We're not going to stop you because you have nuclear weapons that you might use.....after you just used one........?
That's a perfectly sound and well thought-out stance....if you want to sympathize with a genocidal dictator.
This might be a little tougher than Putin thought...
- Thread starter Nole Lou
- Start date
We're not going to stop you because you have nuclear weapons that you might use.....after you just used one........?
That's a perfectly sound and well thought-out stance....if you want to sympathize with a genocidal dictator.
I don’t think NATO expansion excuses anything.
I do share the opinion of those who stated since the 90s that NATO expansion into Ukraine would trigger Russian response.
Those people have been demonstrated correct.
Anticipating an action isn’t condoning or supporting an action. Now watch multiple people fail in that distinction.
I think bins has been consistent with his opinion on nuclear war. Nuclear war should be feared,(obviously) and I think Bins only tries to temper the "bring it on, and we will destroy you" comments because we all know that a nuclear war is probably the last war any of us will have to be worried about. I don't see it as sympathizing. Too date I absolutely love the way we(US and allies) are handling this. Can you imagine what is going on behind the scenes? Go Ukraine, F*%K Russia.
Looks like an official (?) source now confirming it.
A
anon_b29nm7v7dwp6r
Guest
I get the sentiment…but I also disagree with any sort of thought that we should sit back and let Putin use A nuclear weapon and face no physical repercussions. I wouldn’t advocate an escalatory MAD strike, but I would say we would be just in a conventional, targeted response at the forces that launched the attack or Russian forces in Ukraine in general.
Or a further economic play by a complete shutdown of trade and sanctions with China and India…but honestly at that point we will be pretty much at WWIII…we would in effect be nuking China’s economy….similar to what we did to Japan before Pearl Harbor…
To not use nuclear weapons because the other country used nuclear weapons is not the stance we should be taking. I don't believe that Russia is going to use them, even for a second. NATO has said that it will be an attack on NATO countries due to the nuclear fallout. Russia knows this imo
A
anon_b29nm7v7dwp6r
Guest
I think it would be incredibly wreck less by Putin and I don’t think he’s that dumb.
WARSAW - Polish officials said on Friday they had distributed anti-radiation tablets to fire departments nationwide in case of exposure triggered by the war in neighbouring Ukraine, while denying there was cause for alarm.
The move came in response to fighting around Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant - Europe's largest - which has raised fears of a nuclear disaster.
"We decided on a preventative, preemptive move to start distributing potassium iodide tablets to district fire departments," Deputy Interior Minister Blazej Pobozy told reporters.
The move came in response to fighting around Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant - Europe's largest - which has raised fears of a nuclear disaster.
"We decided on a preventative, preemptive move to start distributing potassium iodide tablets to district fire departments," Deputy Interior Minister Blazej Pobozy told reporters.
If Putin uses any nuclear weapon there should absolutely be a significant military response from NATO.
And sympathize with millions who could be killed if the escalation continues.
If Putin pops a nuke in Lviv and demands
Ukraine observe a cease fire, is your response really to put American cities in the line of fire?
Why don’t we see if Congress wants to approve a war with Russia first?
If we’re actually going to get in this war, let’s do it right.
When you hop in the escalation train you’re not the only conductor.
If the Russian response to Western conventional attacks is to then nuke Krakow and Riga we just keep escalating to Armageddon?
Or do you stop escalating before the nukes fly?
Escalating after they fly seems like global suicide.
It won’t be like when we put a steel and oil embargo on Japan.
100s of thousands of Americans are on blood pressure medicine sourced 100% from China.
We have a two week supply.
It’s hardly the only issue, but a good example.
When would you like to end trade with them?
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I agree with Bins on the "fear" of nuclear war.
I, however, think that fear cannot paralyze NATO/US into non-action in the event Russia does the unthinkable.
As others have pointed out, once you do that, you have effectively given them (and any other country with nukes) a green light to take over any piece of territory anywhere on the globe they feel like. That cannot be allowed to happen, regardless of risk.
A
anon_b29nm7v7dwp6r
Guest
I don’t really understand your position then….if Putin were to nuke Kyiv….what would you propose we do? Sit on our hands? Set up some big fans at the Poland border to try to blow the fallout away?
If he’s that dumb….and really will use his nuclear arsenal in an attempt to avoid a conventional defeat in Ukraine….there has to be a western response. Period. Otherwise MAD is already broken.
I don't think "non-action" is an option. I'm just hoping Putin doesn't use a tactical nuke because that will put us in uncharted territory and will ratchet up tensions exponentially.
