Russia believes that independent Ukraine has become a tool with which to attack and undermine Russia. Russians say that since the cold war, America has reduced many countries to chaos—Libya, Syria, and Iraq are frequently cited examples—the main precedent here must be Yugoslavia. For Russia, “losing Ukraine” is very similar to Serbia losing Kosovo. It’s a kind of motherland and to have anti-Russian ideology there is unacceptable—this is the real meaning of “denazifying” Ukraine—in Russia, Nazis are remembered primarily as enemies of Russians.
Petr Pascenko commented that “half of the Russian defense industry has ended up in a hostile country”. So there you see the other war aim—disarming Ukraine. To say Ukraine is militarily irrelevant because this is the era of nuclear weapons, is to overlook a lot of things. There is a continuum of escalation from political subversion, to guerrilla forces, to conventional warfare, to nuclear war, and control of territory still matters for all of them, even for nuclear war: territory can house missiles, missile defense systems, electronic monitoring stations, and special forces.
Even with a Russian victory, Ukraine’s military-technical potential would not soon be reintegrated into Russia’s system, so I believe the immediate goal is to just neutralize that potential, first by force, and then politically.
The timing of the war, I attribute to the manner of the American exit from Afghanistan. Russia’s analysts and strategists may have decided that America looked weak, and that there was a chance to kick them out of Ukraine entirely, rather than just keep Ukraine preoccupied with the civil war. So first there was the ultimatum of December, demanding a treaty to restrict NATO and keep Ukraine neutral; and when no treaty was agreed, then came the actual invasion.
For me, the biggest riddle is still, what have American intentions actually been, through all the years; how should one conceive of them. (There is also the question of European intentions, but I’ll skip that for now.) There’s little doubt that American “grand strategy” includes among its aims, preventing any great power in the eastern hemisphere, from becoming dominant there. Another common element of American geopolitical thinking since the end of the cold war, is the idea that spheres of influence should not be allowed. Each nation, no matter how big, does not get to influence the sovereign choices of its neighbors. Finally, there’s that end-of-history idea that liberal democracy is the final and most virtuous political system, and that it should become universal. American policy towards Ukraine and Russia can be motivated by all of these.
“Russians say that since the cold war, America has reduced many countries to chaos”
None of them were big powers with nuclear weapons (so why is that a threat to Russia?). And it’s not like Russia has behaved much better, just look at the horrible massacre in Chechnya and, well… This war.
“For Russia, “losing Ukraine” is very similar to Serbia losing Kosovo. It’s a kind of motherland and to have anti-Russian ideology there is unacceptable”
That’s assuming that the regime are as nationalistic as they claim (I believe modern politicians love power more than nationalism, for instance). And more importantly, assuming that this hopeless war would bring any progress in imperialistic regards. I think it will only achieve the opposite. It will only weaken Russia. America can afford to invade Syrias and Lybias as much as they want, because those are torn hellholes with the whole world against them. With Ukraine, you actually have a mostly unified population and regime, and the whole world is giving them weapons and support. Plus Russia is not half as powerful as the US.
“To say Ukraine is militarily irrelevant because this is the era of nuclear weapons, is to overlook a lot of things. There is a continuum of escalation from political subversion, to guerrilla forces, to conventional warfare, to nuclear war, and control of territory still matters for all of them, even for nuclear war: territory can house missiles, missile defense systems, electronic monitoring stations, and special forces.”
Sure, Ukraine is not militarily irrelevant towards a country with no nuclear weapons. If Ukraine invades that country, a normal war would be fought. But let’s imagine Ukraine invades Russia. Is that a threat to Russia, any more than any other similar country doing it? No.
But wait, let’s say Ukraine joins NATO and the whole of NATO invades Russia. Well, first, does it make a difference whether Ukraine is in it or not? I don’t think so, the result will be the same: planetary anihilation (yes, Putin has specifically said he would respond with nuclear weapons to a NATO invasion).
On territory mattering even for nuclear war, again, does it really make a difference whether Ukraine joins the party or not? Does NATO feel more emboldened to invade Russia just because they now have missiles in Ukraine pointed at Russia, and special forces, and what not (as some have been claiming)? Does that have in any way the potential to prevent the massive planetary destruction that would inevitably be the result of invading Russia—therefore making it a completely suicidal idea regardless—since we still haven’t invented anything that can shield us from nukes and such invention is nowhere in sight?
