5 ms·

> Ukrainians are not required to (nor will they) sit back and take it out of abstract MAD force balance concerns. Ukraine has very strong interests, but they h

by mmooss 1y ago

> Ukrainians are not required to (nor will they) sit back and take it out of abstract MAD force balance concerns. Ukraine has very strong interests, but they have in fact restrained themselves from doing things that will provoke a war involving NATO. The US government has put many restrictions on Ukraine that Ukraine has abided by. MAD isn't "abstract", if by abstract you mean somehow unreal. It has kept the humanity from being destroyed for generations, and the US and Russia invest a lot in maintaining it.

dralley 1y ago
Strategic aviation is the least important and most dual-purpose of any of the three branches of the nuclear triad, and by this point Ukraine has ample justification for attacking it. It's an abstract concern in that sense. Destroying their entire strategic aviation forces would not meaningfully impact MAD.
- mmooss 1y ago
  > Destroying their entire strategic aviation forces would not meaningfully impact MAD. The only person I see saying that is some random Internet commenter. I've always heard the opposite from professionals in the field, especially that any threat to capability is a threat to stability.
  - noduerme 1y ago
    Well, consider North Korea. With them there's no "mutual" in the assured destruction to their side if they launched a nuke. How is that less a deterrent?
    - mmooss 1y ago
      It's a good question and the answer is that the situation is unstable and dangerous. But I think you are approaching it backwards: With almost every country in the world, the US has first strike capability - the US could wipe out the country in hours or less, and only a few countries have a second strike capability to deter the US. That had long been true with NK, a very belligerent enemy. But in the last couple of decades NK added a small nuclear arsenal. It's not enough for a MAD relationship with the US, but they could threaten great harm to US allies South Korea and Japan - imagine nuking Seoul and Tokyo - and possibly land one on US territory. It wouldn't destroy the US, but losing San Francisco is a serious deterrent. Did the addition of NK's nuclear arsenal stabilize the situation by creating more deterrent, or destabilize it by emboldening NK? It's complex: One factor is that the US has sworn off use of nuclear weapons in conventional conflicts, even ones they are losing, and have strictly adhered to that policy, not even using small tactical nukes. The US has an even stronger motive - it establishes a global taboo against nuclear weapon use that nobody has violated yet. NK is very aware of it because US generals recommended using nuclear weapons in the Korean War and the president declined - that may seem like too close a call for NK, and don't assume that NK understands the US nearly as well as you do (if you are American); miscalculations like that are common on all sides in international relations. So now that NK has nuclear weapons, does that make a conventional conflict into a nuclear one, destabillizing the situation? What if the US believes they need to use nuclear weapons to prevent NK from using them on Seoul or San Franciso? On the other hand, NK's nukes may prevent a conventional war. NK saw what happened to Iraq - everyone did, and many realized that actual nuclear weapons were their only defense if the US was going to ignore international law and sovereignty and engage in 'regime change'.
  - geoka9 1y ago
    I read somewhere that they still have their Tu-160s (at least). They have limited engine lifespan, so the Russians have been reluctant to use them for the terror sorties.
    - ethbr1 1y ago
      Wikipedia? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-160#Current_operators https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-160#Current_opera...
  - ponector 1y ago
    As I've heard from professionals, Kyiv will not stand more than three days against Russia in a full scale military conflict. Strategic bombers make little sense, that's why everyone (even russians) are pushing for ballistic missiles instead. Strategic bombers used by Russia manly for terror with stockpile of soviet missiles.
    - nradov 1y ago
      Strategic bombers still make a lot of sense if you need to, let's say, hold Iranian nuclear facilities at risk with large conventional bunker buster bombs. This is the primary mission that B-2 squadrons train for, and just the existence of that capability provides a lot of negotiating leverage. Of course it's also enormously expensive.
