Russia Invades Ukraine

[TorontoGold]

It has literally everything to do with Ukraine.

If you have watched what has happened in the last week or two and have fears of Russian tanks rolling through Warsaw or Berlin then I can't help you.

NATO's function was to build a coalition against the USSR dominating Europe. Ukraine falling to the Russian Federation has limited impact on NATO countries beyond waking them up that they should take their obligations more seriously.

You can feel bad for the people in Ukraine and send them some aid... and punish Russia economically without getting billions killed. Crazy...I know.

Guy plays MW2 "No Russian" once and wants to send nukes over lmao

 

[Wild Bill]

That fellow was pathetic. It was victim blaming 101. I love the reasoning that we should let Russia invade a nation because they told us they wanted to....ughhh, what? He says Ukrainians are indistinguishable from Russians....tell Ukrainians that. It would be really easy to show Ukrainians cheering for Russian intervention, if there were any.

One look at the guys wikipedia page and the guy was been on RT spouting pro-Russian talking points since they annexed Crimea. So of course Donald Trump wanted him to be the ambassador to Germany lolol

The victim here is Ukrainian people and he doesn't seem to blame them as much as he blames American foreign policy.

The comment about Russians being indistinguishable from Ukrainians is in large part true, especially in the eastern part of Ukraine. They're connected by a common history, blood and religion. The majority of the Ukrainian people are Orthodox Christians and a huge portion of them are loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church rather than the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

There are very few slavs, myself included, whose lives haven't been altered to some extent by war/conflict with fellows slavs. "Brother wars", unfortunately, have played a huge role in Slavic history. Some of us were around when the Serbs and Croatians decided to fight a needless and brutal war against each other. When the fight broke out, people on both sides disregarded the very obvious genetic and historical connection they shared, no different than Ukrainians and Russians would now. That doesn't make them right. The Serbs and Croatians have found a way to live in peace and they don't even share a common religion, so I'm confident Ukrainians and Russians will be able to do the same. It'll just take time.

I can assure you there are large factions of people in Ukraine who prefer Russian intervention, large factions of people in Russia that want nothing to do with intervention, large factions of people who are praying this escalates and gets bloodier and large factions of people who are desperately praying for peace to avoid another brother war.

Slavs are wired a certain way, and it's difficult to explain or understand. I just want this to end.

 

[NorthDakota]

Guy plays MW2 "No Russian" once and wants to send nukes over lmao

At least wait a couple months till I go home for Bar Prep. Not in the mood to get vaporized. At least back home I can just go crawl in a decommissioned missile silo.

More than 70 people entered a bidding war to buy an abandoned Cold War-era missile silo complex in North Dakota — take a look at the property

 

[GoldenToTheGrave]

According to everything I’ve read, Ukraine is a gem to be had regarding Natural Resources. Not too mention land mass, and a separating country between Russia and Crimea. There’s more at play than just “Denazification”.

What Are The Major Natural Resources Of Ukraine?

Iron ore, coal, natural gas, etc., are important natural resources of Ukraine.

www.worldatlas.com

That list includes coal (not the most lucrative resource at the moment), oil (Ukraine is net importer) and gas (also net importer). And I doubt Putin is jonesing for their graphite deposits.

The geography itself is important to Russia obviously but I don't see much upside to occupation otherwise.

 

[TorontoGold]

At least wait a couple months till I go home for Bar Prep. Not in the mood to get vaporized. At least back home I can just go crawl in a decommissioned missile silo.

More than 70 people entered a bidding war to buy an abandoned Cold War-era missile silo complex in North Dakota — take a look at the property

Highest bid was $52K? I know it's NoDak but man you get a real nice bunker setup there. How come you aren't buying it up?

 

[NorthDakota]

Highest bid was $52K? I know it's NoDak but man you get a real nice bunker setup there. How come you aren't buying it up?

I'm in school. I lack any liquidity and the locations are rather...desolate even by our standards.Some folks have renovated them and put them up for 7 figures. You get a giant ass bunker and a pretty decent amount of surface land on top too.

I'd like to take my dad to a showing of a relatively untouched one. He was a missile officer in the 80-90's and I know he'd geek out showing me around.

Ask me in a year or two. I would love to own one if only to say "lol yeah I own a doomsday bunker built by DoD."

 

[NorthDakota]

Except apparently Belarus, who is helping in all of this...

Belarus is a Russian puppet state I believe? They can be a victim in it too. When your dad tells you to do something...you probably do it.

Maybe you are right though and they are willing participants. Its a different world over there. Slavs gonna Slav (while wearing Adidas).

End of the day, we got a bunch of corrupt governments doing things...but one of them is a long declining great power with nukes so I'd rather not give them a bona fide casus belli for nuclear war against the US.

The sanctions alone are going to or already are making them feel cagey. Don't poke the bear.

