Yes because I am trying to establish the line where some would actually approve of NATO going in. If Putin starts killing millions of people, would you be ok with NATO going in? Cuse and Keeed would not. Can’t risk nuclear war.
I mean it seems pretty obvious to me that if NATO would let Putin kill millions in Ukraine out of fear of nuclear war, they would be very unlikely to defend Estonia out of the same fear. Treaties are not dead man’s switches. Human beings still have to carry them out.
Which is the same reason I don’t think Putin would ever launch a suicidal all out nuclear war. And if he would, we’re going to have to face the threat someday anyway. I feel like poker players should get that. Like don’t spend time worrying about set over set because you’re going to get stacked no matter what. Worry about the other scenarios.
Because Estonia is of no significance to the US and of much greater significance to Russia. Admitting any former Soviet republic to NATO is a big mistake.
Norway was a founding NATO member, I have no idea what that has to do with anything. They weren’t admitted at some later date and have no historical ties to Russia. Poland is a large, important country with less significant ties to Russia than the Baltics or Ukraine.
Well the “we can’t risk nuclear war” w/o qualifying it by what you ever would be willing to risk nuclear war over isn’t a very productive argument either.
Like is it really only ok if your own country is under attack? And even then, why destroy the world? Might as well just submit and hope for the best. Planet Russia.
One of the things about Mearsheimer’s argument that I think is ridiculous is this idea that the only stable, safe state for the world is two stalemated superpowers. I couldn’t disagree with that more. Something will flare up. Just because we lasted for 40 years of the cold war doesn’t mean squat. Maybe we just got lucky. And the cold war was absolute catastrophe for so many small countries. How could anyone wish for that?
The only way I see the world somehow getting to Star Trek future w/o blowing ourselves up is 1) the whole world of stable democracies - two modern democracies have never gone to war against each other. Or 2) the whole world run by a government like China - no human rights, but basic competence.
Personally I’d rather do all we can to try to get to #1, even if we have to risk nuclear war to get there at some point. Because I think we’re going to have to risk nuclear war someday no matter what, as long as we have totalitarian regimes with nukes. Anything we can do to limit their sphere of influence (like letting the Baltics into NATO) in the long run gets us closer to an actual stable state imo.
I suspect this is the ultimate source of my conflict with posters like ChrisV and keeed. My optimistic future involves overcoming totalitarian regimes with nukes, even if it means risk. Theirs involves just containing them, which they see as less risky (but I don’t necessarily agree).
It’s a dumb question because it’s like “tell me under what circumstances you’d go allin in poker”. I don’t have a general answer to that question, I only have answers to very specific situations.
There are tactical nuke use cases short of Putin committing genocide (basically all of them, in fact) and there are responses from NATO short of “going to war”. I would not advocate doing nothing but I would also not advocate putting forces in the field against Russia or nuking St Petersburg.
That horse has left the barn, Estonia is in NATO. This ‘great powers’ view of the world is a fucking cancer. It’s an apologia for imperialism every single time. Empires fall, they don’t have a god given right to reclaim lost territory and subjugate peoples again and again. Russia is in decline, managing it’s death throws is tricky and violent but that doesn’t mean it’s optimal to just tell it’s former victims “sorry, you have to die because theory”.
Ok let’s do specifics. What responses do NATO and the West have left in your mind, other than “going to war”?
I agree there are tactical nuke use cases short of Putin committing genocide. But I think by far the most likely use case is Putin using dropping a small nuke on Kharkiv or Odesa, and maybe another on Kyiv, in order to terrorize the populace and affect a surrender - aka exactly what the US did in Japan. Do you agree that’s a pretty plausible “Putin uses nukes” scenario?
Not only this, but also, the notion that “great powers do what they will, lesser powers do what they must” means that lesser powers must be continually subjugated by the same greater power for all eternity is silly and baseless. Even buying into that adage, a lesser power doing what they must should absolutely include paths to switching alliance to the less domineering and more powerful great power.
Sort of, but there are no tactical uses for nukes in Ukraine. Any use would be for intimidation by norm-violating escalation, which is strategic, not tactical.
There was a link itt to a relevant and cogent Twitter thread about possible responses to use of small scale nukes that it seems like nobody read.
I read it and agreed with it. It’s hard to discuss scenarios where Putin would use nukes in Ukraine because all of them are inherently weird and unlikely.
But Putin invading Ukraine was inherently weird and unlikely according to most experts.
I mean Trump’s idiotic ramblings are at least a window into a wannabe despot’s thought process. What’s the point of having nukes if you can’t use them. If you’re losing a war, and you’ve got nukes, and you know that defeat means the end of your rule and possibly life, maybe you get desperate and try to break some norms. It doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility.
A battlefield nuke might not have to go through the same chain of command that a mutually suicidal full launch would.
Tactical nukes seem like they would be tactically worthless in Ukraine. Putin could just Dresden Kiev (though it has holiest sites of Russian Orthodox church) and Odessa.
I’m not even sure of the utility of tactical nukes. They seem like a weapon for 1950-60s large scale land battles. It was unnecessary to nuke Grozny or Aleppo when they could just bomb them to the stone age.
The only one that seems remotely plausible is he nukes a logistics hub in western Ukraine that weapons from NATO are being shipped through. Still wildly implausible imo, and I don’t know if such a target even exists.
That’s strategic use and ruled out by NBZ’s scenario. In a scenario like that I’d want a conventional attack on Russia by NATO I suppose? I don’t see what the point is in discussing insane scenarios though. Of course I don’t agree that’s a plausible scenario, it’s idiotic.
Which is why nuclear war seems much more possible now (if still unlikely). A Putin that will invade Ukraine is more likely to use nukes than a Putin who doesn’t.
