True.
About the only non-NATO country we might get away with putting nukes in would be Finland, and that's only because Russia still has a cultural fear of angering the Finn's after how many people they lost trying to invade before/during WW2.
Russian-Ukrainian-Polish Eternal Friendship Thread
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About the only non-NATO country we might get away with putting nukes in would be Finland, and that's only because Russia still has a cultural fear of angering the Finn's after how many people they lost trying to invade before/during WW2.
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
How about not basing your knowledge of international politics solely on Polandball memes? They are funny, but usually not particularly factual.
Winter War is hardly known in Russia because it is greatly overshadowed by the devastating Great Patriotic War (which is also a big source of their national paranoia), so while they probably have healthy respect of Finnish defense capabilities (which Finns didn't let go fallow with the end of Cold War, unlike some of their neighbors), their relations with Russia are fairly good due to their policy avoiding conflict with it, something they were smeared for in the Western press during the Cold War, giving the rise to the term Finlandization.
This isn't a game of chicken. Russia has legitimate concerns with Ukraine. Allowing Ukraine to fall into NATO would allow for US and European weapons systems to be placed on the eastern border of Ukraine. An F-22 could do a fly over Moscow from the border within ~22 minutes. That's NOT a comfortable position for the Russians to be in.
If you're a sovereign nation and you're entirely reliant upon the United States for security assurances, you better be vital to the US's current strategic concerns. Otherwise you're basically on your own. If you have security assurances from the European Union, those assurances aren't worth the paper they're written on.
The Russians were willing to accept an officially neutral Ukraine under Russian hegemony. The problem became when the West assisted in an upheaval against a Pro-Russian government and a West-oriented government came to power. That was unacceptable to the Russians. And western powers knew that--or they should have. Fucking around in Ukraine was unacceptable.
How did you expect the Russians to react? They felt they were given assurances that Ukraine would not fall into NATO influence, which would present a massive strategic threat to not just the Russian heartland, but the Russian capital itself. And instead of sticking to that agreement, the West decided it should completely disregard this, because they wanted to--at best, liberalize Ukraine and integrate economically with it. And at worst, put a knife to the throat of Moscow and use it as leverage against the Russians.
So what did the Russians do? What anyone with half a brain would have done. They invaded Ukraine to secure their strategic concerns.
That's very likely to happen. This is what you get when American and Western leaders decide that huffing their own farts is more important than another nation's strategic concerns. The West needs to grow the fuck up. They helped create this mess.
The difference is that China does not have the projection power to influence any country within America's sphere of influence. It certainly does not have the means of projecting military power into America's backyard. Whereas the Americans do.
Nuclear weapons between the US and the Russians are not an issue. What is an issue is Americans or another NATO member deployed within Ukraine. At Mach 1.6, a fighter could do a flyover from Ukraine to Moscow in 22 minutes. I don't think it's hard for you to imagine why the leadership in Moscow would not be happy with that idea.
It's not that easy.
First, the West does have strategic analysts. The West is aware of what Russia is doing and why Russia is doing it. Russia is going to suffer a demographic implosion. That means the Russians are not going to have enough Russians to defend her current borders as they are now. Therefore, their best option is to push west and south into anchor points, which means invading western Europe. So Putin, the quintessential KGB genius known for his real politik is not going to be the most trustworthy figure when it comes to assuring the sovereign status of Ukraine. Because the West knows Russia needs to expand west, the Russians know it, and everyone knows the other knows.
Second, there is too much liberalism in Western thinking to allow this to happen--and yet, there is no political will among the American people to prevent it. If Biden had responded to Russia's buildup with immediate deployment of American troops and mustering the strength of Europe, Russia would have had no choice but to back down or launch an immediate assault. Instead, Biden is doing what he can to lob monkey wrenches to slow the Russians down or hoping that it'll be enough of a deterrence to keep the Russians at bay. And he has to, because the press had a fit with him handing Afghanistan over to the Taliban. If he just hands Ukraine over to the Russians, they'll hang him from the flag pole outside the capital building.
It should be completely unacceptable. The idea of NATO weapon systems being able to hit his capital between 5-10 minutes is simply intolerable. Especially for a nation that has long survived thanks to its strategic depth.
Is that a standard by which all nations judge their security? Is it accepted when they do?
Russia is a large country with powerful air defenses and nuclear deterrent competing for world's #1. Everyone with an ounce of military expertise knows that when it comes to countries that have good reasons to complain about lack of strategic depth and vulnerability to surprise attack by hyper-aggressive neighbors, it certainly isn't even in top 50.
Let's look at Russia's argument from the other side. A similar distance or lesser distance exists between Russian territory and capitals of Poland, Germany, Sweden and Finland, and lets not even get into how ridiculously vulnerable the Baltics are. That's not a hypothetical, that's not something that might happen, like with Ukraine, that's something that is already happening since quite a long time.