That all sounds pretty absurd to me.
A far more realistic view is that this war poses much more of a threat to global security than the prospect of a Western-looking Ukraine or even a NATO member Ukraine.
I have seen no-one in Russia talking about NATO invading Russian territory, as if it were 1812 or 1941. The kind of things that Putin talked about, last month, as risks to Russia, are: ballistic missiles launched from Ukrainian territory; radars on Ukrainian territory used to “control” Russian airspace; NATO bombers taking off from Ukrainian airfields.
Your idea is that Russia has nothing to worry about, if a nuclear-armed military alliance (NATO) which considers Russia its main threat, expands right up to the Russian border; because Russia has nukes too. But nukes are no guarantee of security, they’re only a deterrent. Conflicts can escalate, someone can make a mistake. That’s why neutral buffer zones and strategic arms limitation treaties have also been part of nuclear weapons diplomacy—to limit the possibilities of uncontrolled escalation.
The Russian perspective, therefore, is that America has been increasing the risk of nuclear war, by adopting policies—NATO expansion, withdrawal from various arms treaties, deployment of missile defense systems which (so Russia says) can be turned into offensive emplacements—without regard for their effect on Russia’s own security. Russia says America refuses to listen, so instead Russia takes material actions to restore the strategic balance. In 2018, that meant announcing a new generation of strategic weapons, to restore mutually assured destruction; in 2022, it has meant invading Ukraine in order to forcibly prevent it from becoming a western military platform.
“I have seen no-one in Russia talking about NATO invading Russian territory, as if it were 1812 or 1941. The kind of things that Putin talked about, last month, as risks to Russia, are: ballistic missiles launched from Ukrainian territory; radars on Ukrainian territory used to “control” Russian airspace; NATO bombers taking off from Ukrainian airfields.”
And how would any of those things represent a threat to Russia (i.e. would be directed at Russia) if not for being part of a NATO invasion?
Baltic countries have been part of NATO for 20 years. Where’s the ballistic missiles being launched at Russia and the radars?
The only real-world threat I see is Russia, who keeps threatening every single Eastern European country. Geez, no wonder they wanna join NATO! Maybe if Russia wasn’t a mafia regime who murders and coerces for a living, the Eastern European countries wouldn’t be so eager to join NATO and could maybe establish a healthy neutral zone.
Even China, who dislikes NATO, had to admit that “the security of a country can’t be guaranteed by threatening the sovereignty of others”. This war is irredimable.
I agree. The rest of the world does too. It would be very nice if everyone were nicer.
But can’t you understand the perspective of how a more and more unbalanced Mutually Assured Destruction is a threat to Russia? I think MAD is mad, and that every effort should be made to dismantle it. But in lieu of that, it works to keep the peace to the extent that no-one wins in case of war, and thus no-one wants war. If one side has more modern delivery systems, more forward bases, and better missile defenses, that tips the power balance massively, and at some point, Destruction is no longer Mutually Assured. Or not Mutually Assured enough. This breaks the underlying core of how MAD hinders conflict.
Now, I can’t see the current west launching a preemptive strike at Russia. But in the context of MAD, it makes complete sense for a slowly-loosing party to change to a more desperate strategy before things progress that far. You and I might have thought MAD an old horror story from the middle of the last century, and not formed our understanding of the world around it, I certainly didn’t. But if Putin thinks MAD is alive, then MAD is alive.
And from a dictator’s perspective, democracies are scarily unstable. Just because I can’t see the current west as doing something like that, that is no guarantee that no such leader will ever be elected, or that relations won’t sour in the future. As indeed they have.
“But can’t you understand the perspective of how a more and more unbalanced Mutually Assured Destruction is a threat to Russia?”
I believe it might be. But it’s a very hypothetical one.
This current war is a much more probable threat to global security, which includes Russia.
The West already has 2 NATO members bordering Russia. 2 of the Baltic countries. They joined 18 years ago. Why not put the missiles there? Why wait for Ukraine? In fact, why not launch a pre emptive strike from some other member state at all? Plenty of them are close to Russia.
“If one side has more modern delivery systems, more forward bases, and better missile defenses, that tips the power balance massively, ”
We still haven’t invented anything that can block a nuke and we’re nowhere near it.
