Comment by ivraatiems | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ivraatiems | Hacker News Reader

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I was worried about this earlier, so I spent some time searching this out. Here are some good analyses:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/23/little-military-sen...

https://thezvi.substack.com/p/ukraine-post-12

https://www.iswresearch.org/2022/09/russian-offensive-campai...

The TL;DR is that most experts don't think Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons, but there's still a substantial non-zero chance. 10%? 25%? Much higher than anyone would like, that's for sure, and dependent on factors that are out of control of anybody but the Russian government and military. I have not found any sources saying the opposite, though some have higher degrees of confidence than others. The consensus appears to be that this sense of uncertainty is being created by Russia on purpose, and therefore, that it's probably (but not guaranteed to be) a bluff.

I have also seen very mixed opinions on whether Russia's tactical nuclear weapons are in suitable condition for use. But I think it is best to assume they are.

The odds of Russia intentionally using strategic nuclear weapons, the kind you would target at foreign cities across continents or oceans from you, remain nearly zero. Unlike tactical nuclear weapons, which have theoretical uses in ensuring one wins a conflict, strategic nuclear weapons remain a guarantee of mutual and probably worldwide destruction with no purpose except to deter would-be attackers. The only time I can see even the Putin regime considering the use of such a weapon would be a full-scale, boots on the ground invasion of the Russian homeland (not Crimea or Donbas or other annexed territories).

Edit: Another source pointed out elsewhere - https://warontherocks.com/2022/09/russias-plan-to-stay-in-th... - seems reasonable. I am not 100% sure on its credibility but it aligns broadly. (Listen from about 5 minutes to about 14 minutes in.)

Before they use tactical nukes, wouldn't they use some large conventional FOABs? (Father of all bombs). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_of_All_Bombs

Maybe - but the point of it being a nuke is that nukes get attention, and you'd do it to get that attention and try to force capitulation or at least abandonment of popular support for your enemy. A FOAB wouldn't quite do it.

Depleted uranium rounds produce more radioactive contamination than a dirty bomb yet we lost our collective mind over the second and don't even think about the first.

The only difference is that the US uses DU regularly so we think of it as normal instead of a nuclear weapon on par with a tactical nuke in terms of long term damage.

>I have also seen very mixed opinions on whether Russia's tactical nuclear weapons are in suitable condition for use. But I think it is best to assume they are.

I've been thinking about this possibility since the start of the Ukraine War:

* Putin fires tactical atomic weapon at some empty plot of Ukrainian land, and announces it as a "demonstration" of Russian might.

* The weapon is a dud.

I'm not sure whether this outcome might not be worse in the long run, in terms of geopolitical stability, than if the weapon performs as expected!

> I'm not sure whether this outcome might not be worse in the long run, in terms of geopolitical stability, than if the weapon performs as expected!

I mean, if you're NATO and you see that... hard to imagine you don't take the invitation and just crush the Russian military into so much melted shrapnel. Every analysis I've seen says that if NATO gets involved, and nukes are otherwise off the table (which in this case they would be, at least for long enough for it not to matter), the thing ends with total NATO victory in very little time. And the attempted use of tactical nukes is the one thing almost guaranteed to step up NATO involvement.

But maybe that's wishful thinking on my part.

In terms of geopolitical stability, it would make Russia difficult to take seriously as a nuclear power. I don't think it says much about other nuclear states, like the US or China, who are almost certainly not paper tigers like Russia would have proven to be.

Why do you assume that nukes are off the table? If they are, sure, the US could bomb the shit outa Russia.

Otherwise, it is MAD.

The parent comment is replying to the hypothetical of a russian nuke being a dud.

I don't see how one dud means they all are duds

Even if most Russian nukes are duds, 5% still working is enough to deter NATO from directly attacking Russian forces. Hell, 1% probably is. Right now NATO is just giving Ukraine weapons and beating Russia that way.

I'll respond to this comment but there are a number in the same vein: "Russia would still have X% working nukes even if Y% don't work, and they have lots of nukes."

That is true. However, what's missing from this assessment in my view is the difference between strategic nukes (the kind that level a city) and tactical nukes (the kind you use for specific tactical goals, and the only kind being discussed as likely to be used here).

Russia has enough working strategic nukes that any kind of direct offense against the Russian homeland is always gonna be off the table. That is totally true. But nobody, including Russia, has suggested those are going to be used at all.

Rather, what is contemplated is using a tactical nuclear weapon to make a statement or accomplish a specific wartime goal. With regards to tactical nukes specifically, I think this claim:

> 5% still working is enough to deter NATO from directly attacking Russian forces.

is possibly not true. I think NATO might be willing to engage Russia conventionally if it is clear their tactical nukes don't work - and maybe even if they do work, because that may be among what has been threatened as a response to the use of a tactical nuke.

If Russia threatens to bomb Warsaw or DC, the situation changes again. But nobody has put that on the table... yet.

They supposedly have 5000+ warheads, even if 50% straight up don't exist and another 50% of the remaining are duds that's still enough to fuck us up 5 times over

I went to a Titan or Nike missile museum once and they had an exhibit on the probabilities for Russian nukes working and reaching their targets also including interception. They are way lower than USA. That means that Russia had to have considerably more nukes to achieve a high probability of success in hitting intended targets.

I'm not sure how that plays now based on disarmament and technological updates.

> The TL;DR is that most experts don't think Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons

We don't want to imagine it, that's as simple as that, just like we didn't want to imagine the invasion in the first place. "it's too dumb nobody would do that" is what most people were saying, even like a week before the invasion only the US were seriously warning people.

Even in the US, a lot of us didn't think Putin would actually invade since it looked like such a disasterous tactical move. It turns out a lot of people underestimated Russia's suicidal tendencies.

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