Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces • Hacker News Board

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#861

Post by hef19898 » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 9:28 AM UTC

dtx1 wrote: post #839

hef19898 wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do have US nukes stationed in Germany for that very reason. rather old tech nukes, but still. This gives Germany a seat at the NATO table about nuclear strategy. If push comes to shove, German Tornado fighter jets are going to carry those nukes into combat.

Just another cowardly work around. If we want to live under the protection of weapons of mass destruction and the means of a global nuclear holocaust than we should take on that responsibility ourselves instead of delegating it to the US, Britain and France.

You are aware that Gean rearmament, conventional rearmament, was a hard pill for the Western allies to swallow? Let alone nukes? And Strauss, defense minister back the day, wanted German nukes. Turned he didn't get a majority for that. Thus, the compromise. And hence no German nukes. Technically it wouldn't have that much of a problem.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#862

Post by DocTomoe » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 9:28 AM UTC

hbarka wrote: post #824

wahern wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Talk of Ukraine joining NATO may well have been what triggered this war. There was zero chance Ukraine would have ever been admitted to NATO. Everybody understood that, including Putin and his generals. And while NATO and the U.S. maintained the official position (perhaps better characterized as a non-position) that any country, including Ukraine, remained free to apply to NATO, member states like Germany would hav…

> member states like Germany would have vetoed [Ukraine’s bid for NATO membership] Why is this often mentioned? What is Germany’s rationale and is this still a certainty? Perhaps these comments were more closely related to Schröder (because gas pipeline) but certainly a different generation now. edit: France and Germany were the two opposed countries.

The German economy is dependant on Russian gas, regardless of who is currently leading the country.

Also take into account that until recently, Russia has been considered a reliable business partner in Germany, to the point that many Germans considered a russo-german partnership to be more advantageous than the current transatlantic one. While support for that idea waned in popularity a little after the Crimea takeover, some, now more on the political fringes, still do today.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#863

Post by captainmuon » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 9:28 AM UTC

dudeinhawaii wrote: post #428

I'm genuinely curious at what point a bully threatening you with MAD can be stopped if you value the existence of your own civilization? Say Russian conquers all of Ukraine and moves troops to the Polish border and parks some tanks a bit inside. What then? Strongly worded essays? If Russia isn't raining hell on Poland, then NATO is forced to .. apply sanctions, make threats, but take no action since the escalation an…

Yes, I think we are seeing the breakdown of nuclear deterrence. Because it does nothing to stop Putin from attacking allied (non-NATO) states, but it deterrs the west from intervening.

I think at some point people will realize that MAD is a huge bluff. Because when you see the nuclear bombs flying, there is nothing you can do anymore to win the war. The only thing that you can do is to prevent the loss of more lives by standing down and calling off the counter attack. The only logical move is to renege on your "credible" second strike promise, stand down, and start printing the enemy's flags. In practice, modern warfare is not about conquering the enemy country, it is about destroying the enemy military and state, which would be achived by airstrikes and/or a nuclear strike. For these reasons, I predict the boundary between conventional war and nuclear war to become more blurry (US and Russia have been trying this for decades with the development of smaller nukes, and missile defense systems), and conventional war to return to Europe.

The way to stop this is not in strengthening the NATO and going black to block confrontation. The only way forward is to question block confrontation, the post-WWII-order, and souvereign nation states. Because the nation states are the entities that are fighting for influence and raising armies, and in some sense they have to, if they don't want to be left behind in geopolitics and the global economy. I know it's a tall order, but we need no less than a "revolution" of the world order (however that may look like) to secure peace.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#864

Post by csunbird » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 9:29 AM UTC

hbarka wrote: post #824

wahern wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Talk of Ukraine joining NATO may well have been what triggered this war. There was zero chance Ukraine would have ever been admitted to NATO. Everybody understood that, including Putin and his generals. And while NATO and the U.S. maintained the official position (perhaps better characterized as a non-position) that any country, including Ukraine, remained free to apply to NATO, member states like Germany would hav…

> member states like Germany would have vetoed [Ukraine’s bid for NATO membership] Why is this often mentioned? What is Germany’s rationale and is this still a certainty? Perhaps these comments were more closely related to Schröder (because gas pipeline) but certainly a different generation now. edit: France and Germany were the two opposed countries.

Playing both sides. That is how you do diplomacy.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#865

Post by hef19898 » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 9:30 AM UTC

afterburner wrote: post #761

hef19898 wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, along with North Korea, only shows you that it is, within the global game of influence, pretty stupid to give up a nuclear capability once you have it.

Ukraine had no choice. They were Russian nukes, and not giving them back would have probably triggered a war immediately . But with Ukraine drowning in pro-Russian influence at the time, there is no chance they would have defied Russia.

