man if we have better ideas for even stricter sanctions, we should have all been tweeting them @Psaki 5 weeks ago when it could have deterred putin.
who is this and do we know she is legit?
Well it’s strategically tricky, if you crank it up to 12 right away, you leave him no reason not to say fuck it all and go for it. Also, part of what I was referring to requires either China’s buyin or the world having the willingness to sanction China as hard as we’re sanctioning Russia right now to force China to sanction Russia, and that’s an immense amount of global economic pain that average folks around the world would have to be wiling to endure, so it would take an atrocity of those proportions to build that support I think.
It does have to be just killing them. A buddy I went to high school with was a tank commander in Iraq. He’s pretty liberal and very anti-war and anti-US in general now. But he’s also said a bunch of times he’d love to be over there blowing up Russian tanks. I don’t think he can help that warrior spirit in him.
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So after watching him slaughter civilians and in a world in which he’s just nuked a population center, your plan centers on trusting that he’d have the moral conviction that he was wrong and thus be more likely to back down?
We don’t. But if you read the whole thread most of what she’s saying is just basic facts about like approval ratings and war endorsements in Russia, and her perception of the Russian people because of that. It’s an opinion piece mostly.
If a) then the are still options before we go toe to with the rooskies.*
If b) then at least we delayed the seemingly inevitable and maybe somebody gets to Putin in the meantime.
*
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If Russia invades Estonia then the US is going to be at war with Russia. It was insane to admit them to NATO in my opinion, but having admitted them, we’d be at war with Russia.
This is my problem with that argument given we are treating this as an intellectual exercise.
Again - everyone ignores me when I ask this - but how does this logic not also apply to an invasion of Estonia?
Don’t tell me because NATO. It’s still risking nuclear war. Why is that ok for a treaty but not ok for genocide of 20M people? Because Putin started it in Estonia? Well he’d be escalating more than that by launching a nuke right now, or by killing 20 million people.
I do think some of you just lack the imagination to picture that world. Putin literally committing a holocaust in broad daylight. There’s no way NATO would just sit by and watch it happen.
Who even wants to live in that world? Like if you’re terrified of nuclear war for your kids’ sake, what example is it giving them you’d watch 20 million people die out of fear? The whole Western world would plunge into an incredibly dark place for generations.
Putin does not have a literal button that can end the world. But he wants to terrify people that he does.
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I mean this just seems like blatant mischaracterisation for a lot of people worried about the nuclear politics of the situation. Maybe not the best descriptor but I can’t really cleanly describe the people who are not gung-ho NATO bomb Russia types. I think virtually all are in favour of the heaviest ever sanctions and many would be in favour of arming the Ukrainians (me for one).
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Because if the treaty breaks, nothing stops him from expanding the war into any NATO country he wants. But the main thing is that’s orders of magnitude less likely to happen, because Putin knows it’s off limits. What’s more likely is a hazy sort of situation where Moldova asks into NATO, and gets invaded as they’re being approved.
The main point is that if your goal is to prevent the loss of life, then the most important thing is to minimize the tail risk of killing 7.7 billion people, because even 0.1% of that is a shit load of people.
Well we’re already doing that. The only sanction left is oil and gas, and it looks like oil is about to happen. Russia is prepared for that.
We’re giving the Ukrainians fighter jets (probably). Weapons don’t get much more powerful than that.
Again remember, we’re not talking about the current world. You’re assuming Putin is very unlikely to invade Estonia based on the current world. I agree mostly. But a Putin that would launch a nuke on Ukraine, and NATO does nothing and it wins him the war? That Putin would have no qualms about invading Estonia.
And what if it does happen then? (remember Putin nuke world, not current world) Do we risk nuclear war then? Because I am 99% sure the same people will be arguing we have to appease Putin. We can’t risk nuclear war.
Why is admitting Estonia lunacy while admitting Poland or Norway is not? Or, if admitting Poland and Norway is indeed lunacy, then why not just cede control of the United States to Putin if he so much as says he’s going to nuke everyone?
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If Putin invades Estonia, after nuking Ukraine and getting away with it, you will 100% be arguing that we can’t risk nuclear war to defend Estonia. Best just let Putin have the Baltics and then he will be satisfied. We were wrong to expand NATO. It’s the West’s fault Putin does this to us.
Because keeed bought Mearsheimer’s spiel hook, line and sinker, and he’s the most stubborn MFer on the planet about changing his mind when presented with conflicting information. 
You are arguing about scenarios that nobody else is arguing about. The question was “Putin uses a tactical nuke” and this has somehow morphed into Putin launching a strategic nuke at Kyiv and a genocide of 20 million people.
What’s your red line for being willing to risk nuclear war? Are you going to let Putin do whatever he wants in Ukraine or will you be moved if he moves on to something like genocide? If not Ukraine, than who are you willing to stand up for? Poland? Germany? The UK? Does he need to bring war to American borders before you are moved to act?
We are really going to have to re-invent nuclear doctrine from scratch ITT, huh.
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