I want to include a provision where Putin has to apologize for comments about denazification and genocide.
I’d rather add a provision where Putin has to make Trump apologize for every stupid thing he said the last five years, if we’re discussing non-starters.
They’ve said they have a dedicated hotline right now specifically to avoid nuclear war. They are listening on the other end. Neither side wants the world to end.
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If neither side wants to engage in nuclear world war, than figure out the lowest rung on the escalation ladder that Putin won’t climb to and occupy the rung just below it.
Russia may be ground down to the point where they have to accept some sort of negotiated settlement, which would be nice. And making it expensive for powerful countries to do this sort of thing is good, because it provides incentives against doing it for any other powers who are thinking of doing a little recreational invading.
I don’t know what is in Putin’s mind but I also think there’s a solid chance he is not willing to go to the extent of levelling Kyiv. Like your argument has been that Putin is motivated in large part by Russian nationalism, but then you also have him perfectly willing to destroy the cradle of Russian civilization and some of the historical jewels of the Empire. I am by no means certain that he won’t do it but I think there’s at least a chance that that sort of Pyrrhic victory would be a step too far.
MOVED FROM OTHER THREAD
I’m talking about Putin breaking the nuclear taboo. You keep switching over to the current world. We basically agree on what’s being done right now in the current world (if not what was done to get us here). All this discussion (which again should be happening in the other thread!) has just been hypothetical over what would we do if Putin uses a nuke.
They have a dedicated hotline now specifically to avoid nuclear war. I am sure something like, “just so you know, if you do X we will do Y” would be very much in the topic of conversation. You don’t have to call it a red line.
Wording of things seems to be a really big sticking point in these debates.
That would be awesome. Right now he’s not willing to accept anything less than puppet govt. If he ends up accepting say Crimea and the Donbass and nothing else - that’s a clearly gigantic loss for him. Maybe he could spin that enough I dunno.
Are you thinking there’s a scenario where he gets the whole coastline but Ukraine otherwise stays intact? I don’t think Ukraine would ever go for that. But maybe they’d have no choice. So we wind up with a N Korea/S Korea situation of heavily fortified borders.
But an intact Ukraine can say they won’t join NATO all they want. It just means until the second they’re strong enough to pull it off. NATO will keep funneling arms in to Ukraine. Like it seems like any non-puppet scenario is basically unacceptable, and will be a gigantic, maybe career-ending, loss for Putin.
I think Russia is going to win. They’ll do whatever it takes to win. The US giving staggering amounts of arms and intelligence is making a dangerous situation for the rest of the world much worse, because these actions are so hostile to Russia. If the US did nothing to support Ukraine then the war would be far less dangerous. So my answer to the question of what should the US do in Ukraine is pretty much always the same: we should stay out of it. Do nothing. But that’s not what we’re doing and that’s escalating the danger.
The use of a tactical nuke would obviously demand some sort of response, but the idea that this response would be immediately launching a shooting war against Russia is implausible to me and therefore I suspect to Putin as well. As I posted in the other thread, making implausible threats just doesn’t work. If it did, Putin would threaten to use nukes unless the West stopped supplying arms to Ukraine.
What exactly the response would be would depend on the exact parameters of what this weapon was and how it was used etc. There are too many variables for me to spell out exactly what I think should happen. As things stand it’s not going to happen, because Putin also doesn’t want escalation, and he is perfectly capable of gradually destroying cities, if that’s what he intends to do, in a way that doesn’t step across any kind of long-established line. But it could happen if things get desperate for Russia. We need to thread a difficult needle here of harsh consequences for Russia for the violation of international norms, but not so harsh that all options except escalation become hopeless.
The use of strategic nukes, i.e. nuking a city, I think would demand a direct military response, even though the risk of nuclear war would then be very high.
Why?
Well my works is done here. 
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Yeah, something like this where Russia gets the Black Sea coastline and the separatist areas in the east and as compensation the rest of Ukraine is ceded to Europe. I don’t think Putin would be thrilled with that solution, but he might see it as preferable to turning Kyiv into Grosny. And Ukraine would probably only accept it under great duress, so things are grim any way you slice it.
For the same reason that an attack against a NATO country would demand a response, that some lines cannot be crossed. If you’re never actually willing to react militarily then none of your threats have any credibility. Then Russia really would just annex the Baltics, because why not?
I get how it is sanctions are supposed to work, I understand why we can’t escalate to the point of military involvement too.
What I don’t know is if & how Putin could be rewarded (not just by removal of punishment / sanctions, but like positively reinforced) for deescalating without inadvertently encouraging future war adventures.
I don’t feel like we’re in any danger of anyone looking at this escapade and being like “well that was totally worth it, no serious consequences at all”. Russia’s economy is getting annihilated and they are taking significant military losses as well. So I’m not worried that Putin extricating himself from this without getting the Gaddafi treatment is going to incentivize other powers to act with impunity.
Use of a tactical nuke could probably be used to justify a no-fly zone. NATO and Russia wouldn’t be shooting at each other unless Russia decides to test it.
If Putin doesn’t want escalation, then does he only turn to nuclear weapons out of desperation if he has a monomaniacal obsession with uniting Greater Russia?
I don’t understand how a non-aligned country getting nuked crosses any red lines. Russia nuking a city in Ukraine and Russia leveling Grozny or Aleppo are in the same ballpark. Why respond to one but not the other? Russia nukes one of our allies they’re getting nuked back. But an unaligned country? Why basically guarantee global annihilation? What good comes of it? You think Russia would think that they could get away with nuking a NATO country? That’d be absurd.
Keeed’s foreign policy position:
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SKs position is only tenable if your opponent doesn’t know it’s your position. Problem is that if they test you ever you’re fucked
Well that’s encouraging. I wonder how hard of a time the Russian translator is having explaining Joe’s tales of kicking Corn Pop’s ass.
If the US and NATO drew a red line around any use of nukes anywhere, do you think Russia would think they could get away with nuking any country?