-china-if-us-launched-an-attack/

 

Sweet. Russia can have Ukraine, China can have Taiwan (and hell, Japan if they want it), we should pull our forces out of Korea and let Kim have that...after all, we can't risk a nuclear strike on an American city by antagonizing any nuclear powers.

Doesn't seem like that would be great for our ability to project any kind of power, soft or otherwise. 

[Sim]

From yesterday. 

 

[FLEA]

1 minute ago, pawnman said:

Sweet. Russia can have Ukraine, China can have Taiwan (and hell, Japan if they want it), we should pull our forces out of Korea and let Kim have that...after all, we can't risk a nuclear strike on an American city by antagonizing any nuclear powers.

Doesn't seem like that would be great for our ability to project any kind of power, soft or otherwise. 

So which US city are you willing to lose and are you volunteering to move your family there before we go through with this? 

[Lord Ratner]

1 hour ago, HeloDude said:

If you had to guess, what percentage of American voters would agree with you?  That is, if Russia uses a nuke in Ukraine, that the next move for us would be to use a nuke against Russian forces, even if that means getting into an all out nuclear war with Russia? 

My guess is that you would be in a very small minority, and thankfully so.  And yet I’m the weird one for being against conscription.  
 

Perhaps I misunderstood your response to my post?

I would not respond with nukes. I would absolutely retaliate with nukes against a nuclear attack on the United States, and I would consider it a reasonable response to a nuclear attack on a NATO ally, though not a mandatory response. We do not need nukes to destroy a country.

 

I would, however, respond with a declaration of war, a total blockade of all commerce with Russia (to include sanctions against any country that continues to support Russia), a No fly zone anywhere we could install one, and the explicit condition that the war ends upon the surrender or death of Putin and the officials we deem instrumental to the usage of nukes, as well as the denuclearization of Russia. Of course all the propaganda we put out would be that we are at war with the Putin regime, not the Russian people, yada yada yada. We have to have a clear objective (removal of Putin, denuclearization of Russia), as well as a plan to quickly and aggressively reintegrate the Russian people with the world economy at the end of the war. The Russian people are not Afghans, they were already heavily enmeshed in Western culture, and intimately tied to the rest of the world.

 

Is it possible that Russia responds to that declaration with a nuclear attack against the United States? It is. It's also possible that Putin loses his mind and launches a new anyways. We've had to live with the realistic threat of nuclear war since we invented the damn things. 

 

But the nuclear peace that followed world war II was not one based on the appeasement, it was based on strength. In fact, we have spent decades since then appeasing Russia in the hopes that they would become something they have not. And here we are.

 

As to the support of the American people, I might have sided with you prior to the invasion, but seeing the response of the citizenry of the world has given me pause. I did not expect the world to support Ukraine to the extent that they have, and I suspect that a nuclear attack would rouse something in all of us we forgot was there.

[panchbarnes]

25 minutes ago, pawnman said:

Sweet. Russia can have Ukraine, China can have Taiwan (and hell, Japan if they want it), we should pull our forces out of Korea and let Kim have that...after all, we can't risk a nuclear strike on an American city by antagonizing any nuclear powers.

Doesn't seem like that would be great for our ability to project any kind of power, soft or otherwise. 

There is so much historic context with every geopolitical event/action that it's unfair for you to write the above paragraph.  Every country and the implied actions you just named are not the same and not black and white.  It's kind of absurd to imply China wants to take over Japan.

Edited March 21, 2022 by panchbarnes

[FLEA]

9 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

I would not respond with nukes. I would absolutely retaliate with nukes against a nuclear attack on the United States, and I would consider it a reasonable response to a nuclear attack on a NATO ally, though not a mandatory response. We do not need nukes to destroy a country.

 

I would, however, respond with a declaration of war, a total blockade of all commerce with Russia (to include sanctions against any country that continues to support Russia), a No fly zone anywhere we could install one, and the explicit condition that the war ends upon the surrender or death of Putin and the officials we deem instrumental to the usage of nukes, as well as the denuclearization of Russia. Of course all the propaganda we put out would be that we are at war with the Putin regime, not the Russian people, yada yada yada. We have to have a clear objective (removal of Putin, denuclearization of Russia), as well as a plan to quickly and aggressively reintegrate the Russian people with the world economy at the end of the war. The Russian people are not Afghans, they were already heavily enmeshed in Western culture, and intimately tied to the rest of the world.

 

Is it possible that Russia responds to that declaration with a nuclear attack against the United States? It is. It's also possible that Putin loses his mind and launches a new anyways. We've had to live with the realistic threat of nuclear war since we invented the damn things. 

 

But the nuclear peace that followed world war II was not one based on the appeasement, it was based on strength. In fact, we have spent decades since then appeasing Russia in the hopes that they would become something they have not. And here we are.

