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Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

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Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#451
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. You can't exit from the oil economy with renewable such as wind or solar due to their non-predictability. If you want to stop importing Russian gaz, you need nuclear energy.

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.

AFAIK the running out of fuel would be a non-issue with breeder reactors, which are disliked for the proliferation risk they are. Well, trade-offs.

Also: currently, nuclear fuel cost is a small part of running a reactor. If nuclear fuel follows a similar cost/available quantity curve as other geologic resources, we should be able to find more once we start looking in earnest.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#452
post #290
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed ~200k people. Any target worth nuking, (say Nato HQ) will result in millions of casualties. Urbanization & increased population density have many benefits, but they make for mind-bogglingly disastrous targets of nukes. If there's a choice between nukes raining down and between Putin ruling the world, I'll happily choose the latter. No matter the cost, there cannot be a nucl…

Giving up everything trying to avoid a nuclear war is the surest way to get it. I know, it's counterintuitive, but if you want peace you must be willing to go to war.

The last sentence is an oxymoron. How would there be peace if you go to war?

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#453
Would be interesting to hear from any russians in here, because i can't help to think that large majority of russians are complicit to what seems to be a dictator going mad as much as the dictators in his neighborhood (aliyev, khomeini, taliban etc)

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#454
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. You can't exit from the oil economy with renewable such as wind or solar due to their non-predictability. If you want to stop importing Russian gaz, you need nuclear energy.

Or local coal and gas reserves. The Netherlands has plenty of gas, they just choose not to use it. Germany has plenty coal.

That choice is because the emptied gas fields are causing earthquakes so there's good reasoning behind it :)

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is unfortunately highly unlikely. A lot of EU politics depends on the pockets of rich Russian oil firms. Just look at Austria, very rich but obviously Russian run EU country. (latest prime minister got fired by Russians even though Russia cyberarmy helped him win the elections. They decided he was no longer as compliant, so they leaked data many years after elections, Russian scandals several years before that e…

> Just look at Austria, very rich but obviously Russian run EU country. This is just nonsense. Austrian government is not by any means run "by the Russians". Russia has been trying to enlarge it's sphere of influence in the west for a while now (which is nothing exceptional geopolitically speaking) and has few retired politicians working in the Russian private sector (Schröder [DE], Schüssel [AT], Fillion [FR], etc.)…

Yes indeed, 'cleancoder0' seems to have gained their understanding of middle Europe from a Tom Clancy novel, or whatever.

For many of us in Europe, including Austria, peace with Russia is considered a very good thing, and a lot of us want it, having lived through the enmities of hate and spite that was hoisted upon us during the Cold War.

Imagine if, indeed, the economic powerhouse of Europe+Russia were allowed to happen. If only certain entities weren't so committed to profiting from the balkanization of everything, hmm...

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having just watched the Finnish president and prime minister address the situation, the press' pressing questions about joining NATO were continually downplayed, as is customary. Finland is almost militantly neutral, since that was the original condition to independence in the first place. On the other hand, Russia just voided the Minsk agreement with Ukraine to attack, so... Imagine being Russia's border neighbor, m…

Being a border nation with Russia now, without a staunch pro-Russian government, is pretty scary right now. Even if you are a NATO member, because I don't trust NATO to go to war with Russia.

Why do you think Russia would attack NATO member? War has its own costs, Russia probably has some calculation. I don't think we will see any combat from Russian sides, at least on NATO member.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#457
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Putin has literally made a career out of calling west's bluffs. Would he call that one? Well that is the point. As I said the west needs to make it clear that an invasion would lead to war. It can't be a bluff. But we all know the west wasn't willing to end civilization over this so here we are. Seems like Putin is going to keep prodding the west until he finds the line he is convinced we won't let him cross. That l…

Don't underestimate Ukraine in this conflict. The Russian military doesn't have the resources for a prolonged guerilla conflict against a motivated resistance. With the current actions, the Ukrainian population won't easily forget what Putin has done and even dictatorships need some level of approval from the population. There is a reasonable chance that Putin excavated his own grave with his reprehensible actions.

A guerilla assumes that Russia occupies Ukraine. I think this is improbable, I do not think that Russia want to deal with guerilla warfare and probable terrorist attacks coming from extremists from there. The east part of Ukraine in Donbass, recognized as independent by them, is precisely the part of Ukraine with more ethnical Russians that is against the Ukrainian government and were de facto independent and more pro-russian since years ago during Ukrainian civil war. From there a guerilla would be improbable. This attacks probably are more to send a message against NATO expansion there and to defend Donbass independence, not an invasion for occupation.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not aware of Russian / European geopolitics so pardon my ignorance, but isn't NATO reaching Russian borders a threat? Hypothetically, wouldn't the US would have serious concerns if Mexico decides to join a Chinese alliance. (I am not justifying a war, just wondering what could have been done on both sides to prevent it)

No, NATO is not a threat to Russia. NATO is not organised well enough to conduct offensive operations on that scale, moreover, there is no state on earth, including US and China that could take parts of Russia and hold for long. But that aside, the very real political and economic situation in the world would make it unfathomable. There's basically no 'strategy game' where the West would have the intent let alone abi…

> There's a grain of truth in it, of course there is violence in Donbas, but amplifying the issue is the very obvious ruse.

The only reason there is violence in Donbas is because of the previous undeclared Russian invasion of that territory as well as fomenting unrest there and elsewhere in Ukraine. Not to mention shooting down a commercial airliner.

It's about as truthful as Hitler arguing there is violence in the West of Poland in October 1939.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is unfortunately highly unlikely. A lot of EU politics depends on the pockets of rich Russian oil firms. Just look at Austria, very rich but obviously Russian run EU country. (latest prime minister got fired by Russians even though Russia cyberarmy helped him win the elections. They decided he was no longer as compliant, so they leaked data many years after elections, Russian scandals several years before that e…

Kurz got booted because of run of the mill power politics and because his clique was arrogant, careless, not very effective and made more than enough enemies. No outside influence needed. But its funny, russian propagandist standpoint is that he got ousted because he stood up to the EU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAhtC20nqjk

It is extremely amusing to consider that - from an American perspective - it takes "Russian Interference" for Austrian politics to be so screwed up.

Such naiveté begets the truth, which is that Americans falling for this trope really know nothing about Austrian political habits, whatsoever.

Kurz fell because Kurz was dumb and corrupt from the very beginning, and his party simply incompetent, and we are all glad to have seen him in the rear view mirror.

In fact, American agitprop'ers may not know this, but crediting Russia with Kurz' dismissal only makes us more willing to make deals with the Russkies.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#460
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.

I do not understand why Germany opts to get out of nuclear power. With enough nuclear power it would not need to rely on natgas/oil from east.
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