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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31660 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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There seems to be discussed the expansion of NATO in general. In the case of Ukraine, I would replace Poland with Ukraine and not much would change. (Although the armed coup and the right of the population to self-determination make this case more difficult).

And the threat to Russia is not Ukraine, it is the United States and NATO, of course.

NATO is not militarily invading a nuclear armed power. Not worth it. Russia would be ignored like N Korea.

How do you have such confidence, and how do you have confidence that at some time the US will not invade North Korea?

Anything is possible of course. But why would we want every major city in the world vaporized?

I wrote about it in the thread above.

An invasion either requires an improved missile defense system to reliably intercept intercontinental missiles, or can be carried out using a proxy.

And Russia can counter that. America has open borders. All they would have to do is announce they’ve smuggled nuclear bombs thru the Mexican border and have them placed in a few high casualty areas. That would defeat basically any proxy moves or missile defense by NATO.

Your argument is akin to saying my neighbor looked at me wrong and I feared that one day in the future he would kill me - so I shot him first, that doesn’t stand in criminal defense. Any country can claim that some day in the future their neighbor will invade them as justification for war. That is widely rejected today.

Now I do agree that the EU will conquor Russia (notice I didn’t say NATO). Culturally the EU is more vibrant and economically far richer which on a decent time frame will lead to what they call in Civilization (the video game) a cultural victory.

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