It is quite logical. Budapest Memorandum signed in 1994 where UK, USA and Russia guaranteed sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine in exchange for nuclear weapons on Ukrainian soil which remained there after dissolution of USSR. If Russia wants to renege on Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine should get their nukes back.
Also you can see another side of the coin - Iran and DPRK would need to be insane to get rid of their nukes because only reason why big powers won't touch them is the nuclear poison pill, which Ukrainians gave up and look where they are.
Control is very relevant here. The hardest part of nuclear weapon - plutonium core - was there. The fact that you don't have access keys from electronics which controls explosives around the plutonium core is kind of non-issue for a state actor.
Trump wants everyone to get nuclear weapons. He wants a world of transactional big players and unreliable alliances with shakedowns. That is a world were everyone scrambles for a nuke, naturally. And pakistan is broke- you can get one there relatively cheap.
The USA and Israel regard Iran as enough of a threat that they won't allow it to obtain nuclear weapons. Strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities are one of the primary missions that B-2 bomber crews train for. There's no intent to seize Iranian territory, they'll just wreck everything and leave.
What deterrent? Putin doesn't care about that and would use those warheads (largest stockpile of warheads) if necessary even as soon as Ukraine tries to attempt to get a deterrent.
It is bad enough that the US is already in a proxy war and that does not help at all and arming Ukraine with nuclear warheads just further escalates the risk into another world war.
The US is in a proxy war akin to the French role in the US's founding war, the revolution. But different, in that the fear is that one defeated country dominoes into a wider European and cross Atlantic war, i.e. ww3. Not protecting Ukrainian sovereignity is seen as not protecting polish or Romanian independence. It isn't seen like Vietnam; it is seen as China after the mukden incident or Czechoslovakia had they fought a Nazi invasion.
Sad to say but the only way to be taken seriously and avoid military incursions/invasions is to hold nuclear weapons.
I do wonder how nuclear disarmament will continue when it looks like obtaining nuclear arms is one of the few ways to truly achieve sovereignty and not rely on the benefactors of your neighbors.
Curious if anyone has reading materials about this.
Nuclear disarmament is over because, otherwise, you’re putting your nation’s sovereignty in the hands of the US electorate. Would you trust them with your life and future? I certainly wouldn’t.
If you can’t trust superpowers (including the US), you have to protect and defend yourself. That’s the nuclear way (and perhaps a bit more percentage of GDP towards defense for everyone).
In a civil world, it wouldn’t be necessary, but based on who keeps floating to the top of the power hierarchy, it’s mandatory. Maybe a nation worth trusting will rise again, but I’m not hopeful.
My guess is, that if USA will keep playing around and pretend that Ukraine is somebody else's problem to solve, they will find out that Eastern Europe can make a nuke too. Then what is USA going to do? Sanction Europeans? Then there is no reason to continue sanctioning Iran from Europeans perspective for exactly same thing.
Which Eastern European country do you mean? Most are already NATO members. Of those that aren't, Belarus is already a Russian client state, Serbia is too far away, and Moldova is too poor to do anything.
What's the point of NATO membership, when chief elect is openly saying that he is not going to help if Russia will make move into Baltics.
Personally I would expect that Poland with cooperation with Czech Republic (they have whole nuclear research facility north of Prague) would be able to do it in short amount of time - less than 5 years.
I am sure that Poland would be eager to develop a nuclear arsenal. Countries like Germany, Italy and Turkey could also easily develop one if they thought that the NATO nuclear umbrella was unreliable.
France has nukes... And my semi-educated guess would be, a NATO where a Putin-puppet leaves a US-shaped hole might get France exporting its nukes to the east quickly, in exchange for some clout.
