(September 4, 2022 at 7:34 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:(September 4, 2022 at 7:17 am)Irreligious Atheist Wrote: So that's why we want to.. air quotes.. help Ukraine? Because of the geo-political interests involved, and not because we care so much about Ukrainian lives like Western media is telling me? That's why Putin invaded in the first place and has killed tens of thousands. Because of your geo-political goals and poking at the bear. And WW3 might be a whole other ball of wax than previous world wars. We have a nuclear armed world now and mutually assured destruction in nuclear warfare is not an idea to just scoff at.
How would the US like it if one of the countries on their border, Mexico or Canada, turned anti-American and became top allies with Russia or were pro-China but anti-America?
Yes, that’s exactly why - geopolitics. Whatever the stated reasons given out for public consumption, wars are ALWAYS political (Clausewitz). There are no exceptions. This is something informed people know.
And as much as I respect Chomsky, he’s fallen down the rabbit hole of thinking that each and every European conflict is going to trigger a world war. Out if the hundreds of armed European conflicts, three have become global. Three.
Could Russia use nukes in Europe? Possible, but not very likely. Putin is clever enough to grasp that Russia could never beat NATO in either a conventional or nuclear conflict, and that the consequences for Russia would be far, far worse than for the alliance.
As for your scenario of Mexico or Canada aligning with Russia, I doubt very much that the US would like it, but I doubt even more that the US would launch a military invasion in response. The Americans tend to focus more on economic power (or ‘bribery’ if you prefer that term) these days to get their way in the world.
Boru
I completely agree that the war is about geopolitics. And I think the idea of Putin using nukes in Ukraine would be that he would be doing it under the impression that there's a good chance NATO wouldn't respond in kind by nuking Russia. As we saw in Japan, the nukes have the shock factor, but a couple of nukes wasn't necessarily as bad as the carpet bombing of cities just because they were nukes. Do we allow tens of thousands/ hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians or however many it would be die, and give Russia a pass after they've already dropped the nukes on Ukraine, to save the possible millions of lives that would die in a world war or massive nuclear exchange? It's a hard question. My solution.. well, Russia and Ukraine were in peace talks. The US and other countries have stepped in to stifle these talks, and yeah, I don't think that's a good thing. Giving in to Putin on this and making a peace deal doesn't mean he's going to get a big head and try to expand even further into Europe. It sucks that superpowers like Russia get to do bad shit without severe consequences, but sadly that's just the way the world works sometimes. Talk of "we shouldn't let the bully win" is basically just another way of saying "we have the bigger dicks so we should swing them and be the world police because we can", but like Chomsky says, it's a gamble. Is he overstating the risk of nuclear warfare? Probably, but I still don't want to make that gamble nonetheless.