Comment by troupo
2 days ago
Yup. As soon as Russia nukes someone, the war instantly ends. Because no one will ever think to retaliate.
2 days ago
Yup. As soon as Russia nukes someone, the war instantly ends. Because no one will ever think to retaliate.
I get the sarcasm, but besides the US that for whatever reason might retaliate with nukes, who else? And would they risk it just because?
I think if there is no retaliation to a nuclear strike on Ukraine, every nuclear capable country will rush towards nuclear weapons as fast as possible.
The reason being, Europe has a long term understanding they are under the nuclear umbrella of the USA which means that Europe does not need to maintain their own atomic weapons. If that long term agreement does not hold, the only way to deter Russia is to have nuclear weapons of your own since you cannot rely on deterrence from other countries.
Once everyone has nukes, Russia can no longer bully countries around because they will glass Moscow. This is a worse state than today where Russia can invade countries using conventional weapons without much consequence.
UK and France are possibly more likely to retaliate, given the proximity.
Retaliate for what? They wouldn't be attacked.
That's the thing I don't understand: why would they try to nuke Moscow if they weren't the ones attacked? And would they risk their own demise (considering the imbalance in warheads between them and Russia)?
1 reply →
> And would they risk it just because?
Look up the reasons for both blocs in the Cold War withdrawing all of their (numerous) tactical nuclear weapons systems by the 1980s.
TL;DR: MAD and “escalation”
Yup. A country that starts nuking other countries in a genocidal war of conquest will not ever be seen as a threat by any other countries and will not suffer any consequences ever.
Russia has already entered this war on the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everybody and nobody was going to bomb them.
I maybe missing something, but it feels bonkers to me of why with all the MIRVs they have on hundreds of nukes they do not feel the need to carpet bomb Ukraine with them.
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