Elements of the Ukranian government have apparently sort of quietly hinted that if they don't receive sufficient conventional military aid then they'll be forced to develop nuclear weapons as a last resort. Ukraine has officially denied this, but it's impossible to know how they'll react as Russia conquers more and more territory. Ukrainian leaders are quite aware that the only meaningful guarantees of continued sovereignty would be NATO membership or having their own nukes. Otherwise even if the current war is settled with some sort of truce, Russia could just rearm and attack again in a few years.
Given the state of post-collapse Soviet bookkeeping I also wouldn't be surprised if Ukraine actually does still have some warheads kept in secret. The problem though is those may not be enough against a country which spent the last half-century preparing for a war involving thousands of warheads.
Lets not forget that russias "subversion" of europes politics and culture is also relentless. The fifth column would continue the attack from inside, even if a treaty was signed. AFD and BS in germany come to mind, Front National in France, etc. They have so many useful idiots, with anit-imperial ideas useful for the last empire standing.
they need to capture as much Russian soil as they can, and when the orange man and the other clown tell them to freeze the border, Ukraine can say sure, if you insist!
whatever they're going to do, they have two months. I really hope they manage to get a reasonable deal out of this. I personally think giving up land should come with full NATO membership or at least the kind of mutual defence that the UK signed with Finland and Sweden on their way into NATO.
That's right, and imagine Putin giving up land - it's not going to happen. If Ukraine wants any of their own land back, they have to hold on to the Russian land.
Personally I think for the sake of survival they should consider giving up on the land they've lost but join NATO and have our nukes stationed there for their protection from further attacks.
From what I understand, that is actually a reasonably strong prevailing opinion in Ukraine. They're not keen on relinquishing their claim on any part of their land, but they would consider leaving it under Russian control in a peace deal, and what's not at all optional is some form of security guarantee that meaningfully deters Russia from trying again (but than NATO hasn't actually offered, and it seems like they think they can leave that question until after peace has happened, which conflicts with Ukraine's view that it's a 100% prerequisite for peace).
You really think people who are dragged to the trenches by press gangs [1] will "capture soil"? The video is by RFERL, BTW, as Western as it gets. Not "FSB propaganda".
You are peeing against the wind by talking logic here. I witnessed the same rabid propaganda by Americans for Iraq war and same rabid propaganda for Syrian war, for Libyan war, for Afghanistan...
They don't care. It's not their lives or their family or their land
The Ukrainians want their land and their people back. As long as they're willing to fight, I'll support them. The day they decide to give up and let the genocidal Russians sweep across their country, it'll be their decision.
No, there's just so much propaganda-addled thinking floating about here that it's frankly exhausting to wade through, and as a result, I sometimes misread people.
The vastly bigger point is -- there's plainly no logic to the the primary implication you are attempting to posit here. Which, with only light paraphrasing, boils down to this:
"Russia hosts a large population of refugees from Ukraine; these of course being largely from the Russian-speaking population, which the Russian regime considers to be its own people. From this fact, therefore, Russian regime can't possibly be in the business of committing ethnic cleansing or other genocidal actions against the actual Ukrainian-speaking population of Ukraine."
24x7 all your historic comments on this site is about how russia is bad and why we should start a nuclear war. Most likely you are one of the brain damaged cia astroturfer.
I left reddit due to all the official shillings and now its the same garbage propaganda from braindead retards like you
Wow! It's crazy. Just think about - no Russian invasion equals no refugees. Isn't it mind-blowing? Russia is sadly a warmonger nation, apparently even more so than imperialist USA. Something that won't ever be forgotten now.
Likely response is bombing whatever is left of Ukrainian power generation and potentially arming the Houthis.
The analysis I’ve seen indicates that these weapons will not fundamentally alter the course of the war.
Kursk was a gamble to improve Ukraine’s negotiating position, which has gotten consistently worse.
Maybe I'm wrong, but with the river north of the Ukrainian border, it seemed like they wanted that as new easier to maintain defensive line.
The defenses in the north were affected by incompetence or corruption, so the push north came across a little like shoring up their positions to need fewer men in the long run.
