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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   28510 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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Sachs is right about one thing though, America does have the means to end the war. Through violence.

Russia is a nuclear power. Engaging in direct U.S. vs Russia conflict over Ukraine of all places is insane.

Should such a conflict occur, the mean expected deaths would number in the millions easily. The chance of a limited nuclear exchange becomes quite high, and a full nuclear exchange possible.

Scott shut this argument down. You can’t just play nuclear blackmail games. Maybe Ukraine is the right place to back down. Maybe it isn’t. That is a complicated question.

The solution to Russia has nukes is not back down anytime they want something. Then the whole world would be ruled by Russia. A thing worse than nuclear war.

The one big issue with not defending Ukraine is it raises a question of who really is under the umbrella of U.S. protection. Any country that thinks they might be outside of the security arrangement would be very interested in being a nuclear state. And as N Korea has proven just about any civilization can get nukes and a missile program. The reason even places like Taiwan do not have nukes despite real risks is because getting nukes would piss off the U.S. and they view security help from the west as more valuable than nukes.

Even places like Georgia would probably buy some nukes and launcher systems as soon as possible. And those type of states do have some political instability which means eventually some people you don’t like are nuclear.

The solution to Russia has nukes is not back down anytime they want something. Then the whole world would be ruled by Russia. A thing worse than nuclear war.

NATO forms a bright line that Russia knows it must never cross. Here is a map of NATO. Russia is encircled and powerless: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_NATO#/media/File:NATO_32_Members.png

We shouldn't be willing to escalate maximally over every conflict. Quite simply, Russia cares about Ukraine more than the US does.

But take your opinion to its logical conclusion. You'd risk nuclear war to defend Ukraine. What about Georgia? Syria? Trade rights? Why aren't we invading China to stop the Uhygur genocide. Does our inaction prove that genocide is okay? Certainly the Uhygurs will get nukes if we can't protect them.

I enjoy living in a country that is peaceful and prosperous. And yet people are willing to risk nuclear war over a country on the other side of the world that has virtually no strategic value. Furthermore, we are willing to destroy that country in the process and kill a sizeable percentage of its male population. I maintain this is insane and I want no part in it.

NATO forms a bright line that Russia knows it must never cross. Here is a map of NATO. Russia is encircled and powerless

I do not believe "encircled" means what you think it means. Without attacking NATO, Russia can move south through Georgia ("seeking" is not membership), Armenia, and Azerbaijan and keep going if it feels like getting into a conflict with Iran. And then there's that huge area of Russia not shown, which borders on other non-NATO countries. They could plow through the -stans to India, or go after Mongolia and China. No NATO there.

Where does this model of Russia even come from? The Ukrainian conflict has not exactly been a stunning success for Russia.

Now they're attacking India and China?

The whole Ukraine War rests on the faulty premise that Russia is so strong they'll invade Poland India if we don't stop them, but so weak that one more round of funding to Ukraine will win the war.

Personally, I don't really care as long as I'm not forced to participate. I'd especially appreciate it if more pro-war people actually volunteered for the Ukrainian military, or least the US one.

I believe the point is that it seems strange to call Russia "encircled" by NATO once you zoom the map out a bit.

With enough flexibility on a spherical planet, every region arguably encircles its inverse!

To be fair there's a pretty good pincer thing going on when you take the Arctic into consideration!

I'd agree that this style of map is probably the best balance, though I'm struggling somewhat to find a map in this style that is up-to-date.

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