Lord Ratner

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.

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. 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. 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. 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?

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.

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.

I think that might be the difficult thing for a lot of people to reconcile. They're simply might not be a scenario where we are not involved, other than surrendering the world order. Unfortunately, everything now boils down to Putin's insanity and his subordinates' will to follow. I don't think either can be reliably assessed. But I think any use of a nuclear weapon anywhere in the world is a guarantee of war, and potentially a world war. I think at that point our response will very much determine whether places like China decide to wait another couple decades before making their move (war), or capitalize on the chaos to advance their strategic goals (world war).

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. Basically, everything short of actually invading Russia. The danger of losing the concept of nuclear deterrence, which explicitly requires the nuclear powers to use nukes for defense only, is too vital to let perish because Putin is afraid of losing control of Russia. Barring nuclear use by Putin, the question of genocide is a much tougher red line to draw. I'm not sure what the right answer is there, because the real strategic victory is for the Ukrainians to defeat Putin rather than the West. It seems more and more likely the Ukrainians can win with enough supplies from the West, but it's by no means certain. If they are overrun and a prolonged insurgency becomes a genocide, what do we do? I find it hard to believe the answer is to just watch.

That's a bold statement

Seriously... And do you remember the address?

Don't misunderstand me, I think you're wrong, still and going forward. But you seem incapable of understanding nuance, if anything at all, so I don't see much of a point continuing. Your individual purchasing vs foreign policy arguments are now bordering on pathetic. You're either too emotional to engage usefully in the conversation, or intentionally constructing ridiculous arguments to cover for a lack of solid footing. Either way, it's boring. If literally quoting what I said in the past is "walking it back" then I'm not sure you understand how conversations work in the first place... I'll try typing slower. Here's the "if" statement: Here's the "then" statement: And here are the *two* qualifying statements that indicate I, the person with an opinion on an opinion board, don't think we/you/people who want inaction are being immoral under the present circumstances. Finally, this part of the sentence indicates that if things get worse and you maintain a position of "not my problem, let them die," then I will absolutely consider your preferred policy to be immoral: If your skin is so thin that you can't handle the idea that you might be holding an immoral position or doing an immoral thing, which *every single one of us* does regularly, and hopefully we all struggle to do better through conversations and experience, just let me know and I'll stop burdening you with the unspeakable pain I've be haphazardly administering.

For ease of reference

You keep saying that, yet I have and do regularly. But as pointed out, you can't buy things with chips in them that don't come from China. Are you just not reading the posts? You should go back and read the entire post. "We aren't there yet."

You asked what I would do, not what I think Biden is doing. Focus. I literally went to a home builders conference with a goal of finding manufacturers from countries other than China. Of note, a window manufacturer in Poland with great prices. Not China great, but still good. One of the features of collective action (government) is that it promotes a sense of fairness, critical in human systems, through uniform enforcement of the collective will. How many people would pay taxes if they weren't mandatory? Yet we all agree there needs to be some revenue source for the government. Do you avoid bridges and roads that were paid for by legislation you disagree with? I disagree with lower taxes for capital gains, and would vote to abolish them. But I'm not going to disadvantage my family when the correct mechanism is voting and communicating. Ironically, I will disadvantage my family to a point, which I do with more expensive purchases from non-China sources. But maximalist arguments are rarely valid. You're making a silly point, which is out of character.

The US can initiate sanctions and demand compliance from other nations. Reference Iran. So in the case of Mexico, should they choose to go their own way, then we take another look at NAFTA, or maybe cut off personal bank wire service between the US and Mexico. Not a difficult country to pressure. Is it the concept I'm not communicating well, or merely the exact detail? Either of us could come up with many options using examples from the past. I'm not sure how them being ops normal with Russia right now is relevant. I'm not the president, so obviously they aren't doing what *I* would do.

First off, they don't have to sanction them, merely comply with the sanctions. But no, the second order sanctions would not have to be punitive (such as seizures or exclusion from SWIFT). But immediate suspension of trade agreements, preferable tax treatment, termination of joint military exercises. It's not particularly hard to exert pressure. We did it with the European countries with the Iranian sanctions, much to the dismay of France and Germany. We're not going to take your wealth (in your example), but your wealth creation through interaction with the United States will suffer. We are the big kid on the block. If you want to live under our security umbrella, you don't get to play with the villains. And as before, the direct violation of national sovereignty, genocide, or nuclear use are clear definitions of villainous activity.

It's amazing how they literally just argue that inflationary things are actually deflationary. No. I expect hyperinflation (already happening) to be reflected in the official numbers, especially as rent increases from last year start making it into the metrics. They are going to get slaughtered.

No worries. How what? How would we stop the slaughter or respond to nukes?

