>They can never be invaded or conquered again, by anyone, ever.
Why does thinking about nuclear weapons cause most people to think in absolutist terms like this?
Maybe Russia was counting on getting a 15-minute warning of ICBMs approaching, but if a hostile military can station missile right on their southwestern border (523 miles from the center of Moscow) their plan goes out the window.
It wouldn't, because their SSBNs and their hidden silos would ensure the counter strike afterwards.
USA isn't counting on a 15 minute warning either, MAD is ensured via second strike capability AFTER the first strike, if you are counting for the first strike you've already lost.
Well it seems to be well-established MAD orthodoxy that if your enemy has nukes right at your border, and you don't have nukes right at their border, your deterrence ability is diminished.
In any case, even in a MAD setting every side will be constantly trying to manoeuver to a position of advantage. That's what military people do when they're not actually fighting, kind of how computer nerds play video games when they're not coding, eh?
Cuba was more of a sovereignty/sphere-of-influence problem than a nuclear-warfare problem. That ship has long since sailed with regard to Russia's borders. Moscow is half-surrounded on the west, as well it should be given its history of combining expansionist behavior with atrocities like communism and the Holodomor.
The Russians have had more than ample opportunity to join the civilized world and stop acting like dicks, but that's apparently not what they want to do. So, containment it is.
And if they feared NATO encroachment on their borders, trying to take over Ukraine was a really stupid way to discourage that. Nukes are scary enough, but nukes in the hands of stupid people are downright terrifying. Personally I doubt any of theirs still work, but that's all too easy to say.
Where are you getting your sources from here? The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in the context of the early 1960s whereby bombers were the primary method of delivery. Since the late 1960s, the ICBM is the bedrock of the MAD strategy, and the need of a second-strike capability via SSBNs and hidden silos after absorbing a nuclear attack.
>In any case, even in a MAD setting every side will be constantly trying to manoeuver to a position of advantage.
There is no real "advantage" over having an extra few minutes or not. Russia is also building some sort of nuclear tsunami weapon, the US does not care. Because the strategy remains unchanged from threat of ICBMs. Frankly speaking, if you want to talk about what actually is a disadvantage for Russia right now, it's this war. If NATO actually invaded, they'd caught with their pants down. Hell, the US might even successfully ensure a first strike given they moved their air defences away.
The fact that Putin started this war even when knowing this should tell you that he dosen't actually view NATO as a threat. And they're not, from the Houthis, to Iran to Hamas, everbody can tell the US has no stomach for a war. This is not the result of US aggression, it is the result of US unassertiveness
>> If NATO actually invaded, they'd caught with their pants down.
The problem with that is that NATO is next door to Russia now. Nuclear deterrence doesn't work that well when it means nuking your foot.
Seen another way, Russia doesn't need ICBMs to reach London, Paris, Berlin...
But, really, try to think more carefully of what you're discussing: nuclear war. The threat to the existence of human civilisation from that is too big for macho politics and "we're stronger than them" braggadocio. As Chomsky pointed out once, and as aggravating as this is, that means letting assholes get away with murder on the international scene; which means not just Russia, but also the US, Israel, China, and who knows who else, in time.
We just funded and managed two 20 year wars across the planet from our borders, one in a landlocked country. Russia couldn't move a tank column down a highway at the beginning of this war.
Putin is definitely crushing us at manly and assertive displays, though.
Pretty much? They have logistics problems 20 miles from their borders, we had excellent logistics for 20 years in frickin Afghanistan. They built Taco Bell restaurants on the bases. These are entirely different leagues of capability.
Russians are winning now because they've figured out logistics within 50 miles of their borders compared to earlier in the war. Still doesn't mean they can project globally, and everyone knows.
Russian SSBNs stay pretty close to base. They don't range over the world's oceans like US ones do, and ISTR an expert opining that the US can probably track them.
But on second thought, I concede that the shortened warning time relative to ICBMs is probably not a major cause of Russia's anxiety about Ukraine.
> How would you go about invading Russia, as a senior NATO commander? Russia's stated policy is to deploy nuclear arms against any invading force
I'd take advantage of Russia's folly of invading a neighboring country and use that opportunity to destroy Russia's military forces, all while hampering their ability to rebuild that materiel.