Same goes for the capital of India vs China and Pakistan, capital of Pakistan vs India, capital of South Korea vs North Korea and China, and i could go on.
But Russia is special, right?
Oh, wait, no one cares. Only Russia has the right to a paranoid "comfort" going beyond its own borders. Meanwhile, Israel, also a nuclear power, encircled by more hostile conventional powers, could only dream of having a quarter of the strategic depth Russia has, yet they live with that, somehow.
Of course in Moscow, the thinking is "If other countries threaten Russia, that's unacceptable, if Russia threatens other countries, now that's just the natural order of things."
But in the end, there are good reasons to realize that its mostly an excuse, a false pretense to keep a good grip on the
The problem with that thinking is that to even say this out loud, USA would have to openly admit that the whole idea of nuclear non-proliferation and the famous treaty on it is a joke. Meanwhile most of US (and even other major power's) security establishments do think it is in their strategic interest to maintain it as not a complete joke. See the little problem here?
Exactly, that sounds like a joke, because it is a joke. Why not a officially neutral Ukraine under US hegemony?
Russia wants its satrapies, and there is no "self-determination of nations" exit clause from that club.
Certified Crimea River situation. So? Russians fuck around with everyone they can, whenever they can and think it benefits them.
Obviously this shit is why they are so paranoid about security initiatives regarding their neighbors. It is very obvious that they can never offer much in the way of carrot, but in the end they always have a big stick to beat the grumbling satrapies with. But if NATO or whatever comes in and protects the satrapies from its stick, satrapies have a tendency to go bye bye and pick other allies...
What assurances, by who? What did Russia offer in return?
As i've explained before, that is an invalid argument. If it was valid, many of Russia's neighbors would have a strategic concern based reason to invade Russia and its allies, and no one would even care because there would be a whole bunch of nuclear wars raging in Asia too. Its just Russia playing up being paranoid to excuse keeping its imperial holdings by force.
Canada...
Who the fuck draws "spheres of influence" anyway? Is there a map of them somewhere?
Oh, wait, its mostly Russia's favorite term. They are never official and you can always argue, even fight over them, due to how malleable they are, as if proper border disputes weren't enough to fight over.
Guess they do it when they still can, because at some point China will start talking louder about their idea that Russia lies in China's historical sphere of influence, and then they will regret it. Because that's what a "sphere of influence" is. A claim by a major power that the states within are only semi-sovereign at best and they should have the final say about their fate, because fuck you, we're strong, that's why. But its only that. A more or less ambitious, arbitrary claim. Some may claim other excuses, like history, security, shared ethnicity or religion, but really it boils down to ambition and power.
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No, not necessarily. It really depends upon the geography and who their allies are, ect. Do you really think that America would find a strong Russian or Chinese presence within 22 min of DC? Of course not.
It's less of a question of whether or not it is acceptable on a moral dimension than it is on a strategic one. Is it acceptable to the United States? Yes. Obama, Trump, and Biden have already telegraphed that although they do not like it and will hamper such a thing, they find a Russia controlled Ukraine acceptable. And so does France and the UK. Even Germany finds this is acceptable.
The nations who don't find it acceptable are the ones who know they're probably next.
Yes, but the most skilled and numerous class of Russians are starting to get old. Russia is not going to be able to continue developing and maintaining all of these technological wonders. They're going to have to start making tough choices on who goes where. That's in addition to their coming demographic implosion. The Russians are not expanding because they are becoming stronger, the Russians are expanding because they're about to become a whole lot weaker.
The Russians cannot survive what is about to come. So they are changing the rules of the game so that they might. Scooping up Ukraine allows them to add more Russians to their demographics. And in the future, they might be able to absorb these new populations and revive the Russian state.
No, Russia is not special. You want to know the difference though? That equation doesn't include China. Russia is not perceived as a threat to the United States. Russia is not an aspiring superpower. It is a great power--of that there is no doubt, but they are not a superpower. China is an aspiring superpower. They are not just trying to expand their power to local hegemon, they are trying to expand it into the realm of superpower. Because they themselves have little choice. The resources and markets they need to sustain their economy are located in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and America. And the strategic vulnerability for China is very real.
The United States is not overly concerned with Russia. They are, to be blunt, not our problem. They are yours. And had your neighbors been more diligent in their military spending for the past few decades instead of fattening themselves at American expense, you may not be in such a vulnerable position. As it is, I heard Poland's last wargame against a possible Russian invasion ended with the capital taken in 5 days.
Right now, Poland's best bet is to forge strong ties to the United States, beef up its military, and present itself as a border nation that separates the Russians and the Germans.
