Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[grumbler]

We did let him save face by invading part of Ukraine and annexing Crimea.  How did that help lower the risk of nuclear war?

  

You're rolling!

[grumbler]

The only way out is to threaten nuclear retaliation.  That way, his generals will oust him if he tries to fire nukes.

That's neither the only way out, nor a realistic way out.  The better way out is to stomp Russian forces flat with conventional weapons and force Putin to fold or else escalate to strategic nuclear war.  That's what will cause the generals to topple him.

DGuller is right that the longer this holds off, the better.  Russian leaders are probably no better at plotting a coup than planning a war, so they will need time.

Paris was worth a mass, but Moscow is worth more than an oblast.

[Josquius]

I kinda have a personal theory on Putin's drive to annex the territories in eastern Ukraine (which were likely always his war aim), and it kinda ties back to the rumors on his health, etc.  It is perhaps akin to Cortes burning his ships...it ties Russia's colors to the mast and will force any successor (or revolutionary) to commit to those goals...at risk of making their own leadership position untenable.

Alternatively, it makes losing Crimea easier.  All these referendums put five oblasts on the same standing, and some of them aren't even close to being fully occupied.

Yep.
With crimea there was a valid argument for the annexation. It was the most pro Russian area by a mile and its true that it was historically part of Russia and was only given to Ukraine by Kruschev.

The other bits however... No defence. Pure war mongering villainous annexation. Putting them on the same level as crimea really shatters the defences with crimea.

[Threviel]

If the question is: should we let Russia terrorize and kill Ukraine with 40 million inhabitants, or should we enter nuclear war with Russia and put global civilization with ~8 billion people in serious jeopardy, the obvious answer is the former.

The obvious answer to a rabid dog is to put it down with all possible means. If we set the precedent that nuclear states can do as they please then all of east Asia, primarily China, can be fucked up by ComChina and eastern Europe is toast. The consequences of getting away with nuclear use is possibly far worse than a Russia put down as a rabid dog.

[Tamas]

Yeah if use of nukes becomes the joker that gets you what you want then nuclear Armageddon becomes a certainty. Only way to avoid that is to not let it go unanswered. The response may still lead to Armageddon but at least its not a certainty like inna world where nukes are lobbed around as extensions of diplomacy.

[Threviel]

Yeah, I'd rather we put down an incompetent Russia today and we might not get obliterated than we try to put down a very competent ComChina in 30 years or so.

[Tamas]

Reflecting more on that piece BB quoted that annexing these regions is some weird way to make it easier to let them go....

Still doesn't make sense.

It makes it harder to let them go. If you are occupying a supposedly independent "country" you can still say ok so we had negotiations Ukraine guaranteed rights of Russians in there and they want to go back to Ukraine so seeing how democratic we are, we say fine. Nobody will believe that of course but it's still a way to save some face when/if you are beaten.

But from the Russian legal perspective, retreating from these regions now will be giving up parts of Russia. Now admitting defeat will result in the greatest territory loss for Russia since Brest-Litovsk in 1918.

These "annexations" only leave two possible readings open I think:

1. Either Putin is (kept) so delusional about the state of the war and his armed forces that he thinks he is on the verge of victory, and wants to create a fait accompli before forcing Ukraine to accept his terms. I find this very unlikely as the mobilisation points to the opposite

2. He is well aware that with the current setup he is bound to lose the war and be eventually routed out of Ukraine. But his conclusion wasn't to seek a negotiated settlement, but to turn the tide by sheer force of will, raising the stakes and making his enemies blink and give up, like it probably happened throughout his life.

I think the mildest aspirations we can hope from him is that he thinks the annexations will give Ukraine pause so he can get his conscript army ready by the spring, push Ukraine out of these regions next year, declare victory and offer status quo peace.
 

[alfred russel]

I don't see how that logically computes.

If you postulate that:
-Putin needs a victory to save face,
-Putin is desperate enough to go nuclear against Ukraine to achieve that victory,

And where does that stop?

What if Putin feels he needs Poland and Germany too to save face? And if China decides they need Taiwan and Japan to save face?

