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?
"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.
> 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.