Israel is not without allies anymore. Thanks to the emerging threat of Iran, they've made allies with Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and I think even have an understanding with Israel. They also sell weapons to Azerbaijan. Israel also invaded the Golan Heights. They've also repeatedly expanded their Israeli populations into areas claimed by Palestine.
As for Pakistan and India, they have border conflicts all the time. I believe they've had several in the past couple of years. And Pakistan has helped sponsor terrorist cells impart as a strategic response to India. And while China and India are divided by a massive mountain range, they've also had a few border skirmishes in the past few years. China's also trying to steal water from important rivers running down into India and its neighbors to act as a means of pressuring India and those powers. And we already know that China has pressed up against various other local Asian powers in the South China Sea.
Russia is fully justified in expanding its power West. There is historical precedence and there is a strategic imperative. Just as every nation between Ukraine and Germany is fully justified in defending itself from Russian expansion. Both sides can be completely justified in their positions.
It was never a joke. It's a very serious issue. On the other hand, that treaty was made as a way of deescalation between the Russians and the Americans, as well as to keep those weapons out of the hands of states that might cause trouble for either powers. Such as Iran or North Korea. And what North Korea learned after watching the regime change in Egypt and Libya was that the Americans cannot be trusted with security assurances. And hence they pushed forward with their nuclear program instead of treating it as a bargaining chip.
I don't think it's really dawned on you yet, but nuclear proliferation is going to happen. It's going to happen in the areas of power. Turkey, France, China, India, Russia, Iran, Japan, the US--they are all going to revamp their nuclear arsenal. And then there will be small, sophisticated powers that will realize their only hope of retaining their independence is going to be through nuclear weapons. Such as Israel and North Korea. (well, NK isn't really sophisticated, but they were determined) The US and Russia already backed out of a nuclear treaty just a few years ago.
Because the Americans cannot be trusted because Americans are not entirely predictable in their behavior. Every American president of the past century has swung between a realist or a liberal approach to international relations. From Bush II to Trump to Obama. The Russians saw how quick the Americans were in turning on the leaders of Libya and Egypt.
If there is a NATO Ukraine, then Putin knows the moment there is some sort of uprising within Russia or a civil war with another faction (especially if they have military support), the United States would be fully capable of interfering within that war however they liked. They might even be able to put a no-fly-zone over Moscow itself.
Yes, and this is unacceptable to Russia. And Russia, being a great power (still) has more than just a little say in what goes on in its sphere of influence. And it has shown that it is willing to use military force to keep it that way or to reverse trends.
The Russians claim that the Americans assured them that they would not expand NATO to the former Soviet states.
Nuclear weapons are not the trump card that people think it is. The same way that Russia has sliced off pieces of Ukraine is exactly what could happen in reverse. Would Russia launch nuclear missiles at the United States should the US deploy forces in Ukraine? Of course not. Don't be stupid. Because then the US would launch missiles at Russia and it would be over for everyone. No, Russia would be forced to accept that it simply can't have Ukraine at that moment.
That doesn't even take into account hybrid warfare. Or do you think Israel is unbothered by the moves of Iran simply because Israel has nukes? Because Israel sure as hell doesn't act like Iran isn't a problem.
The states with the means of projecting spheres of influence draw the lines. France has a strong sphere of influence in western Africa, for example. China perceives central, south, and west Asia as its sphere of influence. The Russians perceive East Europe as its sphere of influence. America perceives all of North and South America as their sphere of influence, as well as the Pacific itself. Iran perceives the Middle East as its sphere of influence, as does Turkey.
Yes, I know what a sphere of influence is. And in this case, the Russians are correct. They do have a sphere of influence within Eastern Europe. It is a conflicting one and it has grown weaker over the past few decades, but it does exist and they are now trying to solidify that into outright domination, because they fear they cannot compete with the West. And that is understandable, given that the West is running out of workers and domestic markets and so they need to expand their influence somewhere.
Yes, it definitely does depend on their geography.
However, i did list several countries, who due to the geography, have to tolerate such presence from China, or Russia itself.
Give me one reason why Russia should not have to tolerate it while they do.
Exactly. Whether it is negotiable or not, is purely a matter of international negotiation, willingness to push the line, make bold demands, and create problems if they are not fulfilled.
The west should really take a lesson here. This is how you do effective diplomacy against China, Russia etc. How do we know? This is what they do, and it works. Sure, they often are disliked for it, sometimes they get hit back for it, but it works more or less.
And that is bad both for the west and Russia. Russians are in effect trying to get written assurances of a position they already struggle to back with actual power, and will do so even less in the future. As in, they are setting themselves up as an official paper tiger. And everyone knows what kind of temptations does the sight of paper tigers create.
That's not it. They could scoop up Russians from Ukraine pretty easily simply on account of how poor Ukraine is and would remain for quite some time even if it integrates with the west. The way they are choosing to do it now is meant for political status increase, both for international and domestic consumption.
