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Jeff the Original's avatar

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.

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Travis's avatar

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).

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Jeff the Original's avatar

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.

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Travis's avatar

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.

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Jeff the Original's avatar

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.

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Travis's avatar

This is why Russia wouldn’t 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? There’s a lot more historical precedent for my predictions than yours. I’ve 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 we’ll still be wetting ourselves when it’s 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.

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Jeff the Original's avatar

I hope you’re 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 doesn’t mean the risk isn’t 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?

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Travis's avatar

Yes, because the alternative is living in a world with MORE nuclear-armed butchers who saw what Putin got away with, and then we’re 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 he’s signing the paperwork at the USMC recruiting office?

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Travis's avatar

The lesson here: if you’re stuck floating on your own in the middle of the ocean, pissing in your pants will only keep you warm for so long.

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Jeff the Original's avatar

Which is very much an option preferred over an exchange of nukes because someone didn’t want soiled diapers.

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