      - roncesvalles 1y ago
        Bombers don't make sense because they are big, lumbering targets for SAM systems. The B-2 is an exception because it is stealth and flies very high.
        slt2021 1y ago
        B-2 is not stealth, its just low visibility in radio to the ground based radars. It is very visible from the top, esp to aerial recon that use other signals in addition to radar signature
        mmooss 1y ago
        It is in fact stealth. Look up any information on it and it will tell you, it's a stealth bomber. Its primary capability is defeating enemy air defenses and holding their most valuable assets at risk.
      - ponector 1y ago
        B2 is much easier to intercept than ballistic missile. Also B2 has order of magnitude higher sticker price than ballistic missile. Good for bombing mujahedeen in the mountains and bad against someone with SAM. But for such bombing you don't need a strategic bomber, even frontline bomber could be enough.
breppp 1y ago
Yes but arguably, MAD is currently more relevant between the US and China. Given the economic/international stance of Russia for the past three decades and the maintenance level of their armed forces, their ability to execute a first-strike nuclear attack and succeeding is pretty low.
- mmooss 1y ago
  What is that based on?
vidarh 1y ago
As even Reagan realised after Able Archer: MAD only "works" if both sides are ration and both sides believe the other side is rational. Neither of those two are obviously true, and so relying on the assumptions of MAD is dangerous.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  I don't believe either the US or Russia are rational or have rational leadership at the moment.
  - vidarh 1y ago
    That seems like a reasonable assessement. I personally find it astounding that people still talk about MAD when even Reagan was scared into accepting it was flawed. You can see the big change in his foreign policy position before and after - from confrontation to negotiation. As much as I loathe most of Reagan's political views, in retrospect he's been proven a lot more astute at least in this specific area of foreign policy than basically everyone who still pushes MAD. E.g.: > "But the more experience I had with Soviet leaders and other heads of state who knew them, the more I began to realize that many Soviet officials feared us not only as adversaries but as potential aggressors who might hurl nuclear weapons at them in a first strike" If you think the other side is crazy enough to consider a first strike, MAD goes out the door and it becomes rational to consider preempting them if you think you have any chance at all to reduce the damage. And the greater damage potential the other side has, the more imperative this becomes. MAD has for very long struck me as a rationalisation of an emotional desire to have the more destructive weapon, rather than a rational argument for this reason - there are so many scenarios where it increases risk rather than reduces it. You then have a choice to make, and to Reagans credit he chose to try to pull things back from the brink, recognising it was more dangerous to try to one-up the Soviet Union than to talk to them. Though it seems to me it's likely far more rational in general to posture even less, and intentionally back down to a point where you have enough to make an attack on yourself cost sufficiently more than it is worth to still deter, but little enough that preempting you isn't a matter of preventing total destruction. As a bonus the less aggressive posturing would seem less likely to make the other side think you're preparing to strike first.
jacquesm 1y ago
You now have 18 comments in this thread. All of them shallowly criticizing the comments you reply to, including appeals to (vague) authority and a whole bag of tricks to make it seem as if the original commenter is clueless and you hold all the cards. I also don't see you take up any position of your own. What is your point with all this? That Ukraine should just roll over and accept that they're going to get bombed without ever striking back? That they should take into account all of the geopolitical effects of their moves before they think about their own survival? I can't make heads or tails of all of the words you've spent on this subject. Please enlighten.

