Ukraine

[Dave2002]

I think it might have something to do with Russia having several thousand nuclear weapons and possibly few scruples about using them. Plus I don't know about you but I find it difficult to think of a situation where pouring more deadly weapons into a war zone has saved any lives.

Unfortunately it's not possible to predict how many lives can be saved - just as with vaccinations against Covid.

All one can do is predict the number of deaths if no action versus the number of deaths with some intervention. In the both cases - intervention against Covid and intervention to support military action there will be more deaths - since so far we have not brought dead people back to life - but the prediction may be in favour of interventions rather than otherwise.

Then the question is "what nature of intervention should we apply, and to what extent?"

[Dave2002]

I tend to give more credence to General Sir Adrian Bradshaw's comments on The Today Programme, just now.

2 hours 17 minutes in - here https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00162t8

[RichardB]

Unfortunately it's not possible to predict how many lives can be saved (...) All one can do is predict the number of deaths if no action versus the number of deaths with some intervention.

These two statements contradict one another.

[Dave2002]

These two statements contradict one another.

I'm not sure that I fully agree. However it does depend on how you look at prediction, and what certainty you ascribe to any such guesses.

There are additional factors, including the time frame.

All we can be sure of with reasonable certainty is that if the Russians had not invaded Ukraine, then many people who have died in the last month and a bit would still be alive, and many would still have homes to live in.

Covid and the Ukraine war are different, in so far as one does appear to be an unfortunate "freak" of biology, while the other is a deliberate and wicked act by an aggressor which could have been avoided if malicious intent had been curbed in.

[french frank]

I'm not sure that I fully agree.

I'm not sure that the statements contradict each other, but it is difficult simultaneously to believe both to be true

[Dave2002]

I'm not sure that the statements contradict each other, but it is difficult simultaneously to believe both to be true

We could get heavily into semantics and belief systems here.

[richardfinegold]

I think it might have something to do with Russia having several thousand nuclear weapons and possibly few scruples about using them. Plus I don't know about you but I find it difficult to think of a situation where pouring more deadly weapons into a war zone has saved any lives.

Well maybe if a few weapons were put into the Rhineland in 1934 when Hitler marched in with his puny Wehrmacht a whole lot lives would have been saved. Or the French and British arming the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War might have made Franco and Mussolini and Hitler think that Fascism isn’t unstoppable. Letting aggression go unchecked usually leads to more aggression

[Dave2002]

Letting aggression go unchecked usually leads to more aggression

Sadly - and I wish it wasn't so - this does seem to be the case. I agree.

[RichardB]

Letting aggression go unchecked usually leads to more aggression

And countering it with more aggression also leads to more aggression, so where does that leave us?

[Cockney Sparrow]

And countering it with more aggression also leads to more aggression, so where does that leave us?

Potentially, unconquered and not oppressed. The Ukrainians have a good idea of how it would be under Russian oppression. Putin isn't interested in negotiation, but conquering and absorbing Ukraine. And if he can't get that, make it a wasteland - like in Chechnya; also depopulated.

[Frances_iom]

Potentially, unconquered and not oppressed. The Ukrainians have a good idea of how it would be under Russian oppression. Putin isn't interested in negotiation, but conquering and absorbing Ukraine. And if he can't get that, make it a wasteland - like in Chechnya; also depopulated.

Russki Mir (read either as Russian world or Russian Peace) has some similarities with Pax Romana - occupied lands kept in thrall by occasional brutal reprisals. Way back in this thread FF asked why did all the exSoviet empire that escaped c.1990 wish to join Nato - it may have been a rhetorical question but now no one who has access to a relatively free press is unaware of what Russian Occupation is like - there are extremely similar stories post WW2 of Russian occupying troops and their treatment of civilians - unfortunately seems inbred in the Russian psyche.

[RichardB]

seems inbred in the Russian psyche

What exactly does that mean? How many Russian people do you know? Those that I know don't fit your stereotype at all, but, anecdotal evidence aside, what on earth is to be gained by such stereotyping? Surely that needs to be left behind with racism, misogyny and the rest. Many people would say that life under the British Empire involved a similar degree of brutality to that you're ascribing to Russians. Is that "inbred in our psyche"?

[french frank]

Letting aggression go unchecked usually leads to more aggression

And countering it with more aggression also leads to more aggression, so where does that leave us?

Needing to make a choice - of some sort - where there are no good options?

[EnemyoftheStoat]

What exactly does that mean? How many Russian people do you know? Those that I know don't fit your stereotype at all, but, anecdotal evidence aside, what on earth is to be gained by such stereotyping? Surely that needs to be left behind with racism, misogyny and the rest. Many people would say that life under the British Empire involved a similar degree of brutality to that you're ascribing to Russians. Is that "inbred in our psyche"?

I had trouble with that too. Another stereotype maybe, but I'd contend that any army contains a certain percentage of squaddies who, if given carte blanche from the top to behave brutally, would do so. Where that leads is another thing, but the Russian squaddies will no doubt justify this as they're being told that they're shooting down nazis, as that's what's coming from Putin.

[Bryn]

What exactly does that mean? How many Russian people do you know? Those that I know don't fit your stereotype at all, but, anecdotal evidence aside, what on earth is to be gained by such stereotyping? Surely that needs to be left behind with racism, misogyny and the rest. Many people would say that life under the British Empire involved a similar degree of brutality to that you're ascribing to Russians. Is that "inbred in our psyche"?

Sounds rather like a heavy dose of Lysenkoism, to me.