Note: edited to reflect new information.
The war in Ukraine drags on, and the courage and skill of the Ukrainian defenders continues to astonish the world. As I write, they've just announced a missile strike on the Russian Navy's flagship in the Black Sea, the cruiser Moskva. The Russians are reduced to trying to save face by claiming the ship was damaged through their own incompetence instead of enemy action. All good news.
Which is making me very nervous. The Russian leadership keep doubling down. Their negotiations all seem to be in bad faith, trying to buy time for their wrecked armies to rebuild. But as they lose more and more hardware, and their manpower pool becomes newly-inducted conscripts, I fear the temptation is growing in Moscow to use Russia's most powerful weapon, her nuclear arsenal.
Deterrence? Ukraine isn't part of NATO, and the leaders of all the major powers have been taking great pains to make it clear that they won't fight Russia. There won't be any armed response to a nuclear strike. The current economic sanctions are about as bad as they can get. Russia's already a moral pariah. What would the Kremlin have to lose by dropping a "tactical" warhead on Mariupol, or Odessa, or Kyiv itself? If anyone has a good answer to that question I really want to hear it.
Risk of escalation from the law of unintended consequences.
The nuke can probably be only used once because it don't get their aim, Ukraine surrendering to them, then while one nuke might go by unchallenged, several nukes might be required to get their desired result.
Posted by: AshleyRPollard | 04/15/2022 at 01:29 PM