Right. Mighty Russia that has been fought to a standstill by its much smaller neighbour is going to provoke a military alliance absolutely dwarfing it into outright war. Not even China is going to back that after having a look at who the more valuable trading partner is.
Being ready for war is reasonable, being afraid or worried is a waste of time, and even irrational in this case.
From the article, starting in the next paragraph after the one your quote was in:
> But what is the threat? In 1940 the danger of a German invasion of the UK was very real. But the chances of Russian tanks rolling up Whitehall are surely negligible.
> "It's not the tanks you need to worry about," says historian Margaret MacMillan, author of War: How Conflict Shaped Us.
> "It's the cutting of cables on the ocean floor. It's the hacking into systems on which so many things depend. The possibility for asymmetric war, for cyber war, is growing by leaps and bounds."
Case in point, Russia has been fought to a standstill by its much smaller neighbor using asymmetric warfare. There is no reason Russia would not turn around and do the same to other countries.
One may argue it has already done so in the past via election interference, except now it also has AI in its arsenal, which won’t even need ICBMs to be delivered to its targets.
Dude, you have no idea about the modern warfare. The only country Russia is actually afraid of is the USA. And nobody except probably the USA or maybe Turkey is even remotely ready for modern war. Russia is having "military operation" right now. If they start the "war".
Second of all, the "much smaller neighbour" is any European country to them. Ukraine is the biggest country on European continent if we include the occupied territory. And it's actually has the most capable armed forces military-wise. Russia took over 116k sq km of Ukraine. All three Baltic states are 175k sq km combined and they literally can't defend themselves in case USA decides to withdraw.
And last but not the least, Russia's war is irrational. It makes no sense from any rational viewpoint. So relying on common sense in this case is wrong. You need to understand russian ideology and Putin's specifically.
Just leave it. There are so many Russian apologists on this forum it’s exhausting. You’d think the fact that Russia is in the middle of an unwise and unnecessary war of aggression wouldn’t itself be an argument for concerns of more attacks on NATO countries and allies.
But to prebut whataboutism, I also don’t like American imperialism.
How rational is killing others when someone tell you? You need strong propaganda of fear to makes other to kill each other. Something like those articles.
Seems off-topic for HN, but let's look at it technologically: if Ukraine and Iran have demonstrated anything, it is that drones are like guerilla warfare squared: even the smallest player can land hits and deny areas to the largest forces.
It might be tending towards impossible to achieve regime change militarily at this point. Maybe we all should just figure out how to get along.
This article shows the biasses of the press. Everything is about public perception, so the problem is that the public don't perceived that there might be a war. This is stupid, public perception can shift very quickly. The actual problem is not maintaining investment and critical industries. The UK was able to shift commercial manufacturing to wartime production for world war II. That doesn't work if you've offshored everything.
Some people said two days, some said ten days. Russian officials thought they would get a short war, and they were wrong. Wikipedia will point you to a bunch of references.
A Russian war with Europe would not be the short war that the original poster alludes to by invoking statements from a Russian official.
Read between the lines. He's saying "Mess with us, we'll nuke you." They mean it. Putin is desperate enough to do it. Anyone responding to this with Euro-bravado is an idiot. Some of y'all didn't grow up during the cold war and your blind spot is showing. No one wins in a nuclear war.
They never mean it, it's a threatening tactics. Their children live in western countries and their money is there. They wouldn't allow nuking western countries just like that. ESPECIALLY if they know they attacked first. Even their own doctrine doesn't allow using nukes for anything except the direct external threat to their statehood.
You should really commit more skin to the game since your believes are so strong. Or are you so weak and cowardly that you want innocent Ukranians to go to war for your believes!
This is a BBC article about the UK being at war. Not the USA.
That said, it argues that the various pre-war preparations fail to include "psychological preparedness". I think this is largely true for America as well, since war is something that the USA almost exclusively engages in offensively in distant countries, with only one small exception for one day on 9/11.
I know, I read the article I’m just saying, we Americans have no idea how big of a conflict we’re in right now, and we are not psychologically prepared for what it will mean to be bombed by hypersonic missiles or shaheds or what have you either.
I work with some Ukrainian refugees, we are not prepared.
We certainly didn’t help - but I’m wondering if this wasn’t inevitable after the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
Totally not a fan of the guy we have driving the bus right now, I didn’t vote for him, and oppose all war. But now that we’re in it, I’m a bit concerned that this is going to be quite a bit more violent and terrible than we have the stomach for?
I mentioned above I work with some Ukrainian refugees. We are not prepared mentally for what is coming.
As a Ukrainian, I can tell you that it's not as bad as you imagine, and it's much worse than you think. The war is very grim and gruesome but you guys will adapt to it quickly after the initial shock. Articles like this are just trying to minimize that shock (it won't help).
I've seen a TON of astroturfing and bot activity on HN over the last 2-6 months or so? I suppose it's only to be expected after cheap AI agents... but it's kind of crazy how this corner of the internet has been made irrelevant too. It's really quite sad to be totally honest.
Our congress is taken over, in case you haven’t been paying attention to the complete lack of justice on Epstein. It’s not all that difficult to see who is in charge.
