Given the amount of posturing on both sides, the actual shooting war in Ukraine and the nuclear arsenals involved, it seems like a public service to facilitate both sides actually knowing what the other side actually thinks and what their actual red lines are.
Would you care to elaborate on that?
Good in this context is defined as avoiding nuclear war. Whether it means winning a particular point in Ukraine or not... Sorry Ukraine.
But we're escalating pretty rapidly. A year ago we were "no lethal aid", now we're giving Ukraine F 16s. If Putin said "do that and I'll blow them the fuck up on the way over", who he be serious or not? If he tried would we retaliate and how? If a conventional missile strike fails will he hit it with an ICBM (much harder to intercept)? If so, we will not know whether it is nuclear armed until it hits. So do we (nuclear) strike back or just take the first hit? And if we hit back is Russia's early warning system smart enough to tell whether we're using a nuke? And all of this assumes 1000s of individual soldiers who we rely on to man these systems, report information and make no mistakes will be 100% on it...
And these are all rational actions by rational actors none of whom actually wants a nuclear exchange right?
And if someone on either side is NOT rational. Then there is even more need to know what it actually happening right?
It would be nice to have answers to all of these questions without having to try them out and see...
I don't know who the 'we' is in this scenario but the west has been giving Ukraine lethal aid ever since 2017.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to_Ukrain...
Happy to be corrected.
I believe that before then we were limited ourselves to "non-lethal aid" like radios and kevlar...
In 2017 the US sent javelins to Ukraine.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/12/23/us-officials-say-lethal-...
This is 100% false. A year ago, in July of 2022, Ukraine was already getting a lot of lethal aid. They started getting a lot of it pretty much by the beginning, when it was clear that Ukraine did not fold instanly in three days.
He does not mean it. It was shown again and again and again. And in any case, spying in Austria will not reveal Putin thoughts.
And even if this were not true, do you really want to bet the future of humanity on it? Presumably you will lead the march east yourself as Putin is all talk?
Before latest full scale invasion of Ukraine happened, Putin claimed that there will be no invasion and it is just evil Americans lying about his plans.
And during previous invasions, be claimed he is not invading at all, it was all supposed to be rebels. And annexation of Crimea had zero to do with any red lines too.
> Presumably you will lead the march east yourself as Putin is all talk?
I am not military leader nor politician. I can not possibly lead the march to anywhere.