Comment by delusional

14 days ago

No we're not. Nobody in the EU has transitioned to a wartime economy. We are helping out a strategic ally. If Ukraine falls tomorrow an cedes add territory to Russia, the EU is not going to continue fighting, because the war will be over.

That of course assumes that Putin stops at Ukraine. The point is that this isn't our war.

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delusional

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jyounker  14 days ago

Nine years ago I was in Riga talking with a Latvian friend, and even then she was telling me how Russia was broadcasting separatist propaganda into Latvia

While the EU may not be at war with Russia, Russia is already at war with the EU.

  • snowwrestler  14 days ago

    Russia is pursuing low stakes, plausibly deniable, minor nuisance actions against the EU and U.S. It does enough to fool itself internally that it has a great enemy in The West, to which it is bravely standing up.

    The purpose of this is to unite enough of the domestic population to suppress dissent and keep the current regime in power.

    The reality is that it is actually at war with only one small neighbor, which is going so badly that they have had to import troops from North Korea. Embarrassing.

    If they actually engaged in war with the EU, more specifically a member of NATO, they would lose quickly. So they stay well back from that line.

weweersdfsd  14 days ago

The truth is that Russia has been making war preparations for a long time, also within the EU. In Finland even during the "good years" (between fall of the Soviet Union and Georgian war) Russian businessmen kept buying property that made zero financial sense, but was located close to strategic infrastructure or military bases.

groby_b  14 days ago

Yes, we are. Outside of Poland, everybody's closing their eyes to it, but war is coming.

We might be able to stop it before it becomes a hot war, but the ambition is there, the indicators are there, the opportunity is there. Assume it's a war. (Unless you're German. I guess our national sport is now making excuses for Russia)

  • K0balt  14 days ago

    I grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska, near a strategic Cold War military base. I still remember seeing the TU-95 “bear” bombers flying overhead being escorted and turned around by our fighter jets.

    It makes it pretty real when 7 year old me is wondering if this one has any nukes on board, and if this will be the day that they drop.

    Russia is not to be trusted, imho. They do not honor their international commitments in good faith, and they will expand their territorial claims if they are allowed to do so. Europe, like a frog in a pot, is in peril and they need to take steps to make sure that Russian war fighting capabilities are destroyed through exhaustion in Ukraine.

    This of course is tragic for Ukraine, because it means that she will be utterly razed in the process. But if Russia prevails or backs down with strength, it will happen again. And again.

    Russias ability to project force in a strategic way must be destroyed. They are not trustworthy stewards of coercive force.

    • nradov  14 days ago

      I don't trust Russia either, but are you certain that's a real memory? I'm not aware of any confirmed incidents in which USSR bombers actually flew within sight of Fairbanks. They routinely tested our defenses but they didn't penetrate that far into US airspace.

      1 reply →

  • zelphirkalt  14 days ago

    Sadly as a German I must agree. AfD (financed by Russia) and BSW (probably also financed by Russia, or simply hopelessly naive) will fall over themselves making those excuses. Poor Putin, if only someone _talked_ to him ... while Russia is sabotaging of critical infrastructure like train service, hospitals, Internet, politics, and probably more. Russia is like this annoying bench neighbor, who under the table pokes you in the side during class, until they get shoved hard and then act all hurt. Kinda makes AfD and BSW traitors of their own country.

    I for one am in favor of giving Wagenknecht a list of must haves for a ceasefire and peace treaty, which obviously will contain giving back all territory to Ukraine, costly reparation for many years to come, and denazification in Russia. With that list we send her to Russia to negotiate. She is only allowed to return, when the points on that list are achieved. She will be the negotiator, the change she will be the change she wants to see. (If it is not obvious to someone, this is rather a joke, since she cannot be trusted to have meaningful negotiations with her idol.)

K0balt  14 days ago

You’re in a zero lot line flat and your neighbors house is on fire. I’d be pretty motivated to help out as well, but I don’t think I’d be quite so cavalier about not being on a wartime footing. Russia has shown repeatedly throughout history that it does not honor international agreements in good faith, and that it sees military adventurism as a legitimate way to expand its borders.

After the dust settles on the Ukraine war, if Putin still has the capacity to wage war, he will not likely stop with Ukraine. It is by now obvious that a limited incursion into Poland, for example, will not spark a global thermonuclear war.

Ukrainian suffering is both the litmus test and the vaccination against nuclear escalation that Putin needs to contemplate further expansion.

Political alignments aside, if I were based in Europe I would be very, very concerned.