Also - Downvote me all you want you...the US is an awful influence on the world and if you disagree with that, you're part of the problem. I grew up thinking the US was the good guys, what a absolute load of shit that turned out to be.
That reads a little like the zeal of the convert. The US is still a more humane nation than most, though it's not immune to the diseases that come from being a great power.
I don't know about that. Honestly, idea of Americans self-ranking themselves as more humane is the kind of absurdity that lead us to where we are today. How many people making such claims have actually travelled to the nations they villainize?
For a long time I wanted to believe you, and in the past I'd have looked at work camps in China and said "thats bad". Now i look at the US prison industry and go "Is it really that different?". The examples don't end there...
Well, your thought process is "fine" we are still evil, but right now it's a matter of picking the least evil guys, and hoping they win.
I'm an American and sometimes I'm not sure which is the "least evil game here." Like, the Iranians and Russians are pretty evil, the IRGC killed a lot of people last winter and I'm friends with quite a few Ukrainians. But then also we have the ongoing insanity with ICE and the Epstein files...
The way I see it right now, we have "The Epstein Alliance" versus "The Axis of A-holes." Nobody involved in this is great, but I would rather live in America or the EU than Russia, or Iran.
To be fair, as an American, I don't know enough about what life is actually like in China to form an educated opinion? But by the sounds of it, they suck too.
My intuition is that this whole charade will come crashing down over the next few years as AI starts replacing more and more jobs.
Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, that the US was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. True then, and true today.
The ignorance of the American people enables this violence-- this is by design. William J. Casey, CIA director under Reagan, "We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false". The CIA has employed many hundreds of journalists working at major networks and newspapers like CBS, the Washington Post and the New York Times.
Reading the comments on this story, it appears that much of what Europeans believe is false, as well. Someone presented a detailed and accurate account of the recent* history leading up to the illegal, but absolutely provoked, Russian invasion of Ukraine but was accused of lying. Several comments indicate a complete lack of concern about provoking the nation with the largest nuclear stockpile in the world into a direct hot conflict. Even if it stayed conventional, which appears unlikely, Russia has a much larger military than all of Western Europe combined. Insane.
* The history should start much earlier, with US assurances to Russia that NATO would not expand, and then Clinton and all subsequent US administrations betraying these promises.
It is my current view that this BBC article and the recent announcement by national security advisor Powell are conditioning the public mind not for an actual hot war, but for a "tough winter" of eye-watering price rises, possible shortages, and maybe even utility supply problems if we are particularly unlucky. While talk of war increases, a glance at the state of the military suggests to me this is unlikely. What we have is rather limited, and even that is only about 1% deployable within 6 months. Much of Europe the same (Poland being an exception).
That said, I also believe that there is fairly widespread, low intensity, grey-zone action across Europe at the moment. Not every random fire or infrastructure failure is "The Russians", but I'd be surprised if none of them were. Indeed some of them have already been formally attributed.
It is, however, correct to attribute all sabotage and random failures to Russia until proven otherwise. No matter if we like it or not, Russia has decided to be hostile, and is actively committing sabotage.
It would be foolish to still just wring our hands about it. We have to name the enemy, Russia, and both support Ukraine's fight and do our own active hybrid actions on Russian soil. And yes, military buildup is required.
And to be clear, this will not end anytime soon. The war in Ukraine is but one aspect of Russia's imperial ambitions. It's fully possible we will not see friendly relations again in our lifetimes.
It is incorrect to blame everything onto some entity, otherwise we'll miss the real things due to being desensitised. It's a version of boy who cried wolf but crying Russia.
Ukraine is the biggest country on European continent. It has the most capable military in Europe right now. And it's backed by Europe economically. Saying that Russia can't defeat them is not the insult you think it is. If Russia mobilized 1M people and went full on war in a month, they'd easily take over the Baltics, took half of Poland and bombed the F out of Germany and France. They'd lose eventually if Europe woke up from its delusions, but they definitely can take over most of Eastern Europe.
If it were only the Ukraine the war would have long been over. The West block has supplied more than $500 billion in aid to the Ukraine, that's more than twice the US lend/lease to the Soviet Union in 2026 dollars. Plus intelligence information and probably other things I'm forgetting. The more dollars are sent to Kiev, the more blood and lives the Ukrainians are expected to invest. That's the deal.
We've been in one war or another for most of my adult life.
We are in a perilous position right now in Europe, very close to a major escalation of the Ukraine conflict. This would entail direct conflict between nuclear-armed powers.
I find it deeply troubling that no mainstream party in most European countries seems to think this is a bad idea.
Letting russians take the Crimea without any consequences in 2014 is what led the world to all of this. I dare to say, ALL of it, not just the war in Ukraine.
Letting them do even more horrible lawlessness will only lead to worse outcomes.
A major difference, IMHO, is the abandonment of the rules-based, rights-based, international order. Within it, international war (as opposed to civil war) was nearly impossible - it hardly existed for generations. While you need to prepare for the worst, you need to work for the best, for progress, like so many generations before us in much more difficult circumstances. Preparing for warfare doesn't mean accepting it; we must also work for freedom, including a just peace. It doesn't happen without work.
Again in this era, reactionary and nationalist messaging has dominated and somehow, despite generations of extraordinary success, despite being born into it and seeing its success and superiority, many/most think such an order is infeasible or even undesireable. At the same time, I've seen American leaders in the military industry advocate for becoming accustomed to mass destruction and death.
