Should the EU/NATO use direct military action to help defend Ukraine?

[shambler]

No comedy option, sorry.

Personally, a few days ago, I would have said that it would amount to global nuclear suicide. After watching so many videos of atrocities, I find my mind changing slightly. It seems immoral to leave Ukraine to be dissolved/razed by thermobaric missiles, especially when there are so many capable forces near. Also, it seems that Putin could in theory pull this nuclear threat as an excuse to invade other ex-soviet states - or anywhere, indefinitely.

I realise I'm almost certainly just getting emotional.

 

[bluescreen]

I've been swinging like a yoyo on this. It beggars belief that the rest of the world can sit and watch in horror while Putin's military flattens and massacres. For every military action there is not necessarily an equal and opposite military reaction. There is no question that Putin would use extreme force to counter any military response. Not an equal reaction but an amplified one. He has warned about his nuclear capability. That doesn't have to mean ICBMs taking out London or New York - it could be plenty nasty very locally. There is also the possibility of electronic warfare, taking down GPS and comms, which would send us back to the landline age, were there any landlines left.

But there's this

Also, it seems that Putin could in theory pull this nuclear threat as an excuse to invade other ex-soviet states - or anywhere, indefinitely.

Which is unconscionable.
Kaliningrad would just be the start.

Supplying munitions to Ukraine is the least we can do. And (famous oxymoron) military intelligence, obviously.

Giving succour to refugees is basic humanity and the UK is woefully lacking even on that front.

Supplying munitions may be prolonging Ukrainian agony so that more cities are flattened and more people die before capitulation - if you believe that defeat is inevitable and that this is, as Lavrov puts it, not a Hollywood movie. That delay is on the Ukrainian defenders, though: if, having the military intelligence, they still wish to fight. It's not exactly an 'enabling the addict' situation, is it.

Putin set out to unite old Russia. He has succeeded in uniting the rest of the world. Do we in the rest of the world really have no power to stop him?

'Putin' rather than 'Russia' because it is personal to Putin. Inasmuch as he carries the rest of Russia with him, united in their endurance of sanctions imposed by the west, that's down to his control of the media and what in a bygone age we used to call false consciousness.
And if they trust Putin, they're hardly going to be grateful to anyone pointing to war crimes, are they.

In short, fucked if I know what to do. It would be a crime to waste this moment of solidarity though - if there is really solidarity round anything other than almost universal belief that Putin is a ruthless, egotistical cunt.

 

[Ĝasper]

My mixed thoughts and emotions are much as your own. We have pinned our hopes and prayers onto a small national army backed up by a makeshift popular militia facing a much greater power who are threatening nukes and weaponising radiation from power plants including Chernobyl. Intolerable.

Its unlikely that the Russian military's limits of exploitation stop at the border of Ukraine. Neighbouring countries like Romania fear they will be next due to their own equivalent of the Donbass, ie a large Russian diaspora seeking to secede and join Russia. Not to mention the Baltic states and Georgia.

So, should the EU/NATO use direct military action to help defend Ukraine? This could lead to catastrophe 'of the likes of which you have never seen before' (to quote Putin). Its a terrible dilemma. Arguably involving an emotionally charged political dogma. Kasparov's eloquent case for intervention planted a seed in my unsettled mind. So given the lack of an abstain option, I vited Yes.

However I would instead appeal to a higher power - the UN, on which see A letter to the Western Left from Kyiv and the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

 

[likesfish]

The UN is designed to be useless when a great power decides to go to war.
Russia is a nuclear power and Vlad has threatened to use nukes

 

[maomao]

No cause nukes.

 

[emanymton]

I vote no as the risk of wider conflict even if nuclear is to great.

But it makes me fell ill. What right have I have to tell the people of Ukraine they must suffer this to protect others and give then no choice.

 

[Flavour]

I honestly don't know. Part of me is fairly confident that the Russians wouldnt actually go nuclear if Nato called their bluff and started shooting their planes and missiles out of the sky from bases in Poland or wherever... but that other part of me which isn't so confident would also quite selfishly like to continue living in this horrible, diseased, neoliberal capitalist dystopia as it is in any case preferable to nuclear war

 

[Chilli.s]

Not until it has sanctioned them back to the stone age

 

[gosub]

Depends where they plan on nuking

Belgium probably....it's not all doom and gloom

 

[_Russ_]

Yes, I can't do logic anymore.... blow seven shades of shit out of em.

