Unfortunately most wars are over land, taking it, defending it / holding it. To do that you need boots on the ground. I agree it's a lot easier to kill people defending or attacking at distance with modern weopons.
The same reason there's been relative peace (in the sense of world wars) for the last 80 years. Nuclear weapons.
I think this is 20th century mindset. I know it's cliche but that Einstein (supposedly) quote about not knowing what weapons will be used in WW3 but knows that WW4 we'll be using sticks and stones sums it up well enough for me.
No just pointing out if you argument is that one side won was it because the other side didn't use them? the logic side won because of it fails because the other side did and lost.
No the side with the most soldiers and equipment won both world wars, for that you needed citizen armies in the US, Soviet Union and Britain and Commonwealth. There is currently a citizen army in Ukraine who are doing well despite the west's best efforts to stop supplying them.
There is currently a very large land war in Europe using very large armies and one of the belligerents has a vast nuclear arsenal.
the last two years have shown the war has ground into a war of attrition. Sure he wants Russia to return to to old Soviet borders or influence without the communist connotations but trying to do so through a global land war conflict - I don't think so. Even Putin is not that stupid he'd rather have his war with the west by other means.
Ironically your less likely to get a war between Putin and Trump. With the later appeasing the other. How ever i would put it past a US led Trump to let the Ukraine / Europe fend for itself against Russia.
Did you think he would invade Ukraine 2 years ago?
Using Nuclear weapons whether tactical or strategic would very much isolate Russia from China. A Nuclear state attacking a non nuclear state with nuclear weapons would give the green light to countries like Japan, South Korea possibly even Australia to get Nuclear weapons. It wouldn't actually be that hard for them to do. That would seriously **** the Chinese off who in a stroke would have lost much of its foreign power over the Pacific but again, Russian state media talks about using them all the time.
This is a very fair point and definitely warrants pause for thought. There's no way I thought you would see tanks moving across Europe like we did with Russia into Ukraine. However, weirdly it kind of almost proves my point in that we're talking about global world wars and there was never any real danger of the Ukraine conflict turning into one.
He was massing troops on the border and American intelligence was saying he was going to invade. So yes.
This is going beyond an actual global conflict happening which started this discussion and should be saved for the Ukraine thread.
There is absolutely a real danger of it escalating into a global war give Iran and North Korea are now firmly committed to Russia's side and are getting god knows what to pay for the drones and shells they are supplying Russia with.
6 months before it happened?
Well no of course not.
Good point, nothing beats training for war than actually fighting.
It's also cheaper to spend on defence than to spend to on war
TBH I thought he'd invade again after he took Crimea. He's got away with it without resistance for too long. Now he has faced resistance but is seeing the west crumbling away at the concept of mild inconvenience to help a country against Russia whilst Russia is prepared to jump feet first into the meat grinder.
