NYT- President Biden considering sending thousands of troops to Eastern Europe and Baltics

[GeneralMacArthur]

There is no scenario where a US-Russia ground war does not escalate into nuclear war. Ditto for China. Nuclear war will lead to an end to almost all life, including human life, on Earth.

This is no longer about useless war or endless war; this is about an existential war that, if pursued, would kill everyone with no winners.

Are you really willing to risk life on Earth over Ukraine or Taiwan? Do you think most Americans who voted for Biden could even find Ukraine or Taiwan on a map?

I do not believe Biden has any potential of actually doing this, but he'll play the game of however close we can get so that he can look tough and the military industrial complex can make more weapons, including nuclear weapons. The military-industrial complex doesn't even want a war; they just want to make money. But there are generals in the pentagon who actually want a war.

Just by posturing like this for political and monetary gain, the risk of a nuclear accident, which is already astronomically high, gets even higher.

The generals who actually want this are HP. The regular people on Atlas and elsewhere who want this because "muh Russia" are useful idiots and HP. The arms manufacturers who want to make more money from nukes are HP. President Biden, who was one of the only members of the Obama administration with the Washington experience to know that the hopeless hawks in the Pentagon ought not be to be humored, is a HP for even posturing about this.

If America woke up tomorrow and decided that we just wanted to invade Georgia, for absolutely no reason other than aggressive territorial expansion, and declare it the 51st state, what do you think Russia would do?

We basically already learned this in Syria where Russia threatened to violate any no-fly-zone and dared us to shoot down their aircraft.

Just because any conflict between us has nuclear potential doesn't mean we just stand aside and let each other do whatever the hell we want.

You guys are like traumatized bullying victims who want to just let the bully walk all over you because you're afraid to get hit.  You're terrified of a conflict with Russia, but Russia's sure not terrified of a conflict with us, even though our military is far stronger than theirs.  Most likely because they think we won't actually do anything.  Five years of injecting our body politic with a steady stream of anti-American, anti-NATO, pro-Russia, isolationist messaging has them feeling pretty good about that bet.

[Klobmentum Mutilated Herself]

What's a little nuclear war done to anyone?

There is not going to be a nuclear war.  If it didn't happen even during the very worst moments of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, it certainly isn't going to happen now. 

We literally came within one person of a nuclear war during the Missile Crisis, and that was just a Soviet officer.

Way more than once. False radar readings have happened many times. One of the closest was in the Carter years, when a general told Brzezinski to tell Carter, who was sleeping, to press the button, and just as Brzezinski was about to wake Carter up, the general called to say it was a false alarm. We don't don't know how many close calls there have been because it's not always on the record. Usually it's grunts, not the damned Sec. of State.

Nuclear war is as much of an existential threat, if not more, than climate change. We are stupid for treating it like a danger that we overcame with the end of the first Cold War. We are stupid for even considering Biden's foolish posturing to be valid.

Biden and Putin are not dumb. They both know war will lead to nuclear war and that Ukraine isn't worth it, but they both want to enrich their respective oligarchs and look tough for political points. But just by playing this game that they both know can't be played to completion, we're putting more nukes in circulation, and quickening the trigger finger on the button. This is foolish.

[Klobmentum Mutilated Herself]

So the only person who isn't a HP in all of this, according to you, is Putin

Putin is HP. He knows this is a stupid game that can't be played to completion but he's playing anyway. But nobody in this thread is cheering on Putin, lots are cheering on Biden.

[GeneralMacArthur]

It's not worth starting WW3 over Ukraine. Of course WW3 would start if Russia invaded a NATO ally.

WASHINGTON — President Biden is considering deploying several thousand U.S. troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, an expansion of American military involvement amid mounting fears of a Russian incursion into Ukraine, according to administration officials.

[Klobmentum Mutilated Herself]

If America woke up tomorrow and decided that we just wanted to invade Georgia, for absolutely no reason other than aggressive territorial expansion, and declare it the 51st state, what do you think Russia would do?

