Hacker News Reader

Comment by ArnoVW | Hacker News Reader

I know that it feels like the military situation is like that. In reality Russia is much weaker than people think. Three years of war will do that to a country.

All that is needed is sanctions and enough resources for Ukraine to defend itself. And the military intelligence as a force multiplier.

Thats exactly what we have been providing. And it was working. Russian inflation is a 20%+. They are running out of soviet era equipment. They are running out of easily conscriptable men. All of this is documented using open sources.

All that was needed was time. Time for Russia to implode.

But democracy is a fickle thing, and Putin was counting on this. America will have to live with this period of infamy for a long time. And the world will suffer the consequences.

View on HN

Since the war began I've been hearing both that Russia is weak and about to collapse, and also that if the United States doesn't directly intervene the Russians will drive tanks into Berlin by Christmas. If they are as weak as you say they are, and I'm inclined to agree, then Europe can handle this, yes?

I never said they were pushovers. Just that they were weaker than people thought.

It is clear that Europe would have more difficulty going it alone, since it does not dispose of the intelligence assets that the US has. Spy satellites, SIGINT planes, logistics, etc. Having to go it alone would clearly also impact the morale and thus the political will. But if Putin would decide to invade for example Poland, there is no doubt how he would fare.

But from an industrial and economics point of view there is no comparing. Contrary to what mr Trump has been saying, Europe has paid for more than half of the expenses so far. The overall defense budget of Europe was 217B$ in 2019 and has been steadily increasing to 258B$ in 2021 [1]. For 2024 it is at 326B$ [2]

Compare that with Russia that had a 184B$ budget this year [3]. And that is whilst being on a war footing.

Also. Let's not forget that the US, together with the EU (and Russia) offered security guarantees to Ukraine, in return for them giving their nukes to Russia (since that was making everyone anxious). Our support for them is not some sort of "gift" out of the goodness of our hearts. It is a solemn promise that we made, in return for our peace of mind. Surely the US is not the sort of country that does not honor it's commitments, but backs down when the going gets tough?

[1] : https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/EUU/eur...

[2] : https://eda.europa.eu/news-and-events/news/2024/12/04/eu-def...

[3] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest...

You mean a memo, with no enforcement mechanism and no treaty stipulations. There were no guarantees involved. Everyone understood this at the time but for whatever reason that particular piece of paper comes up time and again and it gets equated with actual binding treaties. It was not.

I understand what you’re saying but appeals about “solemn promise[s]” comes across as emotional blackmail and, for Americans at least, doesn’t have the same rhetorical weight anymore.

Man this "Russia is running out of XXX" tale is becoming quite old and not being taken seriously nowadays - year by year goes with the same narrative and it's only getting objectively worse for Ukraine...

> All that is needed is sanctions and enough resources for Ukraine to defend itself.

Whatever makes you think Russia won't drop a nuke?

Edit: Since people seem confused - I mean on Ukraine. Not on the US.

On Ukraine? Or the US?

Either way - I’m pretty sure they want Ukraine and then there’s mutually assured destruction.

Because China won't let them.

Because they don't want to start a nuclear war. It's really as straightforward as that. If we assume they are willing to go for a nuclear exchange then it's a different kind of conversation, but no military expert considers this a likely scenario.

But even Russians indicate that their mid range ballistic missiles don't need nuclear wareheads to cause untold destruction - it was Putin who said that even without nukes their new missiles can level a city. He seems pretty confident in that, despite western intelligence indicating that the missiles are most likely a bluff as they are barely operational.

> Because they don't want to start a nuclear war.

How would dropping a nuke on Ukraine start a nuclear war? Nobody is going to drop a nuke back on them.

"Nobody is going to drop a nuke back on them."

That's not what military experts are saying. If the nuclear fallout reached NATO countries NATO policy would require a "proportional" response, which again, military experts suggest would be a small scale nuclear strike on a Russian facility of proportional impact. The big question then is what would happen next - either both sides cool down and see where this is going, or Russia starts attacking targets within NATO at which point we're at full WW3 level. The "nobody is going to drop a nuke back" is either extremely optimistic or extremely naive.

Keep in mind article 5 says "react as it deems necessary".

> will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary

https://www.nato.int/cps/ie/natohq/topics_110496.htm

If Poland triggers Article 5, just because fallout came to its borders, other members are free to send them iodine tablets and lead tents, rather than starting WW3.

It's not a start nuclear Armageddon article.

Again, the point is - at that point we're guessing. If Poland gets radioactive fallout on its terittory we don't know how exactly NATO would choose to react.

>>It's not a start nuclear Armageddon article.

I didn't say it was - but Russia "dropping a nuke" brings us closer to the possibility of nuclear war, not futher away from it. And according to people who are actually working with/for NATO, military generals in eastern european countries, it is not completely unlikely that NATO would decide that a strike into Russia(nuclear or not) wouldn't be off the cards if Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine brought fallout into NATO countries - and if such a strike was conducted, we don't know how that ends.

