Reading this makes me think that it might be inconsistent to think that both Putin won’t use nukes for fear of escalating to nuclear war, and that the west will avoid escalating to nuclear war in the case that Putin does deploy a nuke. Of course both sides want to project strength and ensure that there is significant uncertainty around the actions they will take, but we probably can’t be highly confident in both.
The reason, of course, is that if Putin were highly confident that the west would not escalate all the way to nuke war, then he would not feel deterred in using nuclear weapons.
I still think that there’s not really a tactical use for the weapons, which is an independent reason to not use them.
I do agree that game theory is much less clear in multiparty games, and that there’s a lot of complexity on the ground. On the other hand, the US has ~all the nukes that Putin cares about, so in that sense it’s much less complex.
Reading this makes me think that it might be inconsistent to think that both Putin won’t use nukes for fear of escalating to nuclear war, and that the west will avoid escalating to nuclear war in the case that Putin does deploy a nuke. Of course both sides want to project strength and ensure that there is significant uncertainty around the actions they will take, but we probably can’t be highly confident in both.
The reason, of course, is that if Putin were highly confident that the west would not escalate all the way to nuke war, then he would not feel deterred in using nuclear weapons.
I still think that there’s not really a tactical use for the weapons, which is an independent reason to not use them.
I do agree that game theory is much less clear in multiparty games, and that there’s a lot of complexity on the ground. On the other hand, the US has ~all the nukes that Putin cares about, so in that sense it’s much less complex.