But in the previous paragraph you have outright stated what's the problem with seeing Russia as a great power. Russia is a great power only by the virtue of using the corpse of Soviet Union. Once the corpse decays badly enough, its going to be no more of a great power than France or UK, and possibly a bit less, a depopulated India of the north. On the other hand, if Russia is a great power, it is still inherently a threat to USA. So they kinda should make up their own mind on which they want to be. A superpower on life support, or major power with an inheritance windfall in military hardware.
Unfortunately the world is a bit of a crowded place and trying to make such geographic separations of alliances definitive may end badly. For one, on Russia's eastern border there are increasing numbers of experts who suggest, disregarding ideological differences, inviting military cooperation with China, against Russia.
After all, China is not a threat to them, Russia is. And if USA won't share their concern about Russia, why not find an ally who is interested in Russia.
And there comes up the topic of Russia being a fair competitor to America in general non-war fuckery. How did German industry ended up hooked on Russian politically rationed gas?
Which is about exactly what its doing.
My point exactly. Even though both of the powers involved in these low strategic depth situations tend to have much hotter relations than NATO-Russia... Somehow they manage to keep their fingers off the "surprise nuke to enemy capital" button.
If these crazies can do it, why can't Russia and NATO do it?
Because Russia doesn't want to, and they won't want to, because they will get many side benefits out of pretending they can't?
At least consider themselves justified in their positions.
Do you believe in time traveling norks?
Their first nuclear test was in 2006, long before Libya and Egypt.
No, for them it is just an upgrade over their old "checkmate" system against SK - having a mass of conventional artillery placed near DMZ, aimed at Seoul, and also a card to play in any negotiations to come.
Obviously it is happening already. But only in rare cases. But if it becomes a joke officially, the dam will break, and so chances of non-state actors getting their hands on nukes will dramatically rise, adding up a little bit with every country (especially third world ones), which will become US problem sooner or later. Hence, it is in US interest to slow this process, and the way of doing it is to offer security guarantees to countries that may have the need and the means to contribute to the problems in exchange for not doing it.
And this is where the assurances given to Ukraine come up - a fairly chaotic, post-soviet state which had a major nuclear arsenal, who gave it up in exchange for security assurances.
That's a long reach and everyone knows it. They didn't do that even in NATO backyard and Turkey despite Erdogan's shenanigans, or military equipment museum like North Korea.
If they wanted to do something like that, in case of Russia the main means would be political and economic, rather than military - and Ukraine has negligible effect on those.
Pure appearances and self fulfilling prophecies. What Russia does is nothing else than some advanced proxy warfare of a type that in the Middle fucking East would get no more than a shrug (Yemen?), even though its done by third world oil powers.
Its more of a case of political application of "who dares, wins" combined with showing the middle finger to all the western elites' concepts of international rules, legalities, and other matters of custom and decorum that stand in the way (something also shared by Middle East). This way they can get the facts on the ground to align with their vision while western leaders sit around in endless committees, fuming with outrage and carefully crafting not too expensive sanctions to show their outrage not too expensively.
Of course, i know that. They claim all sorts of things, usually things very convenient to them. But i asked if they have a treaty to that point, and what did they give in return for such assurances.
There is a whole field of military and political theory on that topic. But they do change many equations, and a lot of these equations are a variation of the game of chicken, in which mere appearance of being dangerous can be enough to win some conflicts with material rewards.
If NATO aligned and supported militias were regularly barraging Russian cities with rockets and NATO leaders were constantly stating their intention to remove Russia from the maps, perhaps they would have had a point.
No, "perceive" is a wrong term. They claim, assert and enforce a zone of influence.
If they want to, and they have the power to. That's about it.
For example, Iran and Turkey were quite silent on their spheres of influence during the Cold War - after all, they had bigger problems at hand than playing up imperial ambitions, they had to worry about not becoming someone else's "sphere of influence" themselves.
America on the other hand is a bit low on the will (certainly not means) to assert their sphere of influence, hence Cuba, Venezuela and many other SA countries being allowed their romances with anti-western forces, and also Canada and NZ being allowed to get as buddy-buddy with China economically they do.
China has the will, but is still busy stocking up on the means, hence they are delaying their more overt plays until they finish that, it would be silly of them to try too soon and fail.
France is low both on will and means in Africa, so they desperately look for EU and NATO allies to rope into their semi-effective anti-terror campaigns in Mali and the like.
Similar situation to how UK ended up after WW1 and WW2, having to shed pieces of sphere of influence it could no longer hold.
Russia, unlike the classic maritime empires, is a land empire, but the same factors apply - it is facing an overdue shedding of colonies.
Only as long as they keep it.
It is indeed a complex play on the distinctions between formalities of international relations and hard realities.
