WW3 -All Russia / Ukraine stuff here please-

[Jimaroid]

The problem is not just beating Russia. If you take it to the extreme scenario, the combined forces of the UN and NATO very likely cannot beat Russia and China as allies.

I think the only way out of this mess is for Putin to do something stupid enough for China to turn on him. Contrary to opinion, I don't think Putin is crazy or stupid and he knows that is how he can get away with this.

 

[Old Skier]

We're not "rolling over". We are not the world police and Ukraine is not a NATO country. We don't have the right to go in and do anything more than we are doing. Just like we don't have the right to intervene with China's treatment of Uyghur muslims. Where we have got it wrong in the past is in intervening where we don't have that right.

The UN have the right to initiate sanctions against every UN country. NATO has the right to defend every NATO country. We don't have the right to do more than this. That is the entire point of having a voluntary organisation such as NATO, so that nobody feels they have the right to act as World Police.

My hope in all of this is that every other democratic country joins a larger global defence alliance to act unilaterally against this. And that we reach out and educate non-democratic countries in the correct way so that we convince more of them to join us.

Well the UN defence alliance failed in the former Yugoslavia.

 

[road2ruin]

Im not a “let it rip merchant”, I just wonder how far others feel it should go before they feel the west should act.
PS, with the current deployment of NATO forces, the last place they would be chasing Russians is inside UKRAINE. And in a conventional war Russia would be defeated by NATO IMO.

My feelings as someone younger (ish) with a young family is that it is concerning that, in my lifetime, we seem to be closer than ever to WW3 and, if Putin stays in power, it is inevitable that it'll happen as he's unlikely to stop at Ukraine. He will try other countries and attempt to put the USSR back together. If feels like NATO are eventually going to be pushed into it eventually and at that point it depends on how far it has to go.

 

[road2ruin]

The problem is not just beating Russia. If you take it to the extreme scenario, the combined forces of the UN and NATO very likely cannot beat Russia and China as allies.

I think the only way out of this mess is for Putin to do something stupid enough for China to turn on him. Contrary to opinion, I don't think Putin is crazy or stupid and he knows that is how he can get away with this.

I am not convinced that China are allies of Russia, they are an economic partner but I just cannot see them wanting to go to war with Russia. They want to dominate financially and I think that's how they measure success, anything that affects it is a problem and I suspect that is probably Russia at the moment.

 

[Old Skier]

The problem is not just beating Russia. If you take it to the extreme scenario, the combined forces of the UN and NATO very likely cannot beat Russia and China as allies.

I think the only way out of this mess is for Putin to do something stupid enough for China to turn on him. Contrary to opinion, I don't think Putin is crazy or stupid and he knows that is how he can get away with this.

Personally not sure how far Putin could really on China, especially when it comes to committing military asset’s.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

The problem is not just beating Russia. If you take it to the extreme scenario, the combined forces of the UN and NATO very likely cannot beat Russia and China as allies.

I think the only way out of this mess is for Putin to do something stupid enough for China to turn on him. Contrary to opinion, I don't think Putin is crazy or stupid and he knows that is how he can get away with this.

Summed up well

Putin is on his own here - and he knows the limits , as you say he isn’t stupid or crazy regardless of what people believe.

He knows that NATO can’t do anything providing he stays in Ukraine and China won’t join in for a war.

 

[Old Skier]

Someone about to make one hell of an IED

 

[Ser Shankalot]

My feelings as someone younger (ish) with a young family is that it is concerning that, in my lifetime, we seem to be closer than ever to WW3 and, if Putin stays in power, it is inevitable that it'll happen as he's unlikely to stop at Ukraine. He will try other countries and attempt to put the USSR back together. If feels like NATO are eventually going to be pushed into it eventually and at that point it depends on how far it has to go.

Historical analogies can often be lazy, and I’m guilty here - the more I watch the more I’m reminded of what I read about Czechoslovakia c.1938, and then what happened in the following years. I also recall a Yes Minster episode about nuclear weapons - I accept that Putin has no desire to invade Western Europe, even in the most feverish delusions. But are we all really ready to turn London and Washington and everywhere else into nuclear ash to protect the independence of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania? After Ukraine, that maybe the question.

Maybe as other posters have opined, Putin is a grandmaster playing 3-dimensional geopolitical chess, but on current form I’m not so sure.

 

[Old Skier]

Historical analogies can often be lazy.

But are we all really ready to turn London and Washington and everywhere else into nuclear ash to protect the independence of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania? After Ukraine, that maybe the question.

History does have an unfortunate habit of repeating itself as ———— history shows.

As to the other bit - All members of NATO so you can adopt your own thoughts on that.

