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Argumenting with the good old "no one is stupid enough to start a WW" is just a bit delusional. Yes, present times are much different from the past but do not underestimate the arrogance of some people fueled by ambition. It has happened before and might happen again.
 
Argumenting with the good old "no one is stupid enough to start a WW" is just a bit delusional. Yes, present times are much different from the past but do not underestimate the arrogance of some people fueled by ambition. It has happened before and might happen again.
I agree. After a certain point events can escalate out of the control of leaders on all sides. We have ample evidence that those we delegate control to can't fix basic problems let alone major ones. Our hope that they are controlling events is a comfort blanket, not a reality.
 
As long as EU membership is the goal, I would actually say you do. Because it gives the country the chance to show that it can work within these structures. And because it is easier to cook a dinner with someone you have already had a breakfast with. And let's be real, Ukraine does not have any other options than a pro-EU orientation now. Which means it will have EU rules whether it wants them or not and whether it will admit it or not. Be it by the Brussel's effect or by conditionalities in EU-Ukraine treaties.
And here's the thing. I don't think it should be the goal.
We can see already that EU membership is not an antidote to corruption.
It is a good predictor of economic growth but if we can get some of that without EU membership, all the better.
As you've correctly pointed out, given our size and poverty, we will be a huge liability to the EU. And due to high corruption tolerance, we will be a playing ground for corrupt European apparatchiks.

Look at it this way:
If we are seen by the west as a potential EU member, it's actually expedient for EU to see a lot of our territory and population gone because that would just mean a less taxing integration. If Russia gets the entire east and south, as they are set to, what's left of Ukraine is suddenly down to a Romania-sized country. Which is way more manageable. Basically, this is a "partition" scenario.
I'd rather we are seen as a military ally whose sovereignty needs to be protected. I say, give us a military alliance and leave the EU out of the picture for a while.
 
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Argumenting with the good old "no one is stupid enough to start a WW" is just a bit delusional. Yes, present times are much different from the past but do not underestimate the arrogance of some people fueled by ambition. It has happened before and might happen again.
What kind of ambition is to launch nukes and get nuke retaliation? Once you launch, you don't have a deterrent or leverage anymore.
A nuclear exchange also didn't happen before and there's no historical equivalent, for a good reason.
 
Every new development has literally never happened until it happened first.
But it's important to mention that the next WW doesn't have to involve a strategic nuclear exchange. There can be tactical nuclear strikes or no nuclear strikes at all. Also nuclear strikes on non-NATO territories or even strikes at water-based objects.
Two important takeaways here: a) involvement of nukes is not necessary and b) involvement of nukes does not even necessarily amount to losing the nuclear arsenal as a deterrent and it is not even the final level of escalation.
 
True, you can launch one nuke or tactical nukes and keep threatening with the rest. But there's no going back from such irresponsible act and suddenly even the neutrals would become your enemies.
There's no real payoff to such an act and all you get is downsides. Countries historically only thought about using nukes (and I mean Israel) when their backs were against the wall and their country was about to suffer a devastating defeat threatening its existence. That would be if NATO armored columns raced towards Russia's major cities and the Russian army was in disarray.
The Russians may be soundly defeated by a NATO intervention in Ukraine with clear statements from NATO that's all they wanted to do, and Russia would not launch even by their own criteria of nuke use.
There's also the madman act theory about Putin which explains his behavior.


Putin, change my mind.
 
True, you can launch one nuke or tactical nukes and keep threatening with the rest. But there's no going back from such irresponsible act and suddenly even the neutrals would become your enemies.
There's no going back mostly because Putin is in principle not the going-back type. He is used to always winning the chicken game.
I personally believe that the picking sides stage has already happened. Which neutral countries of note will switch their attitude? China, India? They might actually be thrilled by the idea of tactical nukes being normalized in conventional warfare. Who knows?
There's no real payoff to such an act and all you get is downsides. Countries historically only thought about using nukes (and I mean Israel) when their backs were against the wall and their country was about to suffer a devastating defeat threatening its existence. That would be if NATO armored columns raced towards Russia's major cities and the Russian army was in disarray.
There's no payoff if this is not the winning move. What if it is? It might be. Worked for the US. And their existence wasn't threatened either.
Putin's go-to reply when he is asked about something unacceptable he's done is "the US done that, why can't we?" And that's how many Russians see it too.
There's also the madman act theory about Putin which explains his behavior.
It's heartening to know that people in nice countries see the high on realpolitik geezers as pretending to be mad. Pretty sure Putin doesn't want to seem mad. He's doing his best to ensure everyone that he is stable and predictable. Just not budging on any of his demands and threatening to retaliate ruthlessly at every inteference.
That's just an aggressive foreign policy play executed by sane, albeit nasty people.
 
