XO Hunter: "...I just think that in the nuclear world, the true enemy can't be destroyed."
Captain Ramsey: "Attention on deck. Von Clausewitz will now tell us exactly who the real enemy is. Von?"
XO Hunter: "In my humble opinion... in the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself."
I think that's the difference. In WWII, appeasing Hitler was a mistake because it only emboldened him. Even back then, Tolkien had reservations about how far to take the war. While he abhorred Hitler, he initially supported Neville Chamberlain's "appeasement" policy.
But today, a nuclear Russia cannot be defeated the way Germany was. "In the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself."
We cannot allow a nuclear war to happen, even if it means letting Putin have Ukraine.
The question everyone is wrestling with is, how do we save Ukraine while preventing nuclear war? Unfortunately, we don't know the answer, and the risk of getting it wrong is catastrophic.
As soon as you decide this, and let others know you have, you have lost everything. Because if that logic applies to Ukraine it applies equally to Poland, to Alaska, France, to Washington, D.C., to your hometown. You've committed to surrender everything to any power that has the potential to escalate to nuclear war.
(It's even worse if you don't believe this -- or if you think you do but would think differently if the thing to surrender was closer to home -- and let people think you do, because that makes it almost inevitable that things will escalate beyond your trigger point, resulting in nuclear war.)
It’s only rational to start a nuclear war if a country faces a direct existential threat: i.e. a significant percentage of the population will be killed or conquered and enslaved. The perceived outcome of nuclear war (widespread devastation) has to be preferable to what would happen otherwise.
Conflicts over territories at the far fringes of a great power’s sphere of influence (or desired sphere of influence) obviously don’t meet the bar. If it’s trivial to call your bluff, it’s probably better not to bluff.
The logical consequence of disagreeing with this is that every country that doesn't want a significant percentage of their population killed or conquered or enslaved should get their own nukes, because nobody else wants them. And I'm not sure every country acquires nukes is a safer world than maybe we don't let Putin have everything he wants
He knows it would be strategically impossible for the US or Nato to respond in kind to a nuclear attack on Ukraine. It can be rational for him to climb the escalation ladder if he knows his enemy will have to back down before he does because they have less to gain and more to lose.
I don’t like this situation at all, and I understand the point about rolling over to threats. Unfortunately, this is just how nuclear game theory works whether we like it or not. You can’t win in a conflict under MAD against an opponent who has more at stake than you.
And of course there can be an advantage for Russia in using nukes. They could destroy Ukraine's entire army, kill all its leaders, destroy all its infrastructure, etc. with no risk of (nuclear) retaliation. There would be many negative consequences too, so it's not likely to happen unless the conventional war is going very badly for Russia, but it's certainly a card they hold.
Putin doesn't know that. Putin doesn't know quite what the repercussions would be. That's why he hasn't used them so far.
The reason the EU countries don’t just waltz into Ukraine probably has more to do with the knowledge they’re not dealing with a rational person, but with a bunch of ego. It’s not hard to predict how Putin will respond if his ego is threatened, but how the rest of Russia will respond to the command to launch nukes.
It’s not unlike the US, except it’s currently still fairly easy to predict that any US commander will just say no when ordered to fire on the EU.
(I expect a first response would be a single city, with warnings to evacuate. A show of what's next.)
The goal would be that Russians assist in taking out an out of control, lunatic who will destroy us all.
Understand, this isn't just about today. Over the next 100 years, every country will obtain the capacity for nukes. Every person on this planet needs to see, and know that using them indiscriminately means you lose.
The consequences are too dire otherwise.
And when a US city is taken out in response? Do you keep going? Over a country that ultimately has very little impact on the US?
Your premise is basically that US military leaders are irrational to the point of insanity.
This isn't a game you win by backing off. There is no safety in that move.
Understand, the claim that the Ukraine is "Russian" is an absurd bluff. No one truly believes that, not Putin certainly. There are a dozen other countries in that region that Putin could make the same bluff about.
By allowing this bluff to continue for this long, matters have only gotten worse. We allowed 2014 to happen. Now, we're here. It won't stop a a peace agreement, or at Ukraine in whole.
The insanity is Russian. And you don't leave a rambling, insane man with a gun outside your house, shooting randomly at houses, because they're not quite at your doorstep yet.
The game theory works roughly like this: Putin wins the most if his threats work. If they don't work, he has the choice between drawing a new red line, launching a limited nuclear attack on Ukraine, or full-on nuclear war. The last option is obviously out (guaranteed destruction is in no proportion to the reward). A limited nuclear attack would likely make him a pariah on the world stage and make it even more difficult to find trading partners. So instead he redraws the line.
If he ever went for the limited nuclear attack option Ukraine might give up, and the west would have to choose between war against Russia (high risk, low reward) or just tightening economic sanctions to the max and punishing anyone who dares to trade with him.
If we assume rational actors I don't see how this would ever escalate to nuclear war. And as long as Ukraine doesn't find a way to decisively push Russian troops out Russia has no incentive to climb the escalation ladder. Even as prolonged war leads to internal instability
Ukraine can cross as many of Putin's "red lines" as they wish. Ukraine did not start this war.
