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Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

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Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#111

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

int_19h wrote: post #30
ajmurmann wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Despite history since the end of the cold war (which makes some of Russia's positions somewhat understandable, and the fact that NATO didn't do anything different in Iraq and Afghanistan) Can you expand on this? I'm entirely unable to understand why Russia after the cold war didn't become like any other European country and aimed to join the EU etc.

It actually did consider joining the EU, and even NATO at one point, but it wasn't taken seriously by either. The NATO intervention in Kosovo was also a major stumbling block. Internally, democratic reforms in the 90s became associated with 1) corruption far worse than Soviets had, and 2) right-wing economic measures ("liberalization") that messed up the economy and created a lot of hardship for the population at the…

Yes, the US did not get this right. At all.

Russia could have been Germany-fied with a friendlier and supportive hand. Instead it was handed over to evangelical neoliberals, whose imposed economics guaranteed that only the most feral opportunists and violent gangsters would thrive.

Russia could have become a modern social democracy, but now it's a crumbling militaristic dictatorship state run by a raging senile paranoiac with delusions of empire.

It's one of the worst foreign policy failures in all of history.

Ukraine will not be the end of it. If the invasion succeeds Russia will demand a slice of Lithuania to reunite Kalingrad with Belarus. That has huge implications for all Baltic-adjacent states.

But worse, Putin has claimed the RF has a number of nuclear superweapons, including a strategic nuclear-tipped torpedo and smart hypersonic warhead delivery systems. He also completely renovated Moscow's civil defences.

The US has failed to keep pace, and its weapons systems are either old and outdated or over-designed, high maintenance, and relatively fragile.

Putin also been running a very successful program of subversion and political interference. And building up cyberwarfare capabilities.

Even allowing for hyperbole the worry is that Russia is capable of a zero-warning decapitation strike, combined with remote mass infrastructure attacks and internal terrorism. Any response would be relatively ineffective.

This completely undermines MAD as a doctrine.

No mistake - the US is in very, very serious danger now, from both internal and external threats.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#112

Post by winrid »

glogla wrote: post #106
winrid wrote: post #95

I'm curious, do folks here think Putin would have still invaded if Ukraine didn't consider joining NATO? While yes, Putin very much wants his old USSR back, it seems he's doing this in response to potentially having more NATO missiles on his borders. He's basically been saying "fuck around and find out" since 2008 when we said Ukraine would have the option of joining NATO.

"Putin is only doing this because of NATO missiles" is a Russian propaganda line. It is disheartening to hear it repeated on HN.

Ah. I just heard it in my circle. It makes sense that it could be propaganda.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#113

Post by gambiting »

misja111 wrote: post #99
gambiting wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> NATO and especially USA should have responded by sending two thousands soldiers to Kiev And when those American soldiers are killed by Russian missiles, do you then declare full on war on Russia, and we basically all die? Because like....there is no other good option out of this you know. By placing American(or NATO) troops and assets in the harms way, you need to be prepared for what you are going to do if those…

> And when those American soldiers are killed by Russian missiles, do you then declare full on war on Russia You are assuming here that Russia would be willing to cause a World War by attacking those American soldiers. > as a Pole the risk of actually being involved in military operations is making me extremely uncomfortable right now. But the alternative, to let Russia have Ukraine, will become very uncomfortable in…

>>You are assuming here that Russia would be willing to cause a World War by attacking those American soldiers.

I think Russia has been "calling the bluff" of the west for a long time. Attacking American soldiers on Ukrainian soil to send a message "look what I can do, you aren't going to attack me back because you know what it will cost you" would be entirely within the standard Russian strategy. And it would place US and NATO into an extremely uncomfortable position - attack back = world war 3, don't attack back = send a message that you can kill American troops without punishment. That's not a position anyone wants to be in.

>>It's naïve to assume that by giving Putin what he wants he will be satisfied and not invade any other countries in the future.

I don't think I'm naive, I fully realize that this is what will happen in the future. But again, there's having a nicely formed opinion on the internet, and then there's receiving a letter stating you are to report to your nearest military base for training and deployment. We should do something. I don't want to leave my wife and kid and go fight in Ukraine. Those aren't contradictory statements.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#114

Post by mopsi »

2143 wrote: post #65
CodeArtisan wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 to "enforce peace". Same with Crimea in 2014. Then Luhansk and Donetsk a few days ago. Now the rest of Ukraine. Discussion with Putin is futile. When Russia started sending troops next to the Ukraine borders, NATO and especially USA should have responded by sending two thousands soldiers to Kiev. It's too late now.

> NATO and especially USA should have responded by sending two thousands soldiers to Kiev And Russia would've been scared and retreated. Sarcasm aside, all that would've done is accelerate the whole invasion procedure. And then the 2000 troops would be killed by Russia. Then America/NATO will retaliate. That'll be the endgame.

