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Comment by purple_turtle | Hacker News Reader

Having nuclear weapons does not give you immunity to all threats. Quite recently we had a case of nuclear state being partially occupied by a state without nuclear weapons.

And even in that case use of nuclear weapons would be unacceptable escalation and they used regular army to (mostly) kick them out and carry on with their earlier invasion on other parts of the front.

(I am speaking about Kursk if anyone is confused)

Use of nuclear weapons when you are mildly threatened is not viable. In the same way as responding to a pickpockets with an artillery barrage is not viable.

"We do not need police as we have an artillery" is equivalent of "there is no need for any other weapons if you have nukes".

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People like to imagine a big obvious threat that you respond to in kind, but what about a gradual creeping encroachment aka salami tactics?

Classic scene from "Yes, Prime Minister": https://youtu.be/yg-UqIIvang

Voted up just for the reference to Yes Prime Minister, one of the UK's best contributions to political education and entertainment.

On the other hand, there's Sir Humphrey's opinion on Trident.

"It's the nuclear deterrent Harrods would sell."

https://youtu.be/XyJh3qKjSMk?si=S8wpuTSnFsRUZGrf&t=87

To be fair, the credibility of the Russian nuclear stack is questionable at this point. Its unclear how much capacity survived the past 30 years of graft. We have developed nations struggling to maintain theirs without layers of blatant corruption weaved into the process.

Even if so, I don't think anyone doubts that they do have functional nuclear weapons. Maybe not all 5000 of them, but definitely enough to use them if they want to.

I think the whole narrative of "well maybe Russian nukes don't actually work" is unhelpful - if they wanted to use nuclear weapons they would and the weapons used would work. I think people sometimes think Russia is North Korea experimenting with sticks to make fire(and even they have managed to get something working) - despite the massive corruption their nuclear industry and the engineering corps are functional and it's in my mind without a doubt that there is a stockpile of weapons which would work if needed.

Russia is just not suicidal enough to actually use them in the current conflict, luckily.

While I generally agree with your point presenting Russia as a decision making entity is dangerously misleading. You're not dealing with democracy or even 1970s committee-run USSR anymore.

Sure Putin has broad support and a number of companions but he remains unilateral, undisputed, unchallenged decision maker. Assuming otherwise brings you back into the fold of rational actor argument which has proven a fallacy for some time now. Yes Putin is not suicidal today, although the chances he'll outlive total retaliation strike. But he may feel differently tomorrow, waking up in a bad mood.

This is just feel good nonsense… Russia has alliances or agreements with multiple major and minor countries including China. I don’t understand why people post these cope posts online unless it’s just to make themselves feel good.

Aside from you apparently replying to some other comment than mine: Russia honors no treaties or alliances except when it's convenient.

> Russia honors no treaties or alliances except when it's convenient.

Russia has a strong historical track record of honoring its treaties and commitments with India and many other Asian nations.

Also, one could point at the US and apply your statement more accurately.

That's the convenient part. There is no shared border or waters; there is no conflicting interests to make a compromise over on the paper. They are not in a military alliance. There isn't really anything to uphold. And the pivot to India started only with Sino-Soviet split.

I am replying to you comment. You are doing the exact same thing again. Saying “Russia honors no treaties or alliances except when it's convenient” is just so you can feel better about whatever. It’s just not how reality and geopolitics work…

From the book Guns of August, page 106, chapter 10, negotiations re: Turkey’ neutrality in Aug 1914. I will just leave this here:

“On August 13 Foreign Minister Sazonov proposed to France to offer Turkey a solemn guarantee of her territorial integrity and a promise of “great financial advantages at the expense of Germany” in return for her neutrality. He was actually willing to include a promise that Russia would abide by the guarantee “even if we are victorious.”

I am replying to you comment.

Please. Your reply had nothing to do with the context of my comment. I in fact gave you a benefit of doubt that you're not just a very quantized LLM.

As to the trustworthiness let's tally:

- Khasavyurt Accords. Breached by Russia.

- New START Treaty. Breached by Russia.

- Armenian request under allied auspices of CSTO: not honored by Russia.

- Russia-Ukraine Friendship Treaty, Budapest Memorandum, Border Treaty: breached by Russia.

It's clear you speak very confidently on the subject you have zero clue about.

You could come up with nitpicky stuff like this for any country. Sure, make yourself feel better about calling people bots and calling Putin crazy, but you’re just living in your own reality at this point.

Breaching 6 major peace treaties and alliances (that I just remember of) in span of 30 years is not nitpicking and no you can't come up with this for "any country". I also didn't call Putin crazy anywhere but feel like perhaps you come to the right conclusion yourself here.

China also ain't dumb. It would play along but there is no misunderstanding about the nature of any agreement with Russia.

There is open evidente that Russia invested in keeping their nukes working. They gave more control over the military to leaders of the nuke program after the Soviet union fell. There are US - Russia nuke inspection treaties (only reciently are they ending) - while the results are classified those with access to them are behaving as if they think they are still working.

They still haven’t managed a successful launch of their new silo missile. If you were the US inspector, would you tell Russia if you thought their nukes don’t work?

They have plenty of old missiles. And we never know when they are not launching because they want to hide something, or when they launched something to test how a failure happens.

I never understood this line of thinking. It doesn't matter if graft ruined 95% of Russia's nukes. Your city is still gone.

That is nonsense. Even if (optimistically) 90% are nonoperational, what it would change?

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