by mmooss 1y ago

dralley 1y ago

Strategic aviation is the least important and most dual-purpose of any of the three branches of the nuclear triad, and by this point Ukraine has ample justification for attacking it. It's an abstract concern in that sense. Destroying their entire strategic aviation forces would not meaningfully impact MAD.

mmooss 1y ago
> Destroying their entire strategic aviation forces would not meaningfully impact MAD. The only person I see saying that is some random Internet commenter. I've always heard the opposite from professionals in the field, especially that any threat to capability is a threat to stability.
- noduerme 1y ago
  Well, consider North Korea. With them there's no "mutual" in the assured destruction to their side if they launched a nuke. How is that less a deterrent?
  - mmooss 1y ago
    It's a good question and the answer is that the situation is unstable and dangerous. But I think you are approaching it backwards: With almost every country in the world, the US has first strike capability - the US could wipe out the country in hours or less, and only a few countries have a second strike capability to deter the US. That had long been true with NK, a very belligerent enemy. But in the last couple of decades NK added a small nuclear arsenal. It's not enough for a MAD relationship with the US, but they could threaten great harm to US allies South Korea and Japan - imagine nuking Seoul and Tokyo - and possibly land one on US territory. It wouldn't destroy the US, but losing San Francisco is a serious deterrent. Did the addition of NK's nuclear arsenal stabilize the situation by creating more deterrent, or destabilize it by emboldening NK? It's complex: One factor is that the US has sworn off use of nuclear weapons in conventional conflicts, even ones they are losing, and have strictly adhered to that policy, not even using small tactical nukes. The US has an even stronger motive - it establishes a global taboo against nuclear weapon use that nobody has violated yet. NK is very aware of it because US generals recommended using nuclear weapons in the Korean War and the president declined - that may seem like too close a call for NK, and don't assume that NK understands the US nearly as well as you do (if you are American); miscalculations like that are common on all sides in international relations. So now that NK has nuclear weapons, does that make a conventional conflict into a nuclear one, destabillizing the situation? What if the US believes they need to use nuclear weapons to prevent NK from using them on Seoul or San Franciso? On the other hand, NK's nukes may prevent a conventional war. NK saw what happened to Iraq - everyone did, and many realized that actual nuclear weapons were their only defense if the US was going to ignore international law and sovereignty and engage in 'regime change'.
- geoka9 1y ago
  I read somewhere that they still have their Tu-160s (at least). They have limited engine lifespan, so the Russians have been reluctant to use them for the terror sorties.
  - ethbr1 1y ago
    Wikipedia? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-160#Current_operators https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-160#Current_opera...
- ponector 1y ago
  As I've heard from professionals, Kyiv will not stand more than three days against Russia in a full scale military conflict. Strategic bombers make little sense, that's why everyone (even russians) are pushing for ballistic missiles instead. Strategic bombers used by Russia manly for terror with stockpile of soviet missiles.
  - nradov 1y ago
    Strategic bombers still make a lot of sense if you need to, let's say, hold Iranian nuclear facilities at risk with large conventional bunker buster bombs. This is the primary mission that B-2 squadrons train for, and just the existence of that capability provides a lot of negotiating leverage. Of course it's also enormously expensive.
    - roncesvalles 1y ago
      Bombers don't make sense because they are big, lumbering targets for SAM systems. The B-2 is an exception because it is stealth and flies very high.
      - slt2021 1y ago
        B-2 is not stealth, its just low visibility in radio to the ground based radars. It is very visible from the top, esp to aerial recon that use other signals in addition to radar signature
        mmooss 1y ago
        It is in fact stealth. Look up any information on it and it will tell you, it's a stealth bomber. Its primary capability is defeating enemy air defenses and holding their most valuable assets at risk.
    - ponector 1y ago
      B2 is much easier to intercept than ballistic missile. Also B2 has order of magnitude higher sticker price than ballistic missile. Good for bombing mujahedeen in the mountains and bad against someone with SAM. But for such bombing you don't need a strategic bomber, even frontline bomber could be enough.

breppp 1y ago

Yes but arguably, MAD is currently more relevant between the US and China. Given the economic/international stance of Russia for the past three decades and the maintenance level of their armed forces, their ability to execute a first-strike nuclear attack and succeeding is pretty low.

mmooss 1y ago
What is that based on?

vidarh 1y ago

As even Reagan realised after Able Archer: MAD only "works" if both sides are ration and both sides believe the other side is rational. Neither of those two are obviously true, and so relying on the assumptions of MAD is dangerous.

jacquesm 1y ago
I don't believe either the US or Russia are rational or have rational leadership at the moment.
- vidarh 1y ago
  That seems like a reasonable assessement. I personally find it astounding that people still talk about MAD when even Reagan was scared into accepting it was flawed. You can see the big change in his foreign policy position before and after - from confrontation to negotiation. As much as I loathe most of Reagan's political views, in retrospect he's been proven a lot more astute at least in this specific area of foreign policy than basically everyone who still pushes MAD. E.g.: > "But the more experience I had with Soviet leaders and other heads of state who knew them, the more I began to realize that many Soviet officials feared us not only as adversaries but as potential aggressors who might hurl nuclear weapons at them in a first strike" If you think the other side is crazy enough to consider a first strike, MAD goes out the door and it becomes rational to consider preempting them if you think you have any chance at all to reduce the damage. And the greater damage potential the other side has, the more imperative this becomes. MAD has for very long struck me as a rationalisation of an emotional desire to have the more destructive weapon, rather than a rational argument for this reason - there are so many scenarios where it increases risk rather than reduces it. You then have a choice to make, and to Reagans credit he chose to try to pull things back from the brink, recognising it was more dangerous to try to one-up the Soviet Union than to talk to them. Though it seems to me it's likely far more rational in general to posture even less, and intentionally back down to a point where you have enough to make an attack on yourself cost sufficiently more than it is worth to still deter, but little enough that preempting you isn't a matter of preventing total destruction. As a bonus the less aggressive posturing would seem less likely to make the other side think you're preparing to strike first.

jacquesm 1y ago

You now have 18 comments in this thread. All of them shallowly criticizing the comments you reply to, including appeals to (vague) authority and a whole bag of tricks to make it seem as if the original commenter is clueless and you hold all the cards. I also don't see you take up any position of your own. What is your point with all this? That Ukraine should just roll over and accept that they're going to get bombed without ever striking back? That they should take into account all of the geopolitical effects of their moves before they think about their own survival? I can't make heads or tails of all of the words you've spent on this subject. Please enlighten.