ReluctantEskimo

The Ukrainian standoff is a game of chicken.

It appears that Russia is about to flinch.

Excargodog

Your opinion is not universally shared:

rickair7777

I didn't say anything about statistics. It's an uncertain proposition, full of intangibles.

My hypothesis is that as the apparent immediate risk associated with nuclear weapons increases, people (of all stripes) start bending over backwards to reduce the risk. Because it's scary.

We are a long way from hair trigger MAD, almost nobody anywhere would believe that a launch or detonation was an intentional all-out first strike which had to be responded to accordingly. So the natural inclination would be to pause, evaluate, and communicate.

Especially for RU. They have no friends who would join them in a thermonuclear suicide pact, but they have multiple nuclear-armed enemies... destroying the US would not save them. More especially since any sane russian would have to seriously doubt the reliability and efficacy of their nuclear arsenal... no reason to think that's in any better shape than the rest of their military.

Excargodog

Yeah, but in science you always go with the null hypothesis in this that there is no evidence that it can’t happen, and an n of 1 certainly has no power to adequately predict that. Besides, the issue wasn’t one of MAD per se, but of nuke(s) going astray during a putative breakup of Russia. The issue was this statement of yours.

Not saying we are on a path to Armageddon by any means, simply that having survived one breakup without nuclear weapon(s) going astray does not provide any sort of robust evidence that such problems couldn’t happen in the future.

But on the subject of all out war, I don’t think that anyone actually PLANS for that, and the most likely way it would happen if it ever DID happen would be a cascading series of mistakes. Of course, that’s how big wars do sometimes happen. WWI is an excellent example. I doubt very seriously if Gabriel Princip really figured that killing Archduke Ferdinand would result in 20 million deaths either, but it certainly helped light the fuse.

rickair7777

I know how science works, but this isn't that. Employment, or not, of nuclear weapons is a very human thing.

You could possibly apply statistical science to that over a period of about 1000+ years. But that doesn't tell us anything within our lifetimes.

I wasn't saying X=Y.

If you observe in detail HOW it all played out in the early 90's, that's reassuring.

Yeah that dude lit a fuse, but obviously the powder-keg was already primed. Odds are that some other spark would have lit it off soon enough anyway. I don't believe that butterflies cause hurricanes. If they do, you can't predict or prevent it regardless.

Hubcapped

it triggered another round of funding to ukraine
eu—3.5 billion
us-500 million
australia-73 million

looks like the EU is still solid………………

on a tactical note, because the dam was destroyed, the ukranians are now claimed to be crossing the dnipro.

disclaimer before the right wing extremists pile in here: nothing from any source is 100% accurate

Excargodog

Hope springs eternal…



https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/20/can-nato-finally-make-the-2-percent-stick/

METO Guido

So they say. The Jets win superbowl 58. SWA buys American. A purported viper school valedictorian comes down from the mountain. Stable, rule of law abiding democracies rise up to replace cold blooded regimes of Europe, Asia and Middle East. Meto stops pestering me to post puke on social media https://youtu.be/mA-CBXuTaeo

T1000

Ah…I think Ukraine and NATO are as about as effective as the C shot at this point.

Hubcapped

i don’t understand, what do you mean?