 

[weltweit]

Nope, don't change the rules in the middle, keep supplying weapons and ammunition.
Don't attack Russians directly.

 

[Ming]

Would Vlad pull the temple down on all our heads? Including his own? IMHO yes because he’s ideological and more importantly old. I’ve read he’s not in good health also. Not a good combination for a fellow with access to nukes.

 

[RD2003]

One to simultaneously comfort and discomfort the armchair war strategists.

History never ended: Ukraine and the risk of nuclear escalation | The Strategist

Last Sunday, Russian missiles struck the International Center for Peacekeeping and Security at Yavoriv in western Ukraine, a mere 25 kilometres from the Polish border. The strikes were carried out with cruise missiles launched by ...

www.aspistrategist.org.au

 

[Petcha]

Absolutely, yes.

 

[Dogsauce]

Not direct military, and not under a NATO flag, but troops in to help with relief efforts and rebuilding (possibly under UN approval although not sure if that is possible with the veto) and protection for international war crimes investigators. Send in some decent modern air defence to protect the mission, deterring further missile strikes on cities and infrastructure. Make it as non-confrontational and genuinely helpful as possible, but with the added benefit of freeing up Ukrainian personnel for eastern front shit and giving some protection to supply lines. Not sure whether such a ‘safe zone’ would need strictly defined geographical boundaries.

 

[dilute micro]

One to simultaneously comfort and discomfort the armchair war strategists.

History never ended: Ukraine and the risk of nuclear escalation | The Strategist

Last Sunday, Russian missiles struck the International Center for Peacekeeping and Security at Yavoriv in western Ukraine, a mere 25 kilometres from the Polish border. The strikes were carried out with cruise missiles launched by ...

www.aspistrategist.org.au

Life's hard lessons for everyone - a confrontation now or one later. At some point in the future this will come down to who blinks, Cuban missile crisis stuff. It will be a hard pill for Putin if Ukraine and NATO can win some part of the east. Ukraine likely will not stop at that and continue fighting. Putin could use a tactical nuke against a target well away from the areas he plans on occupying to warn the west. I worry about his ability to see the big picture with the condition of his military. And I worry about NATO settling for peace. If NATO quits on Ukraine, Ukraine might still keep on fighting without the weapons and they'll get destroyed in a long war. We've really got ourselves in a fix. I don't trust NATO any more than I trust Russia.

The terms would be dictated by an emboldened Putin, and he could achieve his goals of a Ukraine never able to join NATO, Russian annexation of the Donbas and acceptance of Crimea as part of Russia. That would put NATO’s credibility at risk and it would sow the seeds for a future war with Russia, perhaps over the Baltic states, or a deeper invasion of Ukraine

 

[dessiato]

Somebody, sooner or later, must do something to ensure this type of aggressive behaviour is stopped.

How this is achieved, and at what cost, are the really big questions. I wish I knew the answers.

 

[RD2003]

Life's hard lessons for everyone - a confrontation now or one later. At some point in the future this will come down to who blinks, Cuban missile crisis stuff. It will be a hard pill for Putin if Ukraine and NATO can win some part of the east. Ukraine likely will not stop at that and continue fighting. Putin could use a tactical nuke against a target well away from the areas he plans on occupying to warn the west. I worry about his ability to see the big picture with the condition of his military. And I worry about NATO settling for peace. If NATO quits on Ukraine, Ukraine might still keep on fighting without the weapons and they'll get destroyed in a long war. We've really got ourselves in a fix. I don't trust NATO any more than I trust Russia.

Who is this 'we' you speak of?

 

[RD2003]

Somebody, sooner or later, must do something to ensure this type of aggressive behaviour is stopped.

How this is achieved, and at what cost, are the really big questions. I wish I knew the answers.

We need to be more aggressive in curbing aggressive behaviour.

 

[dilute micro]

Who is this 'we' you speak of?

Broadly referring to the countries whose leaders at whatever point in time made bad decisions that left Ukraine virtually defenseless, not to mention the irony of who's funding who.

 

[RD2003]

Interesting and prescient article from 2017.

Have 20 Years of NATO Expansion Made Anyone Safer?