 

[Wild Bill]

The horror that would result from even a single nuclear strike far outweighs whatever is going to happen in Ukraine.

This is the world we live in.

Who would have thought taking steps to avoid nuclear war would be so controversial.

 

[NorthDakota]

Who would have thought taking steps to avoid nuclear war would be so controversial.

From some of the responses you'd think Russia dropped paratroopers in Colorado or whatever Red Dawn takes place.

 

[IrishLax]

The pearl clutching about nuclear war is understandable. It’s one of the few things that one can logically clutch their pearls about because it’s such a game changer for life as we know it.

With that being said, the idea that we should capitulate to any regime with WMDs is rife with issues. If you draw the line at “well as long as they don’t attack NATO” it begs the question of what we would do if they attacked a NATO country? Let’s say Putin wakes up and decides he wants to invade Romania next… do we still not do anything because he has nukes? If we would, then there is no discernible difference to intervention in Ukraine. At some point you have to make a stand, it’s just a question of when unless you believe in appeasement or regime change. And by “intervention” I don’t mean that the US should be sending A10 warthogs to blow up convoys but I do mean that supplying planes through NATO airspace, allowing operations to be run out of neighboring countries via contractors, etc. isn’t asking much.

Similarly, what happens when Iran and North Korea get nukes? If the idea is that when they’re armed we need to kowtow to these ideologues, then we should already be considering preemptive strikes. Which seems out of the question… and means that the answer is probably to simply *not* just let anyone with a nuke do whatever they want to a neighboring country.

I will say that I’ve been mostly impressed with the sanctions and there is no way that Putin maintains the status quo if he want to retain power. But meanwhile, we’re tacitly endorsing war crimes.

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

my hope is that if the Ukrainian people can hold out long enough with our support maybe Putin can be removed from office one way or another and we can bring Russia into the fold and disarm her of her nukes. This is the time to do so. May not get another opportunity for at least a while. #LongGame

 

[Irish#1]

We obviously don't want any nukes being activated, but Putin has to realize that he would be a priority to receive one if he were to push the button.

Talks are supposed to resume today.

 

[HouseofPain]

Time to endure a severely heightened risk of nuclear war for a country like Ukraine? Nope.

Is there a country more deserving in your opinion? So UK lives, for example, are more important than Ukrainian lives? Where in your great opinion, is the line to be drawn on who is to be deserving of having their lives saved?

 

[NDdomer2]

Is there a country more deserving in your opinion? So UK lives, for example, are more important than Ukrainian lives? Where in your great opinion, is the line to be drawn on who is to be deserving of having their lives saved?

No life is created differently, I think the question becomes when and why do you risk multiple countries lives for lives of one country.

But 100% that the US govt thinks that an American life is more important than Ukrainian lives. So if any part of the decision is our countries lives for saving another countries. What is the risk/cost/benefit ratio there is the true decision factor.

Relationships do in fact still matter in all aspects of life. I wont pretend to understand the US/Ukrainian relationship in whole, but what have they done to deserve our full involvement?

 

[Irish#1]

Came across this. Psiphon is an app that allows you access to internet censored data. Over 150K users in Ukraine and Russia. Mentioned that 77TB of data was downloaded yesterday alone. Let me repeat that 77 Terra Bytes. That is a lot of data.

 

[NorthDakota]

Is there a country more deserving in your opinion? So UK lives, for example, are more important than Ukrainian lives? Where in your great opinion, is the line to be drawn on who is to be deserving of having their lives saved?

I dont need to decide that. Russia isn't going to invade the United Kingdom.

 

[pumpdog20]

Is there a country more deserving in your opinion? So UK lives, for example, are more important than Ukrainian lives? Where in your great opinion, is the line to be drawn on who is to be deserving of having their lives saved?

I think the U.S. thinks the line is a NATO country. So now everyone can stop asking where the line is, or when do we take a stand against a nuclear power.

 

[ShamrockOnHelmet]

The pearl clutching about nuclear war is understandable. It’s one of the few things that one can logically clutch their pearls about because it’s such a game changer for life as we know it.

With that being said, the idea that we should capitulate to any regime with WMDs is rife with issues. If you draw the line at “well as long as they don’t attack NATO” it begs the question of what we would do if they attacked a NATO country? Let’s say Putin wakes up and decides he wants to invade Romania next… do we still not do anything because he has nukes? If we would, then there is no discernible difference to intervention in Ukraine. At some point you have to make a stand, it’s just a question of when unless you believe in appeasement or regime change. And by “intervention” I don’t mean that the US should be sending A10 warthogs to blow up convoys but I do mean that supplying planes through NATO airspace, allowing operations to be run out of neighboring countries via contractors, etc. isn’t asking much.

