This is all WAG speculation, but definitely possible now with Trump. If it does happen, my prediction is that Trump will roll over and not do anything. I’m a believer that Trump is personally indebted to powerful people in Russia, possibly Putin himself, and basically has no interest in confronting Moscow. I don’t think the same is true of Germany and France. My WAG is that it would lead to a regional war with Germany, France, and Poland fighting against Russia. I’m guessing the UK will probably try to stay out of it initially but get sucked into it eventually. I think Russia would probably lose, and we would emerge with a world where continental Europe led by Germany would be a new superpower. After the dust settles, when people refer to the leader of the free world they would no longer be referring to the POTUS, but to the German chancellor.
I don’t think any of this will happen, but that’s because I think Putin won’t go there, not because I have any great regard for Trump’s leadership were such events to occur.
Such a scenario results in nuclear war, sorry. If the war becomes an all out fight between those powers, whichever side starts to lose badly will panic, grant its commanders nuclear release, and that’s the end of it. Once the UK and/or France launch, Russia will launch a strategic attack if it doesn’t launch first.
One of the reasons the UK and France wanted nukes in the first place was to force the USA to keep its word on its own nuclear umbrella. Russia can’t use nukes on Western Europe without inviting an American retaliation, and so will launch at the USA as well in the hopes of taking out the American counterstrike capability.
This danger is real. Once you let the cat out of the bag in a general European war, it ends in nuclear war.
The United States has repeatedly failed to honor treaty obligations. Do you think that the fact we violated treaties with almost every Indian nation we signed one with has kept other nations from entering into treaties with us? Do you think that, should President-elect Trump take actions in violation of the NAFTA, that everyone in the world will stop negotiating them with us? Are you aware that the United States Supreme Court actually has a branch of decisional law that justifies when the US can validly violate a treaty obligation?
Are you really so naive about international relations that you think that just because some piece of paper somewhere has some words on it that the nations involved won’t act in their own interest when needed, even, if need be, in spite of that set of words? If you are truly that naive, there’s little point in debating this situation with you. :dubious:
I won’t get into a point for point rebuttal (too much effort, too little interest). But I really found this part of your response very funny. You do know who was elected President of the United States, right? :eek:
You do also know that that elected person has already cast doubt upon his willingness to uphold our treaty obligations to the Baltic states, right?
So you do realize just how silly these statements are, in light of demonstrated facts already in operation, right? :rolleyes:
I believe Russia may launch at the USA, but I don’t think they’d do so out of some irrational hope of “taking out the American counterstrike capability”. Our primary counterstrike capability is in the 14 Ohio-class SSBNs. I don’t know how many are currently at sea, but the Navy says “On average, the submarines spend 77 days at sea followed by 35 days in-port for maintenance”, so we can guess there might be 9 or 10 out there in the ocean, ready to counterstrike Russia into ash if the USA gets nuked.
That’s the way I see it also. Putin’s not going to push too far. He’ll settle for grabbing the rest of Ukraine and Belarus and maybe a couple of countries in the Caucasus or Central Asia. Why go for the three countries that are most likely to start a general war?
Its almost as if all treaties are not of equal importance.
To explain it, upholding a treaty trades off short-term disadvantage for long-term advantage. Sometimes a vital advantage. Like the assurance of mutual assistance that insures countries can continue existing. We previously spoke of how countries kept declaring war during WW1 and 2 due to treaty obligations.
So yes, these pieces of paper do in fact have real-world consequences. Many things that are only pieces of paper do. Not all of them all the time, but the more important ones. And most involved nations consider NATO the most important one. Thats why people keep saying “yes, it would mean war” here. That is why NATO countries put “Tripwire” forces in the Baltics. I think we’ve already explained why they are called that.
Incidentally, as few days ago I came across an opinion piece that interested me. It referred Raymond F. Smiths “Negotiating with the Soviets”. It advances the notion that the Russians flout rules, deals and conventions because they see them as expressions of power, and the mindest does not believe in win-win outcomes.
I find this view of the Russian perspective of rules and treaties interesting in light of the opinions advanced.
I don’t agree that nuclear war is inevitable if a conventional war in Europe breaks out.
Here’s my thinking: what would be Russia’s red line for initiating a nuclear war? I think it would be more like NATO forces starting to make their way to Moscow, with ground forces pushing deep into Russian territory. I do not think Russia’s red line would be, say, the Russian military failing to consolidate control of Poland or whatever.
And on the NATO side, the red line is probably more ambiguous, but it would probably have more to do with the odds that Russia would accomplish an overwhelming military victory the involves, say, Germany falling to Russian forces. I think it is hard to see the scenario in which the Russian armed forces would be able to roll so far without NATO being able to punch back quite seriously after initial losses.
In this scenario, do you actually believe that Russia seeks to control the Baltics so badly that it would start a nuclear war if it failed to seize them and was starting to suffer a military loss? No, I don’t think so — unless NATO sought to seize Russian territory in an devastating counterattack. I don’t think NATO would do so.
[QUOTE=AK84]
There was no “rules lawyering” it was reading the actual material part of the text;in other words basic statutory construction techniques. And I look forward to hearing about your years of experience in those. The treaty specifically does not mandate any particular course of action if a party is attacked and the article implemented, it leaves the decision on what measures to take up to the individual member states.
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You do understand that ‘rules lawyering’ is exactly what you are doing? That it means to attempt to parse individual items that seem to allow one to get around the spirit of a document, treaty or law?