Meanwhile, I'd have anti-ICBM technology in place so if Russia did try to launch, it would be largely ineffective. Besides, if Russia did try to launch, they'd lose the few allies they have, save for North Korea. It would probably also ensure Siberia leaves - and at that point Russia would be powerless to stop it.
>How would you go about invading Russia, as a senior NATO commander?
NATO would have to nuke Russia, then invade. Tank crew are protected from fallout radiation. If they have filtered air, I think they can enter "fallout plumes" right away. Soldiers not protected by tanks will be able to enter in about 3 weeks: weapons fallout is very different in character from the contamination from, e.g., Chernobyl or Fukushima. It dissipates much more rapidly. In fact, since the fallout plumes will cover only about half of the land area or less, the tanks can map out the locations of the plumes, after which the infantry might be able to enter the parts of the country missed by the fallout plumes well before 3 weeks after the end of the nuclear attack. (The fallout stays in one place after it has fallen out of the sky and has hit the ground -- or more precisely the fallout that does end up being blown around by the wind after it has hit the ground is small enough in particle size to not be deadly, though it will mess up your mucus membranes via beta radiation, hence my words above about filtering the air for the tanks.)
When Jens Stoltenberg says that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, his "cannot be won" is not literally true. He is saying it to emphasize that NATO would never even consider starting a nuclear war. And in fact I don't think the US or NATO ever would choose to start an intercontinental nuclear war, but it is very hard for the Kremlin to come to understand the US well enough to be as confident of that as I am (having lived in the US for over 60 years). Also, the people who run Russia and who will run Russia after Putin is dead are professional spies. They are evaluated by how seriously they take national security. Also, Russia has been invaded about 50 times in its recorded history: by the French, the Germans, a Polish-Lithuanian confederation, Sweden, the Turks many times, various groups (other than the Turks) looking to get slaves, Central Asian peoples and many kinds of steppe nomads (mostly notably the Mongols, Tatars and Cossacks). The whole country takes national security very seriously.
Of course NATO would want to evacuate its cities before it begins its attack. If it does, more than half of its population will survive the inevitable Russian response -- probably much more than half. (It's been a while since I saw the relevant papers.) Also, the US has spent many tens of billions on research into missile defense, and Russia cannot know with any certainly whether that research has born enough fruit so that the US can shoot down most of Russia ICBMs in a big war. Also, the Kremlin has expressed concern that the US Aegis system can shoot down Russian ICBMs, and now that Ukraine is good buddies with NATO, Russia has to consider the possibility of NATO's stationing many Aegis systems in Eastern Ukraine in addition to the Aegis systems already on US destroyers in the Baltic Sea.
In 1951 or so, China sent an army of about a million men against a large number of soldiers of the US Army. This Chinese army had the usual instructions from its political masters, namely, to kill as many US soldiers as possible and to destroy their equipment. They did this even though they would only get their first nuke in the 1960s whereas in 1951 the US had hundreds of nukes. Although the events I just described are a far cry from China's invading the US homeland, it does go against the notion that nukes are somehow a magical shield against conventional military attacks if even a non-nuclear military will contemplate attacking a nuclear power.
By the way, consider the motive of Beijing in 1951: the reason they risked getting nuked was to avoid having a regime (namely, the regime in Seoul) friendly to the US on their border. They preferred having a buffer state, namely, North Korea between them and any country friendly enough with the US to maybe agree to host US troops. They preferred it so much that they sent a million men and risked getting nuked. That is one of the data points that led Mearsheimer, Kissinger, Merkel, Sarkozy and many other security experts to criticize the plan of adding Ukraine to NATO. (Merkel and Sarkozy stopped their criticism because Paris and Berlin depend on Washington to guarantee their security, which gives Washington the last word on Paris and Berlin's security policy, so they went along with the plan even though that thought they still thought it was dumb.)
I think this doesnt really add up. Cause as soon as the US would invaded Russia, not only would Russia nuke the invading armies. They would very probably also start nuking command infrastructure. Which might or might not trigger the MADs doctrine.
Let me try again. The US has about 1400 nuclear weapons or more precisely it has "intercontinental delivery systems" to deliver that many warheads to targets in Russia. (If it is cheating on its obligations under the New START treaty, it could have more.) The US would use most or all of those 1400 warheads on Russia before it starts its invasion. It makes no sense to start an invasion of Russia (e.g., with tanks and trucks) without first thoroughly nuking it (hitting cities, infrastructure and military bases).
