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Disrupts maritime infrastructure and NATO would start escorting Russian ships home. If not straight up convert their navy into a submarine only fleet. I don't

by jopsen 4y ago

Disrupts maritime infrastructure and NATO would start escorting Russian ships home. If not straight up convert their navy into a submarine only fleet. I don't think the west would take kindly to commerce raiders, or cutting of cables. If Russian forces NATO to make a kinetic response, then what is Russia's next play? It's probably fine for Russian propaganda to claim they are fighting NATO in Ukraine, but that line becomes much harder to keep if they are suddenly fighting NATO.

dirtyid 4y ago
The question was about equivalent / proportional response, for which RU has more leverage and impose more costs by virtue of being more resource/economically autarkic. NATO of course free to escalate if they think they can win the escalation game (i.e. sinking RU fleet), then it's a question of how far RU willing to go to fight NATO, in which case it's matter of who has more to lose and can stomach more loss, up to and including tactical nukes. Does RU want full spectrum fight with NATO that could go nuclear? Probably not, but does RU think it can sabatoge NATO maritime infra with managable conesquences, IMO yes. NATO propaganda will also have to work hard trying to rationalize going into recession for a buffer state versus going war with a nuclear state.