During the Cold War the greatest fear was a "mistake" happening. Even with the vast distance between the US and USSR there was basically only 30 minutes lead time between land base missiles being launched and impact....less for submarine launched missiles.
Here are some incidents
If Russia uses a nuke against Ukraine we probably use a conventional military response....probably hit targets in Ukraine and the Black Sea ect....tensions obviously will be high and I'd suppose both our Nuclear forces will be on high alert. Systems like cruise missiles which we use a lot are capable of being armed with a conventional or Nuclear warhead so I'd think we'd shy away from those....anyway, just saying that a conventional response still ratchets up the possibility of mistakes being made. Probably the main reason we've been avoiding a direct military confrontation to this point....
Not a situation we want to be in IMO so hopefully it never happens.
Finally, during the cold war we had a "hot line" between the USSR and USA. We communicated so mistakes could be avoided...
There's currently no such communications between the US and Russia.
A
anon_b29nm7v7dwp6r
Guest
Ending the world doesn't seem like a better option than either of those, frankly.
Ukraine isn't a nuclear power, hence MAD isn't in play.
You want a war between nuclear powers, thus putting MAD into play.
I don't think MAD is broken, it's just a game we don't want to play.
Can we stop with adding tactical to using a nuclear weapon? That's akin to saying somebody is sorta pregnant
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I don't disagree with any of this. I am hopeful that the US/NATO commanders have gameplanned for all such scenarios and that one of their overriding goals is avoiding nuclear escalation while at the same time neutralizing Russian threats. Easier said than done, but that is their job.
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I thought that as well, previously, but have done some reading on "tactical nuclear" warfare and there is actually a pretty vast difference between that and full scale ICBM missile exchange nuclear war.
Some interesting discussion of the topic here:
Can any nuke be tactical?
Unlike strategic nuclear weapons, tactical weapons are not focused on mutually assured destruction through overwhelming retaliation or nuclear umbrella deterrence to protect allies. While tactical nuclear weapons have not been included in arms control agreements, medium-range weapons were included in the now-defunct Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty (1987-2018), which reduced nuclear weapons in Europe.Both the U.S. and Russia reduced their total nuclear arsenals from about 19,000 and 35,000 respectively at the end of the Cold War to about 3,700 and 4,480 as of January 2022. Russia’s reluctance to negotiate over its nonstrategic nuclear weapons has stymied further nuclear arms control efforts.
The fundamental question is whether tactical nuclear weapons are more “useable” and therefore could potentially trigger a full-scale nuclear war. Their development was part of an effort to overcome concerns that because large-scale nuclear attacks were widely seen as unthinkable, strategic nuclear weapons were losing their value as a deterrent to war between the superpowers. The nuclear powers would be more likely to use tactical nuclear weapons, in theory, and so the weapons would bolster a nation’s nuclear deterrence.
Yet, any use of tactical nuclear weapons would invoke defensive nuclear strategies. In fact, then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis notably stated in 2018: “I do not think there is any such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon. Any nuclear weapon use any time is a strategic game changer.”
The U.S. has criticized Russia’s nuclear strategy of escalate to de-escalate, in which tactical nuclear weapons could be used to deter a widening of the war to include NATO.
While there is disagreement among experts, Russian and U.S. nuclear strategies focus on deterrence, and so involve large-scale retaliatory nuclear attacks in the face of any first-nuclear weapon use. This means that Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons as a deterrent to conventional war is threatening an action that would, under nuclear warfare doctrine, invite a retaliatory nuclear strike if aimed at the U.S. or NATO.
What are tactical nuclear weapons? An international security expert explains and assesses what they mean for the war in Ukraine
Tactical nuclear weapons were designed to be used on the battlefield rather than for strategic defense, but that doesn’t mean there’s a plausible case for using them.
theconversation.com
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anon_b29nm7v7dwp6r
Guest
If Russia uses a nuke, and the response is “eh…Russia will be Russia!” Every country on the planet suddenly sees the nuke as an acceptable way to end a conflict….heck….think about how many years and American lives we probably could have saved in: Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea….if we had went ahead an used nukes if that’s the modern military playbook. As long as your opponent isn’t a nuclear power?
On a larger level, a non-response I think calls into question the MAD principal entirely….if we wouldn’t risk global annihilation now…why would we risk it then? After all….us launching our nukes after we were hit isn’t going to help us “win” since we already lost so why take down the globe with us?
either way, I don’t think and just hope Putin isn’t that dumb…because I believe we would have to respond at least conventionally.
It's the distinction between a weapon used in the field against troops, and the very large weapons created from the outset for use against civilians.
