The people who want the USA/NATO to start World War 3 (some of whom like Fiona "we're already in WW3"[1] Hill played key roles in preventing a pre-war diplomatic off-ramp) are doing their damndest to propagandize the public into supporting WW3.
"World War 3 has already started, don't you see it would be more dangerous not to shoot down Russian planes? The nuke plant is melting down and a Russian talk column is headed to Berlin next. The Ghost of Kyiv just needs a wingman to complete his mission in memory of the Snake Island 13!"
If NATO enters this war it will make Iraq look like an overly rough game of laser tag in comparison.
Dunno. Today two USAF B-52's circled over Moldavia for a while. Coming from England, crossing Germany, flying figures over a military shooting range there, going on to Moldavia for hours, flying back to England. Not alone OFC. There is a massive operation underway since days. There are large and smaller AWACS/AEW circling near Kaliningrad, Belorussia and just short of Ukraine. There are a dozen to several dozen tankers in the air over central and east europe almost all the time. I guess they aren't there just for fun, and probably escorted by fighters(which only rarely pop up on tracking services). Also over the seas.
There is an armada of C-17 Globemasters and C-5 Galaxies in action, shuttling whatever between bases and continents.
I don't expect them to accept being pushed back.
Wanna watch? https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ <- FILTER for MILITARY on the right sidebar, maybe click M for selecting multiple ones, which makes their tracks persist, let it run...
Just consider that until last week people in Europe were wondering if whether or not we needed NATO, while Putin had months of drills our politicians/intelligence were sleeping the best dreams
> If NATO enters this war it will make Iraq look like an overly rough game of laser tag in comparison.
In the long run, NATO might not have a choice, and then it becomes a question about who picks the time to their advantage. Right now it looks like the Russian Army miscalculated and is quite vulnerable in Ukraine. However if they're allowed to grind away to a victory, they may very learn from their mistakes, fix their issues, and be emboldened to take on a NATO country (say, one of the Baltics), from a stronger position.
If opposing the Russian Army (while they're invading an ally) unacceptably risks nuclear war, then there's really no option except cede to them whatever they want and hope that someday they'll be satisfied with less than all of it.
I mean europeans I think have a background of waiting until it's too late, like Britain and France didn't look the other side while Hitler was annexing countries in central europe? Just to wake up when the nazis were in Paris? I think he has a point, Putin destroying Ukraine and taking on Baltic states is not a matter of IF, it's a matter of WHEN
I think it is foolish to try to predict what Russia/Putin is up to once Ukraine has been dealt with (which, I assume, it/he will have achieved at some point in time). There are numerous reports of fact as well as opinion pieces published over the decades since the fall of the SU by esteemed and respected strategists which or who pointed at/predicted Russian military intervention, if NATO did not call off its eastward expansion plans. We have arrived at that point in 2008 already, and then again in 2014, and now finally also in 2022.
For those wanting to involve NATO and set off WW3 along with the nuclear apocalypse, I wonder - why the rush? We can still nuke this planet's civilization to scraps after Russia's/Putin's plans for re-establishing the "Great Russian Empire" have materialzied - or rather, if they actually do.
Please excuse my cynical undertone, but this reckless calling for intervention that may very well lead to a kind of catastrophic escalation that human history would never ever recover from REALLY scares the shit out of me :(
Finland is not in the NATO but it is an EU member, which has a similar mutual defense clause. So at that point Russia is already attacking a state with nuclear weapons.
Obviously, "unthinkable" is now struck out. Two weeks ago it was (at least for civilians around here) unthinkable that Putin would invade Ukraine (and many Ukrainians seem to have been of a similar opinion). Last week it was unthinkable that Russia would start to level Ukrainian cities. What's unthinkable this week?
The EU/NATO is already over-extended as a polity. This is not how you win in the long run.
Sweden/Finland have a complicated status with NATO. It's long been understood that extending NATO up to Russia's borders would trigger a response, which is why those countries have always partnered with NATO but never been technically a member. Indeed, through this whole debacle, the folks with brass balls have been the Swedes and the Finns.
Ironically, that is part of Putin's public justification – that Ukraine may gain Finnish status. But the reality is that Sweden and Finland are very much socioeconomically Western, whereas Ukraine is not, which is partly what makes Ukraine much harder to defend. In order to defend them, they need to be part of the polity. The EU has already had a hard enough time with Poland and Romania.
