There’s a lot of talk around the Russia-Ukraine war spiraling out of control.
Could Russia attack NATO supply lines? What about a stray missile flying into Poland? Cyberattacks on Wall Street or local power supplies? Chemical weapons use on Ukrainian cities?
“How To Think About The Risks Of An Escalating Russia-Ukraine War.”
Isn’t that nightmare supposed to be UN-thinkable?
Ah yes, Russia escalates and brings NATO into the conflict directly, so it loses in Ukraine much quicker and in a far more catastrophic way, but also destroys itself and many others on a global scale.
So, in free speech, there’s the concept of the “Heckler’s Veto.” In international relations we’re now kinda, sorta, almost dealing with the “Nuclear Power’s Veto”… of course… to be fair, there are a few countries that might ought to consider how they could use that constructively.
" How To Think About The Risks Of An Escalating Russia-Ukraine War"
Damn, the always perseptive Cheryl Rofer is right. This really is “Nukeporn Week”!!!
Nobody has come up with a strategy for using tactical nuclear weapons that doesn’t turn into a strategic exchange. If someone claims they have such a strategy, it is because they have done a lot of hand-waving.
But the fantasy persists and generates horror, clicks, and money for defense contractors, so we will see more of it.
I read the term “escalate to de-escalate” recently, meaning that any escalation of the war would thus bring it to an end much sooner. As it is, Russia is getting its ass kicked, and no way Putin will accept a loss to a war he started, so I do expect a significant escalation in this war by Russia. That escalation will obviously bring in the rest of Europe, and by then we’re well on our way to oblivion. Fuck you very much, Putin.
From the article
These weapons do not partake of the taboo against being the first nation to use nuclear weapons in combat since World War II.
It’s an interesting article but I found the above an odd statement. I’m uncertain that dropping two atomic bombshell on people is combat. To my mind those are war atrocities that were unnecessary. The end of the war with Japan was was already at hand.
Just a thought
I agree but unfortunately bombing civilian populations had become combat by 1945. In my younger years I was more passionately committed to the idea that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were atrocities. However, George Orwell, in his wartime As I Please column, later changed my mind, not the least because he had been wounded as a soldier and bombed as a civilian at the time.
Now, no one in his senses regards bombing, or any other operation of war, with anything but disgust. On the other hand, no decent person cares tuppence for the opinion of posterity. And there is something very distasteful in accepting war as an instrument and at the same time wanting to dodge responsibility for its more obviously barbarous features. Pacifism is a tenable position; provided that you are willing to take the consequences. But all talk of ‘limiting’ or ‘humanizing’ war is sheer humbug, based on the fact that the average human being never bothers to examine catchwords.
o-t
This article tells me how the war thinkers think about the risks. (Thank you, Josh Kovensky. You are a treasure.) But I sure don’t know how to think about one unhappy king of the world desperate to save his sorry ass.
Yes (x4)
.
Will it immediately benefit Russia ? No
Please cite your reasons for stating that as a fact.
In your scenario, which is certainly possible, it seems our best hope for an acceptable conclusion to the current hostilities would be for the russian military to dispose of Putin. Surely there are some powerful military leaders who could work with some disgruntled oligarchs to off the insane asshole.
Putin needs persuading with extreme prejudice.
When this stops you know things are going beyond conventional.
Here’s a fairly recent article that is pretty good. To find the information I used about 45 years ago when studying history would be difficult at such short notice.
Excerpt:
The accepted wisdom in the United States for the last 75 years has been that dropping the bombs on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki three days later was the only way to end the World War II without an invasion that would have cost hundreds of thousands of American and perhaps millions of Japanese lives. Not only did the bombs end the war, the logic goes, they did so in the most humane way possible.
However, the overwhelming historical evidence from American and Japanese archives indicates that Japan would have surrendered that August, even if atomic bombs had not been used — and documents prove that President Truman and his closest advisors knew it.
Allied intelligence had been reporting for months that Soviet entry would force the Japanese to capitulate. As early as April 11, 1945, the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Joint Intelligence Staff had predicted: “If at any time the USSR should enter the war, all Japanese will realize that absolute defeat is inevitable.”
.
Thanks for posting that article. Business is business. I’ve posted before about my experience attempting to communicate with someone in Lebanon. Israeli and Lebanese banks were doing business while at war but I couldn’t make a phone call.
Money makes the world go round.
That all sounds like opinion to me and I’ve just now read evidence that flatly contradicts such a prediction. The Japanese rejected the Potsdam Declaration. That is a fact. Other facts contradict this prediction as well. If the Japanese asked for terms even after the first bomb, that might mean something. But it doesn’t seem they ever did.
“The Atlantic” article by Anne Applebaum states,
"How should the West respond? There is only one rule: We cannot be afraid. Russia wants us to be afraid so afraid that we are crippled by fear, that we cannot make decisions, that we withdraw altogether, leaving the way open for a Russian conquest of Ukraine.