> Putin does not roll a dice every morning and launches a nuclear missile if a six shows up.
You wish! The problem here is that Putin is not rational.
You wish! The problem here is that Putin is not rational.
If an article is substantive, it deserves better than this—much better, actually. And if it isn't substantive, it shouldn't be on HN's front page.
To your point: Putin isn't nuts. He's just a really good politician. He's pragmatic and knows the value of being seen as "crazy" and "he might actually launch a nuke".
It is entirely plausible that Darwinian selection pressures rewarded not just those who cynically postured as madmen, but those who actually were madmen (within some bound of Minimum Viable Rationality). Such madness only has to beat the average; unlike the MAD dynamics of nuclear weapons, during most of evolutionary history, a catastrophic error of genuine madness didn't result in destruction of the entire species.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/trump-withdraws-ame...
Now we see Germany at least say they will up their contribution and rebuild their military in order to be better prepared.
That’s pretty much in line with what he asked from them.
“Yeah, the second term,” Trump had said. “We’ll do it in the second term.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/13/book-exce...
Trump was certainly looking at getting out of NATO, which he saw as an arrangement where the US increasingly foots the bill for protecting other members. He openly criticised European dependence on Russian oil and gas, and Germany in particular for not paying their fair share towards defence.
There's a fantastically awkward video [1] of him explaining all of this directly to NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg. Germany announced this week that it will do exactly what Trump said it should: massively increase military spending [2] and decrease its dependence on Russia for energy [3].
Who is more useful to Putin? Trump, who told Europe to get its ass in gear and treat Russia as a threat, or the stooges you support, whose selfishness and complacency emboldened Russia to carry out this invasion?
[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=M5MJEMHZZsI
[2] https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/budgetary-about...
[3] https://dw.com/en/ukraine-crisis-forces-germany-to-change-co...
And how does sending Javelins to Ukraine or blocking Nordstream 2 help Putin?
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/us-sancti...
Second, that aid was never held up and is separate from the Javelins that were sent anyway.
What other President sent Ukraine weapons (not blankets) before this fiasco?
[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=M5MJEMHZZsI
(Disclaimer: I agree that orange man bad)
What does he have to lose by alluding to using nukes right now?
Nukes are the only thing stopping the West from rolling into Moscow, the magic wears off if the clock strikes 12. Nukes only work for the 15 minutes before they are used, Putin and Lavrov keep crying "Nuklear wolf!".
Yeah, tell Napoleon and Hitler how easy that is.
On the contrary, Putin is the new insane and isolated Hitler.
It's not something that I would have liked, just the truth.
People claiming Russia to be invulnerable miss the real lesson of those conflicts -- the ballance of power.
The ballance of power is set against Russia right now, if the West remains strong in its unity and resolve, Russia will collapse.
Whoever is insaner wins?
Nah, remind Putin that we all saw how much the russian army sucks and in case of nuclear war the US still wins after they get out of their bunkers.
Do you think Putin is a genious and it didn't cross other USSR leaders minds the same idea -- "surely, the USA would not use nukes again us if we used just a few nukes against a weaker NATO member"?
The only sane answer is to absolutely make sure the other guy knows you're going to use nukes the second they use them.
Macron's retort to Putin needs to be shouted from the rooftops -- we also have nukes, you're not that special.
"There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent." - Lao Tzu