- US officials are considering letting Ukraine strike Russia with US weapons, The New York Times reports.
- Ukraine says it’s necessary to fight cross-border attacks.
- But fears of crossing Russia’s red lines have long made the US hesitate.
The US has barred Ukraine from striking targets in Russian territory with its arsenal of US weapons.
But that may be about to change. The New York Times on Thursday reported that US officials were debating rolling back the rule, which Ukraine has argued severely hampers its ability to defend itself.
The proposed U-turn came after Russia placed weapons across the border from northeastern Ukraine and directed them at Kharkiv, the Times reported, noting that Ukraine would be able to use only non-American drones to hit back.
The Times reported that the proposal was still being debated and had yet to be formally proposed to President Joe Biden.
If authoritarian dictators can do whatever they want via nuclear blackmail, we’re already all doomed anyway
The world will be split into two camps: countries with nukes or otherwise under some sort of nuclear umbrella, and countries who are desperately rapidly developing a nuclear program, the third group who doesn’t have nukes and isn’t rushing to develop them will have already been annexed by the first group
Indeed.
Iraq (no nukes) - armies flattened and US-installed government running the show.
North Korea (nukes) - stern finger-wagging by Democrats and angry rhetoric followed by hand jobs from Trump.
Pakistan (got nukes violating treaties) - serious frowning by US until we needed them for our pointless “war on terror” in Afghanistan, then all was forgiven and forgotten.
Iran (desperately seeking nukes) - agreed to stop their efforts for a hot minute until Trump rolled the deal back, showing that US is an unreliable partner and not to be trusted.
Overall the message is clear: get nukes as fast as you can and you’ll be safe to torture and oppress your people. The west in general and the US in particular doesn’t have any real efforts to stop you (although watch your opsec and don’t use Israeli USB sticks you find lying around…).
What we have here are people convincing themselves that nuclear war is either not a possibility at all, or a tolerable outcome. That’s a incredibly dangerous and delusional perspective.
There is a middle ground between “letting nuclear armed countries do whatever they want” and “completely disregarding any and all risks of escalation.” The entire postwar order of the past 70 years has been grounded on that. If those lunatics ever get anywhere near the levers of power, then they will provoke nuclear war, maybe not with this specifically (maybe), but if they’re taking that kind of cavalier and deluded approach in general, then it’s only a matter of time.
If you go all-in every hand, you will eventually bust.
And if every country on earth suddenly starts playing a hand, someone is going to bust, so pick your poison I guess
Appease thugs with nukes and proliferate nuclear weapons around the world adding dozens more dice to be cast every conflict, or call their bluff and risk them actually using them
That’s not even remotely how poker works, at all (or geopolitics).
It’s okay if you don’t understand the analogy
When everyone has nukes, all it takes is one country busting for us all to lose
Lmao. Let me just clear this up so you can stop pretending to know what you’re talking about about.
In poker, you don’t bust (that is, lose all your chips) unless you go all-in and lose. “If every country on earth suddenly starts playing a hand, someone is going to bust” is not true at all, because plenty of hands don’t end in someone busting. Just because you lose a hand doesn’t mean you’re out of the game.
It’s pretty clear that you were confused about the meaning of “bust” in this context which is fine but being both wrong and condescending makes you less sympathetic. Although, not nearly as much as being in favor of recklessly risking global thermonuclear war does.
Man this is your own analogy, do I really gotta explain it
If everyone is suddenly playing at the nuclear poker table, the chances of SOMEONE going all in each hand drastically increases, and if any one singular player goes bust, we ALL lose because the damn table explodes
Appeasement just kicks the can down the road (and makes things much worse in the future), it’s vital that we not make playing nuclear poker appealing by letting countries get away with shit even if they do have nukes
Accept you were wrong after being unequivocally proven wrong challenge level: impossible.
If you’re going to struggle this hard to follow along with expansions of your own analogies it would probably be best if you stopped using them, it’s just making it harder on everyone else