re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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If his response to being backed into a corner is to nuke his enemy, we have to let Ukraine fall or hope Putin dies before he gets backed into a corner there, or else he will nuke Lviv and Kyiv.

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I don’t think nuking Ukraine is on the table because it’s desirable to be incorporated into Russia or a vassal state at minimum. Should Poland join the fray however, idk.

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Edit: I don’t know if we have enough evidence yet that Putin is actually insane. He still seems rational and calculating, if not also ruthless and Machiavellian.

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I don’t think a decision to nuke Warsaw if, hypothetically, Poland joins the effort in support of Ukraine and moves the effort from defense to offense for the Ukrainian coalition and drives Russia out of Ukraine, is insane. Evil? Certainly. But at that point he’d have been backed into an even smaller corner for his own survival. He’d be in a position where he’s got to make a splash to turn the tide and hold the citizenry at bay. Surrender isn’t really an option.

I think a likelier outcome is his logistics problem gets worse and worse, he can't bring in enough recruits or mercenaries to make up his losses, and a hungry army with no ammo and no gas just melts away, surrendering or just starting to walk home. Then he has an existential threat to his rule and no external force to pin it on.

It's also worth noting that Putin isn't carrying around a button to launch missiles with. The order would have to go through several layers, and while Putin's loyalists may follow orders, the further down the line the more likely you'll run into a guy whose loyalty is to his country and not Putin. There were two instances during the Cold War when the Soviet Union was on the verge of launching, and both times a relatively low level officer refused to sign off on it.,

It's not my bet to make. I'm just calling it like I see it.

If we have to base our policies on fear of Putin launching a first strike, we've already lost, because he'll take advantage of it until somebody makes him put up or shut up.

@OlgaNYC1211

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Horrific insanity
"After a complete cleansing of Mariupol, the team of the DPR ombudsman, together with the law enforcement agencies of the republic, will enter the city and collect evidence of all the crimes of the Ukrainian national battalions for the tribunal" via RIA Novosti

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Just the public use of "complete cleansing". Wow.

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Are we though? His successor could be worse.

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Gust Avrakotos: There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how wonderful. The boy got a horse" And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Two years later, the boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, "How terrible." And the Zen master says, "We'll see." Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight... except the boy can't cause his legs all messed up. and everybody in the village says, "How wonderful."

Charlie Wilson: Now the Zen master says, "We'll see."

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It's also worth noting that Putin isn't carrying around a button to launch missiles with. The order would have to go through several layers, and while Putin's loyalists may follow orders, the further down the line the more likely you'll run into a guy whose loyalty is to his country and not Putin. There were two instances during the Cold War when the Soviet Union was on the verge of launching, and both times a relatively low level officer refused to sign off on it.,

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Not saying you did it, but half our country or better ran around screaming for 4 years Trump had the nuclear football and would lead to WWIII and nuclear winter. Now we have an actual strongman quasi dictator who’s invaded a large neighboring country and this is our thought exercise? Lol.

If I had to guess, and an uneducated one, I’d guess Russia’s nukes have less safeguards and hands in the pot than ours do. Whether putin literally has unilateral ability to launch or it goes through a short chain of command, I wouldn’t be betting any of those in the chain would deny orders from Putin.

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After a complete cleansing of Mariupol, the team of the DPR ombudsman, together with the law enforcement agencies of the republic, will enter the city and collect evidence of all the crimes of the Ukrainian national battalions for the tribunal" via RIA Novosti

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Nothing quite like saying once we finish killing everyone then we will work out why we killed them all

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Of the 11 suspended, only one had consequence in Parliament. Other (non pro-Russia) opposition parties weren’t suspended.

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It’s still not an encouraging development. Y’a know, if you’re into democracy or whatever.

Yeah I agree in general, but this isn’t exactly Democrats banning Republicans or the reverse. This isn’t really reminiscent of the Nazi consolidation of power in Germany either.

What’s really unknown for me is how close these parties are to Russia. [are they just pro-Russia in a general sense or are they really on the payroll to be puppets in an active war].

This is more close to McCarthyism to me. Since Russia is now a confirmed threat to Ukraine, banning of Russia groups is on the menu - a la McCarthy to Communism back when we (including our teenagers) remembered why communism was bad.

This is from wikipedia if anyone is interested:

In an informal interview with Wired, Valery Yarynich, one of the developers, revealed the following information about the algorithm "Perimeter" works on:

It was designed to lie semi-dormant until switched on by a high official in a crisis. Then it would begin monitoring a network of seismic, radiation, and air pressure sensors for signs of nuclear explosions. Before launching any retaliatory strike, the system had to check off four if/then propositions: If it was turned on, then it would try to determine that a nuclear weapon had hit Soviet soil. If it seemed that one had, the system would check to see if any communication links to the war room of the Soviet General Staff remained. If they did, and if some amount of time—likely ranging from 15 minutes to an hour—passed without further indications of attack, the machine would assume officials were still living who could order the counterattack and shut down. But if the line to the General Staff went dead, then Perimeter would infer that apocalypse had arrived. It would immediately transfer launch authority to whoever was manning the system at that moment deep inside a protected bunker—bypassing layers and layers of normal command authority.[12]

There is a General Staff and when push comes to shove, they will make the "real" decisions. IMO