Then again, Russia used to hold most these territories in outright domination before Soviet Union fell. And before Russia took these territories barely 2 centuries earlier, they were in PLC's outright domination, and the PLC-Russia border went there with nothing in between. Russia could be perfectly fine without this sphere of influence - after all it used to be for quite some time, though its national pride and imperial ambitions would be greatly damaged.
But of course Russia will claim itself entitled to these territories by every possible argument, because someone may get fooled into believing that, even if the chance is small.
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If USA still was superpower - yes.With bidenized USA,we have no other choice but become China vassal.
Becouse Putin belive in his pet philosopher,Dugin,who "proved" that ukrainian and belarusian do not exist and should be happy as lesser russians,when poles exist,but we should become russians or germans anyway.
Because Russia has the option not to tolerate it. It's as simple as that. And if Germany or France don't like it, they can start burning wood stoves to heat their homes for the winter.
No, I'd actually say that it is not the best approach. Russia is acting this way because they know their strength is going to wane in the coming decades. They're as strong as they're ever going to see for the foreseeable future, so they're using military action to secure themselves. Otherwise they would play a longer game and wait until the Americans are completely disengaged from international affairs. Or they would move boldly and not give a care as to what the Americans or Europeans say.
China is also desperate. China was able to develop into what it is today because they joined the WTO. It allowed China to export its way to being a great power. And instead of being fair, the Chinese have spent decades cheating everyone through the WTO. And instead of being grateful to the Americans for this wonderful bounty, they have instead built up their military capacity to challenge that very means in which they were gifted. And instead of displacing America 40-70 years from now, they've been caught with their hand in the jar.
China's strength has grown and its reach has certainly never been as long, but it has always been on the back of the WTO. It does not have the naval reach to import its own energy from the Middle East and any attempt to bring it through a land corridor is not only going to be time consuming and expensive, but will also anger the Russians--who are not as friendly with the Chinese as they might appear to be. Worse, China's own demographic is about to suffer an inversion--correction, is already in the early stages of it, as it was recently discovered that China had peak population 15 years ago, instead of 1 year ago as they had thought. On top of this, the growing barriers to the American market is causing even stronger domestic problems at home.
The Chinese have been caught in their own web. Instead of replacing America as the dominant power of the world or at least in East Asia, they have been revealed to be thieves and crooks. Any attempt to engage the Americans in the blue sea will result in defeat and therefore, any move by Americans to simply lock China out of the economic system is going to result in China's complete collapse as a major power.
China sacrificed its long-term stability for short-term stability and wealth. And now it is reaping the rewards for that. Russia too, will suffer this. They have more or less burned all of their goodwill from the West. Putin has maneuvered himself into a corner. He gave up actual diplomatic dialogue well before he invaded Ukraine. And after he annexed Crimea, he burned all the bridges he could have used. And he did this because he did not feel he could trust American security assurances (and looking at Ukraine, Libya, and Egypt--this is not unreasonable).
This confrontational behavior is the result of both these powers making mistakes.
I do not think they will struggle with actual power. I think Putin is aware that in pulling the trigger on Ukraine, Russia is going to suffer the harshest American sanctions yet. I've already heard that the threat of using SWIFT against the Russians was made. If Biden uses SWIFT to cut the Russians from global commerce, the Russians are going to suffer. Of course, in doing so, Biden's admin must know that they would lose any leverage against Russia for the future without resorting to military aid or action.
What Putin wants is for Ukraine to be essentially a puppet state to Russia, with limited autonomy. That I feel, is what he is really asking for. That is not something I think the West can swallow. If they could, then at least Putin might feel assured that he would not be threatened by strong neighbors. Ukraine could remain as a buffer state. Since the West cannot swallow that and since Europe is fully intent on integrating with Ukraine for economic reasons, Putin cannot trust that NATO will not forward deploy into Ukraine and he cannot trust that after he passes and the entire Russian government falls into disarray, that NATO won't try to take advantage of the situation.
Not if Ukraine economically integrates with the West. That could bring lots of jobs and wealth. Instead of focusing towards the East via Russian influence, they would be drawn towards the West via European money and investment firms. And it's not like Russia itself is some sort of utopia.
If I'm not mistaken, I said superpower. A superpower is above a great power. It goes; superpower, great power, middle power, and lesser power. Russia has long been a great power next to France, the UK, and of course we all remember the rise of Germany. Nor is Russia dying because the Soviet Union fell. The Soviet Union existed because Russia was already a great power, which had expanded into a superpower.
Russia is dying because of communism. Its central planners were not as far seeing as they thought. They ended up killing millions of Ukrainians with their economic policy and gutted the Russian towns and villages to feed them to industrial centers. All while trying to hypercompete with the United States. After this whole disaster finally came crashing down, STDs became rampant throughout the Russian system, with no effective way to combat it. Nor were they able to raise up a new large generation of scientists and engineers. Even with some economic revival in the 90s and 00s, they saw population stagnation and then decline. And that has fast forwarded itself by about twenty years.
