- #1,996
artis
- 1,481
- 976
A video from the Russian side, apparently this is in Mariupol ,
Okay, by that logic the best way to avoid WWIII is to form an alliance with Russia. Stop supplying arms to Ukraine and have a NATO-Russia pact.anorlunda said:You argued that it was time for us to fight. I presume you mean a limited war between NATO and Russia. I don't believe that it is possible to guarantee that a war will remain limited. Where end-of-the-world is in question, estimates of likelihood are not sufficient. All out war or no war at all are our choices. That's my logic.
Of course, I prefer no war at all. I also believe that Biden and all the leaders of NATO countries have the same position as I do. No escalation that might trigger WWIII.
Someone who disgrees with you is Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who proposed to run against Putin for president in 2003 and served 10 years in jail as a result. He believes that force is the only thing Putin understands or responds to and that appeasement just encourages him. Now, I'm not saying that Khodorkovsky is correct - I simply do not know - but it does mean that your proposed policy of appeasement could be the one that leads to WWIII.vela said:I think Putin sees Ukraine joining NATO as an existential threat to Russia. It would make them vulnerable geographically and economically. He wasn't demanding Ukraine stay out of NATO before the war just to have an excuse to invade.
WikiNews said:On Thursday, the Russian government's communication agency, Roskomnadzor, threatened to levy a 4 million rubles fine (US$47 thousand) against Wikipedia if it does not remove information about the war in Ukraine from its article 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Roskomnadzor referred to the content as "unreliable socially significant materials, as well as other prohibited information" and accused Wikipedia of deliberately misleading the Russian people, but it did not say which specific details it wanted removed.
Guidelines issued by the government of Russia last month prohibit, for example, referring to the conflict as a war. Many independent Russian news agencies and journalists either shut down or left the country.
[...]
A spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation told the press the Russian government had asked for changes twice, on March 1 and March 29. The spokesperson went on to say "The Wikimedia Foundation supports everyone's fundamental right to access free, open, and verifiable information; this escalation does not change our commitment."
[...]
You did not count for the moron factor. I do not think that Putin can actually be trusted in this respect.anorlunda said:If we had Sweden provide coastal defenses for Ukraine and Switzerland provide a no-fly zone, the implicit risk of resort to nuclear weapons would not be present.
By that logic, with only the West responsible for preventing nuclear war, the Russians will win every confrontation.anorlunda said:I understand that many here think that limited war probably won't lead to WW3. But we must ask ourselves about the consequences of the improbable case. If end of the world is one of the possible outcomes, even a small chance is unacceptable.
And there's a good chance of a pre-emptive nuclear strike by Russia in any case. Your aspiration for a safe world is an illusion. Every day I wonder whether Putin will nuke London today.anorlunda said:If end of the world is one of the possible outcomes, even a small chance is unacceptable.
caz said:By that logic, with only the West responsible for preventing nuclear war, the Russians will win every confrontation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction
Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender (see pre-emptive nuclear strike and second strike).[1] It is based on the theory of deterrence, which holds that the threat of using strong weapons against the enemy prevents the enemy's use of those same weapons. The strategy is a form of Nash equilibrium in which, once armed, neither side has any incentive to initiate a conflict or to disarm.
We all understand that. The question is what do we do about Ukraine. We are already angering Putin by sanctions and supplying Ukraine militarily. As I said above, if we take your argument to its logical conclusion we should perhaps become neutral (like India) and leave Ukraine at Russia's mercy.anorlunda said:The technical word relevant to our debate is deterrence. It is the foundational principle of military defense in almost all countries. It is not one-sided. It works both ways.
The Russians were deterred from intervening in Iraq. In Syria, direct NATO-Russian combat came close, but it was avoided.
Indeed, Vietnam and Korea were cases where Russia provided aid, weapons, and training, but no direct combat. That is similar to what we have done so far in Ukraine. They were deterred. We are deterred in the case of Ukraine.
We may hate it, but MAD is the reality that we live under.
I agree with you BUT we are not at that point yet.PeroK said:We all understand that. The question is what do we do about Ukraine. We are already angering Putin by sanctions and supplying Ukraine militarily. As I said above, if we take your argument to its logical conclusion we should perhaps become neutral (like India) and leave the Ukraine at Russia's mercy.
There must, by your argument, be a greater risk of nuclear war by what we are already doing, than by abandoning Ukraine altogether.
And, you've still not given any clear indication of what if anything you are not willing to sacrifice to avoid military confrontation with Russia.
Where is your line in the sand?