That's purely a psychological trick, if you take this as true then it would be rational for everyone to place madmen in the negotiating seat. A better example, if I had Trump say to China, if you don't open up your markets and drop your tariffs on us, we will nuke you. If I can guarantee as thought exercise that Trump will fire nukes if demands are not met (and that's not difficult to do in reality), do you think Xi Jingping will concede here?
That’s, again, the whole problem. You don’t have to view Putin as “mad” to see him taking a nuclear last stand over Ukraine. He is already invested and taking risk at an extreme level to the point that no one can doubt the importance to him and his willingness to make heavy sacrifices to win. There is no believable narrative where a US leader would be willing to gamble at an existential level over Ukraine.
But what if Putin thinks that unless he takes Ukraine, Russia will cease to exist (or Putin will cease to exist). In that scenario, taking Ukraine is an existential goal for Russa, and he will blow up the world unless he wins.
Unfortunately, I think the rational thing to do is to apply increasing pressure to Putin until he either backs down or proves that he is willing to blow up the world over Ukraine. If the latter, then we back down. Of course, the risks of that strategy are all too obvious.
Russia's nuclear arsenal is a perfectly adequate guarantee of Russia's security. Putin knows this, which is why he's happy to leave Russia's western border with NATO practically undefended while he pursues Ukraine. (This also disproves the "Putin invaded Ukraine because he's afraid of NATO" lie.)
It's more plausible that Putin's survival depends on the outcome of the Ukraine war. But "mad Putin blows up the world" is as much a problem for the Russians as anyone else.
That's also the reason why Alaska and France are safe, why Iran wants nukes, and is the best argument against disarmament you can find. The cat is out of the bag, and the attempts to put it back are starting to leave scars.
Because every time it is brought up it is easily demonstrated that nobody actually agreed to defend Ukraine. They each agreed not to invade Ukraine.
The only assurance of assistance built into the agreement is that parties would complain to the UN security council.
The Obama administration let Russia violate the agreement when they took Crimea. Putin's justification that Ukraine isn't a nation but a historically Russian territory only works if Russia pretends it was never a signatory, since recognition of Ukraine as an independent and sovereign nation was a part of it.
In short, pieces of paper do not trump the fear of nuclear weapons.
So? If nuclear war is always an intolerable choice for America, then America's nuclear weapons will never be used in any case, and any aggressor who can plausibly threaten nuclear war is free to seize anything from America with that threat.
If nuclear war isn't always intolerable, then, well, we've eliminated the premise off the upthread argument about Ukraine, and are in a different discussion.
Had Russia invaded a NATO country, we still would not have launched first, but rather used conventional weapons, given the fallout (literal and metaphorical), but actually using them to prevent greater numbers of casualties from protracted war is not fully off the table, so to speak.
Which he won't do if mutually assured destruction is credible. He's not going to destroy the world including himself and everything he loves for Ukraine.
Once there are doubts that use of nuclear weapons will be punished, then all bets are off.
It’s a bad idea to bluff in situations like this, because when the obvious bluff is called and you are forced to back down, it makes enemies more likely to test all your commitments and “red lines”.
While Putin might not be willing to risk MAD either over Ukraine, it’s a lot more believable that he would than that the US would. There have been direct kinetic attacks on Moscow and parts of Russia have been invaded. There have been assassination attempts against people close to him. This is not some far away conflict for him. He’s already taking on a huge amount of risk, a lot more than the US has taken on in a long time—even in WW2 there was no direct attack on the continental US.
Personally I don't see any real chance of nuclear escalation over Ukraine on both sides. The war needs to end but to do that Putin needs to be given a way to deescalate and claim a win at home. But that can only be allowed to happen if Ukraine is made safe and secure once again and if Putin is willing to swallow that. And I see no evidence of that being true.
If anything, nukes only remain an option because of the lack of Western troops in Ukraine, allowing Putin to make a limited nuclear attack that hits Ukrainians but isn't worth war a nuclear war for the West. And even that is a trigger Putin has repeatedly refused to pull, preferring to win the war the conventional way even if that takes years
And it was just so simple - provide Ukraine with all the weapons necessary to help them defend itself from the clear Russian agression. Or, you know, do that before the Russians started their main war in 2022, there was long enough warning from 2013, including hundreds of inocents murdered in an airliner the Russians show down...
As much as I felt the Dutch marines should have marched in there to retrieve the bodies when the Russians were faffing around, I do think the shooting down itself was an accident. Zero upside to doing that.
No. We cannot let people just walk over other nations even at the cost of nuclear war
Anything else means the evil ones eventually win.
But when you are talking about nuclear threats there is no other way to respond if you don’t want everything taken from you.
If you constantly back down by giving the playground bully your lunch money he’ll keep coming back for more. Punch him in the face however, and…
Exactly. Which is why I need to be perfectly willing to start one, because the alternative is that only I lose everything.
And finally: "We cannot allow a nuclear war to happen, even if it means letting Ukraine win the war" is foremost in russian minds, no?
This may or may not be true, but Ukraine vs. Putin is absolutely one of those times where it's 100% accurate and useful.
Putin invaded Ukraine unprovoked, motivated by visions of restoring an empire to its former glory. He cannot be reasoned with, he cannot be appeased. The only hope that any of the formerly-occupied countries have is to defeat him, and any and all efforts to make the issue appear to be more grayscale than that will necessarily lead to disappointment and to further wars and bloodshed.