[d3ckard]

Otherwise you let Putin have Ukraine and basically show your ass. We’re all afraid of nukes, but that fear can’t make us allow for everything.

I am a Pole as well and also very uncomfortable. I also believe Nato should intervene in Ukraine. Otherwise, we just wait until it’s our turn.

[elric]

The nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed ~200k people. Any target worth nuking, (say Nato HQ) will result in millions of casualties. Urbanization & increased population density have many benefits, but they make for mind-bogglingly disastrous targets of nukes.

If there's a choice between nukes raining down and between Putin ruling the world, I'll happily choose the latter. No matter the cost, there cannot be a nuclear war.

[kgwgk]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesson_of_Munich

"Although appeasement, which is conventionally defined as the act of satisfying grievances by concessions with the aim of avoiding war, was once regarded as an effective and even honourable strategy of foreign policy, the term has since the Munich Conference symbolised cowardice, failure and weakness. Winston Churchill described appeasement as "one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last".

[elric]

If we're going to be quoting that page, we might as well do it right:

> But when Britain and France did go to war in 1939, they were still unable to save Poland from being conquered and occupied. Clearly, had they gone to war a year earlier, they would not have been able to save Czechoslovakia, either

Churchill is probably not someone we should ascribe too much wisdom to...

That, and nukes changed everything.

[kgwgk]

How is quoting one fragment of a quote appearing in the page (without an indication that it's a quote or by whom) more right than quoting a full paragraph?

[nickpp]

Giving up everything trying to avoid a nuclear war is the surest way to get it. I know, it's counterintuitive, but if you want peace you must be willing to go to war.

[ghostwriter]

> Giving up everything trying to avoid a nuclear war is the surest way to get it.

Nobody is giving up everything, what is given up at the moment is a strip of land in East Europe that could be claimed back via diplomatic arrangements as soon as Putin is gone.

[nickpp]

The west has been giving up stuff since Putin gained power. Nothing has been claimed back yet. And he won’t be gone any time soon. He has plenty of targets after Ukraine too, for example Moldova which already has a separatist Russian mole region inside.

We are watching Hitler raising, not Stalin dying here.

[philistine]

What has been given to Russia is land and people. Economically, Russia has been contracting and losing its grip on the sectors it controlled.

I don't hope for war over Ukraine. I hope for the end of oil purchases from Europe. Total economic sanctions.

[darebak]

Don't you feel you are a bit hyperbolic?

[nickpp]

I’d ask my friend in Kiev if he feels I am being hyperbolic but for some reason he’s not answering his messages right now.

[cute_boi]

The last sentence is an oxymoron. How would there be peace if you go to war?

[Glawen]

It is a old Roman adage "Si vis pacem, para bellum" which held true for centuries

[nickpp]

I didn’t say "go to war", I said "be willing to go to war". That makes the whole difference.

[philistine]

That's some Peacemaker stuff there. "I love peace, and I'd kill any amount of men, women and children to get it."

[llampx]

Current war for future peace.

[cute_boi]

I don't think so. Middle east war, Afghan war never brought any peace. Instead it backfired. So, I really don't like such platitudes.

[llampx]

I agree in a way, but I also think that in avoiding conflict, it is possible to see yourself pushed back into a corner to where a bigger conflict becomes necessary.

[catlikesshrimp]

It is easier to come up to that conclusion when you don't have skin in the game.

Poor Ukranians are the ones thinking they shouldn't have given up their nuclear warheads.

[elric]

Everyone has skin in this game.

[Jetrel]

Unfortunately for people with your worldview, this isn't the way the world works. You're thinking under a framework that one set of actions will certainly prevent it, and the other is more likely to cause it.

At this point, neither intervention nor non-intervention is likely to prevent this. It's entirely likely that if Putin loses this assault, or faces an intractable insurgency, he could launch nukes out of a desperate attempt to save face. He's old — at this point, only the reputation he leaves behind is what matters to him, and it's clear that he wishes to be remembered as a fearful and powerful figure. What better way to do that than nuking someone?

Your attitude is the same entrapment that allows abusive spouses to hold their spouse in thrall. I've actually witnessed that backfire to its ultimate degree; in my hometown, a woman in an abusive relationship called her husband's bluff on his threats to kill her if she left, and he wasn't bluffing. Killed her in broad daylight at a local bank, and then killed himself.

The question you have to ask is whether you think her leaving him was the only thing that precipitated him killing her, or whether his killing her was because he realized she no longer loved him.

Everything in life is a gamble.

[gambiting]

>>At this point, neither intervention nor non-intervention is likely to prevent this. It's entirely likely that if Putin loses this assault, or faces an intractable insurgency, he could launch nukes out of a desperate attempt to save face. He's old — at this point, only the reputation he leaves behind is what matters to him, and it's clear that he wishes to be remembered as a fearful and powerful figure. What better way to do that than nuking someone?

I do agree that if he's pushed against the wall he can nuke one Ukrainian city saying it was the hideout of the rebels or whatever, effectively sending a message that he's not afraid to use nuclear weapons, without directly attacking a NATO state. I can only assume that at that point whatever is left of Ukrainian government would voluntarily step down to prevent further destruction.

You're right that he's a madman, and any sort of logical strategy just doesn't apply here.

[lobocinza]

Then he will rule the world and nuke regardless because you are weak.

[lupire]

Why would he nuke if he ruled? That has no benefit to him.

[lobocinza]

Why would he nuke if he didn't? It has no benefit to him.

No rational agent is going to use nukes. And no diplomacy and leniency towards tyranny will save us from the crazy ones.