Summary
A Russian presidential plane from the Kremlin’s Rossiya Special Flight Squadron visited New York and Washington, D.C., in late December, sparking speculation amid tense U.S.-Russia relations.
Moscow claimed the flight carried rotating diplomats, but its timing raises questions about Trump’s potential dealings with Vladimir Putin.
Trump has promised to end the Ukraine war in a day, alarming NATO officials who fear a deal that could harm Kyiv and alter NATO’s eastern border dynamics.
The flight highlights ongoing diplomatic maneuvering ahead of Trump’s January 20 inauguration.
Respectfully, I believe I do understand your point and I’ll try to echo your side to verify that; but you may not be understanding mine.
What I believe your point is: If we give Ukraine nukes now, the future leadership could be volatile, thereby increasing the net-volatility of the region.
However, let’s consider what I view as reasonable assumptions at the geopolitical level, both now and into the future:
If say, 4 years from now or whenever Zelenskyy (still overwhelmingly popular in Ukraine) steps down, the future leadership of Ukraine becomes volatile, then MAD theory still works symmetrically; after all, Russia clearly has many more nukes than Ukraine and that spells their destruction.
Practically-speaking, Ukraine geopolitical inertia has moved heavily toward the orbit of the West and its humanitarian values.
If future Ukrainian leadership is unstable, it is therefore reasonable to assume that they are likely Russian-centric and sympathetic; therefore, they would be unlikely to unilaterally and proactively attack Russia.
We trust Ukraine NOW. We trust Zelenskyy NOW.
The risk of Russia launching nuclear attacks against Ukraine during Trump’s administration is orders of magnitude greater than the risk in the preceding years going back to 2014.
Therefore, we should be far more concerned about the immediate, real danger Russia poses to Ukraine as opposed to the speculative danger of future hypotheticals down the road that — in my opinion — do not hold water given the aforementioned geopolitical climate. When Russia and North Korea already have nukes and are a global threat, I really am not concerned about the small Ukrainian country who is currently fighting the good fight on behalf of all of us. Seems to be putting the cart before the horse.
Why do you think there is any risk of Russia launching a nuclear attack against Ukraine? What would that gain them?
Russia is hemorrhaging losses themselves while their economy on a war time footing cannot sustain this in perpetuity; after all a smaller Soviet-Afghanistan war contributed to the over-toppling of the mightier USSR — mostly along economic lines. They need an off-ramp themselves, and fairly quickly. To suggest the country that has continued to escalate war crimes in Ukraine would suddenly stop escalating — especially now having a key ally in who was once their largest geopolitical threat — I think is somewhat naive.
Putting myself in the shoes of a psychopath like Putin, you’re gauging how far you can push the limit on the geopolitical stage. Would I want to end this conflict sooner than later and decisively? Would I not be praised domestically as a hero who vanquished a foreign adversary? Yes. Is it likely I’ll ever actually conquer Kyiv by conventional means if the first months failed with my forces at their strongest? No. Could I get away with a nuke under Biden? Probably not. Could I with Trump? Probably yes.
To ask what would that gain for Russia is kind of moot in my view because ultimately, Russia has already lost far more than they’ve gained in waging this conflict. Their economy is in tatters; their armies exposed as weak and incompetent and crippled. What geopolitical status they had in the West before has completely washed away. Sure they gained something like 17-19% of land including Crimea, but they’ll be suffering for decades to come. This is mostly about legacy and vengeance for the cold war in the eyes of Putin and that’s reflected in his own essay and the Foundations of Geopolitics.
Either way, the threat is enough that has deterred the West from engaging in conventional defense of Ukraine. I’d say that’s concerning enough to warrant provision of a handful of nuclear missiles to Ukraine to serve as a direct deterrent. Ideally one would simply move these nukes into Ukraine and then reveal to Putin that they have already been put in place and ready to respond. Again, the goal is deterrence of course.
Edit: Let’s not forget that Putin recently escalated yet again, using an inert MIRV intermediate ballistic missile whose payload would normally contain multiple nuclear warheads. (the first documented use of a MIRV in combat, apparently).
There’s this thing called wind. Why on Earth would France and Britain allow fallout and irradiated soil to blow in their direction on Trump’s behalf?
You seem to think that the U.S. and Russia are the only two countries involved here or that somehow the rest of Europe would just sit back and put up with that.