What kind of ambition is to launch nukes and get nuke retaliation? Once you launch, you don't have a deterrent or leverage anymore.
A nuclear exchange also didn't happen before and there's no historical equivalent, for a good reason.
More than 2,000 nukes have been detonated in tests https://www.statista.com/statistics/263223/number-of-nuclear-tests-worldwide-by-country/
Military doctrine includes detailed plans for the use of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/doctrine-su-tactical.htm
Current plans will be secret but equally nasty.
 
True, you can launch one nuke or tactical nukes and keep threatening with the rest. But there's no going back from such irresponsible act and suddenly even the neutrals would become your enemies.
There's no real payoff to such an act and all you get is downsides. Countries historically only thought about using nukes (and I mean Israel) when their backs were against the wall and their country was about to suffer a devastating defeat threatening its existence. That would be if NATO armored columns raced towards Russia's major cities and the Russian army was in disarray.
The Russians may be soundly defeated by a NATO intervention in Ukraine with clear statements from NATO that's all they wanted to do, and Russia would not launch even by their own criteria of nuke use.
There's also the madman act theory about Putin which explains his behavior.


Putin, change my mind.

I am not saying that it is likely to happen. We could go on about how mad and unlikely and suicidal it would be for Russia, but in the end, we don’t really know what is going to happen.

There’s just too many factors and possibilities which may cause Russia to feel like they may get the edge by using nukes. Whether they are correctly assessed is not really relevant, is it? Because it leads to millions of deaths either way.
 
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More than 2,000 nukes have been detonated in tests https://www.statista.com/statistics/263223/number-of-nuclear-tests-worldwide-by-country/
Military doctrine includes detailed plans for the use of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/doctrine-su-tactical.htm
Current plans will be secret but equally nasty.
If you read the article, it implies use of tactical nukes was deemed unnecessary by the 70s or 80s and after that no scenario depended on nukes to contain the Soviets/Russians.
Today the already weak Russian army was put through the Ukraine meatgrinder and is even weaker both in man and equipment. There's simply no reason for NATO to use nukes against an easily defeated enemy and no reason for Russia to do this if Russia's cores are not under real threat.
No one here managed to make a good case for using nukes, it all ends up with "things are random and anything can happen", which is a pretty dumb way of speculating.

Russia's official military deployment principles allow for the use of nuclear weapons if they - or other types of weapons of mass destruction - are used against it, or if the Russian state faces an existential threat from conventional weapons.
 
If you read the article, it implies use of tactical nukes was deemed unnecessary by the 70s or 80s and after that no scenario depended on nukes to contain the Soviets/Russians.
Today the already weak Russian army was put through the Ukraine meatgrinder and is even weaker both in man and equipment. There's simply no reason for NATO to use nukes against an easily defeated enemy and no reason for Russia to do this if Russia's cores are not under real threat.
No one here managed to make a good case for using nukes, it all ends up with "things are random and anything can happen", which is a pretty dumb way of speculating.
Despite its defensive nuclear posture, provision 12 of Russian's 2020 policy statement, detailing the main military risks to Russia "to be neutralized by implementation of nuclear deterrence" is quite wide. https://archive.mid.ru/en/web/guest...set_publisher/rp0fiUBmANaH/content/id/4152094

China's stance?: "The answer became clearer starting in the mid-1990s, when senior Chinese generals threatened to destroy Los Angeles in response to a Taiwan crisis during private talks with U.S. officials." https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/1...raine-war-threat-china-arms-race-geopolitics/

Mistakes also happen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident 1995 Yeltsin activated his "nuclear keys" for the first time. No warning was issued to the Russian populace of any incident; it was reported in the news a week afterward

At least we know our nukes are in safe hands: https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/06/25/you-can-call-2007-nuke-mishandling-an-embarrassment-but-dont-call-it-the-minot-incident/#:~:text=The infamous 2007 incident in which six nuclear,firing of the then-secretary and chief of staff.
No action would have been taken without a leak.
 
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Mistakes also happen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident 1995 Yeltsin activated his "nuclear keys" for the first time. No warning was issued to the Russian populace of any incident; it was reported in the news a week afterward
The Norwegian rocket incident was the first and thus far only known incident where any nuclear-weapons state had its nuclear briefcase activated and prepared for launching an attack.
The Norwegian and American scientists had notified thirty countries, including Russia, of their intention to launch a high-altitude scientific experiment aboard a rocket; however, the information was not passed on to the radar technicians. Following the incident, notification and disclosure protocols were re-evaluated and redesigned.
Checkmate NPCs.
 
