I don’t know what this post is, but if Russia has weapons that ensure MAD, presumably that’s a good thing? The last thing we want to add to this situation is the Russians getting paranoid about not being able to maintain strategic deterrence.
lol, no its not. It’s obviously not, and how could you expect anyone to believe it is?
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Oh gmafb, IIRC this was talk about joining NATO, which didn’t happen. Regardless, Russia doesn’t get to commit genocide because a country looked elsewhere.
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If the US was 100% clear that Ukraine would not join NATO, but Ukraine was deadset on joining the EU, would Putin have invaded?
It was 100% clear that Ukraine wasn’t going to join NATO when Putin invaded. The West wouldn’t say so publicly, but privately they acknowledged that it wouldn’t happen. But we were giving a lot of training and weapons to Ukraine, so Russia was probably observing this and thinking they’re getting stronger and stronger, so the window was closing on forcing Ukraine into Russia’s sphere of influence. Maybe they figured that the longer they waited, the costlier it would be to force the issue militarily. That’s how it seems to me anyway.
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And I think that was more or less the basis for the prewar Russian proposal that was floated: US publicly acknowledge that Ukraine would never join NATO, international acknowledgement that Crimea is Russia, and political independence for Donbas. So yeah US acknowledgement of Ukraine never being in NATO probably wouldn’t be sufficient to prevent the war, but it’d be part of what would have forestalled war.
At some point, you have to realize that giving the greedy guy who’s seizing territory by force everything he wants every time isn’t going to stop him from grabbing more, right? Do you stay quiet in iterated prisoner’s dilemma’s with opponents who rat you out 100% of the time, too?
The main problem is that Russia is no longer strong enough to be a regional hegemon and maintain a sphere of influence that includes Ukraine and seems to need that lesson beat into them rather than coming to that conclusion without a fight.
Doesn’t seem to me that the US gains anything by fighting this proxy war and trying to teach Russia this lesson. And of course it’s up in the air that Russia will actually lose this war. Now the US has invested so much in it they’ll lose enormous face if Russia ends up winning. If the US just ignored Ukraine and conceded Ukraine to Russia’s sphere of influence then the US wouldn’t have lost any prestige at all.
Curse you NATO!
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Huh? Isn’t realism 101 that great power games are zero sum, and thus weakening Russia’s influence and expanding one’s own is winning? I also think you’re underestimating how much damage has been done to the Russian military, economy, and population. Even if Russia is successful in holding a chunk of Ukraine, it could be a whole generation before they are equipped enough to try again anywhere else. They may lose half a million men win, lose, or draw, on top of the population that has already fled. Birth rates are way down.
And, as has been stressed many times despite your refusal to acknowledge it, the robust Ukrainian resistance sends a strong message to China that trying to conquer Taiwan would be at least as costly if not moreso, even if the US only sends supplies without getting involved directly. That’s an enormous win.
Huh? If anyone is paying the least bit of attention to the conflict, one of the most obvious things seen is the vast superiority of NATO equipment and tactics to Russia’s. Russia eventually sacrificing enough of its people in human wave tactics is not an indictment of that. I recall seeing a few articles about various countries rethinking their orders of Russian tanks after seeing how badly they are getting rekt on the battlefield by cheap NATO Javelins and NLAWs (not to mention that Russia may not be willing to sell any tanks any time soon).
Russia’s problem is that it has already lost the war. There is no conceivable win condition for Putin. The closest would be holding on to Crimea, and maybe parts of Donbas, the latter at great expense and without legitimacy. The Germans have given up on Russian progress, Finland and Sweden are de facto in NATO.
If they could magically take Kiev, any puppet they install would be fought for 100 years.
Putin thought he was an expert on the sociology of Ukraine. Turns out he overestimated his understanding and made a bad gamble.
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What if the US is a rational actor who only gets involved in Ukraine if it sees something to be gained, even if you don’t see it?
It’s not prisoners dilemma.
Very different payoff matrix.
In a single game of PD, you should rat no matter what.
In this game. In a single game it’s best to capitulate. It’s the repeated nature that could change.
I’m sure the neocons behind this proxy war sincerely see a benefit to the war. They felt the same way about Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. Their spiritual predecessors felt the same way about Vietnam.
Que? I didn’t realize Putin was a neocon.
Anyways, have fun having the same functional position as Boebert, Trump, and MTG. Solid group you have there.
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And their predecessors at both Reims and Appomattox previously.
In a repeated game of prisoners dilemma, it is still a losing strategy to stay quiet against someone who rats every time. And Putin rats every time.
Look, sure, war is hell. War is hell. But there is one thing worse than being subject to war, and that is being subject to genocide. It is absurd to argue that the Ukrainians should just lay back and enjoy it rather than getting assistance from anyone else, even if that means pissing off their attacker.
I’m not arguing that. But if you’re gonna introduce prisoners dilemma you should try and get it right… you havent.
Anyway. Tangential to your point, so whatever.