If the head of state is ordering top military generals on matters of military actions, isn't that like killing generals on the battlefield? — Christoffer

You may have your own views on this, but at least in the modern nation state there is a clear division between political leaders and military leaders. But even the assassination of military leaders is a controversial topic, as we have seen with the targeted killing of Iranian general Soulemani.

Military leaders plan and execute military operations and Putin cannot be said to be "part of an operation" in a military sense, though he is of course involved, but indirectly.

If Putin is in direct line of command, it's strategic to take him out in order to disorient the chain of command of the ongoing conflict. — Christoffer

Things can be strategic and yet impermissable under international law.

Isn't what you are referring to regarded in peacetime, ... — Christoffer

No, the UN charter and similar international legal documents are active at all times, unless specified otherwise, like with International Humanitarian Law, for example.

Otherwise (and if our modern international laws of war existed back then) if Hitler didn't kill himself, having the invading alliance troops in Berlin send in an operation to kill Hitler would not have been a violation in such times of war. — Christoffer

It's hard to say whether Hitler couldn't also be considered a military leader, and therefore a legitimate military target.

Besides this, even if we consider him a strictly political leader (which he certainly wasn't) he was the orchestrator of a genocide.

As much as I condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I don't think Putin matches either of these criteria by any stretch of the imagination.

But you already know these things. You're just looking to start an argument for who knows what reason. — Tzeentch

No. You started arguing something rather vague. I'm just trying to understand your point. But you apparently don't care enough to make a clear point, and you're probably right about that: wallowing in ambiguity is much safer for jokers.

The UN Charter forbids a nation to attack another without a mandate from the Security Council, and enshrines the right for a country to defend itself. Putin is the commander in chief who decided to invade and bomb Ukraine. For the Ukrainians, killing him would be fair play as per the UN charter, although i agree such reasoning does not apply to non-belligerants.

Atomic scientists are not scientists?

Atomic scientists are not scientists? — Olivier5

No. The 'Bulletin of Atomic Scientists'

the Bulletin is a media organization, posting free articles on its website and publishing a premium digital magazine. But we are much more. The Bulletin’s website, iconic Doomsday Clock, and regular events help advance actionable ideas at a time when technology is outpacing our ability to control it. The Bulletin focuses on three main areas: nuclear risk, climate change, and disruptive technologies. What connects these topics is a driving belief that because humans created them, we can control them.

The Bulletin is an independent, nonprofit 501 (c) (3) organization. We gather a diverse array of the most informed and influential voices tracking man-made threats and bring their innovative thinking to a global audience. We apply intellectual rigor to the conversation and do not shrink from alarming truths. — https://thebulletin.org/about-us/

You keep repeating that journalists are suspect, while treating as gospel a bulletin who pretends to be of scientists but is in fact written by journalists. Mmmmokay.

Simply saying there's 'information' in them all is insufficient for you to choose between them.

Yes, so one makes an assessment.

How? Everything said in this entire thread could be false. The fact that you find it to be intelligent doesn't have any bearing on whether it's actually the case.

It’s unlikely to be false if it’s also being reported on multiple global news outlets, for example.

I doubt it, not with only one person

So your description of a settlement absent an iron curtain, is one indistinguishable from one including an iron curtain? Or in other words, no answer to my substantive point.

You keep repeating that journalists are suspect, while treating as gospel — Olivier5

Where have I treated it as gospel?

a bulletin who pretends to be of scientists — Olivier5

They're not 'pretending' anything. They gather together the opinion of scientists. It says so in the fucking quote.

The Bulletin began as an emergency action, created by scientists who saw an immediate need for a public reckoning in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One mission was to urge fellow scientists to help shape national and international policy. A second mission was to help the public understand what the bombings meant for humanity.

Members of the Board of Sponsors are recruited by their peers from the world’s most accomplished science and security leaders to reinforce the importance of the Bulletin’s activities and publications. The Board grew out of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, which Einstein wrote, “was organized in August 1946 to support the educational activities undertaken by the various groups of atomic scientists.”

Members of the Board of Sponsors are consulted on key issues, including the setting of the Bulletin’s Doomsday Clock. Members, which have counted 40 Nobel laureates over the years, are welcome to attend all meetings.

Yes, so one makes an assessment. — Punshhh

...and back to my original question. Whose story do you trust and why?

It’s unlikely to be false if it’s also being reported on multiple global news outlets, for example. — Punshhh

If global news outlets report two different things then one of them is (all other things being equal) exactly 50% likely to be false. Not 'unlikely' at all. You do know the 'multiple global news outlets' don't all get their data from different sources don't you? If you've got six newspapers reporting the Pentagon's release of some intelligence data that's not six confirmatory sources, that's one source with six outlets.