 

As to the support of the American people, I might have sided with you prior to the invasion, but seeing the response of the citizenry of the world has given me pause. I did not expect the world to support Ukraine to the extent that they have, and I suspect that a nuclear attack would rouse something in all of us we forgot was there.

How are you going to stand up these no fly zones? How are you going to move the forces there to do it? How will you stop trade between Russia and China or South Korea? How will you enforce sanctions? What makes you think Russians will just welcome an occupation? How will you stage forces to do all of this? How are you going to track monitor and control the destruction of Russian nuclear weapons? How are you going to secure those sites before they are used again? 

 

Your plan doesn't sound well thought out. The US does not have the power to do 95% of this unilaterally. NATO likely doesn't have the power to do 50% of that. Especially securing nuclear weapons sites. 

And what of the vast majority of Russian citizens you will enrage and take up arms against you. You know most Russians STRONGLY support Putin right? 

 

[Lord Ratner]

4 hours ago, FLEA said:

So which US city are you willing to lose and are you volunteering to move your family there before we go through with this? 

You keep spouting this ridiculous nonsense, which is especially insane coming from someone who is actually in the military. How did your oath go? I must have missed the part where they asked me to put my family in the path of a hypothetical nuke.

 

You keep acting like the worst thing that could happen is an American city being nuked. And maybe it is the worst thing that could happen this year, but it's not the worst thing that could happen at all. Empires fall, and some of us believe that the United States in decline is a tragedy for the billions of people on this planet. We've done more to advance the cause of human flourishing than any other society in history and at a pace never before imagined. That wasn't happenstance. It was a series of ideals developed over centuries, primarily in the West, that culminated in what we have today.

 

Those ideals will not die in a nuclear strike on New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. But they will die if we decide that there is no right and wrong, that self-interest is the only metric by which we engage in the world. And using previous examples of failure to be righteous is a pretty shitty excuse for failing again in the future. Not only will it lead to a dimmer future for my kids and their kids, appeasement doesn't fucking work. It's kind of like communism, everybody always has a fancy new academic way to do it, and it's totally going to be different this time, and then we end up in the same place.

So rather than pretend like your question has any logical basis, I will answer the more rational and less hyperventilating version of it.

 

If doing the right thing (which is absolutely a valid topic for debate) and protecting a world that has become immeasurably better than it ever has been, through protecting the fundamental idea that the individual is sovereign with a right to form a society and choose that society's destiny, leads to a nuclear strike on America by an evil regime, yes, I am prepared to accept that risk. 

Edited March 22, 2022 by Lord Ratner

[FLEA]

4 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

You keep spouting this ridiculous nonsense, which is especially insane coming from someone who is actually in the military. How did your oath of office go? I must have missed the part where they asked me to put my family in the path of a hypothetical nuke.

 

You keep acting like the worst thing that could happen is an American city being nuked. And maybe it is the worst thing that could happen this year, but it's not the worst thing that could happen at all. Empires fall, and some of us believe that the United States in decline is a tragedy for the billions of people on this planet. We've done more to advance the cause of human flourishing than any other society in history and at a pace never before imagined. That wasn't happenstance. It was a series of ideals developed over centuries, primarily in the West, that culminated in what we have today.

 

Those ideals will not die in a nuclear strike on New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. But they will die if we decide that there is no right and wrong, that self-interest is the only metric by which we engage in the world. And using previous examples of failure to be righteous is a pretty shitty excuse for failing again in the future. Not only will it lead to a dimmer future for my kids and their kids, appeasement doesn't fucking work. It's kind of like communism, everybody always has a fancy new academic way to do it, and it's totally going to be different this time, and then we end up in the same place.

So rather than pretend like your question has any logical basis, I will answer the more rational and less hyperventilating version of it.

 

If doing the right thing (which is absolutely a valid topic for debate) and protecting a world that has become immeasurably better that it ever has been, through protecting the fundamental idea that the individual is sovereign with a right to form a society and choose that society's destiny, leads to a nuclear strike on America by an evil regime, yes, I am prepared to accept that risk. 

Bro, the people of NYC didn't take an oath. You seem to keep forgetting that. Those families are relying on you to protect them and your on here spouting non sense about how Ukrainian lives are more important than theirs. Your responsibility is to protect the people of NYC, not the people of Ukraine. 

 

[Lord Ratner]

2 minutes ago, FLEA said:

How are you going to stand up these no fly zones? How are you going to move the forces there to do it? How will you stop trade between Russia and China or South Korea? How will you enforce sanctions? What makes you think Russians will just welcome an occupation? How will you stage forces to do all of this? How are you going to track monitor and control the destruction of Russian nuclear weapons? How are you going to secure those sites before they are used again? 

 

Your plan doesn't sound well thought out. The US does not have the power to do 95% of this unilaterally. NATO likely doesn't have the power to do 50% of that. Especially securing nuclear weapons sites. 

And what of the vast majority of Russian citizens you will enrage and take up arms against you. You know most Russians STRONGLY support Putin right? 

