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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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It depends on what you mean by "intervene at least conventionally". If the US navy and its allies block all naval vessels from leaving Russian territorial waters, is that a conventional intervention or not?

As for the UNSC, there may be no legal mechanism, but that wouldn't mean much in a situation where Russia has broken the nuclear taboo.

What does 'blocking naval vessels entering international waters' mean? Is it ramming/harassment like the Chinese do but amped up? Just stealing cargo ships on the high seas like the US does to North Korea and Iran or Iran does in the straits of Hormuz? Are we talking about shooting at the Russian navy? That would be a simple, direct way to start a war. They have antiship missiles to shoot back with.

In my mind intervening conventionally means waging war against Russia. The 'at least' implies its a significant intervention if not a nuclear war.

I really think people in this thread are suggesting really unclear, impractical, provocative strategies as though they're easy, straightforward things to achieve. Attacking satellites could mean everything from shining lasers to temporarily blind sensors (which apparently the Russians and Chinese do daily) to nuking LEO. What does it mean to cut off Russian access to the sea? Does that mean sinking patrolling ballistic missile submarines or hemming them into port, threatening an integral part of their second-strike capacity?

I certainly don't want to suggest that any of these are easy or straightforward, and all of them are unspeakably risky.

They are all escalatable. Think of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The US didn't start by firing at Cuban ships, but that was set for a latter stage of escalation. The plan would be that Russia would back down from a direct conflict. What happens is uncertain - that's what makes these responses unspeakably risky. On the other hand, not having an extreme response to a country breaking the nuclear taboo is also extremely risky - that's why Putin would expect these kind of responses, and why he will not use even very small-scale nukes in Ukraine, unless he is losing his mind (which I strongly doubt).