Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

[Cyclops]

The present situation at least has the advantage that it is clear who has the weapons.

Yes its the guy who keeps hinting he's going to use them.

If Russian nuclear weapons got on the black market it would be a rather difficult situation.

That would be disastrous. That said Putin's invasion being defeated does not lead directly to this scenario. There are scenarios where Putin wins and sels nukes too, equally unlikely.

That isn't quite what I meant. What I meant was that if the Russian public were genuinely suffering as a consequence of Western economic sanctions, then it may very well lead to someone taking power who was willing to see Russia destroyed if America and Europe were also destroyed (which doesn't appear true of Putin).

I disagree, he is literally plundering neighbouring countries under his nuclear umbrella. Some Serb aligned forces used this method in their crime ridden Balkan wars too.

I mean ploughing into Ukraine only to have his arse handed to him is pretty suicidal, or incompetent. I do not advocate regime change in Russia as a policy setting, but we should not avoid resisting Russian expansionism because of the remote possibility of a change of leaders, and that somehow comes up with someone worse than Putin.

There are sensible sounding parts to your argument but the logic gaps are huge. Putin is a present risk, a repeat offender. I don't think the West can force Ukraine to fold just because there's imaginary futures where a Russian leader behaves worse, there isn't much lower such a person could go.

[Mithradates]

And I have also mentioned the relevant fact that most Europeans do not want to send weapons to Ukraine, as well as the fact that without Russia, there will never be a stability pact for Europe.

You mean this survey?

The article quoted below addresses the imperative need, the importance of the stability to Europe in the long run, and it also mentions (and this is not an irrelevant fact, which cannot be ignored) that a recent survey of public opinion - Link (April 2022) - across 27 Western countries found (see summary of the findings, first page) that on average only 36% support their country providing weapons to the Ukrainian military in the conflict.

Nope, most Europeans do want to send weapons to Ukraine:
page 13
"[My country] should provide weapons such as guns and anti-tank weapons to the Ukrainian military"

Netherlands 65%
Great Britain 63%
Sweden 61%
Canada 58%
Poland 58%
Germany 55%
France 53%
Australia 50%
Spain 46%
Belgium 44%
South Korea 39%
India 38%
Italy 32%
Japan 25%
South Africa 25%
Brazil 24%
Saudi Arabia 22%
Chile 21%
Turkey 19%
Israel 18%
Malaysia 18%
Colombia 17%
Hungary 15%
Mexico 15%
Argentina 14%
Peru 13%

[alhoon]

Reminder: According to mudpit rules you should try to make your posts impersonal. The thread is about Russia, USA and Ukraine in the recent invasion. While discussing the opinions stated by a poster is fine, posts should be impersonal, so please focus on mentioning the subject and arguments a poster makes.
Future posts that remain too personal and focus on the poster and not the post will be deleted.

[Muizer]

Please quote me.

Not a chance. Oh, wait .....

[fkizz]

While Russians are making fierce offensives in Eastern Donbass with some sucess,
Seems T-62 tanks is what the Russian AF are mostly using now. More seen than the T-74s and T-80s and T-90s.
This is at least a sign of some fatigue on the mechanized cavalry side.

Also reports of them setting a third line of defense in conquered areas. While there is an ambiguity if they russian AF are on the offensive or defensive, it's objective that the settings are that of a protracted war.

[conon394]

That’s my opinion, is also the opinion of political scientists, military experts, and major European leaders:

I believe you dropped the word some out of that sentence.

[Alastor]

An interesting article discussing propaganda: https://dissidentvoice.org/2022/05/t...tist-rhetoric/

[Ludicus]

According to a Ukrainian scholar, Denys Kiryukhin,

“For a part of the Russian-speaking population of the country, it is not a problem to give up Russian…their preference to speak Russian does not coincide with their (ideological) image of a citizen of the Ukrainian state...they are aware of their own deficiency and inadequacy”

Roots and Features of Modern Ukrainian National Identity and Nationalism.

