I doubt seriously that Medvedev says anything that he hasn’t already run past Putin, so I doubt he’s any sort of honest fringe POV. On the other hand, absolutely agree that he could be running trial balloons for public evaluation, while at the same time making sure to renew the threats of nuclear ‘retaliation’ 
.
I mean, a good 1/2 to 1/3 of the nuclear threats in this thread have come out of him… sadly that percentage isn’t 100%, so we could dismiss it as the whack-a-doodle minority.
I expect most high-level Russians know that using nukes because they’re losing the war would mean the end of the Russian regime and war-crimes trials for those Russian officials who survive. So even if Putin goes nuts and decides to say “fuck the world” and press the button, hopefully those officers would refuse to carry out the orders. I think it’s the same bullshit as before, and we should keep doing everything we can to help Ukraine kick out the invaders.
The Russian public has been steeped for centuries in the idea that the West intends to overrun them. The idea that NATO (the current incarnation of the West) would stop at Russia’s existing internationally recognized borders is a totally foreign idea to them. Gangsters like us would never stop there, never! We lust to occupy sacred Moscow and defile her women!
It’s evident from Putin’s behavior over the last couple of years that he has bought a lot of their own propaganda and group-think, both public and internal. IMO its reasonable to assume a lot of the higher command, both political and military, will have bought the same narrative.
As such I can certainly imagine Putin or his recently elevated successor getting very nervous as the last few of their troops are pushed back the last 50 klicks to the Ukraine/Russian border with Ukraine and perhaps other NATO forces in hot pursuit of the retreating rabble. And them acting nuclearly on that nervousness is far from out of the question.
Consider further if the retreating Russians take a lot of ethnic Ukrainian refugees hostage and set them up in camps say 20-100 klicks into Russia proper. Basically taunting NATO and/or Ukraine to come get them.
The ways that go wrong are legion.
Even if “high-level Russians” are as informed as you expect, they’ve also been inculcated to follow orders, and those who may have been inclined to dispute or undermine Putin have been systematically eliminated. If Putin were to order a general strike on one or more NATO-alligned nations out of the blue that might result in dissension, but an attack on Kyiv as a last desperate attempt to avoid being driven out of Ukraine altogether is only not inconceivable but quite plausible. The question then is what NATO (i.e. the United States) will do as a proportional response; it is difficult to imagine any effective response that is not an in-kind attack but as anyone involved in wargame simulations involving battlefield use of ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons knows that escalation is almost inevitable.
The Russians have good historical reason to feel this way because Russia has been invaded over and over throughout its history. Which is not to say that NATO was in the wrong to expand its sphere of influence in opening membership to Poland, Hungary, the Baltics, and the rest of Eastern Europe but it certainly fed the internal narrative that Russia was being surrounded by its enemies.
Stranger
just as a thought-experiment:
What if the USofA declare that they might (might being the operative word) supply Ukr. with nukes (at Ukr. discretion) if russia is using nukes in Ukr.
This would hugely make any russian nuke-option way more complex (let alone “costly”) in terms of war-gaming and potential next moves on the chess-board.
Wouldn’t that (should events converge towards a potential russian nuke-strike) be an interesting option, as russia would now have to nuke a nuclear power…
again, more of a thought-experiment of expanding the “options-space” if things move into this direction, and again the USA “might” or might not …
Nothing wrong with a thought experiment, but traditionally the US/NATO has wanted to oppose nuclear proliferation, and de-escalate conflicts that threaten to head in that direction. And once given, they’re be hard to retrieve, even from an allied power.
Or are you implying we leak information that we might supply the Ukraine with nukes and then refuse to confirm/deny the rumors as a psy-ops?
Either way, I suspect that it would increase the Russian paranoia about the existential threat, and intensify the conflict, rather than create a mini-MAD, because that would be a lot more than a few nukes.
Are you suggesting the timeline is Russia drops nuke(s) on Ukraine then the US (or NATO) says they’ll supply Ukraine w nukes in response? IMO that’s weeks too late in a stage of the war where moves and countermoves will be measured in hours. And hence implausible. The government of post-nuked Ukraine will disintegrate in hours if not minutes.
A more plausible scenario is that as Russia is inexorably losing, they make increasing noises that the red line for them is losing conquered-and-annexed former Ukrainian territory X, perhaps some subsection of the Donbas. IOW: If Ukraine takes this particular Donbas city, Kyiv gets nukes. In response to this red line threat by Russia, the US or NATO says they’ll give nukes now to Ukraine with no strings or controls attached. IOW, the Ukrainians can use them whenever however as they choose.
IMO that’s a better hypothetical, but it’s still flat wacko. The West gets zero plausible deniability, zero reduction in blame for a nuclear counterstrike on Russia or Russian expeditionary forces. If the Ukrainians use their gift nuke on Russia proper, Russia will escalate to NATO proper. And will be widely predicted by NATO to do so. That’s not a winning move for NATO.
Far better for the US/NATO to make their own red line that they control, not just influence, about what they’ll do if the Russians are aggressive enough to cross that red line. Which is pretty much where we are today.
