I'm appalled after decades of massive anti nuclear war protests and shuttle diplomacy that our 'leaders' are now almost casually sliding into the abyss of nuclear wars
And there was Nixon, who was busy trying to convince the world he was a madman willing to launch a nuclear strike to get what he wanted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory#Richard_Nixon
Perhaps is just isn’t as visible now - but it seems like back channels keep getting intentionally shut.
The Cold War featured American and Soviet pilots shooting at each other during the Korean War, supplying arms isn't nearly as big an escalation as supplying fighters.
But then it turned out that Ukraine was more prepared than Russian intelligence thought, and Europe started flooding it with weapons. Given that Russia isn't taking the war half as seriously[1] as Ukraine is, none of what's happening is irrational or surprising.
[1] By design. Putin didn't want an existential conflict that required actual sacrifice on the part of his constituents, he just wanted an easy victory to cement his popularity. He's now stuck in a situation where he has few good options.
He was afraid of the Army, which is why it always treated it like shit, except for vanity projects.
Which is why they have hypersonic missiles and nuclear powered torpedoes, but no socks, uniforms and guns for recruits.
Book: The Steel Flea, Nikolai Leskov, 1881
Not really. I recommend talking to Russians of certain age. What they say is something like "sure, Putin is far from perfect, but he saved us from the 90's"
I don't think most people understand how bad things were there after the wall fall. The usual human reaction is turn to a strong man that put some order in the chaos.
This is stupid strategy. Military men millennia ago were beyond it. The fog of war is real. One maintains exit ramps. Fully committing at the onset of a war you unilaterally start is blunder, full stop.
Part is the fundamental weakness of dictatorship, a weakness our ancestors addressed with monarchy. (Bush and Nixon could walk away from failed wars their successors wrapped up without fear for their lives. As could Roman consuls.) But a larger part is broad stupidity, concentrated at the Kremlin.
It is like a bio-weapon and will eventually take out your own troops.
You also seem to be purposefully misinterpreting the OP's point about what is being considered "casual". Whether you think Putin is irrational or not has no bearing on the fact that most of our leaders seem to be treating a potential nuclear war after decades of shuttle diplomacy indeed very casually.
If the US attacked Canada because China overthrew the government, installed a pro-Chinese president, and started making stronger legal pacts, bonds, and certifications with China would that be irrational?
Being anti war is fine, and amicable. But don’t get it twisted. Putin is acting rationally
The first problem is that this "analogy" is not an accurate parallel to what happened in Ukraine. The US had no boots on the ground whatsoever.
There were mass protests, and then the elected parliament removed the president. Later, the people by a wide margin freely elected the current president, who is ardently against Russian interference.
There's not a democratic outcome here where "China" is illegitimately foisted upon the people of Canada.
No, because the US has the capability to invade Canada.
What's irrational about Putin is the self-defeating nature of his decision making. Both self-defeating for his country, as well as for the stability of his regime which translates into his personal safety.
He's embarrassed himself and his country, pushed Ukraine more towards the West, and achieved none of his strategic objectives.
I hope he is just behaving irrationally because of bad advice. The alternatives are more scary, because then the madman thing might not be an act.
But it's not even close to an exhaustive explanation. The Ukrainians have agency, they have their own media ecosystem, they are capable of forming their own opinions. They saw Putin as the dictatorial thug that he is. Putin achieved that by himself by invading Georgia, poisoning his opponents overseas, rigging elections and assassinating journalists.
Anyways, this isn't relevant to the question of Putin's rationality.
At this point the war is continuing purely to fuel the ego of a dying dictator.
Russia isn't, and doesn't. Russia isn't even close. So it uses political subversion instead of outright militarism. Which - it turns out - is possibly the one domain where it's competitive with the US. For not all that much money, some info war campaigns, and the help of internal allies, Russia almost got itself a two term president with eyes on a permanent dictatorship.
Nice plan. Didn't quite work.
But Putin decided to go ahead anyway. Which is insane. Every single goal - weakening NATO, weakening the EU, building closer relationships with China, India, and Turkey, strengthening Russia internally, cementing his own position in history as Tsar Vladimir I, saviour of the Empire - has failed, disastrously and counterproductively.
So now Putin has two choices. Admit defeat and have an unfortunate accident with a window, or burn everything to the ground out of spite and frustration.
He's not going for Option 1. So it's up to everyone else to make sure Option 2 doesn't happen.
