[HN Gopher] Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces ___________________________________________________________________ Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces Author : tosh Score : 343 points Date : 2022-02-24 18:23 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.reuters.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com) | jsiaajdsdaa wrote: | ascii_pasta wrote: | It seem like maybe Ukraine should have kept theirs... | yabones wrote: | Do you really understand the implications of that statement? | Miner49er wrote: | Maybe OP is a Posadist. | jazzyjackson wrote: | Thanks for the rabbithole history lesson, reminds me of | Bannon's "deconstruct the state" angle, an optimism that | somehow things can improve after everything is destroyed... | moffkalast wrote: | We had a good run. Time for some small reptiles to try their | hand at civilization next. | Bud wrote: | Unclear to me why Reuters articles seem officially blessed on HN | in the face of superior reporting from NYT or WaPo, etc. | | I guess the original reason for preferring Reuters or AP was, | avoiding a paywall, but now of course, Reuters has a paywall. | | So I would opine that the traditional flagging/downvoting of NYT | links for this kind of story, in favor of Reuters, should cease. | charliea0 wrote: | The Russian forces seem to be trying to encircle or assault Kyiv. | | I think they've taken the nuclear plant because it is a | defensible point along their shortest line of advance. They | wouldn't want to move past it without controlling the site. | davidzweig wrote: | It appears there are two bridges across the pripyat river in | the vicinity, next crossing is nearly 100km south inside Kiev | city. | bayesian_horse wrote: | I think they seized it because they need the general area to | move their troops. In that case they can't tolerate Ukrainian | troops there, but somebody has to be in control and responsible | for this site to ensure, among other things, no terrorists make | off with radioactive material. | | I'm totally condemning the Russian actions, but in this | particular case they may be acting somewhat responsibly. Unlike | with the bombing of civilians or the whole damn war in the | first place! | rad_gruchalski wrote: | > but somebody has to be in control and responsible for this | site to ensure, among other things, no terrorists make off | with radioactive material | | Please... Russians will just use it for their propaganda as a | support to the claim that Ukraine was working on nuclear | weapons. | drekipus wrote: | > Unlike with the bombing of civilians or the whole damn war | in the first place! | | Has this happened? Ukrainian civilians bombed? | toyg wrote: | Never believe anybody who says attacks are "surgical" or | "limited to strategic objectives" - bombs and shrapnels | don't look at documents. War is war, civilian casualties | are always inevitable. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try | to keep their numbers down, of course - in fact, it means | war should never be waged, because innocents will always be | caught in it. | dragontamer wrote: | Some Ukrainian Hospitals have been struck by artillery. No | one knows if it was on purpose or not, but either way | that's pretty bad since the world is still suffering from | the COVID19 pandemic. | anothernewdude wrote: | The Russian Hospital seeking missiles are famous since | Syria. | sofixa wrote: | Yep, multiple cities, including Kyiv, Mariupol, Odessa, | Lviv were bombed, and there's videos out there of civilian | buildings destroyed. | herpderperator wrote: | Yes. A cyclist can be seen going about their life before a | bomb lands in front of them. The proximity would have sent | shrapnel directly into them. They did not survive. It is | extremely sad and awful to watch unfold. Warning: the | second video contains gore. | https://twitter.com/realistqx1/status/1496757503195029508 | and https://twitter.com/zyundex/status/1496735074720563203 | matmatmatmat wrote: | Whether deliberately or not, yes. | odiroot wrote: | Or they just want to cut power supply to the Ukraine capital. | Occam's razor. | smsm42 wrote: | The station has been shut down since 2000. There's no power | supply there. | Arrath wrote: | Could it still be an important part of the distribution | network? Lines, substations, etc. | epolanski wrote: | It's simply the shortest and simplest path from Belarus | to Kiev. It has strategic military value. | garaetjjte wrote: | Chernobyl power plant isn't operational since 2000. | bjtitus wrote: | Is any part of Chernobyl still in operation? It seems like | everything was shut down by 2000 (https://en.wikipedia.org/ | wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant). | odiroot wrote: | I stand corrected then! | nine_k wrote: | Also, either side would be pretty reluctant to bomb it, or | otherwise battle too hard close to it. It's a great position to | hold if you can. | giantg2 wrote: | They probably don't want to damage the structure itself, but | the exclusion zone around it is quite large with little risk | of collateral damage (possibly easier to engage). | BuyMyBitcoins wrote: | There is a lot of contamination that was simply buried | underneath the topsoil during the cleanup efforts. Bombing | or artillery strikes would likely cause some of that to be | kicked back up into the atmosphere. | hutzlibu wrote: | "It's a great position to hold if you can." | | It is a great position to hold and fight in, because the area | is pretty empty of civilians. And russia must avoid ukranian | (russian in their eyes) civilian casualties, to not loose the | little popular support they have for this war. | | And neither side will be so stupid to directly bomb the | remains of the reactor, but I think it would need a serious | direct bombing, for radiation to leak out. I don't think | there can be still a major uncontrolled chain reaction. The | worst that can happen under normal circumstances, is | radiation leaking out. | | (but all this is from the back of my head knowledge, about | documentaries about chernobyl, I might be wrong) | celticninja wrote: | I don't think Putin is worried about loss of life of | Ukrainian citizens. He is worried about losing soldiers, or | more importantly dead soldiers being repatriated on the | news. They will cover up civilian casualties or blame them | on Ukrainian troops. The only support for this will come | from Russia domestically and it is that which he seeks to | maintain with this war. Which I'm guessing he hoped would | be quick and decisive, avoiding the bloodshed of Russian | soldiers that will be his undoing at home. | csee wrote: | He should be worried about catastrophic losses like that, | it'd be a propaganda coup against him. Small scale | killings can be swept under the rug though. | drekipus wrote: | This isn't the US in Iraq, we're talking about Russia and | Ukraine here | csee wrote: | Russia still has social media. A catastrophic loss of | Ukranian civilians in one event won't get buried easily. | beaconstudios wrote: | However, as an autocratic state, I wouldn't be surprised | if Russian social media was shut down if it was used to | spread messages contrary to state propaganda. | hutzlibu wrote: | "I don't think Putin is worried about loss of life of | Ukrainian citizens." | | Then he would just shell and flatten all the ukrainian | cities. Russia has air superiority as far as I know. | EugeneOZ wrote: | Putin just wants to create another puppet-state, same as | Belarus. He absolutely doesn't care about the lives of | civilians, but ruining the infrastructure is not in his | plans (only strategical infrastructure) | selfhoster11 wrote: | Every city he doesn't shell, is a city he doesn't have to | rebuild. Roads and other pieces of infrastructure are | valuable, no matter how old. | hutzlibu wrote: | And every ukrainian with family ties to russias heartland | that not dies, is one family less to worry about | politically. | anothernewdude wrote: | Then their bombing of hospitals was a bit silly | bayesian_horse wrote: | The issue is not about bombing or not bombing it, also the | area is worthless from a strategic point of view. | | It's just that somebody has to be in control of it, and the | Russians can't or don't want to depend on Ukrainian forces | to do that right now. | smsm42 wrote: | Also because it's very dangerous to attack a place where | there's a lot of radioactive waste being stored. And if things | go really bad, you can always pull off a "insane Ukrainians | just shelled the power plant and broke nuclear containment" - | if Russians can't have Kiev, nobody will have it. | yread wrote: | > An official familiar with current assessments said Russian | shelling hit a radioactive waste repository at Chernobyl, and | an increase in radiation levels was reported. The increase | could not be immediately corroborated. | | You mean like this? | | https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-chernobyl-russia- | invasion... | scyzoryk_xyz wrote: | Also a great news bullet point in the information war. "Russian | forces taking Chernobyl" sounds much more familiar and much | more terrifying than "Russian forces taking Chernihiv region" | to all of us unfamiliar with the country. Even if strategically | realistically it's the latter that is more important than the | former. | godmode2019 wrote: | It also has the following affect: """Don't the Russians | already own Chernobyl? I guess it must not be in Russia. I | saw a movie and I think they were speaking Russian. Wow they | must be crazy actually entering a radiation zone, won't half | of the troops die from exposure. I wouldn't want my son | fighting those lunatics.""" | gutitout wrote: | A lot of people there do speak Russian there. And yes it's | still radioactive, albeit less than a few decades ago. If | you're sending your son to fight, radiation probably the | last thing to kill him. | giantg2 wrote: | I think it would be crazy for another reason - there is | very little in that area that could be collateral damage, | and there's not really anyone who is supposed to be in | there. This should make it very easy to target forces in | the exclusion zone. | squarefoot wrote: | > The Russian forces seem to be trying to encircle or assault | Kyiv. | | Yes, but although Putin is a bloody bastard, he's not stupid. | His plan isn't to take entire control of Ukraine militarily but | to swap the legit government with a puppet one he would control | at will. Once he succeed, which is a matter of a few days, | he'll gradually withdraw most of the forces, things will slowly | return to normal and in a few years Ukraine will essentially | (if not effectively) annex itself to Russia, with both the EU | and US doing nothing but economic sanctions Putin and the | oligarchs were long prepared against. Most of Europe depends on | Russian gas, which means the moment those sanctions become too | harsh is the moment he'll either cut our supply or further | raise the prices (my last heating bill already doubled). That's | his guarantee against any real action. I'm sorry, but Ukrainian | people are screwed. | pkulak wrote: | Holy crap, Europe needs to get off natural gas yesterday. | krzat wrote: | Shutting down atomic power in Germany was such a brilliant | move. | toomuchtodo wrote: | > Shutting down atomic power in Germany was such a | brilliant move. | | What's done is done. Europe has enough wind potential to | power the world [1]. Add solar [2], batteries, | transmission, pumped hydro, remaining operational | nuclear, and electrify everything (EVs, heat pumps, etc). | Fill the remainder with LNG shipments from the US in the | short term [3]. It's a national | defense/security/sovereignty issue now to get off of | Russian gas, and it should be treated as such with | regards to allocation of resources to speed the effort. | | [1] https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/europes- | onshore-and-o... | | [2] https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/solar- | seen-clai... | | [3] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/europe- | remains-top-d... | polotics wrote: | Europe does not have enough wind power potential to power | the world, by a very large margin. To power France with | wind, not just electricity but all energy needs including | oil, natgas, etc... you would need one large windmill for | every single square kilometer of the country... | toomuchtodo wrote: | Research paper with data to provide a citation for my | assertion: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/ | abs/pii/S03014... | | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2019.06.064 | | I confirmed it's in SciHub if you want to grab a copy. | | > The continuous development of onshore wind farms is an | important feature of the European transition towards an | energy system powered by distributed renewables and low- | carbon resources. This study assesses and simulates | potential for future onshore wind turbine installations | throughout Europe. The study depicts, via maps, all the | national and regional socio-technical restrictions and | regulations for wind project development using spatial | analysis conducted through GIS. The inputs for the | analyses were based on an original dataset compiled from | satellites and public databases relating to electricity, | planning, and other dimensions. Taking into consideration | socio-technical constraints, which restricts 54% of the | combined land area in Europe, the study reveals a | nameplate capacity of 52.5 TW of untapped onshore wind | power potential in Europe - equivalent to 1 MW per 16 | European citizens - a supply that would be sufficient to | cover the global all-sector energy demand from now | through to 2050. The study offers a more rigorous, multi- | dimensional, and granular atlas of onshore wind energy | development that can assist with future energy policy, | research, and planning. | heurisko wrote: | I was/am pro-energy transition. | | But it's obvious that it was too fast too soon. | Capability should have been built up before | decommissioning. | throwaway894345 wrote: | Yeah, this has been my frustration for a while. Honestly, | at this point just buy natural gas from a country that | isn't helmed by a warlord. Similarly, Germany | decommissioning its nuclear reactors isn't helping matters. | I genuinely wonder what short term solutions are feasible | with respect to decreasing dependence on Russian gas--can | Europe ramp up production of heat pumps or similar? Is | "Norway expanding its natural gas capacity" a reasonable | short term option? Would love to hear from people who know | anything about this. | labster wrote: | As a disgruntled climate scientist, I think Europe needs to | get off natural gas by 1990. It's not as if the security | benefits weren't obvious when we all were buying from the | Arab world, or the wider global security destabilization | caused by climate change. | pasabagi wrote: | The cancellation of the NS2 pipeline has been a silver | lining, even if it's hard to compare the long-term quanta | of brutality a given amount of CO2 leads to vs the short | term brutality of war. | selfhoster11 wrote: | Everyone who had eyes and was watching the natural gas | situation in Germany and other countries to the east of it, | would see that even a few years ago. | tlear wrote: | You missed the step where he needs to brutalize population | into submission. This will take time and mountains of | corpses. He can't just put a puppet there and call it a day. | Puppet will be dead by week after. No he has to occupy the | country and crush the opposition. | toyg wrote: | Gas is important, but what is more important is the nuclear | arsenal. | | The US, China, Russia, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North | Korea, are effectively untouchable by conventional military | means, because they are able and _willing_ to unleash nuclear | holocaust in return - no matter what they do. | beecafe wrote: | It's not clear that the West is willing. | sofixa wrote: | > His plan isn't to take entire control of Ukraine militarily | but to swap the legit government with a puppet one he would | control at will. Once he succeed, which is a matter of a few | days,he'll gradually withdraw most of the forces, things will | slowly return to normal and in a few years Ukraine will | essentially (if not effectively) annex itself to Russia | | I wouldn't be so certain. I don't think Ukrainians would just | comply, many of them would fight against such a thing and | would know the new regime is fake. Furthermore, Kyiv is a big | city with peculiar geography. Urban fighting is hell, and if | Ukraine decides to make a principled stand there it could | take weeks of bloody fighting before it falls; and if | Ukraine's government evacuates to Lviv in time, and continues | the fight from there, it might result in a long struggle, | regardless of who gets installed in Kyiv by Putin. | | Oh and we don't know how the Russian public will react if the | war gets to an urban bloodbath going for weeks or months. | sterlind wrote: | what if Russia used chemical weapons? doesn't hurt physical | infrastructure, provokes shock and fear, kills or | incapacitates a lot of people, denies tons of area to the | Ukrainians. | | I'm not sure Russia has much left to lose politically by | stooping to that. | throwaway894345 wrote: | Genuine question: how much does Russian public opinion | matter? It's not like Russia has free elections. Iran's | Islamic Republic seems pretty secure despite low public | approval. I'm sure public opinion is important, but I don't | understand its role in a dictatorship. | risyachka wrote: | Though he is not stupid, he can't think clearly. Can't even | control his rage as seen from last interviews. | RC_ITR wrote: | That's such a straightforward narrative, but then why has no | major power ever been able to annex and occupy an unwilling | nation before? | | Everywhere Russia has taken to date was already a separatist | region, but I'm really racking my brain to think of times | when a country 'just simply annexed' another area by force | since the fall of the Raj. | bombcar wrote: | Tibet? | RC_ITR wrote: | Tibet was under control of the Qing Dynasty (i.e. China) | until its end in 1912. | | From 1912-1950, Tibet (due to its remoteness) acted as an | _de facto_ independent region, despite Western legal | precedent stating it was still under the control of | Beijing. | | When attempting to get _de jure_ independence from China | in 1951, China asserted control over the region. | | So sort of, but not really. | alisonatwork wrote: | There are a few. Off the top of my head Tibet and Western | Sahara come to mind. Perhaps some parts of now-Israel. | RC_ITR wrote: | Western Sahara has a population similar to Huntsville | Alabama's metro region, so I guess you are right, but I | hope you also see why that situation is very different | from this one. | | As for Tibet, repeating an earlier comment: | | _Tibet was under control of the Qing Dynasty (i.e. | China) until its end in 1912. From 1912-1950, Tibet (due | to its remoteness) acted as an de facto independent | region, despite Western legal precedent stating it was | still under the control of Beijing. | | When attempting to get de jure independence from China in | 1951, China asserted control over the region. | | So sort of, but not really._ | brimble wrote: | Yeah, having trouble thinking of one since '57. Examples | abound from the first half of the 20th century (and | certainly before then), but less so in the latter half. | | Smaller states, though, yes. But not major powers. This | _may_ have more to do with shifting priorities for major | powers, than with anything else. | drekipus wrote: | Hong Kong? | RC_ITR wrote: | that was a 99 year lease expiring. