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PaperclipPerfector  20d ago (text post)   1194 thread views

Transnational Thursday for November 21, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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I think our dear and gone friend Hlynka did actually suggest, to paraphrase, handing Ukraine their nukes back with an apology note attached.

If US policymaking is at the level of random forum discussions, there are serious problems.

I really think it's dangerous if there are crazy people in the room when important decisions are being made, especially with regard to nuclear strategy.

If you think about it for five minutes, it opens up such a big can of worms... Do we say we're giving nukes to Ukraine and warn Russia? Do we hope they don't see them until they're set up (like Russia hoped during the Cuban Missile Crisis)? What do we do if they pre-emptively nuke them and take them out? What are the second-order effects if this strategy 'works', does Russia hand over nukes to Yemen and Venezuela? That'll raise oil prices! What if Russia continues the war anyway, daring Ukraine to start a nuclear war with a nuclear superpower?

There's such a deficit of sanity. We spent years fighting in Afghanistan, on a nation-building campaign, trying to win hearts and minds. Meanwhile our Afghan allies were raping children on a huge scale and some group of officers or officials decided that this wasn't worth cracking down on: cultural practices, just ignore it soldiers, leave it to the Afghan government... How the hell do you win hearts and minds when the friends you're arming, funding and training are raping children? This isn't just an isolated error, there's a whole host of monumentally retarded things we were doing there - that's why we lost the war.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/soldier-punished-for-interfering-in-child-assault-by-afghan/

What if the genius strategists behind the war in Afghanistan (or whoever signed off on hiring them) are in charge of nuclear strategy?

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