This isn’t to take over from the main thread, but to provide a specific gauge of opinion. Should the West intervene militarily in Ukraine? What are the reasons for your answer? The question will doubtless be asked repeatedly over the next few weeks and opinions may well change, so you can change your vote in time. For me, it’s a ‘no’, because it would get even worse.
Voted no, purely because of the nuclear aspect. Gambling the entire human race on Putin not starting a nuclear war is difficult to justify, even if the possibility is remote. The lives of most humans (and other animals) just isn't something that can be gambled in order to defend one country. It's grim calculus though. Ratchet up the financial penalties. Wars are expensive; you can't sustain a foreign war forever if your economy is being decimated.
Same for me. The Baltic states would be steamrolled by Russia within hours, let alone missile strikes across Europe and beyond, with the possibility of nuclear warheads.
Should probably add: I'm reasonably confident that Putin's generals would remove him from power rather than follow a non-retaliatory nuclear strike order, but it's just not worth the risk.
A really difficult question I can think of both reasons for why the West should and should not have acted earlier and intervened But no, on the basis I suspect now any intervention will be simply too late, and NATO is wholly under prepared through years of under investment in defence to go toe to toe with Russia at the moment I do think the West should keep sanctions in place for the long term but honestly doubt they will last 6 months And I fear at some point the West won't be left with any choice, Putin is a mad man and needs a bullet
No for me too. Obviously the nuclear threat is a big consideration but also a massive conventional conflict would be devastating for Europe. I think the World's support for Ukraine in both aid and sanctions has been proportionate and effective so far.
I'm not much concerned over the world war aspect. Who, exactly, is going to throw their lot in with Russia? Belarus? Hardly the stuff of nightmares. China is visibly backpedaling in alarm, and they are pretty much the only other country to be worried about. Russia look very isolated to me.
I don’t really believe that Russia is a match for NATO militarily, but the nuclear threat is a deciding factor for me. Even then, were that removed, it may not be that helpful for Ukraine to have a many nation war fought on its territory. There would be little left and the fate of its nuclear power plants uncertain.
It's not. The gap is enormous. Both France and the UK, as individual nations, practically match the military budget of Russia. Add in everyone else (plus the ludicrous spending of the US) and they are utterly dwarfed. Removing nukes from the equation they are outclassed in every way, quantity and quality. The problem is, of course, that you can't remove nukes from the equation and Russia has more warheads than everyone else.
I’ve gone for don’t know. My honest view at the moment is that there’s a 50/50 chance that Putin fires a nuke at a major Ukrainian city to try to end this. If he does, he’ll claim Ukraine is Russian territory and so it’s essentially an internal security matter. Given his mindset he’ll probably even try to draw parallels with the US bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end Japanese resistance in WW2. Then it’s just down to how the rest of the world responds to that.
Unless NATO takes the offence it can't beat Russia only end up in some kind of stalemate, neither side able to kill the other Both historical offences into Russia were beaten not by the Russian army but by the geography and the vastness of the country Numbers are important but perhaps not the deciding factor
I agree on ‘No’ and for the same Nuclear reasoning. But my question is - and this is just me asking because I genuinely don’t know…and certainly isn’t me endorsing the idea! …but would it be ‘gambling the entire Human Race?’ Putin would obviously fling the first nuke (presumably at Ukraine, USA or ourselves) but surely once he does that he ensures one being sent in his direction. It would obviously kill millions upon millions of innocent people - but I don’t see how enough weapons would be fired that it would render humans extinct?
