War on the Rocks: WE ARE ON A PATH TO NUCLEAR WAR JEREMY SHAPIRO In war, nothing is inevitable and not much is predictable. But the war in Ukraine has a direction that observers can see and that we should name. What began as a criminal Russian aggression against Ukraine has become a proxy war between Washington and Moscow. The two sides are locked in an escalatory cycle that, along current trends, will eventually bring them into direct conflict and then go nuclear, killing millions of people and destroying much of the world. <snip> The Danger of Geniuses It is not hard to imagine how they might be starting from where we are today. If the war continues to move against the Russians, and particularly if the Ukrainians begin to invade Crimea, they will reach ever greater levels of fear that the future of the Russian regime is at stake. Some genius within the Russian leadership will then put forward the idea that they can reverse the momentum and demonstrate their greater willingness to accept Armageddon by a nuclear demonstration. As Michael Kofman and Anya Lukianov Fink have noted, Russian military analysts have long believed in “a demonstrative use of force, and could subsequently include nuclear use for demonstration purposes.” The West, this Russian optimist will argue, doesn’t really care about Ukraine and will recoil at the real prospect of nuclear war. Lacking better options, or really any other options at all beyond surrender, Russian President Vladmir Putin (or his successor) will seize on this deus ex machina. Such thin hopes of turning defeat into victory are the most effective enemies of peace. Russian forces will launch a small number of tactical nuclear attacks against Ukrainian troop concentrations or NATO supply lines within Ukraine. If they can’t find any of those, they will use them against Ukrainian civilian targets. The target is not essential because the point of this attack will be to destroy Western will to continue supporting Ukraine, not to directly reverse the military situation. They would additionally put their strategic nuclear forces on alert and begin “unusual movements” of nuclear assets in an effort to warn the United States against responding to the attack. The United States government has certainly considered this contingency, which is why both National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken were recently dispatched to warn the Russians they would suffer “horrific” and “catastrophic” consequences if they used nuclear weapons in Ukraine. In the event, however, the U.S. government will struggle to find a response that reflects the gravity of the Russian use of nuclear weapons but does not represent further escalation toward direct confrontation and all-out nuclear war. The American equivalent of the Russian genius will argue that a direct, proportionate response aimed at the attack itself will send a signal to the Russian leadership that the United States is seeking to punish the crime of nuclear use, not escalate the war or overthrow the Russian regime. They will see the Russian strategic nuclear alert as a bluff, arguing that to follow through with a strategic nuclear attack would be suicide. Lacking better options, the U.S. leadership will seize on the idea of such a finely calibrated response and launch a conventional NATO attack on Russian troop formations in Ukraine or the military base in Russia where the Russian nuclear strike originated from. As a precaution, they will also put U.S. nuclear forces on alert, put more U.S. nuclear submarines to sea and recommend to the British and French that that they also put their forces on alert — if these two independent powers had not done so already. Unfortunately, such a subtle message is likely to be lost on a paranoid Kremlin. They will see a direct NATO attack on Russia or Russian forces as confirmation of their view that the West intends to destroy the Russian regime and kill all its leaders. For Russian leaders this is an ever-present reality: Putin reportedly obsessively watches the video of Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi’s death after he was overthrown by NATO forces. Facing the prospect of death if they do not act to save their regime, Russian leaders will risk launching further conventional and tactical nuclear strikes on NATO troop formations and Ukrainian supply operations in bordering NATO states such as Poland and Estonia to signal that Russia is willing and able to defend itself despite the risk of strategic nuclear escalation. https://warontherocks.com/2022/10/the-end-of-the-world-is-nigh/
My understanding is they are setting up Shoigu specifically as "the fall guy". Apparently he is completely sidelined with no power at all anymore. They'll promote "General Armageddon" or someone to Defense Minister and no shade thrown on the army, who will happily throw Shoigun to the wolves.
I just saw a video shot by an American fighting alongside the Ukrainians showing Russian forces using white phosphorus. It looks beautiful like a rain shower of white light until you realize those white glowing droplets burn everything they touch and can’t be extinguished with water. He was saying that many soldiers keep “suicide pistols” with them so if they are caught in a shower of white phosphorus they can end their own life than suffer from the burns. I’ll see if I can find a link to the segment.
That is certainly a possibility but as since you’ve been advocating giving the Ukrainians more weapons and saying that Biden shouldn’t have taken NATO or US troops off the table in Ukraine do you think they those type of moves might make a paranoid Russia more likely to use nukes?
Yes and I always felt that not responding to Russian and Syrian forces using chemical and unconventional weapons was the biggest mistake of Obama’s foreign policy.
Saying that the US should’ve found a way to work with Assad isn’t the same as saying it ws a mistake to draw redlines and not follow through on them.
Also I know this wasn’t your intention but thanks for quoting this post from me right after the 2016 election There’s been a lot of claims made that Hillary Clinton and her supporters didn’t accept the 2016 election just like the Trump and his supporters. Speaking for myself who not only voted for Clinton but also campaigned and donated to her election this wasn’t the case. For that matter I didn’t get a message from Clinton to come to DC on Jan 6, 2017 to fight like hell against the stolen election.
Come on, if this was a deeply held belief you "always felt" it's kind of bizarre for you at the time to have repeatedly argued for de-escalation. I don't actually care, my thesis is that you pick the "centrist" approach because it's goldilocksily appropriate. Or maybe you're just misremembering and you want to say "in retrospect with hindsight this would've been better" You're allowed to do that!
This is another instance in the very long list of war crimes committed by the Russian Army. I just do not see a path forwarded where these war crimes will be prosecuted. Any peace treaty with Russia would certainly precluded war crime prosecution.