Sure, we don't know but we can guess.

While Poland can trigger Article 5, and current US admin will most likely tell them to shove it, maybe deploy some forces there. US weakening ties with EU is going to make nuclear war less likely.

Even if the next US president was very gung ho about it, the fact that Trump got elected again means the US isn't a stable partner. You don't want to enter a ten years war where every 4 years your ally might just decide to leave you hanging.

>Sure, we don't know but we can guess.

you really wanna weigh your odds of nuclear devastation on a guess?

>US weakening ties with EU is going to make nuclear war less likely.

other non-EU countries are already producing Nukes as preparation. I'm unsure about that.

> you really wanna weigh your odds of nuclear devastation on a guess?

No. But my point is you are oversimplifying it. Article 5 isn't a go to war button.

If Poland was to consider it an attack, that's not important. The question is would other members consider it an attack. To that the answer would more likely to be no.

I don't know of an adjacent country going to war because wind blew the fallout/chems its way.

> other non-EU countries are already producing Nukes as preparation. I'm unsure about that.

It could be US divestment leads to lower chance of WW3 in 5-20 years, but greater chance of WW3 in 20+ years.

>>I don't know of an adjacent country going to war because wind blew the fallout/chems its way.

You remind me of a semi-famous study that the American army did at one point. They wanted to estimate the risk of accidental detonation of a nuclear weapon, and concluded that the risk is zero because it never happened so far.

> They wanted to estimate the risk of accidental detonation of a nuclear weapon, and concluded that the risk is zero because it never happened so far.

Given it didn't happen so far, I'd say they were right on the money.

While mishandling and accidents did happen, the number of failsafes guarantees you have to purposefully activate it. Most nuclear weapons nowadays just don't have a way to reach criticality outside of nano-second controlled timing array.

> military experts suggest would be a small scale nuclear strike on a Russian facility of proportional impact

You could attack those facilities with conventional weapons too. What would be the point of using nukes to achieve the same purpose? All it would do is to make it more likely they'd escalate back.

Yes. Because resorting to nuclear weaponry is very specific.

Doing so, you break the statu quo on mutual dissuasion, and not one nuclear power wants that.

If one country drops a nuclear bomb (especially after a long escalation as we are in), other nuclear powers will _have to_ reinstate the previous dissuasion statu quo, as well as assert their status of equal nuclear powers.

And there's a single path to that: radically disarm the offender country, as soon as possible. There's indeed a risk of global nuclear war, but the most probable risk is the annihilation of the offender country + a few other casualities.

The scale of time in this matter is not in days, it's in a few hours at most: it's already been scripted in procedures for years, rehearsed, and it's already been shared among nuclear powers. If we're still able to discuss it, it's because of this doctrine of mutual dissuasion precisely.

on the contrary, even China would retaliate. It's the american equivalent of going into a texas bar and shooting a clip. You are now a proven reckless danger to everyone else and they will retaliate at once in your direction, regardless of if you were being stupid or had a specific target.

They do that because the alternative is a shootout at everone and many people in the bar will die. No single person/country is going to take those odds in an era where there are thousands of nuclear warheads now.

Russia may well, though so far their nuclear posture has been all talk and not much to back it up.

Ukraine is already asking what they gave up their nukes for.

If I was Polish, I'd want a nuclear deterrent.

If I was Canadian or Danish or Panamanian, given what Trump has said, I'd also be seeing if nukes could be developed.

Any single force that drops a nuke today [1] will get retaliated by _all_ the other nuclear powers, even allied ones, at once.

Why? Because that will be the only, short moment, where each other will have the single opportunity to:

1/ affirm they are able and disciplined to use it (credibility),

2/ disarm the offender (own security)

3/ reinstate the balance of mutual dissuasion (global security)

Playing it diplomatic would be a hint of either submission, fear, or incapacity to act against the offender - which none of the nuclear power would want to give.

And however strong, a country can defend against one strategic attack, not against a multisided one.

[1] doesn't matter what the target is: as soon as it's another country, you're toast.

You're saying you believe the response to Russia dropping a nuke on Ukraine would itself be nuclear in nature? There's no way anyone would do that, it would trigger a nuclear WWIII. No nuclear power (Russia or the others) would just sit by and let a nuke get dropped on their own head. They would immediately escalate back.

That’s exactly the doctrine in mutual dissuasion: offensive use of a nuclear weapon breaks the statu quo, where the equilibrium is only ensured if no one uses it.

The first that breaks the statu quo is not a reliable power anymore in this equilibrium and must then be disarmed.

Multilateral escalation ensues as a logic step. There’s no WWIII because this happens and is « settled » in a matter of a few hours.

