Either the EU manages to step in and largely fill the gap, or Ukraine will have to give in. Russia can then ingest Ukraine, continue to seed political distrust in Western countries and then potentially start another war in Europe a few years later.
Alternatively, the NATO/EU/US may decide to become directly involved in the war in Ukraine to avoid a further destabilization of Europe. In that case, Russia can be beat, although I'd expect Russians to be more motivated to go into war.
I'm not sure whether the way the war against Ukraine plays out has too much influence on whether China decides that it needs to start a war against Taiwan though.
Why do people talks so easily about US starting war with Russia? They each have thousands of nukes and if it devolves into nuclear war then earth is fucked beyond repair for at least a few centuries. This is not WW2 anymore, a war doesn't mean dropping with a bunch of soldiers on a beach, it means an apocalyptic destruction of earth.
That is true but at the same time, a line has to be drawn somewhere. If we just let Russia win because they have nukes, there is nothing to stop them from invading and absorbing other neighbors. We can’t let the threat of nukes keep us from doing anything and allowing for Russia and China to just invade anywhere they want.
We can’t let the threat of nukes keep us from doing anything and allowing for Russia and China to just invade anywhere they want.
I'm sorry, but yes-we-fucking-can.
Jesus, people here are so fucking blood thirsty that they're willing to entertain nuclear-fucking-holocaust just to 'draw a line in the sand'
Friendly reminder that the US has already been 'invading anywhere they want' - I sure am glad the baddies aren't as eager as the good guys are to glass half the planet.
No one here is bloodthirsty other than the country that invaded Ukraine and now wants to wipe out its people. We are just supposed to sit back and let it happen and let the Russians just keep picking random countries to destroy? No one is advocating for use of weapons of mass destruction but they are advocating for the defense of an independent country attempting to defend itself.
The existence of nukes takes direct military intervention off the table, full stop. Diplomacy is the only way unless a nuclear exchange is acceptable to you.
The US is so privileged that they don't realize that "just sit back and let it happen" is how the rest of the world has had to deal with them for the last 80 years, and now it's unconscionable to think they have to 'let it happen' with a foreign adversary themselves
I think the world would be better if every country had nukes and countries like Russia, Israel, and the US couldn't simply steamroll every other country standing in their way.
You're making too much sense for their patriotic propaganda riddled brains. During the cold war, the media made the population fear the enemy and it's nukes. Nowadays, they instead turned it into making a complete joke of Russia , even making fun of their nukes. So, no wonder the US population think it's ok to start a war with them despite the thousands of nukes at their disposal. They think it'll be as easy as invading yet another poor middle eastern country.
What an idiotic take on this. Yes we can let China and Russia take what they want? Tell me you’re a tabkiensithout telling me you’re one.
What country do you live in, and how ok would you be with being annexed into Russia.
It's not a matter of being ok with another country abusing their neighbors, nor is it about 'letting them do what they want', it's about acknowledging the mutually assured destruction established during the cold war and having to reckon with the fact that there are other nations with the ability to end civilization that have other ambitions than you.
Leftists get mocked a lot about their pie-in-the-sky economic goals, but at least they have an intimate understanding of international conflict and the reality of oppositional superpowers. Unlike sheltered american adolescents who've never left their country for more than a week and have been assured their entire life that the US is the most powerful and moral nation on earth.
And that's to say nothing about the fact that america is the antagonist to most other nations on the planet.
The alternative to this “line in the sand” is the eventual destruction of all things beautiful and good at the hands of the world’s most evil people.
Stop being naive.
The alternative to this “line in the sand” is the eventual destruction of all things beautiful and good at the hands of the world’s most evil people.
Lmao who's being naive?
No earth is better ? Got it! Let the great reset begins!
We haven't even colonized a single other planet and we depleted earth ressources pretty bad,so if it's a reset, it will be a complete hard reset that bricks earth save file forever. No more technological evolution for any future inhabitants ! The great filter might actually be the answer to the Fermi paradox after all.
We can’t let the threat of nukes keep us from doing anything and allowing for Russia and China to just invade anywhere they want.
This part gave me a nervous laugh. 'Only us are allowed to invade anywhere we want, and if anyone else does it we're ready to hard reset earth because we want the exclusivity rights!'
