O/T:- Betting odds for US Election [The USA Politics Thread]

[drillerpie]

I'm not sure the analogy works. Of course going round to your mate's house to help keep invaders at bay isn't escalation, it's defending your property. But if your mate lent you his pickup truck and drove it round to the attackers' house and smashed their windows, that would be escalation.

So in your mind, the answer to war is more war. I understand, but I don't agree. If you have one side that is an aggressor and another side that is defending its territory, that's one thing. But if you have two sides that are actively raising the stakes, where does it end? It has to end somewhere. I can't see Russia backing down - Putin's whole strong-man persona would fall apart both domestically and internationally if he didn't follow through on his threats and retreated in the face of the West. Obviously Russia can't be allowed to win. So it has to be a negotiated end, and that means both sides get less than what they want.

Ok so to try and stay with the same analogy, if there were people coming to your house and doing the things I described every day and night for 3 years, you could decide to find out where they live and go round there with a truck full of mates to dissuade them. I don't think that's escalation but you do - fair enough.

By your logic though, when the RAF was carrying out bombing raids on Germany to reduce their military capacity during the blitz, the UK was actually escalating the conflict.

During that time there was an isolationist mood in the US (funnily enough with a popular movement called America First too) and they cared as much about the UK getting levelled as some MAGA people care about Ukraine getting levelled now. That didn't lead to less war.

Putin wants to restore the Russian empire and he sees Ukraine and Belarus as a big part of that. He has effectively taken Belarus already by sending thousands of riot police and FSB to prop up the dictator there after he lost an election, and he tried to take Ukraine by force. Any ceasefire will just be an opportunity to replenish his forces and try to make Ukraine a non-viable country before starting round 2 in a few years. Also China will see that if you invade another country, basically you get put on the naughty step for a couple of years but then people get bored and you can keep what you took. I really do think that any alternative here leads to more war in the future.

[Lullapie]

Ok so to try and stay with the same analogy, if there were people coming to your house and doing the things I described every day and night for 3 years, you could decide to find out where they live and go round there with a truck full of mates to dissuade them. I don't think that's escalation but you do - fair enough.

By your logic though, when the RAF was carrying out bombing raids on Germany to reduce their military capacity during the blitz, the UK was actually escalating the conflict.

During that time there was an isolationist mood in the US (funnily enough with a popular movement called America First too) and they cared as much about the UK getting levelled as some MAGA people care about Ukraine getting levelled now. That didn't lead to less war.

Putin wants to restore the Russian empire and he sees Ukraine and Belarus as a big part of that. He has effectively taken Belarus already by sending thousands of riot police and FSB to prop up the dictator there after he lost an election, and he tried to take Ukraine by force. Any ceasefire will just be an opportunity to replenish his forces and try to make Ukraine a non-viable country before starting round 2 in a few years. Also China will see that if you invade another country, basically you get put on the naughty step for a couple of years but then people get bored and you can keep what you took. I really do think that any alternative here leads to more war in the future.

Unless you believe in peace through strength. In the last 75 years or so, that has proved to work, but many seem to ignore that fact.