Ideally, no, but you’re also not 100% wrong in the implication. The Ukrainians may realistically come to a conclusion that they can’t actually take Crimea and Donbas back by force without overt NATO involvement. Russia, for all their saber rattling, is meticulously seeking to avoid having any of their munitions even accidentally crossing…
Ideally, no, but you’re also not 100% wrong in the implication. The Ukrainians may realistically come to a conclusion that they can’t actually take Crimea and Donbas back by force without overt NATO involvement. Russia, for all their saber rattling, is meticulously seeking to avoid having any of their munitions even accidentally crossing NATO borders, and NATO is similarly avoiding anyone who answers to a western capitol fire a shot inside Ukraine, for the same reason: that turns this into World War III very quickly, and the spectre of human civilization ending in a half hour time span makes that Something No One Wants.
So our calculus/balance is, give Ukraine enough to make Russia want to get out, without doing so much that this escalates in that fashion. Obviously we’re in a place where we think that trend line will be in Ukraine’s favor unless Trump wins the election and pulls the rug out from under them. Russia, in turn, is assuming we won’t have the patience to do so.
That said... if we’re wrong, and Ukraine can’t do this before they run out of disposable bodies? Yes, they’re functionally going to have to make some other deal where they let Russia keep this stuff, but Russia is also forced to accept that what’s left is going straight into NATO, so there will be no further “border edit wars” going forward.
I guess that whole international "rules based order" is a lot more fickle than we're willing to admit (or selectively enforce for that matter). Taiwan better watch its fucking back lol.
I did write and then delete a sub paragraph in there where I observed that there is a debate to be had about whether nuclear weapons have improved the world by preventing major powers from directly fighting, or made it worse by enabling bad actors with nukes to get away with whatever they want because the consequences of stopping them are always worse than letting them.
Two thought experiments on that: 1. What happens in Ukraine if nukes didn’t exist? The likely answer IMO is “we’re probably already in World War III to get Russia out.” 2. What if Hitler (and most of the major former Allies) had had nukes in 1938, or if he’d waited a decade to make his move until he did? The likely answer is, he probably doesn’t ever invade France and the USSR, but France and Britain probably don’t directly declare war to keep him away from the Czechs and the Poles, either. OR the central European countries along with Belgium and Holland put themselves under a French and British nuclear umbrella much like NATO today, and Hitler wouldve cynically picked on everyone who wasn’t, much as Putin is doing today. Is that a better world than our having consigned the Nazis to the ashbins of history when they went too far? That is... highly questionable.
If nukes keep the peace then we shouldn't be worried about nuclear proliferation, we should be encouraging it. In my opinion, the inverse is the reality: the presence of nukes prevents potential world war at the expense of enabling genocide and atrocity. We didn't go into N Korea because they have nukes. We went into Iraq because they didn't. Nukes often enable countries to do awful shit without consequences because anyone who would think to stop them is too worried about nuclear retaliation--which is why we fucked up Saddam when he went into Kuwait in '91 but we didn't lay a finger on Putin when he went into Ukraine in '22. If Hitler had nukes when he launched the Blitzkreig in '40, would the US have invaded Europe in '44?
Ideally, no, but you’re also not 100% wrong in the implication. The Ukrainians may realistically come to a conclusion that they can’t actually take Crimea and Donbas back by force without overt NATO involvement. Russia, for all their saber rattling, is meticulously seeking to avoid having any of their munitions even accidentally crossing NATO borders, and NATO is similarly avoiding anyone who answers to a western capitol fire a shot inside Ukraine, for the same reason: that turns this into World War III very quickly, and the spectre of human civilization ending in a half hour time span makes that Something No One Wants.
So our calculus/balance is, give Ukraine enough to make Russia want to get out, without doing so much that this escalates in that fashion. Obviously we’re in a place where we think that trend line will be in Ukraine’s favor unless Trump wins the election and pulls the rug out from under them. Russia, in turn, is assuming we won’t have the patience to do so.
That said... if we’re wrong, and Ukraine can’t do this before they run out of disposable bodies? Yes, they’re functionally going to have to make some other deal where they let Russia keep this stuff, but Russia is also forced to accept that what’s left is going straight into NATO, so there will be no further “border edit wars” going forward.
I guess that whole international "rules based order" is a lot more fickle than we're willing to admit (or selectively enforce for that matter). Taiwan better watch its fucking back lol.
I did write and then delete a sub paragraph in there where I observed that there is a debate to be had about whether nuclear weapons have improved the world by preventing major powers from directly fighting, or made it worse by enabling bad actors with nukes to get away with whatever they want because the consequences of stopping them are always worse than letting them.
Two thought experiments on that: 1. What happens in Ukraine if nukes didn’t exist? The likely answer IMO is “we’re probably already in World War III to get Russia out.” 2. What if Hitler (and most of the major former Allies) had had nukes in 1938, or if he’d waited a decade to make his move until he did? The likely answer is, he probably doesn’t ever invade France and the USSR, but France and Britain probably don’t directly declare war to keep him away from the Czechs and the Poles, either. OR the central European countries along with Belgium and Holland put themselves under a French and British nuclear umbrella much like NATO today, and Hitler wouldve cynically picked on everyone who wasn’t, much as Putin is doing today. Is that a better world than our having consigned the Nazis to the ashbins of history when they went too far? That is... highly questionable.
If nukes keep the peace then we shouldn't be worried about nuclear proliferation, we should be encouraging it. In my opinion, the inverse is the reality: the presence of nukes prevents potential world war at the expense of enabling genocide and atrocity. We didn't go into N Korea because they have nukes. We went into Iraq because they didn't. Nukes often enable countries to do awful shit without consequences because anyone who would think to stop them is too worried about nuclear retaliation--which is why we fucked up Saddam when he went into Kuwait in '91 but we didn't lay a finger on Putin when he went into Ukraine in '22. If Hitler had nukes when he launched the Blitzkreig in '40, would the US have invaded Europe in '44?