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_for_the_Extensio | n_o... | throw10920 wrote: | ...the Sino-British Joint Declaration is still in effect, | until 2047. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino- | British_Joint_Declaration | vijayr02 wrote: | Annexation of Goa [0] | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Goa | | edit: my bad, I missed the "unwilling nation" part of the | parent content | seattle_spring wrote: | The next iteration of S.T.A.L.K.E R. is going to be nuts. | throwoutway wrote: | It is worth remembering that the Chernobyl sarcophagus was paid | for by the EU. Not sure if that makes it EU property though | thesaintlives wrote: | Yes! Well worth remembering. Get your best pen out and write a | complaint letter to President Putin. For sure it will stop the | invasion dead in its tracks. Genius! | agilob wrote: | EU also paid to build a city in what used to be Palestine, and | before anyone moved in Israel demolished it all. No one even | talked about it for more than a day | | > 319 Palestinian owned structures were demolished or seized, | and 447 people (including 222 children) were displaced. Of the | structures targeted in the six-month reporting period, 62 | structures were funded by the EU or EU Member States with a | value of nearly EUR 391,406. | | https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/20200528_final_si... | rhn_mk1 wrote: | What city? Can you post sources? | agilob wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_demolition_of_Palesti | n... | | https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/20200528_final_s | i... | gjsman-1000 wrote: | Well, Russia will appreciate the gift. "Thanks for cleaning up | the mess for us before we invaded." | mtmail wrote: | Let by G7 but many other countries contributed | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Shelter_Fund | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement | docdeek wrote: | Not an expert but I would doubt it. Most every part of the EU | has signs at testing to the fact that X (a road, a bridge, a | building) was paid for by EU funds. | tekno45 wrote: | not a lot of people to look at signs in the literal middle of | a nuclear exclusion zone. | adamredwoods wrote: | If it protects EU, then the EU has a stake in it: | | >> Russia wants to control the Chernobyl nuclear reactor to | signal NATO not to interfere militarily, the same source said. | [deleted] | outside1234 wrote: | Hey, good news people, Switzerland is going to remain neutral and | keep taking Russian money. | | And Germany doesn't want to stop Swift because they need sweet | sweet natural gas from Russia | jjtheblunt wrote: | is there a citation for what you wrote? | | I thought I read the exact opposite of both your sentences some | hours ago. perhaps things changed again? | sbmthakur wrote: | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/24/kyiv- | furious-a... | hwers wrote: | I can't really tell what's going on here. Is the EU and America | supposed to be helping out but it's all promises without real | counter attacks? Is this just the calm before the storm as russia | places their troops in the right spots while everyone looks on? | Anyone who's smarter than me who could enlighten me? | arisAlexis wrote: | What do you want them to do exactly, send nukes? | qbasic_forever wrote: | There are plenty of sanctions the US and EU can impose on | Russian oil and gas, but they aren't doing it. | bombcar wrote: | Which tells you everything you need to know about how this | is going down. | gpm wrote: | The EU and America have been clear throughout that they will | not be putting troops on the ground or directly fighting Russia | in response to an invasion of Ukraine. No one is willing to | risk a nuclear war. | | The calm before the storm as Russia places their troops was the | last few months. This is the storm, as Russia takes Ukraine by | force. Assuming they succeed in taking it (which seems very | likely) it's unclear what they plan to do - either installing a | puppet government or incorporating Ukraine into Russia (or a | mix of the two) seems most likely. | | The EU and America (and other friends) have promised severe | sanctions on Russia in response to this - which they are | currently announcing, and they will probably continue to extend | over the coming days. They have also promised to support | Ukraine with intelligence, military supplies, and economic aid. | They have been providing that over the past months, and every | indication is that they will continue to do so as long as it's | possible. | | NATO is also greatly increasing it's readiness, in case Russia | chooses to go beyond Ukraine/Moldova (Moldova is the only | neighbor to Ukraine uninvolved in NATO and the conflict, and | Russia already occupies a piece of it) into any NATO country. | In that eventuality the various NATO countries have all | committed to going to war - there's a reasonably high chance it | would be a nuclear one - which also means it's very unlikely | that Putin will try this. | pishpash wrote: | Nobody promised helping out for real. It's all posturing to get | a proxy pawn to sacrifice for the suzerain's benefit. | Ukrainians got sold down the (Dnieper) river and I'm surprised | they still have not realized somehow, when they should have | realized in 2014 at the latest. I'll eat my words if there is | some other grand strategy behind it but from today it would | seem that even sanctions haven't been agreed upon and readied | to go unlike what we were told. | jcims wrote: | I just had two chinooks fly overhead from the direction of | Wright Patt. I see them maybe once a year. | dekhn wrote: | NATO/US is preparing to handle the refugee flood into countries | invading Ukraine. They are not keeping russia from taking | ukraine or holding it, by using military force. It looks like | the takeover of Ukraine will be done by tomorrow. | gpm wrote: | You're overestimating the speed of the attack. Even if the | Ukrainians put up no resistance (and they have been putting | up resistance) - tanks just don't move that fast/ukraine is a | big place. | | See the dotted lines in this map - that's a rough estimate of | how far the Russians have made it in a day. Even if they | continue at the same pace overnight (unlikely), and the next | day, and the next night, there's still a lot of the country | they won't have physically reached yet. | | https://twitter.com/OSINTNS/status/1496880680143568901/photo. | .. | dekhn wrote: | "By sunset, Russian special forces and airborne troops had | seized the Chernobyl site and were pushing into the | outskirts of Kyiv." (that's an update from NY Times. We can | imagine that special forces will proceed to the government | house and presidential office building through tonight and | have ownership by tomorrow) | dekhn wrote: | Since they're already shelling Kyiv, they obviously have | more options than tanks to take ownership of the | governmental apparatus. | | I can't see how Ukraine can put up any realistic defence | given they now have no radar tracking or air support. | | If your point is "it takes tanks a few days to get to | Kyiv", then, yes, that is technically correct. If your | point is "Russia needs to invade the whole country", no. | They own the country when they control the governmental | apparatus in Kyiv. | gpm wrote: | I think you underestimate how easy it will be to take | control of the government and country. | | Ukraine knew that they would be able to take Kyiv | quickly. Intelligence sources have been saying that for | weeks. They (Ukraine and it's friends) have been | preparing for this - openly talking about partisan style | resistance. | | I'm willing to bet that they need to seize pretty close | to the entire country to maintain any sort of control. | gumby wrote: | I suspect Russia will just keep slicing the sausage. Then | take the western provinces and re install a puppet regime | as was there before (like Belarus). If that turns out to | be inadequate down the road, just take another slice or | two down the road. | | The USSR went partially this way in Finland: sliced off | half the country, though they left the other half alone, | on sufferance. I don't think Putin would be satisfied | with that: he'll want another Yanukovych or Lukashenko. | sveme wrote: | The US did not control either Iraq nor Afghanistan when | they took Baghdad or Kabul, respectively. That's not how | a much weaker force fights nowadays against the more | powerful opponent. | dekhn wrote: | I believe russia has already fully integrated the idea | that this will shift to a guerilla war once they have | complete ownership of all the country. Nor is Ukraine (or | Russia's way of maintaining control over a country once | they occupy it) is really analogous to either of those | countries. | brabel wrote: | It's interesting that people think that when an enemy country | (as most people in the west think of Russia) attacks a neutral | country (after endless warnings and the ocupation of a sizable | part of its territory several years prior, so it's not like | this came out of the blue), that they should intervene as if | they were the world police who decides who can attack who. Or | some kind of righteous peace force who is above it all, that | can attack anyone who attacks anyone else, not seeing the irony | in their position of attacking others who do something they | don't like. | | This thinking really needs to go away. No, it's not ok of | Russia to attack another country. But if your country then | counter-attacks on behalf of Ukraine, you should expect Russia | to then declare war on you immediately. This sounds far- | fetched, but that could actually happen. And something like it | did happen numerous times in history and we all remember very | well how that ended (well some of us do, others seem to have | never even heard of that). | | We like to think Germany was defeated in WWII and the West and | the Soviet Union (for those few who remember the USSR actually | arrived in Berlin first, in fact - but lost more lives than | everyone else combined) won... but that's not true; no one ever | wins a full-scale war like that. Everyone loses, some just lose | a bit less than the others... Germany was nearly flattened, but | not before most of the rest of Europe was as well - priceless | property, artistic treasures, not to mention lives, were lost | well beyond anything that someone who claims to be a "victor" | may admit. This is what happens when a country "helps" others | just to stop a bully they don't like (and then the other side's | allies help them, and so on). | | I really, really hope Europe will never get flattened again, | but seeing what is happening in Ukraine, and how people react | online (some of whom may one day be in a position where they | can actually act) makes me very doubtful of that even in my | lifetime (I still have quite a few decades ahead, I hope...). | | I don't think we should sit and do nothing! But please stop | asking our leaders to lower themselves to the same level as the | aggressor and just drop bombs on other human beings! | | Let's show Russia that while they may, on the very short term, | win a battle, that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable | anymore in the 21st century, and that for a long time ahead, | Russia should find itself isolated form the greates economies | of the world, politically, financially and in any way possible | to make sure they understand that they must never do this | again, and anyone watching should take note that no one is | above the law (that includes the USA!)... if you use violence, | we will not use violence against you (well, not until we're the | direct target of the aggression, even I would concede), but | we'll see you with utmost distrust from then one and make you | regret deeply to have behaved like that. | | If NATO had from the beginning worked this way, we wouldn't | have found ourselves in this situation... most things went on | as normal after Russia took over Krimea. And Putin was not | completely wrong in saying NATO has expanded a lot in the last | 30 years, which entailed planting bombs right at the Russian's | doorsteps from all directions, flagrantly provoking the bear | knowing very well that this was not making them happy, in a | behaviour quite similar to the bully of the story. | ok_dad wrote: | I wish that your comment were taken better here (other than | the "poking the bear" analogy; I don't agree Russia should | have worried about the NATO alliance or taken it as a | threat). No one should be rushing in to fight a war, we need | to figure out how to make such things as this invasion | impossible in the future, and figure out how to fight at a | higher level than using violence and weaponry. Until humanity | realizes that, even in the face of violence, violence is not | the answer, we won't get anywhere, we'll just keep fighting. | I feel for the Ukrainians, but I also feel for dozens of | other groups of peoples all over the world who are oppressed | or who have lost their independence (even some in the | "enlightened" Western Democratic sphere), and I don't | advocate war in those situations any more than here. | rmk wrote: | Ukraine is not a member of NATO, so options are somewhat | limited. Russia intends to use Chernobyl as a deterrent to | NATO, according to the report (how, I do not know). It is also | not straightforward to put a NATO ally right on Russia's | vulnerable flank (it's endless plains and flat ground from | Ukraine to Moscow, which has always been a source of strategic | vulnerability for Moscow), so admitting Ukraine to NATO was | never a concrete possibility. In fact, the US has had to tread | very carefully simply to place missiles that are capable of | carrying nuclear warheads in Poland, which is a neighbor of | Ukraine. | | Russia had a buffer state that was content to do its bidding in | Yanukovich et. al. but after the Ukrainians overthrew their | corrupt government and made moves to establish a genuine | western-style democracy with rule of law, Russia were forced to | shore up their vulnerable flank. This is part of that process. | But they now face bad consequences, including neutral Finland | and Sweden deciding to join NATO, perhaps Georgia also, and | Germany (and Europe in general) starting to look for alternate | energy sources in earnest (Russia supplies a huge percentage of | Europe's energy needs, and is also a huge supplier of many rare | earths and raw materials that are critical to the Semiconductor | Industry). | | EDIT: Belarus is also a client state of Russia's, and there has | been unrest there, so perhaps Russia is sensing that they might | slip as well. Putin is desperate to do whatever it takes to | stay in power in Russia, and these things play into that as | well. | WillPostForFood wrote: | _It is also not straightforward to put a NATO ally right on | Russia 's vulnerable flank_ | | In taking Ukraine, Putin just put Nato on Russia's border. | kasey_junk wrote: | NATO has been on Russias border for going on 20 years. The | Baltic states joined in 2004. | agumonkey wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO for | more details | | did this affect Russia negatively ? from my seat it was | no biggie, and nothing came out of the baltic states | joining.. no threats, accident, economic problems in the | news.. but maybe i'm just blind | jacquesm wrote: | From Russias POV it was. | bayesian_horse wrote: | Yes, countries have neighbors. Learn to deal with it. | | Those neighbors are allowed to join defensive agreements. | Also Gorbatshov denied being "duped" about NATO | expansion. Also Putin has no reason to be bothered by | NATO troops in neighbor countries. They aren't anywhere | close to invasion strength (even if you are prepared to | consider they would want to despite all the treaties). | | It's just that the NATO troops would be in the way when | Putin decides to reintegrate those neighbors too his | historic empire. | jacquesm wrote: | I'm not saying I agree. It's just that Russian politics | is a tad more paranoia driven than you might imagine. | agumonkey wrote: | It makes few sense.. US backed off afghanistan after | failure. The tone since Trump is mostly retreat. | | I'm just trying to understand. | jacquesm wrote: | It's an internal Russian affair that just happened to | spill over into the surrounding countries and that could | engulf the world if not dealt with properly. Russia is | practically bankrupt, infrastructure is failing they have | another 5 to 10 years left and then the bill is due. This | may buy them some time, or it may cost them everything. | bayesian_horse wrote: | How is this buying any time? The sanctions will only make | everything worse. There is no profit to be had from | exploiting Ukraine, at least not comparable to the | military cost and the sanctions. | jacquesm wrote: | It's buying time because Putin owns it, so his cronies | will let him cling to power to either resolve it or pay | the price for failure. | | If not for this he would have to face the fact that | Russia is on its