China only has around 300 nukes. US has like 20 times that. Now, I’ve heard that even those 300 are enough to destroy most major US cities. But maybe they aren’t enough to destroy the whole of West’s allies. So, I don’t know, should China invade South Korea and Japan, because it fears that MAD between the two parts is not exactly balanced?
Or maybe, should it actually act not-insane and realize that it is equally suicidal for any bloc to either lose 80% or 100% of its population in a nuclear war, not to mention that we’d all probably die anyway due to nuclear winter? And realize that invading South Korea or Japan would actually raise the chance of nuclear war way more than the former paranoia, destroy everyone’s economies and brutally kill a ton of innocents?
Putin believing it to be real makes it real. That’s all it takes. The physical nukes in their physical silos are not hypothetical.
“current war is a much more probable threat”
This only holds if you don’t consider a long-term loss if influence as bad as utter defeat. Putin has explicitly stated as much.
“They joined 18 years ago”
18 years ago Russia didn’t have the power, it was still a mess (even more of a mess). The fact that he didn’t escalate to nuclear threats then speaks very well of him. (Not well enough. Not by a mile. But by some.)
“Why wait for Ukraine?”
In this view, it would be a case of a slowly rising tide, versus a line in the sand. Putin would have much preferred NATO to stay out of the Baltics too, but didn’t have to power or leverage at the time, and/or believed assurances that NATO wouldn’t expand further. On December 2021 Putin “politely” asked NATO to reverse all expansion to pre- 27 May 1997, saying basically that everything since then was unfair.
“We still haven’t invented anything that can block a nuke”
They sure are trying. The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) systems basically shoots nukes out of the sky. That way they won’t detonate, merely spread a plume of radioactive debris. It’s far from perfect, but it is definitely tipping the power balance. Russia has a counterpart that protects Moscow, that was developed in the 80′s. The US system attempts to protect the whole US mainland. Missiles are easier to intercept the further away they are launched, so the proximity advantage is huge. There was even a treaty between the US and USSR/Russia banning use of more than two ABM installations per side, and 100 ABM missiles per installation, basically in order to maintain MAD at a reasonable cost. The US opted out of the treaty in 2002, and now has 44 installations, presumably with hundreds of intercepting missiles at each installation. Russia followed suit, but can’t afford very many installations. The US does not have enough still to intercept every missile of an all-out Russian attack, yet. Russia isn’t even close.
“China only has around 300 nukes”
Yes, China has a much more sane (less mad) policy, of maintaining enough nukes to be a real deterrent, without aiming for MAD. Way less mad than the US, USSR and Russian policies.
“should China invade South Korea and Japan, because it fears that MAD between the two parts is not exactly balanced?”
I don’t know. I sure hope they don’t feel that way. By the logic of MAD they probably should, if they could get away with it. The US is terrible at backing down in situations like this, which might force Chinas hand, either to invade or to build many more nukes. I hope the US backs down instead. Just like I wish NATO would have backed down in the mid 90′s, at least as long as Russia could have been negotiated to reciprocate. Instead NATO adopted an “Open door policy”. Backing down is of course only viable if it is mutual.
“Or maybe, should it actually act not-insane”
MAD sure is mad. It has it’s own, cold, internal logic to it though. I want to reject that whole world order. By your words here, you do too. That will only be possible if nuclear powers back down. Elsewhere you wrote “Everybody wants to rule the world. It’s better if the good guys do it.” And I fully understand the sentiment, but this is the inevitable consequence of that view, if there is anyone anywhere that doesn’t consent to the rule of your “good guys”. One might even say that holding the whole world hostage by threat of nuclear annihilation automatically disqualifies “good guy” status. Yet some nuclear powers are worse than others.
“This century, U.S. ICBM defense systems have been designed specifically around the threat of a small strike from a minor nuclear power, and the study notes that defense against attacks from nations such as China or Russia would likely be “much more challenging.””
“In the study’s estimation, North Korean countermeasures would presumably be sophisticated enough to render midcourse interception generally unreliable.”
So, in simple words, it’s only really meant to be any effective against a small strike by a small rogue state, and even then it’s not even that effective.
They predict it will stay the same for the next 15 years.
Is it true that some genius may suddenly come up with a breakthrough? Certainly. But that can happen in any country. Or, as anyone in this site is aware of, there will be military breakthroughs perhaps even sooner in AI, which will probably give a decisive strategic advantage (DSA) to a single power.