Such an argument implies that a NATO-country must also be leaved without a help. The nukes factor exists in both cases independently on whether it is NATO or not. I feel that this story will bury NATO as well.pinball1970 said:He has invaded a non-NATO country,
That's not what you have been describing though. You're putting 100% of the responsibility for avoiding nuclear war by being passive on the US/west as if we don't also have nuclear weapons and a strong conventional military. And in a way you're right: we've told Putin in plain language that we will not respond militarily as long as he doesn't attack NATO, removing our deterrence power from the situation. That's why Putin felt comfortable invading.anorlunda said:The technical word relevant to our debate is deterrence. It is the foundational principle of military defense in almost all countries. It is not one-sided. It works both ways.
The problem here is that we neither set the odds nor control the game. We can decline to buy a lottery ticket and still lose.But we must ask ourselves about the consequences of the improbable case. If end of the world is one of the possible outcomes, even a small chance is unacceptable.
That I agree with at least a little. The question still is, who would Russia use nukes against and why/under what circumstances. If he'd only use them against the US then only the US needs to stay out. If he'd only use them against another nuclear power, then only those powers need to stay out. If he'd use them against anyone who would dare join the fight, then the only way to avoid nuclear war is let him do what he wants.Another point. The WW3 risk applies only when both combatants are nuclear superpowers, or members of NATO. If we had Sweden provide coastal defenses for Ukraine and Switzerland provide a no-fly zone, the implicit risk of resort to nuclear weapons would not be present.
If I were in a country bordering the Ukraine I would think that anyone who allows Ukraine to be butchered is ultimately not going to protect me when the time comes.pinball1970 said:I agree with you BUT we are not at that point yet.
He has invaded a non-NATO country, committed atrocities and the west is providing money arms and passage for refuges of that country.
The line in the sand is where he strays from this into A NATO country.
This means we watch him butcher a country lie about it and gets away with it while we watch.
That is the price to avoid WW3 (at the moment)
Note, we are not currently providing substantial reinforcement to Europe (and didn't during the months of build-up). If he had rolled through Ukraine in 2 weeks he might have seen an empty border with Poland and thought "why not?" Even if we had wanted to fulfill our obligation we might not have been able to stop him.pinball1970 said:I agree with you BUT we are not at that point yet.
He has invaded a non-NATO country, committed atrocities and the west is providing money arms and passage for refuges of that country.
The line in the sand is where he strays from this into A NATO country.
We aren't the ones who would destroy it, Putin is. The argument being made here is that any direct action by the US/NATO no matter how small could trigger Putin to nuke us, so we should do nothing and let the bully tire himself out.hutchphd said:We are not allowed to destroy a 100k years of human effort because we are offended by Putin and his apologists (And I do feel deeply offended) What needs to come out of this horror is a world where this will be less likely to happen next time. That is the best we can hope for, and a small victory.
How about getting ourselves to a position where that risk no longer needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency (as it does presently)?russ_watters said:That's not what you have been describing though. You're putting 100% of the responsibility for avoiding nuclear war by being passive on the US/west as if we don't also have nuclear weapons and a strong conventional military. And in a way you're right: we've told Putin in plain language that we will not respond militarily as long as he doesn't attack NATO, removing our deterrence power from the situation. That's why Putin felt comfortable invading.
A change in stance to active military response would put our deterrence back on the table.
...except that you don't believe that any non-zero risk is acceptable, which means that you don't really believe in deterrence, doesn't it? Deterrence requires a credible risk/threat.
The problem here is that we neither set the odds nor control the game. We can decline to buy a lottery ticket and still lose.
That I agree with at least a little. The question still is, who would Russia use nukes against and why/under what circumstances. If he'd only use them against the US then only the US needs to stay out. If he'd only use them against another nuclear power, then only those powers need to stay out. If he'd use them against anyone who would dare join the fight, then the only way to nuclear war is let him do what he wants.
In order to assess the risk, it takes more than vaguely saying "its possible".
We need to step back for a minute. We are discussing WW3 and nuclear war like it is a real possibility.PeroK said:There's also a more pragmatic, strategic apsect that the loss of Ukraine is a major industrial and agricultural loss to us and gain to Russia. Not to mention the number of men of military age that can be conscripted to fight for Russia against Poland, say.
Ukraine seems worth fighting for for that reason as well.
Yes and as a civilian I am ashamed about that, at least it is not my country being bombed and we are avoiding all out war.russ_watters said:Note, we are not currently providing substantial reinforcement to Europe (and didn't during the months of build-up. If he had rolled through Ukraine in 2 weeks he might have seen an empty border with Poland and thought "why not?" Even if we had wanted to fulfill our obligation we might not have been able to stop him.
Ironically Ukraine's success seems to have decreased our willingness to engage, though it was already close to zero.
