Yeah, I know

 

still some more.

Take Putin’s Nuclear Threat Seriously, But Not Too Seriously

Few think the Russian leader would be foolish enough to escalate radically, but there’s also a strong argument to be made that he’s not bluffing.

"Russian President Vladimir Putin has raised anew the possibility he might use nuclear weapons against Ukraine to prevail in a conflict going sideways. The smart money says he won’t, because doing so — or otherwise expanding the conflict drastically — wouldn’t make a bad situation any better."

"Yet the smart money might not have predicted the choices that set Putin down this path in the first place."

(Thats exactly what I was saying the other day, the people that told you he wouldn't invade? Are the same ones telling you now that he wont use a tactical nuke. (1 Thessalonians 5:3).

"His goal, presumably, is to stem the erosion of Russia’s military position, and then use the threat of escalation to impose a diplomatic solution."

(When are we gonna learn that they just don't think like we think? That they just don't act like we act? That kinda thinking is imposing our values on their actions and it's just not in the cards hypersonic arsenal or not.)

"Would Putin carry through on the threat? In Washington and other Western capitals, there are two schools of thought."

"Optimists believe Putin won’t use nuclear weapons because doing so wouldn’t really help him. So-called battlefield nuclear weapons work best against large masses of troops or tanks, but the fighting in Ukraine is fairly dispersed. Holding territory or cities that have just been hit with nuclear weapons isn’t an attractive proposition; the prospect that fallout might blow back into Russia makes nuclear use less alluring still."

(It would surely help him draw US into a conflict we don't want and cant afford)

Putin might still use nuclear weapons to reset the conflict psychologically — to shock Kyiv and Washington into de-escalation. Yet that could simply cause the US and its allies to double down in Ukraine, perhaps directly entering the conflict themselves, because doing otherwise would create a horrendous precedent that revisionist powers can simply nuke their way out of failed wars.

(He has the advantage and he knows it it's why he's acting like he is.)

Pessimists aren’t so sure Putin is bluffing, because using nuclear weapons might not actually backfire. Some unknown portion of the international community would become desperate to end the fighting immediately, even at the cost of making concessions to Moscow. The US and its allies would have few attractive options in response.

What do you think African countries, The middle East and Asian ones would respond in that scenario? I'll tell you right now how they would respond in such a situation, they'd say, "let him have it for goodness sakes, we need their oil and minerals." In fact? it might be exactly what he is counting on.

"Retaliating with limited nuclear strikes against Russian forces would risk an escalatory spiral. Entering the war with NATO conventional forces might invite additional nuclear strikes by Moscow. Non-kinetic reprisals, such as cyberattacks or more economic sanctions, would appear pathetically weak compared to the Russian offense.

(Wrong, "Entering the war with NATO conventional forces might invite additional nuclear strikes by Moscow." It would give him what he wants, a chance to use his hypersonic arsenal against us, and he could argue, "It wasn't your fight to begin with, you don't have a treaty with this country, they are not in NATO, you used conventional forces against us, and so we did against you and we will again. We can escalate out of control, or you can give us what we want. Again, how are the African, Middle Eastern and Asian countries likely to respond in such a scenario?)

"It is sobering to realize that we are now in the gravest great-power nuclear crisis in a half-century. It is more sobering still to think that avoiding nuclear escalation may require Putin to show more prudence and caution in ending this war than he did in starting it."

(He was all in from the start, "prudence and caution" were never in the calculus.)