last legs. They won't be able to sustain | this war for very long either hence all the bluster about | repercussions if other countries decide to help Ukraine | prolong the conflict. | agumonkey wrote: | I'm trying to assess how much of it is a blow to russian | empire desire and paranoia, or if there were some more | tangible / material effects. I can understand they really | don't want a US driven group nearby for multiple reasons. | jacquesm wrote: | By Western standards it is probably seen as paranoia, by | Russian standards it is seen as self defense. They have | never really gotten over the implosion of the whole USSR. | agumonkey wrote: | But it's nearing mania .. if their own collapse is | causing them to interpret negligible events to the point | of invasion, anything is on the table ? | jacquesm wrote: | Agreed, anything is on the table. And that is what | worries me, if you start assuming rational actors none of | this makes sense but if you start assuming non-rational | paranoid mafiosi with nukes it starts to all look a lot | more plausible. Putin needs to succeed in subduing | Ukraine or he will be thrown under a very large bus and | then you have the next worry lined up: who will replace | him, which could very well be worse. | | People seem to make the mistake of thinking about this in | some kind of game theoretic way where Russia would have | something to gain or lose but that's the wrong | perspective, Putin couldn't care less about Russia or the | Russians, what he cares about is to cling to power until | he's dying, if he can't do that then his lot could well | be worse. | kasey_junk wrote: | I know _nothing_ about geopolitics but don't your | questions presume that the "Ukraine joins NATO" is a real | reason for the invasion? | | If it's an old fashioned land/riches grab then their | current behavior makes perfect sense. | JohnBooty wrote: | If you're American, try to imagine America partially | breaking up and Washington, Oregon, and Idaho have joined | an alliance helmed by China. | | You're not loving it, you want to make some sharp moves | to prevent more states from considering it, and you'd | like to get those states back somehow in the long run. | | This is a wildly imperfect analogy, but... | rmk wrote: | Yes, I think this will galvanize fence-sitters into | accelerating the process of joining NATO, which is | counterproductive for Russia. | greedo wrote: | "In fact, the US has had to tread very carefully simply to | place missiles that are capable of carrying nuclear warheads | in Poland, which is a neighbor of Ukraine." | | This is Russian disinformation. Aegis Ashore (which is the | system being installed in Poland) is designed to launched SM3 | missiles that are designed to intercept ballistic missiles. | They aren't nuclear armed at all. The Russians have been | claiming that the silos could also launch Tomahawk missiles, | some variants of which are nuclear armed. There have been no | plans for this to happen, and the US has even offered to | allow inspections. | gutitout wrote: | Can't wait to see how "obligated" the USA will feel about | Taiwan. I don't believe NATO is the reason they're not | stopping Putin. | jrs235 wrote: | This explains what you mention: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 | | This guy nailed it 7 years ago! | pertymcpert wrote: | The fact that Germany was going to increase their dependence | on Russian gas with NS2 instead of lowering it is despicable | and incredibly short sighted. Same country which is going | nuclear free. Complete morons. | nuccy wrote: | Ukraine signed a Budapest memorandum [1] where US, France, UK | and Russia guaranteed its territory integrity in exhange for | the 3rd in the world arsenal of nuclear weapons. | | 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Sec | ur... | garaetjjte wrote: | Nobody "guaranteed" anything, they just agreed to respect | Ukraine borders. Which Russia didn't, but other parties | don't have any other obligation than "seek immediate United | Nations Security Council action to provide assistance" when | there is _threat of using nuclear weapons_. | polski-g wrote: | They did no such thing: | https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/7899/why- | dont-s... | | The leaders just signed a piece of paper which was never | ratified by legislators and doesn't even guarantee what you | claim: | | > The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and | the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, | reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations | Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, | as a non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty on the | Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should | become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a | threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used. | | It was just a promise to have a meeting at the UNSC if | something happens. | rmk wrote: | Interesting. I suppose a resolute response to the first | violation by Russia might have helped. | adrr wrote: | US, France and UK have guaranteed that no country will ever | dismantle their nukes for a piece of paper. This will make | the world much more dangerous with Iran pursing nukes which | will be shortly followed by Saudi Arabia. North Korea will | never disarm. Proliferation will continue and technology | advancements will make it easier for countries to acquire | nukes. | pkaye wrote: | Russia is who broke this agreement yet you are blaming | the others? | margalabargala wrote: | It takes two things for an agreement like this to become | worthless. | | The first is a violation of the agreement, which is what | Russia is doing currently. | | The second is the lack of enforcement of the agreement | against the above violator. If the other signatories | enforced the agreement, then it would signal that the | agreement is worthwhile, and other countries would be | willing to enter into it. | | Yes, of course Russia is the aggressor here and was the | first to break the agreement. But the moment when these | agreements become worthless, is when violations are not | enforced, not when violations occur. | whiddershins wrote: | This is true of all contracts. | | Just because someone agrees to something in a contract | doesn't make it enforceable, and it's even worse if the | contract doesn't specify what the consequences are for | breaking it. | pkaye wrote: | Only Russia has not met its obligations of the Memorandum | as listed in this section. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Se | cur... | margalabargala wrote: | Yes. And the US is not obligated to do anything about | that, and they indeed are not doing anything about it. | | Thus such agreements have become worthless. | | Had the US said five days ago, "we will use our military | to ensure the Budapest Memorandum is followed", and | defended Ukraine when invaded, then in the future if a | similar agreement was proposed the country would trust | that it would be followed. They did not, and this means | that no one will again enter into a similar agreement. | | I'm not claiming that a US military intervention would be | the "correct" thing to do, merely that it would be | necessary to preserve worldwide trust in treaties similar | to the Budapest Memorandum. | toyg wrote: | I'm not sure how much trust we'd still have in paper | agreements after a nuclear winter or two... | hutzlibu wrote: | "The memorandum was originally signed by three nuclear | powers: the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and | the United States. China and France gave somewhat weaker | individual assurances in separate documents." | | It is a bit unfair to blame it on US, France and UK only, | when russia signed the document, too - and was the actual | party to violate it by attacking ukraine already in 2014. | | (russia's position is, that since Maidan 2014 the state | with which they signed the treaty, does not exist | anymore) | Ourgon wrote: | It is not just "a bit unfair", it is part of the | nonsensical "all bad things are the fault of 'the west'" | attitude which has gained so much popularity in the last | decades. May I suggest the time has come (or, rather, has | been here a long time) to stop (self-) flagellating and | to start looking at the things which that much maligned | "west" actually does right, things which are - gasp - | worth defending? | hutzlibu wrote: | "May I suggest the time has come (or, rather, has been | here a long time)" | | Well, I agree that this attitude "all bad things are the | fault of 'the west'" is quite stupid. | | But the US is the hegemonial power and wants to maintain | it. So it is natural that those in charge get the flak | for things going wrong. | | And about things going wrong: how about the whole war on | terror? | | Was it really a surprise, that you can't make the world a | safer place, if you attack countries(against | international law in one case), to punish some | individuals? | | And Guantanamo is still open. | | So yes, the west has some democratic and liberal values | worth defending against dictators and co. And some only | understand the language of raw power. But maybe that | would still work better, if we would stick to those | principles all the time and not just, when it suits us. | Ourgon wrote: | I think we all know that "the west" - whether that be the | US, western Europe, Israel, Australia or any other | country which is normally included under that moniker is | not perfect, especially after having those things you | just mentioned dragged up on each and every occasion. | Stop doing that, you do not have to constantly mention | all "our" sins to make a point, _we know_. | | Putin just invaded a sovereign country, maybe you should | _mention some of the bad things he and the oligarchs who | fund him_ have been up to? Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, | polonium poisonings, journalists falling from windows or | being killed on the streets, Alexei Navalny, there 's | plenty to choose from. Come on, let's hear it. We know | "we" are sinners, enough of that - save it for a sunday | sermon or something like that. | | _We Know_. Now, it is time to pick up "The Western | Burden" - or accept the defeat of what we call liberal | democracy. And yes, _we know_ that there are many flaws | in what we call _liberal democracy_. It is still | preferable, warts and all, over the alternatives, whether | that be some harebrained plan from the World Economic | Forum, a kleptocratic oligarchy like Putin 's Russia, a | dystopic surveillance state like Xi's China or some | combination of these. | | So, what's it going to be? More self-flagellation or, | finally, some clear words on where we stand? | hutzlibu wrote: | You speak like all of this happened a long time ago. | | But Guantanamao is still open. | | Assange is waiting for extradiction and a secret trial, | under conditions the UN official called torture. | | Snowden hiding from exposing illegal surveillance. | | And Saudi Arabia still a formidable ally. Despite what | they do in their own country or in places like Yemen (or | in some embassies). | | And the list goes on. (head something about Turkey | lately?) | | And russia is clearly not a real democracy, but it is way | more democratic than saudi arabia (they have no voting at | all, nor human rights) | | "So, what's it going to be? More self-flagellation or, | finally, some clear words on where we stand? " | | So I can say in clear words, that I stand by any | democratic country and any population fighting against | occupying forces. | | But I deeply distrust the motives of the western powers | to actually care about democracy, but rather their stupid | games of geopolitics. | | So yes, I say we start cleaning our shit up. And then we | can maybe start lecture other states and play world | police. | | Because the way I see it: western forces would love to | help get russia their new afghanistan, with lots of | losses, guerilla warfare and dragging it on for years. | But this is not helping the people on the ground. | | Putin is not cemented in power. He can get actually | kicked out by elections. | toyg wrote: | It takes two to tango. Putin is as much a son of the loot | of the USSR as Hitler was of the Versailles agreement. | | Victory must be magnanimous or it's just temporary. | pishpash wrote: | That was always the end game. Non-proliferation is dead. | The name of the game these days is faster/unstoppable | delivery for yourself and detecting/stopping the other | guy. This is why Russia is triggered by NATO ringing it | to potentially neutralize credible MAD while NATO can | claim it's a defensive-only alliance. | sidewndr46 wrote: | While way off topic, why would Saudi Arabia need nuclear | weapons? My understanding is they are pretty closely | allied with Pakistan, a known nuclear state. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _Ukraine is not a member of NATO, so options are somewhat | limited_ | | Ukraine not being in NATO means we aren't obligated to | intervene. We regularly intervene in various things without a | treaty requiring it. | rmk wrote: | Absolutely. But if a NATO member is attacked, then member | states are obligated to come to the member's aid. It's | essentially tantamount to saying, if you are at war with a | NATO member, you are at war with the whole bloc, which | includes USA, UK, France (somewhat in/out member over the | decades), Germany, Turkey, and so on. It's a formidable | group that acts as a deterrent to any would-be aggressor. | | The US is not obligated to intervene in Ukraine, plain and | simple. The US has a strategic partnership with Ukraine, I | think, but it's not an ally. | https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature- | Stories/Story/Article/1... https://www.state.gov/u-s- | ukraine-charter-on-strategic-partn... | _puk wrote: | The scary thing is if NATO decide to get involved, and it | turns into war between NATO and Russia, then the security | of the Baltic States plummets. | | Currently, as NATO members, they are not likely to be | attacked, but if NATO declares war then that deterrent is | gone. | | Hopefully not a likely scenario, but who knows.. There's | been a lot of tension lately, especially with the likes | of Belarus bussing migrants across the border into | Lithuania etc, but no idea where this will end. | rmk wrote: | NATO is a defensive alliance, so there has to be a | provocation for them to act. | aszen wrote: | Not necessarily see their previous involvement in | conflicts. What kind of defence was nato doing in | Afghanistan | marvin wrote: | The attack on Afghanistan was literally an invocation of | NATO's Article 5, the only time this has happened: | | "Article 5 provides that if a NATO Ally is the victim of | an armed attack, each and every other member of the | Alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed | attack against all members and will take the actions it | deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked." | | So, the 9/11 attacks were considered an armed attack on | the United States, and the alliance deemed it necessary | to overthrow the Taliban in order to prevent Al-Qaeda | from perpetrating similar attacks again. | | One can disagree with the rationale behind the decision, | or the cost-benefit ratio. But it did follow the | protocols of the alliance. | aszen wrote: | I think it's very naive to think that us invaded | afganistan to protect itself or prevent similar attacks. | It was pure irrational vengeance by bush. It may follow | their protocols but by no means you can consider invading | and occupying a foreign country for 20 years as | defensive. In effect u cannot call nato a defensive | organization by their involvement in wars where no | defense was required | jgraettinger1 wrote: | > us invaded afganistan to protect itself | | ... is a very different thing than ... | | > occupying a foreign country for 20 years | | When NATO invaded the towers were still smoking, the war- | on-terror intelligence apparatus had yet to be built, and | we (I) had no idea whether another attack was | forthcoming. It felt pretty damn reasonable at the time. | GavinMcG wrote: | You're looking at it in retrospect, but decisions to | involve NATO in responding to an attack on a member | aren't made with the benefit of hindsight. | favorited wrote: | The idea was that the Taliban was harboring Al-Qaeda, so | NATO members were assisting the US in response to the | 9/11 attacks. | aszen wrote: | Come on folks, u r smart and intelligent unlike most of | the internet Do u seriously think US needed support of a | dozen countries to chase away some ak47 weilding dudes in | caves with no airforce or modern weaponry. Nato invaded | afganistan. | bluejekyll wrote: | Whether you believe it was right or wrong to get involved | in Afghanistan, NATO's involvement there (not Iraq) was a | direct response to the 9/11 attacks and the government | (at the time) of Afghanistan's refusing to allow the US | to directly target the group responsible that was based | there. | aszen wrote: | Their response was invading a country for 20 years, you | can hardly count it as defensive. Invading afghanistan | was always about more than 9/11, it was far more than | that. | epgui wrote: | The difference between a defensive response and an | offensive is not how long it lasts. | wazoox wrote: | Like in Libya in 2011? In Kosovo in 1999? This fairy tale | has been dead for decades now. | ggreg84 wrote: | Note that every member can decide how it aids. | | Germany aid to Ukraine was to send them 5k helmets. | | Those helmets didn't do anything against Russia's | missiles. | | --- | | That is, attacking a member of NATO just means that all | other members must help it, but how they help, is up to | them, and that help can be just a pat in the back. | Arubis wrote: | > if a NATO member is attacked, then member states are | obligated to come to the member's aid. It's essentially | tantamount to saying, if you are at war with a NATO | member, you are at war with the whole bloc, | | This is the deterrent--and it also rhymes with the Triple | Entente v. Triple Alliance tensions that set off the | Great War. | toyg wrote: | Turkey has complained for years that NATO would be | required to help them with this or that conflict in the | area, and it didn't. | | In the end, there is no supranational tribunal for | military allegiances - in matters of