That has come obvious to others, yes. — ssu

Why would other people's responsibility be a greater focus than my own?

It seems my position here is almost at the level of a tautology: that one should mind one's own responsibilities first is the direct corollary of what the definition of responsibility.

LOL! :grin:

Soo... how many other countries does he call "artificial" and being an integral part of Russia. How many other countries Russian spread far before maps of parts of it belonging to Russia? Like this from year 2015. — ssu

The tensions started in 2008 when NATO declared Ukraine and Georgia were on the path to NATO membership. Russia's first response was to invade Georgia.

The theory that Putin's been "planning it all along" requires believing he started increasing the tensions by somehow causing NATO to increase tensions.

The facts are NATO expands towards Russia all while referring to Russia as their "competitor" and "enemy" and so on, and Russia has been reacting to that expansion.

Of course, now that Russia has annexed the territory, it makes sense to justify that historically.

However, there is zero evidence that before or since 2008 events have been driven primarily by Putin's desire to retake parts of Ukraine.

As I say, perhaps Putin has been relying on the West's escalation in tensions to eventually provide the casus beli to invade Ukraine, but, if so, he then gets the benefit that the facts are the West pursued that escalatory policy.

Putin has been very consistent. Yes, he has also mentioned that NATO enlargement is what he doesn't like, but the annexation of Crimea and further the other oblasts that he has now annexed into Russia (even they all aren't in Russian held territories) simply just show he wasn't kidding with all his references of the historic connection of Russia and Ukraine. And then you say there's wasn't no evidence. Hilarious! Perhaps later we can look at this thread and see how ingrained Putinism and Pro-Putinists were. — ssu

The critical pivot point was 2014 when there was a coup in Kiev and Russia annexed Crimea.

Again, Russia was reacting to what the US was doing, "fuck the EU" Nuland was literally handing out cookies during the protests.

There just zero evidence for your theory that all the events leading to war was some long term Putin plot. Furthermore, if it was the West played into it and provided the pretext and propaganda material required to prosecute the war successfully.

Now, if your argument is that Putin wanted Russian speaking regions back or then taken for the first time, that's certainly true. Everyone in Europe wants their historical lands back. I'm pretty sure most Finns want Karelia back.

What's at issue here is whether Putin put in place some sort of a plan (many allege he did, going all the way back to the 90s) to conquer Crimea and Donbas. It's of course a possible hypothesis, there's just no evidence for it. What there is evidence for is the West continuously expanding NATO and continuously provoking further tensions and continuously threatening Russian core security interests (which the West has zero problem illegally bombing or killing whoever is threatening their own security interests) until there was a literal crisis funded and orchestrated by the CIA and US state department in Ukraine which provided the legitimate security requirement or then casus beli, depending on your disposition, to annex Crimea.

Sure, maybe Putin all the way back in 99 was thinking to himself ... hmm, well let NATO expand to our borders and then we'll take what's ours!

It's possible, it's not a falsifiable theory what Putin was thinking. However, the facts are that the West escalates and Russia attempts diplomacy to resolve issues (that Russia can credibly say is done in good faith), the West rejects diplomatic solutions, tensions continue to escalate until a crisis.

Now, if so, well by letting the West be continuously escalating tensions and continuously either rejecting diplomacy, or then conducting it in bad faith, Putin gets the benefit that there are no facts available that would support a theory that this was some sort of long term Russian plan.

Just like in the case of my country, the real question is if Russia cannot take over the country it attacked. What then? Well, then Russia simply admits defeat, like it did against the Japanese. Or the Poles. Or in a way, with us Finns making this kind of Peace deal without annexation or creating the country to be a satellite state. Likely Ukrainians have no dreams of the war ending with an Ukrainian military parade on the Red Square. But please, do promote the vast power of Russia here, if you want. — ssu

Russian power is far greater than Ukraine. "Vast" is perhaps an exaggeration though.

We Finns did the exact opposite of Zelensky: we had a diplomatic plan and used military force as leverage to get the best deal feasible in the circumstances; a deal that was both a surrender and admitting culpability for the war and repaying massive reparations to the Soviet Union (i.e. a deal that would be potentially preferable to the Soviet Union compared to continued fighting).

This is the most frustrating "making up history" in this whole conflict. Yes, we Finns are a model of what to do when invaded by a superior, but Ukraine is not following that model. So saying the Finns had a success in admitting defeat (in a peace deal that involved compromise on both sides compared to maximalist objectives) is not an argument in support of Ukraine fighting without any diplomatic strategy whatsoever and what diplomacy they do, if it can even be called that, is just declaring they aren't willing to compromise on their objective one bit and Russia should just do exactly what they want.

The lesson to learn from the Finnish-Russo Winter War is that it's a difficult position to be in and you need to be clever and spend lives judiciously in a fundamentally diplomatic plan that makes overall sense and is achievable. The Finns continuously negotiated with the Soviet Union during the conflict and military action was in support of that diplomacy. The Soviet Union was fearful of an invasion by Nazi Germany (as well as a potential Finnish-Nazi alliance) which was de facto additional leverage in the negotiation. Therefore, once the Finns demonstrated they could inflict unacceptable costs on the Soviet Union, there was motivation to settle. Because the Soviet Union settled the (first) conflict, Finland was motivated not to attack Leningrad (aka. Saint Petersburg) from the North, compared to a situation where the Soviets didn't settle, the Finns held on and then simply fused with Nazi forces during operation Barbarossa (which of course the Soviets didn't know about in advance, but an attack by Nazi Germany was their main concern).

So there was a lot going on that informed the Finnish negotiation and war fighting strategy.

Ukraine could have easily had a similar plan, but didn't and doesn't now.

And that naturally should happen from an advantage point. Hence military support of Ukraine should continue as long as the Ukrainians want and are willing to fight. — ssu

There is no negotiation strategy. What the West should do if it was moral and, in particular Europe also self-interested a bit, would be to condition support on a feasible negotiation strategy. Otherwise, sending hundreds of billions to Ukraine structured in the form of a slush fund and just wanting them to fight as long as possible really puts into question who exactly we're talking about in expressions such and "Ukrainians want and are willing to fight". You just completely ignore the fact men can't leave the country, how is that "willing"?

The fact is still that it doesn't have the air superiority that it should have taken in a few days. — ssu

It's honestly incredible to me how the propaganda of "Russia should have conquered Ukraine in 3 days!" or in this case gain air superiority in a few days, is successful.

Ukraine has ground based air defence, both at the start of the war and supplied by the West since, and although Russia took out a lot of air defence assets in the first days of the war it's not really a reasonable expectation that Russia would destroy them all. Furthermore, Russia destroying them all would be extreme incompetence on Ukrainians part, and the idea that failing to achieve total destruction of all air defence assets is the real incompetence is just zany.

Now, as long as a military has functioning ground based air defence systems it's simply not feasible to gain air uncontested air supremacy over the regions the systems cover. Maybe (and it's a big maybe) stealth works wonders and would allow uncontested operations over regions covered by ground air defence, but Russia doesn't have a sizeable stealth fleet.

Therefore, the Russian strategy has been to attrit Ukraines air defence missiles by waves of missile and drone attacks of various kinds as well as develop the cheaper standoff munitions of the glide bombs, in order to drop ordinance at a safe distance.

It should be noted that if an air defence missile has a range of 100km, then a plane can still penetrate this air space as long as it still has time to outrun a missile fired at it. Air defence missiles Ukraine has travel between mach 3-5, so a plane that can accelerate to mach 2 can still penetrate some distance the envelope and be able to outrun a missile. For the sake of simple numbers, a plane travelling at mach 2 can penetrate just under 50km into a 100km air defence envelope and still outrun a missile travelling at mach 4. So can compress the effective range quite a bit. Of course in practice the plane would need to turn around and accelerate which takes precious time, but the point is "being able to run away" decreases defence missile ranges quite a bit.

Which makes the glide problem only solvable by moving missile batteries closer to the front where they are far more vulnerable, and it seems have taken heavy losses doing precisely this.

Point is, the idea that Russia was "supposed" to destroy all of Ukraines air assets in a few days is preposterous and the West simply supplied more anyways, and to attrit away everything the West can throw at Ukraine in this regard is obviously going to take time and a lot of various attritting activities, intelligence and also pitched battles with air defence systems.

↪boethius

You keep repeating that:

“such as nazi groups doing their best in the Donbas to trigger the current larger war, and explicitly explaining to Western journalists that's what they want: a grand purifying war and destruction of Russia ... and then Berlin!”

“Many of the factions supporting these provocative policies vis-a-vis Russia had no qualms of explicitly stating their main goal (to Western journalists on camera) is starting a war with Russia that will destroy said Russia.”

“The Nazi's are definitely there in Ukraine (I am happy to re-post all those Western journalist documenting it) and are definitely a problem (mainly for Ukraine). They are also a genuine security concern for Russia (as they have no hesitation to explicitly say their goal is a war with Russia and to destroy Russia”

Can you link your source? — neomac

I've posted the same Western reporting on the Nazis in Ukraine I think 4-5 times now. It's the same cycle, someone mentions the Nazis in Ukraine as mere Russian propaganda, I post the evidence based on Western reporting, and then no one wants to talk about it anymore.

Got through these videos and you will see what the concern is.

Once faced with the evidence, the denialists will then say "well there's not enough Nazis!", but then refuse to answer the question of how many Nazis would be enough. It's a simple question, if I say "this isn't enough water to live on" presumably I have some standard in my head of what is enough water and could inform you that a thimble is not enough water but about 2 litres a day is a normal healthy amount (but may vary quite a bit depending on the conditions).

Now, maybe there isn't and has never been enough Nazis in Ukraine that not-invading and destroying said Nazis would be the appeasement.

But, they're clearly there with quite a bit, even if "not enough" power, and it is foolish to dismiss their presence, goals and how they impact events, in both direct and indirect ways.

It's also important part of the conflict as it's simply giving Putin and the Kremlin immense propaganda wins. Russians don't squint their eyes and debate exactly what kind of runes we're looking at when they see obvious Nazis talking obvious Nazi shit.

Of course, simply because something is true doesn't mean it won't be used and exaggerated for propaganda purposes, and in this case it is a simple motivator that goes some way to explain why Russian troops didn't just run away from the battle field as they low morale and "didn't know why they're fighting" and other lines repeated by Western media.

The discourse then transitioned to focus more on Ukraine being already apart of Russia in order to build up and then justify the annexations of the territory. Russia also captured a lot of Azov leaders in Mariupol and of course that was a symbolic victory over the Nazis in Ukraine so you also just want to mix things up a bit in public relations in any case.

Another reason for the discourse to change to focus more on historical relations and Russian speakers and so on, is because Putin and the Kremlin are aware that the only end to the war is a negotiated settlement, as most of Ukraine is simply not desired by the Kremlin (the Ukrainian speaking parts). Therefore, if you keep emphasizing the Nazis and exaggerate too much and call all Ukrainians Nazis and so on, then it makes it harder to sell the peace agreement. It's much better to have some symbolic victories under the belt, such as Mariupol, and then just declare whatever standard of denazification was being used, it was a success.

However, the Nazis as they really are in Ukraine and what they are up to and how the effect and influence events is distinct from how the Nazis appear, or disappear, in Russian discourse, what effect and influence that has, and what are the reasons for all that.

Likewise, if Putin builds up too much NATO as a threat then it becomes harder to sell an eventual peace with NATO later, or can even cause further undesired escalation with NATO; war of words can often translate to actual war, or more actual war in this case. A change in emphasis may does not mean a change in facts nor the perception of those facts.

I point this out because the Western media analytical methodology is to take anything Putin says or doesn't say, or emphasizes or de-emphasizes, as some sort. of "proof" of reality when they're able to spin it their way, and if not they just call him a liar.

Any genuine analysis must keep separate reality to perception of that reality by different people as well as what people say about said perception.

The actual Nazis are one thing, the perception of those Nazis by Russians and Putin and so on is another thing, and their discourse about said Nazis is still yet a third thing. Of course, how we know anything about reality is through our and other perception and discourse on those perceptions, in this case we can be confident of some degree of objectively confident view of the Nazis due to the reporting of credibly unbiased reporters that have no stake in the outcome of whether the Nazis are there or aren't there or what they are doing or not doing (a credibility that would be based on yet still more perceptions and discourse on those perceptions).

I hope all these explanations help your understanding of things, and if you are interested in the sources they are reposted below:

The backlash is people getting into severe cognitive dissonance which disrupts the war horny trance like state they were in previously, when they encounter the fact the "neo-Nazi" problem isn't some fringe skinheads in some seedy bar, but a whole institution.

Which, please pay attention to the "black sun" which doesn't even have any apologist "it's just a rune" or "ancient Sanskrit symbol" whatever explanation, but literally created by the SS for the SS. — boethius

And also discover, at least the US and Canada (... maybe not other NATO members like Germany, who are the experts on neo-Nazi's after all and arbitrate whether they exist or not in today's media landscape) exposed to be breaking their own laws, which was military aid was contingent on irregular forces not doing any fighting or getting any weapons or ammunition ... which journalists could just go debunk in like, a single day's investigation? — boethius

And discover ... that when people talk about this problem going back to 2014 ... there's times and BBC reportings on this very thing: — boethius

January First, is one of the most important days in their callender. It marks the birth of Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Ukrainian partisan forces during the second world war.

The rally was organized by the far right Svoboda Party. Protests marched amidst a river of torches, with signs saying "Ukraine above all else".

But for many in Ukraine and abroad, Bandera's legacy is controversial. His group, the organization of Ukrainian Nationalists sided with Nazi German forces [but fortunately we have modern Germany to tell us there's no connection!] before breaking with them later in the war. Western Historians also say that his followers carried out massacres of Polish and Jewish civilians.

[... interview with a guy explaining the importance of Stepan Bandera's birthday party ]

Ukraine is a deeply divided country, however, and many in its East and South consider the party to be extremist. Many observers say rallies like today's torch light march only add to this division [really?!?! you don't say...]. — BBC

Or discover this one which interviews the FBI talking about these terrorists training with Azov ... but ... wait, "the war on terror" doesn't extend to white terrorists training "oversees".

And has the quote (recorded on video) from one of the recruiters: — boethius

We're Aryans, and we will rise again — totally not a neo-Nazi, according to the German government

But ... the president is Jewish and is allied with these forces, who don't even hate Jews all that much! So obviously you can have Nazi's if their friendly Nazi's (to your side). — boethius

This one's just adorable. — boethius

And that policy has to start with the real situation. Not the imagined one where everything revolves around the West and it's actions or failures. — ssu

My primary responsibility does indeed revolve around the West and its actions or failures because I live in the West.

