The so-called danger that Moscow is very hard to defend from Europe because of the vast plains, therefore needing buffer states, doesn’t make any sense when nukes are in the equation.
By this logic wouldn’t most of the military of all countries with nukes be unnecessary? As I understand it, the way you do it with nukes is you put as many steps as you can before you are forced to use them. So allowing for indirect confrontation in puppet-Ukraine that even in case of defeat may result in long-term recognition of Crimea as Russian territory seems positive. Or at least it may seem so to people in charge with 19th century-like thought patterns. You also may leverage puppet-government for gas exporting infrastructure or something? So it leaves the costs and that part really seems like miscalculation.
“By this logic wouldn’t most of the military of all countries with nukes be unnecessary?”
That’s a fallacy. Of course most countries prefer to start wars without nukes, but nothing guarantees that that’s the way they will also end, specially between 2 nuclear powers with similar arsenals.
Russia, for instance, isn’t using nukes to conquer Ukraine (yet, at least) but it’s more than obvious that it would use nukes to defend itself from a NATO invasion (Putin has said it himself). If not “more than obvious” (just to be completely analytical here), at least “extreme likely”. Therefore, invading Russia would be suicidal for NATO—with nuclear war there are no winners. Therefore, my argument still stands.
By this logic wouldn’t most of the military of all countries with nukes be unnecessary? As I understand it, the way you do it with nukes is you put as many steps as you can before you are forced to use them. So allowing for indirect confrontation in puppet-Ukraine that even in case of defeat may result in long-term recognition of Crimea as Russian territory seems positive. Or at least it may seem so to people in charge with 19th century-like thought patterns. You also may leverage puppet-government for gas exporting infrastructure or something? So it leaves the costs and that part really seems like miscalculation.
“By this logic wouldn’t most of the military of all countries with nukes be unnecessary?”
That’s a fallacy. Of course most countries prefer to start wars without nukes, but nothing guarantees that that’s the way they will also end, specially between 2 nuclear powers with similar arsenals.
Russia, for instance, isn’t using nukes to conquer Ukraine (yet, at least) but it’s more than obvious that it would use nukes to defend itself from a NATO invasion (Putin has said it himself). If not “more than obvious” (just to be completely analytical here), at least “extreme likely”. Therefore, invading Russia would be suicidal for NATO—with nuclear war there are no winners. Therefore, my argument still stands.