And it will much more likely be either in the US or China, since these countries actually invest in R&D instead of the oligarchs stealing everything.
So Putin can’t change history by invading Ukraine. He probably knows this. He famously said in 2017 that “whoever invents advanced AI first gets to control the world”.
Even in the mere terms of anti-ballistic missiles and such, it doesn’t make much difference.
So either there are unstated motives for this invasion, like those proposed in Nanda Ale’s comment, which make a lot of sense to me considering the whole fiasco about the Chechnya invasion (“history always repeats itself”), or he / the regime are either insane, or straight evil, or blatantly wrong, or playing an all-in desperation move.
“One might even say that holding the whole world hostage by threat of nuclear annihilation automatically disqualifies “good guy” status.”
It doesn’t because full nuclear de-escalation is realistically impossible. There will always be that shady 3rd world leader selling nuclear secrets to rogue nations, or that shady genius nuclear engineer going back home to his 3rd world country and becoming radicalized. Etc etc.
Meta-discussion sidenote: I didn’t intend for this discussion to escalate and become adversarial. Please see the first part of this comment. No ill will garnered, and no offence taken :) If you think this is discussion is less than constructive, I’m perfectly willing to drop things here. That said:
“A quick google search can easily disprove that”
I only claimed that they are trying. And that this is a significant escalation since pulling out of the treaty. If they think they’ll succeed to some significant extent in 15 years, that sets a hard time limit on Putins plans.
“And it will much more likely be either in the US or China, since these countries actually invest in R&D instead of the oligarchs stealing everything.”
Case in point. He is falling behind, and he knows it. If he counts loosing SuperPower status as a complete loss condition, he has to do something drastic, and the sooner the better.
“It doesn’t because full nuclear de-escalation is realistically impossible”
For me, Good-guy status is a scale. Holding the world hostage lowers your place on the scale significantly. The fact that others are even worse does not change this. If I had seen a strong, deliberate and sincere effort for mutual nuclear disarmament after the fall of the USSR I would be less harsh, but I haven’t. I’m not saying this is a solvable problem, it might not be. I’m saying we aren’t really trying.
“Case in point. He is falling behind, and he knows it. If he counts loosing SuperPower status as a complete loss condition, he has to do something drastic, and the sooner the better.”
That’s exactly one of my suspected ulterior motives: all-in desperation move. And it is an ulterior motive, since no Russian is saying “we’re taking drastic measures to assure that we don’t lose super power status in the world stage”. Quite the opposite, they’re saying “we’re ultra rational peace makers”.
On nuclear disarmament, that doesn’t hold up. If we believe that it is not a solvable problem, we shouldn’t actively work for a solution (there are plenty of think thanks theoretically working for a solution). If you begin actively working for a solution, much more tragic things could happen, like US and Russia both reach the number of nukes of 100 each, and then one of either has another 1000 in secret, or shady 3rd world leader build a nuclear arsenal of 500 and bombs the crap out of the US/Russia because being the shady 3rd world leader he is he thinks it’s worth it.
I also believe that a world without nukes would plunge right back into the perma-war craphole it was before their existence. This is not to say that nukes are good, it’s just that their absence might not be a lot better.
“That’s exactly one of my suspected ulterior motives”
Then we are in agrement here.
“If we believe that it is not a solvable problem”
I didn’t say that it definitely isn’t solvable, I conceded that it might not be. It certainly won’t be if we aren’t even trying, and I’m claiming that we aren’t really trying. This would naturally include perpetually ongoing work on the world stage to prevent such developments as you describe. To be clear: I am not calling for unilateral disarmament. I understand that this would not be helpful. I am calling for gradual, universal disarmament, to the furthest extent possible. A de-escalation to mere nuclear deterrence without MAD, would be an unimaginable win for the probability of the survival of human civilization long term, sanity in general, and literally all known life. I understand that it won’t be easy, and that MAD is an attractor in policy-space etc, etc, etc, but I can not agree with your seemingly defeatist acceptance of MAD as the only solution. To be clear: I understand the logic behind it. I can see your point. It has merit. I don’t accept the conclusion.