Putin is afraid of the day when his heart gives out. Because he knows the power blocs within his government will not be able to work out what happens after he passes. He knows his entire government will come crashing down without him. And when that day comes, he'd rather NATO be somewhere in Poland or Germany than in Ukraine, waiting to pounce.
I'm not sure why we would do that. Especially as China is the power that America is more interested in containing right now. Rather, it makes sense to get assistance from the Russians against the Chinese. As China is the one with the numbers and geographic location to be able to take Russia's far eastern lands. America has no real interest in it.
Not sure. I expect they didn't get anything good from it. Then again, Germany likes to tilt the tables in Europe for its own economic advantage, so I don't see why I should feel sorry for them either.
Yes it is.
Russia can and will do it. Of course, they're not stupid enough to admit that they could. Because they know that they can get some concessions out of it or at least force the West to forestall a military response.
I don't believe most analysts agree with that.
First, yes--the first nuclear test was in 06. It was however, believed that this wasn't a means to upgrade their old weapon system along the border. A nuclear weapon doesn't really do that, because it's such a massive escalation. Rather, it's believed that this was primarily done as a way of a bargaining chip against the West. Because their old artillery system is very much old and weak. They could probably ruin Seoul, but in doing so they'd have spat their last spitball. A nuke would have been a great bargaining chip.
That changed with Libya and Egypt. The North Koreans saw how quickly the US was to topple those regimes the moment they showed any sort of internal weakness.
I don't think so. Let's consider a few things.
1) Most state actors who need nukes are going to need them as a means of warding off other nations. Pakistan would want a nuke that can hit major cities and bases in India. This requires them to be generally along something at least as large as a truck and probably given over only to those that can be trusted to obey orders.
2) Most state actors that are worried about non-state actors are going to have a greater concern than the US or Russia will. Whose more likely to be on the receiving end of a shoulder-mounted nuke? A rival state where you have to drive the nuke in...or inside your own state after an anti-government radical decides to fire it at your government building? Thus, most powers are going to prefer to develop large or medium nukes, not portable nukes.
3) You need a considerable time to develop and deploy a nuclear weapon. Look at Iran and North Korea. It has taken them a good long time to develop their nuclear weapons. If Ukraine were to announce tomorrow it was starting a nuclear program, do you think the Kremlin would wait until they finished or roll on over with his tanks before they finished?
Erdogan isn't a dictator. Turkey is also a NATO ally, so there was no way in hell anyone was going to want to get involved with that. It's not like France or Canada or the UK geared up when it looked like there was a riot at the American capitol building.
Russia on the other hand, has been a rival power for the best part of a century with the US and longer for Europe. And Putin knows that his government may simply dissolve once he breaths his last. If he wants any chance of his state surviving after he passes, then he needs to give Russia as much distance as possible.
Oh, it is a proxy war. Because it allows the Russians the thinnest amount of denial, even if no one believes them. And it allows the Russians to get away with things in the initial phases, when Europe and the US don't want to act anyway. Sure, they bitch and moan afterwards about how they were duped, but in the end, they never send any real military assistance. It's all "sorry for your loss, have some cake".
It all boils down to this. The Americans more or less don't care. Europe is too soft and too poorly armed to do anything, even if the wanted to. Because doing things is hard and Europe has grown softer than the US has.
Why does it matter? It wouldn't have changed the situation. The West would still be wanting to integrate with Ukraine and the US would look the other way on the treaty or otherwise find some way out of it. It's not like the West didn't know that this wouldn't have deeply angered the Russians. Our leaders went in with their eyes wide open.
It does change the math, but nuclear weapons are also not the cutting edge technology. Russia and the US and even China are not brandying about their nuclear advancements like they did during the Cold War. Instead, what you're seeing is them focusing on hypersonic weapons, advanced fighters, integrated air defenses, drones, and hybrid warfare. MAD has reached the point where most of the major players know that they're not going to use those nukes unless it's down to the last wire.
Smaller states like North Korea will fixate on them, most certainly--but I do not think they're going to be common. It takes decades to build and produce nuclear weapons. And it's pretty easy to guess when someone is testing them. And any power that does begin to produce them will immediately set its rivals upon it or draw the glaring eye of a local hegemon.
Who in the West would actually say that in this day and age? It's not like Obama was railing against Egypt or Libya before he took action. He snatched the opportunity. And in a Russia that is soon to lose its Putin, they cannot allow NATO to be in their backyard.
I think it's debatable that they "enforce". They certainly claim and assert.
And Iran has for the past decade or so, slowly spread its influence throughout the Middle East. And Turkey is now slowly reaching out and enforcing its own agendas in nearby neighbors, at least in regards to the Kurds and fellow Turks.
