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Comment by brundolf | Hacker News Reader

I think he's bluffing with the nukes. He knows that if he launched one, 3-4 other countries would launch theirs at him. It's also been made exceedingly clear that the moment the Russian army sets foot outside of Ukraine, the full weight of the western world will come crashing down on it. His forces are struggling enough fighting just Ukraine, whose army is dramatically smaller and less-equipped. I don't think they could hope to take on the U.S. army, much less the entire rest of Europe, especially if still meeting resistance in Ukraine. And I don't think China wants to get involved.

I would be worried about Ukraine. I'm not really worried about this spreading to the rest of the world.

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China doesn't want to get involved in Europe, but Taiwan is sure looking tasty right now for them. They've been wanting it for decades, and now the world is preoccupied with Europe.

China needs Russia's support vs. Taiwan. It seems like this is would be a horrible time to try something

> China needs Russia's support

When Russia gets kicked out of UN, they won’t.

AFAIK China lacks sufficient military resources to actually take Taiwan. You can't just drive tanks and people across the strait.

I'm sorry, when did the US Navy withdraw from SE Asia?

Plus right now the US is making a show of strength against invasions by authoritarian dictators, and Biden has stated that we have "obligations" to Taiwan, although he was intentionally vague he basically said the silent part out loud. It would be political suicide to not respond to a Chinese invasion, and we could respond quite decisively from a military perspective.

China will wait for a more opportune moment.

I'm not sure it would be political suicide, since although Taiwan is becoming more popular with Americans, does that translate to a stomach for WW3?

Americans in general are stubborn to a fault and full of ourselves internationally. It would be less altruism to save Taiwan and more "fuck China". The sanctions on Russia are predicted to make gasoline prices soar, especially on the West Coast, and it's anecdotal but the conversations I'm hearing are less polite versions of "fine, I'm willing to pay a little more at the pump to stick it to Putin". Although I'm not on the west coast I'd agree with the sentiment.

Then you have Republicans, right now they're deriding Biden for going soft on Putin and blaming him for this crisis (not sure how many are buying it outside of Trump's base, but that's the line). So going soft on a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would play right into that message. No way Biden could do it for that reason alone, let alone the myriad of other motivations.

It's not a "fuck China" thing. It would be a severe short-term tactical blunder to lose Taiwan, not even considering the moral perspective. Modern military cannot function without semiconductors. And yes, we could (and are starting to) move those facilities to the US, but that takes a lot of time to complete. Not only to complete, but to get up to speed and running efficiently. If Taiwan is lost, our enemies bolster their semiconductor supply, and we lose the majority of ours.

When everyone thinks American military spending is ridiculous, the fact that we maintain a two-ocean Navy (with parity to potential adversaries) is a key component of that. By law and design, the expectation is that the US should be able to fight a major war in the Atlantic and Pacific at the same time.

Everyone's military spending is ridiculous. As someone who's more of an isolationist, I have to concede that having a large military is very important, or else our country and its freedoms are toast. The real problem is the people in charge of said military. Not the size. The difficulty is in maintaining and responsibly controlling that force.

Tawain is being handed back anyway. China is patient

>I think he's bluffing with the nukes.

I read this a lot but I also read some historical analysis about the Cuban Missile Crisis that a lot of the escalation stemmed from a fundamental misunderstanding about their opponent's strategy. It might be a huge oversimplification but it goes something like this:

Americans are playing poker (with all its specific tactics like bluffing) and are judging their opponents based on that, while Russians are playing chess and therefore assume "the bluff" is in fact their opponent's next escalation move.

At that time the Russians had more sane leaders.

Not really, the whole security apparatus was run be insanely paranoid men who were convinced that capitalist imperialist forces were secretly plotting to destroy the Soviet Union despite never finding real evidence of such a plot.

> He knows that if he launched one, 3-4 other countries would launch theirs at him.

Would they, though? And even if we take it as given that they would, do we believe that he believes that? The West, and especially USA, has made a number of empty threats over the past couple of decades it's not hard to see why he may not consider this one credible.

What would be the tell tales of actual nuclear war? Surely he'd go then for baltics, USA, whole of europe. He'd also place his military in predictable locations to have best chances of protecting Russia after - something that is easily tracked via sats.

Launching a nuke to Kiev in the current situation is very much within the realm of possibilities, if unlikely. No other country would intervene with military force even if they did, because nobody wants a two-sided nuclear war.

The next move will be a tactical nuke. Maybe targeting the black sea, any target not causing real casualties.

Just the radioactive fallout.

They can do a clean detonation if they detonate high enough in the atmosphere for the blast to not kick up and irradiate any dust. For a while now I've been convinced that a show of force like this is part of his plan in order to force a change in the calculus of his adversaries and get them on the back foot.

> No other country would intervene with military force even if they did, because nobody wants a two-sided nuclear war.

That is a serious underestimation.