The treaty specifically says that an attack on one is an attack on all. No, it doesn’t specifically lay out that if country A is attacked that country B should do X and country C do Y. But it’s obvious that the spirit of the treaty is that if someone attacks one NATO country that the rest are obliged to respond as if they, themselves were the ones attacked. Your attempt to spin and parse the treaty to get it to say what you want it to say is pretty much the definition of ‘rules lawyering’, and it’s amusing that you attempt to follow that up with this response and the rolley eyed thingy there.
Basically, all NATO allies are equal in the eyes of the treaty. There aren’t countries that are less important or that can just be cut lose in the event of a fully justified (in your own mind based on past posts) Russia defensive annexation of their gods given territory. If any country didn’t honor their treaty obligations and attempt to defend a NATO member attacked then the alliance would basically cease to be relevent, and those countries that tried to take the tact you are suggesting would be on their own and probably not trusted in the future. If it were the US that did that then, rightfully WE wouldn’t be trusted anymore and it be a fundamental shift world wide. Perhaps Trump also has a number of rules lawyers thinking like you, that they can weasle out of US treaty obligations by parsing treaties and twisting them so much that they violate the spirit of the original treaty. If so, gods help us all.
No, I base it on how the US and every other NATO country has interpreted the treaty for literally decades now. Any attempt at this point to parse the treaty and twist it to say that, no, I guess we don’t have to take an attack on a NATO member as an attack on us and, well, I guess that means we can weasle out would be a complete about face. Such a course would brand the US as a truly unrealiable ally, push comes to shove…or any other NATO member who took this course…and would basically be the end of NATO. What good is such a treaty when it doesn’t actually provide the mutual support and defence that were the spirit of the original treaty and how the treaty was viewed throughout the cold war? I mean, if it’s politically expedient to reinterpret the treaty to allow the US and other NATO members to weasle out by parsing the treaty this time, what’s to stop the members from doing the same thing next time when it’s someone else? How could or would any member actually know that next time it might be them who would have to fight alone with no support because it was expedient for the rest to stay out of it? Why HAVE a mutual defense treaty in this case??
[QUOTE=Ravenman]
I don’t agree that nuclear war is inevitable if a conventional war in Europe breaks out.
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Yeah, I agree with you and pretty much this post. A war in the Baltics wouldn’t necessarily go nuclear…in fact, while I rate the probability of any war there as low I think the chances of it going nuclear is substantially lower. Unless NATO went on the offensive and tried to push into Russia I don’t see the Russian’s going nuclear. And NATO isn’t going to go nuclear first either, not in any realistic scenario. I suppose there is the chance a mistake could be made but I don’t see it as a high probability.
What do you guys feel are the odds of a war going nuclear if Russia were to invade Turkey, like if perhaps a Turkish policeman shot their ambassador to death or something.
I should have added: that even without such a war going nuclear, it would be EXTREMELY costly. The destruction of the countries involved, and the displacement of people, would be tremendous. Just because a war may not be nuclear does not imply that it is without substantial cost.
Update: several news agencies are reporting the ambassador has died and the attacker shouted “Allahu akbar,” “Don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria,” and “We are the descendants of those who supported the Prophet Mohammed, for jihad” in Turkish before he himself was shot and killed.
It would be VERY costly for all concerned. I’m pretty confident that NATO could and would kick the Russian’s ass if they tried to invade, but this would be after they basically take out what little forces were in which ever country we are speculating on and after NATO got it’s own forces staged. Just doing THAT would cost a lot. It would cost the Russians more than they have to spend as well. I’m not sure folks understand what it costs to stage such a force and logistically support it in the field for those sorts of operations…and this doesn’t even get into the large number of losses that would be incurred on both sides in such a campaign. It would be pretty brutal with modern weapons. :eek:
Which is why Russia isn’t going to do anything of the sort. Hell, they still haven’t made a full out move on the Ukraine, and that country isn’t under any sort of treaty for mutual defense with NATO or the US. And, of course, economically just what the Russians have done have cost them big time in sanctions and economic lost opportunities.
Disagree somewhat. “Inevitable,” maybe not, but once it starts, there’s no way to stop the spiral. Action on one front needs to be met with action on other fronts. You can’t just isolate it to Latvia. Tanks would roll in other sectors.
Even if you could: aircraft would hit the tanks. Other aircraft would intercept them. Command posts get hit. Airbases get hit. It all spreads.
I don’t necessarily agree. Do you think that if Russia moved against the Baltics, that NATO would start, say, marching troops through Ukraine to seize Crimea? I don’t.
Considering Putin has stated that it was a blatant attempt to force a wedge between Russia and Turkey, I’d say about zero.
What I’ve noticed though, is that there has been an increase in threads on this type of subject matter (WWIII) Is it just a general anxiety? Or is it a manifestation of the fact it has become more likely?
No, but I would expect mobilization along the Polish border, including air strikes into Russia, which would be strategically valid to take pressure away from the Baltic front. That would lead to an escalatory spiral.
There isn’t any way to limit the genie once it escapes from the bottle.
But you’re acknowledging that there are limits, if you don’t expect NATO to invade Crimea. They could be practical or policy limits, but just because Russia makes the decision to invade the Baltics doesn’t mean that they are also likely to seek to roll into Berlin because of “escalatory spiral.”
You do understand that ‘rules lawyering’ is exactly what you are doing? That it means to attempt to parse individual items that seem to allow one to get around the spirit of a document, treaty or law?