I can't really fathom how the Russians would employ tactical nukes to add any real combat efficacy to their craptacular efforts displayed thus far.
Nukes 'work best' as terror weapons.
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Interesting read:
By Susan B. Glasser
September 29, 2022
“The problem is, of course, us misreading him, but also him misreading us,” a Russia expert said about Vladimir Putin.
Nuclear blackmail, illegal annexation of territory, hundreds of thousands of Russian men rounded up and sent to the front lines in Ukraine, undersea gas pipelines to Europe mysteriously blowing up. After endless speculation, we can now say it for sure: this is how Vladimir Putin responds when he is backed into a corner.
Throughout seven awful months of war in Ukraine, President Joe Biden has held to a steadfast line when it comes to the Russian invasion: his goal is to help Ukraine win while also insuring that victory does not trigger a Third World War. But as Russian forces have experienced U.S.-aided battlefield setbacks in recent days, Putin has reacted by ratcheting up the pressure.
It’s far from clear how Washington will be able to continue to pursue both goals simultaneously, given that Putin is holding Ukraine—and the rest of the world—hostage to his demands. On Friday, Putin plans to affirm the results of what the Biden Administration has sternly termed “sham ‘referenda’ ” as a pretext to declare Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine part of the Russian state. How could Biden, or the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, or anyone else who believes in international order agree to that?
And yet Donald Trump and the growing faction of pro-Putin cheerleaders in the conservative media—Tucker Carlson, I’m thinking of you—are demanding still more concessions to Russia in response to Putin’s escalating threats. The other night, Carlson, citing no evidence, blamed the United States for somehow playing a role in attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Charlie Kirk, one of the most outrageous of the junior Trumpists, speculated that it was “a potential midterm election operation” and that U.S. intelligence agencies should be considered “guilty until proven innocent”—an appalling smear gleefully parroted on Russian state TV. The ex-President—who during his time in office did so much to weaken nato and undermine American allies while also praising Putin—even offered himself up as a mediator. On Wednesday, in a post on Truth Social, his Orwellian-named social-media platform, he insisted, “get a negotiated deal done NOW.”
Which, of course, is exactly what Putin wants Trump to say. After a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the eastern Kharkiv region this month pushed Russian forces back to their own border, Putin responded with new provocations designed to force the West to the bargaining table, since his exceptionally brutal yet inept application of military force failed to do so. That, at least, is the consensus view of many of America’s smartest Kremlin watchers.
As Alexander Vershbow, who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Moscow during my tenure there as a correspondent for the Washington Post, put it to me: “Having failed to stop the Ukrainians on the battlefield, Putin is trying to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by political means.” Russia’s leader, Vershbow added, hopes that “he can weaken the Alliance consensus and scare the West into scaling back its military support for Kyiv for fear of precipitating Russian use of nuclear weapons to defend the ‘homeland.’ The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines further reinforces the image of Putin as madman, which might persuade some allies to push for a ceasefire and negotiations that would inevitably mean Ukraine giving up significant amounts of territory.” Talk about a bad deal.
Play/Pause Button
Earlier this week, undersea gas pipelines to Europe mysteriously blew up. Tucker Carlson, citing no evidence, blamed the United States for somehow playing a role.Source video from Scopal / Reuters
It seems clear that negotiating now would be an extraordinary concession in and of itself to Putin’s barbarism and willingness to threaten nuclear conflict. Yet it’s not just Trumpists who have been calling with more urgency for a negotiated peace ever since Putin vowed, in early September, to “make use of all weapons systems available to us” and warned, “This is not a bluff.”
Or is it? Over the weekend, Biden’s national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan, promised a “catastrophic” response if Putin were to deploy battlefield nuclear weapons in Ukraine. American military officials have no doubt produced many serious options for the United States to consider in such a scenario, including directly entering the war on Ukraine’s side—just the Third World War scenario that Biden has been so determined to avoid.
Watching all of this, it’s hard not to think of how often over the past two decades the West has collectively failed to get Putin right—or to get him at all. Over the summer, the Aspen Strategy Group asked me to give a presentation about Russia at war, and what stood out to me in my research was the number of times, and variety of ways, in which the U.S. and its allies had missed the mark in understanding Putin at critical junctures in his long tenure as Russia’s modern tsar.
Again and again, Putin has profited from the application of military force to achieve otherwise unattainable political gains. He came to power by promoting war in the separatist Russian province of Chechnya. He sent Russian troops to Georgia and Syria and, in 2014, to Ukraine. Each time, there were endless rounds of speculation in Western capitals about how to create an “exit ramp” that would finally entice Putin to end his incursion. Putin just kept barrelling down the highway.
