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Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

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Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#141

Post by s1artibartfast »

ryandrake wrote: post #130
mrtksn wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just the Russian narrative. A popular take in the countries where the Russian influence is strong. AKA the sneaky West cornered Russia and was about to strike Moscow and that's why Putin had to start a special operation in Ukraine and push NATO away from its borders.

The thing I've never understood about that propaganda is: What does Russia have that the USA wants? More land? USA has plenty of land, much of it totally unused and unpopulated. Oil? USA now exports it. More rivers? Ports? Developed cities? No, no, and no. The USA has nothing to gain by invading and occupying Russia. Sorry to my Russian friends, but the country is kind of small-potatoes economically, as well. What do…

There are obviously misaligned goals.

No the US does not want to invade Russia. No Russia does not want to invade the US. But that doesn't stop them from fighting over conflicting interest. It is all about who has the bigger knife at the other's throat and the ability to limit the others actions.

What did the US and Russia want in Syria? The US wanted ot overthrow Assad and Russia wanted to keep Assad.

The most credible Russian claim is that they didn't want the US and NATO in Ukraine. Why does that matter even if the US doesn't want to invade Russia? Because it gives the us more leverage in Russia less. It's easier to shut down airspace, ports, Pipelines, and obviously makes Russia less threatening to Europe then they would be with a Russian aligned Ukraine.

Similarly, there is no credible scenario where China or Russia invades the US. However, the US would feel very strongly about either of them having a strong military presence in Cuba and the Caribbean.

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#142

Post by licebmi__at__ »

csomar wrote: post #92
sph wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Before 2010 the world was quite multi-polar with the US being the leader. Now, we are moving to a uni-polar world Don't you mean the opposite? It was unipolar since the end of WW2, with US being the top superpower. Now other countries want, and can get, a piece of the pie. To be fair that means pretty much only China.

No. After the end of WW2, the US was the "obvious" leader but not the actual leader. European countries were still the leader of the colonized countries, China/Japan/SouthAmerica were figuring things on their own, the EU united, some arab countries wanted to influence/control oil, Russia was planting communism around the world, etc... In fact, the US was not much at that time. It had power but little influence. Think…

I don't see the EU running a Gladio like operation on US territory. What I do see is the lack of repercussion after it was revealed that the was executing these operations in Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#143

Post by mike_k »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #100
okaram wrote: post #52

> China preparing to invade Taiwan ... There is, as of now, no evidence China is preparing to invade anything. There's always sable rattling, hasn't happened yet. > Wars happen when two or nation's drive for self-preservation collide That's a naive view of war, which ignores individual a-holes. There's no self-preservation in Russia invading Ukraine... I understand it's easy to despair and fear seeing some of the thi…

>That's a naive view of war, which ignores individual a-holes. There's no self-preservation in Russia invading Ukraine... Russia was massively clear during the pre-invasion buildup that it was about Ukrainian NATO aspirations. They offered to deescalate and remove troops from the boarder if US declared opposition to Ukrainian admission. They publicly stated they saw it as an existential threat and were willing to inv…

It sounds like it is possible to justify the invasion, if you have a good enough story...

It is still not clear if the threat was real or imagined, I'd the "deescalation" proposition had real things or was just a very unrealistic set of terms and essentially an excuse to proceed. NATO was less ready to accept any new members half a year ago than it is now.

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#144

Post by nradov »

kamaal wrote: post #110
locutous wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany didn't believe their own intelligence figures of US manufacturing output. They were laughed to scorn as impossible. Some hubris there, certainly.

Some level of hubris everybody has. Go read any thread here about Russia-Ukraine, almost unanimously most comments read like Russia is destined to lose, no matter what they do. You will also read how China is absolutely a weak military power and will lose in case of a Taiwan invasion. Patriotism like many other emotional attachments can make you blind to your biases. The common theme among most US citizens in this ve…

China isn't weak, but for now they still lack the airborne and amphibious lift capacity to invade Taiwan. This has nothing to do with patriotism, it's a simple matter of geography and weather. There are only a few months per year when sea conditions make an invasion possible, and only a few ports or beaches where an invasion force could potentially put ashore. Look at a map. Those points are relatively easy for a smaller force to defend. In a few years China might build up the necessary capabilities, but that situation doesn't obtain today.

China could absolutely wreck Taiwan's civilian infrastructure with air and missile strikes. But that doesn't mean they can invade and conquer the main island.