It is not enough to warrant giving the barking dog what it demands from others and it does not deserve, as that will teach it that such barking is okay.
In any case, it is a much weaker dog than you, and the dog has fewer functioning nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Ultimately the dog won't bite with nuclear weapons because it knows you bite harder and it will lose.
Come to think of it, such an aggressive dog which repeatedly barks and attacks its own neighbors unprovoked is a threat to the community and should be put down.
You think letting Russia harass and invade their former vazal states is without risk? They've occupied eastern Europe until 1989. With the invasion of Crimea in 2014 they've basically only not harassed and not occupied eastern European countries for only 25 years. The only thing which provokes Russia is weakness.
It's for security: It's less risky now to fight Russia then later, after they've conquered more people and territory, and have political momentum.
It's for security again: If Russia wins, it greatly damages the international order which has prevented wide-scale war for generations. Remember the world before 1945.
It's for people: The lives, freedom, rights, and prosperity of tens of millions of people are at stake.
> It's for security: It's less risky now to fight Russia then later, after they've conquered more people and territory, and have political momentum.
This is a fair and logical point.
> It's for security again: If Russia wins, it greatly damages the international order which has prevented wide-scale war for generations. Remember the world before 1945.
That very international order hinges on the US being the sole dominator of the entire world. Sooner or later that sort of international order has to crack.
> The lives, freedom, rights, and prosperity of tens of millions of people are at stake.
Pax Americana is paid for (in blood, natural resources, political sovereignty and the fate of every single future generation) by hundreds of millions of people, though outside of the "western, civilized" world. You still consider it some righteous cause? Sounds kind of selfish.
>> The lives, freedom, rights, and prosperity of tens of millions of people are at stake.
> Pax Americana is paid for (in blood, natural resources, political sovereignty and the fate of every single future generation) by hundreds of millions of people ...
I didn't say anything about righteousness, but about the human beings directly affected by Russia's invasion.
With fairness to these "emotional lunatics", their assumption that Russia would be too afraid to attack NATO territories has thus far been proven right.
As long as we are able to quibble about on the internets, ye, we haven't come to lobbing those around yet. Correct. Always a correct argument if it makes ot to the servers. At this point it hasn't happened...
Unfortunately for Russia, the "Final Warning" strategy has since been translated into English and is therefore ineffective against modern NATO regiments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China's_final_warning
America doesn't negotiate with terrorism, only strategic arms reduction. Russia cannot desire for nuclear war because it cannot be used as a bartering tool; ICBMs are merely an expensive pen for signing their own death warrant.
The US's national security interests in supporting Ukraine are pretty blindingly obvious. Turning isolationist and emboldening Russia helps no-one but Russia.
I think that Russia (Putin) thought that ukraine would collapse within days and it would be a walkover.
But it wasn’t and Zelensky bound his people together to resist the Russian army. The Russian army showed its capabilities and more surprisingly it’s huge limitations.
The oligarchy in Russia may well determine that getting rid of Putin might be less risky than letting him escalate the situation, especially if he starts talking about using even battlefield nukes.
Abandoning Ukraine risks emboldening Russia to continue their conquest of Eastern Europe - which, ultimately, increases the risk of nuclear war anyway, only with a stronger Russia with even more leverage. Being nuclear armed should not give a country license to seize any territory they wish.
I think it reduces the risk of a nuclear war. The thing to understand about Russia is that all their "red lines" are empty talk, and what they really respect is force. Ukraine appeared weak to Putin, and that's why he invaded. Only way to peacefully coexist with Russia is by either becoming their puppet, or having enough strength to make an invasion seem obviously bad idea.
IMO the best way to prevent a nuclear war with Russia would be supplying all its neighbours with big pile of nuclear weapons. Then they would have nowhere to invade without risking their own destruction.
>Only way to peacefully coexist with Russia is by either becoming their puppet
Finland has been peacefully coexisting with USSR and Russia for almost 80 years after the WW2.