Don’t want it to happen? Don’t ever use a nuclear weapon. Simple as that.

I still don't follow why the first response has to be nuclear. You could respond conventionally, and if another nuke gets used 1-2 more times, then escalate. You can get the point across without actually responding in kind the first time.

Because it’s a matter of both time (if you don’t react definitely, that means that you may have the weapons but not the discipline to use it, so no credibility), and deterrence (conventional destruction is not a deterrent in this case, and you will only refrain from using your nukes if your are confident that the response will be more nukes towards you - in which case, your initial military objective is void, because the consequence of your action is that you don’t exist anymore).

I'm sorry, I still don't follow. Both of those just sound incorrect on their face.

> if you don’t react definitely, that means that you may have the weapons but not the discipline to use it, so no credibility

You can react "definitely" with conventional weapons. I don't get it. If for some reason you really think they won't get the message that your threat is credible, you could even run a nuclear test somewhere. I see no reason why you have to perform a nuclear attack here.

> conventional destruction is not a deterrent in this case

Sure it is. Destroying/disabling your enemy's nuclear facilities would jeopardize their security, no matter how it's done -- which is absolutely a deterrent. If anything, doing so with conventional weapons should make your enemy worry more, not less.

> and you will only refrain from using your nukes if your are confident that the response will be more nukes towards you - in which case, your initial military objective is void, because the consequence of your action is that you don’t exist anymore

I don't understand this logic at all.

> I see no reason why you have to perform a nuclear attack here.

You reason like a person here, not as a state.

It’s not a matter of life and death for a few single individuals in a triangle. It is of millions of individuals at once, and whole countries.

You do not want to leave the option of a potential other nuclear attack, the scale of the damage is nothing comparable. You do not want the statu quo to be broken, to have been broken. The fact is was shows that the state in front of you (which triggered the initial nuke) effectively lost its sound mind. There is a single solution to that, however brutal it is. And that’s the perspective of this single solution that is at the core of the deterrence: if you shoot, you have the absolute guarantee that you’ll be dead in return. So you don’t shoot.

If there is no such guarantee of retaliation, you have no incentive not to use it.

> It’s not a matter of life and death for a few single individuals in a triangle. It is of millions of individuals at once, and whole countries.

OK, I think this is why we disagree -- because this isn't the scenario I was positing. I was thinking of a case where a "small" (tactical) nuke would get dropped during battle on military forces, to get them to stop fighting. Not a strategic nuke in a population center actually trying to kill millions of people. Those will provoke very different responses in my mind, and I don't think the strategic case is likely. The tactical case is what I'm not so sure Russia will shy away from.

Indeed, we see it differently.

I believe they will shy away.

It’s been made very clear to them by the OTAN (https://www.nato.int/cps/fr/natohq/topics_192648.htm?selecte... ) that it was the red line before a « fundamentally change the nature of the conflict ». That’s the diplomatic way to say: you want to nuke? Just try it, something might happen to you, fast.

China also discouraged Russia to use it, even small ones.

The OTAN capacity may seem reduced without the USA, but escalation is very much more likely since Europeans realize/accept that Russia only speaks/understands « strong language ». They got the memo several times from the US that appeasement seems not to be a working response at this time.

> It’s been made very clear to them by the OTAN that it was the red line before a «fundamentally change the nature of the conflict».

"Fundamental change in the nature of the conflict" sounds to me more like "you will now be fighting NATO", not "NATO will immediately retaliate with its own nuclear weapons." And even if they did mean what you're saying, I don't see NATO or any member following through with this.

To be clear, I don't think anyone's use of nuclear weapons is likely. I'm just saying that if Russia ends up in a situation where its only avenue for "winning" ends up being the use of nuclear weapons, I wouldn't be surprised if it actually uses one.

Note that NATO talks about the « nature », not the « scope » or region of the conflict.

I don’t think nuclear is likely either. Because of the deterrence.

But again, if Russia thinks its only way of winning is firing a nuke, I do believe they will not have the time to be disappointed about their miscalculation.

Because the retaliation is a no-brainer (and again, the scenarios have been discussed and examined for decades, and the procedures are all ready to run).

It will not be about only Russia/Ukraine or Russia/NATO afterwise but about the whole world doctrine on nuclear arsenals and their use.

If we're scared of that why don't the US surrender.

If that's the fundamental issue, everyone needs nukes, every small country.

You don't want that. Living in a small Scandinavian country, I.do think we should at least discuss it now. We can't win any war, but we could ensure nobody else can.

Then China and India would stop buying Russian oil which would bankrupt Russia in a few months.

They already did, about a month ago.

Russians are scared a nuke might turn out a dud.

Whatever makes you think they're able to drop a nuke? They have tried to threaten with that by running trials and the tally is two out of three times there was a catastrophic failure, of which one failure was in the silo itself.

This would be a problem only if there's shortage of nukes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com