We basically already learned this in Syria where Russia threatened to violate any no-fly-zone and dared us to shoot down their aircraft.

Just because any conflict between us has nuclear potential doesn't mean we just stand aside and let each other do whatever the hell we want.

You guys are like traumatized bullying victims who want to just let the bully walk all over you because you're afraid to get hit.  You're terrified of a conflict with Russia, but Russia's sure not terrified of a conflict with us, even though our military is far stronger than theirs.  Most likely because they think we won't actually do anything.  Five years of injecting our body politic with a steady stream of anti-American, anti-NATO, pro-Russia, isolationist messaging has them feeling pretty good about that bet.

This isn't about a normal war. This is about a nuclear war. If there's a nuclear war, we'll be as dead as the Russians and the Ukrainians.

[GeneralMacArthur]

This isn't about a normal war. This is about a nuclear war. If there's a nuclear war, we'll be as dead as the Russians and the Ukrainians.

If Russia really wants a nuclear war they can press the button right now.  No need to go through this whole farce of using Ukraine as a pretext for starting it.

[Klobmentum Mutilated Herself]

This isn't about a normal war. This is about a nuclear war. If there's a nuclear war, we'll be as dead as the Russians and the Ukrainians.

If Russia really wants a nuclear war they can press the button right now.  No need to go through this whole farce of using Ukraine as a pretext for starting it.

They don't want a nuclear war over Ukraine, and neither do we. Well, Biden, Putin, the American nuclear weapons manufacturers, and Russian nuclear weapons manufacturers don't want war. All they want is to make more money for their respective weapons manufacturers, and gain political points in the eyes of people like you who want war and your fellow warmongers in the Pentagon. But just by playing this stupid game, they risk the button getting pressed. They risk a true believer in warmongering ideology, probably but not necessarily with an R next to their name, winning in 2024 or 28 and pressing the button. It's not worth the risk and nobody should encourage it. It's nuts. It's suicidal. You're all suicidal nuts.

[DaleCooper]

Okay, none of us want Biden to launch nuclear weapons over Ukraine. We've gotten that virtue signal out of the way. What does that have to do with making it clear through a show of military force that our NATO allies (i.e. not Ukraine) are defended?

[emailking]

Way more than once. False radar readings have happened many times. One of the closest was in the Carter years, when a general told Brzezinski to tell Carter, who was sleeping, to press the button, and just as Brzezinski was about to wake Carter up, the general called to say it was a false alarm. We don't don't know how many close calls there have been because it's not always on the record. Usually it's grunts, not the damned Sec. of State.

Could be a good argument for the quantum suicide hypothesis.

[H. Ross Peron]

What's a little nuclear war done to anyone?

There is not going to be a nuclear war.  If it didn't happen even during the very worst moments of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, it certainly isn't going to happen now. 

We literally came within one person of a nuclear war during the Missile Crisis, and that was just a Soviet officer.

Way more than once. False radar readings have happened many times. One of the closest was in the Carter years, when a general told Brzezinski to tell Carter, who was sleeping, to press the button, and just as Brzezinski was about to wake Carter up, the general called to say it was a false alarm. We don't don't know how many close calls there have been because it's not always on the record. Usually it's grunts, not the damned Sec. of State.

Nuclear war is as much of an existential threat, if not more, than climate change. We are stupid for treating it like a danger that we overcame with the end of the first Cold War. We are stupid for even considering Biden's foolish posturing to be valid.

Biden and Putin are not dumb. They both know war will lead to nuclear war and that Ukraine isn't worth it, but they both want to enrich their respective oligarchs and look tough for political points. But just by playing this game that they both know can't be played to completion, we're putting more nukes in circulation, and quickening the trigger finger on the button. This is foolish.

It's not posturing to affirm US commitment to NATO allies.