I have zero problem discussing other people's responsibility in other countries independent of the West's policy vis-a-vis whatever it is, including Putin's responsibility, it's just not my main focus.

Sure, analysis should start with the reality of the situation, a few points of reality:

1. Maybe it was Putin's intention was to invade Ukraine all along, there's just no evidence for it. Maybe it was secretly his goal and he then used the fact the US also wanted bigger tensions to maneuver the EU and Ukraine into the war he wanted all along. Well, if so we played into his hand and he's outplayed us, that's my main take-away; but independent of that, if we assume Putin "gracefully lured the CIA into Ukraine" and managed everything precisely to this end all along ... doesn't really seem to change the other salient facts.

2. Ukraine simply cannot win a long war with Russia and the only way to even have a chance to do that involves extreme harm to Ukraine.

3. The West simply does not value Ukrainian sovereignty enough to send in its own troops. I'm always accused of being pro-Putin yet I'm the only one here who has advocated Western troops in Ukraine (ideally before or at the start of the war, now it's less workable for a bunch of reasons).

4. If you put point 2 and 3 together, the only reasonable conclusion is that the West should (especially before or at the very start of the war), if we cared about Ukraine (just not enough to send our own troops), used the West's immense negotiating leverage to workout the best deal possible for Ukraine. Putin wanted to continue to sell gas to Europe, that's why they built a bunch of giant pipes (unless that too was a cunning ploy knowing the US would blow it up and that would cause tensions in the alliance ... or then know the US would threaten to blow it up and Putin could then send his own frogmen out there right under NATO's nose in the thickest thickets of sonar traps and blow it up and everyone would think it was the US since they literally promised to bring it to an end come what may, and they have means of doing it), and a whole bunch of incentives to agree to and stick to a peace deal as well as the disincentive to try to resolve things on the battle field as the arming of Ukraine during the negotiations is further leverage the West has.

Of note, if the West was putting reasonable proposals on the table that are obviously acceptable to all parties, then it would have been natural to send in more advanced Western equipment (equipment that is obviously necessary at some point if the war continues, so at the start is so crazy a lot better for so many reasons). Likewise, the whole point of sanctions is that they will be lifted if a reasonable deal is accepted (if we're talking rational, good faith and ethical diplomacy). Would Putin resort to nukes when there's a reasonable deal on the table? Could Putin be sure to actually hold on to the land bridge in 2022 if the West was sending in advanced tanks, HIMARS, and so the other weapons we've sent anyways (which could be far more effectively employed)?

If the West was pursuing a reasonable and ethical result for Ukraine, it had immense amounts of leverage to do so and if Putin stubbornly refused then all the advanced weapons could be front loaded to Ukraine and it would much better chances.

I explain for over 2 years how to get the best outcome for Ukraine: diplomacy, using both economic incentives and the potential for continued violence (which even if devastating for Ukraine is still harmful for Russia and, most importantly, there's huge error bars on all sorts of processes and events at the start of the conflict, which must be priced into decision making) as leverage in that diplomacy, prevent tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of deaths, mass trauma and injuries, a large part of the entire youth of Ukraine permanently gone, retain as much territory as is viably possible ... and somehow I'm pro-Putin.

Cheering on Ukrainians to die fighting Putin as basically a gesture to represent "we don't like him" is not pro-Ukrainian, it's pro destruction and death on the off chance it harms Russia.

Ukraine has no means to resolve this conflict on the battlefield, so the choices are to send in Western troops or then have a negotiation strategy (in which arms can be one of several vectors of leverage, but in the context of a workable deal).

It may seem (for people who think Putin is literally Hitler ... while an actual genocide is carried out elsewhere) emotionally satisfying to see Zelensky repudiate negotiations and simply demand Russia leaves Ukraine and we'll negotiate after that!

However, it is not good for Ukraine. Russia can resolve this conflict on the battlefield; if there is no reasonable peace proposal, Russia does have the means to simply attain a battle field outcome.

Encouraging Ukraine to fight without any negotiating strategy that is plausibly workable is simply cheering the death of Ukrainians for no benefit to them or anyone else.

The decision to send men and women to die should be based on something more than "what sounds good to hear" and thought terminating clichés such as "Russia can end the war any day!". Men who are for the most part drafted, cannot legally leave Ukraine, and it may not be their desire or their own volition to fight Russia for no viably achievable objective or even no desire to fight at all.

As we speak Russia has achieved air superiority over the front line, certainly with standoff glide bombs but there's also reports of fighter jets flying directly over the front, Ukrainian lines are collapsing and the combined arms matrix that allows assets to remain in the field at all (even many kilometres behind the front) is crumbling.

Which is all expected and predictable since months, and since the very start of the war I explained exactly this would happen. You can hold out for some time against a superior force but eventually one side breaks, and it's usually not the superior force. The comparison to WWI made in the media and therefore it's some sort of stalemate they would conclude is preposterous; WWI was not a stalemate! One side won, the other lost. Just in trench warfare the process of losing is not gradual loss of territory but breaking.

Things hold until they don't, then it happens very quickly the destruction of the remaining forces and assets in the field.

Likewise, what's being learned: Russia is learning how to systematically break Ukrainian lines while Ukraine is learning they have no way to stop that happening.

The idea a smaller force could hold against a larger force that overmatches them in every category of arms is just ludicrous ... and our leaders were selling us that the smaller force would not just hold but achieve total victory!

Yeah. Now you gave the Chomsky refute.

So not much interest in Ukraine, Ukrainian history, Ukrainian people, Putin's fixation in dubious history and the role Ukraine has for Russia or Russian imperialism and so on.

Because you don't live their. So we have to ONLY concentrate of errors that the West made. :smirk:

Well, we don't live there, yet we are talking...so I'll try to answer. — ssu

I point out my primarily responsibility: Western policy.

First, it's not an exclusive statement, we can obviously also talk about Russian and Ukrainian policy. Indeed, our policy would be vis-a-vis policy elsewhere so understanding that is critical.

Second, pointing out that the West was lying to Ukraine when it made all sorts of long term assurances ... I just don't see how we would be justified in ignoring that "because Russia bad". Is it justified to lie to Ukraine and manipulate it for our (mostly the US) policy objectives because "Russia bad"?

I just don't get how this logic is even supposed to work.

I disagree.

The real reason was that they simply couldn't fathom the idea that Putin would go and invade Ukraine even more than it had done 2014. That's it! — ssu

Ah yes, the "real reason" is because Western policy makers simply didn't even read their own policy documents and the long list of warnings by experts that Ukraine was a redline for Russia and a war would result if the West continued its policy there.

Furthermore, what was Minsk 1 and 2 even nominally about if not to resolve the war in the Donbas and prevent it from escalating?

You really think no one took that seriously during those negotiations, that it was a minor and irrelevant process because they "couldn't fathom the idea" of an existing hot war escalating?

We then have directly from the French and German leaders involved in those negotiations that it was to "buy time" ... well buy time for what? To build up arms to deal with an escalation in the conflict. Obviously, they thought that was a good idea at the time, and if they thought it was a good idea because arming Ukraine would deter Russia from escalating, well obviously they could therefore fathom Russia escalating the war as their plan was to mitigate that. But was that even the plan? Blinken himself pointed out that any buildup of arms in Ukraine would simply be matched, likely overmatched by Russia.

This whole idea that policy makers of the largest most powerful nations on earth are essentially children who don't even read anything, don't know anything, can't imagine anything untoward ever happening, is honestly one of the most bizarre aspects of this whole conflict.

All Minsk agreements and their failures had just put them to think that "Oh well, this is one of those frozen wars" as we know from various places. They have their own domestic politics, so they don't give much thought to a conflict before it actually happens. The only thing they were giving Russia was assurances that Ukraine won't be a NATO member. Naturally they cannot give that in writing, because that would go against the NATO charter of it being open to countries. But Germany said that they would be firm in not letting Ukraine into NATO. — ssu

Again, Merkel and Hollande literally sate Minsk was just to "buy time" for Ukraine. Where does anyone even try to explain what you propose here that it was just "oh well, back to domestic issues".

You're really arguing that Merkel and Hollande didn't have experts pointing out that a failure to unwind the war in the Donbas would potentially, perhaps likely, lead to Russian escalation? That everyone just expected Russia to do nothing if the Minsk process didn't work and fighting in the Donbas continued indefinitely. The conflict was not frozen, it was a hot war between 2014 and 2022.

Umm, what? That countries took Russian threats of nuclear war seriously and are timid then to back up Ukraine isn't because of the nuclear threats, but because they want war and not to protect Ukraine? — ssu

Yes, obviously.

If they wanted to protect Ukraine they would need to brave Russia's nuclear threats with their own nuclear threats: put boots on the ground and dare Russia to attack them and risk nuclear escalation.

If their actions are determined by taking Russia's nuclear threats seriously and simply avoiding nuclear escalation, that's just another way of saying they are going to let Russia win the war to avoid nuclear escalation.

So why prop up a half-assed war?

Because it serves several policy objectives that has just summarized I think adequately.

The only thing I would add is that the war profiteering is fundamental in corralling US elite and politicians into going along with the war (until it has served its purpose of course). "US defence contractors go bling bling" is a much faster and easier way to explain the rationale for the policy to most US politicians, who are on a need to know basis and that's all they need to know.

And US politicians have no shame in just saying that "hey, this money is going to US defence contractors, not even leaving the US!" because that's how it was explained to them and it just makes sense.

Now your are starting again with the similar rhetoric "She obviously was so stunning, that her beauty sent mix messages. So it wasn't the rapists fault."

Oh poor, poor, POOR Russia. All the time everybody else wanting it to start wars. How wicked from others. :snicker: — ssu

It takes two to tango: I have stated many times that the fundamental cause of the war on Russias part is Russian imperialism.

The conflict is a feature of the nation state system and within our system simply makes a lot of sense from the Russian policy maker point of view. The Russian response is the expected response that experts predicted and that former policy makers predicted.

The difference is that Russia made a lot of attempts to avoid this situation through diplomacy. Putin has not come out and said he negotiated Minsk in bad faith, maybe he did, who knows, but he gets the benefit of providing us no basis of accusing him of bad faith ... because his counterparties admit to it first! Truly unbelievable.

We have a situation that is a recipe for war. The events as they appear in the public domain is that Russia attempted consistently to avoid the inevitable war with diplomacy and the West consistently pressed on towards the war even admitting that the little diplomacy that was engaged was bad faith.

Now, maybe Putin was masterminding the whole thing and playing the West like a fiddle, taking advantage of Western duplicity and cupidity, in order to bring the West along the path of war that Putin wanted, but it's convenient for a lot of reasons for all available evidence pointing to the US primarily pushing for the war that the US also wanted. That's possible, there's just no evidence for it.

That's the most lurid thought for a long time. But of course, as in your alternative universe the West has planned to get Russia to attack Ukraine (just like the beautiful women sent mix message with her stunning beauty), of course the only viable objective for the West is to have a perpetual war. Because...what else would the evil West want? (Hence with deduce that beautiful women want to be raped by rapists.) — ssu

Lurid thought in a long time?

I've presented exactly this though on numerous occasions. I've been presenting and defending the "drip feed hypothesis" since near the start of the war, and pointing out all of its predictions coming true: a new weapon system is only introduced when previous weapons systems fail to pose a serious problem to Russia.

Why not F-16s and all manner of fancy missiles for the much hyped counter offensive of last year?

Is it because "we can't supply F-16s and longer range missiles"? No, as we're doing that now.

The reason is because F-16s and a bunch of fancy missiles last year may have actually broke through and reached Crimea causing a "real problem" for the Russians (not something that is legitimately or then can be easily played off as a tactical retreat, while pointing out to achieving the critical military aims such as a land bridge to Crimea).

Now it's clear Ukrainian offensive capability is spent and so more advanced weapons can be sent in to prop up the war a little longer, such as avoid an embarrassing total collapse.

Likewise, the optimum time, from a military point of view, to supply Ukraine with Western tanks was day 1, as then logistics and proper use of the tanks with the most experienced crews could be worked out, even a working out the best use of Western and Soviet tanks respectively.

Most importantly, weapons systems are most effective when all the other weapons systems available are still operational and effective in order to maximize synergy.

Why this didn't happen?

Because Russia was vulnerable in 2022 with not so many soldiers mobilized; so had there been heavy weapons supplied to Ukraine then there was a real danger Ukraine's million man army if actually supplied with "whatever it takes" could have routed the Russians; continuing the Kharkiv and Kherson offensives far deeper, cutting the land bridge for example.

Now, even if the Russians retreating from Kharkiv and Kherson was a tactical retreat, they only needed to tactically retreat in the first place because they didn't have the manpower to hold, much less advance, in 2022. A tactical retreat doesn't mean your "winning", just is different from a route in that you can inflict heavier casualties on the opponent while the retreating (i.e. a well executed tactical retreat loses territory but at significant losses for the opponent, compared to a route which is both losing territory and significant losses of men and material); it's of course still better to not need to tactically retreat, and it was then when the Russians were weakest so more / better weapon systems would have had the most effect in the outcome of the war. Likewise Russia needing to deal with the sanctions, uncertainty in diplomatic relations, potential unrest at home etc. all amplified the weakness in 2022.

Basically, Ukraine's only strategic advantage in military terms in the whole war is the total mobilization at the start of the war. A smaller nation coming under attack can fully mobilize and covert rapidly to total war, whereas as invading imperial force doesn't have that option as easily (as invaders are less motivated than defenders, it would be embarrassing to need to totally mobilize, would cause all sorts of long term economic harms that an empire needs to think about).

The time to make gains for Ukraine, therefore, is at the start, in 2022, which is when we saw them make gains and additional weapons systems would have had optimum effect (as well as setup the experience and training needed to continue to use those weapons systems to keep said gains).

I pointed all this out at the time, that if we actually wanted Ukraine to "win" we'd give them all sorts of stuff. Instead not only do we not do that but we maintain this creeping Overton window of what we can even discuss giving to Ukraine.

Why the limitations and narrow scope of what weapons systems can even be considered?

Because the policy is not to support Ukraine in any sort of rational military way, but to prop them up to accomplish other policy objectives.

Yeah, sure, maybe "harming Russia" as some sort of lesson about invading other countries is one of those policy objectives; feel free to argue that, but what goes along with that is totally wrecking Ukraine to deliver this spanking and finger wagging exercise to Russia.

Or do about it?

It's still going on, the war you know.