Ukraine was a Sobiet republic under the USSR, as was Russia. Ukraine also took other military stuff, the Black Sea Fleet was fiercly discussed issue as well. Economically and politically Ukraine didn't have much of a choice, sure. Legal ownership wasn't the propblem so.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#866

Post by paganel » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 9:31 AM UTC

marttt wrote: post #781

beloch wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine is not a NATO member, but Poland is. If Russia attacks a member of NATO then all members of NATO are obligated to join in defence militarily . Russia can attack non-NATO countries and intimidate NATO into doing nothing, but to attack a NATO member would automatically bring the whole alliance into the war. The whole point of alliances like NATO is to prevent countries from being picked off by a bully the way U…

Former journalist from Estonia here. Our media republished a 1994 speech given by late president of Estonia Lennart Meri at a banquet in Hamburg, Germany. Vladimir Putin, a then internationally unknown politician from St Petersburg, was also among the listeners -- and demonstratively walked out of the room during Meri's speech, as reported by Deutsche Welle [1]. Quoting DW: "On February 25, 1994, Putin was also in at…

To be fair Estonia's treatment of its Russian community fed right into Putin's propaganda machine, when you still have this: "7.3% are "persons with undetermined citizenship"" (to quote wikipedia [1]) ~30 years after the break-up of the USSR then you know something was not done right on Estonia's part when it came to really integrating the Russian community. The same partially goes for the condition of the Russian community in Ukraine, especially recently. This is of course not a discussion that we can have right now, in a neuter manner, so to speak, because there's a war just close to us (I'm from Romania myself), but going forward the people involved will have to look back and see when things starting going adrift.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_Estonia

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#867

Post by Terry_Roll » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 9:32 AM UTC

mcv wrote: post #853

beloch wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine is not a NATO member, but Poland is. If Russia attacks a member of NATO then all members of NATO are obligated to join in defence militarily . Russia can attack non-NATO countries and intimidate NATO into doing nothing, but to attack a NATO member would automatically bring the whole alliance into the war. The whole point of alliances like NATO is to prevent countries from being picked off by a bully the way U…

The US and Russia did promise to defend Ukraine against nuclear powers in exchange for Ukraine giving their nuclear weapons to Russia in 1994. Now Russia, a nuclear power and one of the signatories to that treaty, broke it by attacking Ukraine, and the US broke it by not defending Ukraine from that aggression, because Russia is waving its nukes around as a threat. The big lesson that the US and Russia are teaching Uk…

Its all a bit of a joke to be honest. There are 100k Russian troops, thats a population of some UK towns like Harlow, Romford, Royal Leamington Spa, or Gillingham trying to secure a landmass 2.5 times the size of the UK!

Its a joke, because once the Ukrainian population is psychologically motivated into guerrilla warfare against the Russians, it would be over in a day or two.

This invasion with media complicity, is just project fear or govt's around the world enjoying their population's desire to be governed. Russia is doing each and every govt around the world a favour by reinforcing the govt form of control instead of self determination.

Now if Russia went in with 1million troops, then it would be something to worry about, but this is all just psychological reinforcement of hierarchical control systems on populations.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#868

Post by toyg » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 9:33 AM UTC

ajnin wrote: post #516

toyg wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those two don't have the resources to project significantly (like superpowers), nor the pressure of border conflict (like the others I mentioned). So their nuclear capabilities are somewhat irrelevant.

Not sure why you think North Korea and Pakistan can project and not France and UK which both have nuclear attack submarines. The heart of nuclear detterrence lies in those submarines that can cause second strike MAD.

Unless you think NK is a superpower, you've failed to actually read a one-paragraph post, congratulations.

As for projection capabilities of FR-UK, they are small and old and creaky and everybody knows it.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#869

Post by KronisLV » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 9:35 AM UTC

hbarka wrote: post #824

wahern wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Talk of Ukraine joining NATO may well have been what triggered this war. There was zero chance Ukraine would have ever been admitted to NATO. Everybody understood that, including Putin and his generals. And while NATO and the U.S. maintained the official position (perhaps better characterized as a non-position) that any country, including Ukraine, remained free to apply to NATO, member states like Germany would hav…

> member states like Germany would have vetoed [Ukraine’s bid for NATO membership] Why is this often mentioned? What is Germany’s rationale and is this still a certainty? Perhaps these comments were more closely related to Schröder (because gas pipeline) but certainly a different generation now. edit: France and Germany were the two opposed countries.

Would also like to know this, because Germany being on Russia's side feels a bit... out of nowhere? A bit odd? Not something you'd expect.

I mean, i can understand some controversy around the actions of Turkey because of a variety of reasons, but Germany?

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#870

Post by qwytw » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 9:43 AM UTC

rasz wrote: post #821

beloch wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine is not a NATO member, but Poland is. If Russia attacks a member of NATO then all members of NATO are obligated to join in defence militarily . Russia can attack non-NATO countries and intimidate NATO into doing nothing, but to attack a NATO member would automatically bring the whole alliance into the war. The whole point of alliances like NATO is to prevent countries from being picked off by a bully the way U…

>Ukraine is not a NATO member, but Poland is. If Russia attacks a member of NATO then all members of NATO are obligated to join in defence militarily. We lived once thru this in 1939. NO one will join in to defend Poland. Germany might even make another deal with Russia to "save EU".

I'm not at all confident Russia could conquer Poland though even if it's left to fight alone (together with the Baltic states). It spends ~65% more on its military than Ukraine, has full access to western tech and way less internal problems (good luck finding any region in poland where > 0.x% of the population would want to join Russia). Even if Russia 'defeats' the Ukrainian military (which I don't think is at all certain) what is Putin's next step? Any regime they install in Ukraine would require enormous resources to maintain power and I don't see how can Russia afford that, at best they can bite off some regions in eastern Ukraine.

Also most Russian don't seem to be even close to being as enthusiastic as the majority of Nazi Germans were when their tanks rolled into Paris. Russians seem to be mostly apathetic, they don't really support the war but also are not willing to actually stand up and do anything about it. That might change if there is not quick victory/large amounts of civilians start being killed/sanctions actually start working.