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Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

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Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#401

Post by amcoastal »

londons_explore wrote: post #357
mopsi wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ukraine in NATO means US nukes on Russia border, tipping the balance. No, it does not. A number of Eastern European countries are in NATO and none of them have American nuclear weapons. Where does this silly idea come that after joining NATO, American missiles somehow appear in the new member? Modern-day NATO is a cooperation platform for joint exercises etc, not some missile club that starts delivering ICBMs every…

But when a country has joined NATO, it can later declare it will host nuclear weapons loaned from other NATO countries. Russia is powerless to stop this, since any attack on a NATO country would likely trigger a counterattack. Hence, instead, Russia must prevent these countries joining if they want to ensure no nukes on their border.

Russia is already bordered by multiple NATO countries. You should not be parroting Kremlin talking points at this time.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#402

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #18
garbagecoder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve read too many Tom Clancy novels or something. People can declare whatever they want but unless there really is an attack on NATO, no one is talking about Article 5 and in such a circumstance it would be the attack itself and not the citation to a treaty that would be the issue. Also, a “full scale thermonuclear exchange” isn’t what it used to be. Stockpiles are orders of magnitude smaller than in the past, and…

Reading any Tom Clancy novels is too many, so guilty as charged. I can't unread them. Since this is a hot war waged by Russia that is neighboring 4 NATO members, it seems as though you are a bit more a casual than would be appropriate. Your comments about nuclear war are not comforting.

[deleted]

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#403

Post by ben_w »

xroche wrote: post #331
starfallg wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can with storage systems albeit with lots of constraints. Having nuclear is important to guarantee baseload, but we can't rely on that solely either. With current gen nuclear tech, well also run out of fuel within a few generations.

> You can with storage systems There is no such thing as storage systems at wide scale unfortunately > well also run out of fuel within a few generations Absolutely. But hopefully fusion will be around then.

> There is no such thing as storage systems at wide scale unfortunately

I can’t find actual current annual production, only estimates for now and actual values for a few years ago, but we produced somewhere between 0.5 (what we did recently) and 1.3 TWh (what some people a few years ago thought we’d be at now) of batteries in the last year.

Given the likely usage patterns, this is already on a relevant scale to all 50 or so nuclear reactors currently under construction, and the expectation is that battery production will approximate rapid positive exponential growth at least to the end of the decade.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#404

Post by ajuc »

ayngg wrote: post #260
jl6 wrote: post #121

https://oec.world/en/profile/country/rus Russia’s exports are >50% oil and gas products. The biggest retaliation the West can make right now is a commitment to a rapid exit at unprecedented speed from the oil economy, in favor of renewables.

This is happening because the west has no leverage and asymmetrical priorities. Russia -really- cares that Ukraine stays out of NATO, probably to the point where they would scorched earth the country before it joined, and the west only kinda cares about Ukraine comparatively, as demonstrated in 2014 and 2008. If they actually really care, sanctions don't mean much. Makes me wonder why the west thought the third time…

Ukraine wasn't going to be accepted into NATO anyway. They asked. Weren't accepted. Ukraine knows this, Russia knows this, NATO countries know this. It's just Russian excuse for propaganda reasons.

The real reason is that Russians consider Ukrainians "the same nation" and if Ukrainians entered EU or some sort of association with it, and got richer than Russians like Poles, Slovaks, Czechs, Balts etc. - it would be very bad for Putin approval in Russia. Russians would start to think "it could be us", "it could work without the tyranny".

So Putin can't let westernized, wealthy Ukraine to exist. Same reason he helped Lukashenko to stop revolution in Belarus recently.

The rest ("history" lectures, "NATO is encroaching", "Ukrainians are nazis and bombard Russian speakers in Ukraine") - it's just bullshit excuses. Don'r repeat them, please. You are helping an aggressive nationalist dictatorship murder people by accepting their excuses.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#405

Post by eej71 »

koide wrote: post #375
eej71 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many countries could also source fossil fuels from friendly allies. But those allies would have to be interested in extracting it from their own sources. From my stand point, and this will be very unpopular here, the push to rely on the unreliables (a better name for the renewables) has been toxic and is a destabilizing force in the world.

