Current Affairs Ukraine

[Tony101]

Listening to Putin’s speech just now and gotta say I think he’s already made the decision to drop a tac nuke or two. Just a question of when not if.

Big question is how will NATO respond.

I don’t no how true it is. Apparently the Americans said if Putin users a tactical nuke. NATO won’t respond with a nuke but they will destroy the Black Sea fleet and the Russians in Ukraine.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

Listening to Putin’s speech just now and gotta say I think he’s already made the decision to drop a tac nuke or two. Just a question of when not if.

Big question is how will NATO respond.

Didn't Biden say he would supply Ukraine with like for like in the event of the use of extra naughty weapons.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Well the west shouldn't take advice from this thread!

Time to de-escalate. Quickly.

OK, but how? Concede the dirt and incorporate the rest of Ukraine into NATO to get it under our umbrella? What do we do about Taiwan, then? Is Japan going to take our security commitment seriously if we back away from Taiwan? We can't stop them from going nuclear and re-arming.

We're looking at some very hard questions if we de-escalate. This may be the road we are now forced down.

Possible off ramp in the Tactical nuke scenario is that NATO’s response would be conventional. Massive but still conventional. Then press for negotiations

I don’t no how true it is. Apparently the Americans said if Putin users a tactical nuke. NATO won’t respond with a nuke but they will destroy the Black Sea fleet and the Russians in Ukraine.

OK, suppose we start bombing his troops or sink his fleet, and he nukes a carrier group in reply. Now what?

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

I don’t no how true it is. Apparently the Americans said if Putin users a tactical nuke. NATO won’t respond with a nuke but they will destroy the Black Sea fleet and the Russians in Ukraine.

Was typing the same when you posted.

 

[Tony101]

OK, but how? Concede the dirt and incorporate the rest of Ukraine into NATO to get it under our umbrella? What do we do about Taiwan, then? Is Japan going to take our security commitment seriously if we back away from Taiwan? We can't stop them from going nuclear and re-arming.

We're looking at some very hard questions if we de-escalate. This may be the road we are now forced down.



OK, suppose we start bombing his troops or sink his fleet, and he nukes a carrier group in reply. Now what?

I don’t no but they would have to do something. can’t leave a mad man to do as he pleases unchecked. Hopefully someone takes him out before he has the chance to launch a nuke.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I don’t no but they would have to do something. can’t leave a mad man to do as he pleases unchecked. Hopefully someone takes him out before he has the chance to launch a nuke.

That's an act of war that leaves him little choice but to launch one. We could try, but we get one shot and one shot only, so we had better be sure that we get him  and that we have the ability to force a transition of power to someone more to our liking.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

OK, suppose we start bombing his troops or sink his fleet, and he nukes a carrier group in reply. Now what?

I would imagine that if the Russian generals in Moscow feel that such a strike would be met with one in kind they might not feel so inclined to follow Putins stupidity. It was such that pulled us back from the brink last time, though under different circumstances.

If Putin is not stopped now, then he will not stop. We will either have to allow his drive for a new world order or stop him. I am sure that there will be a back channel conversation making it clear that Russia will be evaporated if he escalates to a nuclear war.

 

[Mutzo Nutzo]

OK, but how? Concede the dirt and incorporate the rest of Ukraine into NATO to get it under our umbrella? What do we do about Taiwan, then? Is Japan going to take our security commitment seriously if we back away from Taiwan? We can't stop them from going nuclear and re-arming.

We're looking at some very hard questions if we de-escalate. This may be the road we are now forced down.



OK, suppose we start bombing his troops or sink his fleet, and he nukes a carrier group in reply. Now what?

Nightmare scenario.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I would imagine that if the Russian generals in Moscow feel that such a strike would be met with one in kind they might not feel so inclined to follow Putins stupidity. It was such that pulled us back from the brink last time, though under different circumstances.

If Putin is not stopped now, then he will not stop. We will either have to allow his drive for a new world order or stop him. I am sure that there will be a back channel conversation making it clear that Russia will be evaporated if he escalates to a nuclear war.

This has  always been the problem with nuclear deterrence. It's why McNamara shifted us from massive retaliation to flexible response in Europe once the Soviets had a credible nuclear deterrent. At the end of the day, would either side launch a full-scale strike in light of the certain consequences?

This problem is why a scenario like the one we're currently facing has always been the nightmare for Western planners - an opponent with political trouble at home escalating things right up to the brink of the cliff in order to stabilize the domestic situation.

 

[Shevin Keedy]

Why are we discussing conventional warfare and dead Russian/Soviet leaders? The elephant in the room is this: what if Putin erases Kyiv in response to a violation of 'territorial sovereignty'?

What does the West do? Further escalation is unthinkable. Putin wins the game of brinksmanship on the spot, right?

If we turn Russia into a pariah state in reply and try to strangle Putin economically, does this not only delay the day of reckoning? If we try to get China and India on board, and they come back with, "Taiwan, the South China Sea, Kashmir and buzz off about fossil fuel emissions," then what?

Are we really down to our own one-shot gamble for resurrection of smuggling a suitcase bomb into Moscow without getting caught, and hoping cooler heads over there win out when the radioactive dust settles? I don't see a lot of other pathways forward besides rolling over.

Send in a few lorryfuls of Levis; those russkies love the blue jeans!

 

[Mutzo Nutzo]

I don’t no how true it is. Apparently the Americans said if Putin users a tactical nuke. NATO won’t respond with a nuke but they will destroy the Black Sea fleet and the Russians in Ukraine.

No one knows for sure except the planners in the Pentagon.

But what I am sure of is that the scenario will have been wargamed and analysed countless times. A response decided upon and plans put in place.

 

[Drico]

No one knows for sure except the planners in the Pentagon.

But what I am sure of is that the scenario will have been wargamed and analysed countless times. A response decided upon and plans put in place.

Apparently the Americans war-gamed this during Obama's time (a nuclear attack on the Baltics). The war game result, apparently, was that the Americans would not respond in kind.

 

[Martin Alvito]

No one knows for sure except the planners in the Pentagon.

But what I am sure of is that the scenario will have been wargamed and analysed countless times. A response decided upon and plans put in place.

I think you would be surprised. The way we have always done this is: the football has options. It's up to the president, in conjunction with the advice of the military and his national security advisory staff, to pick one. And if one thing is certain with respect to the wargames, it is this: his advisors will not agree.

That's why it's in the president's hands, as well as why he does not play - so that, if we're compromised, the adversary does not know what we will do.

 

[Mutzo Nutzo]

Apparently the Americans war-gamed this during Obama's time (a nuclear attack on the Baltics). The war game result, apparently, was that the Americans would not respond in kind.

However I’m sure new data has been loaded into the scenario given the situation in Ukraine. So the baselines will have changed since Obama’s time. Will it change the outcome and response? Not a scooby

 

[Shevin Keedy]

I think you would be surprised. The way we have always done this is: the football has options. It's up to the president, in conjunction with the advice of the military and his national security advisory staff, to pick one. And if one thing is certain with respect to the wargames, it is this: his advisors will not agree.

That's why it's in the president's hands, as well as why he does not play - so that, if we're compromised, the adversary does not know what we will do.

So nuke them first is what you're saying I think if I'm reading you correctly. Hard to disagree with you to be fair.