I think it's up the Ukrainians to decide. They have tried to open negotiations. Putin still wants more territory from them and still the ludicrous denazification is there, so I'd say to continue supporting Ukraine until otherwise.

Likely Putin is still happy with the war economy that he has. If he gets to hold the land that he has, he can put is as a victory, especially saying that he was fighting all the West. Perhaps then Putin is then in his happy place, worthy to be remembered with Peter the Great, Stalin etc. A great Russian leader. — ssu

So basically continue with the status quo? Continue with the drip feed of weapons system that results in Ukrainian losses and no way to "win" the war. Putin gets what he wants.

But Ukraine decided that's what they wanted, if it was based on lies from the West about "whatever it takes" then that doesn't matter, so much ado about nothing in the end?

Am I reading you correctly?

Why was the women beautiful in the first place? Her fault. She had the rape coming! — ssu

How is this in anyway related to what I explain?

The core question is what is the best policy to manage the situation. For me I am primarily interested in Western policy, as that's where I live and the policy I'm responsible for.

Now, if you want to take this premise of Ukraine as an innocent defenceless maiden, I am the only person in this entire discussion that even entertained the idea of putting NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine before the war started (or, more precisely, larger war starting in 2022), and also made clear I'd be for such a move if our goal was indeed to "protect democracy" (also, if it worked and avoided war and nuclear exchange, that would be good too and I explained how that was achievable using common sense, negotiation leverage and the "strength" we keep hearing is Putin's only language).

The reason why Western institutions and talking heads dismissed this option out of hand is because the only way it's workable is in combination with a negotiation strategy to prevent the war actually happening. Basically create a Cuban missile crisis standoff. Obviously to actually prevent the war from starting there would need to be an offer to Russia that Russia could accept, better than fighting, mutually beneficial, makes sense, etc.

However, if the goal really was to protect Ukrainian sovereignty then you'd certainly consider very carefully the idea of sending troops into Ukraine in a "escalate to deescalate" strategy (that you've repeated yourself many times the basic logic of how that works). Even moreso if you thought Ukraine a defenceless innocent fair maiden.

The reason it was not considered at all, just throw a little WWIII thought-terminating cliché of why that's impossible (to go with the thought-terminating clichés of why sending heavy weapons "wasn't possible" ... it was just "no, no, no, of course note, don't be silly" ... until they send those exact weapons systems), is because the policy is to have a war and not protect Ukraine.

The drip feed of weapons systems policy doesn't go from "obviously not, of course not, don't be silly" to "send them in! whatever it takes! everybody send everything they got!" because there's a change of heart, or change of analysis, or change of policy. The policy remains exactly the same: have a war.

In order to ensure on having a war you need to calibrate between two scenarios:

1. Russia winning outright, which ends the war, and therefore more arms and heavier weapons systems are needed to prevent this scenario whenever your risk threshold of this happening is surpassed.

2. Ukraine winning outright, which may result in Russia simply retreating to their borders and ending the war that way and taking the L or then resorting to nuclear weapons and so also ending the war, just in a different way.

Of course, the policy of just wanting the war (for war profiteering, getting Europe on LNG, weakening Europe and the Euro structurally over the long term, distraction, maybe also even harming Russia a bit), eventually fulfils its purpose.

Stocks are liquidated, war spending is up, the gas lines are blown up, recession all over Europe ... and, oh! what have we here, the 60 billion promised to Ukraine and critical to keep fighting are held up. Fancy that. Fancy fucking that.

Sorry, no matter what you say and try obstinately push the Russian rhetoric and Russian talking points: Russia wrecked Ukraine. It attacked in 2014, it attacked Ukraine in 2022. — ssu

Ok, say you're right.

Well, what did we do about it?

When you take the side of the aggressor, you have to vilify the victim. Hence a) Ukrainians have no agency over their own country and b) they have to be corrupt and neo-nazis. — ssu

This is really the strangest of the propaganda vis-a-vis Ukraine.

Western policy is Western policy. "Ukrainian agency" is not a cause of Western policy.

If Western policy has been to manipulate Ukraine to its detriment, that "Ukrainian agency" has chosen this path is not somehow a justification for the policy.

If Boris Johnson went to Kiev and made the argument and certainly made promises and assurances of Western support, and on that basis Zelensky decided to reject the Russian peace proposal, the Western policy here is even potentially justifiable by Zelensky agreeing to it.

Why does everything the West and Ukraine do need to be justified by "Ukrainian agency"? Because it's clearly turned out to be terrible decisions that have completely wrecked Ukraine. The situation is really bad.

"Ukrainians chose it!" Is not a justification for Western policy, even discounting the influence the West and the dozen or so CIA bases have in Ukraine.

To the extent the West has goaded Ukraine into this total war with Russia, that was a bad policy for both Ukraine and the West.

To the extent the West goaded Ukraine into this total war with Russia based on promises and assurances they knew to be false (Whatever it takes! Ukraine will join NATO ... anyway now!), that was an immoral policy.

b) they have to be corrupt and neo-nazis — ssu

The corruption and the neo-nazis, though closer to just straight up nazis, are extremely well documented fact. I can post the videos of Western reportage on the nazis and corruption again if you to actually go through them and explain how these are fabricated or the journalist's are "reading the runes wrong" or something.

Does the corruption and nazis in Ukraine in itself justify Russia invading? Well, one could argue it would be appeasement of Nazis not invade. However, to get into this argument we'd need to start with a definition or estimation of how many Nazis with how much power would justify invasion, as to do otherwise would be appeasement, or then there is no threshold and any amount of Nazis is ok. No one has ever even attempted to answer this question, and without an agreed threshold then saying things like "sure there's nazis but not too many nazis" isn't really meaningful; one needs to start with a definition of too much and then demonstrate Ukraine does not reach this threshold.

The corruption and the nazis are also critical to understanding the war, as there are real effects from both the corruption and the nazis on outcome of events.

Obviously dealing with reality deflates enthusiasm to just cheerlead more for Ukraine, and if your starting point is "Ukraine good, Russia bad" then anything that may reduce our sympathy for Ukraine (such as nazi groups doing their best in the Donbas to trigger the current larger war, and explicitly explaining to Western journalists that's what they want: a grand purifying war and destruction of Russia ... and then Berlin!) obviously is a bad thing that should be just ignored and trivialized if the goal is just more cheerleading the war.

Which is another reason why "Ukrainian agency" is so vital, for if Ukrainian Agency is what justifies Western policy then an objective review of Ukraine and their decisions and policies is simply superfluous.

However, the reality is that there is no onus on the West to support one side of a conflict. The decision to send arms is not justified simply because Ukraine asks for it. Ukraine is owed zero arms.

Since the beginning (just as the RAND report clearly stated) an objective view of the situation is:

1. Nazis are bad and the West (to the extent "Western values" have any content at all) shouldn't arm and train Nazi factions in Ukraine; so whatever the policy it shouldn't support Nazis. Likewise, Ukraine and the West tolerating and arming these nazi factions is simply (at best) handing an immense propaganda win to Russia both domestically can internationally, so it's just bad strategy even if the goal is to have a big war with Russia.

2. Ukraine has little chance of winning on the battlefield against Russia and simply the attempt would be (and has been) extremely destructive to Ukraine.

3. The West is no chance in hell in it for "as long as it takes" and saying so is simply lying. That Ukraine has "agency" to not believe a lie doesn't excuse a lie. Any individual has "agency" to prevail in hand to hand combat, but that doesn't excuse murder. It's just a maddening argument to use Ukrainian agency to justify Western policy and lies.

4. Ukraine is in terrible demographic situation and a long war has removed half or more of the younger generations, less and less of whom are likely to return to Ukraine the longer the war drags on.

5. Encouraging and "leaving the door open that you are not allowed to walk through" of Ukraine joining NATO simply helps cause exactly the war the purpose of joining NATO would likely cause. That Ukraine maybe delusional enough to believe "Western values" would cause the West to just throw Ukraine into NATO and blow up Russia with nukes if ever Russia attacked Ukraine, is, again, not a justification for having a policy that encourages Ukraine to pursue something self defeating. Fighting for the "right to join NATO" (which was a main slogan and justification for fighting at the start of the war, before there was so much bad blood and it was clear to everyone the the war could be stopped anytime and the main issue of contention was NATO) when you can't actually join NATO is stupid. Again, at best, it is simply providing a propaganda victory to Russia both domestically and internationally that this hostile alliance was trying to expand to its border (pretty much any statesperson outside the West will empathize with Russia in this situation—as no nation, and especially the other great powers, want a hostile alliance to expand to its border, and would therefore act to stop it—which goes a long way to explain why no nation outside the West has gotten on board with the sanctions). However, even if Russia believed Ukraine was unlikely to join NATO today, the fact that process exists leads to the conclusion that as soon as Russia is in a weak position that Ukraine could then be "slipped into NATO", would be the military fear.

Which sure, you can look at the objective reality that negotiation (since before 2014) was a better way to manage the situation with Russia rather than building up arms and negotiating in bad faith the Minsk agreements and not carrying them out, repudiating negotiation of a new security architecture before the war and then encouraging Ukraine to fight, and making it clear that was the only choice the West would support (rather than an integrated negotiation strategy of both Ukraine and EU leverage, obviously the US wouldn't participate, to negotiate peaceful relations), and then still have the view that "Russia bad". No problem.

What is problematic is the Western discourse has degraded to a series of thought-terminating clichés such as "Ukrainian agency" and ad hominems against Putin such as he's Hitler (while Israel can genocide by starvation an entire population in overt genocidal practice of gaining their Lebensraum, and ... we cool, we cool). That's pretty much the entire Western discourse at the moment.

I'm saying NATO is not going to pour troops into Finland as part of some invasion force that Russia will feel compelled to nuke. NATO will have a presence in Finland. That's it. NATO has no interest in invading Russia. — RogueAI

Again, such limited imagination.

How escalation works is a series of tit-for-tat actions which spur each side to buildup and "show of strength".

As I mentioned, how things go hot in these sorts of scenarios is when each side decides to call the others bluff. There's some new crisis, Russia engages in some sabre rattling and NATO calls that bluff and builds up forces in Finland to "protect NATO's border", insert misunderstandings and shenanigans of various kinds, and Russia decides to make good on it's threat and call NATO's bluff of retaliating with nuclear weapons.

We're not talking about now but a time span of many decades. Things can look very different to what they look like now.

Maybe the US becomes weak, maybe the US is the first to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in some other theatre and it's "just what nuclear powers do now", maybe Russia's position as a energy exporter is rock solid and it feels it can basically get away with anything and should demonstrate its resolve to do so.

Of course, speculation can go both ways, and, as I mention, maybe Russia goes around nuking every non-NATO member.

Macron is talking about sending troops into Ukraine as we speak ... and you're arguing that NATO wouldn't send troops into NATO.

Makes zero sense.

But it's not necessarily troops that would be the focus of tensions but weapon's systems.

You may say ... well because of all this Finland won't allow in provocative US weapons systems.

But then the problem with that logic is why be in NATO to protect yourself from Russia if you don't want NATO to increase your defences against Russia. Whole point of being in NATO is as a deterrent, so that logic easily dominates the logic of being less provocative (that was the logic of being neutral); you can't have the benefits of NATO and neutrality at the same time, so if you're already in NATO you easily conclude you should at least have the defensive benefits.

NATO's not going to do that. — RogueAI

Why not?

Let's say tensions rise, use your imagination, and Russia is building up on Finland's border, even if everyone understand's it's just "to flex", doesn't NATO need to respond in kind to show it's equally capable of "flexing"? Does not a tinderbox scenario result where a single shell can start the war?

What's the point of having Finland in NATO if that doesn't threaten Russia?

You really think the US sat down and said to itself "we really need to protect those Finns, could be next on Putin's chopping block, we can't let that happen! We need them in NATO so they're safe and protected"?

... or because it's a way of applying pressure on Russia?

Pressure that leads to tensions that can lead to escalations that can go out of control and have unintended consequences.

To put the nuclear question aside (until someone wants to dismiss its relevance completely again) and continue my periodic analysis of the war situation.

We are currently seeing the breaking point of the Ukrainian defensive line.

I would argue the reason the West didn't setup any maintenance system for the heavy weapons, such as tanks, is not because they "forgot" as the Western media seems to imply, but because their military analysis concluded it wouldn't matter.

There's simply too many limiting factors coming into play to sustain the Ukrainian war effort on the current front, most notably air defence.

Therefore, the West's, in particular the Biden administration's, main strategic concern since the much hyped counter offensive is setting up the blame game for the Ukrainian front collapse.

"We forgot to do things like setup maintenance" is one reason: "Oh yeah, we really gave it a good shot, but, shucks, forgot that maintenance thing".

Of course, the main reason is that the Republicans didn't pass the funding, setting up blaming the Republicans for the failure in Ukraine.

Money won't change much on the ground from here to the election so passing the funding would be a politically a bad decision at best and political suicide at worst. Imagine if the 60 billion was passed and Ukraine suffered defeat after defeat anyways, which the funding wouldn't anyways prevent.

Ensuring the funding doesn't pass, allows at least blaming the Republicans for failure in Ukraine.

"Ukraine is a disaster!" can now be met "Because you didn't fund it!" and democrats will go wild for that sort of pun.

Of course, a bare minimum of funding is necessary to avoid a total Ukrainian government collapse which would be more politically damaging than collapse of the front ... meet the EU.

Under assurances that the 60 billion would certainly be passed (the deal from the outset was certainly 50-50 in terms of financing Ukraine), a "who goes first" situation arose.

Guess who went first.

Europe went first.

From what I can tell, the plan is to keep Ukraine (with Europe's money so that the US, more specifically Biden, isn't "funding failure") in a tactical retreat mode until the election.

I'm not the first person to point it out, but this puts Russia in a prime position to influence the outcome of the election by determining events on the ground. Of course, exercising such influence can always backfire, but presumably what actually happens on the ground in Ukraine favours one candidate over the other.

Longer term, Ukraine simply has an immense demographic problem.

Ukraine is already in a demographic collapse and then millions of young people left the country and aren't going to return. Men aging into the military is a critical factor of sustaining a long war.

Not only do older men accumulate health conditions and their combat effectiveness isn't so good, generally speaking, but they also accumulate skills that are vital for the economy and maintaining the war effort generally speaking. Boys that pass the age limit have neither of these problems.

Which is the fundamental reason I would guess (as others have) the latest mobilization hasn't taken into effect as there's just a limit to how many men you can take out of other work and things keep functioning. For example, a lot of men are needed to repair the power grid, move enough of them to the front and the power grid can no longer be repaired and you have a much bigger military problem than the men were worth as frontline soldiers. Sending women to the front is likewise a double edged sword that doesn't necessary help ("fighting for the women" is a foundational factor in morale; if they're dying on the front too things make less sense).