They know the West will back down, so why not?

Poland and Germany are a part of NATO. Japan has a treaty putting them under our nuclear umbrella. The case of Taiwan is more ambiguous.

The majority on the forum seems of the mindset that if don't respond militarily to a nuclear attack on Ukraine then proliferation is inevitable and future Ukraines will occur. With the caveat that nuclear technology is the better part of a century old and some proliferation is probably inevitable, Russia isn't some rogue state with 5, 10, or even 500 missiles. It has thousands. The only country in its category is the US. Only a handful of non western countries are in a position have such a stockpile, and arguably they are all already nuclear.

There is also the potential that we can take countermeasures against strategic nuclear weapons use going forward. Missile defense seems much more feasible now than it did in the 80s. While the counterpoint is that countermeasures could be defeated through comparatively simple technology, can Russia really compete with us?

A main frustration that I have is that the effect of intervening militarily in Ukraine in response to a nuclear weapon use is that effectively we are putting the entire world under our nuclear umbrella. Which I don't think is an insane policy position, but it is insane to implement it after this war started.

[Josephus]

Other than the possible nuclear exchange it's going to be a really short ww3.

It'll be over by Christmas

[mongers]

How wil the Russian military know those missiles, be they cruise, ballistic or other are armed with conventional warheads and not nuclear, perhaps part of a first strike?

Because they know that the Western powers no longer have nuclear cruise missiles.  All the Tomahawks, et al, are conventionally armed.  The West has good enough conventional weapons that they have retired almost all the tactical nukes.  There are still a handful of air-droppable nukes, but they don't pose a threat to the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces due to lack of aircraft range.

Edit:  The ALCM is a strategic weapon, but still a cruise missile, so there are still a handful of nuclear cruise missiles.

"That's alright, only a handul of them are nuclear"

[Josephus]

If Putin does go for the nuclear option, then our only hope may be that he gets ousted. Not just the generals but the oligarchs who support him. I have a hard time believing that all these well-dressed dudes with trophy wives and million dollar boats in the Mediterranean will go along with a nuclear conflagration over Donbass.

[alfred russel]

If Putin does go for the nuclear option, then our only hope may be that he gets ousted. Not just the generals but the oligarchs who support him. I have a hard time believing that all these well-dressed dudes with trophy wives and million dollar boats in the Mediterranean will go along with a nuclear conflagration over Donbass.

I agree but then there is a probably a reason people have been falling out of windows recently.

I think this is the most serious nuclear risk since the cuban missile crisis...I think I'd consider putting it equal to that one (in part because nuclear technology and weapons are 60 years more advanced--the liklihood of a US - USSR/Russia exchange was higher then). Agreement, disagreement?

[Tamas]

If Putin does go for the nuclear option, then our only hope may be that he gets ousted. Not just the generals but the oligarchs who support him. I have a hard time believing that all these well-dressed dudes with trophy wives and million dollar boats in the Mediterranean will go along with a nuclear conflagration over Donbass.

I agree but then there is a probably a reason people have been falling out of windows recently.

I think this is the most serious nuclear risk since the cuban missile crisis...I think I'd consider putting it equal to that one (in part because nuclear technology and weapons are 60 years more advanced--the liklihood of a US - USSR/Russia exchange was higher then). Agreement, disagreement?

Definitely the worst since Cuba and quite likely the worst ever in the sense of likeliness of escalation into nuclear. One of the nuclear powers forcefully attempting to annex territory within Europe is higher stakes than ever during the Cold War (Hungary '56 and Czechoslovakia '68 weren't annexations and more importantly they were revolutions within what was pre-agreed Russian turf), and the whole part-of-Russia narrative makes it far harder to back down than in case of some missiles on some remote island.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

The deepstate map has Lyman all but surrounded now... So it's not all doom and gloom

[Tamas]

Watching Putin's speech via Twitter. It's basically the repeat of the February speech except less references to Ukraine being a non-nation. But repeats the whole life or death struggle with the west.

Faces of prominent Russians in the audience definitely not jubilant.