Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[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.  

[FLEA]

7 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

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. 

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.

Your point is about enforcing global rulesets for the offensive use of nuclear weapons. A structure for that already exist. It's called US nuclear umbrella agreements. Hint hint. Ukraine is not one of them. 

You also never explained where all your furor for sovereignty and anti authoritarianism was in the last 70 years when the US clearly did not act anti-authoritarian or pro-sovereignty. Was waiting for that one. 

[FLEA]

8 minutes ago, hockeydork said:

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. 

The whole world wouldn't be. In fact, many smaller nations have strategic interest in upsetting the nuclear rules based order because they gain more out of possessing nuclear weapons than larger states. You would probably get NATO on board. I don't think you would see many other players. 

Another fun fact, Russia possesses enough nuclear weapons to put 3 in every US, Canadian and European population center and still retain a 50% reserve. It would be a loss of 500 million lives instantly, plus additional from fallout and nuclear winter. They also possess an assured second strike capability so total prevention is impossible. 

 

[hockeydork]

1 minute ago, FLEA said:

The whole world wouldn't be. In fact, many smaller nations have strategic interest in upsetting the nuclear rules based order because they gain more out of possessing nuclear weapons than larger states. You would probably get NATO on board. I don't think you would see many other players. 

Another fun fact, Russia possesses enough nuclear weapons to put 3 in every US, Canadian and European population center and still retain a 50% reserve. It would be a loss of 500 million lives instantly, plus additional from fallout and nuclear winter. They also possess an assured second strike capability so total prevention is impossible. 

 

I know which is why entertaining the idea of them using a "small?" one, a "medium?" one, or whatever in Ukraine unchecked is a freaking disaster. This is nuclear weapons, appeasement has no place. We've been riding high on the idea that a nut job won't ever get their hands on them, which was always a statistical impossibility. The amount of destruction you just noted, is exactly why we need to make it clear that we all lose everything if this gets escalated to the level of employing nukes. I want that Russian commander to KNOW that if that nuke goes off in Kyiv, one WILL go off over his own boys. Because that is the ONLY way to get him to not agree to push that button. 

 

I think those 500 million people are more likely to die if we shrug and walk away. Maybe not now, but they'll die eventually when the next conflict kicks off and nuclear weapons is a main ingredient for the participants. 

BTW, there is a high probability that humanity will wipe itself out with nuclear weapons, or at least send civilization back a couple hundred years. To think that we aren't "dumb" enough to do it is shortsighted. War itself is dumb, it is a logical fallacy, yet we do it all the time. We have gotten smarter, and as a world much more tolerant, and wars have for the most part gotten less brutal, but underneath it all were all still animals capable of doing very dumb things. It's all still there under the facade. 

Putin could have challenged Zelensky to a game of darts to decide the fate of Ukraine. Nope, we're animals, we love to resort to the extremes unless a bunch of other animals are around to remind it isn't a good idea. 

[Lord Ratner]

53 minutes ago, FLEA said:

You also never explained where all your furor for sovereignty and anti authoritarianism was in the last 70 years when the US clearly did not act anti-authoritarian or pro-sovereignty. Was waiting for that one. 

How old do you think I am? Further, are you implying ones views are not subject to evolution? 

 

Seriously, your arguments are absurd and emotional. 

[pawnman]

3 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? 

I'd prefer not to lose any, but the effect will be the same once every nuclear country knows that they can blockade us by threatening a nuclear war.

Edited March 22, 2022 by pawnman

[fire4effect]

Biden confirms Russia used hypersonic missiles, warns of coming cyberattacks on US: Live Ukraine updates (msn.com)

Kinzhal as I read it can carry either nuclear or conventional warhead. Scary not even knowing what's coming your way in the relatively brief time it could be tracked.

Edited March 22, 2022 by fire4effect