Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[The_Explorer]

I know I know, there are political threads already. But it feels like at least me just "spams" them with russia/china stuff, when there is a lot more in the world going on political wise than china/russia (though obviously they are the dominant news right now for good reasons). But there are still important things outside of them. So...hopefully this is okay. Plus I feel like what is going on in the pacific with China, and Ukraine is important enough for its own thread. Oh and yeah, this has nothing to do with a virus or anything of that manner (already a thread for that anyway), but more military/expansionist in the pacific with China. And what looks to be an upcoming conflict in the Ukraine.

Will it descend into actual world war III like the title of the thread has in the name? I'm afraid of that but hoping not. And a war today would be completely different than a world war that we last had. But one does not send 100 thousand troops (or more) to a border to "test" other nations or newly elected president(s) when that is expensive as heck. And china of course has been a thing for a while, but recently they stepped it up a huge notch by involving their actual navy.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/vietnam-ready-for-combat-in-south-china-sea-as-naval-ships-swarm-region/news-story/61edba43640db15aa38e342bbb571fcf

Is the latest on China.

The latest on Russia is they ignored Europe's call for a meeting. Though that probably didn't surprise anyone.

As an end to the first post. This is the GOVERNMENTS not the citizens/people of the nation. There should be no racism or hatred against people just because bad governments. For one thing that is highly not tolerated on this forum to begin with, and rather wrong as well. Don't want to see the thread locked when important stuff is going on with both China and Russia and what looks like them gearing up for actual conflict. And biden is rather hawkish as far as I read (hm is that true?), so if so he'd be far more willing to defend Ukraine than...well...yeah...

Either way, I hope to see decency here which is what I like about the forum.

[The_Explorer]

CNN has quite a great article on Ukraine

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/12/europe/ukraine-zelensky-front-lines/index.html

[scriver]

Is it allowed to derail this thread to a semantic argument about the term "world war"?

[MaxTheFox]

The army isn't stupid and is quite powerful, I feel if Putin tries something really brash like an open invasion of Ukraine (which will likely lead to nuclear war) he will just get couped.

Or the oligarchs would do so. A radioactive Russia isn't very conductive to business.

The best outcome for Russia at this point is for Putin to fuck up like that and then, instead of a military coup, an open revolt ends in the Kremlin getting stormed and Putin and co summarily executed on the Red Square (or just detained until the provisional government figures out what to do). Our government is a dead man walking at this point, either a coup or a revolution is inevitable within a few years.

[Loud Whispers]

Is a world war scenario possible when the three big boys are all so cautious of triggering a proper armed conflict? All the shit in Ukraine and South China Seas is always kept at a level they guess won't be actionable at a political level for war

[MorleyDev]

WW1 wasn't due to wanting a war to end all wars that didn't, it was more a case of underestimating what the response would escalate to. That's always the risk, if nobody is willing to back down and one person thinks the line is slightly further away than it actually is then things can snowball.

[Loud Whispers]

WW1 wasn't due to wanting a war to end all wars that didn't, it was more a case of underestimating what the response would escalate to. That's always the risk, if nobody is willing to back down and one person thinks the line is slightly further away than it actually is then things can snowball.

The difference is how much was mobilised and how long it took to demobilise; once the trains started rolling it was impossible to stop without one side putting itself entirely at the mercy of the other to also demobilise. Because of the lack of reliable and up to date information on troop buildups, neither side could really tell if any preparations for a withdrawal were being made. Nowadays all the sides have a pretty clear understanding of whose forces are where, and expeditionary forces can be moved around with alarming speed. Hence why the Chinese use their maritime militia instead of their navy or the Russians used poorly disguised green men, once an American buildup appears they've got to stop their posturing or else it becomes abundantly clear war is unavoidable. Similar things happened in the Balkan wars and the Syrian civil war, where calls to engage targets controlled by or under the aegis of Russian forces were always ignored by generals well aware that assaulting a Russian controlled airport or striking Syrian units within range of Russian SAMs would force an open conflict that would be politically cancerous regardless of the operational outcome

Everyone would have to miscalculate at the same time

[Great Order]

Feels like a nice time to slip in Kahn's Escalation Ladder.