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Russia vs NATO

G

GaryH

TS Member
Interested in everyone’s thoughts on this. With the focus on Covid at the moment, this isn’t being reported as much as it should be given the potential fall out from this and the potential for another global war

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2...e-military-response-to-aggressive-nato-russia

Russia today (Putin) has clearly said today that Russia will take military action against the west and NATO, while one of his generals had indicated they would turn the west to ash by using nuclear weapons.

I know we only get one side of the story, and I know Russia has always warned NATO not to expand further east which it has been doing, but we seem to be on the brink now like never before. Is NATO and the west provoking Russia? Is Russia working with China to build up to war and reclaim Ukraine and Taiwan?

Given the USA embarrassing exit from Afghanistan, if the west and NATO sit back and do nothing they will be seen as extremely weak, and if we take on Russia and China we are looking at a full scale global war. Will the west be able to pull back from the brink. Is Putin bluffing?

Do you have any thoughts?
 
If Russia do invade Ukraine then the answer would have to be diplomatic and through things like economic sanctions, restricting exports and imports, e.g. of Russian gas etc.

I am not sure China would be on the side of the Russians but who knows. However nobody will start a war with China, not even the USA as I don't even think the USA could win that one. China has almost twice as many troops as America for starters.

The talk of nuclear weapons is just rhetoric, although has the potential to start another Cold War. In reality Russia would not use them on the West because of MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction. If they fired nukes at American soil then America would simply fire back and obliterate Russia in retaliation. "The only winning move is not to play."
 
GaryH said:
The USA has sworn to protect Taiwan. If Russia invaded Ukraine and China invaded Taiwan there is no way the west would not do anything.
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Admittedly I'm not very informed at all on the subject of warfare, but from my layman's perspective; surely that protection could come in different, less lethal forms than dropping atomic bombs on China and Russia?

My guess is that nuclear weapons are probably just there as a last resort for if they genuinely see no other options. I'd imagine it would take something pretty dire for nuclear weapons to be used by either side, and I imagine we'd see many, many other options explored before even contemplating nuclear warfare. It's an incredibly extreme option that risks the lives of a significant percentage of the global population, including those in your own country.

Besides, who says this has to lead to war anyway? The UN is designed to prevent situations like WW2 from ever happening again, and who's to say that Russia & China wouldn't be up for more civil negotations beforehand? The two countries have happily liaised with Western leaders in the past during G20 meetings and the like, so who's to say they couldn't discuss their issues civilly and try to work something out before resorting to full-blown warfare?
 
You don't drop atomic bombs on Russia and China, because they would retaliate, and the world would stop.
Diplomacy, trade sanctions and local, smaller, non nuclear wars are the usual response, with a little genocide on the side sadly.
Eastern Europe has been a little messy politically since the collapse of the good old USSR.
 
The first thing we will know about ww3 is failure of communication and power.
An aggressive foreign country will use our interconnected systems against us.

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Three things from the comment above:

1. does the UN even exist anymore and if it does, it has no relevance in the world anymore

2. China and Russia have hypersonic missiles which can take out western defences before we can strike back, so it doesn’t necessarily mean mutually assured destruction anymore.

3. Given we bought all our communications infrastructure from china, crippling the country should be easy for them!
 
It pretty much does still mean MAD though...nuclear submarines, and pre set bombs programmed to fire when radiation levels reach lethal levels have been around for decades.
 
rob666 said:
It pretty much does still mean MAD though...nuclear submarines, and pre set bombs programmed to fire when radiation levels reach lethal levels have been around for decades.
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The submarines have fail safes for if the command communications system fails due to it being destroyed, to retaliate.
Also fail safes to stop it accidentally happening.


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And there is also the letter of last resort if a nuclear attack happens, the prime minister and designated second person are dead and no commands have gone to our nuclear submarines. I would love to know what action Boris Johnson would like our submarines to take in this scenario but the envelope will be destroyed when he leaves office.
 
All sides are bluffing and attempting to deceive and add uncertainty. It has been going on since the US pushed the boundaries by using nuclear weapons in combat for the first time.
 
Putin is just using this talk to get what he wants and it will probably work. If an all out war did start with no nukes NATO would probably win as long as Russia was the aggressor. Nato despite not being as powerful as it once was is still a force to be reckoned with especially with the full might of the US. Attacking any NATO member would trigger a response for all of them and they all have to act including the US. China will not help Russia with it's current aims because it trades far too much with European countries to risk doing so.

Frankly trade sanctions should be implemented if Putin tries anything. I do think Putin is after another cold war as I imagine that would suite his image quite nicely. The protector of Russia or whatever he calls himself.

The UN does definitely exist and still has some impact although it is negligible. It really only has effects for smaller countries. As all of the countries being discussed bar Ukraine have UN security council seats with veto's to any action. It's always been like that which means it has no real use for the big players.

There will be no major wars or nuclear attacks because it makes little sense for either side. Russia will likely take some or all other Ukraine in a similar manner to what they did in 2014. That will require heavy trade sanctions from all NATO, EU and other countries as possible. Starting a war with Russia to prevent it might not go to well. If Russia actually attacked a NATO member we should respond as we are obligated. In that scenario we would probably win (by we I mean the whole of NATO) As Ukraine isn't in NATO that currently won't happen.
 
Tom said:
All sides are bluffing and attempting to deceive and add uncertainty. It has been going on since the US pushed the boundaries by using nuclear weapons in combat for the first time.
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That’s what I thought but even the experts are saying they are not sure anymore given the amount of Russian military hardware and troops on the border.

Does make you wonder if the west are doing something in Ukraine which Russia knows about and has made them nervous… and we don’t…
 
GaryH said:
That’s what I thought but even the experts are saying they are not sure anymore given the amount of Russian military hardware and troops on the border.

Does make you wonder if the west are doing something in Ukraine which Russia knows about and has made them nervous… and we don’t…
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They shipped nuclear weapons to Cuba in the 60s an ultimately nothing occurred. The brinkmanship we're today could go a lot further yet for nothing still to happen.
 
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