In short, we are now seeing the consequence of entering a war of attrition with a far larger adversary.

Now that Russia has "the momentum" it can more easily recruit foreign mercenaries (lot's of people are willing to fight for money ... but only if they think you're winning), can more easily shore up both domestic and foreign diplomatic support.

Beyond simply the attritional resource battle, the Russians are now reaping the training dividend.

2023 was all about training hundreds of thousands of new recruits while Ukraine fought mercenaries, such as prisoners, that no one cared about.

In order to simply tread water in the war, Ukraine needed essentially full commitment but also limited training potential. The ability for Ukraine to train in Ukraine is limited by the threat of airstrikes, whereas NATO training some 30 000 troops over a few months, is not that much, and in different countries through interpreters on totally new equipment, is simply not comparable to Russia's cohesive training over a whole year.

Even if it was a foolish decision, it was based on a very tangible perceived 'Russian threat'. — Tzeentch

Yeah, sure, but 'Russian threat' also includes being nuked by Russia precisely because you joined NATO.

What the Finns missed is that they are only putting themselves in the line of fire while there's literally zero chance of the Americans coming to their rescue when they get into trouble with the Russians - trouble that they themselves brought closer by joining NATO. — Tzeentch

We agree. Hopefully doesn't happen and I would also guess Finland would still have to let itself be played in escalating things to the point of getting nuked, so hopefully we don't do that.

Moreover they seem to have also failed to realize that they put themselves into prime position to be used as a pawn by the United States in the geopolitically tumultuous time we are heading into, in which the United States will view Europe as a potential rival to be kept down (destroyed even) rather than 'a friend'.

We are roughly in agreement on that, I gather. But what I'm taking issue with is making the discussion about nuclear war that will never happen. — Tzeentch

We agree on both points.

I only have a problem with people dismissing the prospects of nuclear war entirely. Even if it never happens, which hopefully it doesn't, that would be precisely because decisions are made to avoid it.

The only correct answer to someone bringing up nuclear war and Finland is: Russia won't go to nuclear war over Finland, and the Americans won't go to nuclear war to defend it.

Simple as. — Tzeentch

For now.

But as you just said above, Finland is now put itself in the position of being used as a pawn.

What I fear, as a Finn, is that the war in Ukraine comes to a close, situation is stabilized, and Finland then becomes the only vector in which to stoke military tensions with Russia in the future and the US engineers a situation in which suddenly its "all eyes on the Finnish border".

Even simply being used as a focal point of tensions and needing to mobilize to show Finland and NATO are "serious" would bring serious economic harm to Finland. Along with being dragged into wars far from Finland and that have nothing to do with Russia, these sorts of smaller happenings I would agree are far more likely than being nuked by Russia ... but if we agree that the US won't actually defend Finland then we Finns are just insuring costs to support US policy without even getting the main benefit.

May not be so relevant to anyone else, but as a Finnish-Canadian I feel the onus to serve as cultural bridge to explain to my fellow Finns that the US isn't gonna come and help us and few Americans would even notice Finns being killed in some new foreign policy fiasco, which, as you've pointed out, is the fundamental policy of the US in Europe.

Of course, the hypothetical discussion could go on indefinitely and perhaps Russia one days goes around nuking every non-NATO country on its border and we Finns can breath a sigh of relief; I just find that of all the low-probability scenarios getting nuked is the highest probability. But it's all very low probability, I'm not making any predictions, and as a Finnish-Canadian I definitely don't need to stick around if it turns out our leaders made a foolish decision.

My main beef is that we were promised a referendum on the NATO question if ever it seemed necessary, by the very same politicians that then explained that promise meant absolutely nothing and took a dump on their own word; so that for me is breaking the social contract in a very profound way and I feel no responsibility to fight for Finland in an eventual war with Russia. If there had been a referendum as promised, and we joined NATO, then I would feel responsible for defending a democratic choice that just so happened to lead us to war.

That's piling hypotheticals upon hypotheticals. — Tzeentch

And the decision to join NATO was based on non-hypotheticals?

You're basically arguing that the hypothetical situation which serves as the justification to join NATO is relevant but the hypothetical situation which would justify not joining NATO can be dismissed on the grounds it's hypothetical.

The other thing I take issue with is ceding the low probability risk-analysis to a given side.

For example, in this case the justification for Finland to join NATO is the low probability that Russia conventionally attacks Finland for basically no reason (Finland has not strategically important locations or resources). Therefore being in NATO will deter this low-probability largely irrational invasion.

So, to then dismiss the counter-argument that there's also a low probability scenario where being in NATO results in being nuked, when otherwise Russia would neither nuke Finland nor invade Finland conventionally, is extremely bad faith.

Which is not what I'm saying you are doing, but obviously the decision to join NATO was taken by Finland so the reasoning is clearly relevant to consider.

Like you, I don't see the US going to nuclear war over Europe, and therefore I don't see being in NATO as providing Finland a nuclear deterrent. At best being in NATO is irrelevant (or drags Finland into other pointless wars elswehre), and so increasing geopolitical tensions generally while providing no benefit to either Finland or anyone else, and at worst causes exactly that thing which being in NATO was meant to avoid (a fight with Russia).

There's not much point in discussing nuclear war. If there is going to be nuclear war, it will be between the US and China (or their Pacific allies), and even then both sides will have nothing to gain and everything to lose, making the chance of it happening very slim. — Tzeentch

Sure, chance is slim but the consequences are very high, and so wroth discussion .

It's also been an explicitly stated reason for plenty of policy decisions, such as not sending troops, not sending "offensive" weapons, not sending "heavy weapons", not sending long range missiles, and not sending fighter planes, and not sending stealthy fighter planes, and so on, is to "avoid WWIII".

The chances of nuclear war is fundamental for understanding the war, as without nuclear weapons we'd probably already be in a WWIII situation. People want to minimize it when it's inconvenient for their preferred policy (such as send more weapons to Ukraine or intervene directly) but then exaggerate the threat when again it's convenient: such as Finland has absolutely nothing to fear because a nuclear strike on Finland would for sure result in nuclear retaliation from the US.

It's this minimizing-maximizing to suit one's conclusion that I take issue with.

Likewise, simply dismissing the issue altogether because chances are low is equally unmerited. NASA put some effort into evaluating the risk of an extinction size space rock hitting us, no one claims that's a waste of time to consider because chances are low but consequence would be very high.

The US would never go to nuclear war over Europe, and the Russians would only go nuclear if Russia itself is invaded by overwhelming military force. — Tzeentch

That's exactly my point.

If the US would never go to nuclear war over Europe, what's the deterrence for Russia to use nuclear weapons to assert its policies?

Of course, a lot of escalation would be needed, and I don't see that happening while the war in Ukraine is ongoing, at least in its current form.

However, let's imagine the war in Ukraine comes to an end and a decade from now there's some entirely new crisis we can't really imagine now between the US and Russia.

Or then Macron makes good on his threat to send in ground forces, and tensions spiral out of control and Russia is risking conventional defeat.

By your own reasoning Russia would then use nuclear weapons.

If the US is just wants chaos in Europe (your own point you just espoused, which I agree with) ... how would that be bad for the US to push Russian into a little nuke play? Wouldn't that cause maximum chaos and thus maximum benefit to the US?

Once nukes are used, US doesn't even need to continue intervening in Europe to ensure tensions and chaos are at an acceptable level, so it's really the economically efficient strategy.

The other thing that changes with a long contiguous border is the missile time is extremely short.

The biggest thing that this changes is that there's little risk of your missile attack being misinterpreted.

If forces are far apart then even if you wanted to just casually nuke a base here or there you'd have to consider the possibility that your opponent misinterprets your intentions and believes this to be the start of a larger strike and so unloads their arsenal, or then a larger response plan (that you don't think is rational if they knew you "only wanted to nuke a few things"), in a panic.

However, if it's all over in a minute there's no risk that your intentions are misunderstood, exactly what targets you wanted to hit, how hard, and without a followup volley to put the ball "in the other court" etc.

No one will be wondering as they watch the radar screen "where is this missile going, should we panic? Like, honestly, I feel like panicking, anyone else?"

(Targets far away also don't really serve any purpose to randomly nuke, which is very different to targets right across your border, is also another difference.)

There's no scenario where that would happen. If Russia builds up forces in preparation for an invasion of Finland, NATO would counter-escalate and there's no way conventional Russian forces can take on NATO. Nor would Russia be crazy enough to nuke NATO troops. — RogueAI

There definitely is a scenario where that would happen.

Precisely because, as you say, Russia cannot fight a conventional war against all of NATO, its only recourse is nuclear weapons; which the Russians have said on many occasion exactly that.

Geopolitical tensions are already pretty high, they can go much, much higher.

In the event of a new crisis, Finland is the "front line" of hostilities breaking out between Russian and NATO.

The only reason that doesn't seem at all likely now is because there is the war in Ukraine, so Russian military focus is there, but that will be resolved at some point, and in any build up of tensions with NATO after the war is over, the Russian military focus will be on the giant border with Finland.

Now that there is a giant NATO-Russian border (with some strategic depth on the NATO side), tensions can far more easily go hot; shells being exchange, "they started it" sort of things.

Let's say NATO brings into Finland enough forces to legitimately threaten an invasion of Russia and conventional victory over Russia.

The US wants Russia to comply with whatever it's demanding, and it's a push come to shove moment and the US escalates build-up in Finland.

If a full scale conventional war breaks out, Russia maybe looking at real defeat and destruction of most of its airforce. It's somewhat speculative how effective F-35 and other high-tech platforms are (as well as all the AI drones that will exist shortly). But if even if your "guess" is that the high-tech end of US forces aren't so effective, you can't know for sure. The US is far away and this will be a fight right on Russia's border and on Russia territory with deep missile penetration possible hitting all sorts of targets.

The stakes are much higher for Russia than the US in this sort of situation, which motivates the US to push because it has less to lose.

So, freaked out by the potential for conventional loss, especially of air assets (that could happen very rapidly), the situation can be that the US bets Russia is bluffing about whatever the crisis is about and Russia then bets the US is bluffing about nuclear retaliation.

That both sides think the other is bluffing is how things then go to the next step of escalation.

For, it's not actually rational for the US to risk its own cities in nuclear escalation simply to protect or avenge Finland.

So, Russia launches a dozen or so nukes to "eliminate the threat".

What's the rational response from the US?

Ok, maybe hit some outposts in the middle of nowhere to "show strength" but also calibrated to not escalate further and instead it's already agreed over the hotline a deal to deescalate.

Either no nuclear retaliation or then limited retaliation to have a "ok, we both did some nuky-nuke, time to calm down" is the rational course of action, and therefore the most likely course of action.

Which is why you have things like "madman theory" in nuclear war analysis, precisely because the rational decision is to not escalate to a full nuclear exchange, your opponent can count on that if they think you're rational; therefore, the rational policy is to make your opponent think you're irrational.

During the cold-war, the ideological war was the plausible basis of a madman strategy. Strong ideological motivations can make people insane for all practical purposes. We no longer have that ideological war that would justify nuking everything rather than let the commies win, so the Russia could reasonably bet that nuking Finland would not cause further nuclear escalation while eliminating the conventional threat.

People like to assume, as you do, that hitting NATO troops somehow would be met with a full nuclear exchange, but why? There's zero reason. If the response is limited, neither meant to escalate further conventionally nor nuclearly, then it's just a cost of doing business. If the response is to escalate further towards a full nuclear exchange ... well why would the US do that just because Finland?

No reason.

Ok, let's run with that.

The US strikes some targets in the middle of nowhere, neither side wants to escalate further, then the argument ends.

Is this a good outcome for Finland?

Finland made a critically short-sighted error when it jumped on the NATO bandwagon right as US power is waning. Not only is the US in no position to actually protect Finland in the case of a conflict, but Finland is actually ensuring it is first in line to suffer the consequences when the US pulls the plug on Europe with the intention of disabling it as a rival for the foreseeable future. — Tzeentch

I've put the question to many Finns:

"Ok, imagine tensions rise, whatever it is, and Russia nukes Finland (military bases and so on) as a precautionary measure.

"Do you actually believe the US is going to nuke Russia in response?"

Answer: blank stare.

Turns out that people simultaneously believe that Russia won't nuke them because they'd be nuked by the United States in turn as well as the United States won't actually nuke Russia in turn because, true, there's no reason for the United States to do that and risk its own cities getting nuked.

Now, I'm not saying this is super high probability, hopefully tensions don't ever escalate that far, but it is higher probability than Russia nuking Finland when it's not in Nato and likewise higher probability than being attacked by Russia conventionally to steal our trees or something.

I have not encountered a single counter-argument to the likelihood of joining NATO simply increasing tensions in itself (making some nuke play more likely) and the most likely outcome of a nuclear exchange is Finland (and I think likely only Finland) getting nuked.

Because once Russia nukes Finland to demonstrate it's serious about whatever the tension is about, and then the US does not nuke Russia in response, the argument is over.

Hopefully it doesn't happen, but I can see zero situation, as you note, where the US actually protects Finland in any concrete way.

Russia demonstrating it can nuke a NATO member without causing a strategic exchange, because that's not rational for the US to do, is far more likely than Russia nuking a neutral country.

↪boethius, you missed the point (again), or skirted or whatever. Regardless of Kremlin CIA Mossad Sri Lanka whatever, this is what the Ukrainians wanted (again):

Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption and abuse of power, the influence of oligarchs, police brutality, and human rights violations.(29)(30) Repressive anti-protest laws fuelled further anger.(29)
— Revolution of Dignity (Wikipedia)

(you're free to work backward from the facts, but no matter)
And there still was/is no independence in the grabbed regions.
So, to what end? — jorndoe

I am talking about who controls the territory.

Ukraine lost control of the territory, regardless of what legal or moral arguments you want to make about it, Ukraine lost control of the "grabbed regions" if you want to call them that.

Ukraine had and has no way of getting them back by military force and trying to do so would super very likely trigger a Russian invasion (plenty experts predicted this).

If your point is just "well I don't like it, phoooey", ok, yeah, sure, I have no trouble believing you don't like it.

You can make as many moral and legal arguments as you want, believe Russia is as bad as you want, doesn't change the fact Ukraine lost control of territories in question in 2014 and their attempt to reconquer them was met with a Russian invasion (predictably).

And the facts now are that Ukraine is very severely damaged and has lost even more territory.