Besides, there's almost universal agreement as to the basic facts, it's the analysis which differs. So how does having six people repeat the same analysis corroborate it, talk me through the mechanism by which greater agreement there affects reality.

So your description of a settlement absent an iron curtain, is one indistinguishable from one including an iron curtain? — Punshhh

What? I thought you said an iron curtain would restrict migration. My description is of a border which doesn't restrict migration. They don't sound indistinguishable to me. Perhaps you could clarify how they're the same.

I trust my own assessment, that’s it. Do you have an unbiased source that you trust?

I’m not going to quote you, or get into misunderstandings. My point about emigration is that it is one of the reasons an iron curtain will be introduced. Along with commercial reasons. I can’t see how this can be avoided, can you?

Oh look everything Radhika Desai says is 100% correct:

The conflict that the West calls Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and which Moscow calls its special military operations for Ukraine’s demilitarization and denazification, is not a conflict between Ukraine and Russia; it is a phase in the hybrid war that the West has been waging for decades against any country that chooses an economic path other than subordination to the United States.In its current phase, this war takes the form of a US-led NATO war over Ukraine. In this war, Ukraine is the terrain, and a pawn – one that can be sacrificed.

This fact is hidden by wall-to-wall Western propaganda portraying Russian President Vladimir Putin as either mad or a devil hell-bent on recreating the Soviet Union. This pre-empts any questions about why Putin might be doing this, about the rationale for Russian actions.The United States, having sought without success to dominate the world, wages this war to stall its historic decline, the loss of what remains of its power.

This decline has accelerated in recent decades as neoliberalism turned its capitalist economic system unproductive, financialised, predatory, speculative, and ecologically destructive, massively diminishing Washington’s already dubious attractions to its allies around the world.Meanwhile, socialist China’s productive economy performed spectacularly and became a new pole of attraction in the world economy. This conflict, therefore, has long roots in the decaying capitalism headquartered in the US.

Understanding this war as 100% a symptom of the declining - and thus ever more dangerous - power of the US is the basis from which any understanding of what is going on needs to proceed. Anything else is fluff.

https://multipolarista.substack.com/p/the-us-war-over-ukraine-is-a-phase?s=r

And if the little country they take interest in cannot be in any way a threat, then it's the hypothetical argument of another great power using that little country. — ssu

Could you rephrase this, I'm not following.

I do agree with your first statement, prior to this. That's commonly part of imperial dogma, they do need to justify what they're doing.

Where have I treated it as gospel? — Isaac

In your posts. Why do you trust them?

How long is this war going to continue in your view?

You may have your own views on this, but at least in the modern nation state there is a clear division between political leaders and military leaders. But even the assassination of military leaders is a controversial topic, as we have seen with the targeted killing of Iranian general Soulemani.

Military leaders plan and execute military operations and Putin cannot be said to be "part of an operation" in a military sense, though he is of course involved, but indirectly. — Tzeentch

Yes, but Russia isn't a normal modern state playing by the same rules, as seen with the war crimes happening. And Putin is very much involved, probably more than normal heads of state. And the fact he is jailing people in his inner circle now shows that he's at the helm of everything.

Modern nations play by the international rules of law, which Russia doesn't so they've lost the protection of being handled like any other nation. We can't treat criminal states with the same rule book.

Things can be strategic and yet impermissable under international law. — Tzeentch

They already broke such laws. If a criminal is shooting at the police after the police have shouted at them to put down the weapon and apply to the set rules of society, the police have the authority to shoot down the criminal. This is for the protection of other people around. So if Russia breaks international law, there's justification to take out their head of state and people involved with letting war crimes happen. This is to protect such things from happening in the future, to protect other people from being victims of those war crimes. Killing Hitler earlier would probably have destabilized and fastened the collapse of the Nazi regime, it would have been the correct thing to do, much like it is now.

No, the UN charter and similar international legal documents are active at all times, unless specified otherwise, like with International Humanitarian Law, for example. — Tzeentch

So, Russia's leaders don't apply to this and therefore have no protection from it, like states following international law.

It's hard to say whether Hitler couldn't also be considered a military leader, and therefore a legitimate military target. — Tzeentch

He was a legitimate target, he ordered troops, he gave the order for children and old people to oppose the alliance when entering Berlin.

Besides this, even if we consider him a strictly political leader (which he certainly wasn't) he was the orchestrator of a genocide. — Tzeentch

And what is happening in Ukraine right now? What about how Putin and his minions spread the rhetoric that being a "Ukrainian" is "invalid". It's still up for debate if there's a genocide going on, but there's a lot constantly being uncovered.

