Cheasty
January 21, 2022, 3:36pm
207
This was an interesting post from back in the day. Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. It probably shouldn’t have done. Because Russia didn’t, and so we arrive at the present shit show of a situation, where the nearest thing Europe has seen to Hitler has become drunk on his own absolute power.
Common Sense podcast from Carlin in the Crimean situation is pretty interesting. Critiques the whole idea of NATO, and says that ultimately it’s ridiculous to expect that Western leaders should take the risk of starting WWIII over somewhere like the Ukraine or Latvia. Is the sovereignty of Crimea worth the deaths of one billion people?
He says that if we are serious about the independence and freedom of smaller nations, the real way to address it would be to provide the likes of Latvia with a tactical nuclear weapon. Knowing that a military incursion would prompt the deaths of a million of their own people is about as significant a deterrent a small nation can offer to a great power.
Basically his point was that Putin’s actions call NATO’s bluff on article 5 protection, that when it comes down to it a nuclear war won’t be started over small nations on Russia’s border and Putin had taken advantage of that fact. However, a small country having its own independence threatened is far more likely to take drastic action, which necessarily changes the thinking of aggressive superpowers.