Also:
It’s not moot at all. With that comment, you’re basically saying Russia could do any irrational thing at all, so why stop with a nuke? Maybe they’ll spray anthrax spores across all of Ukraine too. Maybe they’ll send a hoard of plague rats. Maybe they’ll crash all of their satellites into Ukrainian territory for good measure. Why not?
By this rationale, let’s just assume Russia will do random bad stuff. Because. And if that’s the case, why would Ukraine having a nuke themselves give them pause?
To be fair, it wouldn’t be the first time radioactive dust blanketed Europe because of Russia by indirect means. Small-yield tactical nukes would also be less of an issue and an escalatory stepping-stone that is textbook for Putin.
What I seem to think is that military strategists think in terms of cold calculus of sunk cost and numbers; so let’s play this out:
Russia drops one tactical nuke on Ukraine.
The world gasps and shudders in horror.
Trump looks the other way, promoting “America First” Isolationism in political expediency.
Russia says they’ll consider dropping more if not for the unilateral surrender of Ukraine.
Western European military advisors say, “Yes, radioactive fallout is going to cover parts of Europe, but one small-yield tactical nuke isn’t too bad. Maybe we can prevent further damage because if we were to respond by conventional or nuclear means against Russia, they will certainly be able to deploy a sizable amount of their total nuclear arsenal and naturally the deaths from WW3 would be higher than some radioactive dust.”
This is how they think. It’s rational. But Putin knows this.
… This is why you give Ukraine, the actual active victim here just enough nuclear weapons to threaten Putin’s ivory towe on the eve of his political puppet entering the White House in the USA no less. It puts Putin in a bind and it safeguards Ukraine via M.A.D. Theory.
Because a desperate bully targets the weak and defenseless. Always has. None of those threats are as sizable as the nuclear threat, and giving Ukraine a proverbial “trump card” to level the playing-field in terms of risk to Putin himself is the only shot at injecting a dose of self-preservation in Putin’s mind. After all I hope we don’t tell our kids to not punch the bully back because hopefully a bystander will come to their aid eventually after the damage is already done.
Look at the end of the day, you are presented with two risks, and ask yourself which is more likely:
Personally, I’d much rather exchange more risk with Scenario 2 in order to further mitigate risk of Scenario 1.
So you’re playing out what you think military strategists believe? Can you show me the well-respected military strategists who support you in this?
Okay, come on man… You can either begin to sealion me or you can engage in good faith we can have a healthy discussion as adults. Since I’m putting quite a bit of effort in this conversation and not getting anything in return but denial — there really isn’t anything in this conversation for me unless something changes and quickly.
That is,
But hey, if you want to play that game I can play it, too:
Can you show me the well-respected military strategists who support you in this? Who think illogically and not in terms of risk and probability?
What in my scenario is actually unreasonable. Do you believe that is unreasonable, and if so, why?
Why do you believe M.A.D. theory would not hold up in this case and that the relative risk of Scenario 2 is greater than Scenario 1?
But sure, finally, I can give you an example: General LeMay and Robert McNamara responsible for the successful bombing of Japan, both by conventional and nuclear means. They employed risk calculus both in terms of their own bombers versus the relative risk to the opposition. This is pretty standard MO.
I am not going to play gish gallop with you and respond to dozens of points when you can’t respond to my single points without adding 15 more, but your “YOU show ME the expert YOU have” when I didn’t claim I was going with any military strategists at all shows you’re the one not discussing things in good faith here.
If you can’t back up a claim like that with evidence, don’t make the claim.
I’ll give you two responses then; one brief, one not so brief that explains my thought process for the closure of this discussion.
Let’s cut to the chase. In such discussions, we basically have 3 options:
You’re not venturing down a path that is convincing to me, and I’m apparently not convincing you with my strategy — either because (a) my transmission is poor, (b) reception is poor, or © I’m wrong and cannot see it. But unfortunately the arguments presented to me have not been compelling for me to see better logic.
Ultimately that you perceive me to be gish gallloping and I perceive you to be sealioning me means this discussion has been exhausted. I have no problem with healthy skepticism; but when you’re trying to deflect sound reasoning (at least uncontested) by requests of evidence that aren’t even necessary but rather proven by logic itself (what “reputable” military strategist DOESN’T use probability and proportionality in risk assessment!???), then that to me signals lazy posturing than it does healthy skepticism . You see the problem is you aren’t just remaining a neutral skeptic; you’re taking the opposite stance but not backing up your position in any remote way — neither with evidence, nor logic & reason I have at least done — that your position is the less risky of the two proposals.
So I suppose with that we leave it here and I’ll oblige you with the last word. Have a nice day.