conflict, Hobbes' | jungle is still very much there. | avazhi wrote: | America will do nothing except 'strongly condemn' what's | happening, just like the rest of the world. The simple fact | is that there is no real upside to risking actual war with | Russia - that the Russians will dominate the Ukraine while | walking away with a bloody nose (in the form of minor troop | losses of its own) is a foregone conclusion. Without more, | that's a localised conflict that Russia rather hilariously | can try to claim the moral high ground about (NATO | encroachment, historical alliances, American instability | and foreign meddling), but if America or indeed any of the | other nuclear powers gets involved, the risks increase | massively very quickly. If two nuclear powers went at it | properly here - I don't care which two - we enter into | long-tailed territory and it's something we've simply never | seen. There's absolutely no chance America or the UK risk | that - they can get their wheat from somewhere else. | | On the one hand, I feel bad for Ukrainians. On the other | hand, the whole world saw it coming, just like we can see | China invading Taiwan at some point in the future, and the | calculus will be the exact same: Taiwan means more to China | than it does to America, and the Ukraine means more to | Russia than it does to the West. | | It is perilous to fight somebody, whether it's Putin or Xi, | with vested emotional interests in the subject matter of | the fight when all you've got is ideology. | | And so nothing will come of this except 'strong | condemnations'. As if any strongman ever gave a fuck. | pkaye wrote: | > America will do nothing except 'strongly condemn' | what's happening, just like the rest of the world. | | People don't want a 'world police' anymore. | flyinglizard wrote: | "People" don't want their regular neighborhood police | either, but take it away and people start appreciating | it. | bayesian_horse wrote: | The sanctions are extremely tough and not entirely | painless for the US and other western countries. | | Also the US has delivered weapons to Ukraine. | | They don't want to engage in a war with Russia, and that | decision I think is the right one for now. A couple years | down the road, if the sanctions don't succeed in | containing Putin's aggression, we might have a different | discussion. | vanviegen wrote: | What people are you talking about exactly? Those in | Ukraine? | powersnail wrote: | Ukraine hasn't requested any foreign military aid so far. | vanviegen wrote: | Of course they have, privately, all the while knowing | they were never going to get it. | powersnail wrote: | "Of course" according to what? | rmk wrote: | Of course according to the repeated pronouncements of | everyone ranging from their President to Foreign Minister | to Defense Minister to the ambassadors. | | See this report for a brief example: https://researchbrie | fings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN07... | | The US and UK governments have been formally and | repeatedly asked for help. | | This information is also constantly in the news. The US | has provided almost $3 Billion in military aid to Ukraine | in the past several years alone. The UK has also provided | significant amounts of aid. Ditto for NATO. All of these | are not 'forced' on Ukraine! | ethbr0 wrote: | Then they're going to have to remember what a world | without police looks like. | jjtheblunt wrote: | I wonder how resolve would shift if Putin were to come | down with a case of polonium poisoning, or other tricks | from his own repertoire? | bayesian_horse wrote: | Some would blame it on the CIA. The more likely | perpetrator would always be someone in Russia trying to | replace Putin. | | Assassinating or targeting political leaders is a war | crime. The CIA might have done that - quite a while in | the past, mind you - but never against an adversary like | Russia. At the very least you would expect a few US | politicians to drop dead if there ever were such an | attempt. | avidiax wrote: | That would be a pretty terrible escalation in the spy | game. There is an uneasy balance where government | officials and their families are off limits for any | physical harm. That means that CIA officials can live | relatively peaceful lives just as FSB agents do. | | If you let that genie out of the bottle, it better be a | prelude to a winnable war, or you had better be happy to | have all your government officials, diplomats, and their | families on permanent lockdown. | rmk wrote: | I do not think the US does political assassinations (I | may be utterly wrong here, if so, please post examples!) | It does use assassinations against terrorists or quasi- | political figures such as Qasem Soleimani, but I doubt | that eliminating Putin is even being contemplated here. | ethbr0 wrote: | > _China invading Taiwan at some point in the future_ | | And that's the perspective this should be viewed from. | | The US may not have a firm interest in Ukraine. The US | has a fairly firm interest in Taiwan. The US has a | serious interest in Korea, Japan, and the countries | bordering the South China Sea. | | You have to strongly and unconditionally support | international order re: Ukraine, so that Xi takes away | the right message. | newuser94303 wrote: | I think the stronger message is that the US is trying to | move chip manufacturing to the US so it will not care | about Taiwan. | selfhoster11 wrote: | Alternative interpretation: they are trying to undo the | total idiocy that was putting all your microchip eggs in | one basket. It doesn't matter how cost-effective it is to | centralise production, if the result is that the | production capability for the single thing we need the | most to continue our lifestyle (high-performance | integrated circuits), is in peril from a natural/man-made | disaster occuring in a small geographical area. | oezi wrote: | The question obviously is if Ukraine compares to Hitler | taking Austria or part of Czechoslovakia and condemnation | is just appeasement until an assault on the next | country... | nine_k wrote: | I hope that beside strong condemnations, the US will also | help with money (wars are expensive!) and stuff useful at | war, from medical supplies to maybe weapons like Stingers | and Javelins. | | I also hope that the US will share intelligence | information; US's abilities here are far greater than | Ukraine's. | throwaway888abc wrote: | Exactly Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia | mikeyouse wrote: | Intervening militarily invites a counter response from | Russia and could lead to outright war between NATO and | Russia. It's one thing to assist Kuwait, quite another to | send troops to fight a nuclear-armed adversary. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | Totally agree. Just clarifying that the limiting factor | on international responses isn't Ukraine's NATO | nonmembership. | alecbz wrote: | I think people are implying "obviously we'd like to avoid | direct military conflict with Russia if possible", so | given that there's nothing strongly compelling us to | intervene directly (like Ukraine being in NATO), we're | obviously not. | | (I'm unclear on how true the silent implication is, but | seems reasonable). | mvc wrote: | So we wait until they're doing this in Poland? I think | I've seen this one before. Doesn't end well for anyone | involved. | | Better to hit an enemy when they're not expecting it. | karpierz wrote: | The logical conclusion of this is the "first strike" | doctrine of MAD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre- | emptive_nuclear_strike). | | Every major power has had 50 years to prepare for it, and | it won't work. | | You want to respond proportionally, and make it hurt. But | you also want to leave room for more pain, to give | incentive for the behaviour to stop. And you need to make | sure that your adversary believes that you'll keep | hurting them. This is why we use some, but not all of the | economic sanctions available: | | 1. If things get worse, we can make the sanctions worse. | 2. We're much more likely to be able to maintain | sanctions than soldiers in foreign wars. | mvc wrote: | They have already encircled a sovereign nation with their | army and are moving in. Our "proportionate" response so | far has been to shut down a couple of banks. | | I'm not talking about a nuclear strike. All out nuclear | war is clearly in nobody's interest (what's the point in | ruling over a nuclear wasteland). Putin is relying on the | fact that we are all so scared about that scenario that | we will be weak in our support of Ukraine (and Latvia, | Lithuania, Poland....). | | China talks a good game now but how long do you think | China will tolerate Russia bombing their most valuable | customers? | hx833001 wrote: | You realize that we can't control the response of the | enemy we "hit" unexpectedly, right? They make one | miscalculation, launch a nuclear warhead, and in 30 | minutes several exchanges of missiles are launched, | millions of people are dead, and cities in America and | Russia destroyed. It's not a board game. | bayesian_horse wrote: | The Russian people are already pretty angry with Putin | over Ukraine. And they are going to be a lot angrier | about the coming sanctions, then it doesn't really matter | if they are angry with Putin or the west. | | There is no way Putin will say after this war "Thank you | sir, may I have another?" He'll be hard pressed to keep | financing his military... | jfengel wrote: | Are they? I am sure that some are, but I get the | impression that he has a fair bit of support from the | country. | | That might fade when/if the sanctions become serious, but | thus far I have the impression that he's generally | popular (if not as popular as rigged polls would suggest) | for his hard-line stance against the US, NATO, and | Europe. | | Am I wrong about that? | sofixa wrote: | He enjoys support, but even from those who support him | there are people who disagree with a war and the death | and destruction it will bring. Nothing works like dead | family members and economic hardship to sow doubt in a | political leader's support. | AlexAndScripts wrote: | Anecdotally, even intelligent people I know seem to be | buying the Russian propaganda about it merely being a | peacekeeping mission to stop the human rights violations | in Donbas. | bcrosby95 wrote: | NATO drew their line in the sand. Intervene when it's | crossed. It's better to not bait and switch a nuclear | power into war. | mvc wrote: | We drew a line in the sand when we persuaded them to get | rid of their own nukes, ensuring that we'd have their | back. | | That we don't actually have their back will be noted by | despots the world over. | ngcc_hk wrote: | It is still an independent state and a member for a long | term of un. Can one just take one like japan say if it is | not part of nato. | kasey_junk wrote: | If no one has the will to stop it... yes. But Japan is a | bad example because the US & Japan maintain mutual | defense agreements. If it's invaded the US will act. | bayesian_horse wrote: | There is a scenario where North Korea feels an invasion | is imminent and uses short and medium range nuclear | missiles against US bases, for example in Japan. With the | calculation that this would nip any kind of invasion in | the bud, and the US military might refrain from nuclear | retaliation because North Korea would threaten the east | coast with long range nuclear missiles. | | But that kind of calculation "oh, the US won't have the | stomach to fight a useless war if you hit them hard | enough first" was exactly what doomed the Japanese | Empire. | toast0 wrote: | > because North Korea would threaten the east coast with | long range nuclear missiles. | | I don't think NK has currently credible launch systems to | make it to the east coast (of the US)? | | Also, the past century shows the US had the stomach to | fight useless wars, so I'd hope NK has noticed that. | rmk wrote: | NATO is just one of the several defense alliances the US | has. The US is basically the guarantor of security for a | number of East Asian countries, Middle Eastern countries, | you name it... We are not called the World's Policeman | for nothing. | willis936 wrote: | Costs money and political capital. What it buys is defense | of Ukrainian sovereignty and escalates conflict with a | dangerous, poor nuclear superpower. | | Ukraine is being handed to Putin. He gets to flex his | strongman ego and the world gets to not be ended (today). | StillBored wrote: | Which sounds disturbingly like British/French response to | the Rhineland/Austria lead up to WWII. | willis936 wrote: | Indeed. Some things are different today. Nukes, cyber | weapons, NATO borders being tougher than the League of | Nations, the imperial country having a weak economy, and | the whole thing is a war without a cause. | | Russia invading a NATO country would be akin to walking | on a landmine. Putin's not a fool, so it is very unlikely | to happen. | dabeledo wrote: | Sudetenland | selfhoster11 wrote: | > Russia were forced to shore up their vulnerable flank | | Russia wasn't forced to do anything. They could've merely | quietly dropped two of their delusions: | | a) NATO was never going to attack them, unless it literally | went crazy, or someone framed Russia so badly that a nuclear | response was preferable to any other option. The West doesn't | want to trigger a MAD scenario, and are keen to keep the | post-WW2 peace and (in the case of the US) bomb less defended | countries for their natural resources. Any claims or beliefs | to the contrary are a projected reflection of their own | priorities. | | b) buffer zones outside of the neighborhood is getting more | crowded. Big deal, if you are really so keen on a buffer | zone, then maybe sacrifice a few square km out of the | ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE part of the continent that they already | control. Does that mean risking important areas? Oh noes. | Security has a cost, so if you're not willing to pay for it, | quit whining. | toyg wrote: | _> and (in the case of the US) bomb less defended countries | for their natural resources._ | | That's not terribly different from what Russia is doing | with Ukraine - they will overwhelm a weaker country for | their own strategic reasons, enjoying the impunity granted | by a nuclear arsenal (and not just your average one: the | largest!). | trhway wrote: | >In fact, the US has had to tread very carefully simply to | place missiles that are capable of carrying nuclear warheads | in Poland, which is a neighbor of Ukraine. | | according to Putin that treading is a major motivation for | his current actions. | rmk wrote: | That's correct. You don't put missiles in range of a | nuclear superpower's population centers and expect them to | ignore it. But I feel that the timing of this is more | related to Putin's political situation at home. | jakeinspace wrote: | I keep seeing this being repeated, but the state of | nuclear deterrence is very different than during the | Cuban missile crisis. The US, UK, France, and Russia all | have enough nuclear-armed subs sitting just outside of | enemy waters to destroy every major target on both sides. | The US doesn't have nuclear weapons in Poland, nor does | it need them. Russia cannot stop thousands of ICBMs and | hundreds of sub-launched closer range nukes, and neither | can the US. | rmk wrote: | You are talking about the military aspects. The political | aspects matter too, and sometimes much more than the | military aspects. Do you think the US would be content to | let Russia place missiles on Cuban soil today? Why is | China cagey about the US deploying THAAD on South Korean | soil? | trhway wrote: | >the timing of this is more related to Putin's political | situation at home. | | yes, as i already wrote during the last year, Ukraine got | Turkish drones and with them the window of opportunity to | win the Donbass war (like Azerbaijan/Turkey did against | Armenia/Russia). The fall of Donbass would have been a | large failure for Putin which his regime would have hard | time to survive. Without bringing aviation though Russian | forces couldn't operate successfully there (especially | given the tank swallowing deep Spring mud what is going | to happen in few weeks), and this is what happened | yesterday across Ukraine - attacks on airfields and air- | defenses, command and control centers, etc. | rmk wrote: | Yes, Russia has a finite window in which it can bring in | its tanks and heavy artillery, which are its strengths, | before the spring thaws mire them in the mud. It's not | entirely clear what the endgame is here, though. They can | not sustain an occupation, and they will suffer heavy | casualties if they do a street-to-street urban war; they | will face questions at home if heavy Russian casualties | are incurred, which is entirely possible given the US and | UK have armed the Ukrainians up the wazoo with antitank | missiles; they can not sustain a 'fortress Russia' with | $630 Billion in USD reserves indefinitely; and they | certainly can not stop the long term turn towards NATO | and away from Russian energy exports, which will get a | jolt in the arm after this disastrous war. | brabel wrote: | > ... including neutral Finland and Sweden deciding to join | NATO, perhaps Georgia also. | | Did you hear evidence of that anywhere or is that just wild | speculation? | rmk wrote: | Sorry, I meant that it's a possible consequence. It has not | actually occurred. | bandyaboot wrote: | Well it's been reported that Sweden and Finland are going | to attend an emergency NATO summit on Friday. So, | speculation yes, but "wild" speculation? I don't think so. | brabel wrote: | Sweden has participated in several NATO meetings and even | trainings over the years, but that's quite different from | announcing they will outright join NATO. | bandyaboot wrote: | Yes, which is why I said it's still speculation. | TheCondor wrote: | Is Ukraine even issuing counter attacks? | | I'm not sure what the west is expecting, some sort of massive | retreat like when Iraq pulled out of Kuwait? It looks pre- | ordained that Ukraine will fall and should we want to stop it, | we probably need to strike Moscow or something like that. I | don't know how much appetite there is for something like that | in the US, Trump and his supporters seem to support Russia | here. | terafo wrote: | Yes. For example: russia took