“They are aware of their own deficiency and inadequacy”. I question whether most American citizens agree with this reasoning. In the south of Ukraine, we are also faced with a double war of secession and a double nationalism. The wars of secession, throughout history, have been the most brutal, and the most difficult to solve. For an independent and structured analysis of the situation in Ukraine, we must try to understand its genesis and the motivations that led to the military conflict.
----
Meanwhile, BMW board member Milan Nedeljkovic tells Reuters that “our industry accounts for about 37% of natural gas consumption in Germany” which will sink without Russian gas supplies. BMW exploring energy investments to reduce dependence

Not just BMW but the entire sector would come to a standstill.

----

US preparing to approve long-range rocket system for Ukraine

the Multiple Launch Rocket System, or MLRS. The US-made weapon systems can fire a barrage of rockets hundreds of kilometers…the Biden administration waivered for weeks, however, on whether to send the systems, amid concerns raised within the National Security Council that Ukraine could use the systems to carry out offensive attacks inside Russia.

Russia warns West against providing Ukraine long-range ...

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says supplying arms capable of hitting Russian territory would be a step towards ‘unacceptable escalation

----
Debate
Evelyn Farkas, executive director of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University,

I would agree with Professor Mearsheimer that there has been a change in the Biden administration. They have recognized that the only way to stop Vladimir Putin is not through sanctions, not through trying to appeal to the Russian people, but it's by defeating Russia on the battlefield as fast as possible.
I don't think we should be deterred by this fear that he's going to reach for nuclear weapons. We cannot rule it out. I'm not dismissing it. But I also think that the objective that we have right now, the stakes are so high.
And we're fighting here to stop Vladimir Putin to essentially reasserting a sphere of influence system, which is what we put to bed after the end of World War II.

John Mearsheimer

Well, I think it's very important to understand that, if he were to use nuclear weapons, he would use them, in all likelihood, in Western Ukraine.
And there are no NATO or American forces in Western Ukraine. So he would not be attacking us. He would be using those weapons in Ukraine. And the question is, what do we do then? And I'm not sure what we would do then. Would we use nuclear weapons? Would we then get dragged into the war?
When Professor Farkas talks about the consequences of this for the world order, I'm more worried about the consequences if we ended up getting hit with nuclear weapons.
I mean, we want to remember what President Kennedy did during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was in a similar situation. What he did was, he tried to dampen the conflict. He tried to work out some sort of deal with Khrushchev, so we could both avoid getting vaporized.
What the Biden administration is doing is exactly the opposite. It's upping the ante. It's putting Putin in a position where he might very well use nuclear weapons. Again, I think this is remarkably foolish.

The near future will tell who is right.

---

You mean this survey?
Nope

Nope? are you saying that the summary of the findings in the first page is wrong? How can you deny what is written there? It says: "On average across 27 countries: 36% support their country providing weapons to the Ukrainian military in the conflict"
Click on the link: voilà!

[AqD]

When the Soviet Union fragmented, outside powers helped secure the nukes, and negotiate their centralisation.

Of course, I'm not an advocate of this kind of scenario, but I don't think it is worst case.

They wont need to negotiate because we can just buy them on bidding market. Surely corrupted officers and warlords would be happy to exchange nukes with gold and weapons they can actually use in a civil war. And we have plenty of both.

Meanwhile we can resume missile defense system.

[Ludicus]

According to the Institute of War, May 26, 2022

Russian forces have made steady, incremental gains in heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine in the past several days…Russian forces have now taken control of over 95% of Luhansk Oblast and will likely continue efforts to complete the capture of Severodonetsk in the coming days

Ukrainians "Eager To Talk To Putin But...": President Zelensky

Russia-Ukraine war: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday said the country has to face the reality that talks with Russia will likely be necessary to end the war… there are things to discuss with the Russian leader. I'm not telling you that to me our people are eager to talk to him, but we have to face the realities of what we are living through," Zelenskiy said

The promised long-range missiles will make him change his mind, while the human and material devastation of Ukraine continues.

[swabian]

They wont need to negotiate because we can just buy them on bidding market. Surely corrupted officers and warlords would be happy to exchange nukes with gold and weapons they can actually use in a civil war. And we have plenty of both.

Meanwhile we can resume missile defense system.