Cope and seethe. Ukraine deserves to keep its independence and hopefully America continued to support it. Russia isn't going to use their nukes and every time they threaten it, fewer and fewer people get scared each time. Also American isn't going to go to war with Russia, they're just going to keep sending mothballed armour that destroys the Russian stuff.
Get off your high horses. I know Ukraine is a very sensitive subject for some but I didn't mention anything about it. We're fucking talking about not escalating it into nuclear war here. You know Ukraine, and no other countries for that matter, wouldn't exists after a nuclear holocaust,right ?
Lastly, I am against colonization and invasion of any kind.
This post is about Ukraine mate.
Second, there will be no nuclear war escalation so calm down.
Cope and seethe.
This post is about Ukraine mate.
And the comments I was answering to was talking about nato/us/eu starting a war with Russia. You should be less oversensitive.
Second, there will be no nuclear war escalation so calm down.
Yep, The rest of the world would greatly appreciate it.
Cope and seethe.
I geuss you didn't read the last part of my comment then.
Given that Ukraine is losing so obviously that even western media admits it now, it's pretty clear that you're the one doing all the coping and seething here.
I live in Germany, was a teenager in the 80s. We would have been ground zero then, and would be ground zero now.
I've already spent all the fear of nuclear war in the 80s. I am just not able to fear nuclear war now, anymore. The fear just dulls after nearly half a century.
The choice is to let a madman bring war to one country after another or to stop it - with the cost that stopping has a miniscule chance of me getting vaporized.
But doing nothing will keep the risk of nuclear war for another 50 years. It has to be stopped now, appeasement never did anything good.
All the west has accomplished so far is to ensure that more Ukraine is destroyed, and it's obvious to anybody with a functioning brain that there is no chance of Ukraine winning at this point. The best chance Ukraine had was last summer during the fabled offensive that failed miserably. Ukraine is never going to be in as good position going forward. So the actual choice is to ensure more people keep dying or to negotiate with Russia. Incredible that after two years westerners still can't get this through their skulls.
Bro we are on the brink of nuclear war with Iran and Israel over some bullshit. If one nuclear power wars with another the nukes will drop instantly. Stop trying to kill me, I don't want to die in a nuclear blast for fucking Ukraine.
We have 122 vaults spread all over, just in case, no? ... No?
I didn’t read that comment as implying war was easy or okay. How’d you get that impression?
the NATO/EU/US may decide to become directly involved in the war
After their involvement, I doubt they'd do nothing if some of their soldiers get shredded by a Russian bomb. Let's imagine Russia is beaten and it's on the brink of complet defeat. Do you really not expect them to send nuclear warheads everywhere before collapsing as an ultimate fuck you ? 10% of the warheads are enough to turn earth into a post apocalyptic wasteland.
Same goes the other way around, and given that Russia is in a stronger position than the west, that's the scenario we should really be talking about. What happens when NATO gets shredded by Russia the same way their Ukrainian proxy. Will NATO just pack up and go home or escalate to use of nuclear weapons. Incidentally, US intentionally keeps an open posture on this.
Russia used to be that powerful, but not today. It will put a decent fight but I doubt it'll be able to deal against so many powerful military foes.
I'm by no means an expert in international relations. However, with respect to your last paragraph, I do think that China monitors the development carefully. I would even go so far and assume that they won't act on Taiwan until the situation in the Ukraine is decided. Not because the cases are so similar, but because China and Russia seem to be important partners for each other. Right now, China is supporting Russia financially by buying resources from them (if I'm not mistaken) and also supporting them with equipment embargoed by the EU/US. China will probably know what it's risking when they attack Taiwan and I doubt that they want to create that sort of situation while one of their most important partners (might be mistaken here) is in a war that binds their resources and weakens their support for China.
On the other hand, they could also try to start the war on Taiwan soon, hoping that NATO/US stretch their support too thin.
Tl;Dr: I don't know either.
The number of fronts in this war seems to keep expanding.
I hate that I predicted this all the way back when the “two week” lockdown was starting, and that nobody listened to me and I got accused of “valuing the economy over Grandma”.
If my account hadn’t been deleted I could link to my comment where I predicted:
lockdowns would extend far longer than two weeks
it would ruin the global economy
causing world war 3 to start
I was just laughed at basically.
