One can wonder what does it takes for the west to military intervene. Sanctions are a long term plan but it won't save Ukraine.
Once one Nuke is fired it's likely they'll all be because the only real defence against a nation using nuclear weapons against you is to try to wipe them out before they wipe you out.
In this situation hundreds of millions would be likely die directly from the attack and a similar amount would probably die from starvation shortly after as the global economy collapses and crops fail on mass.
There's just no situation that this is something we'd even want to consider. As much as I'd love NATO to be able to intervene it's just not possible. The best we can do is put pressure on Russia and show other nations that this is not acceptable and not in their national interest because of the harsh economic consequences.
Thankfully, that has been thought of and, as much as possible, planned for.
How do you decrease the incentive for a preemptive strike? By building your nuclear arsenal so that it can survive one. There are 3 main things that help achieve this:
(1) Put your nukes somewhere where even a direct hit from an enemy nuke will not destroy them. That's why missile silos are underground.
(2) Hide your nukes. The enemy can't take out your nukes if they don't know where they are. Fixed-location nukes are bad at this. Mobility is good, but road and rail are not the best forms of mobility. Nukes in planes are better. Nukes in submarines are really good.
(3) Have lots of nukes. If the enemy can destroy 90% of your nukes with a preemptive strike but 10% of your nukes would still easily be enough to wipe them out, then a preemptive strike still doesn't achieve its goal. One way to increase nukes cheaply and effectively is with MIRVs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta...), which means one missile has multiple nuclear warheads that can independently hit different targets.
Basically, all this was thought out pretty thoroughly during the Cold War. The well-known acronym MAD stands for Mutually-Assured Destruction, and the importance of the assured part has not been overlooked.
Source: needed a government credit in college, took a class that was all about nuclear deterrence theory.
And why the US and especially Israel is so against Iran having nuclear weapons, to the point where Israel would attack Iran militarily, to stop them.
... But now that the opportunity to trap Putin in a quagmire has presented itself, it does seem to be ready to flood the region with weapons. Had it done so at any point in the preceding eight years, war might well have been avoided.
Which leads me to think that avoiding war was never the goal.
The turnaround time on this sort of thing does not favor the aggressor.
To Russia, Ukraine is a core interest, and thus they're the most likely to escalate to tactical nuclear weapons if NATO intervenes and Russia starts losing.
With a NATO country, that calculus changes, and if for some crazy reason Russia actually attacked a NATO country, we would have a good chance of being able to fight back and expel Russia's attack without the war going nuclear, because Russia has far less interest in winning that war, as existing NATO countries aren't core interests to Russia.
The Baltic states (former Soviet Union states) might be
Russia's core interest should be preventing the end of the world. If Putin is rational, he will never initiate a nuclear war. If he is irrational, he will not stop with Ukraine.
I don’t know if NATO would respond to a nuclear attack on Kyiv. Would NATO attack knowing the destruction of London/Paris/NYC/etc would be almost guaranteed?
First of all, if Putin wanted to level Kiev he could do it with conventional bombs and artillery. Nuclear weapons are not needed.
But second of all, *why* would he want to flatten Kiev? Why don’t you read his goals in his own words? https://web.archive.org/web/20220224024154/http://en.kremlin...
He says he sees Russians and Ukrainians as one people and wants to unify them. No, I’m not defending him, I oppose war in all circumstances.
But it’s important to understand that he’s not some evil maniac out of a comic book that wants to kill everybody, he has actual goals.
And besides taking pieces from your neighboring country, waging long shadow war in Donbas, telling everyone how Ukraine is not really a country anyway and then invading doesn't really seem such a great plan for unifying nations.
As far as I understand relations before Russians and Ukrainians were pretty OK before 2014 events. With his own actions Putin has made a country that has roughly 1/3 of the population of Russia mostly against him. Healing these wounds and relationships will take decades even once the war ends.
All the sudden all these Curtis LeMay types are coming out of the woodwork trying to drum up nuclear war.
We know Russia has ran information campaigns on social media in the past so it seems pretty irrational to believe they aren't running campaigns when actually at war.
Everyone should take what they think they know about the situation with a huge grain of salt. It is totally irresponsible to read a news headline that may or may not be correct and then from that headline extrapolate that it is time to go to DEFCON 1.
"Putin taking Estonia isn't as bad as nuclear annihilation."
"Putin taking Berlin isn't as bad as nuclear annihilation."
"Putin taking DC isn't as bad as nuclear annihilation."
What if he just goes, "I'm invading western Europe now too, and if you fight back I launch the nukes"? Do we just roll over and say that it's better to surrender than fight?
I have far more confidence that Putin would use them than the US would. That asymmetry works to his advantage.
I’m sure Putin doesn’t have a big red launch button on his desk, but between the US and Russia, who do you honestly think will have an easier time getting those missiles launched? The guy who mixed up Ukrainians and Iranians during a speech last week or the guy who ordered an invasion of a neighboring country? My money is on Putin.
Hopefully we never find out.
He doesn't really gain anything by nuking everyone if they help Ukraine either, but that's the threat regardless.
In this case pressure to keep the west from becoming directly involved.
Would that hold up if you insert "anywhere" instead of "in Ukraine"? I am not so sure that e.g. the Baltics would be protected by NATO if Putin invades.
The only exit that isn't a destructive spiral out of control is the one where Putin is no longer in power.
1. NATO Article 5 invocation, i.e. an armed attack on a NATO nation
2. or a disaster so terrible that the security of Europe requires that NATO enter the war i.e. a nuclear reactor meltdown<
3. a NATO ally such as Poland deciding to enter the war on Ukraine's side.
An NATO Article 5 invocation is the most likely. Russia is taking heavily loses due to NATO arms shipments to Ukraine. To reduce these arms shipments Russia must either bomb the shipments near the border or control the border. Both of these could result in an accidental attack on Poland. Russian bombers often have difficulty navigating and use unguided bombs. If they stray into Polish airspace they make be shot down. If Poland decides that war with Russia will happen sooner or later, they make choose to enter the war on Ukraine's side sooner when Russia is least prepared.
It is not the job of the west to be world police