Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft
3 months ago
>Putin would be backed into a corner.
He'd be backed into the door marked "exit". There is no corner to trap him here.
>End the invasion after suffering a nuclear strike
And why do you believe that Zelensky or whoever is in charge would nuke Moscow first? Do you think that, if they had say 30 nukes (plenty for a few relatively harmless demonstrations) that this would be the first target? Obviously they'd pick something that he could decide to de-escalate afterwards.
>they're only credible if used in response to a correspondingly severe threat.
You mean such as the severe threat that Ukraine has endured for a decade at this point? The war now threatens to make them functionally extinct. Many have fled and will never return, their population is reduced to something absurdly low, many of their children have been forcibly abducted to be indoctrinated or tormented/tortured.
That condition you impose was pre-satisfied.
>Certainly they're not an automatic "leave me alone" card.
Of course not. They'd have to be used intelligently (readers: "used" does not imply detonated). It's not entirely clear to me that this would be the case with Ukraine/Zelensky. But nothing less at this point will suffice. Even if the US promised to put 150,000 troops on the ground, this wouldn't end. It would only escalate. Perhaps to that nuclear war you seem to fear.
I don't think Putin would have an exit. Losing the war would result in a major risk to his continued rule, and thus to his person, from a collapse of domestic support. A Ukrainian nuclear strike would present him with a choice: risk internal revolt, or risk the consequences of nuclear retaliation. I'm not remotely confident he'd choose the first. And, to be very clear, the second would make Ukraine (and likely the rest of the world) a lot worse off than they are today.