Thread by @JBelcourt73

Johnny Rico was once asked by Jean V Dubois how many lives were worth fighting for. It's an important question given today's climate. BTW, if you don't know who Mr. Rico and Mr. Dubois are, well you are missing out on one of the great philosophical works of the modern age.

Although the question posed to Mr. Rico was about the fate of POW's after a fictional WWIII it bears on the world we live in today exactly because we may be on the cusp of WWIII. Putin appears to be betting the fate of humanity on a deadly serious question. Will the US respond

with force if I use nuclear weapons. There are only 3 possible answers to that question. 1. Yes, so I might as well go all in ad initio and cue REM to play one last time.

Option 2 is Yes, but escalation can be controlled and a conventional war with the US won't go nuclear and I can prevail conventionally ending with the survival of my regime. This is absolute hubris and is only on the list because Putin is so obviously mad to even be risking

NATO intervention. Once the nuclear genie is popped you can't go back because you cannot be trusted. That leaves option 3: No, the US will walk away from the fight rather than engage. In effect Putin is betting that Johnny Rico will answer, No lives are worth war. This is a major

error in reasoning despite what the appeaseniks say. Look's its highly likely that if the US walks away from Ukraine, that Putin's threat to the west is over. He is an old man and is unlikely to live long enough to see his military rebuilt in time to pursue further direct action.

The problem is that Russia will and will be emboldened by US weakness and in 15-20 years it will be the Baltic's turn and in the meantime the west will fragment. If the US walks away it is far more likely there won't be a NATO than there won't be another invasion. It will herald

a new age of empire. Ukraine wasn't a proxy war, it was a just fight by a free people striving to keep themselves free from their historic abusive imperial overlords. The endless drumbeat of nuclear war however means it is now a proxy war that Russia is waging against the west

via Ukraine. It is not the West or the US that is escalating. The escalation comes from Russia, who having been defeated on the battlefield and now reduced to buying drones from Iran and using 1st year cadets as leaders of men in battle now looks to protect its ill gotten

loot via nuclear blackmail. The thing is, those 3 choices will also be faced by Biden if Putin pulls the trigger. Obviously if we detect a first strike well that is an easy choice, launch all the stuff and lets all meet at God's place. But if he only conducts a "localized" attack

then what? Can you bet that Putin won't go global when the USAF backed by NATO destroys what the Russians call an army and air force inside of a week? Do you back off and surrender to evil in trade for a few more years until the whole thing kicks off again this time with no

alliance to oppose it, or do you try and take Russia off the board ad initio to try and prevent a massive two way nuclear exchange? This is not a conversation for twitter. Lay people should not have to have this discussion at all. As recently as January 2022 the P5 members issued

a joint declaration that, "Nuclear war is unwinnable and must never be fought". Yet here we are... I'd like to think some semblance of rationality would penetrate to the Kremlin's inner circle. They do appear to be responsive-ish to the fubarred nature of the mobilization. But

in so many other ways they appear divorced from reality and trapped in group think and hostage to the sunken costs fallacy. So that begs the question now what? What do we do? As you know I tag my elected leaders every day. This is my message to them knowing I am betting my

grandkids lives on it. @JohnBoozman, @SenTomCotton, @RepFrenchHill stay strong, support @POTUS as he sends arms to Ukraine and opposes the #GenocideOfUkrainians. The only way to convince Putin that nuclear war is unwinnable is being ready to fight it. A MAD world is safer than

one held hostage to the whims of a madman. It's the only reasonable path forward. We can't stop him from destroying the world if he wants too, but we can make sure that he knows, that every Russian knows that he and his cliche and all they stand for dies first. Russian's play

Chess, American's play poker and its time to call the bluff by saying checkmate. To my readers, yeah, very depressing essay but it's the world we live in. All we can do is what we have been doing. Prepare now and pray. Keep donating to charities like @MriyaAid or @UkraineAidOps

support units like the @georgian_legion and help #NAFO combat Russian dis-info that is directly targeted to try and make people choose surrender and future slavery over resolution and the chance to live free. Promote Ukraine and Ukrainian voices into the other parts of your lives

be the sinew that connects your community to what is happening in Ukraine. This is no longer just Ukraine's war to win, we are all now combatants according to Russia. Act like it. Until Ukraine wins on Ukraine's terms: Slava Ukraini!

#RussianMobilization #RussiaIsATerroristState #nuclearwar #nuclearblackmail @mfa_russia <--- still losing and the bugs have more brains than you.

@threadreaderapp unroll please