Often I wonder which of our leaders has ever played poker. It seems like Putin has figured out that we won't push all-in, ever, so he steals another pot.
If the west really cared about this, the only way now is to retaliate way out of proportion to what's happened.
Before this happened, the west also didn't act like it wanted to contain the Russians, so the Russians got brave. If there had been some sort of response the Russians would have backed off. It's somewhat stable for both sides to bluster about this or that minor victory. Can't do that now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/opinion/putin-ukraine-nat...
It's actually exactly the opposite and the guy who wrote the book on containment called it a tragedy. We don't need to rewrite history.
But it's also the case that the west is straddling strategies here. Either do as Kennan says and just leave NATO the way it was and don't poke the wounded bear, or actually encircle Russia completely, stick nukes in their back yard and show them who is boss.
Don't pretend to do both and neither, that is the worst of all worlds.
Are you sure about that? Are you really willing to risk your chips betting on a retreat? This sort of geopolitical chicken would be incredibly dangerous.
There's at least one other world leader who clings to power because of this trait.
Recent mutterings suggest Trump thinks highly of Putin though, so it's hard to tell.
I don't think the president of the US has the authority to nuke anything by his own accord.
Those laws are very very vague and like you said, it's possible someone in the chain of command could argue it's against the law since a nuke would likely cause collateral damage one way or another. I think it's technically incorrect to definitively say that the US president has complete and total control over nuking a target.
Turns out Trump's general hard line on everything was useful for something.
the nuclear football is basically a fancy sat phone though, so it's less clear if the generals who get the war order would actually obey.
Care to provide a source for this?
If you're referring to the podcast where Trump mentioned that Putin's move (annexation of Lugansk & Donetsk) is "genious", that's not some sort of fanboyism or admiration, but simply admitting that the move, tactically, was really good - a lot of people (myself included) did fall for it!
>“He’s taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. I’d say that’s pretty smart,” Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to New York Times reporter Shane Goldmacher and video footage obtained by the pro-Democratic group American Bridge. “He’s taking over a country, really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people, just walking right in.”
To anyone with basic reading comprehension, it's obvious that Trump isn't praising Putin, he's praising Putin's tactics, which, judging by the (lack of) response from the West, is pretty smart!
In fact if NATO had moved in about 50 to 100K troops at the invitation of Ukraine sometime over the past 3 months, its really unlikely that Putin would have upped the ante.
If anything the multiyear patience and planning on his part suggests he absolutely wants to win and wont take a chance if he thinks he might lose or draw
Meanwhile Russia being right on the border quickly invades Ukraine before the NATO troops can arrive and now we have NATO troops entering a war zone or pulling back and looking even weaker. Also, this sounds eerily like the start of WWI although then it was Russia mobilizing and Germany then decided to move quickly into Belgium and North into Russia.
It's useful to remember that "almost certainly" is a synonym for "not necessarily".
I hope to avoid a nuclear war. If we get bombed I hope to be in the middle of the first blast or far away. (I'm actually not sure which I'd prefer.)
If it comes to the nuclear option it is that simple.
I've tried to live a good life and asked God to forgive me what I either have misunderstood or haven't been able to do right.
So for now I'll just try to focus on my assigned tasks:
- take care of my family
- take care of my customer
- take care of my neighbors and everyone else
- answer if my home country wants me back in uniform
There's some wisdom in this even if one forgets who wrote it: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206%3A2...
It’s easy to try to appease aggressors thinking that somehow they will have enough eventually, but this is short term thinking. In the end they will only stop when you stand up and fight.
> they will have enough eventually, but this is short term thinking. In the end they will only stop when you stand up and fight.
There's such a thing as a lifespan. People come and go, and everyone should be proactively seeking long-term beyond-personality diplomacy and statesmanship.
> In the end they will only stop when you stand up and fight.
this is no longer a WW2 era, you can't just stand up and fight, nukes don't care if you stand up or lie down.
Threatening with nukes on the other hand is an almost as good weapon but only effective of you convince the other party you mean it and only countered by the others also being willing to use them. It's the MAD policy and it worked quite well during the cold war.
Did not work out that great for the appeasers in WW2 in the end.
are you really suggesting that threatening Putin with NATO nukes servers your wellbeing better than giving him a part of East Ukraine for a time being? Are you suggesting that your government won't be capable of negotiating a peaceful gradual transition of the region back to Ukraine in the post-Putin era? Such cases were possible in the past, if you read history. But it required skilled statesmanship and diplomacy instead of quick emotional reactions to intimidate and retaliate.
Or in 10 year you'll see the entire Europe in his hands while the rest of the world is being carved between him and Xi.