Russia believes that independent Ukraine has become a tool with which to attack and undermine Russia. Russians say that since the cold war, America has reduced many countries to chaos—Libya, Syria, and Iraq are frequently cited examples—the main precedent here must be Yugoslavia. For Russia, “losing Ukraine” is very similar to Serbia losing Kosovo. It’s a kind of motherland and to have anti-Russian ideology there is unacceptable—this is the real meaning of “denazifying” Ukraine—in Russia, Nazis are remembered primarily as enemies of Russians.
Petr Pascenko commented that “half of the Russian defense industry has ended up in a hostile country”. So there you see the other war aim—disarming Ukraine. To say Ukraine is militarily irrelevant because this is the era of nuclear weapons, is to overlook a lot of things. There is a continuum of escalation from political subversion, to guerrilla forces, to conventional warfare, to nuclear war, and control of territory still matters for all of them, even for nuclear war: territory can house missiles, missile defense systems, electronic monitoring stations, and special forces.
Even with a Russian victory, Ukraine’s military-technical potential would not soon be reintegrated into Russia’s system, so I believe the immediate goal is to just neutralize that potential, first by force, and then politically.
The timing of the war, I attribute to the manner of the American exit from Afghanistan. Russia’s analysts and strategists may have decided that America looked weak, and that there was a chance to kick them out of Ukraine entirely, rather than just keep Ukraine preoccupied with the civil war. So first there was the ultimatum of December, demanding a treaty to restrict NATO and keep Ukraine neutral; and when no treaty was agreed, then came the actual invasion.
For me, the biggest riddle is still, what have American intentions actually been, through all the years; how should one conceive of them. (There is also the question of European intentions, but I’ll skip that for now.) There’s little doubt that American “grand strategy” includes among its aims, preventing any great power in the eastern hemisphere, from becoming dominant there. Another common element of American geopolitical thinking since the end of the cold war, is the idea that spheres of influence should not be allowed. Each nation, no matter how big, does not get to influence the sovereign choices of its neighbors. Finally, there’s that end-of-history idea that liberal democracy is the final and most virtuous political system, and that it should become universal. American policy towards Ukraine and Russia can be motivated by all of these.
“Russians say that since the cold war, America has reduced many countries to chaos”
None of them were big powers with nuclear weapons (so why is that a threat to Russia?). And it’s not like Russia has behaved much better, just look at the horrible massacre in Chechnya and, well… This war.
“For Russia, “losing Ukraine” is very similar to Serbia losing Kosovo. It’s a kind of motherland and to have anti-Russian ideology there is unacceptable”
That’s assuming that the regime are as nationalistic as they claim (I believe modern politicians love power more than nationalism, for instance). And more importantly, assuming that this hopeless war would bring any progress in imperialistic regards. I think it will only achieve the opposite. It will only weaken Russia. America can afford to invade Syrias and Lybias as much as they want, because those are torn hellholes with the whole world against them. With Ukraine, you actually have a mostly unified population and regime, and the whole world is giving them weapons and support. Plus Russia is not half as powerful as the US.
“To say Ukraine is militarily irrelevant because this is the era of nuclear weapons, is to overlook a lot of things. There is a continuum of escalation from political subversion, to guerrilla forces, to conventional warfare, to nuclear war, and control of territory still matters for all of them, even for nuclear war: territory can house missiles, missile defense systems, electronic monitoring stations, and special forces.”
Sure, Ukraine is not militarily irrelevant towards a country with no nuclear weapons. If Ukraine invades that country, a normal war would be fought. But let’s imagine Ukraine invades Russia. Is that a threat to Russia, any more than any other similar country doing it? No.
But wait, let’s say Ukraine joins NATO and the whole of NATO invades Russia. Well, first, does it make a difference whether Ukraine is in it or not? I don’t think so, the result will be the same: planetary anihilation (yes, Putin has specifically said he would respond with nuclear weapons to a NATO invasion).
On territory mattering even for nuclear war, again, does it really make a difference whether Ukraine joins the party or not? Does NATO feel more emboldened to invade Russia just because they now have missiles in Ukraine pointed at Russia, and special forces, and what not (as some have been claiming)? Does that have in any way the potential to prevent the massive planetary destruction that would inevitably be the result of invading Russia—therefore making it a completely suicidal idea regardless—since we still haven’t invented anything that can shield us from nukes and such invention is nowhere in sight?
That all sounds pretty absurd to me.