That's an interesting (but probably accurate) definition of an 'advanced' civilization ! Let's hope we are advanced enough not to self-destruct!hutchphd said:We are not allowed to destroy a 100k years of human effort because we are offended by Putin and his apologists (And I do feel deeply offended) What needs to come out of this horror is a world where this will be less likely to happen next time. That is the best we can hope for, and a small victory. We are a very young advanced ( i.e. one capable of self-annihilation) civilization.
It is. This is the result of 20 years of Putin and 20 years of no one in the west realising the danger. We have either a crazed dictator who still thinks Europe is under Nazi occupation (and has convinced perhaps 70 million of the 140 million Russians of that); or, hopefully, we have a cynical gangster who can't believe his luck.pinball1970 said:We need to step back for a minute. We are discussing WW3 and nuclear war like it is a real possibility.
I'm not really suggesting appeasement. I'm saying that going past restoring the status quo and doing the one thing that Putin's been so adamant about opposing would be provoking him.PeroK said:Someone who disgrees with you is Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who proposed to run against Putin for president in 2003 and served 10 years in jail as a result. He believes that force is the only thing Putin understands or responds to and that appeasement just encourages him. Now, I'm not saying that Khodorkovsky is correct - I simply do not know - but it does mean that your proposed policy of appeasement could be the one that leads to WWIII.
I don't think you can equate Ukraine with Poland. The Poland-Russia border is relatively small and so easier to defend. The Russia-Ukraine border isn't. We, in the West, may think, "Who cares? We're not planning to invade Russia." Putin, on the other hand, considers NATO as a threat or a potential threat. He's likely convinced that despite everything the West's assurances, the US and Europe are just waiting for the right time or the right excuse to invade Russia and take it over. That's why he likely sees Ukraine joining NATO as an existential threat. Poland being in NATO probably doesn't make him happy, but it's not the existential threat Ukraine's membership would pose in his eyes.PeroK said:Not least because Poland will be next and they are in NATO. At that point you and @anorlunda will have to decide whether to throw Poland out of NATO or risk WWIII. If you don't want to risk WWIII over Ukraine, why would you risk it over Poland?
I don't think I've ever said anything like this. I certainly don't think we should let Putin have his way. At the beginning of the war, I bought into the narrative that the Russian military would take over Ukraine in a matter of days and therefore felt the western nations were being too cautious. Now, I think the best thing we can do is support Ukraine by providing arms and humanitarian aid. I'm not convinced that getting directly involved militarily would be the smartest course right now, but I also don't think we should rule it out altogether either if the situation changes.PeroK said:I understand that you and @anorlunda are convinced that any attempt to oppose Putin militarily will lead to WWIII. But, you may in fact be dead wrong. By not standing up to Putin you may be encouraging him that all of Europe could be his. And that will lead to WWIII.
That was a serious consideration at some point. In light of current events, it's perhaps somewhat tragic that a potential 'game changer' of this magnitude seems to have been overshadowed by Boris Yeltsin's drinking problems!Jarvis323 said:How about we just invite Russia to join NATO?
You can not take Putin at his word. It is worthless and done for domestic PR and manipulating opponents.vela said:I'm saying that going past restoring the status quo and doing the one thing that Putin's been so adamant about opposing would be provoking him.
Okay.vela said:I'm not really suggesting appeasement. I'm saying that going past restoring the status quo and doing the one thing that Putin's been so adamant about opposing would be provoking him.
This is not a strategy. Ukraine will never be safe, because we can't trust anything Russia says. Have you seen Lavrov? He's like a character in a black comedy about dictatorship.vela said:As @artis noted, the process of Ukraine joining NATO is a long one, so just tell Putin, "We'll guarantee Ukraine won't be joining NATO for the next two decades." Come to an agreement that Ukraine will remain a neutral country for now. It wouldn't be a lie as practically speaking, that's what would have happened anyways, and it might have been enough to put Putin at ease. And then hopefully, he dies in the meantime.
If he conquers Ukraine, there's your border. The border with NATO that, by the way, he claims is unacceptable to him.vela said:I don't think you can equate Ukraine with Poland. The Poland-Russia border is relatively small and so easier to defend. The Russia-Ukraine border isn't.
Possibly. I'd like to see your evidence that the Russian intelligence services think that.vela said:We, in the West, may think, "Who cares? We're not planning to invade Russia." Putin, on the other hand, considers NATO as a threat or a potential threat.
