When Russia gets kicked out of UN, they won’t.
Plus right now the US is making a show of strength against invasions by authoritarian dictators, and Biden has stated that we have "obligations" to Taiwan, although he was intentionally vague he basically said the silent part out loud. It would be political suicide to not respond to a Chinese invasion, and we could respond quite decisively from a military perspective.
China will wait for a more opportune moment.
Then you have Republicans, right now they're deriding Biden for going soft on Putin and blaming him for this crisis (not sure how many are buying it outside of Trump's base, but that's the line). So going soft on a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would play right into that message. No way Biden could do it for that reason alone, let alone the myriad of other motivations.
I read this a lot but I also read some historical analysis about the Cuban Missile Crisis that a lot of the escalation stemmed from a fundamental misunderstanding about their opponent's strategy. It might be a huge oversimplification but it goes something like this:
Americans are playing poker (with all its specific tactics like bluffing) and are judging their opponents based on that, while Russians are playing chess and therefore assume "the bluff" is in fact their opponent's next escalation move.
Would they, though? And even if we take it as given that they would, do we believe that he believes that? The West, and especially USA, has made a number of empty threats over the past couple of decades it's not hard to see why he may not consider this one credible.
That is a serious underestimation.
Why irresponsible? My take on it was that message was aimed at Ukrainians living in the UK who wanted to go and fight. Your average Brit isn't even going to humour that idea.
If Putin is launching nukes, it has nothing to do with Ukraine anymore. The choices are “do we let a madman play with nukes or not?" I think the answer is pretty obvious.
I'm also not convinced that his forces in Ukraine are failing. I hope they are. But it's more likely Russia is only sending in the bare minimum they think will be necessary to minimise losses. They might have underestimated but Russia can win if they're playing the long game.
Think 'Jim Jones', not 'Elder statesman with children'.
Putin has given no indication that he's any different from Stalin in this regard.
Getting some flak for my OP. Not sure why, did I say something controversial?
Oh wait!
He's bluffing with separatist regions.
Oh wait!
He's bluffing with invading Ukraine.
Oh wait!
He's bluffing with actual war.
Oh wait!
... TL;DR: Putin thinks a nuclear war is winnable. https://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war
NB: do you really think Putin cares how you feel?
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Even though there's a war going on and it's scary and activating, it's possible to discuss the topic without breaking those guidelines. Plenty of other users are demonstrating that in this very thread.
> Oh wait!
> He's bluffing with separatist regions.
> Oh wait!
> He's bluffing with invading Ukraine.
> Oh wait!
These are all straw men. I don't know any serious analysts who thought he was bluffing in any of those areas, primarily because they all understood the Western response would be muted.
He knows, as the rest of the world does, that launching nuclear war will require an all-out response from Western powers.
Biden was quoted as saying the Russian attack had unfolded "largely as predicted". Pretending the invasion was some sort of great shocker is a rewrite of history.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-02-24/biden-...
For instance, it talks about Putin's willingness to use "battlefield" nukes rather than "strategic" city-destroying nukes – betting that the West would immediately concede any war where a smaller nuke were deployed in the interest of avoiding escalation.
My guess would be that if he deployed tactical nukes in Ukraine in some capacity NATO would not respond by launching a retaliatory nuclear attack as that would be MAD. Rather they would take the other nuclear option of completely cutting 100% of the banks out of SWIFT and freezing all oil and gas exports in an attempt to completely cripple Russia while eating the pain of those sanctions on their own territories, as I think the people would support it. Secondly I think it would be enough to galvanise millions of Russians to take to the streets and march against Putin to end his reign. This is the scenario I'm currently betting on playing out.
The only way he'd entertain it is if he's truly lost his marbles, and if that's the case then this timeline just got a whole lot shittier regardless of whether we capitulate to the madman with the nukes or not. I sincerely doubt western institutions are going to show their bellies because of Putin's nuclear threats, so we'll see if he's bluffing one way or another.
Then we have nuclear war. Or we let Putin dictate international politics for however long he has left, and tell China/North Korea/every other bad actor that gets nukes for the rest of time that the game is "be serious about launching nukes offensively and you'll get whatever you want". How do you think that'll work long term?
It's that, or Putin at least maintains a shred of rationality. Or his inner circle takes him out before he pushes the button.
For those that still insist that Putin is rational, there's one way to model his current behaviour: his utility function prioritises "make Russia great again", or at the very least, geopolitical concerns. He's willing to take whatever hit he needs to take, whether economically or in the lives of soldiers and civilians, to achieve this goal.
As an aside, I'm really very glad this didn't happen a couple years ago when we had our own mad-man with the launch codes.
If the opposite side believes you completely rational, it limits the actions they believe you'll take. On the other hand, if they believe you're impulsive, there are fewer limits on what they believe you'd do.
... Unfortunately, if they believe you're too irrational, it ends badly.
Completely agree. It would have been a nightmare.
> As an aside, I'm really very glad this didn't happen a couple years ago when we had our own mad-man with the launch codes.
Weirdly enough: the risk of spillover would be lower, the danger to Ukraine much higher. But that is also why we are where we are today: without Trump undermining the whole situation in Ukraine would be quite different and Putin would not have embarked on this thing in the first place.
What are you talking about?
There was the controversy about his talk with Zelenski of course, but the end result is described here:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-admin-approves-sale-an...
And delay in sending weapons to Ukraine is not unknown for the Biden administration:
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/18/white-house-ukraine...
So maybe your point is that sending weapons to Ukraine was a bad idea that just annoyed Putin, and that's why it's Trump's fault?
Looking at broader economic issues, how could you possibly think that Trump's support for energy development in the West helped Russia, which relies on high oil prices to support its economy, as compared to Biden's shutting down of energy development?
In 2017, the first Congressional Delegation to Russia (all Republicans) had a private meeting with Putin on July 4th - Independence Day!
Trump recently praised Putin and called his tactic “genius” and just today Tom Cotton(R) refused to denounce Trumps support of Putin.
Ad nausem…
Trumps indirect support of Putin and Kim Jong Un was also particularly unnerving.
This statement seems detached from reality, unless by "foreign" you mean "Canadian".
I would be worried about Ukraine. I'm not really worried about this spreading to the rest of the world.