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#145

Post by philwelch »

ryandrake wrote: post #130
mrtksn wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just the Russian narrative. A popular take in the countries where the Russian influence is strong. AKA the sneaky West cornered Russia and was about to strike Moscow and that's why Putin had to start a special operation in Ukraine and push NATO away from its borders.

The thing I've never understood about that propaganda is: What does Russia have that the USA wants? More land? USA has plenty of land, much of it totally unused and unpopulated. Oil? USA now exports it. More rivers? Ports? Developed cities? No, no, and no. The USA has nothing to gain by invading and occupying Russia. Sorry to my Russian friends, but the country is kind of small-potatoes economically, as well. What do…

The US wants Russia (and the entire rest of the world) to adopt its way of life and liberal-democratic/neoliberal/globalist values.

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#146

Post by s1artibartfast »

mike_k wrote: post #143
s1artibartfast wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's a naive view of war, which ignores individual a-holes. There's no self-preservation in Russia invading Ukraine... Russia was massively clear during the pre-invasion buildup that it was about Ukrainian NATO aspirations. They offered to deescalate and remove troops from the boarder if US declared opposition to Ukrainian admission. They publicly stated they saw it as an existential threat and were willing to inv…

It sounds like it is possible to justify the invasion, if you have a good enough story... It is still not clear if the threat was real or imagined, I'd the "deescalation" proposition had real things or was just a very unrealistic set of terms and essentially an excuse to proceed. NATO was less ready to accept any new members half a year ago than it is now.

>NATO was less ready to accept any new members half a year ago than it is now.

That's probably the case for many of the nordics but not Ukraine.

In 2021 NATO declared verbatim that Ukraine would become part of NATO and its process would proceed. Now it is on hold because NATO doesn't admit Nations with active conflicts and territorial disputes.

Of course russia doesnt get a formal vote in who NATO admits, but they have a de facto vote via the invasion. The US and NATO are scaling back military exercises in the Black Sea this year[1], which historically threatened Russia.

https://gcaptain.com/us-navy-ships-stay-home-nato-flexes-bla...

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#148

Post by t-3 »

akmarinov wrote: post #21
netsharc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the West could, if needed, find other trading partners Caveat: I'm not an expert, but I think this is too simplistic. If both sides completely divorced from each other, Western factories would probably struggle to manufacture a lot of things, because they rely on components from China, components you and I have probably never considered necessary. E.g: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/24/russian-invasion-of-ukraine-...

It’ll be very very very painful, Great Depression and beyond levels of pain, but doable. If it starts today, in 10-15 years the western world can be back to its current level.

Without globalization and huge trade volumes, the west would be far less influential in the world. I'm no fan of US imperialism, but abandoning the plan at this point seems foolish. The western public isn't in favor of the more overt military dominance that would be necessary to maintain supremacy while cutting out foreign manufacturing dependence.

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#149

Post by _dw7s »

csomar wrote: post #135
mrtksn wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This take is based on alternative realities. The western conspiracy over Russia is the Russian narrative and doesn't make any sense whatsoever because if you look closely won't be able to explain why Europe opted to depend on energy from Russia when conspiring to start a conflict with Russia. In reality, the west was simply naive to believe that what worked for EU would work with Russia too and that is the peace mode…

Friendly reminder: This is my own biased opinion. > Why would you start a conflict with your neighbours when you depend on their wellbeing? The way I look at it: Where is the war happening? It's happening at Putin's border. This is a defense war that Putin is leading. Whether he is wrong in his assessment of Western plotting or not, is a different story. > EU has a well educated and healthy society that is going thro…

> Where is the war happening? It's happening at Putin's border. This is a defense war that Putin is leading.

This is an unprovoked war of aggression. The mental gymnastics in this paragraph is astonishing. By this logic, Hitler's invasion of Bohemia and Moravia were also defense wars, because it happened right at Hitler's border.

There is/was no conspiracy or threat to the existence of the Russian state. Nobody truly gives a fuck about Russia, as long as they keep the gas lines open and they don't use nerve agents to kill their dissidents abroad. Nobody wants to invade or nuke Russia, most westerners don't even think about Russia.

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#150

Post by decebalus1 »

yehosef wrote: post #120
tus666 wrote: post #51

1) Russia is about to lose bigley to a backwater country called Ukraine. 2) China has a tin-pot military that has not really fought an external war since Korea. No.

China and Russia have deployed hypersonic missiles - America has not. Notice the investment from China in "Carrier Killers" https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2021/10/the-unusual-car... - both in boats and planes.

Those hypersonic missiles are really turning the tide in Ukraine /s
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