I can see literally not a single fact of factor supporting the strategy of trying to impose Ukraine's will on Russia by force.

It has not worked, and will continue not to work.

First, as already argued elsewhere, I don't find the double standard accusation particularly compelling in geopolitics because indeed double standard reasoning can very much be part of the game: namely, depending on the circumstances, one may STILL feel rationally compelled to support an ally who is wrong, precisely because he is an ally, than an enemy who is right, precisely because he is an enemy. — neomac

First, I have not forgotten your long post explaining this pick-a-hegemon position, which at least strives to resolve surface level contradictions. I will get to it when I have time.

But, in short, you are describing realpolitik and the justification for supporting the ally in the wrong is going to be ultimately a consequentialist argument that not-doing-so would lead to some worse outcome (losing a war to some fascist state, for example).

I do not mind this realpolitik approach, it is essentially my basic argument in this debate just I have different realpolitik conclusions:

1. That Ukraine very likely cannot win militarily.
2. That the war very likely strengthens, rather than weakens, Russia.
3. That most of the rest of the world is sympathetic to Russia and don't give much of a crap what we Westerners think (most of the rest of the world is authoritarian, anti-gay, anti-trans, and have a long memory vis-a-vis Western colonialism and CIA interference); Russia is "standing up to the West" in this alternative view point.
4. That the war greatly harms the European economy and makes it structurally less competitive over the long term significantly decreasing Western leverage in general (and most ceding it to China).
5. That creating a global economic schism in which Russia is pioneering a totally different economic framework structurally decreases Western leverage over the long term.

So the war isn't good neither for Ukraine nor the West, and the idea that Ukraine is harming Russia is a dangerous myth.

Of the objectives the US achieves:

1. Destroying the EU as a competition to the Dollar.
2. Selling LNG to Europe.
3. Fully subordinating the (current) European political class.
4. Making mad bank in arms exports.

Are terrible for Europe (and I'm European) and I would also caution that they are in the "careful what you wish for" category even for the United States.

As the RAND documents makes clear, escalating military conflict between Russia and Ukraine would likely result in Russia winning any such escalation and would significantly harm US prestige and strategic position if Russia were to win.

So, if Ukraine could win and Russia was actually an enemy (which I don't buy that it was) then there would be at least the realpolitik case for supporting Ukraine, even if it would be a double standard vis-a-vis plenty other causes as or more just.

Second, as far as I'm concerned, the Cuban Missile crisis serves better pro-US propaganda then pro-Russian propaganda: indeed, in the Cuban Missile crisis we are talking about an ACTUAL case of medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles on site [1] — neomac

As I already responded to @Jabberwock, my question is to imagine the situation analogous, it would follow that your position is the same if the situation was analogous.

That there would not only be no crisis but the US would not react at all to such insignificant ABM bases (with radars, missile and missile tubes and connected to Soviet logistics) on Cuba.

It's a simple question: had the Soviets some analogous ABM system to Cuba, the US would not (or at least should not have) reacted in anyway because such ABM bases are insignificant?

No, you need to resort to use words like 'dramatically' (and half a page pseudo-philosophical ramblings), because you do not know the basic facts of the things you discuss and when faced with that you have to resort to inane rhetorics. When asked about specifics, you flatly refuse to engage with facts, because you abhor the facts, you do not even look at the map. — Jabberwock

The person resorting the drama is the person screaming "DRAMATICALLY"!

What facts are you even talking about? That the US doesn't have a weapon right this moment with publicly available specifications that literally says "for nuclear deployment in ABM tubes"?

I literally posted a video showing how to take a warhead out of a nuclear bomb.

What are the salient facts:

1. Obviously you can load a nuclear warhead into an ABM missile tube or then just an ABM missile itself. (After denying this was possible, you finally accepted it was possible but not "easy" and could not be done covertly. When I ask you why it being easy or hard matters to someone setting up a first strike, and also why it couldn't be done covertly ... nada, no specifics, just random denials based on nothing.)

2. The ABM treaty (which the US withdrew from) was negotiated because ABM is first strike capability, arguably anywhere but for sure in forward deployed missile bases.

3. The bases we're talking thus represent an increasing nuclear first strike capability and the Russians would make the same analysis and same conclusion and take mitigatory measures. Perhaps they view the risk as low and the only mitigatory measure they saw reasonable to take was simply diplomatically complain about it (to for example setup taking stronger measures if more bases are forward deployed) or then maybe it was one factor in the decision to invade Ukraine.

What facts have I not engaged with?

Lol, you do it again... The Cuban missile crisis was about land-launched ballistic missilies which had SIX TIMES (some argue more) the range of any ship-borne missiles that Russians could realistically deploy in 1962. For those map-averse: a regular-service Russian submarine anchored right at the Statue of Liberty equipped with R-13 could penetrate the American continent to about Pennsylvania. R-14s launched from Cuba could reach California. Admittedly, Russians had one submarine, K-19, which in 1961 was equipped with three R-13s (with the range doubled, but still three times shorter than land-based missiles), but it was only one unit and prone to failures (or, rather disasters: in 1961 and later twenty sailors died of radation, the boat was nicknamed 'Hiroshima').

So yes, at that time the land-based launchers did provide an enormous advantage over the ship-borne ones, which you would be aware of, if you had the slighest idea of the things you insist on talking about. — Jabberwock

I asked if the US would not have reacted if the Russians deployed ABM.

For example, feel free to try to explain how if the Cuban missile crisis was about Soviets moving ABM into Cuba, the US would be like "insignificant, we cool with it, soviets already have ships". — boethius

You can't even read correctly.

My question is, make the Cuban missile crisis of similar nature to the US bases in East-Europe. So whatever analogue of ABM missiles you want to imagine being deployed to Cuba.

For your whole "it's insignificant!" argument to work, obviously you have to hold that same argument if things were reversed.

Would US just go ahead and ignore the ABM missiles in Cuba and not do anything?

Your answer should be "yes, of course, if the Soviets did some analogous thing of a land based ABM missile system in Cuba, then that would have been insignificant and the US, being a more reasonable nation, would not have taken any measures whatsoever".

Since you basically can't read and you'll just answer again that it wasn't the same situation, my question is imagine it is a comparable situation: ABM missile bases increasing the Soviets ABM capability to the same extent these bases in Eastern-Europe increase US ABM capability?

Go with your 1000 to 1 ratio if you want, as that's your position, from there you should have no problem concluding that if the Soviets had done a similar thing it would not have provoked a reaction from the US as the bases would be insignificant.

If you're unable to say that, it's because you don't even believe yourself in your position, it's just a lie.

Of all the hilarious of your backtracks this is the best one... You claim that you did not use 'the word'... When I have pointed out that yes, actually you did use the exact same word, you claim that the same word in all caps is not the same word? Seriously, can you get more absurd? Oh, yes, you can: you then argue that your use of the word 'dramatically' was less dramatic — Jabberwock

Capitalization is part of the spelling of a word.

"DRAMATICALLY" is not how you spell properly, and just shouting because you have zero points.

If you accuse me of using the word "DRAMATICALLY", you should be able to site where I use the word "DRAMATICALLY".

Or then add the caveat of "of course not all caps because you're not a moron and need to resort to all capitalization".

But go ahead, both of you, explain again how the bases are zero significance; that a missile base and a missile ship is not dramatically more missiles than just a ship.

It's just dumb.

For example, feel free to try to explain how if the Cuban missile crisis was about Soviets moving ABM into Cuba, the US would be like "insignificant, we cool with it, soviets already have ships".

It's honestly incredible how deeply people believe the double standard delusions of American foreign policy analysis.

↪boethius, yes yes, I know, everyone should hate the US...and blame...at least suspect...always. Well, I've been asking "To what end" in contexts like this, and here's what they wanted (again): — jorndoe

Exactly, when the US interferes covertly in other countries it's ok because it's "for good".

Why we should suspect US intentions is that US officials have zero problem continuously stating basically every policy is for "US national interests" and whenever that conflicts with human rights: "Get real! US national interests!!"

However, for the purpose of this point of discussion, "legitimate governments" simply means control of territory over a long enough term regardless of how they come into existence.

There was and is no such independence, remember? :D Rather, regions were grabbed by the (regressing) Kremlin empire after their campaigns. (odd how these ↑ comments keep skirting other stuff, oh well) — jorndoe

The fact is US covertly interferes all over the place and governments change.

When that happens we point to the people in the country in question who wanted the change to legitimize it and recognize the new government and everything is totally fine and of course the West is going to support the people we like.

There's plenty of evidence a large amount of people in these Russian speaking regions did not like the CIA backed coup to change the government in 2014.

The exact same reasons used to legitimize the coup in Kiev can be used to legitimize the secessions from Ukraine in the South.

Russia was involved in the sessions exactly the same way the US was involved in the coup in Kiev (just way less sloppy as there isn't recorded phone calls with whoever Nuland's counterpart in Russia would be talking about hand picking the new governments).

And you can split hairs about the legitimacy was "really actually legitimate" in one case and not in the other, because Girkin!!!, so feel free to do so.

However, if you look at the history of governance changes the US, Europe, the world in general, accepts as legitimate, there's no standards. The only thing that matters in the end is control of the territory long enough (that's what governance is; do we like the Taliban all of a sudden? No. But they control the territory for long enough so they are now the legitimate government). Controlling territory includes diplomatic relations to get support.

So, the regions become independent and control the territory, there's not any other standard of legitimacy that can be employed that I view as particularly meaningful.

Not that control of the territory implies any sort of moral right. We still don't like the Taliban.

Rather, once control of a territory is established it becomes a consequentialist question of whether trying to change that from the exterior is sensible. Plenty of governments that have no moral claim to their rule, but we don't go toppling them because it does more harm than good or is unlikely to succeed.

Once Ukraine lost control of the territories the relevant moral question is not a moral evaluation of the new governments there or how the control was lost, but what's the consequence of trying to retake the territory. If there was a consequentialist case (not an abstract or hypothetical or wishful thinking case, but nitty-gritty real world case) that the territories could be retaken and result in a better situation for the inhabitants and everyone else (such as men forced to fight and sacrifice) that is the only justification.

For example, plenty of countries just fell to the Nazis without much a fight (Belgium, France, Denmark, Norway etc.) and literally no one makes the case that because the Nazi's were bad those countries should have fought harder or fought to the death. Why? Because that the Nazis were bad is not sufficient reason to fight them, one must consider the consequence and not waste lives.

So, why do we view it that the US and UK an obligation to fight the Nazis? Because the had more power and so more means to do so and get to a good outcome of winning the war (with the help of the Soviets of course).

Sending men to die for unattainable objectives is not justifiable, outside incredibly extreme circumstances that we don't even apply to the Nazis (we don't say Belgium and France should have fought to the death).

Reconquering the lost territories is simply an unattainable objective. It was clear that Russia would not let that happen, Ukraine can't defeat Russia, the campaigns to reconquer the lost territories were a fools errand, but worse because the attempt could predictably result in the present war and losing far more for Ukraine in both people and land.

Covertly, no protests or the like? After all, Zelenskyy was democratically elected. Protests seem unlikely in the current (wartime) situation. But, hey, who knows. — jorndoe

I'm talking about a military coup.

Zelensky was elected, but has since suspended elections, so pretty easy for a the military to have pretext for a coup to have elections.

I'm not saying Zaluzhny is actually planning a coup, but if he's popular and "The Butcher" isn't popular, then the only reason to sack Zaluzhny is fear of a coup. I'm just pointing out that's a double-edged sword, as a straight-up military coup and placing the top commander as president would be a bit "much", but a coup to have "elections" would be far easier to spin.

If Zaluzhny had the military support he needed to stage a coup as top commander, then removing him wouldn't change that much.

So we'll see what happens.

What we do know is that it wasn't so easy to fire Zaluzhny and he had no problem making that clear to everyone.

Also, if anyone's wondering how you MacGyver a nuclear warhead out of one system and into another, such as an ABM missile, there's a really good starter video.


The main tools you need seem to be an electric drill and some leather jackets.

Once you have the leather jackets and drill, you're all set to begin your nuclear first strike adventure.

Your points are certainly possible, but I'm not so sure.

The West has enormous leverage over Zelensky in terms of the money; of course, Zelensky has the leverage of letting the country totally collapse. But of the two, money is the far stronger negotiation position. Letting Ukraine collapse would be embarrassing for the West, but people would move on pretty quickly. Literally two weeks after people were literally falling off the last US planes to leave Afghanistan, it was basically a non-story.

We've had in person visits to Ukraine from the head of the CIA as well as very recently Nuland.

So it could be the changes we see are what the CIA wants. The head of Ukrainian intelligence could have been floated to just make the appearance of a contest, but it would really not make much sense for someone from intelligence to suddenly be the top military commander.

Moving to an insurgency also just doesn't make sense to me at all. These aren't the mountains of Afghanistan with a totally different culture and language and religion to a foreign occupier. Insurgency hasn't been a notable factor in any of the areas Russia already occupies.

Therefore, if Ukraine stopped maintaining the front, Russia would just advance to wherever it wants and declare victory, then build up the multi-layered defensive lines that proved barely movable by Ukraine at enormous cost in their much anticipated offensive.

A key part of the military leverage Ukraine has outposts like Avdiivka from which you can shell Donetsk, which is only about 15 km away.

People still live in Donetsk so the current front line is not very desirable.

Why there's so much confusion over the "strategic importance" of these front line fortress cities.

Bakhmut and Avdiivka aren't so important against a Russian campaign to conquer all of Ukraine, so it seems like an insignificant distance to accomplish that goal and so why not fallback.

However, if Ukraine starts falling back and is no longer in artillery range of important Donbas cities, then Russia can just establish a buffer zone where basically nobody lives. One consequence of the high intensity warfare we're seeing is nearly everyone is forced to leave these cities and they're nearly totally destroyed, so if the Russians can push the Ukrainians back enough then they have a safety zone where basically nobody lives.

Once they have a safety zone they can essentially declare mission accomplished, but since the war isn't over until Ukraine sues for peace then Russia will just continue with standoff munitions which I suppose Ukraine can just continue to deal with as it has provided Western support, but it would be heavily in Russias favour and the West is already getting critical of more money to Ukraine.

The West floats essentially the entire Ukrainian economy and that's how it's able to withstand the disruptions of the Russian missile campaign. As soon as that support ends, Ukraine is in a severe economic crisis.

To circle back to the original point of contention, I just don't see how insurgency tactics would help Ukraine in the scenario that Russia establishes a safety zone. Once Russia does, it's difficult to spin that as something other than a Russian victory and that Ukraine has little military strategic options left (something people are already saying after the failed offensive, but if they fail to maintain defensive lines and Russia establishes new multi-layered lines, probably more people will start saying it).