airport in Hostomel earlier | today. Ukrainian army started counter attack and prevented | russian planes from landing. Airport isn't retaken yet, there | are heavy fights out there, but the main objective of | preventing massive russian troops landing is achieved. | sAbakumoff wrote: | Putin warned the West that he wouldn't hesitate to conduct a | nuclear strike if they try to meddle. | nickpp wrote: | Source? He never said that. | lijogdfljk wrote: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oAOSTiumsg | | How can you ask for source but then confidently claim | otherwise. Ugh. | | _edit_ : https://old.reddit.com/r/therewasanattempt/commen | ts/t0di4z/t... is a crappy Reddit link, but also goes on to | include the nuclear mention as well. | | How can you view this as anything but a nuclear warning? | brabel wrote: | Just post the transcript of the full speech, it was not | hard to find it: | | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-24/full- | tran... | | Here's the relevant part (interpret this as you will): | | "I would now like to say something very important for | those who may be tempted to interfere in these | developments from the outside. No matter who tries to | stand in our way or all the more so create threats for | our country and our people, they must know that Russia | will respond immediately, and the consequences will be | such as you have never seen in your entire history. No | matter how the events unfold, we are ready. All the | necessary decisions in this regard have been taken. I | hope that my words will be heard." | nickpp wrote: | Please highlight the word _nuclear_ in that transcript. | brabel wrote: | There isn't one. I am not the person who was claiming | there was, if that's what you're implying. | | Some people think that his words imply nuclear, but as | it's not directly mentioned, that's just one | interpretation. | | If you ask me, I think that means just some secret weapon | pointed directly at whoever Putin believes may | interfere... but no one really knows. | anon_123g987 wrote: | You quoted the "wrong" part of the speech. Here it is, I | highlighted for you: | | > As for military affairs, even after the dissolution of | the USSR and losing a considerable part of its | capabilities, today's Russia remains one of the most | powerful _NUCLEAR_ states. Moreover, it has a certain | advantage in several cutting-edge weapons. In this | context, there should be no doubt for anyone that any | potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous | consequences should it directly attack our country. | nickpp wrote: | Watch those again. He never pronounced the word | _nuclear_. It was just a (more or less empty) threat in | the poker game he is playing to keep cowardly politicians | from helping an independent nation being invaded. | | Looks like it worked. I wonder what else are people | willing to give up at the mere hint of a nuclear threat: | their houses? Their freedom? Their friends? Their | spouses? Their children? | lijogdfljk wrote: | People are already giving up their freedom, friends, | spouses and children. They're called Ukrainian. | | Also, he did say it, according to that _transcription_. I | don't speak Russian, so i wouldn't know beyond that. | Regardless don't play dumb, you and everyone else knew | what he meant. Whether or not he'll follow through is the | question - but what he meant was obvious. He knew what he | was implying. | nickpp wrote: | Again, please point out the word _nuclear_ in that | transcript. | | It was an empty threat. And, sadly, the West fell for it | and now the Ukrainians are paying the price. | lijogdfljk wrote: | I'm sorry, but it's in there. | | > Russia is one of the most powerful nuclear powers in | the world | | If you're using a different transcript then i'm not | commenting on that. I was literally just pointing to what | i posted, which may not be accurate - as i said multiple | times. | | Not sure why i had to type out what is clearly readable | in what i posted, but /shrug | anon_123g987 wrote: | Here you go: | | > As for military affairs, even after the dissolution of | the USSR and losing a considerable part of its | capabilities, today's Russia remains one of the most | powerful _NUCLEAR_ states. Moreover, it has a certain | advantage in several cutting-edge weapons. In this | context, there should be no doubt for anyone that any | potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous | consequences should it directly attack our country. | nickpp wrote: | Please reread the post I originally replied to: | | > Putin warned the West that he wouldn't hesitate to | conduct a nuclear strike if they try to meddle. | | I maintain he never said that and that interpreting the | word nuclear which indeed appears at the beginning of the | speech (I stand corrected) in the context of the | retaliation threat at the end - is quite a stretch. | in_cahoots wrote: | The retaliation threat is right there in the same | paragraph as mentioning their nuclear capabilities, I'm | not sure how you can rationally argue otherwise. | [deleted] | aaronchall wrote: | Mutually assured destruction means that his entire ass is | destroyed - there's a lot more of NATO than there is of him. | nickpp wrote: | Exactly. That is why he never actually threatened with a | nuclear strike, just some vague "retaliation". But that was | sadly enough for cowardly politicians to abandon Ukraine | all over again... | bart_spoon wrote: | A counter attack by the US/EU was never on the table, as | Ukraine isn't a NATO member. Some of those nations have | provided weapons and supplies for the Ukrainian defense in | recent weeks, but from an actual conflict perspective, the | Ukrainians are on their own. | | The EU/US are attempting to retaliate in non-military ways, | primarily through the form of economic sanctions. However, it | seems like some of the most impactful actions available, like | cutting Russia out of Swift, are being held up by Germany and | Italy. | | The US and NATO are sending military reinforcements to Eastern | NATO nations such as Poland, but they will not actually engage | or enter Ukraine so long as Russia doesn't push through Ukraine | into NATO nations, which I don't think anyone expects. | bayesian_horse wrote: | All NATO members categorically ruled out military involvement | in this conflict. | 13415 wrote: | Some analysis (not by an expert though): | | 1. There will be no EU or US troops coming to aid Ukraine, and | Ukraine knows that. It was clear from the start that direct | NATO involvement could lead to WW3 and there is currently no | will to risk that for a non-NATO member. | | 2. In numbers, the Russian military is about 6 to 12 times | stronger than the Ukrainian military (in terms of tanks, | fighter planes, heavy weaponry). They have already gained air | superiority, so they can move around airborne troops quickly, | albeit with a certain risk from portable ground-to-air | missiles. They are also trying to install an air bridge near | the capital, although it's unclear at the moment whether they | have succeeded. | | 4. The main target of the Russian military are currently all | major cities in the East of Ukraine. Russian forces can be | expected to occupy the capital Kyiv within hours or days from | now. If the Ukrainian forces fight exceptionally well, they | might delay this for weeks but that's unlikely. | | 5. Once Kyiv is occupied, Russia will quickly install a puppet | regime, send around death squads, and basically instill terror | to break active and passive resistance. Pro-Putin Ukrainians | will emerge and take over. It's going to be similar to what | happened in Chechnya in the past and the Donbas region. Armed | men without insignia will snatch people from the street and | torture them, citizens will disappear, etc. There will be fake | elections. | | I hope I'm wrong but that's about my prognosis. The civilized | world can currently not do much about it except imposing | sanctions and delivering arms to Ukraine. A good response now | would be to break diplomatic ties with Russia and to exclude | Russia from the Swift system. It would also make sense to | sharpen media control and party financing laws in various | countries since the Russian government has been using loopholes | to finance willfully ignorant evil and divisive parties all | over the world to weaken the EU and divide US and Europe. | newuser94303 wrote: | The whole thing is very puzzling. Russia will take Ukraine but | Ukraine is one of the poorest countries in Europe. There is no | way that Russia can conquer all of Europe. The West will not | attack because Russia has nukes. The sanctions will eventually | wear Russia down. What is the end game? Is he that confident | that the West will just forgive and forget? | t-writescode wrote: | Yes. And we probably will. | | He wants a warm water port. | LandR wrote: | Russia has no warm water ports currently ? | NateEag wrote: | Not sure if GP is serious oes joking. Russia's history | has been half-jokingly summarised as "the search for a | warm-water port." | | https://www.jstor.org/stable/44642451 | t-writescode wrote: | I don't believe they have any Western, warm-water ports. | EugeneOZ wrote: | The end game is to receive another puppet-state close to | Russia. It's the only target. | CobrastanJorji wrote: | It reads to me as different goals. You know those slightly | asymmetric board games where different players have different | objectives? I think Putin has already amassed effectively | infinite money and power, so his new goal is immortality, | which I think means establishing a greater legacy by | restoring as much of the the Soviet Union's old borders as it | can. This is probably not actually in Russia's interests, but | the goal isn't "Russia succeeds," it's "Putin remembered as | great." | vanviegen wrote: | This explanation seems rather plausible to me, but is | getting downvotes. What am I not seeing? | anigbrowl wrote: | Basically if EU/US forces engage Russians directly it's ww3. I | think that's going to happen anyway, but mismatches in tempo | are common and rational in the early stages of a conflict. | Johnny555 wrote: | The EU and USA can't attack Russian troops directly without | escalating the war far more than anyone wants. No one wants to | provoke a nuclear nation, not even another nuclear nation. | | As long as Putin doesn't try to advance out of Ukraine, I doubt | that NATO will offer any direct support beyond supplying arms | and training. | ethbr0 wrote: | There was a missed opportunity to seriously prevent war. | | NATO should have been requested to by Ukraine and declared a | no fly zone for military aviation west of the Dnieper, | _before_ Russia invaded. | | An inability to use aviation would have severely slowed | Russian plans. | Johnny555 wrote: | I really doubt that NATO would be willing to enforce this | no-fly zone in a non-NATO nation, that would mean being | willing to shoot down Russian military aircraft, which | would surely escalate the war. | ethbr0 wrote: | Neither Iraq (1991+) nor Bosnia and Herzegovina (1993+) | were NATO members, and it served its purpose there. | | And hence declaring it _before_ Russia invaded. Which | forces Russia to choose to shoot down NATO aircraft, or | operate outside those zones. | Johnny555 wrote: | When Iraq invaded Kuwait, we were willing to fight (and | eventually did fight) a war with Iraq. | | NATO is not prepared or willing to start a war with | Russia. | aszen wrote: | You are forgetting the fact that the odds are heavily | against NATO, in a RAND wargame it was found that russia | can occupy the baltic States within 48 hours while nato | would be still warning up | Johnny555 wrote: | It's not clear what I'm forgetting when I said "NATO is | not prepared or willing to start a war with Russia." | aszen wrote: | It is simply not in their favour, why would they be | willing to lose their face over something like Ukraine. | | It seems that many in the West think they have unlimited | power to do anything and interfere in any conflict. | Reality is those days are over now. | fancifalmanima wrote: | You seem to explicitly agree with the person you're | replying to, but are claiming they're forgetting | something. That's the disconnect here. | the_snooze wrote: | What you're describing is setting up a shooting conflict | between nuclear powers. That is bad. Like really bad. It | doesn't matter who shoots first because everyone dies. | ethbr0 wrote: | That cuts both ways. NATO air assets over Western Ukraine | would have forced Russia to _start_ a shooting conflict | with a nuclear alliance. | | As is, they were able to move into Ukraine without | nuclear risk, because the US _explicitly_ said we wouldn | 't put troops there. | | And let's not pretend Russia shooting down a US plane or | vice versus would start a nuclear war. It happened fairly | commonly during the Cold War, quietly. | Johnny555 wrote: | _And let 's not pretend Russia shooting down a US plane | or vice versus would start a nuclear war. It happened | fairly commonly during the Cold War, quietly._ | | This is not the cold war, I don't think anyone can | predict what Putin will do if provoked and he needs to | save face. | garaetjjte wrote: | But NATO doesn't really want to fight that war. | Electorate would vote governments out for getting | involved in war they doesn't really care about. And Putin | knows that too. | | So what if NATO puts some forces in Ukraine, but Putin | calls their bluff and attacks anyway? Small contingent | wouldn't be nearly enough to hold the territory, so you | need to either engage for real (but you don't have | political capital for that), or withdraw forces which | would look like huge humiliation. | the_snooze wrote: | NATO forces in or above Ukraine would be the modern | equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and we would be | the aggressors setting up shop right next to a nuclear | power. A lot of our fighter aircraft are nuclear-capable, | and the Russians would have no way of telling which | missiles are conventional-tipped or nuclear-tipped. | | What you're describing is reckless brinksmanship. One | mistake or misread and the world ends. | ethbr0 wrote: | NATO forces have been above Ukraine for the last several | years. The US et al. were flying ISR missions right up | against the borders of Belarus, Russia, and eastern | Ukraine rebel-held areas up to a couple days ago. | | "Reckless brinkmanship" is an odd phrase, when we're | talking about responses to Russia invading a sovereign | country. | aszen wrote: | Simple fact is western powers don't have the capability | to maintain any sort of airspace over ukraine or other | nearby countries. Russia is not a weak country that can | be deterred by a no fly zone. | ethbr0 wrote: | Russia has been trying to produce PAK-FA / Su-57 fighters | since 2010. | | They currently have ~4. | | There's a reason Russia invests so much in SAM systems. | They expect NATO to have air superiority. | aszen wrote: | Read some latest defence blogs, Russia not only has the | best air defence systems but leading electronic warfare | technologies. Many countries buy Russian weapons even | facing western sanctions. They are cheap and effective. | ethbr0 wrote: | See earlier point about air defense systems being a | priority due to lacking fighter parity. | | Which EW systems are you talking about? | ajuc wrote: | Ukraine did (or some similar arrangement, I'm not sure | about details). NATO declined. | decafninja wrote: | As others have said, Ukraine isn't in NATO so there is no | obligation for the US or EU to militarily come to its aid. | | That said, Putin is increasing his risk appetite. Ukraine will | most likely fall and have a puppet government installed, | probably within weeks at most. | | But then next year, what if he decides to up his ante and | target one of the NATO member ex-USSR Baltic states for | "reasons"? | | Will NATO come to their defense militarily? Will the UK, | France, Germany, as well as the US decide it is worth going to | war with Russia to defend Estonia, Latvia, etc.? | | What about China and Taiwan? If China decides to invade Taiwan, | will anyone decide it is worth going to war with China to | defend Taiwan militarily? | | My prediction to those questions is - no. The authoritarian | regimes have the upper hand in the current global state of | affairs because the Western democracies are afraid of the | consequences of going toe to toe militarily against them. I | don't not sympathize - to be honest I have no clue what the | solution is. | | I don't think the opposite is necessarily true. If the US were | to attack a country that Russia or China would truly lose face | over (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. frankly are not), I feel Putin or | Xi would, in fact, choose to wage war. | causi wrote: | EU and US will use every diplomatic and financial weapon | against Russia, but they've long since decided Ukraine and the | Ukrainian people aren't worth actual war over. That call was | made in 2014 and stopping Russia then would've been easier than | it would be now. | qbasic_forever wrote: | Until the US puts sanctions on Russia's oil/gas and doesn't | buy it, then no not every financial or diplomatic weapon is | being used. Right now it seems the US is reluctant to do | this: https://twitter.com/business/status/1496861082907906048 | tommoor wrote: | Same for UK - sanctions on russian companies but we keep | the gas and thus money flowing back to Russia. | whatshisface wrote: | It's not clear whether every financial weapon will be used. | For example, | | > _The foreign ministers of the Baltic states called for | Russia to be cut off from SWIFT, the global intermediary for | banks ' financial transactions. However, other EU member | states were reluctant, both because European lenders held | most of the nearly $30 billion in foreign bank's exposure to | Russia and because China has developed an alternative to | SWIFT called CIPS; a weaponisation of SWIFT would provide | greater impetus to the development of CIPS which in turn | would weaken SWIFT as well as the West's control over | international finance.[262][263] Other leaders calling for | Russia to be stopped from accessing SWIFT include Czech | President Milos Zeman[264] and UK Prime Minister Boris | Johnson.