>would be supplying all its neighbours with big pile of nuclear weapons
Russia could do that too. Starting with Cuba, for example. Think of every country the US ever invaded or bombed having nukes and the means to deliver them to the US.
The CIA and the Department of State did worse already all around the globe. US can't claim the moral high ground on this. So yeah, maybe think about the consequences of escalation.
Yes it is. And even then, looking at what Putin is doing to Ukraine, they decided to promptly join NATO and seek further direct military cooperation with the US. They are currently building facilities to pre-position American equipment in Finland in addition to their own large and excellent army. Finland indeed represents a blueprint for peaceful coexistence.
Better to be dead then to be a slave in russia- which almost always means you will become a slave dragged against your will to the trenches to die in another enslavement campaign. So the choice boils down russia or not russia - and beeing dead either way.
The same people who were very wrong about the election seem to believe everything the same media says about Russia. Very strong correlation, very questionable propaganda
I don’t know what media you consumed, but the media I read indicated the race could go either way, and that a 300+ EV tally for either candidate was possible. It’s literally impossible to have been “wrong”.
Bit of “media literacy” for you: The media you read does not exist to inform you. Trump’s lead would have had to have been overwhelming for published polls to indicate that he would win.
The media here in the UK told us that intel was saying Russia had gathered troops and equipment near the border of Ukraine, preparing for an invasion. Putin said they were lying.
Then Putin invaded Ukraine, but called it a special military operation.
Now our news tries to keep us updated about which territory is controlled by Russia or Ukraine, what the rough estimated casualties are, and so on.
Which part do you think they're misinforming us about?
Typically this would require something to be gained from engaging in nuclear war. If you bring out the nukes then you are pretty much asking to be utterly destroyed. Sure you may get some of your enemies in the meantime, but you won't survive to see them dead. Using nukes in Ukraine is just a quick way to turn every other country in the world against you.
I think it is far more likely that Russia is waiting for a change of leadership in America that is friendly to their cause. In the meantime they are digging fortifications and stocking up for a future offensive to retake Kursk and expand their holdings in Ukraine when they lose access to American munitions.
That's exactly it. Up until now, it was widely believed that this would risk nuclear war, which is why it wasn't allowed.
But now the US is about to have a President who is far, far more favorable to Putin. Would Putin blow up the US just before it's going to cease support for Ukraine entirely?
This is a calculated risk. Everything about this war has been a calculated risk (and indeed, any war). There is a strong argument to be made that nuclear war was never really going to happen, and that we should have allowed Ukraine to attack Russia more directly all along. The present administration rejected that, but now that calculation has changed.
The atacms strikes will help in kursk, but less so in the east imo. Maybe this will mess up those logistics as well, but it seems too little too late.
Just politically, It isn't parity to ten thousand soldiers and 60% of their shells being North Korean. North Korea is at war in Europe, and this is not a commensurate response.
Lifting the restrictions now after Russia's logistics have already retreated also took the bite out of their potential. It should have been a surprise, overnight, when the Russian airforce was still relatively concentrated and unconcerned.
Better than nothing; I hope it changes something, for a time at least.
Because those voices scream only when russia finfs it usefull and it hoodwinked a whole generation disguised as the ussr that it was a antiimperial force of freedom. Fool me once,shame on me, fool me twice, himars om you.
I believe in peace as well. I will happily recommend that Russia should end their war of aggression against Ukraine and return all territories that they have captured. Question is, who will bell the cat?
Would you mind letting us know which country you're from? If Russia invaded your country, claimed part of your land, how far would you let them go, just to preserve peace? Is there a cut-off point for you, or none at all?
I'd probably let them take the 60%+ Russian speaking parts where I had been persecuting their countrymen and then maybe sue for peace or something along those lines.
Russia gave freedom to my country. And to almost 90% of global south.
