WW3

.Peter. said:

Are you a Russian troll ?

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Why do you ask that was my question not valid?

Northern_Brewer said:

It's just another sign of Putin's

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And when he thinks his back is to the wall do you think he will give up or escalate?

Chippy_Tea said:

And when he thinks his back is to the wall do you think he will give up or escalate?

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What do you think "Putin's back to the wall" would look like? We've had all these red lines like not entering Russian territory that have turned out to be empty threats, and Ukraine is not going to do anything that would genuinely threaten Putin in the way that Wagner did. Putin cares about Number One and nobody else, so if a few 100k of his fellow countrymen die, that doesn't matter to him.

So what does his "back to the wall" look like?

Northern_Brewer said:

So what does his "back to the wall" look like?

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A BIG mushroom cloud

Chippy_Tea said:

And when he thinks his back is to the wall do you think he will give up or escalate?

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If he looks like pushing the button on a nuclear response then my guess would be that one of his own team would take him out as that is a point of no return and the war with Ukraine has exposed the weakness of the once mighty Russian military, with technology and firepower the west possess any sane military commander would look to deescalate.

Once the long range ordinance reaches those areas in Russia that have until now been isolated public confidence will start to erode, remember the former USSR (now Ukraine) is one of the few who have the seen the effects of a nuclear incident on their shores, this was drop in the ocean compared the weapons systems we hold nowadays. As mad a Putin is I doubt those about him will allow the horrors of a nuclear conflict on their country and people, its widely accepted that use of nuclear weapons will lead to mutually assured destruction.

The only potential bump in the road is what happens when the inevitable fall out between Putin and Trump happens, all bets are off when you have 2 lunatics in the hot seats

Northern_Brewer said:

What do you think "Putin's back to the wall" would look like? We've had all these red lines like not entering Russian territory that have turned out to be empty threats, and Ukraine is not going to do anything that would genuinely threaten Putin in the way that Wagner did. Putin cares about Number One and nobody else, so if a few 100k of his fellow countrymen die, that doesn't matter to him.

So what does his "back to the wall" look like?

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You seem to be an expert on Putin and how he will protect Russia from our interference in the war I will leave it to your imagination at what stage Putin will decide we have overstepped the mark by allowing Ukraine to use these long range missiles, I hope you are wrong and Putin will not use nukes but it's a big gamble now we have said it's ok to use them.

Nuking anywhere in Ukraine would be a very stupid move, and the beginning of the end of Putin. Putin isn't stupid.

Not convinced there are any countries with that would be able to utilise their nuclear warheads without The States being aware of it and acting accordingly.

Even China hasn't been daft enough to go into Taiwan. I'm not sure how long that will be the case with a non-interventionist in The White House.

Ask yourself a question, do you have any control over the start of ww3 regardless of who fires first, no, so just just keep doing your daily grind and above all else keep brewing and drinking worrying is not good.

As an aside, these 180 mile missiles have been completely rubbish.

I don't even know why they bother. Even Ukraine admitted that 5 were taken out before they even made it and the other one partially made it causing a fire.

Both sides have anti-missile technology. The only way Russia made them stick the other night was because they threw in 300 at once and a dozen or so made their target.

The general consensus from alot of the 'geopolitical experts and commentators' I've been watching and listening to over recent weeks is that alot of fluff and bluster from Putin...in all liklihood. We need to call his bluff. His plan is not to stop at Ukraine and he needs 100% of Ukraine so any negotiation made to call a halt to fighting now by ceding a chunk of Ukraine to him will be nothing but delaying tactics to give him some breathing space to regroup, re-arm before coming back for the rest...just as he did when we effectively ceded Crimea ignoring lessons of the past that giving into these people is not effective. And he wont stop at Ukraine...he has his eyes firmly set on all the ex-soviet nations, including Poland, so he needs to be stopped. And no point in short term-ism of dealing with Putin...he has a long list of other despots waiting in the wings with the same objectives. This is about reclaiming the physical land boarders and barriers around Russia to protect their boarders from a ground invasion. Russia has no physical features like mountain ranges so its thousands of miles long boarder is all penetrable and impossible to defend. He needs a ring of physical geographical and geological features to protect his boarders and for that he needs all the ex-soviet nations - yes its old school soviet era land invasion thinking, but that is their thinking and another indicator as to how stuck in the past they are - dangerously so. So we need to call his bluff or we are looking at the next few decades of constant conflict in that region that will keep racking up the body count and drawing more and more upon our resources. Having said that he is racking up some body count too and even Putin doesn't have an unlimited supply of bodies to keep throwing at the issue. He's already increased the drafting age and pulled in the North Koreans for some canon fodder.

In any case the capability of the Russian army and military has been massively over estimated constantly and at every test it's been proven to be not very good to put it mildly - in fact pretty embarrassing for the Russians. If it wasn't for sheer weight of number of bodies Putin has to throw at the war with a strategy of long drawn out war of attrition it would have been over months ago. So there is no reason to assume his nuclear arsenal is anywhere near 100% operational and at a state of readiness. Of course it only takes one warhead to get through, but any move to use Nukes by Russia will be a huge mistake and Putin knows it so he's not quite as trigger happy as everyone is fearing...that is what he's banking on...though I don't doubt he's capable of giving the order.

The level of corruption at every level of the Russian government is such that pretty much 100% of the military budget has been embezzled by those in charge to fund their lavish lifestyles, yachts in Monaco, Properties in London and all over the world etc. and there has been zero budget available for investment in military equipment both in terms of maintenance of existing equipment, training and ongoing development and improvement of kit since the downfall of the USSR. So its not unreasonable to assume that this has happened with their nuclear arsenal too and the chances are his nukes are just as dilapidated as the rest of his military hardware. And we have seen with the recent Royal Navy failed Trident test that these missile systems are very complicated and very maintenance hungry and part of the reason we maintain such a large arsenal with huge levels of apparent overkill is to account for a certain proportion of the missiles failing when fired. If we have, say a 30% failure rate of our missiles, then Russias is more likely to be 80%+. It is thought that the failure rate of his conventional cruise missiles fired in the war so far is upto about 80%...pretty terrible really.

Anyway the threat of WW3 will not come from Russia..it's China. China is watching with interest as it plans its invasion of Taiwan. So if the western alliances put up a strong coherent response to Russia then it makes the Taiwan invasion less likely and push their invasion ambitions out. If we appear weak and fragmented then that might just embolden the Chinese to move quicker.

We can see the current 'axis of evil' between Russia, Iran and its proxies, and China, and I guess North Korea too to a lesser extent. It is no coincidence that we have Russia and Hamas all kicking off at the same time...all these events are linked and driven by one strategy.

Do you think putin ever thinks about his own demise (aka death)?
Will it be "peaceful" whilst snoozing in his bed in the Kremlin or one of his palaces, or will one of his confidants despatch him in good old soviet fashion?
As for Ukraine, the Ukrainian people, I suspect it will be the west who betray them, nobody is really willing to say the word. At least Biden knows who is playing games and got in there first (albeit late in the day) before trump has a word with putin and agrees respective spheres of influence.
The Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement comes to mind...