[265]_ | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukrai. | .. | jandrese wrote: | This is where diplomacy should shine. It's clear that | Russia has been hardening against western sanctions for | years now, and CIPS is a big piece of that. If NATO can | convince China to also shut them out of CIPS at the same | time we turn off SWIFT the Russian Oligarchs will start | applying pressure to Putin. | sbmthakur wrote: | You need to convince Europeans before China. | | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/24/kyiv- | furious-a... | AnimalMuppet wrote: | I doubt that's going to happen. China has refused to even | call this an invasion, and has said that it's the West's | fault. | nojs wrote: | Source? | foxfluff wrote: | All over the news if you do a search. First hits: | | https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-rejects- | calling-ru... | | https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/24/china-refuses-to-call- | attack... | AnimalMuppet wrote: | Thanks. | | In fairness to nojs, I tried to search for it to back up | my claim, and couldn't find it again. | Andrew_nenakhov wrote: | Russian oligarchs will not apply pressure to Putin. They | are all accomplices now. | | All this politics theater of the past few days was to | make everyone of notice show support for invasion, in | public form. Lawmakers, Security council, oligarchs, | senators, everyone. So they would know they won't be able | to betray him and escape. They are all forced to make | their bones. | GrayShade wrote: | They won't. They want Russian support when they invade | Taiwan. | newuser94303 wrote: | They don't need Russian support to attack Taiwan and | Russian economic support is meaningless. They won't do it | because there is no incentive to. The US has to bribe | them. Think of China like an evil corporation. They won't | do anything except for their own best interests. Like | Facebook with nukes. | loufe wrote: | I don't think adding the tag of "evil" in front of | corporation is necessary or helpful. Corporations are | selfish and aggressive enough already. Nothing about | China's geopolitical plotting is anymore evil than the US | or Russia, regardless of what ideological non-sense you | use to justify any corner. | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | China can't invade Taiwan without Taiwan blowing up the | Three Gorges Dam and wiping out 1/4th of China's | population | Terry_Roll wrote: | Russia and China have developed their own equivalent of | SWIFT, so again this is a sanction which will benefit | Russia just like the oil price going up will benefit them | because Russia has the largest oil reserves in the world. | | Plus with Chernobyl, some of the fuel rods may well be | weapons grade still, and Chernobyl almost bankrupted | Russia, it certainly helped break up the Soviet Union | according to Gorbachev, its also on the border with Belarus | who are aligned with Russia, and uranium fuel rods are not | cheap to make, it takes tonnes of Uranium, so grabbing | Chernobyl would seem sensible. | | So at this stage, I'm now thinking Russia is the next | country to get a massive improvement in quality of life and | infrastructure, a bit like we have seen with China over the | last decade or so, whilst all the while the West is kept in | the slow lane for other less developed countries to catch | up. | saiya-jin wrote: | > I'm now thinking Russia is the next country to get a | massive improvement in quality of life and infrastructure | | That's practically impossible. They could have done in in | last 30 years, but almost all the profit went to pockets | of Kremlin's pyramid of power and tunneled to tax havens | across the world. Corruption, laziness, incompetence of | key people, and in some form also in the rest of nation | will effectively prevent that. | elliekelly wrote: | CIPS is not an "equivalent of SWIFT" by a long shot. It | definitely helps soften the blow of any potential SWIFT | sanctions but that doesn't mean losing SWIFT access would | be a non-issue. | inglor_cz wrote: | Not even every financial weapon. EU isn't united on kicking | Russia out of SWIFT. | cure wrote: | That was yesterday. Today, the situation is evolving | quickly. | kfarr wrote: | That was _swift_ :P https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/co | mments/t0epur/boris_joh... | csee wrote: | No it's not, Biden confirmed it now. | saiya-jin wrote: | Not sure why Germany has such a weak stance against | Russia now. It can't be just because of oil and gas | imports for sure. It must look supremely weak to any | strongman like Putin, encouraging him to push for more | since nobody ever gave a fuck about some political | condemnations or blocking few bureaucrats, you don't | store billions you stole on your name in the banks. | ajuc wrote: | Basically Germany and Italy don't want it. Cause of big | financial investment in Russian businesses. | | Germany especially should really do some soul-searching. | They are enabling Putin for the last few decades. | StillBored wrote: | And they have been stupidly playing politics and | investing in "green energy" while buying ever more gas | from Russia and shutting down their own energy | independence. | | In the middle of the winter, economic sanctions have | their hands basically tied. What is Europe going to do? | Turn off the gas? I don't think so. | | Maybe at least France will stop D%#$ing around and finish | their reactor. The only question is can Putin put down | the insurrections in Ukraine faster than the rest of | Europe can untangle their energy dependence, or will it | just be another Crimea where everyone forgets about it in | a year or two, and Putin can pull it off somewhere else | in another 5 years. | ajuc wrote: | Green energy is fine, it actually reduces the total | amount bought from Putin (and thus invested into Russian | army). The problem was disabling the non-fossil-fuel | baseload (meaning nuclear powerplants). It was criminally | idiotic. I hope Germany finally wakes up because this is | making the whole EU project look less and less feasible. | xenocratus wrote: | > Cause of big financial investment in Russian businesses | | And because blocking them from some technology that the | West has monopoly over will invite a strong(er) drive | from the likes of China and Russia to create a competitor | and weaken the West's power in that field. | kblev wrote: | It's good that Iraq and Afghanistan was worth a war, just | Ukraine not so much | hutzlibu wrote: | It is a bit easier fighting caveman jihadist and third | class dictators with outdated military, than a nuclear | superpower. | [deleted] | MisterTea wrote: | > superpower. | | Yup. Because when I think of superpower I think of an | economy that is barely passing Italy's. | pirate787 wrote: | They have 2 million men under arms and the world's | largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. | hutzlibu wrote: | Power comes in many shapes. Russia does not have a good | economy, but a strong military and nukes. | ejb999 wrote: | and more importantly, the willingness to sacrifice | millions of their own people if they need to. They have | done it before, and if needed, I have no doubt they will | do it again. | somesortofthing wrote: | The EU and US have made serious mistakes in the process but | it's hard to disagree with that conclusion. Either you have a | fairly short(By necessity, since Ukraine is going to remain | crossable with armor for maybe a couple more weeks before the | entire country turns into a giant bog in spring) proxy war in | Ukraine that kills a few thousand and transfers the territory | from one bickering cabal of oligarchs to another or you risk | global nuclear war with boots-on-the-ground intervention. | Putin has been pretty clear that he'll use nukes in the event | of a full NATO intervention. | trzy wrote: | I would treat threats of nuclear weapons as bluffs. He | doesn't want to perish in an inferno and a first strike is | hard to justify over a mere military humiliation on foreign | soil. Rather more likely are cyber attacks on | infrastructure here in the US and attacks on US bases in | Europe or abroad. | Phelinofist wrote: | And if he is not bluffing? :) | robbedpeter wrote: | odiroot wrote: | > EU and US will use every diplomatic and financial weapon | against Russia | | [Citation needed] | | The softening of sanctions has arrived already. | f311a wrote: | Russia has nuclear power. That's the main reason. | [deleted] | ncallaway wrote: | The EU and America have promised to help with economic | sanctions on Russia and by providing military aid and lethal | aid. | | The EU and America have explicitly not promised to help out | with direct military action against Russia. The United States | and Biden have said multiple times that the US will not have | forces engage Russia directly in Ukraine. | | What specific promises are you referring to? | shawn-butler wrote: | The US makes empty promises. Read the Budapest memorandum in | which we made security guarantees so Ukraine would give up | its nuclear arsenal[0]. Russian aggression would certainly be | much more calculated if Ukraine still had that capability. | | [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Sec | urit... | jaywalk wrote: | > Ukraine had physical, but not operational, control. | | What could they have done, throw the unarmed nukes at | Russia? You also leave out the fact that Russia and the UK | signed as well. | adrian_b wrote: | When you have nuclear weapons in your possession, | obviously you will not be able to discover how to | detonate them in an hour or a day. | | Nevertheless when you have the resources of a state, it | is very easy to disassemble them and discover, in a few | weeks or months at most, how to replace the part that | initiates detonation with one that you control. | fancifalmanima wrote: | If you look at what was actually agreed to, it seems like | the US and EU are already doing more than obligated. I | don't see any nuclear weapons being used, the west has | respected their sovereignty, and is even economically | sanctioning Russia and providing intelligence and | equipment. Bringing this to the security council would do | nothing anyways, as Russia is a part of it and any | resolution would just get vetoed. The only party that's | actually breached the agreement is Russia. | Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and | sovereignty in the existing borders.[17] Refrain | from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, | Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Refrain from using economic | pressure on Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to influence | their politics. Seek immediate Security Council | action to provide assistance to Belarus, Kazakhstan and | Ukraine if they "should become a victim of an act of | aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which | nuclear weapons are used". Refrain from the use of | nuclear arms against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. | Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those | commitments.[13][18] | pdabbadabba wrote: | This seems like nonsense to me. What "security guarantees"? | | 1. "[T]o respect the independence and sovereignty and the | existing borders of Ukraine." Only Russia seems to have | violated that one. | | 2. To "reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat | or use of force against the territorial integrity or | political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their | weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self- | defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the | United Nations." Same. The only one breaking this promise | is Russia. | | 3. "[T]o refrain from economic coercion designed to | subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine | of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to | secure advantages of any kind." Haven't seen anyone claim | that any party has violated this one. | | 4. "[T]o seek immediate United Nations Security Council | action to provide assistance to Ukraine." Again, I think | only Russia has broken this promise. | | 5. "[N]ot to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear | weapon State party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation | of Nuclear Weapons." So far so good. | | 6. To "consult in the event a situation arises that raises | a question concerning these commitments." OK. | | Read the memorandum for yourself if you think I'm quoting | selectively. It's short.: https://web.archive.org/web/20170 | 312052208/http://www.cfr.or... | djrogers wrote: | >. What specific promises are you referring to? | | The Budapest Memorandum. 1994 wasn't _that_ long ago... | pdabbadabba wrote: | Still not very specific. Or correct, as far as I can see. | | Here is the text of the memorandum: https://web.archive.org | /web/20170312052208/http://www.cfr.or... | | Can you point us to the provision that you claim the | U.S./Europe have violated? It is only about 1-2 pages long, | so I don't think this is too much to ask. | newaccount2021 wrote: | EU is incapable and the US doesn't have near enough assets | nearby | | in any case, Putin would likely respond with a nuke (he already | basically hinted this), this is an endgame for everyone, | Ukraine, Russia, Putin...there will be no de-escalation or | peace process. Putin already said Ukraine "does not need to | exist"...either the Ukrainians can fight him off or not. | Probably not. Sanctions won't matter. Scolding Putin at the UN | won't matter. China will golf-clap the whole thing. By the end | of 2022, the only issue will be when the West just recognizes | the new borders or not. | mrtranscendence wrote: | Putin responding with a nuke would be suicide. Maybe literal | suicide. He's surely not _that_ stupid? | yaris wrote: | Maybe he is not stupid, but there are hints that his | contact with reality is becoming somewhat unstable. | simonklitj wrote: | sveme wrote: | I doubt that Russia can hold Ukraine for long. Once Putin is | gone, everything he accomplished will fade away quickly. | TameAntelope wrote: | Ukraine isn't part of NATO, I think it's a big reason why troop | deployment hasn't happened. | sonicggg wrote: | Not the reason though. Kosovo was not a part of NATO either. | It's just that Russia is not Serbia. | TameAntelope wrote: | Vietnam wasn't part of NATO either, I guess if we're just | pointing things out. | sonicggg wrote: | Gosh, you're dumb. Vietnam was not invaded by NATO, it | was just the US. | | NATO was officially the one bombing Serbia, however. | netsharc wrote: | Even if they were, what's easier, to honour such an agreement | with an expensive (materially and in terms of human lives) | and dangerous (would cause the conflict so spread) deployment | or to say "Sorry, you're going to have to tough it out | yourself.". | | The USA and UK already abandoned the Afghani people, feels | like the once mighty US military really doesn't want to be in | a shooting war against Russia. As someone living in Europe, I | would also be wary of how it would escalate if NATO got | involved. | outside1234 wrote: | The US will defend NATO. They will nuke Russia's forces if | they try to enter Poland. There is no doubt in my mind that | is a red line. | jaywalk wrote: | There should always be plenty of doubt in your mind if | you're saying that the US will use nukes in any situation | short of someone else using them first. | gambiting wrote: | The difference is that US is actually putting their | troops and equipment in Poland though. I also think that | attack on Poland would trigger full out response by US. | the_snooze wrote: | Poland is a NATO state. An attack on Poland would trigger | World War 3 because the whole alliance is set up to jump | in. | LudwigNagasena wrote: | The US is the only country that used nukes. | pirate787 wrote: | Among other things, those experimental first bombs were a | totally different class of weapons from today's nuclear | arsenal. There were conventional bombings in WWII that | killed more people than the nuclear bombings. | JohnBooty wrote: | This isn't even a remotely similar situation. The biggest | difference is that last time around, we were the only | people with nukes and (agree with the decision, or not) | it was a war _ending_ use of nukes, with zero chance of | _starting_ a world war, nuclear or otherwise. | gumby wrote: | The UK is the only other nuclear power to have detonated | nukes on the territory of another country. | jaywalk wrote: | Completely irrelevant. | jacquesm wrote: | No, in fact very relevant. Not in the way the OP probably | meant it though. | gumby wrote: | The US has explicitly refused to adopt a no first use | posture. | | Ditto Russia, UK, France, the other nuclear powers | involved. | | That being said, it's a Rubicon all, will be reluctant to | cross. | bombcar wrote: | The US will defend NATO unless it feels it isn't the best | thing to do at the time. | rocqua wrote: | They will definitely defend Poland. They won't nuke, not | even tactically. | Thaxll wrote: | Putin would have never invaded a NATO country. | netsharc wrote: | Feels like until 5AM local this morning we all thought | he'd never do a full invasion of Ukraine either... | | But in general I'd agree with you. On the other hand, who | and literally what army would stop them? | heartbreak wrote: | > Who and literally what army would stop them? | | Among several others, the United States military. Which, | contrary to claims made elsewhere in this thread, is a | pretty formidable defensive force. In fact, it even has | aircraft carriers that can move under their own power. | bcrosby95 wrote: | > Even if they were | | You would have to weigh how things would escalate if NATO | got involved, vs how things would escalate if Russia found | out NATO isn't actually a thing any country intends to | honor. | notjustanymike wrote: | injb wrote: | I think this is mainly a psychological move. It has people | talking about nuclear fallout, radiation etc. That's the point. | Lammy wrote: | The most interesting part of Chernobyl to me isn't even the | power plant, but what it was powering: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga_radar | qbasic_forever wrote: | Yeah the site is a massive liability for whoever controls it. | There's a ton of work left to do to fully decommission it and | make it safe. | spywaregorilla wrote: | What if, and bear with me, Russia doesn't care about safety? | moffkalast wrote: | It does pose the question what would actually happen should | someone bomb