Also this guy was upset about the Afghan withdrawal but now complaining about opposing Putin as a distraction lol:

https://twitter.com/ElbridgeColby/status/1485420814182895617

[MATTROSE94]

Biden should not do this. The United States does not need to have its military resources drawn into yet another theater of the world.

I disagree. I think we could defeat Russia in a war without it going nuclear. Putin would not dare launch nuclear weapons and would surrender once he realized that Russia would be defeated by the US and it’s NATO allies.

[MATTROSE94]

Biden should not do this. The United States does not need to have its military resources drawn into yet another theater of the world.

I mean the Cold War kinda showed letting Russia take Eastern Europe could prove to be an existential threat to the US and while the current Russian Government isnt as evil as the USSR one was, they are still very bad.

I would say that Putin is a lot worse than the Cold War era Russian leaders with the possible exception of Stalin. The US needs to implement a no fly zone around Russia and launch strikes against Russian military installations immediately.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

There is no scenario where a US-Russia ground war does not escalate into nuclear war. Ditto for China. Nuclear war will lead to an end to almost all life, including human life, on Earth.

This is no longer about useless war or endless war; this is about an existential war that, if pursued, would kill everyone with no winners.

Are you really willing to risk life on Earth over Ukraine or Taiwan? Do you think most Americans who voted for Biden could even find Ukraine or Taiwan on a map?

No one is talking about doing this. Where is this insane take coming from? Is there that much Russian propaganda around, or are people just not paying any attention whatsoever?

The suggestion that's been made is increasing the military presence in NATO members that are nearest to Russia. That's happening because Russia is building up large number of soldiers and equipment in Belarus, which borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania. And NATO does not have permanent large standing armies in Eastern Europe, because it has kept its agreement with Russia to not do so.

This isn't a provocation, where NATO is going looking for a fight. It's seeing a man dressed like a burglar in the neighborhood, and making sure doors and windows are locked and the alarm is working so that you don't end up having to confront the apparent robber inside with a gun.

[Mr. Illini]

But I guess abandoning the American people is something I should've come to expect from Democrats by now after the disgrace that is Obamacare.

I'll let my family members who are alive today thanks to Obamacare know that they're a disgrace.

Be sure to let the families of those that died because they can't afford insulin know their lives don't matter as much as dropping bombs on Russia.

That's a deflection and a non sequitur. I support saving lives Obamacare, I support saving lives through making sure everyone has enough insulin, and I support saving lives by making sure Russia doesn't start a war in Ukraine. I'm 3/3. You're 1/3.

Then you agree Democrats abandoned Americans by not fighting for universal coverage. And escalating a military buildup is not going to save lives, if anything, it's going to ensure war does happen.

Totally false. Buffing up troops along NATO’s border will make clear our commitment to our allies and deter Putin from any further incursion into Europe if he did invade Ukraine.

Your solution - America withdrawing from NATO and pulling all of our troops out of Europe - is the one that would ensure that war is going to happen. Putin would be much more emboldened to take Ukraine and possibly go further into Eastern Europe at some point.

Multilateral institutions prevent war and save lives. This has been demonstrated since the development of institutions after WWII.

So many users in this thread are ignoring basic facts about the situation and basic fopo consensus just to freak out about a WWIII or something.

[West_Midlander]

This is a bad situation but I think the President is taking the best course of action possible, at least as far as I am aware.

[MATTROSE94]

This is a bad situation but I think the President is taking the best course of action possible, at least as far as I am aware.

This action will result in the downfall of Putin’s brutal regime, so I agree with it 100%. I am pretty sure we will end up droning Putin in the end.

[Person Man]

This is a bad situation but I think the President is taking the best course of action possible, at least as far as I am aware.

This action will result in the downfall of Putin’s brutal regime, so I agree with it 100%. I am pretty sure we will end up droning Putin in the end.

That would be bad ass.

[Inmate Trump]

War is the last thing we should be gearing up for.

But we also cannot let Russia invade other nations.

