Who is Deterring Whom? The Place of Nuclear Weapons in Modern War
https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/who-is-deterring-whom-the-place-of-nuclear-weapons-in-modern-war/
"In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, old questions about nuclear deterrence have been revisited by a broad swath of academics, scholars, and pundits who have spent the past three decades acclimated to a climate of dramatically reduced nuclear risk. For those of us working in what has been a niche subfield, the attention has been both validating and, at times, surprising.
What is not often said is that nuclear deterrence is working and, as a result, both the United States and Russia face constraints in how they approach conflict that involves the other. Nuclear deterrence has limited the escalation of the conflict in profound ways, despite brutal fighting, heavy casualties, and the supply of substantial amounts of Western weaponry to Ukraine. This is welcome news, but there is a caution: There is no guarantee that it will continue to do so, nor can there be. The management of escalation means that the United States and NATO will have to accept that they too face limits in how to approach the conflict. It would be unwise to hand-wave away Russian nuclear threats, or to dismiss as so many have the Russian threat to use nuclear weapons, based on a warped understanding of deterrence theory."
21 comments:
Ukraine is winning. The nuclear deterrence has nothing with this. We all need to our part to win this war.
Ukraine is clearly not winning as of this date. In order to "win" it has to evict Russia from all of its sovereign territory, including Crimea. That cannot happen without massively increased armament and logistical resources from The US, EU, and NATO, immediately.
"That cannot happen without massively increased armament and logistical resources from The US, EU, and NATO, immediately.
6/24/2022 6:33 PM"
Exactly we have a clear path. Everyone would be in the streets right now demanding.
(1) Massive increased armament, guns, food and support to Ukraine to get the job done.
(2) Push for sane gun laws in the US and ignore unlawful rulings for the Supreme Court.
(3) Demand women universal women right for all.
(4) Demand that all the people that supported Jan 6th or threatened our Democracy be held accountable, which means jail time, all the GOP who supported this.
(5) Acknowledge that the Supreme Court picks under Trump are not legtimate because Trump was put in by Russia, so we the Trump picks need to be thrown out all current rulings are null and void. You see how this all comes back to Russia.
(6) We need to realize that all the issues we have had are due to Russia interference and collusion of Russia with Trump. We need to realize that we are now at war. We need to realize this and take the gloves off, I am sorry but forget about the threat of nuclear war, Russia started this so we need to finish it.
Do you people not realize we are all in great danger for losing our democracy and being a fascists state, they key is to defeat Russia, this is clear. Ukraine can win this if we put all our rescues in or just declare war on Russia ourselves.
It doesn't look as though Trump's policies led to the Ukraine war, he pushed our NATO allies to meet spending targets, and opposed Green energy, had good relations with Saudi, and was against Nord Stream 2, while increasing defense spending.
It doesn't look as though Trump's policies led to the Ukraine war, he pushed our NATO allies to meet spending targets, and opposed Green energy, had good relations with Saudi, and was against Nord Stream 2, while increasing defense spending.
6/25/2022 10:56 AM
What where you not paying attention to the news media in 2016-2020? Earth to the 10:56 AM poster Russia literally put Trump in, Trump is a Russian asset. We all know this. All these things you say must be because Russia wanted this. Stop watching Fox news.
"Ukraine is clearly not winning as of this date. In order to "win" it has to evict Russia from all of its sovereign territory, including Crimea. "
6/24/2022 6:33 PM
Keep this thought in mind from an opinion piece at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies...
"However, it appears to be a matter of policy that nuclear weapons are reserved for what Russia would term regional or global wars. Regional wars are defined as an attack by a state or coalition of states seeking a major political goal. Global wars would be fought between Russia and a coalition of states seeking to end Russia’s sovereignty. The smallest category of wars is a local war, which is fought with one or several smaller states for limited political aims. There are no scenarios in which TNW [tactical nuclear weapons] could or would be used in a local conflict, as they are ‘for general warfighting as a last-ditch effort in cases where the military is losing a war and the state is under threat’. They are thus unlikely to be used in Ukraine, except in the unlikely scenario that Russian forces are routed to the point that Ukraine can retake Crimea."
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russias-nonstrategic-nuclear-weapons-and-its-views-limited-nuclear-war
Nuclear Deterrence? US nuclear weapons obviously have not deterred Putin from doing whatever he wants, like invading Ukraine on two occasions. But, Russia's nuclear nuclear weapons have clearly deterred the US from doing what is needed to be done to stop Putin from massacring his neighbors.
6/25/2022 3:04 PM
It isn't Russia's nuclear weapons that have deterred the US from acting. It is the spineless US government that has deterred us.
Trump was put in by Russia, so we the Trump picks need to be thrown out all current rulings are null and void. You see how this all comes back to Russia.
6/25/2022 9:48 AM
Debunked completely by all reputable intel and news sources and everyone (but you) now gets this. Go bark up another tree.
6/25/2022 3:04 PM
You could reword this.
Nuclear Deterrence? Russian nuclear weapons obviously did not deter Bush from doing whatever he wanted, like invading Iraq. But, the United States nuclear nuclear weapons have clearly deterred the Russians from doing what is needed to be done to stop Bush from massacring Iraqis and Afgans.