Therefore, to help Biden win the election the best plan is to prop-up Ukraine to maintain the status quo as much as possible (that can at least be spun as "holding the line") of slowing the Russian advance enough that a clear safety zone isn't established that even mainstream pundits could easily explain on a map of how the Ukrainians are here, the Russians are there, and this whole depopulated zone in between is the Russian's defensive matrix and Ukraine can do basically nothing, as we've already seen.

So, to do that, as Politico informs us, you want someone in charge willing to send wave after wave of their own men into a meat grinder and has the affectionate name of "The Butcher".

Of course, you'd still want to arrange the media in such a way that it's "Zelensky's choice" and "Ukrainians choice" to keep fighting, that they aren't "finished duking it out" just as you say.

Certainly some elements in the West want to push Zelensky to negotiate, but I don't see how that could serve Biden's image going into the election year.

It's definitely starting to feel like Afghanistan 2.0 where it becomes just a normal practical necessity to cut loose our allies, nothing to see here.

Also, if Syrskyi isn't popular, it's definitely setting the stage for a coup.

Zelensky may not realize it's in many ways easier for Zalushny to execute a coup in this situation than as commander.

Now, "his boys" can do the coup to "restore democracy" and then he is just standing for election just like any other citizen has the right to.

Way cleaner.

That's why I posted it. If you read my links, all of them are criticizing Zelensky's choice of replacing Zalushny with the Butcher. — neomac

Ah ok, noted.

Honestly surprising to me, both that he has this reputation and Western outlets would run with it.

The Duran had a theory that Zelensky picked Syrskyi precisely because he wasn't a political threat, so this would be further evidence of that.

↪boethius I trust the posts from twitter even more than the article, for reasons. — neomac

Well, I'm not saying twitter posts can't be credible, but if you're citing anonymous twitter posts as a journalist, I think the bare minimum is to explain why.

How do we know it's not some troll, larper, or even Russian intelligence?

So, if there are reasons to trust (history that is clearly credible), which I have no problem believing your reasons are good, the bare minimum I'd expect from a journalist is to explain those reasons, or at least assert that they've gone through the post history and find it credible.

The era of "someone close to the matter" and "anonymous poster" and "open source intelligence" is really zero-credibility journalism, as I'm sure you agree.

Honestly, the article is really surprising to see in a Western media outlet.

Another person knowledgeable of Syrskyi’s operations echoed that view. His appointment is unlikely to have a positive effect for Ukraine, as Syrskyi is seen by those on the frontlines as a stern Soviet-style general who callously puts his men in danger.

This person added that Ukrainian troops have given Syrskyi a gruesome nickname: “Butcher.” The captain confirmed that the nickname has stuck, as has “General200” — which stands for 200 dead on the battlefield.

The negative reviews keep pouring in: “General Syrski’s leadership is bankrupt, his presence or orders coming from his name are demoralizing, and he undermines trust in the command in general,” a Ukrainian military officer posted on X. “His relentless pursuit of tactical gains constantly depletes our valuable human resources, resulting in tactical advances such as capturing tree lines or small villages, with no operational goals in mind.”

A Ukrainian soldier also tweeted a message in a group chat of veterans of the Bakhmut fight: “We’re all fucked.” — Zaluzhny is out, the ‘butcher’ is in

I think useful to highlight that I, personally, wouldn't base any conclusions on anonymous X posts, so I wouldn't say this is good journalism, so no surprise there, but it is surprising to see this level of criticism coming from a Western media outlet.

Opinions over Syrskyi "the butcher":
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2024/02/08/zaluzhny-is-out-the-butcher-is-in-00140206 — neomac

If you read the article, he seems to be called the "the butcher" not exactly in a good way:

But Syrskyi’s also known for leading forces into a meat grinder in Bakhmut, sending wave after wave of troops to face opposition fire. In the end, Kremlin-backed Wagner Group mercenaries captured the city.

For that and other reasons, Syrskyi is deeply unpopular with Ukraine’s rank-and-file. — Zaluzhny is out, the ‘butcher’ is in

Good insert that according to Putin. Because when you look at modern surface to air missile development, the longer range systems are all basically developed to engage ballistic missiles. So the idea of any ABM treaty now is a bit hypocritical. So it's not only the Russians who are here hypocrites. — ssu

Their proposal (and what Bush said publicly he'd insist on Russia accepting) was to renegotiate the ABM treaty to update it to recent threats, such as North Korea.

Russia doesn't want to be nuked by North Korea or some other rogue nation or terrorist cell either.

Without a treaty obviously Russia can do what it wants, so I don't see the hypocriticalness on their part you're talking about.

For example Israel had no trouble of hitting the Houthi ballistic missiles and the success of the Arrow system obviously can be seen from the simple fact that the Houthis aren't lobbing long range missiles to Israel anymore. Much time has gone from the time Saddam Hussein was firing Scuds to Israel and basically got half of the USAF fighter bombers searching in vain the empty vast desert of Western Iraq. — ssu

To what extent ABM is effective against the most advanced missiles is always an open question as we see few such engagements.

However, the most advanced systems of your opponent are going to be limited in number.

Presumably if you're going to deliver a first strike your belief is that your ABM systems are going to be able to deal with whatever counter-strike gets through.

However, there's a lot of "knowledge based risk" in nuclear escalation analysis, such as was clearly demonstrated in Strange Love. Maybe your plan has no chance of succeeding but you think it will.

Hence, first strike assets in place are destabilizing and lead to further arms escalation because you want to be certain your opponent knows you have survivable counter-strike capability. You might believe you do anyways, but you want to be sure your adversary believes it too.

Hence what stabilized the nuclear arms race was a series of treaties to wind down first-strike capability well below what each side was confident was inadequate (as well as each side confident the other side was confident).

Now that those treaties have gone away, we see escalation in at least arms if not also the invasion of Ukraine partly due to the collapse in nuclear trust.

It's easy for nuclear considerations to dominate the discussion (in high places). "Ah but nukes" is always a powerful rebuttal, and we saw a significant amount of Cold War policy driven by fear of nuclear weapons. The soviets were particularly paranoid as they were technologically behind and the US demonstrated its willingness to use nuclear weapons to blowup cities.

But as I said, we'd need to know Russias top secrets to know what they actually think and on what basis.

They may have high confidence in the survivability of their counter-strike assets and very low confidence in American (or any for that matter) ABM systems to deal with a counter-strike. That's definitely their public position but we can't really know what they really think or are worried about.

However, fears of nuclear war is always one piece of the puzzle in understanding geo-politics today.

What we can say for sure is that the US doesn't help assuage those fears by declaring a no-first-use policy; they like to keep us guessing, so here we are.

And that is one way to sum up the idiocy of American apologetics on this issue: If America's official policy is to "strategic ambiguity" so adversaries fear a nuclear strike and they can leverage that fear (for deterrence of "American interests") then you can't say "well yeah, we need strategic ambiguity is so adversaries fear a first strike, but they also have nothing to fear! Haven't deployed nukes to new countries since the 60s!!"

If your public policy is that adversaries should live in fear of nuclear annihilation, you can't really then blame adversaries from acting out of fear.

Of course it's a concern to the Russians. But basically those ABM sites in Poland would basically protect... France and the UK. It's a simple fact that Russian nukes launched from Russia will fly over the Arctic, over Canada to hit continental US and the USAF missile silos in the center of the US. If those sites were planned to be in the tundra wastes of northern Canada, then the role would be totally obvious. ABM missiles have to be very close to the actual flight paths of the missiles as simply there isn't much time to defend against an ICBM launch. — ssu

That's why I've been mostly focused on the so called "decapitation strike" potential of the missile bases, and that it's logically and psychologically far easier to do from base than a fishing boat.

Obviously you could launch your decapitation strike from fishing boats and barns, but it would be a pretty complicated situation.

A more realistic scenario is that tensions increase, there's some escalation steps caused by whatever, and the decision is made to forward deploy the nukes "just in case", and then because the nukes are there the "just in case" turns into "we need to strike first" and the first-strike plan is put into action.

In the same scenario it would be much harder to "deploy the nuclear fishing boats".

When things are calm, even relatively calm with a hot war in Ukraine, it's easy to "feel" like people won't launch nuclear weapons. But if you increase the stakes and the stress enough that changes along with people doing crazy things under stress.

This is why you don't just want "probably" a survivable deterrent, you want your adversary to be convinced your counter-strike will most definitely survive, so that this belief persists even into high stress situations.

There's also the fear that if your command and control is destroyed and your society is essentially obliterated, that remaining commanders will not "see the point" in revenge.

Hence, the nuclear powers are sensitive to increases in first strike capability; why the Cuban Missile crisis was a "serious thing" and not "but they have boats and subs anyways, a 1 in 1000 increase in capability that was totally meaningless". Literally no serious analyst has ever deployed this "bases aren't a deal yo" to the Cuban missile crisis.

As for the ABM capability itself, presumably there would be nukes also going towards Europe you'd want to destroy.

You'd of course need other ABM assets to deal with nukes going from different directions. Might need literally hundreds of thousands of ABM missiles to be "somewhat confident" your first strike plan will work.

May simply be not feasible today, which is why I explain that the problem (from the Russian perspective) is also the trend. Maybe today there's just not enough ABM missiles in the world to deal with a counter-strike, but what about tomorrow? What if they let these bases proliferate and then tomorrow there's effective ABM systems in vast quantity that exist? And with AI to distinguish decoys and be more accurate, organize the whole effort, etc. you could need way less missiles per target than today.

No, it is not. The main Russian concern is the defensive capability of ABMs. However, for obvious reasons that does not sell as well, as I have already explained. — Jabberwock

To defend against a Russian first strike?

And where do you even get what the "Russians really think" from?

You just makeup total bullshit, whatever is required to simply directly contradict obvious common sense.

Nuclear threats, first strike threats, are far greater than an ABM threat to your own first strike.

This whole areas is far from US shores ... this ABM base does not protect Washington (or any part of the US counter-strike arsenal), from a first strike.

Totally moronic point.

No, the ABM missiles deployed in the bases are not capable of carrying nuclear missiles. — Jabberwock

Please explain how these missiles are simply "not capable" of having their ABM warhead swapped out for a nuclear warhead. We can literally put nuclear warheads in artillery shells but this feet is just not possible.

Your points are just a series of direct denials of common sense statements, without argumentation or evidence.

For the same reason they have not deployed any nuclear missiles in any new countries since the sixties. — Jabberwock

Therefore, if the same tensions emerged as in the sixties we could expect the US to deploy nuclear weapons to new countries.

Your imagination levels are literally zero. You can't even imagine something that has already happened, and a key point of yours, simply happening again.

It's honestly difficult to believe you're really that dull, but maybe you are.

I see the question was too hard. OK, I will try again:

How does the Redzikowo base used for OFFENSIVE purposes DRAMATICALLY increase the offensive potential as compared to ONE German frigate sailing on German teritorrial waters?

Be sure to notice the word ONE (1). It means that I ask you to compare the offensive potential of the Redzikowo base to a SINGLE German frigate. That means a number less than two. Will I get an honest answer to that question or not? — Jabberwock

Again, a ship you can get your own submarines, planes, other ships closer to than an inland base.

It's also easier to sink a ship than a land-base.

The land bases are also simply in different positions so expand the radar coverage and missile coverage.

This is really the most basic common sense possible that a single ship is less capable than a ship + land base.

If it was so insignificant why would such a base be built? Answer: because it's not insignificant but increases capabilities in the theatre.

I do not once use the world "DRAMATICALLY".
— boethius

What is this then?

The bases quite dramatically increase first strike capability (both in the ABM and nuclear capacity) above what would just be normally "hanging around".
— boethius — Jabberwock

"DRAMATICALLY" does not equal "dramatically".

"DRAMATICALLY" is significantly more dramatic than merely "dramatically".

A citation should be exact, I do not all-caps words because I can rely on "arguing a point".

Sure, the issue is that you are just wrong. The base does not have missiles which are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, and even if they were, their range would be too short for the first strike. The tubes could be loaded with different missiles, but that cannot be done easily or covertly. Not to mention that it would be rather pointless, given that a single frigate sailing where it is regularly sailing could have the exact same effect. — Jabberwock

Ah yes, They can't! ... but if they could (because they obviously can) here's another goalpost move.

We've literally but nuclear warheads in artillery shells, so what's your argument that swapping out the warhead in these ABM missiles is beyond what US engineers are "capable" of?

Go on, I'm all ears.

As for "easily or covertly" just loading different missiles: if you're carrying out a first strike you aren't in "easy" territory but maybe willing to do things that are somewhat difficult, maybe even medium difficultly.

And can't be done covertly?

Again, just making up bullshit direct contradictions against obvious common sense reality.

You're really saying that the missiles couldn't be modified (such as the ABM missiles or otherwise) to more easily fire from these tubes, and if went beyond what was "easy" in preparing your first strike, you couldn't do the difficult task of converting the tubes in some covert way, part of regular maintenance etc. on your own base?

We've recently experience Trump being the best of friends with Kim Jong Un. No other US president ever has met with the North Korean dictator. So go figure. — ssu

It was a love firelake relationship.

And btw during Trump's administration, North Korea tested quite large nuclear weapons in 100+ kiloton range. So at least now the US isn't in denial about the North Korean nuclear weapon... as it for the first test said it might be just a large conventional explosion. But a 6,9 earthquake on the Richter scale you don't get with conventional explosives. — ssu

Definitely no doubt about the rogue nation threat.

However, the Russian perspective (at least according to Putin) was they were willing to renegotiate ABM and other treaties to deal with rogue nuclear threats while maintaining the non-proliferation architecture.

Furthermore, if you're analyzing this sort of thing in the Russian's equivalent of the pentagon—I'm going to hazard a guess that it's some sort of quadragon—then you could believe this is the main reason for it, but if it has a secondary effect of building up first strike capability against Russia then that's what you're going to be concerned about.

Especially the long time frames involved in nuclear strategy, very quickly the dominant factor is whether or not you're vulnerable to a first strike.

Now, all I've tried to explain on the subject is that building ABM missile bases closer to your nuclear opponent is a noticeable increase in first strike capability (certainly worth analyzing and placing on the list of risks to consider mitigatory action). Obviously for the Russians it's a big enough concern to take diplomatic action against.

However, how much of a risk Russian analysts or high-command view it and if it makes sense or noth, we'd need access to their top secret intelligence.