And shockingly, even the experts and practioners abandoned it and at nearly the height of its success. It's as if a messaging campaign insisted cloud computing was impossible and absurd, and so everyone just stopped using what was obviously working. For the rules- and rights-based order, yes there were outliers and setbacks and threats; that's life. But the entire free, wealthy, industrialized world subscribed, and were untouchably allied, free, safe and prosperous. Now, having abandoned it, all those things have diminished.
What's missing is not acceptance of warfare but ultimate commitment and work for freedom and peace.
This is a British article for Britons. The British press is nuts: everything is taken to extremes: events, statements and political moves. Unfortunately, every day the USA press grows more like the British press, moving leftward and increasingly alarmist. Look at what happened to Drudgereport, It once supported Trump and now it's practically a British tabloid of its own.
Take Rolf Dobelli's advice - don't listen to the news:
Europe and everyone else is entirely justified under international law to provide assistance to Ukraine to defend itself.
Regarding your edit, Russia doesn't have the right to dictate neighbouring countries which alliances they can form. What you're doing here is denying Ukraine its sovereignty, just like Russia does.
> I can not believe the europe would risk all its heritage and for what?
Quite contrary - Europe is preserving it's heritage. Remember that russia does not want to stop with Ukraine - for example they want Poland to quit NATO. What right do they have to tell other sovereign country what it can do?
Are you not essentially saying that Ukraine is partly to blame for the conflict for not wanting to roll over?
We arm and support Ukraine in their war because a tyrannical neighbour led by an autocrat is intent on taking its territory and he will not negotiate on ending it.
It's that fucking simple. Fuck him for starting it; if he won't end it, Ukraine and their allies get to make things difficult.
Good point - we must remember that russia attacked Ukraine already in 2014, Ukraine agreed to their conditions and it still did not prevent russia from wanting more. History repeats itself - appeasement never works.
Yes, in this case one side (russia) attacked other (Ukraine), which is just defending itself. It's very clear who is the aggressor here. This entire conflict could be prevented if russia did not attack, that's it.
I'm sure you think this is smart, but the indisputable fact of how this conflict started remains.
Are you suggesting that we don't come to the aid of our friends when they are attacked by our adversaries? That Ukraine does not have the right to support? That it must succeed or fail on its own or it's somehow not sporting?
Too many of your recent comments have been inflammatory. Could you please be less combative and more curiously conversational in your style of participation here? These guidelines in particular are important to heed:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer.
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
> launching a 20 year bombing and terror campaign against the Donbass
> Finally, after eight year of these terror attacks
Was it 20 years or 8 years? Those are two very different numbers, and only one has any semblance with reality given that 20 years ago was long before the so-called coup.
The simple truth many have come to realize is a European leadership that insists mass migration is not a problem and head-in-the-sand denies the critical importance of cultural unity and shared identity for the maintenance of stable and liberal democracies is a much clearer and present danger than Russia.
War a nation can recover from, but from an erosion of cultural unity and shared identity it cannot.
I like that you said genocide and not me. But what I like more is enjoying the long slide into irrelevancy of opinions like the one you expressed in your original comment. I look forward to the day we can have constructive discussions about capital investment and migration which feature no mention of such puerile and ignorant notions of ethnicity and nationalism.
They're not. Rather, the organizers of war – typically rich and powerful people in or close to London or Washington – use their propaganda networks to play these popular cards of culture and identity. Don't confuse the cause and the means.
The US lacks the political will for a war with NATO, I'm speaking of the soldiers and citizens. The worst case for NATO is US withdrawal and explicit or tacit support of NATO enemies. Some soldiers would blindly follow orders to march on Europe, but we can't even win a war against Iran right now so I'm not sure how much Europe has to worry about a US invasion. Canada, maybe, but that's probably even more unpopular in the US than invading Europe.
And it'd also be the end, economically, for the US. We'd be hosed, that isn't to say current leadership wouldn't try and end up fucking us all over, but the effect would be another loss for the US.
I'm happy you have that confidence, I think it would only take 1 generation of conditioning to get us to centralized autocratic rule. It won't be trump in power, it'll be Vance or someone else less popular but smarter.
> russia ? lol, they can't even manage Ukraine ( with our aid )
And that's why they want to attack Europe. They hope that it will either cause eu to stop supporting Ukraine or at least that it will give them good negotiation position (e.g. we'll stop attacking baltic countries but Ukraine has to let go of their territory).
if they end up attacking Nato, I think we would just go until boots are in Moscow.
our tech is better and we have more men ( we dont need North Koreans to fight)
Russia has been probing NATO for several years now. NATO is a paper tiger that seems to be content to do nothing. As long as the probing is in the lesser members: the Baltics, Romania.
When (likely not if) Russia decides to attack the Baltics, NATO will just shrug and send a strongly worded memo.
Russia and USA had elaborate discussion on the precipice of war late in 2021, but also continued discussions since the very breakup of the soviet union and the voluntary dissolution of the Warsaw pact.
Negotiations didn't go anywhere unfortunately. And it's not Russia that takes the blame.
So talking works only when russia gets what it wants and if it doesn’t you can invade other country? It doesn’t sound like taking, more like extortion.