Russia has in the range of 6500 warheads. The scenario to be most concerned about is the retributory strike scenario, i.e. Russia knows it's done and lashes out with full capabilities. Russia won't nuke itself, but the US will respond to Russian launches (and we probably would too). Russia will be completely glassed. As far as the rest of the world goes, Russia's stockpile is enough to hit every city in the world with over 150k people in it and still have 2000 warheads leftover. Estimates from some sources have placed initial fatalities for a full fledged global nuclear war at 6+ billion. That's just out of the gate. Current world population is approximately 2 billion, so that's 75% of your world population gone right out of the gate. Society will inevitably collapse under those conditions. Nuclear winter will set in, and the survivors will have to deal with globe-spanning nuclear fallout plus diving temperatures. Food supplies and ability to grow more will be decimated. Most survivors will probably starve to death, freeze, or succumb to radiation poisoning. This is especially true with the latter, since it's highly likely most of the globe will be covered in nuclear fallout - look how far material from Chernobyl alone reached around the globe. So yes, humanity would be pretty much screwed and, given the half life of nuclear material, it would almost certainly never recover. Yes, much of the above is theoretical, because no one has a full scale nuclear war to look at for guidance. But that cuts both ways - it could quite easily be worse than the above, and it's a bad enough scenario already.
Ah, the 1980s, when we all knew this stuff off by heart. I’m experiencing odd sensations, maybe terror mixed with nostalgia. Maybe we need a WW3 mega mix thread for favourite nuclear anxiety songs.
Described as the film that mentally scarred a generation of children. Apparently a lot of schools showed the full 2 hour film - brutal.
I don't understand the reluctance to get involved in a nuclear war with Russia. If I'd spent the sort of money that Nato has spunked on nuclear missiles on fireworks I'd certainly want to let them off. So, come on Boris! Come on Sleepy Joe! Come on Macron! Let's give Putin and his nation of murderous Ivans a firework display they'll never forget!!
I've voted 'no' because I think the risk of that leading almost directly to a European-wide war, quickly mutating into another world war is too great. Once other long-standing regional disputes & tensions become subsumed into the initial cause of hostilities (and they would be), events will take on a self-perpetuating 'logic' that will be impossible to contain. The realpolitik of this is, unfortunately, the eventual occupation of Ukraine by Russia; and it will be bloody. But for Russia to control such a large country will require massive reserves of manpower, miltary equipment and money...and if economic sanctions continue to be imposed as at present, who knows how long Russia will be able to afford the necessary levels of investment. Had more severe sanctions been imposed on Russia after the 2014 annexation of Crimea and subsequent support for the rebel Donetsk & Luhansk Peoples' Republics, then maybe Putin would not have been sufficiently emboldened to have launched this current invasion. However, that situation was (and still is) complicated by the high level of support in all 3 areas for the concept of being part of the Russian Federation rather than Ukraine. Russian ethnicity is very high; Russian as a first language even higher and successive Ukrainian governments have not really addressed the pro-Russian attitudes of Crimea, Donetsk & Luhansk, strengthening the preference for secession from Ukraine. Various referenda (some of dubious transparency) have reinforced this, so whilst the actiona of Russia in these regions are illegal under international law, Putin has always played the card of 'supporting the will of the people', and played it successfully. Hence, whilst there have always been sanctions imposed on Russia & pro-Russian elements in these regions, they are nowhere sufficiently severe to really bother Putin, but they have been seen as serious as could have been imposed in the context of the strong pro-Russian support prevalent amongst the local populations. If the relatively low level of sanctions imposed since 2014 is what Putin calculated into the balance sheet of his current adventure, then he has miscalculated and is likely to become more unpredictable and, definitely, more vicious towards Ukraine as the obvious target for his anger.
Was quite scary, but maybe not as scary as the earlier War Game, which used a sort of documentary approach to scare the bejesus out of everyone. The US had its own one in the 80s, The Day After, which was also frightening, but with better teeth. In fact, dramas about nuclear war pretty much occupied the same place in our schedules as zombies or swords and titty dramas do now, just much better. I look forward to some new takes on the nuclear war drama in the coming years. Should we survive, that is.
We should absolutely not engage with Russia. It makes the chance of nuclear war go from probably 1% to 80%. Last week it was 0% but there you go. Best case scenario is to let Russia take Ukraine and let it fail. Horrible for Ukraine of course (a lovely country I have visited not so long ago).
Poor choice of terminology there. Perhaps you feel it’s the most realistic outcome - but there’s certainly other outcomes that area still possible that are far preferable.
