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How close are we to war breaking out in Europe?

weltweit said:
Yes, but had they kept them (some of them) the situation today would be rather different.
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There's very little chance they would have been able to maintain them, or even keep them safe over the last 30 years. Ukraine is notoriously sloppy with radioactive materials and waste.

Given the country was decimated when the basic security net for its citizens was pulled from under them, there would have been no end of chancers trying to sell them to any bidders. Even the Welsh Free Army would have got their share.
 
nogojones said:
There's very little chance they would have been able to maintain them, or even keep them safe over the last 30 years. Ukraine is notoriously sloppy with radioactive materials and waste.

Given the country was decimated when the basic security net for its citizens was pulled from under them, there would have been no end of chancers trying to sell them to any bidders. Even the Welsh Free Army would have got their share.
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I thought the nuclear weapons in Ukraine were decommissioned by the Russians?
 
Pickman's model said:
Empires collapsing. But not the American empire, which had a very good century. And why shouldn't he have a crack at a revived russian empire? Xi jinping is having a go at another Chinese empire after all. Anyway the thing we ought to have learned from the 20th century is that it's not a grand parade towards a wonderful tomorrow or day after tomorrow and that things can get bad fast.
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True, I think I had hoped that kind of nationalistic expansionism was on the way out, my stupid optimism of course but there it is. Obviously the PRC is watching closely, where next? Turkey has always had an eye on bits of its ex-Ottoman neighbours but even closer to home there are plenty of disputed territories around Serbia, Hungary, Romania, Belarus and Poland as we've seen plenty of times before. Not even places Russia has to aim at, but Russian success here (and it looks more like a Grand Slam might be ahead, not just a single win but a succession of them for Putin) must encourage empire (re)builders everywhere. It's even worse than a war, or even war more widely, its like a direction of travel for the whole world and it's frightening for someone who's always been inclined to stupid optimism :mad:
 
NoXion said:
He's been doing that for a while now. It's been quite successful as a cheap and plausibly deniable means of poisoning the well of US politics, which is why I'm a little puzzled that Putin is playing the Ukraine thing up now. By comparison getting all sabre-rattley is expensive and impossible to hide. Putin has always struck me as the type to play the long game, but maybe he feels like he is running out of time for some reason or another?
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Long read but super interesting, thanks! So the study showed little impact within its (they admit limited) parameters. It would be good to see further studies, and yes, to have seen what if any impact "outside influence" would've had in the time around the US elections of 2016 for example.

And I'm no conspiracy theorist or anything, but Moscow's cyber-experts could've vastly honed their skills since 2017, plus Putin could seriously up the ante now.

But God, I'm no expert!
 
Well I have to say I was wrong thinking this was not going to happen.
Apologies for not believing it would happen.
Never too old to learn eh?

Putin invading not only the 2 separatist territories but now surrounding Kiev, is the outcome nobody, bar Putin, wanted.

Sadly it now appears that we are significantly closer to a war in Europe. I'm afraid to think about what might happen next as regards where Putin's troops etc will go next.
cupid_stunt apologies for saying you were blind.

I would like to think Putin stops at the Ukraine and doesn't invade other European countries. But at this stage who knows what he might do next.
 
Aladdin said:
Well I have to say I was wrong thinking this was not going to happen.
Apologies for not believing it would happen.
Never too old to learn eh?

Putin invading not only the 2 separatist territories but now surrounding Kiev, is the outcome nobody, bar Putin, wanted.

Sadly it now appears that we are significantly closer to a war in Europe. I'm afraid to think about what might happen next as regards where Putin's troops etc will go next.
cupid_stunt apologies for saying you were blind.

I would like to think Putin stops at the Ukraine and doesn't invade other European countries. But at this stage who knows what he might do next.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I thought some sort of invasion was possible, but I also thought it was being hyped up and certainly didn't expect so much so quickly.