Negotiations don't work when stakes are this high.
I read an article in early 2000 that stipulated that EU and USA are borrowing so much money that eventually they will HAVE TO recoup through war, Conquering Russia.
Poor victim Russia. They were forced to start the war, really. Had they not embarked on their campaign of conquest and genocide, NATO would surely have invaded on the 25th of February and killed them all. Luckily, Russia showing their might by stalemating a war against a neighbor a third of their population has deterred evil NATO from directly invading, like what they were surely planning to do. It's evidenced by the absolutely nothing that NATO did towards Russia in the preceding decades, but if you stomp your foot enough about your neighbors freely joining an alliance explicitly designed to safeguard against Russian bloodthirstiness, then you can almost make yourself look like the victim. Almost. At least the Russians buy it, they've been printing the same shit in their media for over a decade now and they can't get enough of it.
Russia has been criminally naive in its dealings with the West. Had they been more firm and realistic they would have never allowed the wall to fall and Warsaw pact to disband.
They have no choice now but to reassert themselves.
I hope we all survive or if it comes to it let the death be quick.
> I read an article in early 2000 that stipulated that EU and USA are borrowing so much money that eventually they will HAVE TO recoup through war, Conquering Russia.
Lol. Not how money, nor borrowing as a nation-state works. Probably from a trader-adjascent idiot who thinks he understands econ 101 because his qwants makes him money. Macro-econ is probably the subject with the biggest dunning-kruger syndrome you can find, so I advise you to either read a lot (and I do mean a lot), catch up at least to the bachelor level and continue reading econ books (written by economists PhD, not wall street insiders that journalist claims are economists), or just avoid the field completely and never believe anything an 'economist' write or say on TV, if he/she isn't a PhD.
> Threat from Russia
Right. Mighty Russia that has been fought to a standstill by its much smaller neighbour is going to provoke a military alliance absolutely dwarfing it into outright war. Not even China is going to back that after having a look at who the more valuable trading partner is.
Being ready for war is reasonable, being afraid or worried is a waste of time, and even irrational in this case.
From the article, starting in the next paragraph after the one your quote was in:
> But what is the threat? In 1940 the danger of a German invasion of the UK was very real. But the chances of Russian tanks rolling up Whitehall are surely negligible.
> "It's not the tanks you need to worry about," says historian Margaret MacMillan, author of War: How Conflict Shaped Us.
> "It's the cutting of cables on the ocean floor. It's the hacking into systems on which so many things depend. The possibility for asymmetric war, for cyber war, is growing by leaps and bounds."
Case in point, Russia has been fought to a standstill by its much smaller neighbor using asymmetric warfare. There is no reason Russia would not turn around and do the same to other countries.
One may argue it has already done so in the past via election interference, except now it also has AI in its arsenal, which won’t even need ICBMs to be delivered to its targets.
Dude, you have no idea about the modern warfare. The only country Russia is actually afraid of is the USA. And nobody except probably the USA or maybe Turkey is even remotely ready for modern war. Russia is having "military operation" right now. If they start the "war".
Second of all, the "much smaller neighbour" is any European country to them. Ukraine is the biggest country on European continent if we include the occupied territory. And it's actually has the most capable armed forces military-wise. Russia took over 116k sq km of Ukraine. All three Baltic states are 175k sq km combined and they literally can't defend themselves in case USA decides to withdraw.
And last but not the least, Russia's war is irrational. It makes no sense from any rational viewpoint. So relying on common sense in this case is wrong. You need to understand russian ideology and Putin's specifically.
Just leave it. There are so many Russian apologists on this forum it’s exhausting. You’d think the fact that Russia is in the middle of an unwise and unnecessary war of aggression wouldn’t itself be an argument for concerns of more attacks on NATO countries and allies.
But to prebut whataboutism, I also don’t like American imperialism.
Invading Ukraine was idiotic on its own, and that happened.
It's not irrational to notice that irrational actors do irrational things.
How rational is killing others when someone tell you? You need strong propaganda of fear to makes other to kill each other. Something like those articles.
Yet again: we're making the Russians do it?
Seems off-topic for HN, but let's look at it technologically: if Ukraine and Iran have demonstrated anything, it is that drones are like guerilla warfare squared: even the smallest player can land hits and deny areas to the largest forces.
It might be tending towards impossible to achieve regime change militarily at this point. Maybe we all should just figure out how to get along.
This article shows the biasses of the press. Everything is about public perception, so the problem is that the public don't perceived that there might be a war. This is stupid, public perception can shift very quickly. The actual problem is not maintaining investment and critical industries. The UK was able to shift commercial manufacturing to wartime production for world war II. That doesn't work if you've offshored everything.
Russian war with Europe would be ‘very short’ – Lavrov
https://www.rt.com/news/645860-lavrov-eu-nato-putin/
As would the special military operation. Three days short, it was promised.
That was promised by US General Miley, not by any Russian official or citizen.
So we have in this nugget an example of why you shouldn't trust western media, but not an example of why the west wont fold like a cheap deck.
Some people said two days, some said ten days. Russian officials thought they would get a short war, and they were wrong. Wikipedia will point you to a bunch of references.