Since 1997, the world’s perhaps most powerful corporation and lobbyist has created more insecurity than security.

www.thenation.com

 

[campanula]

No. Non violent support, sanctuary, help in rebuilding, welfare for non-combatants, with arms and ammunition for soldiers in this clearly one-sided, territorial and ideological war. Total exclusion from a globally connected and financed world for the aggressors. I absolutely cannot see anything other than a brutal escalation if Nato or some hastily cobbled together EUbased military committed to direct warfare.
I am no sort of armchair general and have not a single coherent thought about the fucking power-mongers and maniacs who have somehow garnered obscene amounts of power. I only care about fellow civilians, workers, families, refugees, forced out of their homes. For working class people under 21C global capitalism, precarious, viciously unjust power imbalances pertain, whichever party or individual figurehead is in charge. New boss, same as the old boss. Shit from the top down. Obviously, I am a complete dumbass naive idiot...but here on this little forum, I feel I can say what I think.

 

[Duncan2]

Can't either see any other outcome than a nuclear conflagration if NATO forces become overtly involved in this war.How else could it end?

 

[RD2003]

Can't either see any other outcome than a nuclear conflagration if NATO forces become overtly involved in this war.How else could it end?

We appear to be sleepwalking towards it with Russia's apparent determination to be able to sell some sort of victory in the east of Ukraine, and the sending of offensive weapons to the region by the west. As it continues, absurdly, to be viewed in ahistorical, quasi-religious terms as Good v Evil, all sense and reason has taken flight. A remarkable number of the ordinary mugs you meet day to day, taking their lead from the media and our eternally-teenage political class, talk as if this is a fight to the death for them personally, as if a Ukrainian victory or defeat means the difference between a world of light or darkness for their kids, instead of the continuing march towards the chaos that is inevitable with either outcome. The sense that the world has rarely been in such a perilous situation seems absent, as does any recognition of the reality of no escape for anybody anywhere. Francis Fukuyama, currently enjoying a swansong on the back of this fiasco, apparently hopes that 'the spirit of 1989' will be reborn, and receives widespread liberal applause, as if that, ahem, spirit didn't, through liberal hubris, ultimately lead to the current precipice.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Can't either see any other outcome than a nuclear conflagration if NATO forces become overtly involved in this war.How else could it end?

Am astonishingly hawkish about the nuclear shit, seeing at how utterly shite the Russian military is why should their nuclear threat be any better? If you grew up in the 50's-80's you have an idea that one bomb = end of days. Its a bomb, a big one, but a bomb at the end of the day, it goes bang, radiation follows and disperses and those still standing move on . How does Russia get it to where they want it to go bang? Hijack a Ukrainian tractor? Every single element of their so-called military advances has been shown to be shite this past 6 weeks. Putin knows that a single nuke launched at NATO = end of Russia, actual end. The Ukrainian military has already been supplied with loads of NATO weapons, the SAS and fuck knows who else has been there for ages training them, who can say if there are still elements of those people on the ground, best not to. Send in the A10's and wipe out the rest of Russia's metal and see how Grand Master Putin moves from there.

 

[RD2003]

Am astonishingly hawkish about the nuclear shit, seeing at how utterly shite the Russian military is why should their nuclear threat be any better? If you grew up in the 50's-80's you have an idea that one bomb = end of days. Its a bomb, a big one, but a bomb at the end of the day, it goes bang, radiation follows and disperses and those still standing move on . How does Russia get it to where they want it to go bang? Hijack a Ukrainian tractor? Every single element of their so-called military advances has been shown to be shite this past 6 weeks. Putin knows that a single nuke launched at NATO = end of Russia, actual end. The Ukrainian military has already been supplied with loads of NATO weapons, the SAS and fuck knows who else has been there for ages training them, who can say if there are still elements of those people on the ground, best not to. Send in the A10's and wipe out the rest of Russia's metal and see how Grand Master Putin moves from there.

Good luck with all that. Don't forget to hold on to your hat.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Good luck with all that.

Cheers.

 

[RD2003]

'And the generals sat, and the lines on the map moved from side to side' was a poignant line when written in a world before more or less everybody was a general.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

'And the generals sat, and the lines on the map moved from side to side' was a poignant line when written in a world before more or less everybody was a general.

"Acid then coke is a bad idea"

 

[RD2003]

If I wasn't some cunt who left a shit comprehensive at 16 with five wank O Levels, I'd start a thread about humanity's inbuilt death wish/inadvertent urge to destruction, in widespread evidence atm.

Fuck it though, watch this space.