Hacker News Reader

Comment by o4b | Hacker News Reader

I see this a lot, why is it assumed that Russia invading a NATO member state and NATO responding with force => WW3? NATO would repel the attack, but it would be completely unwilling to attempt significant aggressive action due to MAD. NATO states have absolutely nothing to gain by invading Russia.

View on HN

I don't trust the assumption that there aren't still a large number of hawks in the various governments of NATO that would still love an excuse to try to destroy Russia once and for all. There's probably a >50% chance that once shooting starts between NATO and Russia it doesn't stop until one or the other is incapacitated.

What would make Russian leaders desperate enough to launch a Nuclear strike against the West? Comprehensive embarrassment by NATO and the US flag towering over Red Square seems to be just about the only one that I can think of.

No way do the hawks win that argument.

You're assuming both sides remain rational and calm when dead bodies get piling up and the safety protocols for mobilizing nukes get lifted.

Imagine you're the engineer involved with launching a nuke. In times of peace even if you get a phishing call to launch a nuke, you'd have second thoughts and probably take a couple more steps to confirm. In war time, you're already primed for the possibility of the nuke being used and it takes far less for a malicious actor to end the world as we know it.

Same for all levels of decision makers. It really just takes one trigger-happy maniac to make a wrong decision somewhere.

I was specifically responding to throwaway4aday that I do not believe that hawks in NATO that desire the full destruction of Russia will win the argument to pursue an offensive war against Russia.

One reason I think this to be true is exactly the risks that you mentioned - the more hot the war gets, the more bodies, the more likely mistakes are made.

It's more likely that a nuclear exchange would start with limited use of tactical nuclear weapons. Let's imagine that Russia does invade a NATO country and is beaten back by NATO forces after significant fighting within NATO territory. Maybe some of those hawks higher up the chain of command want to make sure Russia can't regroup and try again so they pursue Russian forces into Russia itself in an attempt to encircle them and force a surrender of a significant number of their troops. Russian higher ups misinterpret this as a push to capture Russian territory or the start of a larger invasion and decide to use a small number of low yield nuclear weapons to destroy the invading forces. Now you have thousands of dead NATO soldiers and a mess of confusion with multiple nuclear detonations on the Russian border. NATO counterattacks by targeting airbases and missile assets using cruise missiles and aircraft with conventional warheads in an attempt to prevent any further strikes. At that point things can heat up quickly.

In a hot war where multiple countries are involved you can't expect the fighting to just stop once you hit a border. Even when you have the upper hand, the temptation to carry through once you are already engaged in a conflict is real.

I'd expect lots of Russian targets outside of Russia proper to receive some ballistically-delivered nastygrams if Russia attacked a NATO member. They'd all have to be treated as hostile. Forces in Syria, in Belarus, ships outside Russian waters, et c., would all be at grave risk. Not a great move if they've got a large percentage of their forces outside their own borders (i.e. in Ukraine) when that goes down.

I agree that NATO would be very reluctant to so much as fire an artillery shell over the Russian border, but Russia might well forfeit a great deal of personnel and equipment in such a move, anyway. Having troops & equipment abroad is a major liability if you pick a fight with a country (or coalition) that badly outclasses you.

> NATO would repel the attack

Let's say afterwards Russia nukes Western Europe/the US. What then? That's the thing with MAD, you have to be mad to toy with the possibility.

Any nuclear attack by Russia on a NATO state guarantees the utter destruction of Russia. As much as we like to think Putin is unhinged or desperate, as much as Putin says a nuclear response could happen, he knows this.

What would make him desperate enough to sacrifice the entire current and future of Russia? Losing an invasion of Estonia?

You clearly have no imagination.

When you are 70 years old, spending half your life revered as a great leader of a nation, you would be desperate not have your historical legacy ruined by losing a war and possibly your status and pride in your final years.

I'm definitely of the opinion that this would be an unlikely scenario, but then, are you willing to bet the future of the planet on a hunch that a single person that you don't know personally is actually not unhinged and desperate?

I don't know about you, but I'm personally going to avoid betting on anything that has a mere 1% chance of resulting in nuclear winter.

I don't think you can clearly state anything about my imagination based on a handful of comments on the internet.

The scenario that we have been discussing is NATO's response to a Russian invasion of a NATO member such as Estonia. What are NATO's options?

1. Full scale (offensive) war. They attacked us, we will end this in Moscow 2. Repel the attack, take no aggressive action beyond what is required to come to a stalemate 3. Do nothing

I have argued elsewhere with you that I don't see 1. as being at all likely due to NATO's goals, defensive posture, and military superiority.

Doing nothing would only embolden Russia and destroy any pretense of an alliance at all. If not in Estonia, when would NATO intervene? Poland? Germany?

Thus, repel the attack and take no aggressive action. De-escalate and give options for Russia to save face.

We don't have to bet that a single person is not unhinged enough to press the button. There are command and control limitations purpose-built into even Russia's nuclear arsenal. Putin also wouldn't want his historical legacy ruined by the thorough destruction of the present and future of Russia. I'd go further to say that he knows all this, and wouldn't invade a NATO member in the first place.

> Any nuclear attack by Russia on a NATO state guarantees the utter destruction of Russia.

I hope this is not how nuclear strategy and tactics is prepared. If sane people are in charge, retaliations will be proportional and exchange will be limited.

OK, tell me how it does work.

Russia obliterates Katowice, one of several countries obliterates Volgograd. What is the next move? You just ended the lives of a million of your citizens. You just stop there?

It all depends on the situation. Why did they obliterate Katowice in the first place? Was is it an error, was is a retaliation, was it nonsensical move of a madman? Hopefully at some point both sides will realize that neither the other side wants to continue and they would all stop at some point. Like in the movie By dawn's early light.

This is widely debated, both in Russia and the West.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com