A Russian war with Europe would not be the short war that the original poster alludes to by invoking statements from a Russian official.
Well, then may be you should volunteer.
Read between the lines. He's saying "Mess with us, we'll nuke you." They mean it. Putin is desperate enough to do it. Anyone responding to this with Euro-bravado is an idiot. Some of y'all didn't grow up during the cold war and your blind spot is showing. No one wins in a nuclear war.
So what do you think the rational response to the nukebullies should be? Give him all he wants? How are reasonable deterrence preparations "Bravado"?
They never mean it, it's a threatening tactics. Their children live in western countries and their money is there. They wouldn't allow nuking western countries just like that. ESPECIALLY if they know they attacked first. Even their own doctrine doesn't allow using nukes for anything except the direct external threat to their statehood.
Indeed, Europe would roll over russia really quickly.
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I'd rather just pay for Ukrainian drones. Maybe you'll even run into one when you get mobilized!
You should really commit more skin to the game since your believes are so strong. Or are you so weak and cowardly that you want innocent Ukranians to go to war for your believes!
What are you talking about? Ukraine did not go to war for my beliefs, they got attacked by you and they die because of you.
War is already here, just at least in America we haven’t realized it yet.
War has always been here. It sadly just have been too removed from those countries doing it. Not enough enemy combatants have died on their own land.
This is a BBC article about the UK being at war. Not the USA.
That said, it argues that the various pre-war preparations fail to include "psychological preparedness". I think this is largely true for America as well, since war is something that the USA almost exclusively engages in offensively in distant countries, with only one small exception for one day on 9/11.
I know, I read the article I’m just saying, we Americans have no idea how big of a conflict we’re in right now, and we are not psychologically prepared for what it will mean to be bombed by hypersonic missiles or shaheds or what have you either.
I work with some Ukrainian refugees, we are not prepared.
You guys literally started it.
We certainly didn’t help - but I’m wondering if this wasn’t inevitable after the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
Totally not a fan of the guy we have driving the bus right now, I didn’t vote for him, and oppose all war. But now that we’re in it, I’m a bit concerned that this is going to be quite a bit more violent and terrible than we have the stomach for?
I mentioned above I work with some Ukrainian refugees. We are not prepared mentally for what is coming.
As a Ukrainian, I can tell you that it's not as bad as you imagine, and it's much worse than you think. The war is very grim and gruesome but you guys will adapt to it quickly after the initial shock. Articles like this are just trying to minimize that shock (it won't help).
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CIA mass murder at Maidan? The Ukraine? Account is 35 days old?
Miss me with this stuff. I actually have been to Ukraine.
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Damn, haven’t seen this blatant of Russian propaganda in a while.
Are the Ukrainians Nazis with no real culture too?
Yeah, check the account age...
I've seen a TON of astroturfing and bot activity on HN over the last 2-6 months or so? I suppose it's only to be expected after cheap AI agents... but it's kind of crazy how this corner of the internet has been made irrelevant too. It's really quite sad to be totally honest.
Russia invaded Ukraine.
You can make the (somewhat weak) case that Russia was provoked, but the first violent strike was made by Russia and Russia alone.
government != population
Our congress is taken over, in case you haven’t been paying attention to the complete lack of justice on Epstein. It’s not all that difficult to see who is in charge.
As always, in the last 70 years at least.
Also - Downvote me all you want you...the US is an awful influence on the world and if you disagree with that, you're part of the problem. I grew up thinking the US was the good guys, what a absolute load of shit that turned out to be.
That reads a little like the zeal of the convert. The US is still a more humane nation than most, though it's not immune to the diseases that come from being a great power.
I don't know about that. Honestly, idea of Americans self-ranking themselves as more humane is the kind of absurdity that lead us to where we are today. How many people making such claims have actually travelled to the nations they villainize?
For a long time I wanted to believe you, and in the past I'd have looked at work camps in China and said "thats bad". Now i look at the US prison industry and go "Is it really that different?". The examples don't end there...
Well, your thought process is "fine" we are still evil, but right now it's a matter of picking the least evil guys, and hoping they win.
I'm an American and sometimes I'm not sure which is the "least evil game here." Like, the Iranians and Russians are pretty evil, the IRGC killed a lot of people last winter and I'm friends with quite a few Ukrainians. But then also we have the ongoing insanity with ICE and the Epstein files...
The way I see it right now, we have "The Epstein Alliance" versus "The Axis of A-holes." Nobody involved in this is great, but I would rather live in America or the EU than Russia, or Iran.
To be fair, as an American, I don't know enough about what life is actually like in China to form an educated opinion? But by the sounds of it, they suck too.
My intuition is that this whole charade will come crashing down over the next few years as AI starts replacing more and more jobs.
There are no good guys buddy. That’s the problem. Not us, not the Canucks? The Brits nor the Iranians nor the Russians.
People are great, countries are pretty much all evil.
Completely agree.
Up close everyone is great, far away, like from space, everything looks great. It's the middle distances that are problematic.
Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, that the US was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. True then, and true today.
The ignorance of the American people enables this violence-- this is by design. William J. Casey, CIA director under Reagan, "We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false". The CIA has employed many hundreds of journalists working at major networks and newspapers like CBS, the Washington Post and the New York Times.