I can't follow you. Where is the connection between lockdowns (I assume you mean the Covid19 lockdowns?) and the war in Ukraine?
I'm jumping in after skimming so much long discussion... But I do see a possible link here. COVID and the lockdowns have shaken up a lot of society. I remember even back when the anti-mask and BLM protests happened in America about the same time (I'm not American btw, just seeing some news) feeling like the stress and shut-in-ness of lockdowns and COVID fear is probably part of the fuel for people to protest: it gives a sort of release from that.
Now the economy's been shaken up so much, and more people are finding it hard to get an acceptable job. The comfortable life trajectory many people were on has taken a hit and wealth they assumed was safe and assured (including things like house-buying prospects) has crumbled beneath them.
Many are also suffering brain fog and Long COVID, making life feel less stable, and hitting their job prospects.
The intensity of COVID responses also seems to have given much fuel to American political disunity, and hatred and resentment, as well as political/civil frustration elsewhere in the world.
I don't know how Russia has been, but I imagine there's some of the same, at least. And all this unsettling of life and intangible worry, puts people in a much readier situation to rise up around some flash point - such as a war - or to be desperate enough to concede whatever demands their government makes of them - such as conscription for dubious end.
Not that that's the whole picture by any means, but, perhaps, there is some link from lockdowns to global war.
Russia can then ingest Ukraine, continue to seed political distrust in Western countries and then potentially start another war in Europe a few years later.
Holy shit this is the most mapgame-brained comment of all time. You mean Russia will get enough war score to annex Ukrainian territories, wait a few years for aggressive expansion to die down, spend some admin points to press the "sow discontent" button, then war when the casus belli is ready? Like a classic EU4 blob?
Stop gaming and read some books.
I mean.
It's not like Russia has never done any of those things individually.
So doing them again in that sequence seems right.
Russia has been seeding discontent in Europe for decades. (1)
Russia has invaded Checnya, Abkhazia, Southern Ossetia, Transnistria, Krim, Ukraine (2). Baltics stand next in line, in a few years, if West fails.
How has Russia invaded Transnistria? Transnistria was a breakaway region during the collapse of the Soviet union, similar to Gagauzia
No one disputes that Chechnya is Russian territory. Russia cannot invade its own territory.
Georgian military intended to genocide ethnic minorities. Russia supported the autonomy of said minorities.
Crimea was given to Ukraine by Kruschev very recently. It is almost entirely ethnically Russian, and those ethnic Russians voted overwhelmingly to secede during a coup/constitutional crisis as the alternative was staying in a country where there culture and language are banned, or worse become the target of hate crimes from neo-nazi battalions as many cases are well-documented
Either the EU manages to step in and largely fill the gap, or Ukraine will have to give in. Russia can then ingest Ukraine, continue to seed political distrust in Western countries and then potentially start another war in Europe a few years later.
Alternatively, the NATO/EU/US may decide to become directly involved in the war in Ukraine to avoid a further destabilization of Europe. In that case, Russia can be beat, although I'd expect Russians to be more motivated to go into war.
I'm not sure whether the way the war against Ukraine plays out has too much influence on whether China decides that it needs to start a war against Taiwan though.
Why do people talks so easily about US starting war with Russia? They each have thousands of nukes and if it devolves into nuclear war then earth is fucked beyond repair for at least a few centuries. This is not WW2 anymore, a war doesn't mean dropping with a bunch of soldiers on a beach, it means an apocalyptic destruction of earth.
That is true but at the same time, a line has to be drawn somewhere. If we just let Russia win because they have nukes, there is nothing to stop them from invading and absorbing other neighbors. We can’t let the threat of nukes keep us from doing anything and allowing for Russia and China to just invade anywhere they want.
I'm sorry, but yes-we-fucking-can.
Jesus, people here are so fucking blood thirsty that they're willing to entertain nuclear-fucking-holocaust just to 'draw a line in the sand'
Friendly reminder that the US has already been 'invading anywhere they want' - I sure am glad the baddies aren't as eager as the good guys are to glass half the planet.
No one here is bloodthirsty other than the country that invaded Ukraine and now wants to wipe out its people. We are just supposed to sit back and let it happen and let the Russians just keep picking random countries to destroy? No one is advocating for use of weapons of mass destruction but they are advocating for the defense of an independent country attempting to defend itself.
