If it wasn't for nukes, what would happen?

[jimmy olsen]

If there had never been nukes, there probably would have been a third world war by the 60s.

[Berkut]

Indeed. I actually think we are likely taking a more dangerous stance, not less dangerous, by letting him make this bluff.

Because it has to be a bluff - using nukes is not a winning hand, and we *know* that it is not a winning hand for him. So this is a bluff, by definition. That doesn't mean there isn't risk, because dealing with dictators without effective checks on their power is always risky. I am just not convinced at all that not calling his bluff is actually less risky then calling it.

Does anyone really think that Russian nuclear forces have been immune to the fucked up shit that has fucked up every other element of the fucked Russian military? 

I'd feel a lot better if the Polish Aegis Ashore site in Poland had been completed, but the US has a lot of deployable ICBM defense ships and land facilities in Romania and Alaska with proven systems.  Not leak-proof, but enough to give a realistic Russian pause, given that Russian use of her unreliable nuclear weapons means the annihilation of Russia and just maybe not the annihilation of her enemies.  MAD thinking might need to be rethought.

This is a different question.

I have zero doubt that if it came to nuclear war, Russia is go to lose that war badly, and the West will win overhwhelmingly. 

I think if Putin orders his forces to shoot, significant portions of it will refuse, and those who do not refuse, significant portions of those weapons will simply not work as designed (just like his Army).

I think the Western defense arsenal is not great but it is a hell of a lot better then nothing. 

But even with all that, a crushing nuclear win is still fucking absolutely terrible, right? If the Russians only manage to nuke a couple cities, and Russia is destroyed, I can't imagine us thinking "Yippeee!"

[Berkut]

Given the history of dictators attacking other countries and the track record of them stopping once they start absent force, is it actually reducing the odds of a nuclear confrontation by appeasing Putin and letting him bluff us into not responding with actual force?

I've been thinking about this, and the history of dictators and strong men attacking other countries is actually pretty abysmal.  In the past 100 years apart from Germany (and a lesser extent Japan) in WW II offensive wars by autocratic systems seem to at best wildly under perform and at worst completely fail.

Italy barely beat Ethiopia, and completely failed in North Africa and Greece during WW II, having to be bailed out by Germany.  USSR stumbled its way to a kinda, sorta victory in the Winter War, and only became competent once its existence was threatened.  North Korea started out well in the Korean War with a surprise attack, but was eventually pushed back.  The series of wars with Israel were repeated examples of dictators losing to a smaller, surrounded democracy, with the lone mixed success of the Yom Kippur War.  USSR's invasion of Afghanistan succeeded in the short term, but ended up accelerating the end of the regime.  The Iran-Iraq War was a disaster for all involved and Iraq invading Kuwait did not end well for the dictator.  Now we have Russia getting mauled by Ukraine, when every expectation was that it would be a lopsided fight.

I'm sure I'm missing a few wars, but I can't think of one where the autocrat's military overperformed expectation in an offensive conflict.

I think you are exactly right - their success rate is abysmal once the good guys finally step up and go to war with them.

The failure of the good guys isn't that they cannot beat the dictators, it is that they wait way too long before doing so, in the hopes that the dictator will just stop at some point.