No, it's a fact. The West is not going to risk the Apocalypse for Ukraine. Unless Russia directly attacks a NATO country, there is practically nothing they can do to trigger a war between NATO and Russia.

I mean NATO is already involved with NATO countries supplying arms. The UK foreign secretary has even said that people have her full support if they want to go and fight for Ukraine (which is beyond irresponsible).

> if they want to go and fight for Ukraine (which is beyond irresponsible)

Why irresponsible? My take on it was that message was aimed at Ukrainians living in the UK who wanted to go and fight. Your average Brit isn't even going to humour that idea.

Could sanctions get bad enough for Russia to retaliate?

> The West is not going to risk the Apocalypse for Ukraine.

If Putin is launching nukes, it has nothing to do with Ukraine anymore. The choices are “do we let a madman play with nukes or not?" I think the answer is pretty obvious.

You can't reason with a madman. There are rumours that Putin has a terminal illness and is trying to finish what he started while he can. If he doesn't get what he wants, who knows what he's capable of. I said he was bluffing when amassing troops on the border and I was totally wrong.

I'm also not convinced that his forces in Ukraine are failing. I hope they are. But it's more likely Russia is only sending in the bare minimum they think will be necessary to minimise losses. They might have underestimated but Russia can win if they're playing the long game.

He has children. Does he not care about them? They are adults, perhaps he has grandchildren even. Is he really so deranged that he is willing to give up the world? I don't know. It is very puzzling.

Who knows, maybe he doesn't. Psychopaths have children. Maybe he will find himself backed into a corner and will want to go out with a bang so he at least goes into the history books. Megalomania is not to be underestimated.

Getting some flak for my OP. Not sure why, did I say something controversial?

Narcissists don't really care about other people. They only care about themselves.

Think 'Jim Jones', not 'Elder statesman with children'.

Stalin had a wife and kids, and there were times he appeared to care about them, such as his efforts to keep Beria away from his young daughter. But otherwise, Stalin clearly cared nothing for human life in general. He stopped the Great Purge of his own people in 1937 only after it became clear that it was starting to drag down the economy.

Putin has given no indication that he's any different from Stalin in this regard.

Stalin refused Germans' offer to exchange his captured son for one of their field marshals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Dzhugashvili

I think being optimistic in this situation is actually harmful. It really is worth considering looking for a shelter because Putin has already proven with this war he does not care about anyone's life from any side. And if he is to lose this, to him it may even be as good as being dead. The optimism reminds me of the time we first found out about the Coronavirus and we went on with our head in the sand until it hit hard.

He's bluffing with Crimea.

Oh wait!

He's bluffing with separatist regions.

Oh wait!

He's bluffing with invading Ukraine.

Oh wait!

He's bluffing with actual war.

Oh wait!

... TL;DR: Putin thinks a nuclear war is winnable. https://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war

NB: do you really think Putin cares how you feel?

Nuclear war is a HUGE step up from any of the previous steps. Like you could build a binary system based on those principles, with Nuclear War being 1 and the rest being noise that's equivalent to 0.

The only way he'd entertain it is if he's truly lost his marbles, and if that's the case then this timeline just got a whole lot shittier regardless of whether we capitulate to the madman with the nukes or not. I sincerely doubt western institutions are going to show their bellies because of Putin's nuclear threats, so we'll see if he's bluffing one way or another.

Go for it. I took care of my family, ~50miles away from the next big city, rivers, farmland and enough supplies around us. I'd rather laugh on my stupidity later on.

Sorry, but unless you got a deep bunker with years of supplies, you probably won't survive a large scale nuclear war.

You are assuming a rational actor. Putin may not be a rational actor.

That's normally my comment.

For those that still insist that Putin is rational, there's one way to model his current behaviour: his utility function prioritises "make Russia great again", or at the very least, geopolitical concerns. He's willing to take whatever hit he needs to take, whether economically or in the lives of soldiers and civilians, to achieve this goal.

And if he isn't?

Then we have nuclear war. Or we let Putin dictate international politics for however long he has left, and tell China/North Korea/every other bad actor that gets nukes for the rest of time that the game is "be serious about launching nukes offensively and you'll get whatever you want". How do you think that'll work long term?

It's that, or Putin at least maintains a shred of rationality. Or his inner circle takes him out before he pushes the button.

> He's bluffing with Crimea.

> Oh wait!

> He's bluffing with separatist regions.

> Oh wait!

> He's bluffing with invading Ukraine.

> Oh wait!

These are all straw men. I don't know any serious analysts who thought he was bluffing in any of those areas, primarily because they all understood the Western response would be muted.

He knows, as the rest of the world does, that launching nuclear war will require an all-out response from Western powers.

The linked article is very informative; it includes things I'd not read elsewhere.

For instance, it talks about Putin's willingness to use "battlefield" nukes rather than "strategic" city-destroying nukes – betting that the West would immediately concede any war where a smaller nuke were deployed in the interest of avoiding escalation.