I assume he's talking about the US and the UK strong-arming Ukraine away from peace talks that had a chance at ending this conflict back in May. All the hawkish talk from Biden this whole time has been about dethroning Putin, leaving no face-saving diplomatic exit for him except escalation between nuclear powers, and that's exactly what's happening. The lessons of the past 70 years have gone out the window.
If that's his perspective, then we all might just be NPCs to him.
I'm not excited about someone with little time to live, and existential dread / nihilism, having nukes.
Edit: This is pure speculation on my part. I have no reliable info on Putin's worldview.
The people around him might care too. It's not like in old Egypt where the servants were burried with the pharaon.
One curiosity through this whole thing that seems to have gotten memory-holed: Boris Johnson, playing the role of Henry Kissinger, killing an early peace deal and keeping this mess going. Putin might have been looking just to keep NATO out of Ukraine. If that was the case (maybe not, see above) then this extended war might have been avoided.
This is odd revisionism. You can look back at articles that took place during the negotiations in late March and early April and see exactly what the Russians were saying then. The big sticking point was that Russia wanted Ukraine to agree to giving control of the Donbas and Crimea to Russia[1] before any meeting between Zelensky and Putin, while Ukraine wanted to discuss those two during a direct meeting between the two presidents.
You can see the Russian foreign minister[2] as well as the head Russian negotiator[3] saying that Ukrainian proposals were unacceptable because they didn't agree to give up territory before Zelensky and Putin even met. A few days later, Putin called the peace talks a dead end because Ukrainians wouldn't cede territory and complained about crimes in occupied territories[4].
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-nazi-demand-for-ukrai... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20220407172040/https://www.reute... [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20220403075439/https://www.reute... [4] https://web.archive.org/web/20220414093437/https://www.reute...
The second worst outcome is teaching Putin - and all other nuclear armed authoritarian governments - that all you need to do is threaten usage of nuclear weapons and you get what you demand. Within months China will demand Taiwan be handed over under threat of nuclear attack. Maybe eventually they'll demand the same of Australia - easy to do if you want the resources and know that threat of nukes gets you a country handed on a platter.
What do you propose can be done to resolve this?
Probably China and India are the only parties now able to influence Putin to back down.
As a German, that's not how our last war ended. Neither did the more recent Iraq war, or Libya. Plenty of wars end with the utter defeat of the opponent.
Who cares? I didn't say that, nobody wants that, and it is completely unnecessary. The US was not "utterly defeated" when they left Vietnam o Afghanistan either, and the withdrawal of the US from those countries was not negotiated.
It is perfectly enough to throw out the aggressor or make their losses to big for them to want to stay.
Diplomatic solutions would mean to give something to the aggressor. That is not necessary, you can just beat their military and force them out.
This kind of bad-faith argument of trying to find something in the words to argue against when you very well know what we are talking about is making public discussion such a chore.
I was in Afghanistan, and yes we were. I walked I don't know how many patrols in that country and watching how we left was a remarkable embarrassment that makes me finally understand what Vietnam Vets felt like, which is the last war the United States truly lost.
>Diplomatic solutions would mean to give something to the aggressor. That is not necessary, you can just beat their military and force them out.
I can't parse what this means, but I do speak a little German if you want to clarify. To "beat" the Russian military at this stage would require full NATO mobilization and World War III. I've made other comments on this website expressing my skepticism of the wisdom of NATOs involvement here, but I'll sum it up as this: Ukraine is not worth a bunch of cities in eastern Europe turning to glass. That's the reality, and you should note that the US Military has a pretty severe recruiting problem right now. We can't fight this war without a draft, and at some point the true nature of NATO will show through the clouds, which is that the United States has been paying for the continental security of the entire European continent for 50+ years.
Rheinmetall designed the new main gun for the M-1 Abrams, I guess.
Your definition of "utterly defeated" is very different and moving of goal posts from what the OP that I replied to used. OP used it in an absolute term, the country itself had to be defeated, like Germany in 1945. And I argued that that was not necessary. Now you don't attack anything at all of my argument, you just move the goal somewhere else. Your scenario is exactly the same that I used. Unless you want to argue that the US capitulated - and not just withdrew from Afghanistan - and Taliban now rule in Washington?
Could we please argue in good faith and not try to play with words and definitions to "win" some Internet discussion and show some anon commenter how wrong they are, using all kinds of dark methods?
Why? The Vietnamese can beat the US then so can the Ukrainian. I'd argue the Ukrainian got much better weapon (and most importantly, intel) support.
Moscow also guaranteed Ukraine’s security in the Budapest memorandum. Stated policy is a poor predictor of their actions.
