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Comment by cduzz | Hacker News Reader

Did the first one end the war?

Did the second one end the war?

Did the first and second ones prevent the next war?

I'm not sure of the answer to these questions; they're obviously important and difficult to answer. The timing certainly hints to "no, yes, maybe" but we're not going to get a do-over.

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The last one seems to be 'for now', but it may not hold.

But we have had nearly 80 years of peace between major powers and that has not happened since there were major powers.

Ok you get many indirect wars e.g. Ukraine, Vietnam, Korea much in Africa but not ones that could escalate to World War levels.

If it doesn't hold we won't be able to continue the conversation so I hope that we can extend that 80 years. Proxy wars are still wars though, and proxy wars always have the possibility of escalation built in to them.

Historically cold war proxy wars were unlikely to escalate as even when a major power had troops on the ground it was on behalf of another country and also we seem to have had sensible leaders.

Ukraine does differ as a major power is involved in its own name.

And Russia seems to not have a sensible leader.

Ukraine definitely does not have a sensible leader. In 2021 he declared both that "he does not like the Minsk agreements" and that "Ukraine needs to obtain nuclear weapons". After the start of the war, he insists that Ukraine be allowed to join NATO, which would automatically mean World War.

Alright, from his point of view, perhaps this is sensible: Ukraine stands to lose otherwise, so for him the World War might be preferable.

You're hilarious.

Ukraine's probably not going to join NATO. Obviously they really want to but it's hard to imagine a future where both Russia and Ukraine don't retaliate against even non-government and uncommanded (i.e. soldiers fire without authorization) attacks that go back and forth across the border.

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