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I hope you are right, but I am not convinced in Putin's case.

• ceejayoz 4y ago
  If Putin had a big red button that ran wirelessly and automatically, I'd be concerned. Human beings have to actually implement the order. I think a first-strike order on the US without a serious and immediate existential threat to the Russian state and people winds up with someone offing him with their sidearm. The Russians have plenty of precedent for this (both offing the leadership, and more generally "oops, he fell out of a window" as a solution), and we've a number of historical examples of lower-level folks going "I don't wanna" in false-alarm situations, like Stanislav Petrov.
  • davrosthedalek 4y ago
    I agree, a first strike order is very unlikely. But what if he fires off a nuke over Ukraine? Maybe in a way that it's not 100% clear whether it's a Russian nuke, or a power plant blowing up, or somebody else? Or he orders to detonate a bomb over the open sea to demonstrate the capability? But certainly, if I would be Putin, I'd be nervous drinking tea, or walking close to a window. That doesn't make him more stable though.
    • ceejayoz 4y ago
      You can't make a nuke look like a power plant explosion; they're simply too different. No nuclear power station can explode in that fashion. A bomb over the ocean wouldn't demonstrate any new capacity, and would be seen as the bluff it would almost certainly be. A nuke on Ukranian soil would further open the floodgates of Western aid, expand sanctions, and push more nations firmly into the EU/NATO fold as Finland and Sweden already have been.
      • AnimalMuppet 4y ago
        A nuke on Ukrainian soil also has the problem of the prevailing wind direction being from west to east. Detonating a nuke on Ukraine looks a lot like detonating a (smaller) dirty bomb on Russia.