That's not the same for a land empire. Especially one as exposed as Russia. This is more akin to the disintegration of the Roman Empire.
Entitled? No. It is more accurate to say that they are justified. Russia is justified in wanting Ukraine, both for strategic and historical purposes. Just as Ukraine is justified in wanting to resist reintegration. Justification does not make something so, it is simply a means of excusing one's actions.
Historical problem with Moscow - it is not Russia,they take Russia name.And from 14th century when they have small territory except Moscow,they feel treathened by neighbours,so they destroyed them.Then they destroyed their new neighbours,and so on.
You think they would stop when you gave them Ukraine? nope,they would take Poland there.And Germany after that.
They would feel safe,only when entire Earth would be theirs.
@The Original Sixth think,that giving other countries would made him safe.Not for long.He could either fight,or become Moscov property.
Of course,being China vassal would made him safe,too.
You think they would stop when you gave them Ukraine? nope,they would take Poland there.And Germany after that.
They would feel safe,only when entire Earth would be theirs.
@The Original Sixth think,that giving other countries would made him safe.Not for long.He could either fight,or become Moscov property.
Of course,being China vassal would made him safe,too.
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Either that or stop closing down nuclear power plants for no good reason. The politics of green idiocy are truly ravaging the west, and everyone is wondering how much of that is Russia's covert fuckery.
They still have a decade or two before the height of their power. Look at their currently prototype tanks, planes, ships. They are building the good stuff now. Their downfall will be the time when the T-14's and Su-57's they are building now will start to be considered a bit obsolete, because then they won't have a ex-soviet prototype program to dig out to serve as groundwork for the replacement, and no money to do it themselves.
In both cases they got too bold, aggressive and greedy too quickly. Perhaps they are afraid that the west is going to get its shit in order soon and as such there are only few years left to do "fun" stuff? Russia could have focused on consolidating power and influence in the Central Asian ex-soviet republics - the NATO powers would not care about that nearly as much as they care about what happens in Europe. They have far better PR with local populations than with Ukrainians or Poles, the locals have more use for the industrial-scientific cooperation that Russia can offer than Central Europe, and Russia doesn't have the fucking EU to compete with in that there. In addition, if successful, the culmination of this plan would be to box in China from the west, which would be something USA would find useful. Meanwhile China could just sit quietly on their ass and make money to build up their power with for a couple decades longer, instead of stepping on everyone's bloody toes to make a bit more money faster, attracting the wrong kind of attention from all around the world.
Only formal autonomy. Putin wants Ukraine to be a puppet state, run by a man who is among Kremlin's trusted men, willing and able to let Ukraine be a playground for Putin's allied oligarchs. Considering the way politics work there, the less official and legal layer of favor and money flows is at least as important as the strategic maps, treaties and budget deals.
Also the distance argument is not very convincing. If Russian government truly fell into such complete disarray, let's not forget that NATO has only about 150 km more to Moscow from the Baltics, and with better transport infrastructure at that.
On the other hand, in Russia they have identical language, and near identical culture.
In the west, their job perspectives come with additional challenge of having to learn a language, and the further west they go, also increasingly customs.
Ukrainians who are not swayed by these arguments are already free to migrate west, and millions of them already did, and will continue to do so even more if Ukraine itself continues to be chained to Russia economically, taking away all hope for major improvements.
Realistically, neither Ukraine nor Belarus is willing to pay the political cost for going full North Korea and effectively preventing own people from leaving.
Communism was 30 years ago. Between Baltics, Balkans, Belarus and Ukraine we've seen plenty of ways different countries could fix the mess communism made, more or less effectively. The problem is that Russia didn't do too well. Still isn't. Focuses on trying to drag the west in another arms race with imperial projects that bring it little except for making some people feel good about themselves (and some not so much, the discount gas bribes to Russia's satrapies aren't universally popular among Russia's citizenry obviously), instead focusing on fixing the mentioned economic, social and institutional problems.
Correction, meant Central Europe. The point is, in a cold war 2.0 situation, one can't just ignore unrelated conflict situations - because if you will, the other side certainly won't, and will pick favorites.
As everyone says since decades, it almost certainly has something to do with former chancellor Schroeder being the chairman of the board in Gazprom.
But when? 30 years from now? This is obviously not the "end of history" in Russia-NATO border, they still have a decade or two to have "fun" with pushing the limits there.
A few promises won't make them turn around their whole strategic policy.
Instead they will only embolden them to do the same thing more times, expecting the same result.
A weapon capable of partially destroyoing one city, with decreasing reliability as SK shares in western anti-artillery tech, upgraded to another that can probably do that to a couple dozen cities or so. Same role, hence upgrade. Before nukes, spitefully shelling Seoul was the cheapskate version of what they would threaten with nukes.