 

[SocketRocket]

Historical analogies can often be lazy, and I’m guilty here - the more I watch the more I’m reminded of what I read about Czechoslovakia c.1938, and then what happened in the following years. I also recall a Yes Minster episode about nuclear weapons - I accept that Putin has no desire to invade Western Europe, even in the most feverish delusions. But are we all really ready to turn London and Washington and everywhere else into nuclear ash to protect the independence of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania? After Ukraine, that maybe the question.

Maybe as other posters have opined, Putin is a grandmaster playing 3-dimensional geopolitical chess, but on current form I’m not so sure.

Should NATO sacrifice member countries because they are small and Russia decides to have ambitions on controling them?

 

[Smiffy]

Sitting here watching 18 year old lads giving up their education and arming up to defend their country is heartbreaking.
My Son would be terrified.
Can only hope and pray that this all ends soon
?????

 

[Ser Shankalot]

Should NATO sacrifice member countries because they are small and Russia decides to have ambitions on controling them?

My point is this needs to be made absolutely explicit and the public conversation had (not just internationally but domestically). Because, if history shows us anything, Putin is likely to test it. He is threatening nuclear war over Ukraine and the west doesn’t want address domestically what it means for the Baltics so we don’t scare ourselves.
At Munich, the West tried rationalising with Hitler. Gave up Czechoslavakia and acted surprised when he swallowed the rest. He then called our bluff on Poland because we rolled over so easy on everything else, and then bullets started flying.

I’m not equating Putin with Hitler, but history may not repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes. As one of the earlier posters said, he is not likely stop at Ukraine given what he has publicly said and written. The more ready and explicit we are (which means a domestic discussion and buy-in) the less he may feel emboldened to test the Nato doctrine and think we’re bluffing. Unfortunately it may be a partial return to the 80s, until and unless the Russian people and elites themselves say enough is enough. I think this has gone beyond just renaming Chicken Kiev and oligarch money.

 

[Dando]

Sitting here watching 18 year old lads giving up their education and arming up to defend their country is heartbreaking.
My Son would be terrified.
Can only hope and pray that this all ends soon
?????

alot of 18 year olds are too busy being offended by hurty words and not having gender neutral bogs!

 

[Deleted member 16999]

alot of 18 year olds are too busy being offended by hurty words and not having gender neutral bogs!

While a lot of other 18yr olds are in the Armed Forces proudly serving their Country and willing to put their life on the line.

 

[BiMGuy]

alot of 18 year olds are too busy being offended by hurty words and not having gender neutral bogs!

Nearly as much as old people getting offended because people want to treat people equally!

 

[SaintHacker]

My lads regiment have today been put on notice to deploy to eastern Europe at short notice. Not sure where but he thinks Poland or Estonia. Can't say I'm exactly entralled about it (especially as he only came back from a tour of the Falklands last week) but its what he signed up for, and hopefully if he does go it will only be for peace keeping/humanitarian reasons.

 

[phillarrow]

Well the UN defence alliance failed in the former Yugoslavia.

There are absolutely zero similarities between those two situations. In fact, they are idiologically at polar opposite ends of the scale. This isn't a race/ethnic war, or a people war, it's a land war and nothing else. Yugoslavia was far more complex.

Even if they were similar though, it doesn't change the fact that we don't have the right to do anything here. We are doing what we're supposed to do and following international law. It's what we didn't go when we went into Iraq and created a whole new generation of terrorists! How did that work out?

 

[road2ruin]

Listening to an interview on the radio and an interesting question was asked.

A lot of the issues of the present are as a result of the West allowing Putin so much freedom over the last however many years to do as he pleases with little intervention. Are we now at a point whereby the risk of an all out nuclear war is less if we intervene now and put him back in his box or if we let him get a ‘win’ (whatever that means) and then find ourselves in the same situation further down the line when he tries it with another country.

The general consensus was that, whilst he is in power, the chances of the above are extremely high given his rationale for making putting the USSR back together.

 

[phillarrow]

I'm not sure I understand those who are saying we need to get more prepared and be more public about defending NATO countries. Every Western leader has gone on record to say that NATO will defend every inch of every NATO country with the full united force.
They have also talked openly about how this has brought the US and Europe closer together.
All while they are amassing troops on the borders of NATO countries.
What more are people expecting?

 

[Foxholer]

Listening to an interview on the radio and an interesting question was asked.

A lot of the issues of the present are as a result of the West allowing Putin so much freedom over the last however many years to do as he pleases with little intervention. Are we now at a point whereby the risk of an all out nuclear war is less if we intervene now and put him back in his box or if we let him get a ‘win’ (whatever that means) and then find ourselves in the same situation further down the line when he tries it with another country.

The general consensus was that, whilst he is in power, the chances of the above are extremely high given his rationale for making putting the USSR back together.

What sort of intervention would you have considered appropriate... a) back then?; b) now?