A far more realistic view is that this war poses much more of a threat to global security than the prospect of a Western-looking Ukraine or even a NATO member Ukraine.
I have seen no-one in Russia talking about NATO invading Russian territory, as if it were 1812 or 1941. The kind of things that Putin talked about, last month, as risks to Russia, are: ballistic missiles launched from Ukrainian territory; radars on Ukrainian territory used to “control” Russian airspace; NATO bombers taking off from Ukrainian airfields.
Your idea is that Russia has nothing to worry about, if a nuclear-armed military alliance (NATO) which considers Russia its main threat, expands right up to the Russian border; because Russia has nukes too. But nukes are no guarantee of security, they’re only a deterrent. Conflicts can escalate, someone can make a mistake. That’s why neutral buffer zones and strategic arms limitation treaties have also been part of nuclear weapons diplomacy—to limit the possibilities of uncontrolled escalation.
The Russian perspective, therefore, is that America has been increasing the risk of nuclear war, by adopting policies—NATO expansion, withdrawal from various arms treaties, deployment of missile defense systems which (so Russia says) can be turned into offensive emplacements—without regard for their effect on Russia’s own security. Russia says America refuses to listen, so instead Russia takes material actions to restore the strategic balance. In 2018, that meant announcing a new generation of strategic weapons, to restore mutually assured destruction; in 2022, it has meant invading Ukraine in order to forcibly prevent it from becoming a western military platform.
“I have seen no-one in Russia talking about NATO invading Russian territory, as if it were 1812 or 1941. The kind of things that Putin talked about, last month, as risks to Russia, are: ballistic missiles launched from Ukrainian territory; radars on Ukrainian territory used to “control” Russian airspace; NATO bombers taking off from Ukrainian airfields.”
And how would any of those things represent a threat to Russia (i.e. would be directed at Russia) if not for being part of a NATO invasion?
Baltic countries have been part of NATO for 20 years. Where’s the ballistic missiles being launched at Russia and the radars?
The only real-world threat I see is Russia, who keeps threatening every single Eastern European country. Geez, no wonder they wanna join NATO! Maybe if Russia wasn’t a mafia regime who murders and coerces for a living, the Eastern European countries wouldn’t be so eager to join NATO and could maybe establish a healthy neutral zone.
Even China, who dislikes NATO, had to admit that “the security of a country can’t be guaranteed by threatening the sovereignty of others”. This war is irredimable.
I agree. The rest of the world does too. It would be very nice if everyone were nicer.
But can’t you understand the perspective of how a more and more unbalanced Mutually Assured Destruction is a threat to Russia? I think MAD is mad, and that every effort should be made to dismantle it. But in lieu of that, it works to keep the peace to the extent that no-one wins in case of war, and thus no-one wants war. If one side has more modern delivery systems, more forward bases, and better missile defenses, that tips the power balance massively, and at some point, Destruction is no longer Mutually Assured. Or not Mutually Assured enough. This breaks the underlying core of how MAD hinders conflict.
Now, I can’t see the current west launching a preemptive strike at Russia. But in the context of MAD, it makes complete sense for a slowly-loosing party to change to a more desperate strategy before things progress that far. You and I might have thought MAD an old horror story from the middle of the last century, and not formed our understanding of the world around it, I certainly didn’t. But if Putin thinks MAD is alive, then MAD is alive.
And from a dictator’s perspective, democracies are scarily unstable. Just because I can’t see the current west as doing something like that, that is no guarantee that no such leader will ever be elected, or that relations won’t sour in the future. As indeed they have.
“But can’t you understand the perspective of how a more and more unbalanced Mutually Assured Destruction is a threat to Russia?”
I believe it might be. But it’s a very hypothetical one.
This current war is a much more probable threat to global security, which includes Russia.
The West already has 2 NATO members bordering Russia. 2 of the Baltic countries. They joined 18 years ago. Why not put the missiles there? Why wait for Ukraine? In fact, why not launch a pre emptive strike from some other member state at all? Plenty of them are close to Russia.
“If one side has more modern delivery systems, more forward bases, and better missile defenses, that tips the power balance massively, ”
We still haven’t invented anything that can block a nuke and we’re nowhere near it.