In the past, I’ve supported the concept of nuclear non-proliferation, but I always understood why places like Iran and North Korea wanted nukes. This last year has proven to my satisfaction that Ukraine should have never given up all its nukes back in the 90s. I’m at the point where I half-believe that every country in the world should have at least a few nukes.
I don’t think the US should announce anything about giving Ukraine nukes. I think they should just them some. Then let Ukraine make a public announcement that they are now a nuclear state, no take-backs.
Once this whole mess is over, and we’re rebuilding Russia, we shouldn’t just give them money. We should buy (most of) their nukes from them. And then give a few of those nukes to every country around them. And a few other countries around the world. Canada gets at least ten!
“Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind.” King Lear (IV.i.2302)
Stranger
As a countermeasure to invasion, I’m sure it would cause second thoughts.
But I’m also sure there are far too many that would be happy to use them to end a vendetta and care little for the consequences.
So I think I’ll just disagree and be glad I see no way it would ever happen. I hope.
I really don’t want to LARP the Fallout Series.
Yeah, except we’ve had some countries with at least a few nukes for decades now, including batshit insane countries (North Korea), regular insane countries (Pakistan), countries with ongoing border disputes and animosity (India vs. Pakistan, India vs. China) and countries with border disputes with essentially everyone around them, and few they don’t even share borders with (Israel), and yet, not one of them has used a nuke out of personal pique.
I suspect the “Woohoo! We have nukes, let’s finally settle accounts with those bastards from East Elbonia!” factor is just not that important. Being able to nuke the capital of East Elbonia is a good threat if EE is being belligerent, but if that’s all you can realistically nuke, you’re not very likely to pull the trigger.
Plus, we all know that keeping nukes, and their delivery systems, operational isn’t cheap. Small nations aren’t going to have very many of them at the best of times, and they’ll know one thing for certain: every country around them also has nukes. Sure, you could nuke East Elbonia, but what so you do when West Elbonia, South-west Elbonia, North Elbonia, Not Quite So North Elbonia, and the Independent Republic of Elbonians Who Can’t Use A Compass each use one nuke on you, in retaliation?
It’s not quite so crazy an idea as it sounds.
It’s like having a rather large grenade in a rather small room. Yeah, you can pull the pin and toss it, but then what?
Yeah, figuring out how to use nukes in reality is always going to be a problem.
But if I only had ten nukes to defend Canada, I’d have maybe three deployed on some kind of ballistic missile to effectively threaten places outside Canada, and few, smaller nukes that could be deployed as nuclear landmines/seamines on likely invasion routes. Make it clear that any large concentration of troops crossing our borders or approaching our shores would risk being nuked in the field.
Sure, might not stop a determined aggressor, but might might make them question how determined they really are.
I guess that depends on the sagacity of the listener.
From whom is Canada going to acquire an intercontinental ballistic missile, where and how would they base it, and who is going to secure and maintain this arsenal to keep it secure from misuse, theft, or sabotage?
Stranger
Come on. North Korea managed to do all of that, despite the opposition of the entire world. I’m pretty sure Canada could pull it off if we wanted to.
I’d be less worried about the prospects of old foes settling old scores with nukes, and more worried about the steadily multiplying possibility of an accidental nuclear war breaking out and going worldwide, or at least regional in scope, before saner heads prevail.
We’ve come awfully close several times - Petrov, Arkhipov, Able Archer 83, the bear incident during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 1979 NORAD computer error - and that’s just with mainly two antagonists. Multiply those by all the different countries in the world, and yeah - I’d be really worried.
Except all those events took place in the context of countries having hundreds or thousands of nukes, which they routinely deployed in the field, often very far from their home state. That complicates matters enormously, and increases the chances of an error. And even then, we never actually had an accident.
When a small country has only ten nukes, it will be much easier to secure them. They also won’t be sending them out every day on B-52s or ballistic missile submarines.
North Korea is an authoritarian dictatorship that routinely executes people in leadership positions if they appear to be defiant in any way and spends the bulk of the of its GDP on its nuclear program. North Korea is not an example of anything except how to be a hermit kingdom run by a dynasty of self-beatified despots.
There is nothing easy or cheap about handling, securing, and maintaining nuclear weapons not withstanding the secure communications, command, control, and intelligence (C3l) systems to validate any orders for deployment for use or installing and maintaining ICBM or long range stealth aircraft to deploy them. This is a moronic idea borne of blithe ignorance of any issues associated with the control, maintenance, and deployment of nuclear weapons.
Stranger
No, that’s a lousy reason to feel this way. Every nation on the planet has been invaded over and over throughout its history, but the vast majority of nations manage to not live in perpetual fear of it happening again.
Years ago, when I hadn’t had nearly enough sleep and was driving around exhausted, I suddenly realized that I’d just run a red light without even pausing. Luckily, nobody else was trying to come through the intersection at that moment (and there were no police in sight.)
I didn’t think ‘hey, I didn’t have an accident! So I can keep right on doing this, and even do more of it!’ I thought ‘wow, I was really lucky, I need to quit driving when I’m that tired!’