They're not strawmen, especially the last. There were quite a few intelligent ppl who seriously thought there's no way he was going to war with Ukraine.

Were those "quite a few intelligent people" not watching the news? The US has been explicit about the intelligence for weeks/months now. Even if you wanted to discount the US intelligence, the military buildup surrounding Ukraine was unmistakable.

Biden was quoted as saying the Russian attack had unfolded "largely as predicted". Pretending the invasion was some sort of great shocker is a rewrite of history.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-02-24/biden-...

My bet several weeks before he invaded was that he'd deploy a tactical nuke against the Ukranian military (not necessarily against civilians causing mass casualty) to remove the ability of the West to call his bluff on using nukes and hence affect their calculus. This has the effect of making it crystal clear to NATO that they absolutely cannot put boots on the ground in Ukraine under any circumstances, and secondly it is a massive psychological blow to the Ukranian people themselves. The pundits and talking heads are always saying "I don't get his end-game here, he can't hold these people down, they will resist!" and my suspicion has been he may attempt to frighten the shit out of them into obeying. The other effect such a move may be intended to have is change the calculus of any further non-NATO former soviet countries he may try to go into next if he is successful in Ukraine, as he could essentially win without having to fight potentially.

My guess would be that if he deployed tactical nukes in Ukraine in some capacity NATO would not respond by launching a retaliatory nuclear attack as that would be MAD. Rather they would take the other nuclear option of completely cutting 100% of the banks out of SWIFT and freezing all oil and gas exports in an attempt to completely cripple Russia while eating the pain of those sanctions on their own territories, as I think the people would support it. Secondly I think it would be enough to galvanise millions of Russians to take to the streets and march against Putin to end his reign. This is the scenario I'm currently betting on playing out.

There are US security experts who also argue that limited nuclear war can be waged (Edit: and won). It's an idea from the 80s and it's not something that planners have disregarded.

Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? I'm sure you have good reasons for feeling strongly but the site guidelines don't stop applying when bad things are happening—actually that's just when they should apply the most.

"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Even though there's a war going on and it's scary and activating, it's possible to discuss the topic without breaking those guidelines. Plenty of other users are demonstrating that in this very thread.

Also, while this conflict seems to be about Russia vs the west / NATO, other influencial parts of the world have absolutely no interest in a nuclear exchange. China for example. What roles are they currently playing? Can they moderate Putin's temper? And Saudi Arabia? India? And so forth. He must have powerful allies that can bring him down from his own paranoia and delusions. Time for some geopolitical therapy sessions for him.

Yeah. To be honest I think the greatest risk to the rest of the world - if there is a risk - would be Putin acting irrationally (due to temper, or mental health, or desperation). I see no remotely rational course that could lead him to launch nukes or to move troops past Ukraine.

As an aside, I'm really very glad this didn't happen a couple years ago when we had our own mad-man with the launch codes.

He's been acting quite irrationally already in the recent past.

> As an aside, I'm really very glad this didn't happen a couple years ago when we had our own mad-man with the launch codes.

Weirdly enough: the risk of spillover would be lower, the danger to Ukraine much higher. But that is also why we are where we are today: without Trump undermining the whole situation in Ukraine would be quite different and Putin would not have embarked on this thing in the first place.

"without Trump undermining..."

What are you talking about?

There was the controversy about his talk with Zelenski of course, but the end result is described here:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-admin-approves-sale-an...

And delay in sending weapons to Ukraine is not unknown for the Biden administration:

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/18/white-house-ukraine...

So maybe your point is that sending weapons to Ukraine was a bad idea that just annoyed Putin, and that's why it's Trump's fault?

Looking at broader economic issues, how could you possibly think that Trump's support for energy development in the West helped Russia, which relies on high oil prices to support its economy, as compared to Biden's shutting down of energy development?

Trump emboldened Putin by increasing US dependence on foreign oil. Privately met with him, without record or press.

In 2017, the first Congressional Delegation to Russia (all Republicans) had a private meeting with Putin on July 4th - Independence Day!

Trump recently praised Putin and called his tactic “genius” and just today Tom Cotton(R) refused to denounce Trumps support of Putin.

Ad nausem…

Trumps indirect support of Putin and Kim Jong Un was also particularly unnerving.

"Trump emboldened Putin by increasing US dependence on foreign oil."

This statement seems detached from reality, unless by "foreign" you mean "Canadian".

It has precedent with Nixon: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory

If the opposite side believes you completely rational, it limits the actions they believe you'll take. On the other hand, if they believe you're impulsive, there are fewer limits on what they believe you'd do.

... Unfortunately, if they believe you're too irrational, it ends badly.

> As an aside, I'm really very glad this didn't happen a couple years ago when we had our own mad-man with the launch codes

Completely agree. It would have been a nightmare.

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