See how that works.
We can certainly acknowledge that Trump had certain business ties to Russia, as it is well known that his casinos and real estate were used to launder Russian money. However, not all factions within Russia would have supported the Ukraine invasion or benefited by it. In fact, there seems to be evidence that Putin's thought processes are increasingly paranoid and delusional, the decision to go to war was his alone, and on that basis, their war effort has greatly suffered from a serious of mistakes, the most serious of which of course, was to actually invade on Feb. 24th, on the supposed stated basis in part that Nazis had somehow taken over their Slavic neighbor and they would be welcomed in as liberators -- a country with a Jewish president, which also glosses over the fact that the Nazi party has not existed since 1945 as an organized movement, and Nazi ideology promoted described Slavs as Untermensch, or subhuman slated for eventual extermination and slave labor so would hardly win elections in a Slavic country. Additionally as an amateur historian of course, he posited that Ukraine belonged to Russia and has always been a part of it, certainly of course the actual story is much more complicated, but the short answer is no, just as Kuwait was not really a historic part of Iraq. We can dismiss these fantasy ideas as convenient propaganda untruths, yet it's fairly obvious Putin holds these beliefs with a religious fervor, latching on to any evidence or affirmation of his delusions, which of course, as I mentioned, goes to show that his thinking is paranoid and delusional.
"Debunked completely by all reputable intel and news sources and everyone (but you) now gets this. Go bark up another tree.
6/25/2022 6:00 PM"
As shocking as this sounds I found many people that still completely believe this and insists it was proven to be true by the FBI and investigated by the news. I even try to point to news sources that debunk this and they just say it is Fox news or just following Fox news. Some of these people are LANL lab fellows, who actually get physical angry when I point out that the Russian collusion story is false. The other thing is that these people never want to discuss it, they just get angry and say "I do not want to discuss this any more". I have also run into many people who argue that we need to help Ukraine because they put Trump in. Again many of these people are educated and think they are intellectuals because they listen to NPR, read the NYT once a week, and have gone to the Santa Fe Opera once, and like RadioHead. Another odd thing is that when it comes to Ukraine they just say we need to support them because Russia is so evil. If you ask further exactly how they so evil, what gain will we have, and what would be the outcome, I typically get the usual blank stare or just a repeat of " Russia is evil and put Trump in. " By the way there are plenty of valid arguments for wanting to stop Russia, but I find it so odd that these LANL intellectuals cannot give me a reason beyond a MSNBC or Facebook talking point.
The narrative is that Trump colluded with Russia and I would guess about 40 to 50% of the US population believes this to some extent, maybe 30% do not and 30% do not care.
Now for my snark, your claim "everyone (but you) now gets this." is utterly false as I can point to a number of people who work at LANL and are even lab fellows who do believe this. I wish you where right but a I said I would estimate up half the population still believe this.
See how that works.
6/25/2022 6:55 PM
It doesn't.
Judging from the commentary in this thread, I would venture that, in the case of human intelligence, Darwin was wrong, natural selection failed to produce improvement over the millennia.
6/26/2022 9:28 AM
Do some fact checking on the Mueller report
https://www.factcheck.org/2019/04/what-the-mueller-report-says-about-russian-contacts/
https://www.factcheck.org/issue/russia-investigation/
6/26/2022 9:28 AM
It does not matter who believes what. Facts are facts. If you care what people believe that are not facts, you are seriously wasting your time on trivial nonsense. Or maybe, you're the long lost but not lamented "perception is fact" guy. If so, please go away again.
"It doesn't.
6/26/2022 11:59 AM"
What? Yes it does work and has worked for military aggression for both Russia and the US. Sure Russia invading Ukraine, Georgia, and Afghanistan is bad but you have also compare that to the US in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia, Panama, Grenada, and the endless coups that the US have pushed on dozen of nations that have lead to dictatorships.
You have to be really naive to think that US nuclear weapons have also not deterred other nations from trying to stop US aggression. I doubt you could find a serious historian of US policy in since ww2 who would take you side of history.
Blame America First.. Got it.
Blame America First.. Got it.
6/27/2022 5:24 PM
Who is blaming America? I think the point is having viable nuclear weapons gives your country a lot more options. Russia, US , China, India, Israel and NK all uses that leverage. No wonder a place like Iran wants them. I am on the side of America but I am also realistic about world politics and power. I think defeating Russia could be a good thing, we would get lots of goodies, and it would give us way more power in dealing with China. I never believed these silly ideas of being on the "moral" side or that Russia is evil and America is good. In my mind I am an American so America is good by definition.
I am an American so America is good by definition.
6/27/2022 10:37 PM
Good to have no moral compass at all, I guess.
6/27/2022 10:37 PM
Good to have no moral compass at all, I guess.
6/28/2022 6:49 PM
I have one, I define it as being on the side of the US, I could go to all the rationalization for thinking the US is good, I could simply accept it, or I could be pragmatic about it since I am a US citizen so what is good for US is good for me.
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