General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why has the Crimean Bridge, also called the Kerch Strait Bridge, not been blown up? [View all]relayerbob
(6,508 posts)But, no, those two statements are not even close to the same.
Putin has been trying to goad is into striking since day 1, with the expectation that he can then use that as propaganda to support his war. You have his reasoning completely backward. Their military theory is "escalate to de-escalate", in other words, keep ratcheting things up until we attack, then use nukes to terrify and split NATO on how to respond. He isn't worried about our counter-strikes, and isn't using the threats to intimidate us, but instead to goad us into pre-emptive action. Putin absolutely would use tactical nukes, it's not an idle threat, they've been practicing it for years, and believe a limited nuclear war is winnable and won't escalate to all-out planetary destruction. He is trying to do to us what Osama Bin Laden did on 9/11, goad us into attacking, and using that as a rallying point for his side. In the end, as I said elsewhere, the very first place he would use WMD is in Ukraine, to "demonstrate" the futility of our intervention. Orders of magnitude more Ukrainian civilians dead than under the current structure. This is terrible to watch, but nothing in comparison to what it could be.
Instead, we are calibrating our responses carefully, to cause Russia maximum pain, while minimizing the risks to Ukraine and the rest of the world. This has helped to throw their war-planning into chaos. They've already admitted they didn't think the West could unite to create such harsh sanctions, nor did they expect to see NATO close ranks. They also didn't expect us to delivery so much into Ukraine to fight his worthless army. Bear in mind, also, we had nowhere near the men and materials in Eastern Europe to have us fight a war in February. This has all bought us time to get a LOT of forces in place that were not there before.
This article sums it all up very well ... from 2015, but all the principles are exactly the same.
https://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war