this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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Thirty years of shrugging off promises, agreements, and red lines is how we got to 90 seconds to midnight.
Is this a yearly average? I don’t think we’re closer to nuclear war than we were during the Cuban missile crisis.
I mean if the Russian leadership wants to die over a piece of land (because they don’t already have enough?), then sure by all means.
That is a natural reaction of person that tracks only western MSM and doesn’t pay attention to gradual rise in western politician attitudes.
Russian nuclear doctrine change reflects changed attitude in western propaganda.
You must not be aware of the following developments. Poland is already primed to fight. Baltic states openly talk about preemptive strike on Russia. Western long range weapons are pretty much cleared to strike “old” Russian territory. Country on southern side of Russia is set to become 2nd Ukraine. NATO general claims that Russia will not use nukes under any circumstances and thus justifies any level of involvement.
In this environment expansion of nuclear deterrence is pretty much the only option from Russian point of view.
Please note that inside Russia there are calls to strike from Kiev to London due to crossing of previously announced red lines. Someone was right here. Putin is moderate if not outright inactive.
The above creates potentially unstable environment inside Russia and may give Russian government additional motivation to use nukes at location of regional importance.
There are some reasons for western side to provoke Russia, which nobody here wants to discuss or acknowledge.
It shall come as no surprise that NATO has larger military than Russia. Russia never made it a secret that the only way to balance out conventional strength difference is with nukes.
The calculation on Russian side is that they will destroy large amount of opposing side military and equipment. It should be enough to stop any meaningful ground action.
So, reality is very close to getting out of control.
All it takes is a small provocation on the border side that looks like invasion even if it is just a large scale disruption in communication on the border line and incursion of some military equipment.
The later happened already on Belorussian border in last 12 months. So the scenario was tested in part by Poland.
Big kid punches little kid “Stop” says little kid
Big kid punches other little kid “Stop” says other little kid
Big kid punches first little kid again and takes his lunch money “Stop” says little kids
Bunch of little kids band together “If you punch again we’re going to punch you back” (raises fists in intimidating stance)
Big kid grumbles and talks about running over all the little kids with his car…
——
NATO isn’t stupid. As a whole, they don’t want to invade Russia. They are there to deter future territorial land grabs and they want to maintain the status quo as it’s good for trade. Quality of life is pretty good or getting better on this side of the fence.
I get it, a whole bunch of kids around your house can be intimidating. They have access to the neighborhood road (Polish corridor). Your little brother started thinking they were cool.
The way this could have and should have gone about is more trade, more connectivity, more upward mobility. But your ruling class got all weird about that, can’t be having western ideals infect the population, they were losing power. And so Russia went the xenophobic path and now we are here.
All the rhetoric. All the hype. All the saber rattling. It’s a form of control, to keep the Russian population in support of this war. To keep them scared so that Putin and his ilk stay in power. It’s a very myopic way of seeing the world.
They’ve rattled so hard that walking away isn’t an option anymore. Too much treasure and blood lost. It would shake Russia to its core. The Russian Vietnam as it were, right on your doorstep.
I don’t know what the end game is here. NATO is not going to capitulate. Russian leadership are backing themselves into a corner.
This rings true to me. I'm a westerner and I see how geo-politics is being handled and it really is a bunch of kids.
Not trying to do whataboutism, but its important to note that the insights on how Russian population are controlled with fear is echo'd throughout the world. US and its now inbred hatred for the word "communism", and its forced relation with Russia, etc is dissapointing.
If we manage to survive the current crisis /and/ manage to de-escelate, it will take generations of peaceful teachings for large powers to actually calm down. I find this scenerio unlikely.
Non-aggression statement dispelled
on September 18, 2024:
https://www.uawire.org/estonia-signals-readiness-to-preemptively-strike-russia-to-defend-nato
Nobody defined what Russian preparation for aggression looks like.
European consumer price index (CPI) rose 18% in last 2 years:
https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/consumer-price-index-cpi
There is no public data after 2022 on happiness of EU population. How strange.
more than a piece of land - its about securing their borders. NATO is danged-near surrounding them.
At this point it is more than just territorial control.
It is survival of the country as a whole. At higher level it is survival of the system on both sides.
The military operation has highlighted multiple issues in Russian system. While issues are significant, they are not critical and system currently manages to pretend like issues don’t exist.
The western system side is also experiencing problems. The problems are conceptually different, but the system is also in pretend mode like nothing is happening.
Side observer can’t really guess which system is going to crash first, if crash is coming. It is also possible that none will crash, and world will split into two or more centers of economic gravity.
I am not even looking at role China is playing in all of this. I can just say, that China gets sometimes inaccurate coverage in Western MSM, which results in faulty expectations.