Hacker News Reader

Comment by bandyaboot | Hacker News Reader

Russia had zero logical reasons to blow it up. I don’t have any trouble believing that Putin’s devotion to rational decision making is less than complete at this point—particularly when it comes to doling out retribution to the west.

The idea that the US would risk making itself a pariah amongst its NATO allies, particularly right now does not seem believable to me.

View on HN

It's easier to call your enemies insane than to admit you don't understand their motivation.

Humans routinely prioritize retribution over rationality.

That goes for our guys too.

Except between the US and Russia, Russia is the country where one man is in complete control with no checks on his whims.

The US had no qualms making itself a pariah amongst its UN allies by spying on them back in 2010, germany included, when biden was still vice president no less, so I don't think that's much of an argument against them doing it. Especially when you are talking about NATO, an organization where the US power imbalance is even higher.

That isn't enough to blame them for it of course, but to assume that Putin is not behaving logically because the alternatives are so "unthinkable" is misguided.

Spying on a close ally is not even remotely comparable to destroying said ally’s means of getting energy.

> Spying on them back in 2010, germany included

News for you: Everyone is spying on everyone else. Always have, always will be. Germany was also spying on the US. Spying, a.k.a having inside knowledge, is always a preference by all regimes. Whether one has the means to do it is another matter.

>"The idea that the US would risk making itself a pariah amongst its NATO allies"

NATOS biggest financial backer, strongest military that is actually capable of something and projects force all over the world, financial power that can tell to Swiss banks how high to jump or else and tell other countries what they can sell and to whom.

Without the US NATO is irrelevant. I think your "US would risk making itself a pariah" statement is pure fantasy. There is zero risk for the US.

I suppose debating the finer points of international diplomacy would be a rather pointless endeavor at this point if we can’t even agree that, depriving a close ally of energy that it uses to fuel its industry and keep its citizens warm through the winter, would entail some non zero level of risk.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com