My line is the unprovoked slaughter/domination of one recognized nation by another. Sovereignty is a fundamental to the modern world order. That is a vital interest, especially as the eastern European countries continue developing into formidable economic powers, which benefits any Western-aligned nations through trade. And our biggest adversary world *love* the new precedent of "borders are... Flexible." What about Moldova? Taiwan? Finland? Sweden? Indonesia? Bari Weiss hosted a great debate on her podcast "Honestly" between Matt Taibbi and Bret Stephens about interventionalism. I like Taibbi a lot, but his selective ignorance as to the many success stories of US intervention is very similar to attitudes being expressed here. And no, I don't think we should be boots-on-the-ground in Ukraine, nor should we have a NFZ. Yet. First we should *actually* cut all financial connections with Russia. Zero transactions, full asset seizures, and no tolerance for other nations who support Russia. You want to do business in the US, you don't get to work with the enemy. But if the intentional targeting of civilians becomes the rule, or a tactical nuke is used, then we absolutely should.

Of course I have, but I'm also not dumb enough to think personal purchasing is equivalent to foreign policy. I do go out of my way (and spend more) to avoid Chinese goods where I'm able. Where has it gotten us? Literally the free-est and most prosperous the West (and the rest of the world largely) has ever been. South Korea and Taiwan are certainly better off. Germany, the rest of the EU, and Japan are looking pretty great too. I'm sure Israel appreciated our intervention. Sitting out Rwanda, however, was a bad look, and one of Clinton's biggest regrets. And when we pulled out of Vietnam there was an unfathomable slaughter in Cambodia. Afghanistan isn't looking to great, but I suppose zero deaths in the year prior to the withdrawal was too high a price for the "no more foreign wars!" crowd. It's trendy right now to act like our history is some comedy of errors. It's intellectually hollow and incredibly self-righteous to retroactively interpret history in the most negative light. The world is immeasurably better for billions of people as a direct response to US power projection. "The better part of a century" with American "interventionalism" has been pretty fucking good compared to the better part of a millennium without it.

There is a huge difference in supporting a military effort for a nation that *clearly" yearns for freedom, and the Team America world police bullshit we've been involved in for my entire adult life. The Ukrainian crisis is shaping up to be exactly the type of conflict the do-gooder American spirit is tailored to support. At a certain point, when you tolerate evil that you have the capacity to impede, you are being immoral yourself. We aren't there yet, but we are getting closer. Ask yourself, is there a line the Russians could cross in Ukraine that would justify direct military intervention by NATO/USA? If not, you need to get your morality sensors recalibrated. I'm sure the relativists here will disagree, but that's a morally bankrupt philosophy by design.

Is anyone disagreeing with what Putin believes? We get it. He views the West as aggressive. Cool. Who didn't know that? Prove to me that if we didn't entertain the idea of Ukraine in NATO, Russia would have been content to maintain their present borders forever. You can't, which is why, despite your exhaustive repetition, you are merely repeating a theory. And you are using a class of people (who you hilariously claimed "win wars") who are wrong *constantly* when they make concrete predictions. I'm 100% positive there are idiots in Washington who believed we can invite anyone we want into NATO and Russia would do nothing. But I don't think you're arguing with any of those people here. I've expected Russia to do this everyday since they made their intentions clear with crimea. And I decided long ago that should they proceed, we should stop them. That is an opinion, much like yours.

Yes absolutely. We should have stopped a while ago. We are literally funding our destruction. And the cheap tvs and phones of the past 30 years let the government run rampant with spending that is going to wipe out all the benefits of the three decades of globalization. So what the fuck was the point, besides the destruction of the American middle class? And you're incessantly quoting a class of people who have been obsessed with a cosmopolitan conception of the world for the past century. Yet every time they are proven wrong by reality, they have a new theory for why they were actually right and will get it right next time. Yes, your cherished academics told us that Ukraine could never be a part of NATO. That Russia would attack. And the Russian cherished academics explicitly call for the reincorporation of Ukraine. Not just if Ukraine joined NATO. You are clearly okay with that. The rest of us believe in a fundamental right, of humans, to freedom *if they want it*. And there is a direct correlation between the flourishing of free societies and the increase in the percentage of people across the globe that are part of free societies. A lot of brilliant academics told us that if we just embraced China they would turn into sitcom loving fast food eating freedomphiles. They had some pretty hilarious takes on Stalin too. And the academics were pretty gung ho about the democratization of the Middle East. Let's not forget how much they nailed the covid pandemic. Or that time they told us that carbohydrates were better for you than fat. There is a huge difference between forcing freedom and democracy on a people, protecting their right to pursue it themselves. You're trying to make your opinion more than what it is. But at the end of the day your opinion is that it is worth avoiding a war if it costs denying 40 million people the pursuit of freedom. I disagree. My opinion is that war with belligerent nations is inevitable, and allowing more people into the Free world has the long-term effects of reducing the likelihood of war.

