I served for 30 years in the military. I don't agree with you at all.
What we're afraid of is an unnecessary thermo-nuclear war...and we should be. What we are doing is bleeding Putin dry while maintaining a coalition of countries against Putin/Russia.
It may very well turn into a nuclear showdown...and that's where I think this heading...but I'm not in favor of hurrying to this conflict.
I served for 30 years in the military. I don't agree with you at all.
What we're afraid of is an unnecessary thermo-nuclear war...and we should be. What we are doing is bleeding Putin dry while maintaining a coalition of countries against Putin/Russia.
It may very well turn into a nuclear showdown...and that's where I think this heading...but I'm not in favor of hurrying to this conflict.
Kuwait '91ing all of Putin's forces inside of Ukraine does not necessitate a nuclear showdown, and deterrence works both ways. Did we end up in a "nuclear showdown" when we wasted 400 Russian Vagner mercs in Syria? No. You can have conventional conflict between two nuclear-armed powers without any such "nuclear showdowns" ever taking place--see Pakistan & India constantly shooting it out over Kashmir among other areas.
How many other bloodthirsty dictators are going to be clammering to get their hands on nuclear weapons once Putin has showed the world exactly what one can get away with simply for possessing nukes? The risk-aversion for conventional conflict against a nuclear-armed actor is going to do *wonders* for nuclear proliferation in the future, and it will be because we incentivized it today, here, now. When the next guy who is less-rational than Putin gets a new nuclear arms program, it'll be because we showed them how scared we were today, remember that.
You are comparing Syria to what is occurring in Ukraine? Syria was in the Middle East as opposed to Russia's doorstep. In Syria, Putin never made the proclamation he made with Ukraine...that he was going to invade and topple a sovereign country. With Ukraine, we have 100,000+ Russian soldiers involved...not a handful of Mercs. With Syria...it was initially started by the Arab Spring and became an internal civil war that ended up spreading across the region.
In short, I find very little to be analogous about the 2 separate conflicts. Further, to use Syria as an example of why it's OK for nuclear armed countries to be in a conventional weapon conflict is on the edge of being dangerously reckless in your logic.
Yes...it sucks....but it could suck a lot worse and I'm afraid you would be pushing the US to find this out and quickly regret not being more patient.
It wasn't a comparison, just an example of how nuclear-armed adversaries can go kinetic without going nuclear. As the list of countries with nuclear weapons grow, more and more examples of them going kinetic without going nuclear abound. Pakistan-India was the other example I cited, and they go kinetic against each other *constantly* and they live next to each other. Want to address that aspect of the argument?
Why is it that some nuclear-armed nations can go kinetic without going nuclear but somehow US/Russia *must* go nuclear if it ever went kinetic. The history of nuclear-on-nuclear state conflicts speaks otherwise. In fact, it's only ever been nuclear-armed nations using them against unarmed ones according to the history (we're the only ones who've used them).
I'm sorry and not trying to be contrarian for contrarian's sake...
If you give me examples...I take that as comparisons....but whatever you wish to call it...I'll respond:
Pakistan - India...if one of them declared that they intended to invade and takeover the other....and lined up 100,000 soldiers with thousands of tracked vehicles on the border...ready to invade...
Do you not think that that is an ENTIRELY different situation vs. skirmishes about Kashmir or whatever?
If you want apples-to-apples...that's the equivalent scenario.
I gave you examples of nuclear-armed nations going kinetic without going nuclear, then you countered by stating that it's apples-to-oranges with Ukraine vis-a-vis Russia. I agree. Not the same at all. Ukraine doesn't have nukes. Maybe don't compare nuclear vs nuclear nation conflicts to nuclear vs non-nuclear nation conflict I guess? Like, what's Ukraine going to escalate to? We were talking about US v Russia *within* the context of the Ukraine fight remember? That's nuclear power vs nuclear power. Ukraine vs Russia is not.
If Russia shoots a tactical nuke into Ukraine...do you think we should respond with a nuke? Just one? Do we hit the battlefield or something in Russia?
It can become nuke vs nuke very quickly despite Ukraine not having any nukes.
