Hi(gh)!

Affairs in the Ukraine and Russia are escalating since a few hours... 
possibly a military confrontation between Russia and the NATO allies is 
imminent! This would mean a full-scale war at least throughout Europe, 
and this war would most likely not remain a conventional one...

And the first nuclear strike would trigger a global chain reaction which 
would at least plunge the northern hemisphere into a real inferno...

What do you think - is there a chance that at least humans on the 
southern hemisphere - and thus POV-Ray, with is "headquarters" in 
Australia - survive such a holocaust?

See you in Khyberspace!

Yadgar

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> Hi(gh)!
> 
> Affairs in the Ukraine and Russia are escalating since a few hours...
> possibly a military confrontation between Russia and the NATO allies is
> imminent! This would mean a full-scale war at least throughout Europe,
> and this war would most likely not remain a conventional one...
> 
> And the first nuclear strike would trigger a global chain reaction which
> would at least plunge the northern hemisphere into a real inferno...
> 
> What do you think - is there a chance that at least humans on the
> southern hemisphere - and thus POV-Ray, with is "headquarters" in
> Australia - survive such a holocaust?
> 
> See you in Khyberspace!
> 
> Yadgar

I'm not convinced that the crisis will escalate that far. Putin is (I
hope) not prepared to commit suicide yet.

The whole point about war is to control economically productive
territory. The use of nuclear weapons renders that territory
economically unviable. Thus, the nuclear option is a non-zero sum game.
One side loses, the other gains nothing and runs the risk of having some
of its territory eradicated. Remember the acronym MAD.

However, that said, I believe that Putin has overplayed his hand. He is
relying on the fact that the West, after a few disastrous forays into
other nations' problems, will pull back from military intervention. This
may be so, but what _we_ have is economic power and Russia needs the
West to keep itself afloat.

Secondly, and possibly of equal importance, Putin by his actions has
lost what little credibility he had before. This may be of relevance in
considering what his future actions might be. I think (and hope) that
the loss of face that he is already suffering will cause him to pull
back from the brink.

John
-- 
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children

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On Sun, 02 Mar 2014 11:43:05 +0000, Doctor John wrote:

> I'm not convinced that the crisis will escalate that far.

I would agree with this.  It's very premature to assume that the conflict 
will go nuclear for some reason - Ukraine doesn't even have (to my 
knowledge) any nukes left.

We have had potential military conflicts with Russia in the past - 
Chechnya, Afghanistan (remember how the US funded/provided arms to the 
Mujahadeen?  The Soviets knew that was happening, certainly).

This is likely nothing more than a game of high-stakes brinksmanship, as 
usually happens in situations like that.  The majority of the Ukrainian 
people certainly seem to want independence from Russia, and if Putin 
doesn't relent, he's just going to have a bit of a local guerrilla war on 
his hands.

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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