I don't buy that. Quite the opposite, in fact. I believe he sees the west as weak and decadent and more worried about fuel prices than genocide. The UN cannot act with Russia permanently on the security council in any case.vela said:He's likely convinced that despite everything the West's assurances, the US and Europe are just waiting for the right time or the right excuse to invade Russia and take it over. That's why he likely sees Ukraine joining NATO as an existential threat.
Possibly. I wonder whether that view is more hope than expectation.vela said:Poland being in NATO probably doesn't make him happy, but it's not the existential threat Ukraine's membership would pose in his eyes.
Okay. That's a valid point. But, you have to be prepared for 45 million people to be crushed in the meantime.vela said:I don't think I've ever said anything like this. I certainly don't think we should let Putin have his way. At the beginning of the war, I bought into the narrative that the Russian military would take over Ukraine in a matter of days and therefore felt the western nations were being too cautious. Now, I think the best thing we can do is support Ukraine by providing arms and humanitarian aid. I'm not convinced that getting directly involved militarily would be the smartest course right now, but I also don't think we should rule it out altogether either if the situation changes.
You really believe he believes that? That would be a powerful combination of crazy and stupid if it's true, and doesn't indicate to me that we can trust his stability enough for appeasement to produce a fruitful result for us.vela said:We, in the West, may think, "Who cares? We're not planning to invade Russia." Putin, on the other hand, considers NATO as a threat or a potential threat. He's likely convinced that despite everything the West's assurances, the US and Europe are just waiting for the right time or the right excuse to invade Russia and take it over. That's why he likely sees Ukraine joining NATO as an existential threat.
It's tough for me to imagine that it isn't turtles all the way down. If we had designs on invading Russia already and Ukraine becomes a weak part of Russia that we were previously contemplating bringing under our protection, why wouldn't that motivate us to invade Russia (Ukraine)? If we're the aggressors then the "buffer zone" isn't for him it's for us. It's a neutral country that we'd have to step over to get to him. If he's next door then we can just attack him from our (NATO's) border. In that case the only real benefit for him taking over Ukraine would be in making it part of Russia in name only; in reality just being a crumple zone that he doesn't care about. This would require that he isn't actually imperialistic (despite invading and conquering his neighbors!) and was lying when he said that Ukraine is a historical part of Russia and the USSR's dissolution was a tragedy.Poland being in NATO probably doesn't make him happy, but it's not the existential threat Ukraine's membership would pose in his eyes.
Indeed you cannot equate Ukraine with Poland. This Polish border with Russia is also much different because instead of bordering with the mainland like Ukraine where you can station tons of equipment and troops , Kaliningrad oblast is a small territory surrounded from all sides by NATO, Russia would never be able to put so many weapons there without having some sort of intervention happening especially given how the situation now has changed.vela said:I don't think you can equate Ukraine with Poland. The Poland-Russia border is relatively small and so easier to defend. The Russia-Ukraine border isn't. We, in the West, may think, "Who cares? We're not planning to invade Russia." Putin, on the other hand, considers NATO as a threat or a potential threat. He's likely convinced that despite everything the West's assurances, the US and Europe are just waiting for the right time or the right excuse to invade Russia and take it over. That's why he likely sees Ukraine joining NATO as an existential threat. Poland being in NATO probably doesn't make him happy, but it's not the existential threat Ukraine's membership would pose in his eyes.
This is not a normal situation but I hope you check in and or stay in.anorlunda said:Sigh. I'm discouraged by this form of debate on PF. Seldom does anyone (including me) change their mind. We (including me) engage in point-counterpoint on a shoot-from-the-hip basis with several exchanges per day.
I'm a big fan of well conducted Oxford style debates, especially https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/
Debaters are chosen because of their research, long involvement and publications on the question. They have ample time to prepare. They are cognizant of the likely arguments by the opponents. The format gives them ample time to state their case without interruption, but not enough time to put the audience to sleep. The format also provides for challenges to their points by the opposition and the moderator, plus time for an uninterrupted final statement. Audiences to such debates are more amenable to persuasion.
Therefore, I'm going to unfollow this thread.
Thanks for your contributions all the same - thought provoking.anorlunda said:Sigh. I'm discouraged by this form of debate on PF. Seldom does anyone (including me) change their mind. We (including me) engage in point-counterpoint on a shoot-from-the-hip basis with several exchanges per day.
I'm a big fan of well conducted Oxford style debates, especially https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/
Debaters are chosen because of their research, long involvement and publications on the question. They have ample time to prepare. They are cognizant of the likely arguments by the opponents. The format gives them ample time to state their case without interruption, but not enough time to put the audience to sleep. The format also provides for challenges to their points by the opposition and the moderator, plus time for an uninterrupted final statement. Audiences to such debates are more amenable to persuasion.
Therefore, I'm going to unfollow this thread.