[aylmao]

North Korea is not a global military power, its not an important economic power, it doesn't hold considerable reserves of important resources, it's not a big player in world trade, it doesn't have a seat in important intergovernmental political forums, it's not currently involved in a large-scale armed conflict and is not a member of the UN Security Council.

North Korea dangerous because it has a (comparatively, tiny) nuclear stockpile, but in the grand scheme of things, it's rather irrelevant.

Russia is all those things above that North Korea isn't. Neither Russia nor the USA have performed nuclear tests in the 21st century and that was a huge step that took insurmountable diplomatic work to achieve. Starting nuclear tests again would not only be a huge step back diplomatically, but also open a whole other can of worms that thankfully still remains closed. As things currently are, it's a smart move geopolitically to not be the country that takes that step back, or that opens that can of worms.

[xaduha]

> As things currently are, it's a smart move geopolitically to not be the country that takes that step back, or that opens that can of worms.

That's sounds a bit too rational, not MAD enough, you know? Putin clearly wasn't thinking rationally, otherwise there wouldn't be a war to begin with.

If you're going to threaten with nuclear weapons, then saying that you gonna do it and then repeating it a few times isn't it.

[aylmao]

> That's sounds a bit too rational, not MAD enough, you know? Putin clearly wasn't thinking rationally, otherwise there wouldn't be a war to begin with.

I'm from Mexico and am currently down here and not in the USA. What strikes me as the biggest difference in news coverage of the war isn't so much the stance— in both countries the war is seen as a horrible invasion that's led to unnecessary death— but the treatment and overall depiction "rationality".

It's the little things— the adjectives, the tone, the comments, the headlines. In the USA one somehow ends up feeling Russia is a weak nation Putin managed to drag into a reckless and little-thought-out war that'll be over any minute now given the sheer incompetence of the Russian side. The same events might get coverage in Mexico, and the Russian side might be equally denounced, but one doesn't end up feeling Russia is an irrational, weak or stupid actor.

It might have to do with the smugness? After all the USA has the largest military in the world but Mexico's doesn't compare with either side's. Or perhaps culturally the USA sees Russia as "the remains of that adversary we beat last century", but in Mexico we learn about the Cold War from a third person perspective?

IMO, over a year into the war now, this war doesn't seem _that_ stupid and irrational. It's still wrong to invade another country, but the move doesn't seem "dumb" on Putin's end. He is still in power, the rubble bounced back, BRICS are as strong as ever, and if anything the USA is in a pre-electoral bind— do they keep pouring resources into supporting Ukraine or do they start focusing on Taiwan? Can both be done?

I think it's a big mistake to underestimate an enemy, and I wonder if people in the USA are underestimating Russia too much. The general population that is. I don't think the government has yet fallen into that trap of underestimating them too much.

[doctor_eval]

Putin apparently thought the invasion of Ukraine would be over in a couple of weeks.

The US said the same thing in Iraq, no?

I’m not sure that Putin is irrational, and I don’t think it’s wise to assume so.