The existence of nukes takes direct military intervention off the table, full stop. Diplomacy is the only way unless a nuclear exchange is acceptable to you.
The US is so privileged that they don't realize that "just sit back and let it happen" is how the rest of the world has had to deal with them for the last 80 years, and now it's unconscionable to think they have to 'let it happen' with a foreign adversary themselves
I think the world would be better if every country had nukes and countries like Russia, Israel, and the US couldn't simply steamroll every other country standing in their way.
You're making too much sense for their patriotic propaganda riddled brains. During the cold war, the media made the population fear the enemy and it's nukes. Nowadays, they instead turned it into making a complete joke of Russia , even making fun of their nukes. So, no wonder the US population think it's ok to start a war with them despite the thousands of nukes at their disposal. They think it'll be as easy as invading yet another poor middle eastern country.
What an idiotic take on this. Yes we can let China and Russia take what they want? Tell me you’re a tabkiensithout telling me you’re one.
What country do you live in, and how ok would you be with being annexed into Russia.
It's not a matter of being ok with another country abusing their neighbors, nor is it about 'letting them do what they want', it's about acknowledging the mutually assured destruction established during the cold war and having to reckon with the fact that there are other nations with the ability to end civilization that have other ambitions than you.
Leftists get mocked a lot about their pie-in-the-sky economic goals, but at least they have an intimate understanding of international conflict and the reality of oppositional superpowers. Unlike sheltered american adolescents who've never left their country for more than a week and have been assured their entire life that the US is the most powerful and moral nation on earth.
And that's to say nothing about the fact that america is the antagonist to most other nations on the planet.
The alternative to this “line in the sand” is the eventual destruction of all things beautiful and good at the hands of the world’s most evil people.
Stop being naive.
Lmao who's being naive?
No earth is better ? Got it! Let the great reset begins!
We haven't even colonized a single other planet and we depleted earth ressources pretty bad,so if it's a reset, it will be a complete hard reset that bricks earth save file forever. No more technological evolution for any future inhabitants ! The great filter might actually be the answer to the Fermi paradox after all.
This part gave me a nervous laugh. 'Only us are allowed to invade anywhere we want, and if anyone else does it we're ready to hard reset earth because we want the exclusivity rights!'
Cope and seethe. Ukraine deserves to keep its independence and hopefully America continued to support it. Russia isn't going to use their nukes and every time they threaten it, fewer and fewer people get scared each time. Also American isn't going to go to war with Russia, they're just going to keep sending mothballed armour that destroys the Russian stuff.
Get off your high horses. I know Ukraine is a very sensitive subject for some but I didn't mention anything about it. We're fucking talking about not escalating it into nuclear war here. You know Ukraine, and no other countries for that matter, wouldn't exists after a nuclear holocaust,right ?
Lastly, I am against colonization and invasion of any kind.
This post is about Ukraine mate.
Second, there will be no nuclear war escalation so calm down.
Cope and seethe.
And the comments I was answering to was talking about nato/us/eu starting a war with Russia. You should be less oversensitive.
Yep, The rest of the world would greatly appreciate it.
I geuss you didn't read the last part of my comment then.
Given that Ukraine is losing so obviously that even western media admits it now, it's pretty clear that you're the one doing all the coping and seething here.
I live in Germany, was a teenager in the 80s. We would have been ground zero then, and would be ground zero now.
I've already spent all the fear of nuclear war in the 80s. I am just not able to fear nuclear war now, anymore. The fear just dulls after nearly half a century.
The choice is to let a madman bring war to one country after another or to stop it - with the cost that stopping has a miniscule chance of me getting vaporized.
But doing nothing will keep the risk of nuclear war for another 50 years. It has to be stopped now, appeasement never did anything good.
All the west has accomplished so far is to ensure that more Ukraine is destroyed, and it's obvious to anybody with a functioning brain that there is no chance of Ukraine winning at this point. The best chance Ukraine had was last summer during the fabled offensive that failed miserably. Ukraine is never going to be in as good position going forward. So the actual choice is to ensure more people keep dying or to negotiate with Russia. Incredible that after two years westerners still can't get this through their skulls.
