Quote (Black XistenZ @ Oct 2 2023 03:50pm)
The tweet is Musk regurgitating typical, naive talking points from the Western "why can't we live in peace with Russia"-faction more so than him actually proposing the Russian position. For instance, Russia would never actually agree to "Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people."
We initially totally did fall prey to this empty threat. Yet in spite of this experience, the generals and defense politicians across NATO countries by and large don't push for direct NATO involvement in the war, so they seemingly still consider the threat of nuclear escalation to have credibility in that case.
Which also makes sense: Russia is using arms from other countries like China or Iran, so on which grounds should Ukraine doing something similar be a justification for starting WW3? On the other hand, NATO directly bombing Russian troops on territory Russia considers its own, with Russian-speaking and majority pro-Russian civilians, would come much closer to being a sufficiently strong casus belli, don't you think?
Nobody is talking about NATO doing anything directly except sending weapons and resources. Donbas, Crimea, and Luhansk absolutely would not give better justification if Ukraine is taking them, and Russia's nuclear retaliation in response to Ukraine attacking these areas would result in immediate and swift action from all of their allied nations. Russia has given several "nuclear lines" during this conflict already, and we've stepped over them by providing aid, and Ukraine has stepped over them by retaking and shelling captured territory.
Musks' line was just "give Russia what they want". And yeah, there's a lot of westerners also saying that kind of thing, but that's mostly in response to the absolute rampant propaganda Russia has been putting into the western sphere. Really just a continuation of their ongoing propaganda campaigns. And... Elon met with Putin right before putting that tweet out. Has said things during speaking events like "we should be negotiating with Putin. He wants peace". on a similar timescale.
Musk isn't like, a Russian controlled puppet, but by literally Musks's own admission, his reactions have been in response to his conversation with Putin and Russian officials.