If the nuclear weapons come out, the US would at least seriously consider retaliatory strikes as well. If NATO countries are attacked, the US is treaty-bound to fight alongside them, too.

Indeed. And prevailing winds on the European continent blow into Russia from the west.

Beyond the reality of instant and powerful retalation, dropping nuclear weapons on Berlin or Kyiv or Warsaw is a tad suicidal from that POV alone.

And even the use of a small scale "tactical" nuke inside Ukrainian territory would essentially force NATO into committing its own forces inside Ukraine. It would be too far beyond the pale.

I don't think Putin will take this gamble. The whole world would lose, but Russia would lose even more.

Back the day, before the Urkaine invasion, I thought of Putin as a pu0et player and calculated risk taker, but one that knew his limits and had a keen risk calculation. The he non-surprise invaded Ukraine and botched it horribly. Seems somewhere during Covid he got on the crazy train to his own universe of madness...

I totally think Putin is insane enough by now to order a tactical nuclear strike. I also think, for now, the Russian military will act by then and "remove" him from power. Or not, because who knows how those things play out in real life.

I think the kleptocracy in Russia feels cornered and vulnerable. They are entirely dependent on a) the subservience of their own population and on b) high energy prices. Too many times in the last 10 years they have felt the squeeze on both. And so they're lashing out with a brutal mixture of old-style colonial imperialism and jingoistic nationalism -- "why should you get an empire if we don't?"

Hence Lavrov constantly crowing about the hypocrisy of "the west." It's not that they think what the US empire has done is immoral. It's that they (and by they I don't mean the Russian people, but instead a select cadre at the top) want the same thing for themselves.

The irony is there was no singular unified west until Russia invaded Ukraine. Out of that conflict, they have inadvertently forged a much more united western opposition to them.

I hated the whole concept of NATO until Russia invaded Ukraine.

So yes, I agree, think Putin overplayed his hand in a clumsy way. But he may have had no other choice.

The parallels to WWI are strong.

> Hence Lavrov constantly crowing about the hypocrisy of "the west." It's not that they think what the US empire has done is immoral. It's that they (and by they I don't mean the Russian people, but instead a select cadre at the top) want the same thing for themselves.

Yes. What Lavrov doesn't understand is that the West isn't an empire, it's a series of states with similar cultures and political and economic systems, that voluntarily choose to work together. But Russia doesn't seem to realise that there are other ways of getting people to do what you want than brutality and threats.

Please watch Sergey Lavrov's Address to the UN General Assembly [1]

> What Lavrov doesn't understand is that the West isn't an empire series of states with similar cultures and political and economic systems, that voluntarily choose to work together. But Russia doesn't seem to realise that there are other ways of getting people to do what you want than brutality and threats. > brutality and threats

Brutality and threats is what U.S. sanctions and U.S. national security strategy are.

[1] https://youtu.be/ADhvhsbAXqo

> Brutality and threats is what U.S. sanctions and U.S. national security strategy are.

True but irrelevant -- my whole point was the USA (alongside most nations) has other tools to getting what it wants.

Russia is a country whose only tool is a hammer, and all problems look to it like nails.

The die was cast at the start of the war. Mobilization is to deconcentrate the effects of bombardment. Estimate first tactical use early next year.