Bro we are on the brink of nuclear war with Iran and Israel over some bullshit. If one nuclear power wars with another the nukes will drop instantly. Stop trying to kill me, I don't want to die in a nuclear blast for fucking Ukraine.
We have 122 vaults spread all over, just in case, no? ... No?
I didn’t read that comment as implying war was easy or okay. How’d you get that impression?
After their involvement, I doubt they'd do nothing if some of their soldiers get shredded by a Russian bomb. Let's imagine Russia is beaten and it's on the brink of complet defeat. Do you really not expect them to send nuclear warheads everywhere before collapsing as an ultimate fuck you ? 10% of the warheads are enough to turn earth into a post apocalyptic wasteland.
Same goes the other way around, and given that Russia is in a stronger position than the west, that's the scenario we should really be talking about. What happens when NATO gets shredded by Russia the same way their Ukrainian proxy. Will NATO just pack up and go home or escalate to use of nuclear weapons. Incidentally, US intentionally keeps an open posture on this.
Russia used to be that powerful, but not today. It will put a decent fight but I doubt it'll be able to deal against so many powerful military foes.
people who actually have a clue seem to disagree with you champ https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/attritional-art-war-lessons-russian-war-ukraine
I'm by no means an expert in international relations. However, with respect to your last paragraph, I do think that China monitors the development carefully. I would even go so far and assume that they won't act on Taiwan until the situation in the Ukraine is decided. Not because the cases are so similar, but because China and Russia seem to be important partners for each other. Right now, China is supporting Russia financially by buying resources from them (if I'm not mistaken) and also supporting them with equipment embargoed by the EU/US. China will probably know what it's risking when they attack Taiwan and I doubt that they want to create that sort of situation while one of their most important partners (might be mistaken here) is in a war that binds their resources and weakens their support for China.
On the other hand, they could also try to start the war on Taiwan soon, hoping that NATO/US stretch their support too thin.
Tl;Dr: I don't know either.
The number of fronts in this war seems to keep expanding.
I hate that I predicted this all the way back when the “two week” lockdown was starting, and that nobody listened to me and I got accused of “valuing the economy over Grandma”.
If my account hadn’t been deleted I could link to my comment where I predicted:
I was just laughed at basically.
I can't follow you. Where is the connection between lockdowns (I assume you mean the Covid19 lockdowns?) and the war in Ukraine?
I'm jumping in after skimming so much long discussion... But I do see a possible link here. COVID and the lockdowns have shaken up a lot of society. I remember even back when the anti-mask and BLM protests happened in America about the same time (I'm not American btw, just seeing some news) feeling like the stress and shut-in-ness of lockdowns and COVID fear is probably part of the fuel for people to protest: it gives a sort of release from that.
Now the economy's been shaken up so much, and more people are finding it hard to get an acceptable job. The comfortable life trajectory many people were on has taken a hit and wealth they assumed was safe and assured (including things like house-buying prospects) has crumbled beneath them.
Many are also suffering brain fog and Long COVID, making life feel less stable, and hitting their job prospects.
The intensity of COVID responses also seems to have given much fuel to American political disunity, and hatred and resentment, as well as political/civil frustration elsewhere in the world.
I don't know how Russia has been, but I imagine there's some of the same, at least. And all this unsettling of life and intangible worry, puts people in a much readier situation to rise up around some flash point - such as a war - or to be desperate enough to concede whatever demands their government makes of them - such as conscription for dubious end.
Not that that's the whole picture by any means, but, perhaps, there is some link from lockdowns to global war.
Holy shit this is the most mapgame-brained comment of all time. You mean Russia will get enough war score to annex Ukrainian territories, wait a few years for aggressive expansion to die down, spend some admin points to press the "sow discontent" button, then war when the casus belli is ready? Like a classic EU4 blob?
Stop gaming and read some books.
I mean.
It's not like Russia has never done any of those things individually.
So doing them again in that sequence seems right.
Russia has been seeding discontent in Europe for decades. (1)
Russia has invaded Checnya, Abkhazia, Southern Ossetia, Transnistria, Krim, Ukraine (2). Baltics stand next in line, in a few years, if West fails.
It's literally a sick war game for Putin's Kreml.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68685604
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia
Ok, I'll bite