the sarcophagus. | rocqua wrote: | Unless the prevailing winds are really blowing towards the | west, this would harm Russia and their newly conquered | territory much more than it would harm the EU. | | It makes more sense as a bargaining chip with Ukraine than as | a chip with the EU. | awb wrote: | > It makes more sense as a bargaining chip with Ukraine | | What's the proposition? Russia's already committed to | ending the idea of Ukraine as a country. | rocqua wrote: | Should they fail a complete takeover they can threaten to | blow up the fallout in negotiations. | ejb999 wrote: | Probably not a bad idea to put all your troops and equipment | stockpiles near an area that just about everyone is going to be | reluctant to bomb indiscriminately - nobody wants to accidentally | destroy that shell protecting that nuclear power plant I would | imagine. | swyx wrote: | is this the same plant as the one from 1986? this plant is | still active today? im very surprised. | ciex wrote: | When a nuclear power plant has a failure as catastrophic as | that in Chernobyl it is active (radioactive) for a _very_ | long time, with no way of shutting it down. The immediate | site of the power plant will be uninhabitable for about | 20,000 years, however, the wider area might become safe to | live in in just a couple of hundred years. While radiation | levels decrease in general, there have also been measurements | of increasing radiation in 2021. | sidewndr46 wrote: | No, the current structure is from 2018 | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement | curtisblaine wrote: | Not active, but actively contained. | officeplant wrote: | The other three reactors there were operational until 2000. | paulus_magnus2 wrote: | We in the The West have some serious soul searching to do. | | A nuclear power has attacked a sovereign state and told us to | stay away or something very bad will happen. | | They've been sabre rattling for weeks and weeks and we have | frozen unable (or unwilling) to act. No good deed goes | unpunished, every sanction has a cost etc etc but we're not ready | to pay even a smallest price in order to save lives protect world | peace. Or to save "western values" our leaders are wording at | each opportunity. | | If we really wanted to stop the invasion we'd send half a million | soldiers to "hang around" in Ukraine weeks ago. Or at least we'd | send them thousands of anti helicopter and antitank missiles. We | cannot prevent Russia's bombing and destruction of Ukraine but | the missiles would easily stop an invasion. | | Russia is a country with extremely concentrated wealth and | therefore power - the oligarchs are one of the few leverage | points we have. If we temporarily froze (right now confisction | would be more appropriate) assets owned by oligarchs in the west, | deplatform them from payment systems, credit cards, universities, | golden visas. Capture their yahts, jets they'd take care of Putin | rather quickly. We know who they are, they're on the Forbes list | posing for pictures. | | Somehow we in the west eagerly go after the weak (Ottawa | protesters) but cannot seam to do the same towards rich (with | power and means to corrupt). | | The rules based Western world has gone out of the window and | we're quickly heading towards a world with two sets of rules (or | rather two standards of rule enforcement). | rhexs wrote: | Go send your own children to die first. | pbourke wrote: | > Or at least we'd send them thousands of anti helicopter and | antitank missiles | | That happened - the UK sent 2000 NLAW anti-tank missiles and | the US sent Javelins. | w0de0 wrote: | I agree our nations have done less than everything that could | be done. I do think we've done quite better than could have | been hoped around 2016. | | I believe your moral certainty is quite flawed: | | 1. It rests entirely on hindsight. | | These events only started seeming inevitable about 24 hours | ago. | | Now we've found them to be true, we trust and are even | impressed by the Americans' warnings. But these last weeks I | little doubt the Bundestag's halls, and European couches | everywhere, heard many recollections of Iraq's supposed WMD | program. | | 2. You advocate a purely moral policy. | | There's a quiet part in every happy Westerner's mind that | believes, without examination, in the ultimate and inevitable | triumph of good over evil. To be fair, the past few generations | experienced reassuring evidence for this assumption - and | Hollywood keeps the reassurance alive. | | Unfortunately, the good guys do not always win; moral will | cannot overcome geopolitical reality. Neither Realpolitik nor | MAD were made defunct by 20 years of Pax Americana. | | Ukraine is Russia's neighbor. Ukraine is very much Russia's | family: brothers who long cohabited. Ukraine's attitude towards | Russia is legitimately a vital interest of Russia. Russia has, | by right of force (Realpolitik!), complete dominance to act in | Ukraine. Deterrence was always the only realistic option. | | 500,000 Western soldiers <500m from Moscow would be both target | for, and, perhaps, sufficient justification in Russians | citizens' eyes for the use of, tactical nukes. | | 3. It is unrealistic about how democracies work. Only the | aggression your proposed policy is meant to prevent would be | sufficient to convince democracies to implement it: an | unfortunate catch-22. | | Democracies are extremely reluctant to go to war, which is | good. The price paid is inevitably foolishness in global power | politics. Roosevelt could not have started a pre-emptive war | with Japan, though perhaps this would have been the optimal | move. | | Similarly, there is no chance that, in the context of 20 years | of unbroken peace, any Nato member would be interested in such | a massive deployment directly next to Moscow. No scenario would | have allowed this risk. | | If it did somehow happen, Russia's aggressive response could | easily divide the alliance in recrimination for implementing | such a reckless policy. | jl6 wrote: | I guess this indicates that Russia intends to completely subdue | Ukraine and back it into a corner. In such a scenario, a | desperate Ukraine government could wield the plant as leverage by | threatening some catastrophe. By removing it from their hands, | Ukraine is denied this weapon of last resort. | | And Russia gains another weapon of last resort, should anyone | think of putting them in the same position. | BurningFrog wrote: | I fail to imagine how the reactor could practically be used as | a weapon. | jl6 wrote: | Scorched Earth. Ukraine decides the only tactic left is to | deny its enemy use of the area++. | hamburga wrote: | If you're looking for some background on the big picture and | strategic goals of Russia and NATO/US, I just watched this (from | U Chicago political scientist John Meirsheimer) and found it to | be extremely helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 | BTCOG wrote: | Western sanctions will do absolutely nothing but push Putin | further into considering invading other neighboring nations. He's | going to reform the Soviet Union. The president in Nicaragua has | reportedly told able-bodied 18-45 year old men to prepare to | support the Russian Federation in freeing people in Ukraine. | | This is going to spiral out of control, and talking will do | nothing. | lend000 wrote: | It's hard to view the events unfolding with an objective gaze. | Virtually all of western journalism condemns Russia's attacks | unilaterally, which seems reasonable, considering people are | dying to grow a dictator's empire. But then I read about the | history of the conflict and see that Ukraine has had separatist | states and civil war for years. It isn't like Ukraine is a | stable, peaceful, and unwitting nation, like, say, Denmark. It's | more similar to NATO "protecting" their national interests in | Syria or Iraq. Not that I supported those interventions as | ethical, either -- I just acknowledge the potential long term | geopolitical motivations for doing so. | | Any Ukrainians or Russians have an alternative perspective to | offer? | dostick wrote: | Dont project "separatist" feudal states of 100s year ago on to | modern Ukraine. Modern Ukraine is nothing like that. | crisdux wrote: | This isn't a Ukrainian or Russian perspective, but an | alternative perspective. | | John Mearsheimer gives a popular alternative perspective. He | has a realist foreign policy perspective suggesting that the US | and the west provoked Russia by trying to push Ukraine to join | NATO and by intervening in the protests/coup in 2013/2014. | Russia has a legitimate security interest in ensuring Ukraine | does not join NATO and become militarized. | | https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-t... | hamburga wrote: | Video lecture from Mearsheimer, for the lazy: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 | Ruphin wrote: | The idea that the (in)stability of a nation can legitimize | military incursion by another nation is plain absurd. At what | point exactly does a war become legitimate? Is it okay to | attack a country when they are entwined in civil war? What | percentage of the country needs to be involved in the conflict? | What if it is an unarmed but still major internal political | conflict? | | No war is legitimate. | | Comparing this incursion to NATO "protecting" their national | interests in Syria or Iraq is perhaps defensible, but the only | logical conclusion is that these interventions were/are equally | condemnable. | lend000 wrote: | No one said it was legitimate insofar as that means ethical. | I am simply curious about the huge wave of groupthink | sentiment that makes no attempt to fill everyone in on the | context of the situation, and whether this was actually a | logical (absence all ethics) move by Russia. One of the | replies to my comment offered an interesting perspective. We | live in a real world with real events. Just because us | westerners have been shielded from war for most of our lives, | and because war is immoral, does not mean that it won't | happen, or that it isn't interesting to think about it | objectively. | | Makes one wonder if the fact that most Ukrainians are white | people living in an industrialized society has anything to do | with the scale of the outpouring of emotion on HN and | elsewhere. | pishpash wrote: | That's the thing. There is a war going on between Saudi | Arabia and Yemen, and Syria is still festering. Nobody | seems to care. | awb wrote: | > But then I read about the history of the conflict and see | that Ukraine has had separatist states and civil war for years. | | Ukraine voted 90+% in favor of independence from Russia back in | the 1991, with 82% of the electorate participating: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Independence_of... | | Since Putin came to power, he's worked hard to expand Russia's | influence outside of it's current borders and back towards it's | former USSR or Russian Empire borders. This includes | propaganda, instigating rebellions, etc. | | The "civil war" in Ukraine, started after a pro-Russian | President was ousted, and without direct influence over | Ukraine, Russia has been fighting a proxy war in the separatist | regions. | | > It isn't like Ukraine is a stable, peaceful, and unwitting | nation, like, say, Denmark. | | Russia is claiming that the people of Ukraine are Russian | speaking and historically belong integrated with Russia. | | It's like Mexico saying they want the Southwest US back. | Historically it was part of Mexico, has many Spanish speakers, | etc. | | But where does this stop? What if Italy wants to recreate the | Roman Empire or the UK wants to re-establish the British | Empire? It's really bizarre to look backwards in time, as there | are 30 year olds in Ukraine with kids of their own now who were | never alive during the USSR and know nothing but Ukrainian | independence. | | Ideally as a world, we allow people the right to self- | determination. But every superpower I can think of throughout | history is guilty of influencing (or attacking) foreign | countries for political and military advantage and | manufacturing any reason imaginable to justify it. | stickfigure wrote: | Is there any strategic significance to this? I thought it was | closed? | shiado wrote: | Theoretically the whole area could be turned into a dirty bomb | with a few strategic strikes and it would be carried down a | river destroying vast areas of Ukraine for millennia. | prodmerc wrote: | gjsman-1000 wrote: | True - but Russia has nuclear weapons which are more precise | and would send the strongest possible message. This is also | important because destroying a country might land you a | victory, but if it's destroyed, that is a shallow victory. A | well-placed nuke is scary and controlled. | bcrosby95 wrote: | Russia would never nuke Ukraine because of the reaction | from the West. Using existing radioactive materials | wouldn't provoke the same reaction. | | I'm not saying Russia will do anything here, but the two | are very different from a geopolitical standpoint. | Sebb767 wrote: | If Russia really wanted to create nuclear fallout problems, | they have weapons that do so far more targeted and | effectively. | dathinab wrote: | But they can't "easily" blame such Weapon usage on the EU | (saying they accidentally caused it) or "Ukraine" | terrorists. | protomyth wrote: | I assume its to make sure no one in the Ukraine makes a | dirty bomb, not the other way around. Revenge is a powerful | motivator and Chernobyl has the raw materials to make for a | horrific revenge. | Hamuko wrote: | It'd be easier to cover up by claiming it was an accident | or they were fired on by the Ukranians. You don't really | have the same leeway when you drop a nuke. | [deleted] | BitwiseFool wrote: | It is actually deviously brilliant. No one wants to shell the | area because it would release all the dust and radionuclides | that were buried during the cleanup. | | It is a perfect staging area because the downside to attacking | it is so high. No allied forces in Europe want to deal with the | fallout - literally. | | This is so genius I'm genuinely in awe. This is right out of | Sun Tzu: "The art of war teaches us to rely not on the | likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness | to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but | _rather on the fact that we have made our position | unassailable._ " | systemvoltage wrote: | Unless they're literally housed inside the containment | building, this is useless against precision guided missiles | and bombs. Are you talking about deterrence to nuclear | bombing of Chernobyl? Then it is a moot point because the | fallout from the weapon itself would dwarf the dormant | fissile material in the containment facility. | | Sorry, but this makes no sense. If Russia wants to deter EU | with fallout, they already have such a mechanism - their | massive stockpile of nuclear weapons to deter aggression by | EU. | Freestyler_3 wrote: | I think a nuclear bomb and a nuclear power plant are very | different and have different halftimes. | jaywalk wrote: | Halflife is the word you're looking for, but they're not | so different in terms of halflife. Although a nuclear | bomb would be _way worse_. | BitwiseFool wrote: | No this doesn't have anything to do with Nuclear Weapon | deterrence. Much of the liquidation effort was literally | burying contaminated topsoil in the area. The explosions | from conventional bombs would kick radioactive particles | back up into the atmosphere. Europe probably does not want | to deal with that, so I imagine they will refrain from | attacking directly. | systemvoltage wrote: | If I understand correctly, your central thesis is about | deterring EU from attacking. It misses the point that | Russia already has a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons to | deter EU from attacking them. So, why would they rely on | an 'offchance' 2nd-hand threat of fallout when they can | just threaten to use their guaranteed-to-deter stockpile | of weapons? | rocqua wrote: | I think the thesis is to prevent Ukraine from attacking | the staging area. Giving them a really safe base. | BitwiseFool wrote: | I think I'm using "Allied Forces" and "Europeans" too | loosely. I was lumping Ukrainian forces into that label. | They're already under attack so any conventional | retaliation on invading forces is already a given. I'm | basically saying that NATO/EU would put pressure on | Ukraine NOT to attack the staging area because any | fallout could waft over into Western Europe. This is in | addition to the already present downside of Ukraine re- | contaminating their own backyard. | systemvoltage wrote: | I see, it's an important distinction. I would agree, | Ukrainian military would face some deterrence. | juliansimioni wrote: | I would imagine that even a small conventional bomb landing | anywhere within a few miles of Chernobyl would unearth and | spread contamination. | | I remember reading somewhere that all the ground was full | of small radioactive particles in the area surrounding | Chernobyl. So basically what they had to do was dig up the | first few feet of dirt and flip it over, burying the | contaminated dirt. Any small bomb would undo that. Then the | wind would carry it and we'd have a whole mess. | stickfigure wrote: | If that is true, then every explosion contaminates the | vehicles and personnel staged in the immediate vicinity. | Doesn't sound so brilliant to me. | [deleted] | BitwiseFool wrote: | True, but the Russians are also counting on the idea that | Ukrainian forces do not want to release that fallout back | on to their own territory and that European forces do not | want radioactive particles wafting back over into | continental Europe. | | Russia has calculated that while an attack would be bad for | the Russian forces at Chernobyl, it would actually be much | worse for the allied forces. | awb wrote: | > True, but the Russians are also counting on the idea | that Ukrainian forces do not want to release that fallout | back on to their own territory | | Unless there is no Ukraine. Blowing it up is the closest | thing Ukraine has to a nuke and it would take out any | troops stationed there. It would be a horrific thing to | do though and I don't think the Ukrainian leadership has | the demeanor to do it. | firebaze wrote: | Russian military generally played wars with an assumed unit | cost of