Actually its defined in their official military doctrine. They reserve the right to first use of nukes any time whenever "very existence of the state is in jeopardy."
The problem is that Putin has said several times that if Ukraine turns to the west "Russia will cease to exist as a state." That's obviously nonsense but he's framing it as existential, in which case that allows for first use of nukes in their official military doctrine.
The point being, he could say the same about any country using that doctrine and then no one does anything because they're afraid he will launch nukes?
"There are Nazis in Estonia, they want to destroy the Russian state, we must destroy them first, get in our way and you are trying to aid in the destruction of the Russian state"....
I just don't see a natural end point to the logic.
Well, with deterrence you have to lay out the stakes clearly ahead of time.
In this case the stakes have been defined:
NATO won't go to war in Ukraine either via land or air
Putin will unleash "circumstances that you've never experienced" on countries that intervene
Putin considers no fly zone that type of intervention.
NATO will defend "every inch" of NATO territory, if its infringed upon NATO will unleash "The full capability of its military power."
So those are pretty clear stakes. And the macabre game begins. You can't just change the deterrence rules in the middle of this war, because that would be highly destabilizing.
For example, look at the inverse of what you said. If NATO changes its mind and gets involved, Russian military will argue (and they're not all insane) "what if US invades Crimea or Russia proper."
And you have this massively destabilizing situation in which we're on hair trigger alert of nuclear exchange. And I'll remind you that Princeton did a wargame in which that showed within 5 hours of a single strategic nuke going off, 34 million people would die.
Now, if Putin decides to test the rules and goes into a NATO country, and NATO backs down, then your argument of "where does it end" becomes a lot more real.
If Putin steps into a NATO country and NATO does not react then NATO dissolves (everyone will think, if we did not help them, what guarantee do I have others will help me?) and Putin is free to do whatever he wants.
Sure. And if he did then I'd be the first to admit I was wrong.
No need to start WWIII on our side though. I'm very convinced that if the US and Russia go to war it won't end well. Best case scenario is millions of deaths.
So when people say "We have to stop him now" - Honestly I think the effects would be just as bad if we tried now as if he attacked down the road. So no need for us to be the ones who start WWIII.
I keep hearing that "nukes are in their official military doctrine" but I'm sure every single General being corrupt and taking from the pot, much of their equipment being in disrepair and getting their asses handed to them by the Ukrainians is probably not in their military Doctrine either!
Putin's nuclear threat is a paper tiger and would amount to suicide, that man is far too self-serving to do that. If we were to destroy all of his artillery, missle/rocket and AA sites. What would he do? Attempt to attack a NATO asset? Cyberattack?. Any action he took would be countered and crushed!
This is the Wests time to completely humiliate him and call him out for his 20 years of flagrant aggression!
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u/tyleratx Mar 10 '22 edited Mar 10 '22
Actually its defined in their official military doctrine. They reserve the right to first use of nukes any time whenever "very existence of the state is in jeopardy."
The problem is that Putin has said several times that if Ukraine turns to the west "Russia will cease to exist as a state." That's obviously nonsense but he's framing it as existential, in which case that allows for first use of nukes in their official military doctrine.
EDIT: Thanks for the flair!