Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

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Russia not nuking Ukraine had nothing to do with ethics or morals. It's more pragmatic than that. Putin wants to take Ukraine largely intact to control its population and resources, not turn it into an irradiated wasteland. And he knows that use of WMDs would invite economic sanctions from key neutral trading partners such as India.

Also, it's questionable whether Russia's nuclear arsenal would even work reliably. The USA and other nuclear powers spend enormous amounts every year just on nuclear weapons maintenance and testing. Those munitions can't just be stored in a warehouse indefinitely like rifle cartridges and pulled out when needed; they require periodic remanufacturing in order to remain operational at all. Russia is a relatively poor and highly corrupt country so I suspect many of their nukes wouldn't deliver the rated yield if used today. From their perspective an attempted strike resulting in a fizzle would be even worse: all of the diplomatic disadvantages for no military gain.

> Putin wants to take Ukraine largely intact to control its population and resources, not turn it into an irradiated wasteland

Nuking Kyiv, Odessa and Lviv would probably force Ukraine to surrender.

> use of WMDs would invite economic sanctions from key neutral trading partners such as India

This is the real constraint. There is still the credible threat of being economically isolated by America, Europe, China and India. (Neither China nor India wants the normalisation of nuclear bombardment normalised. They both have border disputes with nuclear-armed neighbours.)

>Nuking Kyiv and Lviv would probably force Ukraine to surrender.

Or if we want to take nuclear options off the table because Russia values infrastructure, they aren't attacking population centers with bioweapons.

>This is the real constraint. There is still the credible threat of being economically isolated by America, Europe, China and India. (Neither China nor India wants the normalisation of nuclear bombardment normalised. They both have border disputes with nuclear-armed neighbours.)

Ethics enforced by external pressure are still ethics in action. The comment I replied to was basically arguing that we have to do this unethical thing because if we don't our enemies will. Well here is an example of our ostensibly unethical enemy not doing something because of ethical pressure. So why would this pressure work for nuclear weapons and not this new military tech?

> if we want to take nuclear options off the table because Russia values infrastructure

Putin doesn't care about infrastructure in Kyiv. He wants the natural gas and resources in the east. A nuked rump Ukraine isn't a threat to his power.

> why would this pressure work for nuclear weapons and not this new military tech?

Because the normalisation of nuclear weapons has global consequences in a way conventional warfare does not. The most problematic aspects of Trump's Iran war for India and China are that it raises oil prices.

>Because the normalisation of nuclear weapons has global consequences in a way conventional warfare does not.

And you don't think that has any chance of applying to some hypothetical yet to be developed future military tech?

Economic embargoes are the least of Putin’s worries if he nukes a country.

More than likely Russia is ostracized to the point that other countries will treat it with active hostility.

And the most likely possibility is Putin is assassinated and the government overthrown due to internal opposition.

The same thing that would happen to America if Trump acts on his musings about tactically nuking Iran.

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