Russia also gave freedom to Europe from Nazi Germany. Communist fighters also gave their lives for freedom from Nazis in most Scandinavian countries including baltic.
The only three countries that invaded and threatened to invade are US, UK and Germany.
History is now repeating as a farce run by a senile demented 90 year old man who doesnt care about anyones lives because he doesnt have much left either.
The US and its allies are not very stretched in general. US troops in combat zero, US aircraft zero etc. I mean they are a bit stretched in some areas like making artillery ammo that we kind of thought was a thing of the past but there are huge amounts of stuff not being used. I don't know if you remember the 1991 gulf war? That was the last time the US flexed really. Iraq had 1,000,000+ soldiers 5,500 tanks 700+ aircraft 3,000 artillery systems and they were wiped out in no time.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 195 ms ] threadAre you really literally suggesting to start a nuclear war with Russia?
Also you can see another side of the coin - Iran and DPRK would need to be insane to get rid of their nukes because only reason why big powers won't touch them is the nuclear poison pill, which Ukrainians gave up and look where they are.
When you see it for what it is, giving Ukraine nuclear weapons is the last thing anyone (except internet posters) wants.
* They didn’t control the weapons, nor could they financially afford to maintain them.
It is bad enough that the US is already in a proxy war and that does not help at all and arming Ukraine with nuclear warheads just further escalates the risk into another world war.
I do wonder how nuclear disarmament will continue when it looks like obtaining nuclear arms is one of the few ways to truly achieve sovereignty and not rely on the benefactors of your neighbors.
Curious if anyone has reading materials about this.
If you can’t trust superpowers (including the US), you have to protect and defend yourself. That’s the nuclear way (and perhaps a bit more percentage of GDP towards defense for everyone).
In a civil world, it wouldn’t be necessary, but based on who keeps floating to the top of the power hierarchy, it’s mandatory. Maybe a nation worth trusting will rise again, but I’m not hopeful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum
Personally I would expect that Poland with cooperation with Czech Republic (they have whole nuclear research facility north of Prague) would be able to do it in short amount of time - less than 5 years.
What has Trump said about the Baltics?
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-nuclear-bomb-1985621
what can be done by that military in that amount of time?
But this gives them a better chance of holding what they have and destroying the Russian logistics and infrastructure.
Hopefully the European powers and the UK will lift any restrictions that they have imposed and provide additional supplies.
Personally I think for the sake of survival they should consider giving up on the land they've lost but join NATO and have our nukes stationed there for their protection from further attacks.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnw2Abqmu64
They don't care. It's not their lives or their family or their land
Absolutely false - Russia has about 1.7 million, other countries some 6 million.
Whatever source you got that verbal snippet from is messing with your head.
Russia #1
Germany #2
Poland #3
I dont know if you guys are just trolling, genuinely braindead retards or official astroturfers from the 3 letter soups
The vastly bigger point is -- there's plainly no logic to the the primary implication you are attempting to posit here. Which, with only light paraphrasing, boils down to this:
I left reddit due to all the official shillings and now its the same garbage propaganda from braindead retards like you
The same garbage propaganda from braindead retards like you
You're in explicit violation of site guidelines. Recommend you stop.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The analysis I’ve seen indicates that these weapons will not fundamentally alter the course of the war. Kursk was a gamble to improve Ukraine’s negotiating position, which has gotten consistently worse.
The defenses in the north were affected by incompetence or corruption, so the push north came across a little like shoring up their positions to need fewer men in the long run.
In any case, it is a much weaker dog than you, and the dog has fewer functioning nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Ultimately the dog won't bite with nuclear weapons because it knows you bite harder and it will lose.
Come to think of it, such an aggressive dog which repeatedly barks and attacks its own neighbors unprovoked is a threat to the community and should be put down.
... Are you from an alternate universe or something? Of course they were. Literally from day one of the current invasion.
†: everybody == a lot of people, just to be clear
That's not the goal.