Reading the comments on this story, it appears that much of what Europeans believe is false, as well. Someone presented a detailed and accurate account of the recent* history leading up to the illegal, but absolutely provoked, Russian invasion of Ukraine but was accused of lying. Several comments indicate a complete lack of concern about provoking the nation with the largest nuclear stockpile in the world into a direct hot conflict. Even if it stayed conventional, which appears unlikely, Russia has a much larger military than all of Western Europe combined. Insane.
* The history should start much earlier, with US assurances to Russia that NATO would not expand, and then Clinton and all subsequent US administrations betraying these promises.
It is my current view that this BBC article and the recent announcement by national security advisor Powell are conditioning the public mind not for an actual hot war, but for a "tough winter" of eye-watering price rises, possible shortages, and maybe even utility supply problems if we are particularly unlucky. While talk of war increases, a glance at the state of the military suggests to me this is unlikely. What we have is rather limited, and even that is only about 1% deployable within 6 months. Much of Europe the same (Poland being an exception).
That said, I also believe that there is fairly widespread, low intensity, grey-zone action across Europe at the moment. Not every random fire or infrastructure failure is "The Russians", but I'd be surprised if none of them were. Indeed some of them have already been formally attributed.
It is, however, correct to attribute all sabotage and random failures to Russia until proven otherwise. No matter if we like it or not, Russia has decided to be hostile, and is actively committing sabotage.
It would be foolish to still just wring our hands about it. We have to name the enemy, Russia, and both support Ukraine's fight and do our own active hybrid actions on Russian soil. And yes, military buildup is required.
And to be clear, this will not end anytime soon. The war in Ukraine is but one aspect of Russia's imperial ambitions. It's fully possible we will not see friendly relations again in our lifetimes.
It is incorrect to blame everything onto some entity, otherwise we'll miss the real things due to being desensitised. It's a version of boy who cried wolf but crying Russia.
The correct answer.
Russia will never start an open war with the UK or any EU country. They can barely handle Ukraine imagine that plus any other country.
Ukraine is the biggest country on European continent. It has the most capable military in Europe right now. And it's backed by Europe economically. Saying that Russia can't defeat them is not the insult you think it is. If Russia mobilized 1M people and went full on war in a month, they'd easily take over the Baltics, took half of Poland and bombed the F out of Germany and France. They'd lose eventually if Europe woke up from its delusions, but they definitely can take over most of Eastern Europe.
"Russia will never start an open war with Ukraine"
Was the common talking point even in early february of 2022
If it were only the Ukraine the war would have long been over. The West block has supplied more than $500 billion in aid to the Ukraine, that's more than twice the US lend/lease to the Soviet Union in 2026 dollars. Plus intelligence information and probably other things I'm forgetting. The more dollars are sent to Kiev, the more blood and lives the Ukrainians are expected to invest. That's the deal.
We've been in one war or another for most of my adult life.
We are in a perilous position right now in Europe, very close to a major escalation of the Ukraine conflict. This would entail direct conflict between nuclear-armed powers.
I find it deeply troubling that no mainstream party in most European countries seems to think this is a bad idea.
What is a bad idea? Defend yourself against an unprovoked military aggression?
I think all of them do, but the alternative is to let the Russians do what they want and that ends worse for all of us.
Letting russians take the Crimea without any consequences in 2014 is what led the world to all of this. I dare to say, ALL of it, not just the war in Ukraine.
Letting them do even more horrible lawlessness will only lead to worse outcomes.
Yeah, that's precisely the attitude.
A major difference, IMHO, is the abandonment of the rules-based, rights-based, international order. Within it, international war (as opposed to civil war) was nearly impossible - it hardly existed for generations. While you need to prepare for the worst, you need to work for the best, for progress, like so many generations before us in much more difficult circumstances. Preparing for warfare doesn't mean accepting it; we must also work for freedom, including a just peace. It doesn't happen without work.
Again in this era, reactionary and nationalist messaging has dominated and somehow, despite generations of extraordinary success, despite being born into it and seeing its success and superiority, many/most think such an order is infeasible or even undesireable. At the same time, I've seen American leaders in the military industry advocate for becoming accustomed to mass destruction and death.
And shockingly, even the experts and practioners abandoned it and at nearly the height of its success. It's as if a messaging campaign insisted cloud computing was impossible and absurd, and so everyone just stopped using what was obviously working. For the rules- and rights-based order, yes there were outliers and setbacks and threats; that's life. But the entire free, wealthy, industrialized world subscribed, and were untouchably allied, free, safe and prosperous. Now, having abandoned it, all those things have diminished.
What's missing is not acceptance of warfare but ultimate commitment and work for freedom and peace.
This is a British article for Britons. The British press is nuts: everything is taken to extremes: events, statements and political moves. Unfortunately, every day the USA press grows more like the British press, moving leftward and increasingly alarmist. Look at what happened to Drudgereport, It once supported Trump and now it's practically a British tabloid of its own.
Take Rolf Dobelli's advice - don't listen to the news:
https://www.dobelli.com/en/books/
> Unfortunately, every day the USA press grows more like the British press, moving leftward and increasingly alarmist.
The British press is not, on aggregate, left-leaning. That's just a weird weird wrong idea.
https://archive.ph/YDwhy
somebody wants some extra funding
Answer: NO
War is here.