China does not need nuclear weapons to take Taiwan, and for both military and political reasons it would be incredibly stupid for them to resort to nuclear threats. And as mentioned they have a no-first-use policy.
It gives credence to Moscow’s no-first use commitment ringing hollow.
Sorry, you are correct. My general point was what Moscow says about its nuclear policy isn't particularly informative for predicting its behaviour. China has analogy in its breached commitments to Hong Kong.
The problem is, if Putin loses the war, he will lose power, and possibly even his life [1]. This makes him more likely to use nukes, as his life is endangered without a victory. Under this circumstance the only way out is to give him a "small victory".
[1] https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/09/30/exp-gps-1002-khodor...
Given we haven't all died in nuclear fire yet, I'd say diplomatic tactics have worked just fine.
We have already escalated. NATO has been encroaching on Russia's borders for 20+ years now. Our foreign policies are one of the main causal factors in the current war where thousands of people have died and where nuclear exchange is now on the table. I think it's time to reevaluate that strategy.
No we have not!
NATO did nothing to expand. It was those countries that wanted to join! Which brings us to the second point:
> Our foreign policies are one of the main causal factors in the current war
Typical victim-aggressor reversal. It is Russia and its behavior, since forever, that made the neighbors fearful and desire NATO membership for protection against a vicious and aggressive neighbor.
By the way, I speak a bit of Russian, have been to both Russia and Ukraine - East and West of the country - multiple times and have connections to people doing business there since the 1990s and we regularly converse. I'm not as knowledgeable as a real insider, but I'm also far form an armchair commenter. Also, I was a mix of sympathetic and willfully ignorant towards Russia all the way until 24 February. And it was Russian behavior during and accompanying the war, not that I (initially) cared much about the fate of Ukraine I have to admit. I realized I had suppressed and filtered a lot over the years, like most others.
> I think it's time to reevaluate that strategy.
I agree - we need to be much more forceful and less forgiving to Russian threats and atrocities!
NATO decides whether and how to expand their membership. They decide based on strategic considerations, like whether Russia would see allowing a member to join as a threat. NATO violated agreements with Russia not to expand towards Russia's borders over the past 20 years, and Russia's paranoia and aggression made this outcome predictable. In fact, many people predicted this would happen decades ago if NATO were to expand this way.
This is not excusing the aggressor's behaviour, this is a simple recognition that if you poke a bully, he's going to punch you in the face. This doesn't mean you shouldn't stand up to him, but it does mean that if you have a fragile peace with a nuclear bully, you should be careful about how you threaten that peace. We should have learned these lessons decades ago during the cold war, but seemed to have forgotten them.
> It is Russia and its behavior, since forever, that made the neighbors fearful and desire NATO membership for protection against a vicious and aggressive neighbor.
Yes, that's a primary reason NATO was formed. Of course they want membership, that's perfectly normal and predictable. Ukraine would have joined long ago too but everyone recognized that that would have been a serious provocation, and ultimately a bad idea. It seems they thought they could incrementally creep towards Russia's borders and Russia wouldn't notice. They thought wrong.
This is a persistent myth that is not reality, the soviet president at the time even says that no such promise was ever made.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-...
> To be sure, the former Soviet president [Gorbachev] criticized NATO enlargement and called it a violation of the spirit of the assurances given Moscow in 1990
If your quibble is with my use of the term "agreement" vs. "assurances", then we can just agree that there was no formal agreement, but that doesn't really change the argument. If this understanding didn't exist, why didn't Ukraine join NATO years ago? Because there was an understanding going back to the 1990s that Russia felt threatened by NATO and that expanding in this fashion could provoke an escalation of hostilities between nuclear powers, and this was sort of thing should probably be avoided lest we start another cold war or worse.
To be clear, I'm sure this is merely one excuse Putin among many is using, the point being that not giving loons excuses to legitimize their actions is generally a good idea.
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Ukraine-Nuclear-Weapo...
> 1994 Trilateral Statement
> The Massandra Accords set the stage for the ultimately successful trilateral talks. As the United States mediated between Russia and Ukraine, the three countries signed the Trilateral Statement on January 14, 1994. Ukraine committed to full disarmament, including strategic weapons, in exchange for economic support and security assurances from the United States and Russia...
> 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances
> To solidify security commitments to Ukraine, the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances on December 5, 1994. A political agreement in accordance with the principles of the Helsinki Accords, the memorandum included security assurances against the threat or use of force against Ukraine’s territory or political independence. The countries promised to respect the sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine.
