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PaperclipPerfector  17d ago (text post)   32896 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024

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This is most commonly raised as a counterpoint to "why are we spending so much in Ukraine, when {pet issue at home} is totally ignored!"

It's also maybe a compromise strategy to appese peaceniks, but this is frankly retarded as peaceniks are never appeased.

I at least fully advocate taking the risk of nuclear escalation, since the alternative (appeasement of nuclear threats) is far worse. This is unfortunately a hard sell to the American voter who cares more about culture war and gas prices. If Trump can make that sell, then I'll be impressed.

How large risk of nuclear escalation do you consider acceptable for returning Ukraine its full territory?

More risk than has been currently been taken.

After almost 3 years of frog boiling, there should have been 30+ escalations along the way that each on their own might receive nuclear responses but that altogether culminate in "there's so much US military involved that Russia loses everything".

Instead of properly following this frog boiling strategy, Biden had a bunch of red lines he wouldn't cross and stopped the boil at a simmer, defeating the whole point of the strategy. There should never be any red lines. At most there should be "don't do that yet" lines.

It took a whole two years to merely let Ukraine fire US supplied weapons offensively. This was not just on its own stupidly risk averse but more broadly demonstrates the failure to commit to the strategy, ultimately justifying the use of nuclear threats. The two year mark of frog boiling should at the very least have both the US air force and navy personnel directly involved, and probably even marines. By three years it should've been guaranteed to be over.

But, well, none of that was politically possible, or maybe Biden just didn't have the balls to do it. I will be pleasantly surprised if Trump escalates properly to give Ukraine the aid it needs to win and/or to get concessions out of Putin, but I'm not holding my breath.

More, in percent?

I don't know how to answer that.

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