It is clear we are not generally physiologically ready.
Russia is a nuclear power
So are UK and France.
Kinda tired of all this warmongering and constant increasing of pressure on civil society.
It does not help that we keep electing extremely selfish strong appearing individuals in winner-takes-all democracies.
“Strong appearing individuals“ just expose what is already there.
That is why Voldemort always comes back in real life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIv1f2AwFCI
UK elite tries to distract from the class war about to explode, more at 11. Or perhaps that's what he really meant.
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Russia invaded a sovereign country. Period.
Europe and everyone else is entirely justified under international law to provide assistance to Ukraine to defend itself.
Regarding your edit, Russia doesn't have the right to dictate neighbouring countries which alliances they can form. What you're doing here is denying Ukraine its sovereignty, just like Russia does.
Well then stop complaining and prepare for war as the article suggests.
I can not believe the europe would risk all its heritage and for what?
> I can not believe the europe would risk all its heritage and for what?
Quite contrary - Europe is preserving it's heritage. Remember that russia does not want to stop with Ukraine - for example they want Poland to quit NATO. What right do they have to tell other sovereign country what it can do?
>Remember that russia does not want to stop with Ukraine
???
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This is a completely unacceptable comment on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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Could you please make an effort to observe the guidelines if you want to participate here? These ones in particular need to be heeded:
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The war they didn't start? Typically when there's a clear aggressor who initiates a conflict to grab land and resources, you blame them.
Are you not essentially saying that Ukraine is partly to blame for the conflict for not wanting to roll over?
We arm and support Ukraine in their war because a tyrannical neighbour led by an autocrat is intent on taking its territory and he will not negotiate on ending it.
It's that fucking simple. Fuck him for starting it; if he won't end it, Ukraine and their allies get to make things difficult.
Your interpretation is contemptuous.
As we should do, Mr. Chamberlain.
Didn't russia attack Ukraine?
What were the Minsk agreements for?
Good point - we must remember that russia attacked Ukraine already in 2014, Ukraine agreed to their conditions and it still did not prevent russia from wanting more. History repeats itself - appeasement never works.
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Yes, in this case one side (russia) attacked other (Ukraine), which is just defending itself. It's very clear who is the aggressor here. This entire conflict could be prevented if russia did not attack, that's it.
I see, you can only count to two.
How do you say that in Russian?
I'm sure you think this is smart, but the indisputable fact of how this conflict started remains.
Are you suggesting that we don't come to the aid of our friends when they are attacked by our adversaries? That Ukraine does not have the right to support? That it must succeed or fail on its own or it's somehow not sporting?
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Ok let's work from the basics. Please answer this question - is russia the aggressor in this war?
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Too many of your recent comments have been inflammatory. Could you please be less combative and more curiously conversational in your style of participation here? These guidelines in particular are important to heed:
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Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
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Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
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> launching a 20 year bombing and terror campaign against the Donbass
> Finally, after eight year of these terror attacks
Was it 20 years or 8 years? Those are two very different numbers, and only one has any semblance with reality given that 20 years ago was long before the so-called coup.
Wow. All of that, in one go? From out of just one arse?
Is it satire or something that russians actually believe?
Well, the USA too.
The simple truth many have come to realize is a European leadership that insists mass migration is not a problem and head-in-the-sand denies the critical importance of cultural unity and shared identity for the maintenance of stable and liberal democracies is a much clearer and present danger than Russia.
War a nation can recover from, but from an erosion of cultural unity and shared identity it cannot.
Remind us what happened last time Europeans got too obsessed with cultural unity and shared identity?
Are you saying the only conceivable policy positions are genocide and unchecked migration?
I like that you said genocide and not me. But what I like more is enjoying the long slide into irrelevancy of opinions like the one you expressed in your original comment. I look forward to the day we can have constructive discussions about capital investment and migration which feature no mention of such puerile and ignorant notions of ethnicity and nationalism.
Irrelevancy? The opinions I expressed are ascendent and accelerating across the Western world.
Constructive, reasoned discussions on migration are precisely what have not occurred due to the dominant ideology stifling all contrary opinion.
After all Canada, Australia and New Zealand are such hot-beds of crime and mayhem; we should avoid following their example as much as possible.
Their experiments in cultural erosion are merely a few decades old, and accelerating only recently.
You're basically pointing at a smoker who started a year ago and concluding because they don't have cancer yet cigarettes don't cause cancer.
Those three have been letting in large numbers of people from outside the UK for at least 125 years, not a few decades.
Cultural unity and shared identity is cause of many (many) wars…
They're not. Rather, the organizers of war – typically rich and powerful people in or close to London or Washington – use their propaganda networks to play these popular cards of culture and identity. Don't confuse the cause and the means.
yea, you are right, I recall from my high school education when Hitler came to Washington and then London, fun times
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it's funny to write a headline like this and put it behind a paywall. just objectively kind of funny.
https://archive.ph/YDwhy
Its not behind a paywall if you're in the UK
It's only behind a paywall for US users, for making their country great again a second time.
I'm in the US; opened fine for me. Though I am using uBlock origin.
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who would want to go to war with nato ?