So, yes, I’m skeptical when I hear the latest round of “exit ramp” talk. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching Putin all of this time, it’s that he is not one to walk away from a fight or back down while losing—escalation is his game, and by now he is very, very practiced at it. As the Moscow Times put it, in a fascinating piece of reporting from inside the Kremlin, “Putin always chooses escalation.”
On Thursday, I spoke with the Russia expert Fiona Hill. She told me she believes there’s an element of self-delusion to much of the current commentary about the possibility of Washington and the West continuing to back Ukraine while avoiding conflict with Putin—who, after all, launched his war against Ukraine not in February but eight years ago when he invaded the country and illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula. As far as Hill is concerned, we are already fighting in the Third World War, whether we acknowledge it or not. “We’ve been in this for a long time, and we’ve failed to recognize it,” she said.
Her chilling thought raises a searing question about U.S. policy: If the goal is to avoid a conflict in which we are already fighting, then does the rest of Washington’s approach to Russian aggression need to be reconsidered? Hill’s line of thinking is one reason that there are increased calls from many Russia watchers not to kowtow to Putin’s demands at a moment when both his weaknesses and those of his system have been so clearly revealed.
There is also the matter of Putin getting the West wrong. We in Washington hardly have a monopoly on misguided assumptions being a driving factor in international affairs. Many indicators suggest, in fact, that they were a major reason that this war happened. Putin not only failed to understand that Ukrainians would stand and fight against his aggression; he also failed to foresee the U.S. and its nato allies remaining united and funding the Ukrainian resistance. Moscow’s bogus annexation of more Ukrainian territory seems likely to produce only more Western sanctions—and the possible extension of the war that Putin looks increasingly like he is losing. “The problem is, of course, us misreading him, but also him misreading us,” Hill observed.
Nuclear brinksmanship between a wounded, sulking Russian dictator and an increasingly alarmed nato alliance—with Ukraine trapped in the middle—is just about a worst-case scenario for a world that hardly needs another crisis. Will Washington stay the course? ♦
What if We’re Already Fighting the Third World War with Russia?
Putin’s latest provocations once again put Washington in an awful bind.By Susan B. Glasser
September 29, 2022
“The problem is, of course, us misreading him, but also him misreading us,” a Russia expert said about Vladimir Putin.
Nuclear blackmail, illegal annexation of territory, hundreds of thousands of Russian men rounded up and sent to the front lines in Ukraine, undersea gas pipelines to Europe mysteriously blowing up. After endless speculation, we can now say it for sure: this is how Vladimir Putin responds when he is backed into a corner.
Throughout seven awful months of war in Ukraine, President Joe Biden has held to a steadfast line when it comes to the Russian invasion: his goal is to help Ukraine win while also insuring that victory does not trigger a Third World War. But as Russian forces have experienced U.S.-aided battlefield setbacks in recent days, Putin has reacted by ratcheting up the pressure.
It’s far from clear how Washington will be able to continue to pursue both goals simultaneously, given that Putin is holding Ukraine—and the rest of the world—hostage to his demands. On Friday, Putin plans to affirm the results of what the Biden Administration has sternly termed “sham ‘referenda’ ” as a pretext to declare Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine part of the Russian state. How could Biden, or the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, or anyone else who believes in international order agree to that?
And yet Donald Trump and the growing faction of pro-Putin cheerleaders in the conservative media—Tucker Carlson, I’m thinking of you—are demanding still more concessions to Russia in response to Putin’s escalating threats. The other night, Carlson, citing no evidence, blamed the United States for somehow playing a role in attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Charlie Kirk, one of the most outrageous of the junior Trumpists, speculated that it was “a potential midterm election operation” and that U.S. intelligence agencies should be considered “guilty until proven innocent”—an appalling smear gleefully parroted on Russian state TV. The ex-President—who during his time in office did so much to weaken nato and undermine American allies while also praising Putin—even offered himself up as a mediator. On Wednesday, in a post on Truth Social, his Orwellian-named social-media platform, he insisted, “get a negotiated deal done NOW.”
Which, of course, is exactly what Putin wants Trump to say. After a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the eastern Kharkiv region this month pushed Russian forces back to their own border, Putin responded with new provocations designed to force the West to the bargaining table, since his exceptionally brutal yet inept application of military force failed to do so. That, at least, is the consensus view of many of America’s smartest Kremlin watchers.