(And it makes no sense to nuke Russia without first evacuating US cities and advising Americans to make fallout shelters, which would mostly consist of trenches dug into the ground covered by logs or plywood covered by a plastic sheet to keep out the rain covered by 18 inches of dirt.)
All of which, mind, would be readily visible to any Russian spy satellite, essentially telegraphing intent to Moscow months to years in advance. (Those are large construction projects, of an abnormal nature, which would likely take quite a bit of industrial scale coordination to pull off).
Think about it. There would be acts of Congress involved with drumming up and establishing funding and fiscal programs devoted to the task of constructing, or making available to everyone the material to construct these types of shelters. Once it was prioritized as s National Security priority posture, you can bet your sweet rear Moscow would be on the line to Washington/the State Department, and similarly mobilizing their own interests in response to what would be a transparent act of escalation in the abscence of any reasonable explanation. It would also be a clear signal to someone who actually had some intent to initiate or chance a strike that somehow, news of that had leaked to their adversaries as well, even if they vehemently denied any such intent up to zero-day.
You don't just mobilize on that kind of scale, militarily, or civically without sending very clear and obvious signals to other nation states with even a modicum of interest in self-preservation in the face of external threats. Especially in today's highly interconnected world.
And because that whole Tom Clancy scenario hinges critically on whether the initial NATO missile attack is launched from 523 miles away or 1500, Ukraine should run the white flag up the pole, accept Putin's terms, and get over themselves, already.
There's no difference in distance between Latvia/Estonia (NATO members) and Ukraine.
NATO threat to Russia is internal fear-mongering propaganda and I have no idea why Mearsheimer and others talk about it with a serious face. We're not in the middle of 20th century anymore.
On one hand we have EU/US/NATO intelligence saying Kiev will fall in 72 hours to the 2nd best army in the world.
And then on the other hand we must believe Mearsheimer that Putin really fears that EU/US/NATO would start a war out of the blue with a country that has 45% of world's nuclear arsenal in the middle of Europe?
Give me a break.
No one sane in Europe is interested to start a war with Russia.
Europe and especially Merkel have spent the last few decades turning Russia into an important trading partner and tying them heavily into the European market. This worked well for them with the economic union post World War 2 (that turned into the European Union) which stopped wars in Europe for almost a century.
Similar approach was taken with Russia, but sadly it didn't work.
Russia has every right to fear NATO and make plans around it. But to say Russia invaded Ukraine because of NATO (or nazis) is nonsense.
I don't believe you'll even find any Russian opposition/anti-government journalist/scientist/economist or politician talk the "NATO threat" reasoning seriously. They know what Putin has been doing to their country for the last 20+ years, and it has nothing to do with NATO.
Russia has had Baltic states right on their borders for 20 years since they joined NATO. So if this was their plan it’s out the window regardless.
Russia wants to regain its "lost" territories, started with annexation of tchetchenia (2 wars), annexation of parts of Georgia, and annexation of Crimea. Ukraine was next regardless. They already annexed the break away republics of Ukraine, and even land that they since lost.
No need for pretexts (NATO, denazification, biolabs, or protection of Ukraine ethnic Russians) to explain Ukraine invasion. Ukraine not ruling out joining NATO meant they had to invade while they could, or let go the dream of a glorious Grand Russia.
I mean, they don’t even hide it, it’s all over their state TV networks, with propagandists telling things like "Europe will be ours", "To Berlin", and "The world belongs to the superior Russian race". It’s textbook fascism, state-sponsored, casual, on modern TV shows. I find it disturbing that some still think they are the victim and it’s all about NATO imperialism. When was the last time some NATO country annexed some land?
> Maybe Russia was counting on getting a 15-minute warning of ICBMs approaching, but if a hostile military can station missile right on their southwestern border
Give me a break. You can throw a rock from Estonia and hit Saint Petersburg, look at a map of the area sometime. Estonia has been in NATO for over 15 years or something like that. Somehow Russia's been ok with that situation so far as to not start a shooting war over it.
This war with Ukraine is purely a war of aggression based on a Russian chauvinistic narrative of history. Putin explicitly says so in his writings, e.g. "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians".
Why does thinking about nuclear weapons cause most people to think in absolutist terms like this?
Maybe Russia was counting on getting a 15-minute warning of ICBMs approaching, but if a hostile military can station missile right on their southwestern border (523 miles from the center of Moscow) their plan goes out the window.