This is it. Ironic considering that EU/US is unwilling to fight a war that will benefit them the most. Ukraine is fighting this war for their country but they are also fighting to save the world from a very possible WWIII.
Nuclear weapons are really a horrible curse, in every single ways possible. You can see the bully coming after your neighbors and you know, they know, everybody knows you won’t do anything to defend yourself to avoid a nuclear conflict. If we wouldn’t have nukes we would join our neighbors and fight but the real risk of a complete nuclear annihilation freezes all our moves.
Ukrainians and Georgians are indeed fighting our war, defending the European cause, while we are bystanders. The entire situation makes me feel sick.
When Ukrainians overthrew Putin’s puppet Yanukovych back in 2014?
My personal opinion is that Putin was never negotiating in good faith. He was negotiating as a stalling tactic while prepared and/or waited for the most opportune time to invade.
Yes, I agree, it has never been in good faith. Putin is a fascist, in the true sense of the world. His ideology is based on a "natural order" in which the strong dominate the weak and a past dream of lost glory. When he's using the "blood and soil" argument or he's talking about fighting against degeneracy it's not by mistake. If you look a bit at the ideology popular among high-ranked Russian, their behavior for the past 15-20 years make more sense.
Russia first strike on NATO will cause at most 40m dead in the most improbable scenario of NATO just standing doing nothing.
If NATO will disable the Russian nuclear C&C, they will no longer be able to launch a coordinated attack, and it will be for individual officers in bunkers to decide of fighting an unwinnable war.
"first strike"? The moment America or Russian launches a single nuke on the other the other goes full on last strike by glassing half of earth, the rest of us dying in nuclear winter.
It is called mutual ASSURED destruction (MAD) for a reason.
There's absolutely no reason to believe that is true.
Russia's military is weak, their economy is extremely weak, their manufacturing base is extremely weak, and their only defensive fall-back is nuclear weapons and masses of bodies to throw at an invading force (it would be very unwise for anybody to bother invading Russia, there's no point to that). The use of nuclear weapons doesn't equate to a world war.
Where would WW3 come from? Russia has very few allies and China isn't joining WW3 on their side (China would stay out of it unless attacked, they'd strategically position themselves to benefit from the damage to their peers).
Belarus is a joke (and that regime would be quickly broken in a conflict). Syria is destroyed. Iran is a non-threat. What else has Russia got on their side?
> There's absolutely no reason to believe that is true.
WWIII, in a literal sense (that is, between world-wide alliances), won't happen, since certainly China/India have not reason to enter it.
On the other hand though, Russia vs. the West is not so far fetched. Keep in mind that Putimir announced:
> Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered military command to put nuclear deterrence forces on high alert after aggressive statements by Nato countries, Reuters reports.
Whether this is a bluff or not, it shows a clearly deranged personality. I wouldn't be surprised if, as a matter of principle, he'd initiate a nuclear war rather than losing Ukraine. After all, invading Ukraine has been motivated entirely by principle.
Europe is not sending a lot of weapons instead of soldiers for a single reason: nukes. Nobody wants to contribute to the end of this Earth and although Putin seems to be playing Nixon's "the president is crazy" card well, you can never be sure how far from reality he is.
'As stated in the directory on the website of the Ministry of Defense, the strategic forces "are designed to deter aggression against Russia and its allies, as well as to defeat the aggressor (inflicting defeat on him), including in a war with the use of nuclear weapons."'
There is no real fear of nuclear apocalypse when a nuclear power attacks a non-nuclear power (especially one that doesn’t have a binding defense agreement automatically activated upon attack/invasion w/ a nuclear power); we’ve seen the US do that with impunity and no repercussions. Risk of nuclear annihilation only comes when one nuclear power attacks another.
You mean the recent president that signed more peace deals in the Middle East in recent history and was the only president who also hasn’t started a war since probably I’ve been alive? That guy?
...by selling out the Palestinians? And dependent on a fantasy (a demilitarized Israel?!) They were an election-year stunt. Not a real effort at diplomacy.
An old senile man is occupying the office that could have stopped Putin.
Putin didn't even call any bluff. Biden admitted on TV that they aren't doing to do anything weeks ago. Putin did exactly what he said he would do, and Biden is doing exactly what he said he would do.
It's no wonder nothing happened when Trump was in office. How many times do we need to learn that appeasement does nothing. If the Allies stopped Germany when they remilitarized the Rhineland, Hitler would've been done without much of a war. Instead, the world appeased Hitler until it was too late.
The world appeased Putin with Crimea, and then the separatists. The world is appeasing this. What's the next escalation?
Ukrainians and Georgians are indeed fighting our war, defending the European cause, while we are bystanders. The entire situation makes me feel sick.