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Belarus referendum approves proposal to renounce non-nuclear status

reuters.com

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Re: Belarus referendum approves proposal to renounce non-nuclear status

#51

Post by tiahura »

88840-8855 wrote: post #22
hef19898 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't there a post HN some time ago about how Netflix is helping to create a new, European TV culture by making shows from, e.g. Finland or Spain available in local language versions to everyone? Also I'm pretty sure European states do actually have their own militaries. Sure, they have US hardware. But then the US is using European hardware as well. So ehats yoyr point?

I'm talking about the countless US airforce bases, CIA facilities. I lived near to 2 of those here in Germany. Not because i wanted, but because they are everywhere.

No post body was provided.

Re: Belarus referendum approves proposal to renounce non-nuclear status

#52

Post by piokoch »

This is empty gesture, just a symbol of Belarus serfdom. Russian army was already free to enter Belarus using any convenient reason like military exercises so status quo hasn't really changed. Russia might keep nukes in Kaliningrad Oblast so from the security perspective nothing major had changed.

Re: Belarus referendum approves proposal to renounce non-nuclear status

#53

Post by pjc50 »

dstick wrote: post #13

It seems that the only option left for Putin is the "nuclear" one (no pun intended) now that the whole world is seeing that the Russian army lost its morale, and its teeth. Old equipment, young soldiers that are harder to brainwash than in the old days. It is fascinating to see for the first time in the modern age what effect modern media consumption and the internet has on a local war. While it is undeniably true th…

> It is fascinating to see for the first time in the modern age what effect modern media consumption and the internet has on a local war.

The Russian propaganda effort seems to have involved the internet a lot, and you can see their talking points come out of the mouths of Western speakers in all the usual places on both the far-right and far-left.

Remains to be seen how well the domestic Russian propaganda effort will hold.

> It's harder to mobilise people behind a corrupt cause once blood starts flowing.

Only if that's your blood. If it's someone else's people are often fine with it. The returning dead Russians could make the country go either way - demands for revenge.

> from a purely geographical perspective, this is the first war on the European continent in the 2000's.

It's not even the first war _in Ukraine_ in the 2000s! Has everyone forgotten Crimea and the Donbass?

Re: Belarus referendum approves proposal to renounce non-nuclear status

#54

Post by hef19898 »

tiahura wrote: post #51
88840-8855 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about the countless US airforce bases, CIA facilities. I lived near to 2 of those here in Germany. Not because i wanted, but because they are everywhere.

Quoted post unavailable.

What the heck are you talking about? Germany also lost WW1 and nobody committed genocide then neither. If you refer to the Morgenthau plan, that lost to the Marschall plan, I think history showed that the world was better of with the latter.

The main reason why Germany had so many foreign troops in the former occupation zones was simple: the Cold War. The French held the Ruhr, the British the North and the US the South. The USSR held the East. All those bases were there in case the Cold War turned hot for whatever reason, and Germany into the first ground battle field of WW3. Always better to have the troops already in theater, just in case.

Germany was left to its own devices since the 50s after WW1 and since the 20s after WW1. Before WW1, Germany didn't really exist as a nation.

Re: Belarus referendum approves proposal to renounce non-nuclear status

#55

Post by pjc50 »

hunterb123 wrote: post #48
trompetenaccoun wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends entirely - what was the goal of this attack in the first place? Did he think he could quickly take Ukraine and the West wouldn't interfere? It's possible. His soldiers look unmotivated, even unprepared though. Maybe it's part of a larger strategy. We might see more crisis popping up soon.

> Did he think he could quickly take Ukraine and the West wouldn't interfere? No and yes. He's taking it slowly because he knows the West won't interfere. It's not a blitz, it's a siege.

The initial paratroopers at the airports plus fast armor columns all indicated a blitz approach. Those have already been destroyed. It's no longer on the original plan, and the West is interfering. The longer it takes the more weapons we can ship them, and everyone's running around looking for new types of economic sanctions which can be applied against Russia.

Re: Belarus referendum approves proposal to renounce non-nuclear status

#56

Post by hef19898 »

javier2 wrote: post #35
sharikous wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's harder to mobilise people behind a corrupt cause once blood starts flowing. I don't know how significant it is. Dictatorships have always been feared and despised. And armies lost motivation many times in history, before the internet. From a military perspective what I think is different this time is how (probably) US intelligence is helping Ukrainians. It seems they know any Russian move in advance in real ti…

Same. While it is still a bit unclear to me at least why Russia sent their seemingly old gear without proper support and young conscripts in first, the terrible parachute attempts still stand out. When you want it to be over quickly, you have to send in the best soldiers with the best gear first to seal the deal? In addition to live NATO intelligence, it is clear to most europeans that US intelligence tried to warn a…

Considering how fast things fell in place within the EU and NATO, those warnings (I doubt it was only the US) weren't in vain.