 

Yeah dude, war sucks. Is your new argument that I haven't adequately put together a detailed plan of action for the entire armed forces of the West to employ against Russia? Shall I prioritize the targets for the initial strike as well?

 

It's ironic that you think my position is poorly thought through, yet yours has absolutely no consideration for what the long-term effects of permanent appeasement entails. Just as long as your family doesn't have to move into the path of a nuke, right?

 

The failing of your position is that there is a winning possibility. There isn't. There's just a series of shitty situations. You believe that staying out of Ukraine means only the Ukrainians will suffer and the rest of the world will bop along happily. I disagree. I think many generations will suffer if the United States is unable to respond to a nuclear attack by one country on another. 

2 minutes ago, FLEA said:

Bro, the people of NYC didn't take an oath. You seem to keep forgetting that. Those families are relying on you to protect them and your on here spouting non sense about how Ukrainian lives are more important than theirs. Your responsibility is to protect the people of NYC, not the people of Ukraine. 

 

Ok, you are clearly incapable of reading a post and responding to the actual content. If you haven't realized by now that my point is it's not about defending Ukrainians, then your ability to read is beyond my ability to fix.

[hockeydork]

5 minutes ago, FLEA said:

How are you going to stand up these no fly zones? How are you going to move the forces there to do it? How will you stop trade between Russia and China or South Korea? How will you enforce sanctions? What makes you think Russians will just welcome an occupation? How will you stage forces to do all of this? How are you going to track monitor and control the destruction of Russian nuclear weapons? How are you going to secure those sites before they are used again? 

 

Your plan doesn't sound well thought out. The US does not have the power to do 95% of this unilaterally. NATO likely doesn't have the power to do 50% of that. Especially securing nuclear weapons sites. 

And what of the vast majority of Russian citizens you will enrage and take up arms against you. You know most Russians STRONGLY support Putin right? 

 

This is what I was alluding to earlier. You would need the whole world to collectively be like "oh absolutely not" if Russia did use one, including China/India/Pakistan. Which would be possible and the best solution, but its an unknown that we could all collectively band together like that. I'm not a two wrongs make a right person usually, but I think there is validity to making it clear that if he uses a small nuke in Ukraine, it is very likely we will supply them with something comparable to shoot back at the Russians, in Ukraine. I'm not saying we should go nuking Moscow, but letting the bully use one and letting him not have to pay the price? Disaster. We will end up paying that bill at some point in the future. 

If you let the narrative of using tactical nukes offensively and successfully, to be written into history. We're all screwed. The next conflict will just be countries slinging tactical nukes at each others bases. 

[HeloDude]

29 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

I would not respond with nukes. I would absolutely retaliate with nukes against a nuclear attack on the United States, and I would consider it a reasonable response to a nuclear attack on a NATO ally, though not a mandatory response. We do not need nukes to destroy a country.

 

I would, however, respond with a declaration of war, a total blockade of all commerce with Russia (to include sanctions against any country that continues to support Russia), a No fly zone anywhere we could install one, and the explicit condition that the war ends upon the surrender or death of Putin and the officials we deem instrumental to the usage of nukes, as well as the denuclearization of Russia. Of course all the propaganda we put out would be that we are at war with the Putin regime, not the Russian people, yada yada yada. We have to have a clear objective (removal of Putin, denuclearization of Russia), as well as a plan to quickly and aggressively reintegrate the Russian people with the world economy at the end of the war. The Russian people are not Afghans, they were already heavily enmeshed in Western culture, and intimately tied to the rest of the world.

 

Is it possible that Russia responds to that declaration with a nuclear attack against the United States? It is. It's also possible that Putin loses his mind and launches a new anyways. We've had to live with the realistic threat of nuclear war since we invented the damn things. 

 

But the nuclear peace that followed world war II was not one based on the appeasement, it was based on strength. In fact, we have spent decades since then appeasing Russia in the hopes that they would become something they have not. And here we are.

 

As to the support of the American people, I might have sided with you prior to the invasion, but seeing the response of the citizenry of the world has given me pause. I did not expect the world to support Ukraine to the extent that they have, and I suspect that a nuclear attack would rouse something in all of us we forgot was there.

Well, I can’t disagree on using nukes against Russia if they nuke us…you know, The United States of America.  The country is care about, pay taxes, serve, etc. 

As for declaring war against Russia for launching a nuke against Ukraine…why? Why is that your red line vs what they’ve already done?  If they kill a hundred thousand Ukrainians using conventional weapons then why wouldn’t you declare war then? What if they kill a million?  And yes, if we declare war against Russia for not attacking the US, then we’re asking for pain, when we don’t have to.  

Again…our greatest concern right now should be our economy, but to many it appears to be the well being of a European country on the other side of the globe.  And for those that say “it can be both”…this is how you get yourself over $30T in debt.