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by frupert52
1636 days ago
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Interesting to see some familiar topics here, I thought I was the only one. You may be interested to know that some time in the last decade the Russians clearly signalled they would be prepared to use nuclear weapons in Europe. Brilliant play since they know the US sentiment around preparedness to enter another conflict that isn’t theirs. By simply signalling they forced the US to consider other options hence the decisions to deploy tactical nuclear capabilities not subject to the same rules as strategic nuclear weapons. And last I heard they were deploying these tactical capabilities to a sub class also responsible for SSG. I’m very curious to understand whether Russian simply signalling in the way that they did has caused the US to strategically compromise their second strike guarantee. That would mean that by simply introducing the idea they have let the US take the mutually assured destruction elements off the table that made it so risky to begin with. |
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* To your point (let me know if you disagree) I think that the MAD concept can be overcome and we'll see countries figure out strategis around it. What if you had World War III and... just nobody fired the nukes? New York City is bombed, Moscow is invaded, whatever and the countries just don't do the doomsday? What if we've taken MAD for granted and it turns out it's not even on the table?
* > Brilliant play since they know the US sentiment around preparedness to enter another conflict that isn’t theirs
Many wars and conflicts begin because of miscalculations. I think on Putin's part for Russia this could be one of those. I mentioned this in another thread but the U.S. just spent 20 years at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, people dying, IEDs, terrorists, all of that stuff and if you turned the TV off you'd have no idea these wars were going on. America spent 20 years doing this stuff in two countries and not a single American day-to-day really gave a crap. While it may be the case that America is not willing to fight in Eastern Europe, I think that this is one of those potential miscalculations and it's certainly an unknown variable. Hell, even if the American people were not being drafted the US military is certainly actively strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Russia or anyone so we could yet again have a military at war but not a people. Just some food for thought. Even with Biden (smartly IMO) actually getting us out of Afghanistan, the left and the right were crowing about it. Might be more willingness to fight then one might think and this could lead the U.S. to another direct conflict with Russia this decade. [1]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/world/middleeast/american...