China only has around 300 nukes. US has like 20 times that. Now, I’ve heard that even those 300 are enough to destroy most major US cities. But maybe they aren’t enough to destroy the whole of West’s allies. So, I don’t know, should China invade South Korea and Japan, because it fears that MAD between the two parts is not exactly balanced?
Or maybe, should it actually act not-insane and realize that it is equally suicidal for any bloc to either lose 80% or 100% of its population in a nuclear war, not to mention that we’d all probably die anyway due to nuclear winter? And realize that invading South Korea or Japan would actually raise the chance of nuclear war way more than the former paranoia, destroy everyone’s economies and brutally kill a ton of innocents?
“But it’s a very hypothetical one.”
Putin believing it to be real makes it real. That’s all it takes. The physical nukes in their physical silos are not hypothetical.
“current war is a much more probable threat”
This only holds if you don’t consider a long-term loss if influence as bad as utter defeat. Putin has explicitly stated as much.
“They joined 18 years ago”
18 years ago Russia didn’t have the power, it was still a mess (even more of a mess). The fact that he didn’t escalate to nuclear threats then speaks very well of him. (Not well enough. Not by a mile. But by some.)
“Why wait for Ukraine?”
In this view, it would be a case of a slowly rising tide, versus a line in the sand. Putin would have much preferred NATO to stay out of the Baltics too, but didn’t have to power or leverage at the time, and/or believed assurances that NATO wouldn’t expand further. On December 2021 Putin “politely” asked NATO to reverse all expansion to pre- 27 May 1997, saying basically that everything since then was unfair.
“We still haven’t invented anything that can block a nuke”
They sure are trying. The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) systems basically shoots nukes out of the sky. That way they won’t detonate, merely spread a plume of radioactive debris. It’s far from perfect, but it is definitely tipping the power balance. Russia has a counterpart that protects Moscow, that was developed in the 80′s. The US system attempts to protect the whole US mainland. Missiles are easier to intercept the further away they are launched, so the proximity advantage is huge. There was even a treaty between the US and USSR/Russia banning use of more than two ABM installations per side, and 100 ABM missiles per installation, basically in order to maintain MAD at a reasonable cost. The US opted out of the treaty in 2002, and now has 44 installations, presumably with hundreds of intercepting missiles at each installation. Russia followed suit, but can’t afford very many installations. The US does not have enough still to intercept every missile of an all-out Russian attack, yet. Russia isn’t even close.
“China only has around 300 nukes”
Yes, China has a much more sane (less mad) policy, of maintaining enough nukes to be a real deterrent, without aiming for MAD. Way less mad than the US, USSR and Russian policies.
“should China invade South Korea and Japan, because it fears that MAD between the two parts is not exactly balanced?”
I don’t know. I sure hope they don’t feel that way. By the logic of MAD they probably should, if they could get away with it. The US is terrible at backing down in situations like this, which might force Chinas hand, either to invade or to build many more nukes. I hope the US backs down instead. Just like I wish NATO would have backed down in the mid 90′s, at least as long as Russia could have been negotiated to reciprocate. Instead NATO adopted an “Open door policy”. Backing down is of course only viable if it is mutual.
“Or maybe, should it actually act not-insane”
MAD sure is mad. It has it’s own, cold, internal logic to it though. I want to reject that whole world order. By your words here, you do too. That will only be possible if nuclear powers back down. Elsewhere you wrote “Everybody wants to rule the world. It’s better if the good guys do it.” And I fully understand the sentiment, but this is the inevitable consequence of that view, if there is anyone anywhere that doesn’t consent to the rule of your “good guys”. One might even say that holding the whole world hostage by threat of nuclear annihilation automatically disqualifies “good guy” status. Yet some nuclear powers are worse than others.
A quick google search can easily disprove that, as I expected:
https://www.aip.org/fyi/2022/physicists-argue-us-icbm-defenses-are-unreliable (APS is an AIP Member Society.)
“This century, U.S. ICBM defense systems have been designed specifically around the threat of a small strike from a minor nuclear power, and the study notes that defense against attacks from nations such as China or Russia would likely be “much more challenging.””
“In the study’s estimation, North Korean countermeasures would presumably be sophisticated enough to render midcourse interception generally unreliable.”
So, in simple words, it’s only really meant to be any effective against a small strike by a small rogue state, and even then it’s not even that effective.
They predict it will stay the same for the next 15 years.