I admire his chess skills and standing up against Russia but it should be understood he is extremely pro-intervention. He wanted nuclear weapons employed by the west during the War On Terror. So on the topic of war I don’t consider him a careful or critical thinker
I couldn't find any explicit call for the use of nuclear weapons but I found the following he wrote on the War On Terror in 2002 [1]:
> If the war on terror is to be won swiftly, Mr. Bush must not lose sight of the war's twin imperatives: a decisive counterattack and a total unwillingness to appease our enemies.
> Baghdad remains the next stop but not the last. We must also have plans for Tehran and Damascus, not to mention Riyadh. The tactics will vary, but the goal -- total defeat of terrorism -- is clear. Once American ground troops are in Iraq, the message must go out to all terrorist sponsors that this game is up.
> Those who instigated the current war must remember that Coventry and Pearl Harbor backfired on Dresden and Hiroshima. There will be no peace in Gaza, no freedom from fear in Jerusalem, until we have prosecuted the war on terror in Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus and elsewhere. U.S. leadership saved Europe from fascism and communism. It is again the last hope.
With a funny quote:
> In another striking resemblance to World War II, Russia could once again be America's valuable ally. Despite Vladimir Putin's record in Chechnya and on human rights, he is way ahead of "Uncle Joe" -- the hero of the Western liberal press from 1941-45.
I don't know if Kasparov is right, but I disagree that he is not a careful thinker. He has been thinking about and writing about the dangerous of Putinism for years. He published "Winter Is Coming" nearly 7 years ago now. He wrote then (p. 9): "Giving a dictator what he wants never stops him from wanting more; it convinces him you aren't strong enough to stop him from taking what he wants." You may disagree with his thinking, but it is certainly thought-through and consistent.
Although I don't disagree with the general meaning of your comment - that experts on one area might often are not experts in another one - but in this case it's false; also, last time I checked, he was the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation. Also, it turns out he was right when he wrote Winter is Coming.
Moreover, let's be honest: you wrote your comment just because you believed the parent that Kasparov wanted to use nuclear weapons. What he proposes is completely different, and several of these points have already been implemented, at least to some degree.
Ukraine negotiated a bad deal in the 90's, giving up its own nuclear deterrent for vague, ineffectual security guarantees from the West. That said, Kasparov's perspective on what is referred to as "extended deterrence" is at risk.
Also, spillover is on the menu:
The SCMP reports: State Department counselor Derek Chollet warned Beijing -
If China tries to help Russia evade sanctions in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, it will face countermeasures, a senior US State Department official said on Thursday, without providing details.
State Department counsellor Derek Chollet said the allied nations that have joined in sanctioning Russia represent a combined 50 per cent of the global economy; China accounts for around 15 per cent.
"China, if it were to seek to evade the sanctions, or somehow dividing the sanctions, they would be vulnerable," he said. "Any country that tries to evade these sanctions will also face the consequences of its actions. I don’t want to speculate with that would be."
You know... That seems like just about the most click-bait title possible. I'm leaving that one alone. Dismissive? Maybe, but some things really are better left dismissed. Tell the mods I'm sorry, I'll review the guidelines again, and I'll try to be more substantive in the future - just not for this on a Friday.
Why do you think our current (weak) stance will avoid it? A lot of people are really not convinced of that, including Gary but also many military experts.
I think even for Putin it's always a cost/benefits analysis. Obviously he wants Ukraine and is willing to pay a high price for it. But what's the price he's willing to pay for Poland or the Baltic states? The price for attacking a NATO country is likely higher, and I assume Poland and the Baltic states are less important to him.
So, yes, I think that the current stance has a good chance of avoiding it. Much higher than the possibility of a nuclear war in case of NATO directly helping Ukraine.
Unwillingless to use nuclear weapons undermines MAD doctrine and makes nuclear war more likely. The behaviour of Western countries might have made Putin believe that they won't respond with nuclear weapons in all scenarios. The credibility of nuclear response is the cornerstone of global balance, but if your reaction to everything is "I don't want to die", then you erode that credibility.
This is beside the point somewhat, but he never lost to her in classical chess. But what he did was worse than lose. He once played a losing move against her but realized it was losing...and changed the move to one that didn't lose. i.e. cheated. He did a similar thing with Nakamura a few years ago, which was ridiculous to watch. His opponents didn't protest, for whatever reasons. I don't know if it registers in his mind that he cheats. Sadly, that's the character of the greatest chess player of all time. Hopefully Magnus keeps playing a while longer and takes that title.
A great way to weaken a position is to make weak arguments in support of it. Externally, such a move opens an otherwise strong position up to new criticism. Internally, it invites internal dissension between those who agree on the main point.