People (mostly on reddit) already like to say most of the Russia's nuclear arsenal is defunct in some way and the US could already easily carry out a first strike today. Maybe that's true. I doubt it, but a big difference in today's world vis-a-vis the Cold War is much more sophisticated signal intelligence as well as computation. Perhaps with just the right mix of weapon systems and sophisticated deployment and computer management (presumably even better now with AI) of the whole affair, a first strike is "doable" in at least some computer simulations. Or maybe it's basically not doable today or in the near future. But in terms of reacting to maintain the nuclear balance of power and ensure MAD, that it's not doable today doesn't exclude mitigatory action as you don't know what weapons systems will exist in the future.

Beside the obvious nonsense of 'nuclear threat' (again, no nuclear missiles have been deployed in any of the new NATO countries, so why exactly should that be an issue?) — Jabberwock

When you have described the 'nuclear threat', you have specifically used the phrase 'they could deploy nuclear weapons there'. Pretending that it was not your main point is just silly. — Jabberwock

It is my main point.

That you can deploy nuclear weapons to these bases is a larger threat than the ABM missiles.

It is not logistically as easy to deploy nuclear weapons to a barn or seal team six on the USS rusty fishing boat than it is to a military base. If tensions starts to rise, it's far easier to deploy nuclear missiles to the bases in "routine" shipments than other locations.

You'd have no way of knowing. Likewise, ABM missiles themselves are duel-use and can be programmed to attack a ground target and loaded with warheads.

Russia has been regularly accused of using ABM missiles on ground targets (including Poland), no one has been like "but ABM can only go up, only up!! Never down!!"

Now, just so happens that ABM anyways is a nuclear first-strike system, as I've explained.

It is not the case here that you've dealt with one of my points but "forgot" that ABM is anyways a nuclear first strike "enabling system" so are somehow 1 for 2.

You have dealt with neither issue.

My original point was that it is nonsense that there is significant risk that US will deploy nuclear weapons in Ukraine. You can try to obfuscate that as much as you want, it will not change the fact that you are unable to support that claim. — Jabberwock

More terrible bad faith.

We were talking about forward deployed bases. There is significant risk that the US deploys nuclear missiles to those bases, if not today then maybe tomorrow, as well as that they'd continue to march their bases closer to Russia, and so into Ukraine, if Russia let them.

Why wouldn't they?

If your opponent allows you (or then can't prevent you) from gaining some strategic advantage, why wouldn't you do that?

In addition to your bad faith, you have a terrible imagination. These bases will be there for decades, so who knows what American leadership will be in decades to come.

The bases are there, the US de facto controls them, the US has nuclear weapons, therefore the US could deploy nuclear weapons to the bases for a first strike (with either existing missiles we may not even know about, or then develop missiles in the future, again we may not even know about).

That is the basic risk analysis of the situation, and it is just foolish to believe that Russia would not react to an increased first strike threat.

The US attitude and justification of these kinds of nuclear escalation moves is basically "suck our dicks", and US sycophants, such as yourself, manage to genuinely maneuver themselves into believing it and being all like "yeah, what gives, why not suck America's dick? I don't get it, what's with these people, why the fuss".

If you say the risk is significant (because it can easily be done) but is small of being used in a first strike today. Sure, the risk is small. However, a small risk multiplied by many days, many years, many decades, in all sorts of totally unknown future scenarios, easily becomes a much larger risk.

Your argument is basically "well I don't think the US would conduct a first strike today, they're just worried about Iran and just want to flex on the Russians, and aren't worried about nuclear war because that's unlikely, so there's nothing to worry about".

It is hilarious how hard you are trying to undermine your original argument... If the Redzikowo base is just a tube in the ground and Americans can shoot nuclear missiles from anything, then the base loses all sigificance, as it would be equally easy to put the said tubes in the ground covertly and quickly anywhere else. — Jabberwock

I've explained this several times, as I did above, again.

You definitely could launch a nuclear missile from just about anywhere: farm, fishing boat, a yacht, etc.

However, it's much easier from a military base. If you ordered people to take a nuke off base in the back of a mini-van, they'd be like "WTF are we doing?".

You'd have to convince a whole bunch of commanders and soldiers to take a nuke off base and randomly launch it at Russia. There's a whole bunch of psychological and logistical issues involved in such an operation that make is less likely (fortunately).

However, moving military equipment between bases is much more logistically "normal".

You could have some AMB missiles retrofitted with nuclear warheads and instruct a ground attack without even informing 99% of the base they even have nuclear weapons. Which is the common sense operational approach to a first strike, as the less people who know the less likely the information would leak and also the less likely anyone would refuse orders on moral grounds.

Once the first strike is irreversible, then it becomes a more usual "shoot them first" situation and most people would be in a psychological state of "we gotta do what we gotta do".

As mentioned, a first strike is pretty unlikely just randomly out of the blue; it is much more likely when tensions are already extremely high and several escalation steps have already been passed, and one side thinks their first strike can really work (maybe a few cities are destroyed, but that's acceptable losses in the kind of situation we're talking about).

This is why first strike capability such as forward deployed missile bases are destabilizing.

Why literally having a first strike policy in the first place is destabilizing.

Why withdrawing from the AMB and INF and Open Skies treaty is destabilizing.

And why all this instability? Apparently because of a fear of a rogue nation being able to launch a single nuke ... well how does that make sense, why increase the odds of getting hit with a hundred or a thousand nukes (even a tiny bit) for fear of being hit by one rogue nuke launch?

Then maybe that should be the lesson that you should not take anything that the press publishes for granted...

Yes, the '100' sounds scary, unless you are familiar with the geography. 100 is to Kaliningrad, which is actually a tiny piece of Russian territory wedged in between NATO countries. Yet somehow the New York Times does not write about the Russian missiles 40 miles from the Polish territory and 300 miles from Warsaw. — Jabberwock

Why does Russias actual border not count again?

How close was Cuba to Washington?

These distances simply aren't very far for missiles flight time, much less far than the bases not-being there.

So if two Russian frigates leave the Kaliningrad port, they immediately have three times the firepower twice as close to NATO borders than Redzikowo. Should NATO leaders be fuming? — Jabberwock

"NATO borders" aren't the US' borders. Poland is not close to Washington. You would not launch a first strike against the US to take out command and control etc. from Poland or Estonia.

You're trying to conflate "NATO borders" with a threat to counter-strike capability.

That Poland, Latvia, and Estonia are close to Russia is not a risk to the US counter strike capability, as their counter strike capability is not in Poland, Latvia or Estonia.

You just completely leave the realm of common sense. Truly remarkable.

Again with the moving the goalposts.

You're initial point was, to remind you:

Then I ask for the third time: how does the Redzikowo base used for OFFENSIVE purposes DRAMATICALLY increase the offensive potential as compared to a German frigate sailing on German teritorrial waters? — Jabberwock

"Nonsense" then you defended this position by simply ignoring that ABM is anyways a nuclear first strike enabling system, and focusing on the "insignificance" of these bases, by comparing the missiles (so far) deployed to these bases to all the missiles tubes in the entire US navy.

I've explained how that it is just completely wrong. For the entire US navy to be of equal threat, it would need to be equally close and maybe Russia would be like "hmm, wonder why all these ships are coming to our shores".

I do not once use the world "DRAMATICALLY".

I've explained what role the bases would play (both in launching nuclear missiles by surprise and their ABM capability) in a first strike. Of course, plenty of other assets would be needed as well.

The more first-strike systems you have (such as ABM) the more able you are to craft an operational plan that would more likely work.

The US is accumulating first strike capability.

Why any increase in first strike capability is taken seriously is because even a small increase in daily risk of something like nuclear obliteration of your entire society, multiplied over a long amount of time becomes a big risk.

Your whole framework is basically the risk of nuclear war isn't "a big deal". If the US builds out appreciable increases in first strike capability (while withdrawing from all the treaties that were signed to prevent that) your basic position is "nuclear shmuclear, Who cares! Boats man! Boats! They already have nukes!"

You have zero clue what you're talking about.

If you wanted to conduct a first strike, or then analyzing your opponents capability of conducting a first strike, each category of weapons systems has a diminishing return on investment.

For example, you can launch nukes from planes, obviously, but you can't put all your planes in the air and send them to Russia as that trigger a reaction from Russia. So, maybe you decide you can casually have 5 planes that "just so happen" to be doing routine flights in key locations to launch some nukes. Likewise with submarines, if you send them all to Russia shoreline maybe they'll be noticed, but maybe you can get through 1 or 2. Then there's whatever ships normally have in theatre. Finally, there's your bases in theatre.

The basic plan would be to build up enough capacity, ideally without your opponent being aware of it but if they are then hopefully underestimate it.

The bases are a major category of first strike system, and your point is basically the Russians should ignore that since there's plenty of nuclear capability anyways.

But then why create these nuclear provocations, send all these signals of withdrawing from treaties and building bases, and so on all in the context of not even repudiating a first-use policy. Sure, could be the goal, right now, is just have ourselves a little arms race as that's highly profitable. But even if that was the case, once the capacity is built up, who's to say some future administration wouldn't then use it because they have it.

And again, the reasoning framework of "these are the weapons systems the US has publicly disclosed right now, therefore nothing else exists now or in the future" is just dumb.

Okie then, you concur, land grab, because power and such, NATO or not. (By the way, they have other Black Sea presence + Sea of Azov.) — jorndoe

You seem to always be arguing with someone else.

I have zero problem recognizing Russia's actions are imperialistic. Russia's "national interest" is defined on the exact same basis as US "national interests": preserving and expanding imperial power.

We had no problem calling the Tzarist Empire, spanning nearly the entire Northern Asia, an Empire and it's basically the same size now.

And I have zero problem with people who condemn both US Imperialism and Russian Imperialism.

For myself, I'm an anarchist so I don't believe nation states (empire or otherwise) have any intrinsic value in themselves. So I don't care about borders or national pride or any of the trappings of country of empire in themselves.

Where nations and their dramas and sagas are of relevance to me is in their consequence on real people.

To put that in perspective, if Americans are painting stripes and stars on their faces and running around screaming USA! USA! USA! With flags as capes and so on. That doesn't bother me. If that's their level of philosophical understanding and how they choose to identify themselves and it gives them some pleasure, why not. Likewise any other display of some other national pride by anyone else.

Where I take notice of this whole nation thing, is when the US and Russia are in a great power rivalry and escalating cover and overt attacks on each others Imperial interests, which don't matter much to me but obviously do matter to them and their management.

In this sort of thing, what exactly is happening is much more important (compared to questions such as how many stars exactly to they have painted on their faced) as the consequences (for real people, not mythical representations of "a people") and potential future consequences are very big.

The world has a lot of problems we anyways have to deal with, so my preferred outcome is diplomatic stability. If the people of the world insist they have nations states as we know them today, then it is better to avoid wars and each people need figure things out for themselves, and hopefully cooperate with other nations where that's possible.

Based on that you would certainly conclude that I am against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

If that was the whole situation, then I would be, but the more important question in anywise is "what do we do about it". Being morally against something is not a course of action.

However, as it stands things are more complicated. The situation is not that there's poor innocent defenceless Ukraine and then a random attack by Imperialist Russia.

US is also interfering in Ukraine since many decades and also increasing nuclear tensions (starting with reneging on ABM, insisting they'll get Russia to agree to new terms first ... then never even negotiate that). The interference of the US is also manipulative and bad faith, dangling the NATO carrot without ever having the intention to have Ukraine join NATO (and the US could just make a bilateral defence agreement with Ukraine any moment of the day if it was so concerned).

Then there is the war on the Donbas. Since I don't care about nation states, I do not care much when pieces secede and declare their own nation state (if it's more-or-less the same thing as before, maybe a good economic move or maybe a bad one).

The very foundation of anarchism is that you have no moral obligation to political structures you find yourself in. Political structures much justify their existence by providing real and accountable value, not by swearing oaths and creating myths for school children and so on.

In my view there is no moral obligation to stay part of a political alliance (such as being a citizen of a country) and one has every right to secede individually or collectively at anytime. It's a constant moral right, and the right the US founders claim in their own secession form the British empire

The question is not moral but rather "is it a good idea?". If you secede as an individual and then starve in a forest, maybe not the best strategy for whatever it is you're trying to do.

Likewise, if you secede as a collective and then are demolished militarily by the political structure, no matter how repressive, you just seceded from ... again maybe wasn't the best idea. Of course there can be situations where fighting a losing battle is the best moral choice, but I'm sure we'd all agree it's good to be both in the right and also win.

Donbas secedes. It's messy, like most secessions are, but they manage to maintain their independence. They need Russian support, but so too did the US need French support; once you're a new political entity it is incumbent on you to seek out support where you can find it.

The US guards jealously its right to secede from the British; the war of independence was costly and bloody but they won (with the help of foreign powers hostile to Britain).

I don's see why I would reduce in meaning the Donbas Declaration of Independence.

Ukraine tries to reconquer the Donbas, fails, creates the inevitable intervention of Russia to resolve the situation.

All I see is that Ukrainian elites have mismanaged things diplomatically and militarily, perhaps because they are among the most corrupt in the world, and I don't see why I'd have sympathy for that.

Now, if despite all that, the West intervened militarily to defend "Ukrainian sovereignty" I would not have a problem with that either.

The rights of nations are what is called "underdetermined"; there are more claims than can be coherently resolved (hence the real solution is to no longer have the nation-state system).

My main problem is with sending arms in lieu of honour, as I've said there is a pretty wide consensus that supplying arms in a conflict does not change the outcome but simply results in more death and damage (mainly to the losing side).

The West is cynically using Ukraine for our own purposes, up to and including the predation of Ukrainian farm titles by Western multinational agribusiness.

If it was actually about democracy, then I'd be more sensitive to that goal and what strategies could actually preserve and strengthen democracy in Ukraine. But it's not about democracy, that idea is a mythical smear of shit over a horrifying truth.

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/swedish-prosecutor-plans-nord-stream-blast-decision-this-week

We'll know more about the Nordstream sabotage soon. — Benkei

Did we?

Fine. — ssu

Are things really fine? Let's see.

Yet this is Russian rhetoric to give one reason more against the ABM sites. It is political rhetoric. Because just why would you put attack cruise missiles in a fixed well known position? Cruise missiles are subsonic. Did the US field ground launched cruise missiles? Actually yes, during the Cold War they had few BGM-109G Ground Launched Cruise Missile, and they were mobile. Something you hide in a warehouse... somewhere, not in fixed site with actually not much if any protection to the missiles. And FYI, those were scrapped in the INF treaty. — ssu

As I've explained many times, if you wanted to conduct a totally by surprise out-of-the-blue first strike, you could literally put missiles on fishing boats and just sort of drift into the Russian coast.