Similarly, what happens when Iran and North Korea get nukes? If the idea is that when they’re armed we need to kowtow to these ideologues, then we should already be considering preemptive strikes. Which seems out of the question… and means that the answer is probably to simply *not* just let anyone with a nuke do whatever they want to a neighboring country.

I will say that I’ve been mostly impressed with the sanctions and there is no way that Putin maintains the status quo if he want to retain power. But meanwhile, we’re tacitly endorsing war crimes.

agree completely, except, there’s nothing tacit about it…. we, whether that’s the US, NATO, UN, EU, are all perfectly aware of the war crimes and basic humanitarian violations happening, and collectively shrug our shoulders and say, it’s ok that they do that, we’ll hold “tribunals” later… ffs

 

[ozzman]

Someone asked about the resources that Ukraine has. This video does a pretty good job of setting the table for the current situation


This video does a good job explaining Russian doctrine and what is going on with the convoy.

 

[notredomer23]

Saw a video this morning of UK volunteers shipping off. 16,000 already arriving seems rather shocking, though.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

The pearl clutching about nuclear war is understandable. It’s one of the few things that one can logically clutch their pearls about because it’s such a game changer for life as we know it.

Risking the end of the world is a BFD.

With that being said, the idea that we should capitulate to any regime with WMDs is rife with issues. If you draw the line at “well as long as they don’t attack NATO” it begs the question of what we would do if they attacked a NATO country?

Let's hope we never find out.

Let’s say Putin wakes up and decides he wants to invade Romania next… do we still not do anything because he has nukes?

Yes, because Article 5 of NATO requires we do so. If a NATO member got invaded and we did nothing, the international order we've spent decades building would fall to pieces immediately.

If we would, then there is no discernible difference to intervention in Ukraine.

Not true. Ukraine borders Russia, which is the nuclear-armed (former) great power that NATO was created to contain. That's one of many reasons why they're not presently a member of NATO or the EU. To grant Ukraine the same security guarantees we've extended to Poland would require putting American missiles on a Russian border, which would be a hugely provocative act.

At some point you have to make a stand, it’s just a question of when unless you believe in appeasement or regime change. And by “intervention” I don’t mean that the US should be sending A10 warthogs to blow up convoys but I do mean that supplying planes through NATO airspace, allowing operations to be run out of neighboring countries via contractors, etc. isn’t asking much.

There are a lot of options between "appeasement" and "regime change". But our media is certainly presenting everything in terms of that false dichotomy.

Similarly, what happens when Iran and North Korea get nukes? If the idea is that when they’re armed we need to kowtow to these ideologues, then we should already be considering preemptive strikes. Which seems out of the question… and means that the answer is probably to simply *not* just let anyone with a nuke do whatever they want to a neighboring country.

North Korea already has nukes. What it lacks is the technology to create ICBMs that could threaten American cities. But they were primarily interested in keeping us from invading, which they've accomplished, because we can't do that without watching Seoul get vaporized.

And why do preemptive strikes to stop a rogue regime from acquiring nukes seem out of the question to you? I'd argue that's one of the few cases where aggressive action could clearly be justified. Israel has already done this several times against Iran. And the only reason we haven't done this to North Korea already is because they're a Chinese protectorate.

I will say that I’ve been mostly impressed with the sanctions and there is no way that Putin maintains the status quo if he want to retain power. But meanwhile, we’re tacitly endorsing war crimes.

We're not tacitly endorsing anything. We've done everything short of direct military engagement.

When you're holding the world's biggest hammer, there's a temptation to see every problem as a nail. I understand the frustration with seeing conventional military aggression that we could easily stop and being unable to use that awesome hammer. But nukes simply take certain options off the table. We've made it almost 80 years in the nuclear age without destroying the planet, and there's an argument to be made that the Pax Americana has been so effective precisely because WMDs prevent great powers from engaging in the sort of super-destructive conflicts that marred the first half of the 20th century.

As far as this debate goes, I'd suggest reconciling yourself to the fact that NATO will never willingly initiate a conventional war against a nuclear power, and focus instead on how to minimize casualties, undermine Putin and bring Russia back into the fold. Some of the options currently on the table run the risk of driving Russia into the arms of China and causing them to create a separate monetary union. If the $USD ceases to be the reserve currency for the world economy, that will destabilize things far more than whatever is happening in Ukraine.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

I've added a YouTube FrontLine report on Putin that I found fascinating. Hopefully someone else finds value in it.

 

[ACamp1900]

Risking the end of the world is a BFD.

Clutch those pearls harder daddy,... so hot.

 

[ACamp1900]

Yes i know this is a serious thread so forgive this and and the last post but:

 

[ab2cmiller]

We just need some giant swinging logs.

 

[ACamp1900]

We just need some giant swinging logs.

 

[irishog77]

So good to see NDinLA again! Thanks for posting that!

 

[Rogue219]

Interesting dialogue coming out of Russia.