On the other hand, I think people listen to his views on politics largely because he's well-known as a chess player. In a sense, people do the opposite of an ad hominem attack, by putting more stock in his arguments because of how respected he is in chess. We have to remember that he's as fallible as anyone else.
Covering politics can range from "feverishly refreshing hackernews" to "Chatting to Mr Putin every week over a game of chess" (and letting him win, obvs).
well I mean I would expect him to know more than me because I'm not Russian and I haven't as yet ever been an important asset for the Russian intelligence services to track.
I don't think it's a case of knowing more. What more is there to know, anyway? Unless we believe that there are extremely relevant moral or logistical justifications to what Russia is doing, we should have enough information to act.
And the presence of propaganda (however that's being defined now), while super unfortunate, doesn't relieve us of our duty to act when there is injustice in the world. It can make it hard to know things, but we can still rely on what we can be confident is true: innocent people are being massacred.
And if that moral argument alone doesn't seem to matter, the logistical one should; that we are the frog in the pot while the water slowly heats to a boil. It becomes a matter of confidence that the violence won't end here, regardless of how Ukraine shakes out.
The soviets were sending SAMs and soviet operators into Vietnam which shot down American planes. That was more directly WWIII than where we're at now.
And we are sending a massive amount of Swedish AT4 antitank weapons, along with stingers, javelins, planes and the surprisingly effective turkish drones.
There is this line that we can't cross which is sending NATO troops directly into Ukraine, which is just insane logic driven by nuclear weapons. If you do that you risk response directly on sites in NATO countries and can tit-for-tat into a "strategic missile exchange" that risks the entire planet.
There is a reasonably agreed upon policy for keeping conflicts between superpowers contained so that they don't boil over into nuking the planet and we're following that policy. That means Ukrainians have to do all the dying. The alternative is everyone dies.
Readit News
"World War 3 has already started, don't you see it would be more dangerous not to shoot down Russian planes? The nuke plant is melting down and a Russian talk column is headed to Berlin next. The Ghost of Kyiv just needs a wingman to complete his mission in memory of the Snake Island 13!"
If NATO enters this war it will make Iraq look like an overly rough game of laser tag in comparison.
Don't immanentize the eschaton!
[1] https://twitter.com/KaminskiMK/status/1498377775350267906
What would be the plan here, though. If Russia continues expanding towards, say, Moldavia, is NATO expected to contemplate the development?
How big of a "buffer" does Russia need? Or better yet, what would be the next excuse?
Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Switzerland, Georgia, Moldova, would not send troops to defend Russia attacking a NATO member like Latvia, for example.
I want those countries to join NATO. NATO members get military protection - non-NATO members do not.
We need to keep the rules crystal clear because one of the most important factors in preventing nuclear escalation is predictability.
I don't expect them to accept being pushed back.
Wanna watch? https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ <- FILTER for MILITARY on the right sidebar, maybe click M for selecting multiple ones, which makes their tracks persist, let it run...
Like so: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae01d1,ae01d5,ae01d0,ae... (some E3's and R(C)135's preselected)
In the long run, NATO might not have a choice, and then it becomes a question about who picks the time to their advantage. Right now it looks like the Russian Army miscalculated and is quite vulnerable in Ukraine. However if they're allowed to grind away to a victory, they may very learn from their mistakes, fix their issues, and be emboldened to take on a NATO country (say, one of the Baltics), from a stronger position.
If opposing the Russian Army (while they're invading an ally) unacceptably risks nuclear war, then there's really no option except cede to them whatever they want and hope that someday they'll be satisfied with less than all of it.
For those wanting to involve NATO and set off WW3 along with the nuclear apocalypse, I wonder - why the rush? We can still nuke this planet's civilization to scraps after Russia's/Putin's plans for re-establishing the "Great Russian Empire" have materialzied - or rather, if they actually do.
Please excuse my cynical undertone, but this reckless calling for intervention that may very well lead to a kind of catastrophic escalation that human history would never ever recover from REALLY scares the shit out of me :(
Obviously, "unthinkable" is now struck out. Two weeks ago it was (at least for civilians around here) unthinkable that Putin would invade Ukraine (and many Ukrainians seem to have been of a similar opinion). Last week it was unthinkable that Russia would start to level Ukrainian cities. What's unthinkable this week?
Sweden/Finland have a complicated status with NATO. It's long been understood that extending NATO up to Russia's borders would trigger a response, which is why those countries have always partnered with NATO but never been technically a member. Indeed, through this whole debacle, the folks with brass balls have been the Swedes and the Finns.