[StateBoiler]

First of all, people need to read the article. Biden is apparently contemplating sending troops into NATO countries in Eastern Europe, like the Baltics and Poland. If Russia launches a territorial invasion of a NATO member state, we are probably all going to perish in nuclear hellfire regardless of how many troops are in eastern Estonia, and I think it would be hard to blame Biden for that.

Also, I'm going to take a heterodox position for a maroon avatar here and say that the recent national trauma involving ill-informed military misadventures abroad has given the American left a reasonable but misguided impulse towards absolutely pacifist rhetoric when I think that few people, if pressed, are actually absolute pacifists. Like, the reason the Iraq War was bad was not because it was a war and wars are always bad. It's because it was born of a combination of bad intelligence suggesting that Iraq had or would soon have WMDs, an inexplicable belief that an invasion would ameliorate this situation, and a post-9/11 impulse to "get back" at the people who did this to us and impose democracy. A war with that rationale was never going to be beneficial, either for Iraqis or Americans. The current Ukraine crisis is almost entirely different. If war breaks out, it will be because of a territorial invasion of a sovereign nation in order to expand a sphere of influence. That's far closer to Czechoslovakia 1938 than it is to Iraq 2003.

I sympathize with the people arguing that war with Russia isn't desirable. God knows that the American military is too involved in too many parts of the world already, and war between nuclear powers is scary to think about. At the same time, though, this shouldn't get in the way of making rational foreign policy decisions. Is war with Russia going to be more desirable if it were to finish the job in Georgia? Or if it were to demand the dissolution of NATO and reincorporation of the Baltic states? Of course it won't. So is the thinking that the United States ought to meekly acquiesce to whatever terms Russia imposes given that they have a looser trigger finger than the United States? It should also be remembered that, in the event of invasion, American isolationism isn't going to prevent war, or even necessarily nuclear war. All it will do is ensure that the people killed in the inevitable ensuing war will be entirely Ukrainian. From an ethical perspective, it seems to me that the preference for Ukrainian deaths over American deaths is an entirely arbitrary one.

I want to commend your post for being reasoned and well thought out.

The French and Germans apparently are backing off doing anything, see no war danger in Russian military actions. It's a reasonable theory at this point to say the Germans are Finlandized.

[StateBoiler]

Not necessarily a bad move for once, but the Senate should pass Cruz’s bill on the Nordstream pipeline, amongst other things. As well as arming Ukraine- that way, we can help Ukraine without needing to even send troops (though I am not opposed to this move either, I innately don’t trust Biden on anything FP related).

Also, evacuate all American civilians. That’s debatably more important than anything else right now.

Biden admin lobbied hard against it. 5 Democrats joined all the Republicans in voting for it so it had majority support but needed 60 votes to pass. The Biden admin waived around to Democrats a competing bill by Menendez for them to vote against the Cruz bill but it's still in draft status, vague, and not at all clear on what it would actually do.

[Ferguson97]

Neither the US nor Russia would be dumb enough to strike first, so nuclear war is off the table and all of the "concerns" about it are either phony or uninformed.

[MATTROSE94]

Neither the US nor Russia would be dumb enough to strike first, so nuclear war is off the table and all of the "concerns" about it are either phony or uninformed.

The US and NATO could easily defeat Russia in a war, so I think that Joe Biden should take that step as soon as Russia invades Ukraine. Basically, we could defeat Russia in a war by utilizing the first strike plan President John F. Kennedy’s defense department  team developed in 1961.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Also why is it a guarantee that if war breaks out it’s nuclear? We sure as hell aren’t launching nukes at Russia over Ukraine sovereignty and the circumstances that would force Russia to consider the nuke option (ie the invasion is such a military disaster that Ukraine and western forces are actually invading Russia territory and on the doorsteps of Moscow) is just as likely to see the Russian military depose Putin and sue for peace

[Grassroots]

The current administration is more concerned about Ukraine's border than our own.

[NYSforKennedy2024]

Biden is about to drag us into the 3rd World War and red avatars talking about technicalities lmao