These bases are still relevant of course in terms of being able to join in saturation fire of both nuclear missiles (which if you're covertly launching missiles from fishing boats it is definitely within your ability to retrofit ABM missiles or just develop entirely new missile to fire from the ABM bases) as well as the original purpose of ABM and track missiles in the theatre generally speaking and so on.

Such an out-of-the-blue strike would be premised on the assumptions:
1. One, or a few choice launches (as close as you can get) could destroy critical command and control. Fishing boats, farms in Poland or heck let's do Estonia too as well as "routine" flights, certainly submarines, and whatever other way to get as close as you can to hit as fast as you can. Of course, ideally you'd fire all your missiles in this first attack, but the more you fire the more likely your opponent would initiate counter strike. So there's some optimum that is as much as you can get away with before the leadership is dead.

2. Then a a saturation attack would target as much further command and control and counter-strike capability as possible: subs, silos, planes, airfields, etc.

3. ABM then shoots down whatever counter strike capability manages to launch. A volley of ABM missiles can be launched at the the silos or any potential launch location in parallel to step 2 above to try to "time it" and intercept ICBM's in the boost phase. This is where computer modelling comes into to help optimize all these factors.

Whether you neutralize counter-strike capability with a nuclear strike or ABM is of no difference as long as it's neutralized. Sure, even one ICBM can have multiple warheads and decoys, but if they are small enough in number and you have enough ABM maybe you can get them all. As mentioned, anyone conducting a first strike would accept multiple of their own cities as acceptable loss for the total obliteration of the their opponent. The theory is to "be better off" in a post exchange world.

This is why deployment of ABM to cover a wide area, both protecting your own cities and assets (such as Europe and the bases in this case) as well an additional launch site of missiles for various purposes in the 3 steps above, is, as Wikipedia informs us, is a "first strike enabling weapon".

A first strike would be an immensely complicated task involving all sorts of assets.

The ABM bases are one of those assets you'd want in place (and as many such bases as possible) to conduct a first strike.

Cruise missiles are subsonic. Did the US field ground launched cruise missiles? Actually yes, during the Cold War they had few BGM-109G Ground Launched Cruise Missile, and they were mobile. Something you hide in a warehouse... somewhere, not in fixed site with actually not much if any protection to the missiles. And FYI, those were scrapped in the INF treaty. — ssu

If you were conducting a first strike you'd do so with the fastest missiles possible for obvious reasons.

Converting ABM missiles to nuclear warheads would make more sense than cruise missiles.

Maybe US doesn't have hypersonic nuclear missiles undisclosed to the public, maybe they do. Russia can't be sure about the today nor in the future.

And you guys simply ignore the future entirely.

Nuclear assets in place today are in place for decades. We don't know how things will evolve, who will be in power in the US. So this sort of analysis quickly ignores how people "feel" today.

What analysis worry about is mostly escalation pathways in some totally different geopolitical situation in the future, new weapons systems that don't exist today and so on.

We also don't know what the future stakes are. Today we don't feel any reasonable person would think it reasonable to risk the total destruction of even one of their major cities, in addition to the wide range of nuclear winter outcome risks and fallout and so on, but maybe there is some crisis in the future in which this sort of risk starts to seem acceptable.

Deterrence is not necessary just the ability to get through one missile against a first strike, you really need to be confident your opponent is confident their entire society will be obliterated for all meaningful purposes and they won't be "better off" after a nuclear exchange.

Hence, the non-proliferation architecture was all about pulling back first strike capability: ABM, Open Skies, INF were all about providing confidence to the other side that one wasn't in a position to do a first strike, but could definitely do a counter strike.

This is the dynamic that establishes MAD.

Otherwise, you get on the slippery slope (some may call a "rollercoaster" instead" of going towards what I call MAD CRACK, where one side tries to crack the MAD equilibrium by getting enough assets in place to deliver a devastating first blow.

US claims the right to deliver a first strike.

US withdraws from the ABM treaty, which is not just one pillar of a first strike it is the essential enabling part as a first strike really needs to assume that whatever counter-strike gets through can be reasonably dealt with by ABM. Reasonable in this context is New York may still be blown up anyways, but Ohio, glorious Ohio may just survive and thrive.

US starts forward deploying its ABM capability.

US withdraws from the INF treaty ... the other critical weapons systems to conduct a first strike of taking out command and control in the first phase, while insisting Russia accept it's terms of renegotiation that were never even offered.

US partisans are just like "nothing to see here, move along, trust us bro".

No reasonable analysis would see these things and be like "hmm, that's totally normal, nothing to worry about."

Or, if the possible actor has just few ICBMs and has a limited territory to shoot them from, you put an ABM site between your country and the launch site. Just look what is the shortest range between Washington DC and one certain Middle Eastern country the US hates so much. Which btw the US insisted on being the reason. :smirk:

Russian ICBM go over the Arctic Sea and Canada into the US. Not over Poland. ABM sites in the tundra of Canada and Alaska would be a different issue. — ssu

Obviously rogue states are a legitimate threat, no argument from me here.

But capacity to deal with rogue nations is also capacity to deliver a first strike, in particular against Russia if you put those assets close to Russia.

Likewise, if you don't even bother to try to renegotiate the treaties to maintain the non-proliferation architecture while dealing with rogue nations (which are also a problem for Russia), again that's not a good sign.

But it doesn't really matter anyways opinions on people's intentions now, since once the assets are in place a totally different administration could be in power in the future.

We just recently experienced Trump threatening to turn North Korea into a lake of fire, maybe there's someone even more unhinged in power in the future.

Likewise, even if "normal politicians" are in power, as mentioned above, there's no way to predict the stakes that maybe at play in the future.

Therefore, if you're vulnerable to a first strike you would conclude it is likely to happen given enough time and the immense scope of totally unpredictable things that can happen in the world.

As mentioned, it would be probably undoable to order seal team six to go launch a nuclear missile from a fishing boat on some totally innocuous day to start WWIII. However, after a series of escalations it's much more likely missiles would be "moved into place" for defensive measures in completely routine logistics etc. and in a "proper place" and then if tensions get to high everyone understands they'll need to launch if ordered to do so.

There needs to be a sort of "social tension" for people to start to believe they are actually about to launch nuclear weapons; a tension that has existed before, such as the Cuban missile crisis.

So the rational course of action when first strike capability is deployed, is to conduct the risk analysis based on what people can actually do with this new capacity and react to mitigate the risk. If there's no actual intention to carry out a first strike then great! the moves are redundant but you'll still feel better.

↪boethius, again, it wasn't specifically about NATO†, it was about loss of control (any such control and influence, to anyone), hence the land grab: — jorndoe

That's why I explain the importance to the Black Sea.

But, hey, a "dire existential threat" promotes a sense of urgency (fearmongering), and is also neat for picking up any anti-NATO (or anti-West) sentiments anywhere. — jorndoe

Maybe why the West keeps on repeating the war is "existential" not only for Ukraine but also NATO.

However, nuclear force issues are actually existential, so moves on one side trying to "slip in" some nuclear first strike capability maybe even with a little "wiggle room" vis-a-vis a treaty that is no longer relevant, are carefully observed and options considered to balance things by the other side.

It's honestly bizarre the trivialization of nuclear war when it's convenient for a narrative.

Because they were actual offensive weapons! Not just SAM sites. — ssu

That's why, if you followed the exchange, the Russians say their main concern is the ability to convert the cites to launch other kinds of missiles:

The Polish base, the heart of which is a system known as Aegis Ashore, contains sophisticated radars capable of tracking hostile missiles and guiding interceptor rockets to knock them out of the sky. It is also equipped with missile launchers known as MK 41s, which the Russians worry can be easily repurposed to fire offensive missiles like the Tomahawk. — On the Edge of a Polish Forest, Where Some of Putin’s Darkest Fears Lurk

Everything I've explained is not just "my theory about it", it is literally the New York Times explaining to us the Russia's views on the topic. I'm simply explaining the common reasons someone would have to express such an opinion.

You guys seem to expect the world to operate on the principle of "everyone should take the United States at its word, and if they say their missile bases aren't a threat to you and you should just go ahead and ignore them, then that's just the way it is".

It's really bizarre. I empathize a lot better now when Mearsheimer says he just doesn't get how people can be so dense and not get how Russia views our missile bases as obvious threats.

Real strawman there. Now your way off.

Do you understand what nuclear weapons the US, France and the UK have? Those weapons don't need ABM missile sites or any kind of fixed forward sites to operate. In fact, bringing them closer to Russia just increases the ability to Russia to strike them. Please educate yourself first on the nuclear strategy of the Western powers. A fixed site has severe disadvantages: it can be targeted itself by nukes and other weapon systems. Hence there's a reason just why the US fixed silos are in the center of the US. And why Russian fixed silos aren't on the Russian border. Or that fixed Chinese sites are in the middle of China, not on the seashore. — ssu

So had the Soviets brought in only "ABM" equipment, the US would have been totally cool with that?

Let's even imagine there was no ABM treaty or then the missiles the Soviet (say they) bring in can "wiggle out" of the ABM treaty.

You're saying the response from the US would have been nada?

That's really what you're saying, comparing the two scenarios is a straw man?

Now, obviously they aren't exactly the same scenario, and I've pointed out where differences lead to differences (that Russia did not start military action directly against the bases; but instead developed new systems and prevented further bases getting built in Ukraine, by maintaining a border dispute and then later a general invasion of Ukraine).

My argument (if you bother to read up before interjecting in the conversation) is that forward deployed ABM is a first strike capability so (even ignoring the ability to deploy nuclear missiles to the sites anyways) the Cuban Missile crisis is in the same category of one power reacting to their adversary increasing first strike capability.

Yes. But NOT for the reason you gave. Converting ABM sites to offensive missiles sites is nonsense. The fact is simple: ABM systems shoot down ballistic missiles and thus they present a challenge to either a first strike or a counter strike. — ssu

Ok, so please explain why the New York Times writes:

It is also equipped with missile launchers known as MK 41s, which the Russians worry can be easily repurposed to fire offensive missiles like the Tomahawk. — On the Edge of a Polish Forest, Where Some of Putin’s Darkest Fears Lurk

Key word "easily".

Why doesn't the New York Time explain the "simple fact" that ABM systems "ABM systems shoot down ballistic missiles".

And again, even if we ignore that you can obviously put nuclear missiles and warheads in a metal tube (the threat is more the logistics are more opaque and psychologically more compatible for soldiers to do compared to setting up nuclear warheads in Polish barns, as I've explained, than the tubes themselves), you again repeat the obvious: "they present a challenge to either a first strike or a counter strike."

The fact forward deployed ABM present a threat to counter strike is what makes them a first-strike enabling system.

Rear deployed ABM protecting your own silos is where you'd put your ABM if you were just concerned about surviving a first strike and maintaining a counter strike deterrence (to then hopefully dissuade a first strike).

It honestly seems bizarre how you, and the others, accept anyways this premise that ABM is a first-strike capability (an "enabling weapons system" as Wikipedia describes it) but then simply deny that firs strike capability in some vague sense does not increase by deploying these first-strike-enabling systems.

I was clearly referring to this statement and all my arguments referred to this. I am not sure why you were unable to follow it, I tried to be as clear as possible. — Jabberwock

First, my statement that they could obviously deploy nuclear weapons there is in response to your statement that the nuclear threat is "nonsense", but now apparently you're comment that started this discussion was in response to my comment that happened later?

Your argument literally require time travel now.

Obviously a nuclear threat would include both nuclear weapons and whatever systems enable to use of those weapons. So "enabling weapons systems" such as ABM fall under the category of nuclear threat.

Which now turns out you agree that ABM is indeed a first strike capability threat, so obviously the "nuclear threat" is not "nonsense" simply due to the nature of ABM itself.

So your original position that the bases representing a nuclear threat is "nonsense" you have since debunked yourself.

Moving the goalposts to the idea you only meant nuclear weapons being deployable from these missile bases is "nonsense" is also wrong.

As I stated, obviously you could put nuclear weapons there and launch nuclear weapons from ABM tubes; you could develop the capacity covertly or overtly, today or tomorrow, so an adversary is going to include that in their risk-analysis.

And I have asked you specifically which missiles you have referred to. — Jabberwock

Again, the Russians say themselves their concern is that the tubes could easily be converted to fire other missiles.

It is literally a tube where you put in a missile and fire said missile. There's nothing special about the tube that would prevent you from firing things other than ABM missiles, and you could also put a nuclear warhead in an ABM missile if you wanted to.

If the US doesn't have this capacity today it could easily develop the capacity tomorrow. It's really not a an insane complicated task that no one has ever accomplished before and pushes up against the laws of physics to take (or develop) a missile of the appropriate size for the tubes or then develop a nuclear warhead that you simply put in the ABM missiles (the literally put nuclear warheads in artillery shells in the past, so I'm sure the US military industrial complex could manage the feat).

Oh, so you did not look at the map, how unsurprising. Hint: Redzikowo is not 'close to Russia'. With current missiles it would reach about 300 km behind the Russian border (another hint for non-users of maps: Russia is a bit bigger than that). — Jabberwock

There's no need to look at a map, the New York Times calculated the distances:

As he threatens Ukraine, Mr. Putin has demanded that NATO reduce its military footprint in Eastern and Central Europe — which Washington and European leaders have flatly refused to do. Mr. Putin has been fuming about American missiles near Russia’s border since the Romanian site went into operation in 2016, but the Polish facility, located near the village of Redzikowo, is only about 100 miles from Russian territory and barely 800 miles from Moscow itself. — On the Edge of a Polish Forest, Where Some of Putin’s Darkest Fears Lurk

That is called way closer to Russia than the status quo during the Cold War.

At no point did I say these missiles covered the whole of Russia, so thrashing at this straw man is particularly stupid.

The missile bases increase US first strike capability, as I've stated any first strike would involve plenty of other systems too.

The first critical thing to do in a first strike is hit command and control to disrupt, delay, and ideally prevent a strategic counter-strike even being ordered. With a little bit of delay one's chances of hitting those strategic nuclear launch facilities and other equipment increase dramatically.

So missile bases getting closer and closer increase the effectiveness of a first strike. The closer you are, the less warning time and so more able to decapitate the leadership and other systems.

Sure, you can say "well I don't think nuclear war is likely anyways, so people should be complacent" but you seem to fail to appreciate that the people in charge of said nuclear weapons systems aren't complacent; if the threat model increases noticeable they pay particular notice (since the consequences are so high anything noticeable at all becomes of serious concern).