Comment by huitzitziltzin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by huitzitziltzin | Hacker News Reader

Everyone should oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, outside of Vladimir Putin, nearly everyone does.

Getting involved in a shooting war with Russia is a very, very different animal and IMO something to avoid at all possible cost. To be specific, at this moment those (truly awful) costs include the bombardment of civilian areas in Ukrainian cities by Russian forces, which is likely a war crime.

I’m very happy as a U.S. taxpayer to give the government of Ukraine nearly any military hardware they think will help.

But to have formerly-Polish-but-now-American-though-piloted-by-Ukrainian-pilots MiG jets fly from a NATO controlled base to Ukraine to shoot down Russian planes places us perilously close to an actual shooting war with Russia. Such a war could escalate in unpredictable ways.

Vladimir could just be “acting crazy” when he puts his nuclear forces on high alert. Maybe he’s just trying to convince us he’ll do it, so that we do nothing. But how great a risk are you willing to take that he’s only acting?

I do not think this Polish proposal, nor the idea of a NATO no-fly zone (which would require shooting down Russian planes!) are workable ideas. I say this with genuine disappointment for Ukraine. The potential costs are too high.

> I’m very happy as a U.S. taxpayer to give the government of Ukraine nearly any military hardware they think will help.

unless it's a big piece of equipment that can make a real difference?

> oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine

but not oppose enough to use force? I think that's just as useless as people saying they're sending "thoughts and prayers".

Against a sovereign entity that has disregarded international law, the only option is to use force for compliance.

> but not oppose enough to use force? I think that's just as useless as people saying they're sending "thoughts and prayers".

All the weapons, sanctions and money are good as "thoughts and prayers"? Isn't the Ukraine military running primarily on donated Javelin and stringer missiles atm?

If Ukraine housed all people, I'd say shoot down everything. It doesn't, and so (as the thinking goes) the world must simultaneously support the nascent democracy and also attempt to contain the violence. Otherwise, we really do risk escalation to WW3.

There are treaties in place for retaliation, but no such treaty existed for Ukraine.

A good book on these games is Strategy of Conflict.

OP's point is that if as a result of an intervention that is perceived as too direct by Putin, Russia wipes out Ukraine completely it will be a net loss to Ukraine. If on top of that he also wipes out Poland, then the loss will be even more dire. Russia has weapons it hasn't used yet, conventional and nuclear.

We can take a gamble and decide that Putin will decide to retreat because Poland donated some planes to the Ukrainians, but how much do you believe that will happen?

>But to have formerly-Polish-but-now-American-though-piloted-by-Ukrainian-pilots MiG jets fly from a NATO controlled base to Ukraine

This is just logistics. US if free to fly them back to Poland, land on the highway https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhh1UyBa3Ew in front of the crossing and push those planes on wheels over the border.

The point is US politicians have been making Poland look bad for the last week running from paper to TV station telling everyone how everything is almost agreed and its all in Poland hands and why are they stalling?

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