Taking the war to Russia:

[Tomconroy]

Link to tweet

[ck4829]

1. K&R

[Wounded Bear]

2. I hope "the war has crossed into Russia"...nt

[Aussie105]

3. I imagine fuel and ammo supply stores near the border

but on Russian territory are possible targets for Ukrainian attack.
Pre-emptive denial of war materials for the Russian troops.

But as usual, the civilians pay the price.
Suffering is the same, borders don't matter when it comes to that.

[Tomconroy]

4. Ukraine won't target civilians. They aren't russia.

[Sherman A1]

5. Since day one the war has been taken to Russia

EU and NATO Intelligence sharing has been a force multiplier for Ukraine and that should not be dismissed.

Economic sanctions although slower to cause affect are essentially economic warfare and are hurting the Russian. It will likely be a very long cold winter before Russia recovers from the losses to their economy. Countries, Companies and Individuals will steer clear of doing business there and they will be considered a backwater market at best.

The information campaign run by the US and it’s partners labeling Russia as the international outlaw state that it most certainly is have and continue to back them into a corner. The civilized world will simply not want to be associated with the Russias in the arts, sports, or other areas of social exchange.

All these are hurting Russia and helping Ukraine in ways that alone the Ukrainian Government could never hope to accomplish on it’s own.

[Tomconroy]

6. The West needs to do much more if it is ever going to

meet Sec. Austin's stated goal.

[Sherman A1]

7. The west is doing a whole lot both seen and unseen

I will trust President Biden and his team.

[Tomconroy]

8. He needs to fire the law professor

[DFW]

9. Like Rumsfeld with Iraq, Putin thought his invasion would be a done deal in a month

Neither of them were expecting a long drawn-out conflict, and Putin is in a far worse position to ask his countrymen to bear the consequences than Cheney ever was. Sure, Cheney used the whole affair to grab a few gazillion dollars and bust our budget, but no one went begging because of it. The banking crisis and real estate crash of 2007-2008 hit the American public much harder than Cheney stealing $8 billion in cash stashed in the Iraqi desert somewhere.

The joker is that Saddam and ISIS didn't have a few hundred intercontinental nuclear missiles at their disposal as a last resort. We have to hope (and I don't find this especially reassuring) that Putin's military will stop him before he starts making serious plans to use them. It is not a Russian tradition for the military to step in and prevent the political leadership from going too far. We just have to hope that there's a first time, because we just don't yet have an answer to the question of whether our principles are more important to us than backing down from a nuclear conflict. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be Joe Biden if confronted with THAT one.

[Tomconroy]

10. The use of nuclear weapons is part of Russian military doctrine.

[Model35mech]

13. Nukes are 'first strike' weapons...they depend on the element of surprise

Putin and his pals keep noisily threatening about using them. It seems he sees their value mostly in the terror he can stir up in his threats.

Not cornering a snake is always a concern, but once Putin is trapped in a losing circumstance, the nukes don't fix it, but make it harder and more costly to escape.


Pundits and 'experts' talk more and more about it becoming a stalemate, and it's a pretty good possibility that stalemate will seriously settle in along a contact line not tremendously different from what it was at the start of the invasion. In that circumstance Putin could find an exit opportunity by declaring the operation successful in the liberation of the pro-Russian separatist areas. That sort of result might be just a few months away.

All that depends on 1) Ukraine being able to fight back to near the original contact line and holding it (they seem capable of doing that if supplied with war materials from the West) and 2) Ukraine accepting the loss of the separatist areas in the east and northern shore of the Sea of Azov.


But the Russian war atrocities to date present a huge problem, it's going to be hard for Ukraine to end the war with a cease fire and treaty with the nation whose 'special operation' victimized it in an encyclopedic collection of war crimes.

Lighting off nukes in Ukraine (or elsewhere) makes those atrocities all the worse. International punishment would be extremely severe, likely making the Treaty of Versailles look like a parking ticket, and leaving Russia downsized physically and economically in the same way as Austro Hungary was after WWI.

[Tomconroy]

20. Would international punishment be severe if Putin fires off

A localized nuke?
Putin has committed war crimes and the West's response has been mediocre. Never Again?

[Model35mech]

23. Yes I think so. But if that localized strike isn't on a nuclear power

(or a member of an alliance that has 'a strike on any of us is a strike on all of us' security obligation) that response may not be a retaliatory nuclear strike. However, if the radioactive impact of a Putin strike damages a NATO partner retaliation would probably be open to reciprocal use of the biggest things on the table.

Retaliation for a nuke strike in Ukraine is harder to speculate on. If Russia tosses one of their many tactical nukes I think it's likely they toss many at easy soft targets. How many is a factor that would perhaps scale ( though likely exponentially) the international response.

Foreseeably responses would almost surely involve clean-up and health-care teams probably composed of militaryt and also probably protected by international military forces to deal with nuclear contamination and injuries. Also it's almost certain to result in the distribution of more and more powerful and long-range lethal aid, that could include weapons capable of reaching into Russian territory and vessels anywhere on the Black Sea.

I also would expect much enhanced economic and cyber warfare on soft but seriously important economic assets. It's likely that any nation standing with Russia would lose favored nation trading status. Beyond that are the many possibilities that depend on just how pissed off the international community becomes.