> china ? why ? they just want taiwan
> russia ? lol, they can't even manage Ukraine ( with our aid )
> iran ? why ? they just want to kill you know who
This is just a fearmongering article.
More like America going to war with NATO at this point
The US lacks the political will for a war with NATO, I'm speaking of the soldiers and citizens. The worst case for NATO is US withdrawal and explicit or tacit support of NATO enemies. Some soldiers would blindly follow orders to march on Europe, but we can't even win a war against Iran right now so I'm not sure how much Europe has to worry about a US invasion. Canada, maybe, but that's probably even more unpopular in the US than invading Europe.
And it'd also be the end, economically, for the US. We'd be hosed, that isn't to say current leadership wouldn't try and end up fucking us all over, but the effect would be another loss for the US.
I'm happy you have that confidence, I think it would only take 1 generation of conditioning to get us to centralized autocratic rule. It won't be trump in power, it'll be Vance or someone else less popular but smarter.
> russia ? lol, they can't even manage Ukraine ( with our aid )
And that's why they want to attack Europe. They hope that it will either cause eu to stop supporting Ukraine or at least that it will give them good negotiation position (e.g. we'll stop attacking baltic countries but Ukraine has to let go of their territory).
if they end up attacking Nato, I think we would just go until boots are in Moscow. our tech is better and we have more men ( we dont need North Koreans to fight)
If our boots get anywhere near Moscow we get nuked.
That's the issue, a belligerent neighbor that permanently sabotages you but which you can't ever get too close to losing.
Russia has been probing NATO for several years now. NATO is a paper tiger that seems to be content to do nothing. As long as the probing is in the lesser members: the Baltics, Romania.
When (likely not if) Russia decides to attack the Baltics, NATO will just shrug and send a strongly worded memo.
Probes are not worth going to war for. Russian boots on Baltic grounds would be.
Some years back when a Russian jet breached Turkish airspace just for a few seconds, it was shot down.
Now it's nothing but strongly worded thoughts and prayers
Oh for goodness sake, stop feeding the Russian bots. They love it too much!! :)
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Here is a strange idea: the sides should negotiate!
Russia wants a non-NATO buffer zone around its western periphery. None of those countries want to be 'unaligned' no-man's-lands.
There is nothing to negotiate.
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Could you please make more of an effort to observe the guidelines if you want to participate here? These ones in particular should be heeded:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
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Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Russia is the aggressor, is it that weird to consider it necessary and right to defend against the invasion of a sovereign country?
I suggest you get a rifle and go to the frontlines.
Get some diapers too!
May be don't take the rifle. Take more diapers!
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Could you please make more of an effort to observe the guidelines if you want to participate here? These ones in particular should be heeded:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
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I never said I was russian or not ukranian.
But your attitude is exactly the problem - remember, people are all equal as per western democratic values.
And the way to solve the differences is by talking! And yes, I am ready to talk to russians about democracy as well as ukranians.
It looks like you are not, discarding them based on ethnic grounds.
> And the way to solve the differences is by talking!
Why did you attack Ukraine instead of talking then?
Russia and USA had elaborate discussion on the precipice of war late in 2021, but also continued discussions since the very breakup of the soviet union and the voluntary dissolution of the Warsaw pact.
Negotiations didn't go anywhere unfortunately. And it's not Russia that takes the blame.
So talking works only when russia gets what it wants and if it doesn’t you can invade other country? It doesn’t sound like taking, more like extortion.
Russia: stop pointing the gun at me
West: ... No
Negotiations don't work when stakes are this high.
I read an article in early 2000 that stipulated that EU and USA are borrowing so much money that eventually they will HAVE TO recoup through war, Conquering Russia.
They kept borrowing...
> Russia: stop pointing the gun at me
Poor victim Russia. They were forced to start the war, really. Had they not embarked on their campaign of conquest and genocide, NATO would surely have invaded on the 25th of February and killed them all. Luckily, Russia showing their might by stalemating a war against a neighbor a third of their population has deterred evil NATO from directly invading, like what they were surely planning to do. It's evidenced by the absolutely nothing that NATO did towards Russia in the preceding decades, but if you stomp your foot enough about your neighbors freely joining an alliance explicitly designed to safeguard against Russian bloodthirstiness, then you can almost make yourself look like the victim. Almost. At least the Russians buy it, they've been printing the same shit in their media for over a decade now and they can't get enough of it.
Russia has been criminally naive in its dealings with the West. Had they been more firm and realistic they would have never allowed the wall to fall and Warsaw pact to disband.
They have no choice now but to reassert themselves.
I hope we all survive or if it comes to it let the death be quick.
> I read an article in early 2000 that stipulated that EU and USA are borrowing so much money that eventually they will HAVE TO recoup through war, Conquering Russia.
Lol. Not how money, nor borrowing as a nation-state works. Probably from a trader-adjascent idiot who thinks he understands econ 101 because his qwants makes him money. Macro-econ is probably the subject with the biggest dunning-kruger syndrome you can find, so I advise you to either read a lot (and I do mean a lot), catch up at least to the bachelor level and continue reading econ books (written by economists PhD, not wall street insiders that journalist claims are economists), or just avoid the field completely and never believe anything an 'economist' write or say on TV, if he/she isn't a PhD.
Some syndrome here, for sure.