Ironically, that is part of Putin's public justification – that Ukraine may gain Finnish status. But the reality is that Sweden and Finland are very much socioeconomically Western, whereas Ukraine is not, which is partly what makes Ukraine much harder to defend. In order to defend them, they need to be part of the polity. The EU has already had a hard enough time with Poland and Romania.
> If the war on terror is to be won swiftly, Mr. Bush must not lose sight of the war's twin imperatives: a decisive counterattack and a total unwillingness to appease our enemies.
> Baghdad remains the next stop but not the last. We must also have plans for Tehran and Damascus, not to mention Riyadh. The tactics will vary, but the goal -- total defeat of terrorism -- is clear. Once American ground troops are in Iraq, the message must go out to all terrorist sponsors that this game is up.
> Those who instigated the current war must remember that Coventry and Pearl Harbor backfired on Dresden and Hiroshima. There will be no peace in Gaza, no freedom from fear in Jerusalem, until we have prosecuted the war on terror in Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus and elsewhere. U.S. leadership saved Europe from fascism and communism. It is again the last hope.
With a funny quote:
> In another striking resemblance to World War II, Russia could once again be America's valuable ally. Despite Vladimir Putin's record in Chechnya and on human rights, he is way ahead of "Uncle Joe" -- the hero of the Western liberal press from 1941-45.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1028501135694580560
Deleted Comment
Just because you're good at X, does not mean you are good at Y.
Kaspaarov's good at chess. Cool. That doesn't mean anything about war, military, and the like. He's no more informed than the average layperson.
he's better know for Russian political commentary these days, for the last decade or two. If you didn't know that, why say anything?
https://twitter.com/kasparov63/status/384172818063056896 (2013)
https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/garry-kasparov/win... (2015)
He is described here as "Russian human rights activist Garry Kasparov"
https://twitter.com/ANCALERTS/status/1499587940250308610
That doesn't automatically make him right, but I don't think it's fair to say he's no more informed than the average layperson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov#Politics
Moreover, let's be honest: you wrote your comment just because you believed the parent that Kasparov wanted to use nuclear weapons. What he proposes is completely different, and several of these points have already been implemented, at least to some degree.
His point is that price will always go up. If today nuclear is out of the question, in a year it may be.
Deleted Comment
Also, spillover is on the menu:
The SCMP reports: State Department counselor Derek Chollet warned Beijing -
If China tries to help Russia evade sanctions in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, it will face countermeasures, a senior US State Department official said on Thursday, without providing details.
State Department counsellor Derek Chollet said the allied nations that have joined in sanctioning Russia represent a combined 50 per cent of the global economy; China accounts for around 15 per cent.
"China, if it were to seek to evade the sanctions, or somehow dividing the sanctions, they would be vulnerable," he said. "Any country that tries to evade these sanctions will also face the consequences of its actions. I don’t want to speculate with that would be."
Deleted Comment
So, yes, I think that the current stance has a good chance of avoiding it. Much higher than the possibility of a nuclear war in case of NATO directly helping Ukraine.
The Polgar vs Kasparov incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r#Kasparov_tou...
The Nakamura incident https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wcvtqVZndE
p.s. His name is spelt Garry not Gary.
Ad hominem attacks are always weak.
e.g. from 2013
> "In chess the rules are fixed and the result is unknown, while too often in politics the results are fixed and the rules unknown, esp in Russia."
https://twitter.com/kasparov63/status/384172818063056896
The one thing I do know, is that I do not know.
And the presence of propaganda (however that's being defined now), while super unfortunate, doesn't relieve us of our duty to act when there is injustice in the world. It can make it hard to know things, but we can still rely on what we can be confident is true: innocent people are being massacred.
And if that moral argument alone doesn't seem to matter, the logistical one should; that we are the frog in the pot while the water slowly heats to a boil. It becomes a matter of confidence that the violence won't end here, regardless of how Ukraine shakes out.
The soviets were sending SAMs and soviet operators into Vietnam which shot down American planes. That was more directly WWIII than where we're at now.
And we are sending a massive amount of Swedish AT4 antitank weapons, along with stingers, javelins, planes and the surprisingly effective turkish drones.
There is this line that we can't cross which is sending NATO troops directly into Ukraine, which is just insane logic driven by nuclear weapons. If you do that you risk response directly on sites in NATO countries and can tit-for-tat into a "strategic missile exchange" that risks the entire planet.
There is a reasonably agreed upon policy for keeping conflicts between superpowers contained so that they don't boil over into nuking the planet and we're following that policy. That means Ukrainians have to do all the dying. The alternative is everyone dies.