This is why Russia wouldnтАЩt respond by firing a nuke into Ukraine. What have we said about deterrence working both ways? What have we said about nuclear armed actors going kinetic without going nuclear? ThereтАЩs a lot more historical precedent for my predictions than yours. IтАЩve already cited those examples, but go off on fear rants I guess. We can do that all day until every dictator in the world has nukes and then weтАЩll still be wetting ourselves when itтАЩs their turn to slaughter people. But keep thinking we should be more afraid of them than them of us. The world is going to work out great with that precedent in motion.
Yes, because the alternative is living in a world with MORE nuclear-armed butchers who saw what Putin got away with, and then weтАЩre in this same situation even more often 15-25 years down the road when my kids are of military service age. You want to live in that world and explain to your kid how this trend could have been stopped 20 years ago if we had only done something to deter that kind of behavior as heтАЩs signing the paperwork at the USMC recruiting office?
Is Iran *more* likely or *less* likely to seek nukes now that we've shown them how timid we are with nuclear-armed nations after we just went in and wasted the head of the Iranian IRGC while he was visiting Iraq?
Because we're actively telling them that we don't touch nuclear-armed Putin for X while simultaneously telling them that we'll kill whoever in their government we want to because they don't have nukes. That's the message we're sending them *right now*.
Currently...it might be a "pro" but if we continue to ratchet up sanctions and if they lead to Putin's downfall because his country revolts...then they might be a "con".
I'm all for defeating Putin, but I think it's wise to not fast-track it to a pure NATO/West military response for many sound reasons having to do with gaining more unity, allowing Putin to further prove how much a pariah he is to the world and seeing how effective the non-kinetics can be...when his oligarchs are included in the pain.
Not perfect I know...but the risk is real if we get ahead of ourselves on this and an "accident" happens triggering a really bad situation...that makes Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like a minor incident.
I served for 30 years in the military. I don't agree with you at all.
What we're afraid of is an unnecessary thermo-nuclear war...and we should be. What we are doing is bleeding Putin dry while maintaining a coalition of countries against Putin/Russia.
It may very well turn into a nuclear showdown...and that's where I think this heading...but I'm not in favor of hurrying to this conflict.
Kuwait '91ing all of Putin's forces inside of Ukraine does not necessitate a nuclear showdown, and deterrence works both ways. Did we end up in a "nuclear showdown" when we wasted 400 Russian Vagner mercs in Syria? No. You can have conventional conflict between two nuclear-armed powers without any such "nuclear showdowns" ever taking place--see Pakistan & India constantly shooting it out over Kashmir among other areas.
How many other bloodthirsty dictators are going to be clammering to get their hands on nuclear weapons once Putin has showed the world exactly what one can get away with simply for possessing nukes? The risk-aversion for conventional conflict against a nuclear-armed actor is going to do *wonders* for nuclear proliferation in the future, and it will be because we incentivized it today, here, now. When the next guy who is less-rational than Putin gets a new nuclear arms program, it'll be because we showed them how scared we were today, remember that.
That's a really good point. Scary.
You are comparing Syria to what is occurring in Ukraine? Syria was in the Middle East as opposed to Russia's doorstep. In Syria, Putin never made the proclamation he made with Ukraine...that he was going to invade and topple a sovereign country. With Ukraine, we have 100,000+ Russian soldiers involved...not a handful of Mercs. With Syria...it was initially started by the Arab Spring and became an internal civil war that ended up spreading across the region.
In short, I find very little to be analogous about the 2 separate conflicts. Further, to use Syria as an example of why it's OK for nuclear armed countries to be in a conventional weapon conflict is on the edge of being dangerously reckless in your logic.
Yes...it sucks....but it could suck a lot worse and I'm afraid you would be pushing the US to find this out and quickly regret not being more patient.
It wasn't a comparison, just an example of how nuclear-armed adversaries can go kinetic without going nuclear. As the list of countries with nuclear weapons grow, more and more examples of them going kinetic without going nuclear abound. Pakistan-India was the other example I cited, and they go kinetic against each other *constantly* and they live next to each other. Want to address that aspect of the argument?
