Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons if NATO troops support the Ukrainian army
How should threats like that be evaluated, given that, (I’m guessing that nuking NATO troops would result in nuclear retaliation?) it would be… hard for Russia to benefit, causally, from initiating an exchange, and given that Putin lies quite frequently, and given that there aren’t really any limits to what a nuclear state can get you to go along with if you just take them at their word whenever they threaten this sort of suicidal act; you have to draw a line somewhere, there has to be a limit, where you’re willing to disbelieve. What’s the limit?
I’m having a lot of difficulty seeing nukes as being are applicable or relevant to war, at least in wars between nuclear states, probably even in a war limited to Russia and Ukraine. What would Russia gain from nuking Ukraine? They damage their prize beyond any plausible savings this would impute for their infantry. So, how can this claim that they’d do it be substantiated?
Last I heard (the information could be outdated), the US has fewer nukes than Russia. This was a choice: There was no military advantage to having more. There is a sense in which the credible signalling of will and strength, could no further be waged, that frontier was saturated, the game of war had to leave it.
He did not threaten to nuke Ukraine. He threated to use nukes against NATO countries if they get directly involved in that conflict. Not a direct quote, but a summary would be “We know we can’t win war against NATO, but we still have nuclear weapons—there will be no winners”.
How should threats like that be evaluated, given that, (I’m guessing that nuking NATO troops would result in nuclear retaliation?) it would be… hard for Russia to benefit, causally, from initiating an exchange, and given that Putin lies quite frequently, and given that there aren’t really any limits to what a nuclear state can get you to go along with if you just take them at their word whenever they threaten this sort of suicidal act; you have to draw a line somewhere, there has to be a limit, where you’re willing to disbelieve. What’s the limit?
I’m having a lot of difficulty seeing nukes as being are applicable or relevant to war, at least in wars between nuclear states, probably even in a war limited to Russia and Ukraine. What would Russia gain from nuking Ukraine? They damage their prize beyond any plausible savings this would impute for their infantry. So, how can this claim that they’d do it be substantiated?
Last I heard (the information could be outdated), the US has fewer nukes than Russia. This was a choice: There was no military advantage to having more. There is a sense in which the credible signalling of will and strength, could no further be waged, that frontier was saturated, the game of war had to leave it.
He did not threaten to nuke Ukraine. He threated to use nukes against NATO countries if they get directly involved in that conflict. Not a direct quote, but a summary would be “We know we can’t win war against NATO, but we still have nuclear weapons—there will be no winners”.