As much as I condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I don't think Putin matches either of these criteria by any stretch of the imagination. — Tzeentch

I think that's where we differ. Many said the same about Hitler, Stalin and Mao back in the day when information were still being gathered, but I have no problem considering Putin being cut from the same cloth as other authoritarian despots.

That talks about Russia's military success in Ukraine.

It talks about Russia's inability to mobilize combat power and the problem of run away morale issues and casualties making most battalion tactical groups unusable for serious offensive maneuvers out east. I don't know if I'd call that success.

An assessment of Russian capabilities from last week, based on Russia's actual effectiveness in a war, seems a lot more relevant than assessments from 2016. Of course Russia experts were publishing on Russia's major efforts to modernize its armed forces after the Georgia debacle. Performance in Syria, while limited, was impressive at first (at least compared to low expectations).

The open question was always if the modernization efforts would root out enough corruption and nepotism to be effective. Russia's invasion stalling out less than 100 miles from the border due to bad logistics, the suicidal air assaults and VDV deployments without proper SEAD and follow up ground support, the total inability to bring down the Ukrainian AA network or airforce, and the total absence of anything resembling sustained, complex air operations answered a lot of those open questions.

We've now seen the military in action. We've seen the cheap Chinese tires mounted on $13 million AA systems leading to ruined rims and abandoned systems. We've seen them using completely open coms that civilians around the world can listen too because they lack a secure coms network. We've seen tank companies parked in big squares within Ukranian artillery range because crews need to shout at each other due to bad coms (and the consequences of this as Ukrainian drones range and video the tanks, and shells begin falling). We've seen a slew of general officers and colonels killed because they have to go to the front to talk to their men due to bad comms. We've seen successful Ukrainian air raids into Russia proper to hit supplies in non-stealth, last-gen rotary wing aircraft, due to inept AA preparedness. The assessment is now that NATO would have a relatively easy time dismantling Russia's conventional forces in defensive operations. It all looks bad.

Vis-á-vis the nuclear threat, if you like Chatam House, look there:

It is always possible – although assumed to be highly unlikely – that Putin may decide to launch a long-range ballistic missile attack against the US, but he knows – as do all his officials – that this would be the end of Russia.

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/03/how-likely-use-nuclear-weapons-russia

The US has been practicing nuclear supremacy against Russia since the fall of the USSR. It has a large nuclear arsenal in close proximity for taking out Russia's nuclear assets on the ground. It has successful missile defense systems (how successful is unclear, the main Alaskan interceptors have a 99+% chance of shooting down an ICBM when four are assigned to a target, but the portable missiles in Europe have much less clear effectiveness. We only know they can shoot down ICBMs because Trump, IMO stupidly, decided to do a public test to show off). But even if US missile defense didn't exist, it would still be in a solid position to hit launch sites if it saw Russian assets moving on satalites.

Everyone takes the risk of nuclear war very seriously. No one wants to count on relatively untested defense measures. At the same time, there is definitely an assessment that Putin is not going to give a suicidal order to start a nuclear war (and that people wouldn't obey it even if given) over Russia getting control Ukraine (the main benefits of which are prestige and control of gas fields and pipelines, whose profits will mostly be funneled to oligarchs anyhow.)

I think the war will go on untill a new Russian president is ushered in, who is psychologically and politically capable of making peace. There might be ceasefires now and then though, or long periods of low intensity conflict.

think the war will go on untill a new Russian president is ushered in, who is psychologically and politically capable of making peace. There might be ceasefires now and then though, or long periods of low intensity conflict. — Olivier5

Wow. That might take a while.

It could take a few years, yes. But I could be wrong; Mr Putin could still surprise us.

What Russia is doing is still awful and criminal, they shouldn't have done it, the punch is coming back with interest added. But from a "realpolitik" perspective, it makes sense. — Manuel

So as you admit, the invasion hurts Russia big time. And it will continue to hurt for many years to come. In addition to the human cost (both from war casualties and from the massively accelerated brain drain), its economic, scientific and technological development will be thrown back by decades. Its foreign relations are in shambles. Its security situation, even from the paranoid Kremlin point of view, will be worse than it was before, with NATO strengthened, expanded and on full alert.

Then in what fantasy world does it "make sense"? Just saying "realpolitik" over and and over, like a magic incantation, won't cut it.

I trust my own assessment — Punshhh

Well, that's either insanely egotistical or just plain insane. Why would you trust your own assessment? these are matters of extremely complex military strategy, diplomacy, economics, and politics. Do you think you're qualified to make anything like a sensible assessment of the evidence?

Do you have an unbiased source that you trust? — Punshhh

No. I have a number of biased sources I trust.