Did you know that the fossil energy sources are also intermittent? No energy plant is ever working 24x7x365. Stop with the fud already. There are real concerns with solar and wind that could be ameliorated with small scale storage, nuclear, geothermal and hydro. But to call them toxic and destabilizing is patently untrue, the destabilizing factor is not renewable energy.

The dream of any kind of small scale storage hinges on mining rare earth elements at a scale that no environmentalist will ever support. The greens will fully reverse course here once it becomes clear what kind of activity is required to make that possible.

I call them destablizing because the unjustified attacks on fossil fuels have delivered free countries into the economic hands of despotic regimes.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#406

Post by c0balt »

vetinari wrote: post #296
raducu wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia does not care about Ukraine joining NATO, Russia has nukes. Russian politicians care about Ukraine being a prospering democracy and a model for russian citizens. That's it.

In order to use nukes effectively, you need to have second strike capabilities. You know, the 'M' in 'MAD'. Ukraine in NATO means US nukes on Russia border, tipping the balance. It would be similar to Russia placing their bases and weapons into Canada or Mexico.

A historic example might be placing rockets in Cuba. iirc, that didn't go through smoothly with the U.S.and resulted in a small crises

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#407

Post by gambiting »

ed_balls wrote: post #268
MrDresden wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you truly comparing the "accidental" shooting down of a military plane to an actual boots on the ground invasion of a sovereign nation? These are so wastly different that mentioning apples and oranges doesn't even come close to it.

It was not accidental. A plane capable of caring nuclear bombs was in their airspace. I'm not comparing anything - I was referring to "end of the world". According to Turkish strategist, nuclear weapon is not usable, so they have no problem to retaliate. End of world is impossible.

>>End of world is impossible.

I wish I had your confidence about this.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#408

Post by nosianu »

Gwypaas wrote: post #246
nomercy400 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like Russia cares. They have a growing, energy-hungering neighbor (China) buying their gas in the east, and a Europe committed to reduce their gas and oil usage in the next 10 years in the west.

May be a large market for Russia, but China is completely invested in renewables. Just look at their pledged energy pipeline. No sane country builds new energy infrastructure not firmly anchored in renewables today. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/average-annua...

> China is completely invested in renewables

> No sane country builds new energy infrastructure not firmly anchored in renewables today.

Eh??

"China Is Planning to Build 43 New Coal-Fired Power Plants"

https://time.com/6090732/china-coal-power-plants-emissions/

"China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam plan to build more than 600 coal power units"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/five-asi...

"COP26 aims to banish coal. Asia is building hundreds of power plants to burn it"

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/cop26-aims-banish-co...

There only is "China pledges to stop building new coal energy plants abroad" -- the last word matters.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58647481

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#409

Post by hamsamrma »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #337
mrjin wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You serious? Each nation has their own interests. MAGA has obviously proved blindly following was a really bad idea.

Shutting down their nuclear plants for no good reason was certainly not in Germany's best interests. They will now pay dearly for that boneheaded decision.

Fortunately we have a friendly neighbor with plenty of nuclear power which renders germany's anti-nuclear stance into a political play with a side dish of market consolidation.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#410

Post by starfallg »

ed_balls wrote: post #387
starfallg wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd speculate the whole action is to force the West to a new deal with Russia, so they can balance China. If they are serious about partnering with the west, they should have embraced reforms and become a member of NATO. The fact that they haven't is indicative of Putin's plan to counter the west. It's more likely they will partner with China just because Putin isn't thinking beyond that. He's 70 after all and they…

> they should have embraced reforms They tried that in the 90s. There are two problems. They don't want to be a colony for Western powers. Russia is a collection of a few different nations. You have to hold it by a strong hand, otherwise you have a civil war e.g. Chechnya. So they want to do it now on partner relations with Europe. Russia will provide, natural resources, transportation link to Asia , you can relocate…

You don't partner with nations by forcing them into a corner. That's not partnership, that's conquest.

The USSR lost the cold war. The fact that they want to have their cake and eat it too is the root of the issue. The compromise to be admitted into the western system is actually pretty mild, and there are many strong nations within the western framework. Russia would have no problems operating on a similar level as Japan or France if they gave up their desire for geopolitical hegemony.

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