As Alexander Vershbow, who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Moscow during my tenure there as a correspondent for the Washington Post, put it to me: “Having failed to stop the Ukrainians on the battlefield, Putin is trying to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by political means.” Russia’s leader, Vershbow added, hopes that “he can weaken the Alliance consensus and scare the West into scaling back its military support for Kyiv for fear of precipitating Russian use of nuclear weapons to defend the ‘homeland.’ The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines further reinforces the image of Putin as madman, which might persuade some allies to push for a ceasefire and negotiations that would inevitably mean Ukraine giving up significant amounts of territory.” Talk about a bad deal.
Play/Pause Button
Earlier this week, undersea gas pipelines to Europe mysteriously blew up. Tucker Carlson, citing no evidence, blamed the United States for somehow playing a role.Source video from Scopal / Reuters
It seems clear that negotiating now would be an extraordinary concession in and of itself to Putin’s barbarism and willingness to threaten nuclear conflict. Yet it’s not just Trumpists who have been calling with more urgency for a negotiated peace ever since Putin vowed, in early September, to “make use of all weapons systems available to us” and warned, “This is not a bluff.”
Or is it? Over the weekend, Biden’s national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan, promised a “catastrophic” response if Putin were to deploy battlefield nuclear weapons in Ukraine. American military officials have no doubt produced many serious options for the United States to consider in such a scenario, including directly entering the war on Ukraine’s side—just the Third World War scenario that Biden has been so determined to avoid.
Watching all of this, it’s hard not to think of how often over the past two decades the West has collectively failed to get Putin right—or to get him at all. Over the summer, the Aspen Strategy Group asked me to give a presentation about Russia at war, and what stood out to me in my research was the number of times, and variety of ways, in which the U.S. and its allies had missed the mark in understanding Putin at critical junctures in his long tenure as Russia’s modern tsar.
Again and again, Putin has profited from the application of military force to achieve otherwise unattainable political gains. He came to power by promoting war in the separatist Russian province of Chechnya. He sent Russian troops to Georgia and Syria and, in 2014, to Ukraine. Each time, there were endless rounds of speculation in Western capitals about how to create an “exit ramp” that would finally entice Putin to end his incursion. Putin just kept barrelling down the highway.
So, yes, I’m skeptical when I hear the latest round of “exit ramp” talk. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching Putin all of this time, it’s that he is not one to walk away from a fight or back down while losing—escalation is his game, and by now he is very, very practiced at it. As the Moscow Times put it, in a fascinating piece of reporting from inside the Kremlin, “Putin always chooses escalation.”
On Thursday, I spoke with the Russia expert Fiona Hill. She told me she believes there’s an element of self-delusion to much of the current commentary about the possibility of Washington and the West continuing to back Ukraine while avoiding conflict with Putin—who, after all, launched his war against Ukraine not in February but eight years ago when he invaded the country and illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula. As far as Hill is concerned, we are already fighting in the Third World War, whether we acknowledge it or not. “We’ve been in this for a long time, and we’ve failed to recognize it,” she said.
Her chilling thought raises a searing question about U.S. policy: If the goal is to avoid a conflict in which we are already fighting, then does the rest of Washington’s approach to Russian aggression need to be reconsidered? Hill’s line of thinking is one reason that there are increased calls from many Russia watchers not to kowtow to Putin’s demands at a moment when both his weaknesses and those of his system have been so clearly revealed.
There is also the matter of Putin getting the West wrong. We in Washington hardly have a monopoly on misguided assumptions being a driving factor in international affairs. Many indicators suggest, in fact, that they were a major reason that this war happened. Putin not only failed to understand that Ukrainians would stand and fight against his aggression; he also failed to foresee the U.S. and its nato allies remaining united and funding the Ukrainian resistance. Moscow’s bogus annexation of more Ukrainian territory seems likely to produce only more Western sanctions—and the possible extension of the war that Putin looks increasingly like he is losing. “The problem is, of course, us misreading him, but also him misreading us,” Hill observed.
Nuclear brinksmanship between a wounded, sulking Russian dictator and an increasingly alarmed nato alliance—with Ukraine trapped in the middle—is just about a worst-case scenario for a world that hardly needs another crisis. Will Washington stay the course? ♦
Dead Russians near Lyman. Do you suppose the two close together were laying one of those mines when killed?
Man - feels like a massacre happening in Lyman. They picked a bad day to get surrounded. Lot of anger on them annexing today.
This seems fast-hope it will reflect a reaction to Putin's recent actions-send tanks!
do we know how long they're conscripted for? is it victory or death? there's only so many times that you can break your leg before you decide it's less painful to amputate
I hope they wreck less. Nice post, sir.