But in the mean time, they’ll be able to kill a whole lot of people and destroy a whole lot of lives, and wreck Ukrainian democracy and economic prosperity for years if not decades.
This is obviously a terrible situation for the Ukrainian people but at the same time they could have done a lot more to prevent it. They essentially let their military deterrent collapse years ago through a mix of corruption and apathy. If they had had a real combat effective military back in 2014 then Russia probably wouldn't have invaded in the first place.
I'm skeptical. Russia has been harrying and undermining Ukraine for many years. Remember Viktor Yanukovych and all the turmoil of that era? It's not like Ukraine has been through a period of decadence where they slacked off — they've never caught a break.
And now the full force of Russian imperialism is crashing down on them.
Hitler did the same thing right up until 1939. From what I've read he was actually surprised that the allies finally called his bluff after Poland, considering they just rolled over after the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.
I think Putin wants to escalate beyond Ukraine and conquer at least parts of the Baltic countries. Hopefully NATO will stand firm against that.
Have you read his recent announcement? He warned every foreign nation not to meddle or else:
> To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside - if you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history,’ he said on a television broadcast around 6am Moscow time.
The alternative is to let him repeat 1939.
The lesson learned should be that if you don't stop the thug with force, then he will eventually become strong enough to stop you.
this is a lesson of a past war, the world has moved, this is no longer a WW2 era, if you try to apply a similar foreign intervention now the chances are you'll get a nuke on your lawn.
You don't get to put that one back in the bottle, and you're going to have to have more faith than the Pope to think that no one will respond.
Nuclear War isn't like Civilization. It's a momentary bang followed by a lot of whimper.
How popular do you think Putin will be at home when he announces he's going to full war with NATO? How would he even do that? You think he's going to launch ICBMs?
Putin is not elected by a popular vote, the voice of the people does not matter there.
Estonia is a NATO member already, the current conflict has been escalated because of the previously announced red line demands (Ukraine never getting into NATO) that the US diplomats discarded. It is their job to negotiate peace in the region too. Negotiations is a nasty business and the outcomes are nasty too. Those who seek easy and pretty solutions that satisfy all parties in one step are destined to escalate the situation further up.
You also have to take into consideration the last 2 times Germany entered a conflict it didn't work out too well for them, so they have all the more reasons to be reserved.
Despite the bluster of "I'm the only one who's gone toe to toe with Putin" there is only so much anyone can do in this situation. If KSA decided to invade one of its neighbors, there is only so much anyone could do because doing anything would severely disrupt energy. But in the Caucasus and Dnieper areas there, I mean you have nukes involved. Like India and Pakistan.
Then there is the promise we made not to station missiles in territories bordering Russia and the whole Orange Revolution Obama thing. That's a big deal to them just as it would be a big deal if Russia stationed missiles in Mexico or Cuba. We'd throw a fit too. Just as China would throw a fit if we stationed missiles in Taiwan.
The US could do the same thing. People like to complain about how much a bully the US has been (Chile, Guatemala, Vietnam, etc)... Now they are seeing how real bullies act in Russia and a lesser degree China (but they are on the sidelines biding their time) They can do what they want because they have little constraint --with big players it's self-imposed.
Even Canada does not share nuclear weapons with the US. That genuinely surprised me. US and Canada have unbelievably interconnected militaries -- see NORAD and various Artic zone military bases.
Practically speaking, perhaps you should avoid poking the aggressive neighbor next door, especially when you can't have definitive assurance from the police station three blocks over?
It's not just Putin; Russian leaders through most of the 20thC have feared encroachment on their western borders, and have launched invasions and installed puppet regimes to create a buffer. The fact that Ukraine has clearly expressed its desire to join NATO, and NATO's refusal to reject that possibility, means that Russia perceives a threat that their greatest enemy will suddenly appear right on their border.
Georgia also wanted to join NATO; so they got invaded.
The West has played this hand very badly. Instead of declaring that under no circumstances would they send troops to Ukraine, they should have kept silent, or possibly sent a division of ground troops, to be dispersed around the country. They should also have leaned hard on Ukraine to make Donetsk and Luhansk officially autonomous regions. The Donbas would then become Russia's buffer zone, making them feel a bit less paranoid about NATO encroachment.
FWIW, I think NATO should have dismantled itself following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The modern NATO is a global organisation, not restricted to the North Atlantic. It's no longer a mutual defence pact for countries at risk of Russian attack; its main purpose now is simply to intimidate Russia.
The thug accosts the victim, threatens and then proceeds to assault the victim in full view of a large number of bystanders who are numerous enough to defend the victim and alter the outcome but not convicted enough to take on the inconvenience of doing so.
Nevertheless all the bystanders voice words of encouragement and sympathy and even offer to sue the aggressor in court after the fact if the victim is harmed or killed.