Within a week they had demoted, discharged, or otherwise disciplined the people responsible, and all that happened was they loaded some missiles onto a plane that were mistaken for training variants.

That day's missile transport, the sixth of twelve planned ferry missions, was to have consisted of twelve AGM-129s, installed with training warheads, with six missiles per pylon and one pylon mounted under each wing of a Barksdale-assigned, 2nd Bomb Wing B-52 aircraft. When the airmen entered the bunker, six live warheads were still installed on their missiles, as opposed to having been replaced with the dummy training warheads. A later investigation found that the reason for the error was that the electronic production system for tracking the missiles "had been subverted in favor of an informal process that did not identify the pylon as prepared for the flight." The airmen assigned to handle the missiles used outdated materials that contained incorrect information on the status of the missiles. The missiles originally planned for movement had been replaced by missiles closer to expiration dates for limited life components, which was standard procedure. The change in missiles had been reflected on the movement plan but not in the documents used for internal work coordination processes in the bunker.
Although the breakout crew in the weapons storage began to inspect the missiles, an early-arriving transport crew hooked up the pylons and towed them away without inspecting or ensuring that the missiles had been inspected or cleared for removal. The munitions control center failed to verify that the pylon had received proper clearance and inspection and approved the pylon for loading on the B-52 at 09:25.

For the first incident in 40 years it was pretty low-key since they were still in controlled military areas at all times.
 
Within a week they had demoted, discharged, or otherwise disciplined the people responsible, and all that happened was they loaded some missiles onto a plane that were mistaken for training variants.




For the first incident in 40 years it was pretty low-key since they were still in controlled military areas at all times.
The initial response was it wasn't newsworthy and would have been suppressed without the press leak. How many other incidents occurred without a leak or anyone being reprimanded? Anyway, just pointing out that there are no guarantees in life and it is human to err.

 
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Sure, it would be a cause for concern if they had air-mailed a bunch of nuclear missiles on any number of other flights, or fired them in a training exercise without realize what they were, but they went from one nuclear-armed air base to another. Both had the same enhanced security, and the fault was found to be failure to follow established inspection procedures. It's scary that it was done with nukes, but it's ultimately someone failing to complete their paperwork correctly and everyone else in the chain assuming that it was done properly.
 
Sure, it would be a cause for concern if they had air-mailed a bunch of nuclear missiles on any number of other flights, or fired them in a training exercise without realize what they were, but they went from one nuclear-armed air base to another. Both had the same enhanced security, and the fault was found to be failure to follow established inspection procedures. It's scary that it was done with nukes, but it's ultimately someone failing to complete their paperwork correctly and everyone else in the chain assuming that it was done properly.
I'm glad that you're reassured. In my experience, the truth takes decades to surface. https://www.tampabay.com/news/military/veterans/the-atomic-sailors/2157927/
 
I'm glad that you're reassured. In my experience, the truth takes decades to surface. https://www.tampabay.com/news/military/veterans/the-atomic-sailors/2157927/
Navy servicemen went through a lot of **** - from radioactive waste to being exposed to distant nuclear blasts.

There is a good documentary somewhere on youtube that follows some of the UK(?) marines(?) who were exposed to the blasts as part of a test. Most of them had some nasty cancers in their lives. Governments, democratic or not, do a lot of immoral stuff to their own people, but I am not sure whether this is relevant to the topic. Dumb **** and mistakes happen all the time, most we probably don’t and will never know about.
 
I'm glad that you're reassured. In my experience, the truth takes decades to surface. https://www.tampabay.com/news/military/veterans/the-atomic-sailors/2157927/
We are living in an age of transparency and leaks, your example is from the age of secrecy and desperate, inhumane trials in the name of national security.
I'm pretty confident that contemporary conspiracies (the real ones) get exposed very soon and callousness with human lives of your own citizens gets you fired or even worse, CANCELED.
 
We are living in an age of transparency and leaks, your example is from the age of secrecy and desperate, inhumane trials in the name of national security.
I'm pretty confident that contemporary conspiracies (the real ones) get exposed very soon and callousness with human lives of your own citizens gets you fired or even worse, CANCELED.
I'm sure US citizens were equally reassured, in 1964, by the exhaustive transparency of the Warren Commission findings. :smile:

Why would anyone cover anything up?
I'm reassured that the MOD has issued a strong rebuttal to the BBC's claim that SAS death squads were operating in Afghanistan.
 
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