1. That's not how nuclear technology works. The smaller and lighter you make the warheads, the better they work with given delivery systems. You can MIRV more warheads, add range, add decoys, stick more weapons on the bomber etc.
And of course no one announces they are starting a nuclear program unless they plan to play games with that even before having a nuke.
And its also not the thinking Pakistan has with nukes.
2. No, if anti-government radicals have captured nukes to fire at government buildings, at that point its probably pointless, because said government buildings are worthless already.
The main worry is that some nuclear country collapses into something more or less resembling a failed state, and as such one of the faction within will offer up some of their nukes to the highest bidder among non state actors and rogue states just to be able to pay salaries to its own lieutenants.
3. Backwards countries under severe sanction regimes already even before going for nukes, which got even worse then.
Erdogan had a whole scheme based around coups and coup attempts that would make a banana republic proud, and its not hard to find EU liberals who do think him a dictator.
Then he is buying the wrong medicine. Few hundred kilometers from NATO to Moscow is going to change very little in that equation.
What would change a lot is more stability in Moscow. Something that Putin is in fact burning with such dramatic moves, as the west counter-attacks with actions that undermine this stability economically and politically.
Mostly just too soft. If every NATO country in Europe sent merely one brigade to Ukraine to deploy defensively, Russia could no longer afford to invade Ukraine without use of tac nukes, period. The mobilization of reservists that would be necessary and the losses that would be suffered could bring down Putin's government otherwise.
Because Russia would probably need to offer of something of similar value and continuity in return, thanks to which it would be clear what exactly the agreement is, what is it worth to each side, and what would be the price of breaking it.
That again hits into Russia's main cause of their political maneuvering in the west being so blunt and messy - they want to act as a great power, but they don't have an appropriate set of tools anymore. They have energy resources, the dagger, and the hammer. And they can afford to spare only so much of the first.
So the first thing they demand in such treaties is that their "allies" not prepare too well to defend themselves against the dagger or the hammer, because once they can do that any future Russian foreign policy regarding them is simply stuck.
Defense systems and delivery systems are as vital parts of nuclear warfare potential as the warheads themselves. Half of these things have obvious contributions to that.
For example, if you were to rely on B-29's to nuke someone today with freefall bombs, that probably would not work too well against any serious country.
Hence, better missiles and aircraft to put nukes on are absolutely a way of improving nuclear weapons, and likewise, all advances in anti-missile and anti-air technology contribute to the other side of the equation, and those are plenty too.
In that you are wrong. It takes decades for a backwards shithole like North Korea, with economy still stuck well in the cold war, if not before.
For a modern country, we're talking a couple years.
For a modern country with advanced aeronautical and civilian nuclear industry, like Japan or South Korea, we're talking mere weeks.
The illegitimacy of both was pretty clearly signalled by the more hawkish neoliberals with their "human rights" rhetoric, and Libya was in a full blown civil war while repeteadly asked to not do war crimes on top of that.
Russia is not Egypt or Libya and Russians of all people know it. If the west was nuts enough to try similar shenanigans on hostile nuclear powers, Pakistan and North Korea would be the most obvious targets to start with.
Proxy war still counts as enforcement.
A civil war with probably largest tank battles on the planet since Desert Storm happened in Ukraine over this, i think that counts as enforcement.
Fellow Turks, yes. Kurds, they still have them and its still mutual.
No, because Russia is not losing the south and the far east at the same time in addition to that. This is more akin to Ottoman Empire losing Balkans.
Then the term "justified" is misleading and useless. Because what you're listing out here is that they want it, they think it will be useful to them, and they aren't afraid to try talking it. Neither of these facts has anything to do with justice, these aren't justifications that the average robber wouldn't use.
Some front lines news of the Donbas situation fromUkrainian army fighting thier best
It seems the Ukrainians think if they are allowed to fall to RUssia, Russia wont stop with them. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, even Poland will be at risk
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
I guess media has milked the hysteria as much as it could, will be doing it again in 3-6 months.
Maybe.
We know this was not normal and larger then any before.
But yes they will do it again yadda yadda yadda.
Once we know what the consensus was reached with Putin and the west maybe.
I saw an article that says he will mull over a few options if the west fails to meet his push for security guarantees.
Like Ukraine and any other firmer Soviet state can not join NATO. US and NATO countries can no longer be sent to central or Eastern Europe.
So maybe he decided to pull back.
Do we know how many thousand?
We know this was not normal and larger then any before.
But yes they will do it again yadda yadda yadda.
Once we know what the consensus was reached with Putin and the west maybe.
I saw an article that says he will mull over a few options if the west fails to meet his push for security guarantees.
Like Ukraine and any other firmer Soviet state can not join NATO. US and NATO countries can no longer be sent to central or Eastern Europe.
So maybe he decided to pull back.
Do we know how many thousand?