Crippling rather than merely weakening Russia would likely become the goal and Russian near full economic isolation would be advanced.

[DFW]

17. I would amend that slightly

The threat of the use of nuclear weapons is an integral part of their strategy. It is a convenient backup to an inferior conventional force. Any first deployment, however, no matter by whom, automatically renders the deployer a target for annihilation by the rest of the world. This is not 1945. The nuclear club has quite a few members now. India and Pakistan, for example, may hate each other's guts, but even they are smart enough to never to be a first deployer of nuclear weapons on the other.

[Tomconroy]

21. Putin takes out a city in Ukraine. Do you think the US will

launch everything in return? I don't. I don't know what Biden would do. I hope he has a plan.

[DFW]

22. We won't launch anything in return

We would NEVER launch a nuke unless someone had sent one our way first.

But if Putin continues with his line that there is no Ukraine, and it is really only a part of Russia, how will it go over that he is willing to nuke his own country? Everyone used to joke about Nixon nuking Washington or Trump nuking California, but in real life? It's a hell of a step.

[Model35mech]

24. How do you define 'our way' when considering radioactive fallout and Article 5?

If the wind blows the wrong way the day the hypothetical bomb is dropped on Ukraine, radiation would surely end up on NATO countries.

Seems to me illness and deaths from such radiation on one or more of Romania, Slovakia, Poland and the Baltic States would likely be seen as being intentional. Intentional radioactive contamination would have the victim nation(s) screaming for the required NATO response.

[DFW]

26. If it were a "dirty" bomb, Soviet scientists knew already how far and how bad the fallout would get

Chernobyl at the latest was a guide for them. If they drop a nuclear weapon anywhere on Ukrainian territory, their tech people will be able to predict how bad the fallout will be, and how far it might spread. Putin will deny it, of course, and whine how "accurate" his military is, but they will know in advance who will be affected and where. If NATO is being sensible, they will have already informed the Kremlin that they consider nuclear contamination from any bomb the Russians drop on the Ukraine will be considered a direct attack on the country that suffers from it. No compromise.

One saving factor, albeit one growing ever slimmer, is that fact that Russia using a nuclear bomb anywhere against a country that cannot retaliate in kind makes them the ultimate cowards in the eyes of the world (with the possible exception of North Korea), and that might be a swallowing of pride that Putin is not prepared to undergo (yet, anyway).

[Model35mech]

27. I do think fallout drfting to another nation will be treated the same as an attack

I can also see charges of depraved indifference for protecting human life at his war crimes trial

It's a question of winds and locations attacked, Odessa and Lviv are certainly close enough to NATO member states; contamination could really happen.

If Putin goes in for one nuke, I'd expect him to see no real differences in the consequences between one and many. So I'd expect him to launch more.

[Tomconroy]

25. He used a lot of bombs to level Mairupol. Is it much

different to use one bomb to level Kharkiv. He is capable of anything.

[DFW]

28. Yes, it would be hugely different to use a nuclear bomb

He can level ANY city in a few days using enough conventional bombs. They have the capacity to accurately send rockets, cruise missiles, whatever, accurately from 500 KM away (i.e. Russian or Byelorussian territory). Wiping a city from the map is done to terrorize other cities into surrender. "Look what happens to you if you don't...." Sometimes it works (Japan, August 6, 9, 1945), sometimes it doesn't (Dresden, Feb. 13-15, 1945). Had the maniacs in Berlin looked at Dresden after the bombing, they should have known that Berlin would look as bad if they didn't surrender. They didn't surrender, and Berlin ended up looking that bad. The Japanese looked at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and said, "OK, we get it, we're done." After what Germany and Japan had wrought, there was little sympathy left in the world for them in 1945. That is definitely NOT the case here. The Ukrainians have nothing BUT friends, and Putin can't seem to figure out why. Maybe his emotional make-up won't permit him to.

There are two things he does not seem capable of, and that is apologizing and admitting a mistake. King Derwin of Didd is drowning in oobleck because he is incapable of saying he is sorry. One way or the other, he has built a lifetime prison for himself. If he survives, he will need to be surrounded by a heavy security detail 24/7 for the rest of his life, no matter where he spends it. If he is somehow brought before the tribunal at the Hague, he will end up like Milošević.

[Walleye]

11. Every war starts with the aggressor thinking it's gonna take about a week or two

The Confederates thought they would kick the union army’s ass by the end of the summer.

[The Magistrate]

12. Indeed, Ma'am

Everyone thinks they've got enough ammunition, too....


"We learn from history that nobody learns from history."

[Walleye]

16. That is a great quote. About not learning from history

[The Magistrate]

19. There's This One As Well, Ma'am

"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Those who do are doomed to gesticulate wildly crying 'No! Don't do that again!'"

[DFW]

14. Ain't that the truth

The Confederacy thought there would be two or three repeats of Bull Run, and the Union would leave them alone.

Oops.

[Walleye]

15. The Southerners thought those northern city boys didn't know how to shoot guns. Much like now

[DFW]

18. If they read the headlines from L.A. and Chicago these days

They might now think that northern city boys do nothing BUT shoot guns.