They fully know it. It's just incompatible with their desire for empire building. The Russian/Chinese conception of world affairs is incompatible with the West. Either they adapt, or there will be war. My bet is the latter. But the longer we navel gaze, as you are doing, the longer they have to prepare for the fight. This is the epitome of "don't dress like a slut if you don't want to be raped." Does that mean we strike first? No. But it does mean we don't allow for any trade or economic interaction with countries that won't follow the rules, and we definitely put our full economic weight behind innocent countries (West aligned) that are attacked. We have, and continue to finance our enemies. You're dangerously close to relativism here, and relativism is always a losing philosophy, both in geopolitical outcomes and in general. There *is* a right and wrong. This is wildly illogical. America won the war. Turing and Einstein wouldn't have gotten much done without Patton and Macarthur, who wouldn't have gotten much done without Ford and Kaiser. Only an academic with major insecurities (i.e., academics) would make such an absurd claim. You have to be pants-on-head stupid to think we are going to negotiate Iran out of nukes. But you also thought we would be able to negotiate Russia and Putin out of imperialistic ambitions, so I guess that's consistent. The parallels between the appeasement of Hitler and the appeasement of Putin are getting clearer by the day. I fear the progression of conflict will follow a similar path. If not with Russia, assuredly with China. How do you appease a regime that identifies your downfall as a precondition to their success?

Yup! It was like the very first ils clearance in pilot training. You knew exactly what was coming, prepared for it, rehearsed it, then: ATC: Iron 73 fly heading 150, maintain 3000 feet until established, cleared the ILS runway 13 right. Me: Iron board 737, cleared to land 3000 feet, heading 13, good OBOGS. The other mind fuck is your first experience with ramp. Imagine trying to drive a 737 through a six-lane roundabout in Kabul during rush hour. That's pretty close to CLT ramp.

Incorrect. Many, many people have and do. You simply disagree with the argument. While absurdism is very useful in determining the realistic bounds of an argument, it's still absurdism. So the line is between your absurd hypothetical and the reality of conscription. You are conveniently leaving out a core component of individual freedom, which is the ability to opt out. Leave, go somewhere that doesn't have conscription and respects individual freedom to the maximalist level you are suggesting. You may find it difficult to locate such a society, because such a society most likely exists only in hypothetical conversations. Just as my personal freedom to live on the moon is limited by the physiological realities of a lunar atmosphere, your desire to live in a society that both honors individuality and personal choice while shunning conscription in times of existential threat is limited by the sociological realities of human nature. What you want is simply impossible with the tools you have. Therefore it is absurd. Perhaps one day it will not be. Retroactive takes on history always seem to compare what was done many years ago with what would be done today, or even worse, and a hypothetical society of peak enlightenment. This is the same nonsense mindset that is used against the founding Fathers for participating in slavery, Churchill for his views of colonialism, or comedians for their sexist jokes in the 80s. What was the alternative in the 1930s and 40s, and what would have happened in conflicts before then? How many multicultural societies existed or had existed to the extent the United States had already diversified by then? What was the playbook for having a large population of citizens from a ethnically homogeneous country that had just declared absolute war and attacked your homeland? It's incredibly conceited to use modern norms to judge the past, just as it's incredibly small-minded to use hypothetical best-case outcomes to compare to actual outcomes of previous campaigns. Slavery and genocide are wrong, but it takes a long time to overcome the brutality of nature and reach very unnatural philosophical conclusions. We are gradually working our way towards a set of ideals that are even today are still hypothetical. Just as Olympic runners get closer and closer to the 2-hour marathon, there is no reason to believe 2 hours is just a step on the way to 90 minutes. Your Rand-ian belief in absolute freedom is a yet-unproven theory. We've done quite well getting closer to that goal, but many libertarians miss the irony in castigating socialists for seeking Communist Utopia while promoting an impossible utopia of their own. In your case, a land of absolute individual freedom that somehow survives the predations of the surrounding illiberal societies.

Because society simply doesn't work without it. Not yet at least. Libertarianism is a fantastic philosophy if you already live in a society that values individual liberty and freedom. There aren't a ton of those societies today, and historically the number of them is vanishingly small. They have not, and do not create themselves using the very values they end up instilling. This is fairly obvious, as the United States has relied on conscription while being the undisputed champion of individualism and freedom. Libertarians fall into the same trap that progressive elites fall into. There are a lot of people who are not, under any circumstances, going to face real risk in support of libertarian values. They aren't like you. You joined the military. But those very values that make their lives unfathomably better cannot survive defenseless, and they're simply aren't enough people like you willing to voluntarily defend them. So would the world be better off without free societies at all? Or is this just another instance where black and white thinking fails upon first contact with reality? And if your answer is still "it's not worth defending if people won't defend it voluntarily" then I see no point in considering your philosophy at all, as the alternative to not defending them is a barbarism that is obviously worse than the "slavery" of conscription.