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Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

economist.com

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Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#131

Post by irthomasthomas »

gus_massa wrote: post #122
irthomasthomas wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO cannot admit any country that is involved in active combat. Otherwise it would automatically trigger article five, and doom the world to nuclear armageddon. Even the Bunker Boys in New Zealand may not survive all-out nuclear war with thousands of atomic and super-atomic bombs going off at once. I would lean toward avoiding that situation, if possible.

Nuclear winter is apparently not so extreme as initially thought https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Criticism_and_d... Anyway, it would be nice to not try it. [I'm not in a bunker, but in case of a global thermonuclear war I hope everyone forgets to nuke Argentina.]

How many times have they run the experiment of detonating ~10,000 atom bombs at once?

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#132

Post by grey-area »

t-3 wrote: post #32
baremetal wrote: post #2

I read this as why the economist and friends want russia to want war. but maybe im just cynical and jaded?

Quoted post unavailable.

Putin has:

Invaded two parts of Ukraine and waged a proxy war for years.

Attempted to destabilise, poison or assassinate opponents throughout Europe.

Positioned hundreds of thousands of troops at the Ukraine border.

Threatened nuclear war recently - he directly said they would use nuclear weapons.

Putin is the one threatening war here, though of course they are waging a disinformation campaign to try to paint the US as the aggressor.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#134

Post by unclebucknasty »

macilacilove wrote: post #54
unclebucknasty wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia annexed Crimea and has been engaged in a proxy war in Donbas for 8 years. The Kremlin has now amassed 100K - 200K troops at Ukraine's border. Yet, the Russian propaganda machine continues to claim it's the West that wants war. Can you explain how the West is the aggressor here?

You dont need any propaganda machine to see that countries that are furthest from the conflict geographically and economically have the least to lose. That is why the warmongerist representing US/UK war efforts in every conflict is so excited about the situation.

Having little to lose is not a rationale for doing something.

You've still not explained how the West is the aggressor in the face of the continued overt Russian military aggression that we can all see.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#135

Post by jcranmer »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #131
gus_massa wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear winter is apparently not so extreme as initially thought https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Criticism_and_d... Anyway, it would be nice to not try it. [I'm not in a bunker, but in case of a global thermonuclear war I hope everyone forgets to nuke Argentina.]

How many times have they run the experiment of detonating ~10,000 atom bombs at once?

How many atomic bombings have resulted in stratospheric soot injection? The answer, I believe, is 0, even including the two atomic bombs that were dropped on populated areas. Major conflagrations that result in stratospheric soot pumps are extremely difficult--the Kuwaiti oil fires didn't manage that, and that involved literally setting oil wells ablaze uncontrollably.

Without stratospheric soot injection, there's no global climate impact except on very short terms. Even with stratospeheric soot injection, well, look at how severe the global cooling following Pinatubo was: we'd reverse global warming since 1850... for a year or two.

(Like GP, though, I'm not keen on actually testing this hypothesis in real life.)

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#136

Post by VictorPath »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #108
VictorPath wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russia annexed Crimea The Russian military was in the Crimea back when redcoats were stationed in New York City, and has been in the Crimea ever since.

Ah now, by that logic it would be acceptable for the British government to invade and occupy Ireland, India, and much of the rest of the world. By which I mean, historical presence in an area tells us little about the legitimacy of current day activities. And even then, Crimea was a terrible thing, but it made strategic sense (the russian fleet base is there). I don't see any real strategic benefit for Russia with in…

> British government to invade and occupy Ireland

The British government does occupy Ireland, its military is stationed in Thiepval and Holywood.

The last all-island democratic vote in Ireland was the second Dáil, which voted for the island to separate from the UK. A century on, British troops, who have been on a bloody campaign in Ireland from Drogheda to Bloody Sunday and on, still occupy Ireland.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#137

Post by rdtsc »

sudosysgen wrote: post #75
jcranmer wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he thinks the west precipitated the crisis by pushing to have Ukraine join NATO NATO doesn't want Ukraine to join NATO (at least, not for the foreseeable future). That's why, even now , when Ukraine is more or less begging to join NATO, NATO has done diddly squat to do so. A lot of the pressure to join NATO within Ukraine has increased since Russia invaded Georgia and then Crimea. Russia only has itself to blame fo…

That's really not true. The US put massive pressure on NATO under Bush Jr for Ukraine to join NATO, but Ukraine eventually faltered. They formalized a position that Ukraine was able to join NATO, and put a lot of pressure on France and Germany so that it would be that way. Eventually, Euromaidan happened and Ukraine tried to cash into those overtures, but the West wasn't ready to back it up.

That’s the Georgia playbook as well. They encouraged Georgia to fight the Russians. Georgians lost territory and lives and the American and Western allies shrugged and said “oh well, that’s unfortunate”.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#138

Post by unclebucknasty »

conradev wrote: post #26

John Mearsheimer has a really great video from 6 years ago about Ukraine that I found fascinating: https://youtu.be/JrMiSQAGOS4 Basically, he thinks the west precipitated the crisis by pushing to have Ukraine join NATO, and he thinks it should remain a buffer state between NATO and Russia

The only way this argument makes sense is if Ukraine's sovereignty is not acknowledged.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#139

Post by gfosco »

kuratkull wrote: post #42
gfosco wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're too cynical, but we can have our own takes. From what I was able to piece together, Russia isn't the one starting this conflict, in action. It's NATO aligned countries trying to get Ukraine to join NATO. Russia made it very clear, that ain't happening and they'll go to war over it. So who's still agitating for war? The zero-evidence claims that Russia was about to invade sure look like pure propa…

Quoted post unavailable.

Maybe I've actually tried to get a better understanding, and just have a different perspective on things? I consume a lot of varied media, but I also work 10-14 hours a day.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#140

Post by rdtsc »

ptr wrote: post #123
rdtsc wrote: post #102

The scare of the attack is a great revenue generator for media companies. People in those parts are quite baffled why all of the sudden American media started caring about Ukraine. It’s not bad that they do, but it’s almost like they are goading Putin to attack. Bloomberg even had a headline prepared that the attack already happened. Then they “accidentally” released it, and then of course, apologized. But they still…

Who cares what Biden will say? If Russia does something as drastic as a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, what's next? European basic security is threatened. I don't care whether something will make Biden look good or not.

> Who cares what Biden will say?

Well he happens to be the US president. His constituents and the rest of the world might care.

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