Nobody wants to face an age of nuclear terrorism, so Russia needs to be disarmed piece by piece and we will all say "thank you" for each and every item we receive and can take away and dismantle. If that it is all that it takes to get that threat out of the calculation then what is the problem. We will have to buy that rusted, rotten, toxic crap away from them at really, really high prices. Now where to store it? How to destroy it? There should be already a dismantling industry with IPO's to speculate on.

[Mithradates]

Nope? are you saying that the summary of the findings in the first page is wrong? How can you deny what is written there? It says: "On average across 27 countries: 36% support their country providing weapons to the Ukrainian military in the conflict"
Click on the link: voilà!

???

Dude, YOU should click on the link and read more than just the first page so you would know that those 27 countries are NOT the EU, those are random countries like Argentina, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Malaysia etc.
I literally posted the relevant data, out of the top 10 countries in that survey who want to support Ukraine with weapons, 8 of them are European countries.
Europeans do want to send weapons to Ukraine.

[z3n]

An interesting article discussing propaganda: https://dissidentvoice.org/2022/05/t...tist-rhetoric/

I don't think the western population is properly conditioned for that article, its certainly an interesting read though. Probably each of their first impressions ever as a young boy or girl about Russia was that it was a scary bad enemy.


The reverse of course for eastern populations is the exact same. Hence why eastern European countries are generally more accepting of Russia than western. Given the recent MLRS situation this becomes even more clear, it's easy to understand why this is such a red line for Russia, as the "fires" in Russia would probably become open attacks via MLRS instead of "karma". If that does occur, western Ukraine wouldn't just face a punitive raid or effort to replace the government, they'd probably receive a so-called righteous bombardment of tactical nukes. Similar to how USA reacted to 9/11 (a massive overreaction).

[swabian]

The reverse of course for eastern populations is the exact same. Hence why eastern European countries are generally more accepting of Russia than western.

Go and try to explain that to them.

[AqD]

We will have to buy that rusted, rotten, toxic crap away from them at really, really high prices. Now where to store it? How to destroy it? There should be already a dismantling industry with IPO's to speculate on.

It will be a very small price considering Russia's nukes is the only threat to NATO and European defense.

And we can stock them in preparation against China.

[swabian]

It will be a very small price considering Russia's nukes is the only threat to NATO and European defense.

And we can stock them in preparation against China.

The plutonium. It is only about the plutonium. Everything else can be destroyed/recycled or used for civilian purposes.

China has a few hundred ICBM's, it's not a nuclear threat.

[conon394]

What the Biden administration is doing is exactly the opposite. It's upping the ante. It's putting Putin in a position where he might very well use nuclear weapons. Again, I think this is remarkably foolish.

Last I checked Putin is the one who put himself in the position by rolling violations of Ukrainian sovereignty and than an all out war. The comparison to the Cuban missile crisis is flawed since the US did not introduce Ukraine into NATO or start building a nuclear missile complex there.

while the human and material devastation of Ukraine continues.

Which of course alternatively Russia could stop any time it stopped invading.

[AqD]

Last I checked Putin is the one who put himself in the position by rolling violations of Ukrainian sovereignty and than an all out war. The comparison to the Cuban missile crisis is flawed since the US did not introduce Ukraine into NATO or start building a nuclear missile complex there.

It makes no sense to reason with Kremlin today. They don't care either way and violence is the only thing Putin and his supporters understand.

Direct intervention and nukes should be on the table now. I bet the first and second strike capabilities of NATO is much better and we have higher chance of survival.

[swabian]

It makes no sense to reason with Kremlin today. They don't care either way and violence is the only thing Putin and his supporters understand.

Direct intervention and nukes should be on the table now. I bet the first and second strike capabilities of NATO is much better and we have higher chance of survival.

Nukes should never be on the table at all. Period. When i say "China is not a nuclear threat" i mean the amount of destruction they can deliver compared to the amount of the destruction they know they would have to suffer. But this is reduced to the question who is more likely to survive. physically. Not about who has any future after such an exchange of aggression. The world as we know it would end. Billions would die and there would be no questions asked about economy and prosperity.

[Ludicus]

YOU should click on the link and read more

Once again, for the last time:

on average across 27 countries: 36% support their country providing weapons to the Ukrainian military in the conflict"

Only 36%,Mithradates.