It's for security: It's less risky now to fight Russia then later, after they've conquered more people and territory, and have political momentum.
It's for security again: If Russia wins, it greatly damages the international order which has prevented wide-scale war for generations. Remember the world before 1945.
It's for people: The lives, freedom, rights, and prosperity of tens of millions of people are at stake.
This is a fair and logical point.
> It's for security again: If Russia wins, it greatly damages the international order which has prevented wide-scale war for generations. Remember the world before 1945.
That very international order hinges on the US being the sole dominator of the entire world. Sooner or later that sort of international order has to crack.
> The lives, freedom, rights, and prosperity of tens of millions of people are at stake.
Pax Americana is paid for (in blood, natural resources, political sovereignty and the fate of every single future generation) by hundreds of millions of people, though outside of the "western, civilized" world. You still consider it some righteous cause? Sounds kind of selfish.
> Pax Americana is paid for (in blood, natural resources, political sovereignty and the fate of every single future generation) by hundreds of millions of people ...
I didn't say anything about righteousness, but about the human beings directly affected by Russia's invasion.
America doesn't negotiate with terrorism, only strategic arms reduction. Russia cannot desire for nuclear war because it cannot be used as a bartering tool; ICBMs are merely an expensive pen for signing their own death warrant.
I think that Russia (Putin) thought that ukraine would collapse within days and it would be a walkover.
But it wasn’t and Zelensky bound his people together to resist the Russian army. The Russian army showed its capabilities and more surprisingly it’s huge limitations.
The oligarchy in Russia may well determine that getting rid of Putin might be less risky than letting him escalate the situation, especially if he starts talking about using even battlefield nukes.
IMO the best way to prevent a nuclear war with Russia would be supplying all its neighbours with big pile of nuclear weapons. Then they would have nowhere to invade without risking their own destruction.
Finland has been peacefully coexisting with USSR and Russia for almost 80 years after the WW2.
>would be supplying all its neighbours with big pile of nuclear weapons
Russia could do that too. Starting with Cuba, for example. Think of every country the US ever invaded or bombed having nukes and the means to deliver them to the US.
> Russia could do that too. Starting with Cuba, for example.
Or arming Mexican cartels. The Chinese mafia (wink wink) is already doing money laundering for them in US/EU.
It would hurt Mexicans and just plain evil.
Nuclear war is not something to be lightly risked
Then Putin invaded Ukraine, but called it a special military operation.
Now our news tries to keep us updated about which territory is controlled by Russia or Ukraine, what the rough estimated casualties are, and so on.
Which part do you think they're misinforming us about?
Only russian bots and people with mental development problems.
I think it is far more likely that Russia is waiting for a change of leadership in America that is friendly to their cause. In the meantime they are digging fortifications and stocking up for a future offensive to retake Kursk and expand their holdings in Ukraine when they lose access to American munitions.
But now the US is about to have a President who is far, far more favorable to Putin. Would Putin blow up the US just before it's going to cease support for Ukraine entirely?
This is a calculated risk. Everything about this war has been a calculated risk (and indeed, any war). There is a strong argument to be made that nuclear war was never really going to happen, and that we should have allowed Ukraine to attack Russia more directly all along. The present administration rejected that, but now that calculation has changed.
Is it correct? Who the heck knows.
Just politically, It isn't parity to ten thousand soldiers and 60% of their shells being North Korean. North Korea is at war in Europe, and this is not a commensurate response.
Lifting the restrictions now after Russia's logistics have already retreated also took the bite out of their potential. It should have been a surprise, overnight, when the Russian airforce was still relatively concentrated and unconcerned.
Better than nothing; I hope it changes something, for a time at least.
The only three countries that invaded and threatened to invade are US, UK and Germany.
History is now repeating as a farce run by a senile demented 90 year old man who doesnt care about anyones lives because he doesnt have much left either.
Which country?
You also didn't answer my question.