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Comment by k310 | Hacker News Reader

Some say that the Spanish Civil War was the rehearsal for WWII. No doubt, the war in Ukraine is just such a situation.

As long as TACO doesn't dissolve NATO or try to invade Canada, the optimist in me believes a global conventional war is highly unlikely.

Dissolving NATO is beyond his power. He could maybe withdraw the US from it.

> He could maybe withdraw the US from it.

realistically speaking, this destroys NATO

Under current circumstances, I doubt it. NATO has extremely fresh evidence of why it needs to continue to exist, and what happens if it doesn't.

WWII was pretty compelling evidence of why Britain needed a global empire, but nonetheless the empire was dissolved.

There is a pretty good argument here for at a minimum reforming NATO. Some major points include that the US appears to be bluffing about having useful support to offer Eastern Europe through the NATO structure, also appears to have different defence priorities than Europe does, NATO itself failed to preserve peace and Europe looks like it has militarily atrophied to a pretty significant extent under NATO.

It is not clear how the situation will ultimately be interpreted, but the US's involvement here is pushing Europe towards being the next middle east. That isn't a great outcome.

Why did Britain need a global empire? I sit here in Britain with no global empire and things seem to continue.

Exactly. Very similar situation to NATO - there isn't any evidence it needs to exist. The premise depends on an assumption that the status quo is necessary, when in fact it is not.

The Empire ended because WW2 was a Pyrrhic victory for the UK, that left the UK in a bad shape economically and heavily dependent on the USA. The USA didn't like the Empire, but the UK government didn't fully realise how much things had changed until the Suez Crisis.

Also, WW2 happened despite the Empire, and the UK wasn't really in a good place to fight it when they did — as in "we don't have enough guns and uniforms for everyone" not ready, despite having ended the military cutbacks 5 years before the war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_rearmament_before_Worl..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Small_Arms_Company#..., https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/8-facts-about-clothes-rationi...

Timothy Garten Ashe of Oxford says that NATO needs about five years to adapt to the loss of the USA.

I don't think it destroys NATO. Weakens it of course. But we had an trial when Trump acted like he was abandoning Ukraine when they had a go at Zelensky in the White House and cut information sharing to Ukraine. Rather than the defences collasing, European leaders made it clear they'd take over.

We don't have much choice really. Western Europe + Turkey are not going to put up with Russia rolling into Western Europe or Turkey. We have nukes and more money, people and kit than Russia.

No, but a withdrawal of it's by far most aggressive partner will make it a defence alliance again.

Why would he dissolve NATO? That would just encourage something else to form where the US doesn't have a veto over all decisions.

Recent decisions don't seem to follow that agenda and rationale.

Actually I'd say events did kind of follow that agenda. Trump looked at abandoning Ukraine and backing Russia which would have been close to abandoning NATO but it became clear Europe would fight on without him.

You are naive if you think global conventional war is highly unlikely at this point. A nuclear weapon capable country is being backed in to a corner

Backed into a corner? All they need to do is pull out of Ukraine, and they’ll be fine.

Being backed into a corner? They're the aggressor.

*backing itself

A nuclear power is backed into a corner so you're predicting a global conventional war?

What corner?

> backed in to a corner

Please tell me what would happen if Putin states "Job well done in Ukraine, all Nazi's are killed", and then withdraws his troops. NATO is going to invade Russia?

Everyone who has played Hearts of Iron knows that Spain is where you train your units for 1939

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