Why is it that some nuclear-armed nations can go kinetic without going nuclear but somehow US/Russia *must* go nuclear if it ever went kinetic. The history of nuclear-on-nuclear state conflicts speaks otherwise. In fact, it's only ever been nuclear-armed nations using them against unarmed ones according to the history (we're the only ones who've used them).
I'm sorry and not trying to be contrarian for contrarian's sake...
If you give me examples...I take that as comparisons....but whatever you wish to call it...I'll respond:
Pakistan - India...if one of them declared that they intended to invade and takeover the other....and lined up 100,000 soldiers with thousands of tracked vehicles on the border...ready to invade...
Do you not think that that is an ENTIRELY different situation vs. skirmishes about Kashmir or whatever?
If you want apples-to-apples...that's the equivalent scenario.
I gave you examples of nuclear-armed nations going kinetic without going nuclear, then you countered by stating that it's apples-to-oranges with Ukraine vis-a-vis Russia. I agree. Not the same at all. Ukraine doesn't have nukes. Maybe don't compare nuclear vs nuclear nation conflicts to nuclear vs non-nuclear nation conflict I guess? Like, what's Ukraine going to escalate to? We were talking about US v Russia *within* the context of the Ukraine fight remember? That's nuclear power vs nuclear power. Ukraine vs Russia is not.
If Russia shoots a tactical nuke into Ukraine...do you think we should respond with a nuke? Just one? Do we hit the battlefield or something in Russia?
It can become nuke vs nuke very quickly despite Ukraine not having any nukes.
This is why Russia wouldnтАЩt respond by firing a nuke into Ukraine. What have we said about deterrence working both ways? What have we said about nuclear armed actors going kinetic without going nuclear? ThereтАЩs a lot more historical precedent for my predictions than yours. IтАЩve already cited those examples, but go off on fear rants I guess. We can do that all day until every dictator in the world has nukes and then weтАЩll still be wetting ourselves when itтАЩs their turn to slaughter people. But keep thinking we should be more afraid of them than them of us. The world is going to work out great with that precedent in motion.
I hope youтАЩre right.
Remember when Challenger went down due to losing fire resistant tiles on the the bottom of the shuttle?
The investigation of the incident revealed that engineers felt bolstered by the fact that nothing had happened despite losing tiles each flight.
The lesson learned was that just because something works a few times doesnтАЩt mean the risk isnтАЩt real.
NASA lost a shuttle and all those aboard because of this. Are you willing to risk a nuclear war based on this theory of yours?
Yes, because the alternative is living in a world with MORE nuclear-armed butchers who saw what Putin got away with, and then weтАЩre in this same situation even more often 15-25 years down the road when my kids are of military service age. You want to live in that world and explain to your kid how this trend could have been stopped 20 years ago if we had only done something to deter that kind of behavior as heтАЩs signing the paperwork at the USMC recruiting office?
The lesson here: if youтАЩre stuck floating on your own in the middle of the ocean, pissing in your pants will only keep you warm for so long.
That's why Kim has his nukes.
Yes it is, but stating that fact, doesn't resolve it. We are actively attempting to prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The point remains...possessing Nukes is a factor in our thinking when considering militarily engagements against these countries.
Why wouldn't it be? It seems foolish to not have this as a consideration and as a moderating factor in our responses to them.
Is Iran *more* likely or *less* likely to seek nukes now that we've shown them how timid we are with nuclear-armed nations after we just went in and wasted the head of the Iranian IRGC while he was visiting Iraq?
Because we're actively telling them that we don't touch nuclear-armed Putin for X while simultaneously telling them that we'll kill whoever in their government we want to because they don't have nukes. That's the message we're sending them *right now*.
Currently...it might be a "pro" but if we continue to ratchet up sanctions and if they lead to Putin's downfall because his country revolts...then they might be a "con".
I'm all for defeating Putin, but I think it's wise to not fast-track it to a pure NATO/West military response for many sound reasons having to do with gaining more unity, allowing Putin to further prove how much a pariah he is to the world and seeing how effective the non-kinetics can be...when his oligarchs are included in the pain.
Not perfect I know...but the risk is real if we get ahead of ourselves on this and an "accident" happens triggering a really bad situation...that makes Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like a minor incident.