> 2009 Joint Declaration by Russia and the United States
> Russia and the United States released a joint statement in 2009 confirming that the security assurances made in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum would still be valid after START expired in 2009.
Followed by
> 2014 Russian Annexation of Crimea
Russian aggression and lies have no limits.
You avoid the topic you find inconvenient because it completely destroys your strange notions: The nations asked NATIO to join.
There is no reason not to protect them from their aggressive neighbor!!
Why does it make any sense in your mind to let them be the victims of Russia and claim that this is somehow "correct"?
If Russia does not want NATO so close, maybe they should try a different approach towards their neighbors? Just an idea. It works for a lot of other countries who have zero fear towards a much stronger neighbor.
There is, and that is antagonizing Russia into a conflict. We don't have to let them be victims of Russia, as we aren't with Ukraine, but we also don't have to antagonize Russia. We can just agree to leaves these countries as neutral buffer zones.
Such agreements existed at the time and NATO continuously violated them in expanding membership towards Russia. It was a dangerous game and a lot of people have died because of it and because of Putin's paranoia.
Sounds like a great argument for all countries that can to acquire nukes.
So no, whatever the real reason for the SMO was (highly likely to be oil), it was not because Putin/Russia was scared of being attack by NATO, and the agreement to not joining NATO will not stop the invasion.
Edit: I mean, just look at the recent history of Ukraine's friendly intermingling with NATO just prior to the invasion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations...
You can certainly argue that this was just an excuse for Putin to invade, but there's little evidence to be so confident in that conclusion, and plenty of countervailing evidence.
Nobody is saying that appeasement is a good idea in an absolute sense. We're saying that we have two highly risky choices in front of us.
Appeasement is obviously problematic. You set a precedent that nuclear blackmail works. You give their nationalists bloodthirst for their next imperial expedition. You improve Putin's popularity. You doom the Ukrainians inside the currently occupied territories. You effectively kick the can down the road.
But you really do need to detail how it's going to play out when a man with no conscience, a questionable grasp on reality, who has a well-stocked bunker, and has nukes, gets pushed into a corner in the sense of losing face and facing the threat of removal. You can't just say "appeasement is bad" and not deal with this whole problem.
Those will likely be his only two options very soon if not already.
Until very recently, everyone agreed that nuclear weapons could not be used because the outcome would be that everyone is destroyed.
Putin has ended that era because appears unconcerned by the prospect of MAD.
MAD only works if all sides agree that they do not want to be destroyed. Putin appears to not care.
So, the equation has changed and we all need to rethink the new equations. It may be as simple as - "there will be a nuclear war because a madman has the keys and is willing to press the button".
The Russian leader certainly does care about the risks. However, the nature of the game rewards him for acting that he does not, and the other players for reciprocating. Up to a point, that is. MAD is not a good or stable game.
A close historical precedent for the current situation is the US against Japan in which the nuclear power didn't have a reason to destroy its enemy (indeed, worked to rebuild it immediately after), and the enemy couldn't retaliate on par. So there was no escalation and instead a quick capitulation.
If Russia uses tactical nukes against Ukraine, it matters how it uses them. Presumably it would like to use them as the US did, so it can take Ukraine without destroying it and put a faster end to the war than otherwise possible.
The US can then concede, escalate the proxy war by giving Ukraine tactical nukes, or strike Russia directly. The latter still looks mostly like MAD to me.
A nuclear proxy war limited to tactical nukes is.. unfortunately all too easy to imagine, with some precedent in the Turkish/Cuban missile crisis. That could then escalate until Russia dominates with its strategic nukes, but presumably Ukraine would capitulate before that. The lesson of high cost to Russia would also be there for future reference.
Putin wants everyone to think that, the reality is that this is almost certainly a ruse. I believe it was Nixon that wanted the Soviets to think he was mad and might press the button at the slightest provocation but it was a lie to get them to back off. There’s no evidence that Putin is suicidal. This is a nuclear steering contest which you can only win by not blinking because Putin doesn’t want Russia to be a smoldering ruin with his own bones a melted pile in the middle.
Who’s buying that line after columns of Russian troops tried to blitzkrieg Kyiv earlier in the war? Not to mention that eastern Ukraine is useless to Russia from a strategic perspective. They need to secure the Polish gap, the entirety of the Carpathian Mountains down to the Bessarabian gap, and across to the Baltic coast through the Baltic States. That shrinks the Russian border down to a limited and highly defensible size. Putin has long bemoaned that Russia gave all that up when the Soviet Union split up.
Or maybe he's just better at "madman theory" than Nixon? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory
I think you should read up on the Cuban missile crisis.