I still don't see any sign that this is likely to go beyond Ukraine to wider conflict, though what's already happened is bad enough.
 
mojo pixy said:
Has he had some diagnosis that's sent him into a final-stage psychotic breakdown?
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After his weird rant on Monday, I'm also wondering whether something in him has snapped.
Maybe he saw a scan of his brain, saw all the wrinkles and demanded to a terrified doctor that it be injected with large amounts of botox right away.

I'd kind of expected him to play a very tippy-toe game, little dalliances over the border, then pretending there was a mistake, or someone else made a mistake, or they were rescuing a cat from a tree etc. Pictures of soldiers with smiling children and happy cat. Maybe organise a hit on a Pizza Hut manager in Dagenham. Keep everything a little confusing and unreal and keep everyone else a little on the back foot as per his usual surreal geopolitical style.
 
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Aladdin said:
Well I have to say I was wrong thinking this was not going to happen.
Apologies for not believing it would happen.
Never too old to learn eh?

Putin invading not only the 2 separatist territories but now surrounding Kiev, is the outcome nobody, bar Putin, wanted.

Sadly it now appears that we are significantly closer to a war in Europe. I'm afraid to think about what might happen next as regards where Putin's troops etc will go next.
cupid_stunt apologies for saying you were blind.

I would like to think Putin stops at the Ukraine and doesn't invade other European countries. But at this stage who knows what he might do next.
Click to expand...

Moldova is the most likely possibility if he goes for anywhere else. It isn't NATO and I think Russia has troops stationed in Transnistria.
 
Orang Utan said:
My hot conspirotake: he’s got a terminal illness and he’s thinking about his legacy. Or he’s just fucking shit up as much as possible before he shuffles off this mortal coil
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That's crossed my mind too, the legacy bit anyway. He's getting on in years anyway and maybe now's the right time to do what he's pretty clearly signalled he'd like to do for the last 15 years at least. Power does weird things to people so I can't imagine what the amount of power he has would do to a person's mind. Particularly an intensely nationalist person who wants glory restored to their country.
 
Aladdin said:
Well I have to say I was wrong thinking this was not going to happen.
Apologies for not believing it would happen.
Never too old to learn eh?

Putin invading not only the 2 separatist territories but now surrounding Kiev, is the outcome nobody, bar Putin, wanted.

Sadly it now appears that we are significantly closer to a war in Europe. I'm afraid to think about what might happen next as regards where Putin's troops etc will go next.
cupid_stunt apologies for saying you were blind.

I would like to think Putin stops at the Ukraine and doesn't invade other European countries. But at this stage who knows what he might do next.
Click to expand...
It was a fair assumption to make that all the invasion talk was a lot of chest thumping on both sides and lots of smoke and mirrors, especially as it's a very dangerous game to play with dire repercussions for such tenuous rewards. But then this doesn't take into account the whole batshit megalomaniac aspect of Putin's presidency.
 
It's clear now that Putin and his army are unpredictable, capable, brutal and moving very quickly through Ukraine.

Terrifying even thinking this but is there a potential situation where Putin could move into the Baltic states?
 
Aladdin said:
It's clear now that Putin and his army are unpredictable, capable, brutal and moving very quickly through Ukraine.

Terrifying even thinking this but is there a potential situation where Putin could move into the Baltic states?
Click to expand...

Every other assumption about what Putin won't do has been proven to be wishful thinking, so why not?
 
French navy seized a Russian owned ship in the channel last night. Putin's response will be to use his navy to accompany ships. That's where things will escalate. NATO ships vs Russian navy.

So much simpler than an army crossing a border...
 
8ball said:
That gives me the chills - the potential for massive escalation there.
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I don't think this is something to worry about. It's just one ship that was probably a few hundred km from France when sanctions were announced and no-one told it to turn around. Russia has more to occupy it at the moment than committing its navy to escorting container ships.
 
existentialist said:
Arguably, surviving a large-scale nuclear war would be the shit option.
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Putin seems ready to survive in his bunker with his oligarchs.
I presume his bunker is built to withstand nuclear bombs?
Probably stocked up with a few years supply of water and food etc.
 
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