3 ms·

A million times this. In conflicts that involve nuclear capable countries, especially Russia and the US, “normal” rules or responses do not apply. For example,

• derbOac 5y ago
  There's another perspective on this, though, which is that it almost doesn't matter if Putin will realistically invade Lithuania. It's that we don't have a good explanation for what we would do or why, and many of the canned responses don't really logically make sense. For instance, if Putin did invade Lithuania -- and I agree this seems implausible, but it's not unrealistic to speculate about this in the long term -- is it any more rational to defend Lithuania in that case, if the threat of nuclear weapons is real? It seems to rely on an assumption that Putin would just somehow voluntarily withhold nuclear weapons because of a legal agreement in that case, where he would not with Ukraine. Does this make rational sense given the current situation in Ukraine and the war crimes being committed? To me this isn't theoreticals, and it's not academic. It reflects a real weakness in thinking about military policy and strategy around these points. If you believe that Russia would really use nuclear weapons in response to NATO intervention in Ukraine, there is no logical reason to assume that Russia would necessarily abstain from threatening nuclear response over intervention over Lithuania, and if the reason for abstaining in Ukraine is MAD, why would a NATO legal treaty supercede that consideration? Is it rational to uphold NATO treaties over obliteration of humankind? My guess is Putin (or a Putin equivalent) sees use of nuclear weapons as a rational decision to the extent that he feels there's nothing left to lose. That is, if he feels he can invade Ukraine and emerge alive with Ukraine as a prize, he will threaten nuclear weapons. If he feels he can invade Lithuania and emerge alive with Lithuania as a prize, he will threaten nuclear weapons if it serves his goals. In fact, he doesn't have to have any rational justification for using nuclear weapons. He and his circle could believe that we're being invaded by space aliens and launch nuclear weapons in consequence. Some of this becomes more absurd when you consider the tiptoeing that goes on, and the legal and logical absurdities that result. Turkey is supplying a key munition, drones, and has not been threatened by Russia at all. Why should supply of manned aircraft be different? Because they're manned? Why is all the ammo and javelins being supplied by NATO countries ok but not NATO intervention? They're clearly not the same, but some of these boundaries seem kind of imaginary or something. Is the fact that Putin is not threatening nuclear war over sanctions mean that he doesn't really feel threatened by them? My point -- and I think Kasparov's point is along these lines -- is that a lot of the rationale NATO is giving along the lines of "we must do everything possible to avoid nuclear war" is disingenuous and fallacious. It doesn't mean we should be intervening yet necessarily, but there's something illogical about it, and it seems important to work that out in a broad sense or we're at risk for things escalating when we don't want them to. To me, if taken seriously, the current rationale implies that any time Putin threatens nuclear weapons, we should avoid conflict. Because there's basically nothing that would be worth serious risk of worldwide annihilation. But then this leads to the position of unlimited military appeasement of dictators with nuclear weapons. Maybe that's a rational position, but it seems like we need to be clearer about where the boundaries are. My guess is if you worked it all out, you'd come to the conclusion that any nuclear military is only rational in using nuclear weapons when they are faced with existential threat themselves (that is, when they have nothing left to lose).
  • nostrademons 5y ago
    I think NATO's position has been pretty clear: they will hold to Article 5, and an attack on a NATO country is an attack on NATO, nuclear weapons threat be damned. The reason we have not committed ground troops to defending Ukraine is because they are not a NATO member. And the reason there's that line in the sand is because NATO policy members are acutely aware of the dilemma that you pose, that if they perpetually back off of treaty obligations because of the threat of nuclear war, there is no treaty and no defense against a nuclear-armed power. I think there's a more uncomfortable "rational" conclusion lurking in your post: nuclear war is inevitable. At some point Putin is going to attack a NATO country (probably one of the Baltics, or Poland) that he believes is rightly part of the sphere of Russian influence, where he believes its NATO membership is illegitimate, and probably also that NATO won't come to its aid. And then NATO will be forced to respond or lose all credibility, and then we've got WW3 and probably nuclear annihilation. This is the problem with MAD in general: humans are fallible, they have inaccurate perceptions of how events will play out, and eventually errors will be made. And when errors destroy humanity, well, that's a problem.
    • justin66 5y ago
      There are fewer of these damned if you do, damned if you don’t dilemmas today than there were during the Cold War. Russia does not have massive conventional forces parked permanently across the border from the Baltic states, Poland, etc., threatening invasion. It can’t afford that. There is time for these countries and their NATO allies to put in place a conventional deterrent force (tanks, planes, troops) when it appears that Russia is placing a conventional threat across the border. (That is all happening today)
  • tablespoon 5y ago
    > [The whole thing.] You're comment is excellent, and articulates a lot of thoughts I've had around the Western response to the war in Ukraine. The sneaking sense I have is that NATO is just a paper tiger. There's little to no political will on its part to actually collectively take the risk to militarily defend allies against naked Russian aggression. If Putin actually invades Lithuania, he might just end up exposing the whole thing as a sham. The other countries focus on saving their own skin in the short term, so will hem and haw and send some guns and rockets to the resistance, but ultimately decline to get involved, which over the long term allows Russia to pick them off one-by-one until (at least) the Warsaw Pact becomes a thing again. The Russians will likely also learn from their mistakes, and conduct the next invasion more competently than this one. Eventually, smaller countries will realize, if they don't want to get invaded and absorbed by the Russian empire, they need their own nukes, and the whole project of nonproliferation gets flushed down the toilet. May be most rational long term response is to answer Putin's threats with a very stark warning: do not use nukes unless you want the capital of your empire to be a smoking pit.