Is it true that some genius may suddenly come up with a breakthrough? Certainly. But that can happen in any country. Or, as anyone in this site is aware of, there will be military breakthroughs perhaps even sooner in AI, which will probably give a decisive strategic advantage (DSA) to a single power.
And it will much more likely be either in the US or China, since these countries actually invest in R&D instead of the oligarchs stealing everything.
So Putin can’t change history by invading Ukraine. He probably knows this. He famously said in 2017 that “whoever invents advanced AI first gets to control the world”.
Even in the mere terms of anti-ballistic missiles and such, it doesn’t make much difference.
So either there are unstated motives for this invasion, like those proposed in Nanda Ale’s comment, which make a lot of sense to me considering the whole fiasco about the Chechnya invasion (“history always repeats itself”), or he / the regime are either insane, or straight evil, or blatantly wrong, or playing an all-in desperation move.
“One might even say that holding the whole world hostage by threat of nuclear annihilation automatically disqualifies “good guy” status.”
It doesn’t because full nuclear de-escalation is realistically impossible. There will always be that shady 3rd world leader selling nuclear secrets to rogue nations, or that shady genius nuclear engineer going back home to his 3rd world country and becoming radicalized. Etc etc.
Meta-discussion sidenote: I didn’t intend for this discussion to escalate and become adversarial. Please see the first part of this comment. No ill will garnered, and no offence taken :) If you think this is discussion is less than constructive, I’m perfectly willing to drop things here.
That said:
“A quick google search can easily disprove that”
I only claimed that they are trying. And that this is a significant escalation since pulling out of the treaty. If they think they’ll succeed to some significant extent in 15 years, that sets a hard time limit on Putins plans.
“And it will much more likely be either in the US or China, since these countries actually invest in R&D instead of the oligarchs stealing everything.”
Case in point. He is falling behind, and he knows it. If he counts loosing SuperPower status as a complete loss condition, he has to do something drastic, and the sooner the better.
“It doesn’t because full nuclear de-escalation is realistically impossible”
For me, Good-guy status is a scale. Holding the world hostage lowers your place on the scale significantly. The fact that others are even worse does not change this. If I had seen a strong, deliberate and sincere effort for mutual nuclear disarmament after the fall of the USSR I would be less harsh, but I haven’t. I’m not saying this is a solvable problem, it might not be. I’m saying we aren’t really trying.
“Case in point. He is falling behind, and he knows it. If he counts loosing SuperPower status as a complete loss condition, he has to do something drastic, and the sooner the better.”
That’s exactly one of my suspected ulterior motives: all-in desperation move. And it is an ulterior motive, since no Russian is saying “we’re taking drastic measures to assure that we don’t lose super power status in the world stage”. Quite the opposite, they’re saying “we’re ultra rational peace makers”.
On nuclear disarmament, that doesn’t hold up. If we believe that it is not a solvable problem, we shouldn’t actively work for a solution (there are plenty of think thanks theoretically working for a solution). If you begin actively working for a solution, much more tragic things could happen, like US and Russia both reach the number of nukes of 100 each, and then one of either has another 1000 in secret, or shady 3rd world leader build a nuclear arsenal of 500 and bombs the crap out of the US/Russia because being the shady 3rd world leader he is he thinks it’s worth it.
I also believe that a world without nukes would plunge right back into the perma-war craphole it was before their existence. This is not to say that nukes are good, it’s just that their absence might not be a lot better.
“That’s exactly one of my suspected ulterior motives”
Then we are in agrement here.
“If we believe that it is not a solvable problem”
I didn’t say that it definitely isn’t solvable, I conceded that it might not be. It certainly won’t be if we aren’t even trying, and I’m claiming that we aren’t really trying. This would naturally include perpetually ongoing work on the world stage to prevent such developments as you describe. To be clear: I am not calling for unilateral disarmament. I understand that this would not be helpful. I am calling for gradual, universal disarmament, to the furthest extent possible. A de-escalation to mere nuclear deterrence without MAD, would be an unimaginable win for the probability of the survival of human civilization long term, sanity in general, and literally all known life. I understand that it won’t be easy, and that MAD is an attractor in policy-space etc, etc, etc, but I can not agree with your seemingly defeatist acceptance of MAD as the only solution. To be clear: I understand the logic behind it. I can see your point. It has merit. I don’t accept the conclusion.