Why send not the best, brightest and most advanced? Because you only jump as high as you need. And using your most sophisticated gear in an area that is most likely covered NATO detection gear and consultants / advisors doesn't sound to smart neither.

Re: Belarus referendum approves proposal to renounce non-nuclear status

#57

Post by pelasaco »

hef19898 wrote: post #37
pelasaco wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what he meant was that in 1994, in the Budapest Memorandum, it was decided that Ukraine would hand their nuclear weapons to Russia over and in return Russia promised never invade Ukraine. Interesting that the fact that it could be a mistake was raised back in the days already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine#De... I would be interesting to find out what the other "experts" said back…

Yeah, turned out that was mistake (or was it really?) almost 30 years later. Back the day the world was different. The former USSR countries were dirt poor, military hardware was sold left and right wholesale. The USSR was utterly defeated. So for everyone, it was much saver to have only one, potentially failed, state having the USSR's nukes instead of multiple ones. And it worked for almost 30 years, so back then it…

Let us agree on that one: From the Geopolitical point of view was a mistake, from the practical point of view maybe not.

Re: Belarus referendum approves proposal to renounce non-nuclear status

#58

Post by concerned_user »

altmind wrote: post #21

theres no doubt this was referendum where the votes were not counted. in the prev online-elections the newly elected president got like 3% approval rating.

3% comes from internet poll done by one of the newspapers, after the elections, during first weeks of the protests, while somewhat independent newspapers were still publishing.

The independent papers were closed few months later, those that weren't turned off their comment sections and started filtering what they publish.

Re: Belarus referendum approves proposal to renounce non-nuclear status

#59

Post by adrian_b »

0x_rs wrote: post #30
nine_k wrote: post #19

Belarus regime being what it is, I'd not think that the referendum actually reflects people's opinion, and the result was not predetermined. OTOH I suspect that after the events of 2014 and 2022, Ukraine will remain the last country in history to willingly give up nuclear weapons. Many more countries will think about developing an deploying their own nukes, or at least staying one step away from actually producing th…

It's good to remember Ukraine never possessed operational control of them [0], so I'm not sure how much is "willingly giving up own's nuclear weapons" since they never had concrete nuclear deterrence capability, and circumstances (treaties and support from both Russia and NATO) required them to do so. Their decision has been impacting their condition ever since. But this may be the good outcome for all we may ever kn…

While it is correct that Ukraine did not have operational control over the nuclear weapons, anybody who have nuclear weapons in their possession, and who have the engineering resources of an entire state, would be easily able to disassemble the weapons, reverse engineer the connections to the devices that initiate the detonation and substitute the control units in order to gain operational control.

Such an operation cannot need more than a few months at most.

Therefore Ukraine, and any country which would have been in the same situation and would have chosen to give up their own nuclear weapons, really made willingly a choice to act in this way, because they also had the alternative choice of gaining control over the weapons and the Russians would not have been able to stop them.

Re: Belarus referendum approves proposal to renounce non-nuclear status

#60

Post by hef19898 »

pelasaco wrote: post #57
hef19898 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, turned out that was mistake (or was it really?) almost 30 years later. Back the day the world was different. The former USSR countries were dirt poor, military hardware was sold left and right wholesale. The USSR was utterly defeated. So for everyone, it was much saver to have only one, potentially failed, state having the USSR's nukes instead of multiple ones. And it worked for almost 30 years, so back then it…

Let us agree on that one: From the Geopolitical point of view was a mistake, from the practical point of view maybe not.

I'm not even sure geopolitical. Or do you think Ukraine would get all the NATO support if they had an arsenal of nukes outside of NATOs control? Culd easily be that NATO would tentatively ally with, un-officially of course, with Russia to get rid of a potentially rogue nuclear nation. Depending of the Ukrainian government of course. Or that Russia would have already annexed the whole lot during the Orange revolution. No way to tell.

Personally, as bad as war is for those in the region, every war in which belligerents don't have nukes is better. Because there is less risk of "accidently" causing a nuclear exchange.

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