approximately zero. They still appear to do so, | despite the declining birth rate (there's a reason russian | roulette is called as it is) | throwawaymanbot wrote: | moffkalast wrote: | Well he invented fighting, and he perfected it so that no | living man could best him in the ring of honour. | | Then he used his fight money to buy two of every animal on | Earth, and then he herded them onto a boat, and then he beat | the crap out of every single one... | kingcharles wrote: | I'm so confused by this comment... o_O | progman32 wrote: | That's because we're engineers, and we solve problems. | moffkalast wrote: | Not problems like 'what is beauty' because that would | fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. | | We solve practical problems. | TheBozzCL wrote: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h42d0WHRSck | TheBozzCL wrote: | And from that day forward, any time a bunch of animals are | together in one place it's called a 'zoo'. | | Unless it's a farm, of course. | cdelsolar wrote: | prodmerc wrote: | thow-58d4e8b wrote: | Chernobyl sarcophagus is a massive pile of concrete - | basically indestructible. Buildings made of concrete are | ridiculously resilient to explosions - remember the Beirut | explosion? That grain silo right next to the epicenter was | still standing | | Berlin has some flak towers from WW2, quoting Wikipedia: | | The Soviets, in their assault on Berlin, found it difficult | to inflict significant damage on the flak towers, even with | some of the largest Soviet guns, such as the 203 mm M1931 | howitzers. After the war, the demolition of the towers was | often considered not feasible and many remain to this day | BitwiseFool wrote: | While the Sarcophagus and New Safe Confinement structure | around the reactor contains the worst of the fallout, most | of the contamination in the surrounding area was simply | buried underground using bulldozers and earth-moving | equipment. Explosions risk kicking up that contamination | from the soil. | donkeyd wrote: | You underestimate the amount of nuclear material that's | still in the ground around there. Vaporizing that isn't a | great idea. | seizethegdgap wrote: | > Chernobyl sarcophagus is a massive pile of concrete - | basically indestructible. | | This is such an hilariously uneducated take that it has to | be trolling. | | Let's set aside the facts that the sarcophagus' 20-30 year | estimated lifetime has already expired, and has previously | partially collapsed, and has had to be replaced by the New | Safe Confinement structure. A stray artillery shell will | tear apart any 36 year old building that was structurally | weakened by an explosion, concrete or not. | firebaze wrote: | This is wrong on so many levels, it's almost right again. | qbasic_forever wrote: | Chernobyl's containment is not massive concrete, and cannot | sustain a hit from a bomb in any way. The new safe | containment structure is metal and air, it's meant to | contain dust as the reactor building inside is dismantled. | Watch this to learn all about it: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdnutU2m71o | | The old sarcophagus that was build in 1986 only had | concrete walls in a few key places. Much of it had huge | holes and open areas covered in sheet metal. All of it was | falling apart and rapidly deteriorating when construction | on new safe containment started. | | And remember there are 3 other reactor buildings at the | site and none of them are covered by the containment | structure or really any protection (Chernobyl's Soviet era | design which lacks a concrete containment structure is | partly why its meltdown was so catastrophic). The site | cannot withstand any attack. | gmuslera wrote: | To mine unobtanium, by now it should be enough of it there. | uuav wrote: | Having news reports about Russian control over Chernobyl is | enough to scare a good chunk of European population. | agumonkey wrote: | this whole event smells like a hooligan drive-by and not a | planned military operation, too many dirty tricks | ojbyrne wrote: | Really? To me it seems very well planned, but with tons of | disinformation to make potential opponents hesitate to act | as much as possible. | dathinab wrote: | That's what war is about. (acting strategic) | | That's how Hitler was initially so military successful. | | Act hard, ruthless and be done before the (main) enemy | realizes what hit their ally. | | EDIT: Not saying it's ethical to do so. | agumonkey wrote: | I get it, I'm not naive.. I'm saying it looks dirty as in | dumb/reckless, not efficient. But I may be wrong. | jazzyjackson wrote: | Do what the enemy thinks you are too smart to do. | dokem wrote: | Dirty tricks? In war? Unheard of. | w0de0 wrote: | The exclusion zone occupies the shortest route from Belarus to | Kyiv. | gjsman-1000 wrote: | Yes - Chernobyl is inside the massive "Chernobyl Exclusion | Zone," a zone which is conveniently only ~80 miles from the | capital of Ukraine, and is just a wide swatch of empty land and | abandoned buildings, perfect for parking military equipment. | The radiation levels, though high compared to the rest of | Ukraine, is low enough to not be a risk for their short-term | stay. | maybelsyrup wrote: | Yeah the Russians now control the entire supply of Ukranian | Airbnb Experiences | shadowgovt wrote: | Chernobyl was built near where power is consumed. | | It's only 81km up-river from Kyiv. | madaxe_again wrote: | Two strategic points off the top of my head: | | One, the railhead. Afaik it's operational and modern, as they | used it for moving material for constructing the sarcophagus. | Goes straight to Kiev. Makes for easy onwards transport of | materiel from Belarus. | | Two, a gun to the head of Europe. They could threaten to | destroy the containment, and/or to bomb the reactor building to | aerosolise as much radioactive material as possible. | asdff wrote: | Why blow up a dirty bomb when they have 1000 real bombs? | dathinab wrote: | Additionally to what was already said in other threads | about this: | | Why wast money? | asdff wrote: | Why do you care about saving money when you are planning | on ending the world in the next hour? | AitchEmArsey wrote: | Nuking someone is a definitive, MAD-triggering event. | Causing a radiological disaster "accidentally" would be | entirely consistent with the "stop hitting yourself" | diplomacy Russia has undertaken since moving against | Ukraine in 2014. | newuser94303 wrote: | They won't blow up Chernobyl. Ukraine is a top grain | exporting nation. Without wheat, Ukraine's economy would be | even worse and there would be no way to feed the people. | AmericanBlarney wrote: | I don't think the second is realistic, as that might be | considered an attack on NATO countries, which is likely not a | scale of war Russia is looking for. | Calavar wrote: | > _Two, a gun to the head of Europe. They could threaten to | destroy the containment, and /or to bomb the reactor building | to aerosolise as much radioactive material as possible._ | | If they wanted to go that extreme, they always had the option | of just launching nukes. Capturing the reactor and blowing | the sarcophagus just seems like a lot of needless extra | steps. | steve_adams_86 wrote: | Maybe I read too much scifi, but can't nukes be intercepted | in key locations? They might be able to land them in more | remote places, but wouldn't hitting cities be difficult? I | was under the impression developed nations have missile | interception technologies. But yeah, I've read books not | based in reality and watched some netflix in my days, so I | could be in fantasy land. Kind of sobering to write this | out and realize how clueless I am. | jazzyjackson wrote: | Aside from the numbers game, ICBMs used to be the fastest | way to deliver a warhead, with the obvious drawback that | anyone watching the horizon can see it coming from half a | world away. | | Nuclear warheads have been further miniaturized since the | cold war, it is now possible to fit them into cruise | missiles. | | > The deployment of Kalibr missiles, long-range, low- | flying, capable of carrying conventional or nuclear | warheads, available in land-attack, anti-ship and anti- | submarine variants, was said to have altered the military | balance in Europe and potentially compromised the NATO | missile defence system under construction in Europe. [0] | | There's also the rumored/propagandized hypersonic, | nuclear powered cruise missiles (skyfall [1]) that are | meant to defeat missile defense and circumvent MAD by | enabling undetected first strike. | | [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine- | launched_cruise_mi... | | [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik | | Disclaimer, I'm just a web developer with access to | wikipedia yo | unionpivo wrote: | intercepting few (up to few dozen) missiles sure. | | Intercepting hundreds potentially thousands ? Not really. | jcrawfordor wrote: | The US and Russia long had a treaty which prohibited the | development of anti-ballistic missile systems with narrow | exceptions. While the treaty agreement effectively ended | in 2002, it did effectively stop most ABM work in both | countries for an extended period of time. Further, the | problem has proven to be exceptionally difficult. The | Strategic Defense Initiative, better known as "Star | Wars," was an effort towards a comprehensive defense | against nuclear ICBMs that was famously declared to be | beyond the realm of the possible by some technical | groups. While US ABM work as resumed in earnest over the | last couple of decades or so, it remains an extremely | hard problem and progress has been slow. The prominent | GMD system, for example, has the ability to counter only | "tens" of warheads (and at tremendous expense, having to | fire many interceptors per inbound missile in order to | raise the probability of success). Other systems like | Aegis are generally even more limited. | | So while various countries do possess ABM systems with | varying levels of efficacy, in general we could expect | only a very small portion of inbound ICBMs to be | successfully intercepted... if any. These types of | systems have consistently under-performed expectations as | field conditions prove to be more challenging than | expected, and that's with limited knowledge of the | countermeasures an adversary like Russia might employ. | codezero wrote: | Plausible deniability is a good reason not to use nukes. | They could have a military accident, or blame a saboteur | for some sort of weapons cache exploding in-situ and claim | it was not intentional. | ojbyrne wrote: | It gives some deniability. "In desperation, the Ukrainian | government has shelled the Chernobyl site." | stickfigure wrote: | > Two, a gun to the head of Europe. They could threaten to | destroy the containment, and/or to bomb the reactor building | to aerosolise as much radioactive material as possible. | | Does the wind only blow west? This seems pretty far fetched. | dathinab wrote: | Does Putin care, he will just say the West or Ukraine did | so to hinder Russia and then use the damage to Russia as an | excuse to act even more ruthless. | dathinab wrote: | It's a side you can't really bomb/air attack. | | It's a side both EU and Russia are worried about I think. | | Putin is afraid that Ukraine will somehow put together a form a | nuclear bomb and use it "in desperation", and remainders in it | could be used to build a dirty pseudo atom-bomb (or maybe we | should call it radiation bomb). | | It's also is a nice path into the Ukrain with no | civilians/camera etc. around to get in their way. | janus wrote: | You don't want to bomb the Chernobyl exclusion area. | | So it's a perfect place to station troops and military arsenal | carabiner wrote: | Can we skip to the good part? Ahhh, ahh ah ah. | GabrielMtn wrote: | Maybe tiktok or Instagram would be a better place for this | comment. | g45ylkjlk45y wrote: | w0de0 wrote: | This development is a tactical prerequisite for besieging or | attacking Kyiv. The exclusion zone covers the shortest route to | the city from Belarus - the shortest route available to Russian | forces. | | It's also perhaps a strategic coup for Russia in two ways - but | it could also be a boon to Ukraine. The coming days will | elucidate which party most profits - probably Russia. | | Russia's first strategic gain is simply one of properly executed | rapid maneuver armored warfare. They now hold a redoubt that is | difficult to safely attack, threatens Kyiv and the entire Dnipro | plain, and preemptively protects their politically weakest supply | line, Belarus. | | Russia's second potential strategic boon here is more modern - | they have seized an infowar high ground. | | The Financial Times this morning quotes an anonymous Russian | security official claiming Chernobyl's occupation creates a | potent psychological deterrent against both strategic escalation | and subtle tactical interference from the West. | | The disaster of 86 looms large in the minds of European polities, | especially the Nordics. Placing the radioactive zone in the | battle space may chill European feet. | | And in American minds, Chernobyl is unavoidably associated with | the USSR and memories of a more dangerous iteration of Russia. (I | expect many on this side of the Atlantic think the plant is in | Russia.) Occupying it elevates the danger and the power | associated with Russia nearer to Cold War levels of respect, | which is a fundamental goal of Putin's revanchism. | | However, in the Slavic societies of post-Soviet eastern Europe - | including Russians themselves - Chernobyl connotes the corruption | and failure of the USSR. Gorbachev himself blamed the Union's | destruction entirely on the loss of scientific and nuclear | prestige, and national confidence, engendered by the disaster. | | So Russia risks reminding all their former satellite peoples of | the last empire's outcome. Ukraine's morale and propaganda may | turn the loss into a victory - especially if the Nordics | polities, and German citizenry, favor outrage over trepidation. | In this pursuit, Zelensky spoke several hours ago with Sweden's | PM about specifically the Chernobyl battle - and Ukraine's FM | called it an "attack on Europe." | | I hope desperately that Ukraine gains greater European unity, and | Russia gets further opprobrium among those Europeans who yet | still take an understanding view of Putin's new imperialism. | | But I suspect the affair will on the whole benefit Russia. All | else aside, it's clear they are fighting a conventional ground | war. They need the hard tactical advantage of occupying this | particular 1,000 square miles to win; even if they lose the | information battle they have advanced their cause. | marvin wrote: | I don't understand your infowar reasoning at all. Pripyat and | its immediate vicinity is just an unpopulated area with a | decomissioned nuclear power station in it. | | Is the subtext that Putin plans to blow it up, or what? I'm | pretty sure that attacking central Europe with a dirty bomb | would make it very difficult for NATO to avoid invoking Article | 5. | w0de0 wrote: | Is the subtext that Putin plans to blow it up, or what? | | Information war does not need a rational subtext - I suspect | it is more effective when it hasn't any. Even better if | multiple rationalities are all slightly plausible yet all | slightly absurd. | | The fundamental tactic is to obscure truth with a flood of | bullshit. One thus removes the surety of known & agreed facts | from both the politics of enemy's polity and the planning of | the enemy's military. | | With its rapidity, and its dynamic reaction the the enemy's | information disposition, Russia's approach is to conventional | propaganda what blitzkrieg was to trench warfare - largely | the same tools, but radically different tactics. To stretch | the analogy, the internet takes the tank's place as the key | disruptive technology which both inspires and requires new | tactics. I'm pretty sure that attacking | central Europe with a dirty bomb would make it very difficult | for NATO to avoid invoking Article 5. | | This threat is, I'm pretty sure, not intended. Russia already | has enough nukes and Putin has already rather clearly | threatened nuclear escalation if any nation "interferes." | There is perhaps an implicit threat intended - "nice | continent you got here - and, oh, look, Russia is now in | charge of protecting its on-going habitability!" | | Think of it like this: | | Russia wants to be a respected great power. Putin's | revisionist fantasy casts Russia as the primary arbiter of | Europe's political order. | | Chernobyl is an on-going danger to the entire peninsula's | safety. It must have a robust institutional custodian - | perhaps for centuries to come. It may not be as dangerous, | but that cannot be assumed, it must be proven conclusively | (and even then concern will linger: democracies are quite | skilled at turning society's vague, broadly-held fears into | irrational policy). | | Therefore Europe cannot ostracize any polity controlling the | exclusion zone indefinitely. The EU paid for the current | sarcophagus: managing this risk is a vital interest of the | entire Union. | | More broadly: fear need not be (and usually is not) rational | in order to be acted upon - especially in democracies. | Pripyat and its immediate vicinity is just an unpopulated | area with a decomissioned nuclear power station in it. | | You are rational and informed, and perhaps correct (I don't | know). As far as facts actually matter here, however, your | analysis is incomplete. | | The exclusion zone is an unpopulated area with a | decommissioned nuclear power plant *which happens to be | directly between the Russian army and their objective*. Any | conventional attack on Kyiv from Belarus must include this | area - even if it was truly unexceptional. | | But the facts don't matter. "Chernobyl" is a totem in | American and European minds. The very fact of this HN post's | popularity attests such. | | Russian strategists hope, I think, that they can gain an edge | by capturing the totem. They think to turn its symbolic | meanings to their own ends. | | Ukrainians also hope to use Chernobyl's various meanings in | the minds of their allies to their advantage, as a warning | and an impetus for solidarity. | | Semiotic warfare, if you will! | g45ylkjlk45y wrote: ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-02-24 23:00 UTC)