> And Russia would've been scared and retreated.

Yes. Without sarcasm.

This happened several times with Trump, who despite all his faults, was a master bullshitter and master at seeing through other bullshitters. A notable episode was an attack by Russian Wagner group on a small outpost held by 30-something US special forces soldiers guarding a gas plant in Syria. Signals intelligence was later able to capture a few phone calls of survivors describing what had happened[1]. Russians were used to fighting poorly trained rebels, but now fell under combined arms fire from a modern army and it was a total massacre. They got hit from drones, artillery, Apaches and F-22s. Russian casualties: some 300 dead out of 600, American losses: 0.

After that, Russians were much less eager to provoke the US. They test every president like this. Obama failed ("red lines" in Syria), Trump succeeded, Biden... depends on what he does next.

[1] https://www.polygraph.info/a/29044452.html

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#115

Post by elric »

d3ckard wrote: post #90
gambiting wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> NATO and especially USA should have responded by sending two thousands soldiers to Kiev And when those American soldiers are killed by Russian missiles, do you then declare full on war on Russia, and we basically all die? Because like....there is no other good option out of this you know. By placing American(or NATO) troops and assets in the harms way, you need to be prepared for what you are going to do if those…

Otherwise you let Putin have Ukraine and basically show your ass. We’re all afraid of nukes, but that fear can’t make us allow for everything. I am a Pole as well and also very uncomfortable. I also believe Nato should intervene in Ukraine. Otherwise, we just wait until it’s our turn.

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 nuclear war.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#116

Post by ricardobayes »

querez wrote: post #82
chrischen wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Previous World Wars were not one-sided. Pretty much the majority of the developed world (probably all of the developed world?) is against Russia right now.

I think China is still pretty neutral about the whole thing. Putin payed respects to China (e.g. at the Olympiads), while (at least afaik) no western nation tried to get China onboard with sanctions -- or at the very least, they didn't send their presidents over to talk to Xi.

Gotta hand that small remark to Putin, he upheld the tradition of no war during Olympics. Olympics were actually created to act as a pressure release valve in ancient Greece, which constantly fought wars between the Greeks, Spartans and Persians.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#117

Post by kavalg »

ajmurmann wrote: post #12
hef19898 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They consider their security to be threatened, and requested NATO to discuss it. Officially. Which is kind of a big deal. Article 5 can be invoked once, intentionally or by accident, e.g. a NATO plane is attacked over Ukraine. This whole thing is a mess. Despite history since the end of the cold war (which makes some of Russia's positions somewhat understandable, and the fact that NATO didn't do anything different in…

> Despite history since the end of the cold war (which makes some of Russia's positions somewhat understandable, and the fact that NATO didn't do anything different in Iraq and Afghanistan) Can you expand on this? I'm entirely unable to understand why Russia after the cold war didn't become like any other European country and aimed to join the EU etc.

Joining any organization usually comes with strings attached. Maybe they didn't like the strings...

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#119

Post by oblio »

simonh wrote: post #101
oblio wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those countries are in NATO and some of them were not super friendly until the crises happened. Ukraine itself is an example. Ukraine was posturing aggressively against Romania, NATO and EU member, as recently as 2009. I feel bad for what's happening in Ukraine, but they didn't really try to make many friends before 2014.

In 2009 Ukraine was under the control of Yanukovych, a Russian stooge installed through repression and rigged elections. He was Putin’s pawn and his posturing against NATO or Romania can hardly be used as criticism of the current Ukrainian government or the will of the Ukrainian people. You’re implying that Ukraine didn’t try to make any friends before the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea. In fact it was Ukraines impr…

It doesn't matter.

Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, etc. turned around in 1991.

Ukraine didn't. Its people didn't want it.

Downvote all you want, that's just fact.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#120

Post by gambiting »

slg wrote: post #108
gambiting wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> NATO and especially USA should have responded by sending two thousands soldiers to Kiev And when those American soldiers are killed by Russian missiles, do you then declare full on war on Russia, and we basically all die? Because like....there is no other good option out of this you know. By placing American(or NATO) troops and assets in the harms way, you need to be prepared for what you are going to do if those…

>And when those American soldiers are killed by Russian missiles, do you then declare full on war on Russia, and we basically all die? If we are going by the game theory, mutually assured destruction only works if both sides believe the other is willing to engage. If one side knows the other side will not engage, it becomes easy for the aggressive side to take advantage of the passive side. Putin also doesn't want to…

Like I said above - Putin has literally made a career out of calling west's bluffs. Would he call that one? Would he literally attack American/NATO troops to see if we'll really end the world over it?

I really don't want to find out. It's one hell of a gamble.

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