My point about emigration is that it is one of the reasons an iron curtain will be introduced. Along with commercial reasons. I can’t see how this can be avoided, can you? — Punshhh

Yes easily. By the things you imagine happening, not happening. I mean when you imagine events playing out some way do you seriously think you're so infallible that you can't even imagine how they could play out any other way? That's just not normal.

It makes no less sense than the US letting its society fester and waste away to oligarchy and fascism while spending billions of dollars on wars on the literal other side of the planet to shore up its dying empire. At least Russia is playing the imperialist with its own god damn borders.

Although I agree this isn't realpolitick. This is a plutocratic capitalism that sees it's extractive mechanisms threatened by a Western-oriented neoliberalism that would decimate its parochialist economic independence and control. And that does make sense, although much to be said about the murderous execution.

An assessment of Russian capabilities from last week, based on Russia's actual effectiveness in a war, seems a lot more relevant than assessments from 2016. Of course Russia experts were publishing on Russia's major efforts to modernize its armed forces after the Georgia debacle. Performance in Syria, while limited, was impressive at first (at least compared to low expectations). — Count Timothy von Icarus

We're talking about nuclear responses, not ground force invasions.

Nonetheless, it's not about the details of the assessment, it's about the scale of the risk. I expect you've done a risk assessment (most people have these days) one multiplies the risk by the harm. The harm is nuclear annihilation. The risk doesn't have to be very high for it to be a sensible policy to back out of situations where that might be the outcome, and the rewards have to be enormous. 'Sticking it' to Putin because you think it's 'quite unlikely' that he'll start world war three is adolescent angst, not grown up global diplomacy.

Vis-á-vis the nuclear threat, if you like Chatam House, look there: — Count Timothy von Icarus

Again the article is interesting, but doesn't even mention the BAS risk of escalation from NATO, so I don't see how it's relevant.

*Make nuclear annihilation taboo again*

We should probably treat people who think a tiny bit of nuclear armageddon is OK the same way we treat pedophiles but also alot worse.

Facts.

Yes easily. By the things you imagine happening, not happening.

Enlighten me. I really can’t see a way back from my conclusion (short of total regime change in Russia).

By your lack of a description of a settlement not requiring some kind of iron curtain. I must conclude that you can’t conceive of an alternative.

I thought this was interesting:
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/time-for-putins-hail-mary-pass/

We should probably treat people who think a tiny bit of nuclear armageddon is OK the same way we treat pedophiles but also alot worse. — StreetlightX

Famously, the cockroaches aren't worried.

Enlighten me. I really can’t see a way back from my conclusion (short of total regime change in Russia). — Punshhh

I'm not sure what more I can do about your lack of imagination. Imagine the things you think will happen... Now imagine them not happening.

You asked...

Now what does a resolution to this conflict look like, without an iron curtain between Europe and Russia? — Punshhh

The answer is literally anything except a resolution with an iron curtain. It's just odd that you need me to describe one such resolution in order for you to understand the concept. The alternative is that an iron curtain is literally inevitable, the future is predetermined. You surely must realise how odd that is?

It could take a few years, yes. But I could be wrong; Mr Putin could still surprise us. — Olivier5

Supported with oil dollars and conscription? Will that just hollow out the Russian economy? More than it already was?

Sure, there are worries about escalation. The alternative is for the US not to live up to its security guarantees to Ukraine, which also risks nuclear war. Because if the US doesn't live up to its obligations in Europe, Asian nations are likely to think they won't fulfill their obligations there. This could have the effect of making a Chinese attempt to seize Taiwan or other territorial claims more likely. It would also make China's neighbors, four of whom are technologically advanced states capable of rapidly developing nuclear weapons, more likely to develop such a deterrent.

Non-proliferation research/efforts have long centered around the idea that conflicts are more likely when there are more parties involved, and so stopping nations from developing nuclear weapons, even stable allies like Korea and Japan, is a top priority.

Which gets us back to why the US had obligations to Ukraine in the first place. When the USSR collapsed, Ukraine was left with a nuclear arsenal. Obviously, Russia wanted the weapons back as well. Internal relations with Ukraine have not always been all that great, you know, the whole millions of people killed in a genocide in living memory, mass enslavement and deportations, etc.

To facilitate a reduction of the number of countries with nuclear weapons, the US made security promises to Ukraine in exchange for them delivering the weapons to Moscow, something Moscow agreed to.

With that in mind, how does everything said about reckless escalation not apply to Russia attacking a country that the US has openly promised to protect in coordination with Russia?

Aid is a calculated risk. Military aid to Taiwan, Korea, and Japan also angers China, a nuclear power. US involvement in any conventional skirmish would also increase the risks involved. However, it is totally unclear if the US saying: "sorry guys, you're on your own," would be less risky, since it would likely have resulted in those Asian nations fielding their own nuclear weapons, and Ukraine never having given up theirs.