[PJDK]

I think it's worth gaming out a world without nuclear weapons in the context of the Ukraine war.

It seems pretty undeniable that both Russia and NATO would be more willing to countenance a direct confrontation.

Not only that, surely by this point both sides would be dusting off plans to start construction once again. That immediately opens up the likelihood of preemptive strikes to prevent your opponent actually achieving a new nuclear weapon.

[gambiting]

>>I think it's worth gaming out a world without nuclear weapons in the context of the Ukraine war.

I'm not so sure - someone else might equally argue that if Ukraine had nuclear weapons it wouldn't have been attacked in the first place, so maybe that's the path that it should have taken.

And equally - "both Russia and NATO would be more willing to countenance a direct confrontation."

Maybe. Or maybe it's posturing. I think EU's support for Ukraine is huge and populations of many countries still support sending them weapons and supplies, but if they had to send their men and women to die in Ukraine the discussion would be different. Not saying they wouldn't, just that it's easy to say "oh if only Russia didn't have nuclear weapons we'd definitely go and fight them". It's theoretical.

[mr_00ff00]

I think you vastly overestimate how much old politicians care about sending other people to die.

[dragonwriter]

> It seems pretty undeniable that both Russia and NATO would be more willing to countenance a direct confrontation.

The only reason Russia is willing to engage in a direct conflict with Ukraine is their nuclear weapons make them feel secure that that won’t evolve into a direct conflict with NATO, which, without nuclear weapons, would be immediate ruin for Russia.

Nuclear weapons enable direct aggression by nuclear powers against anyone except other nuclear powers.

[littlestymaar]

> It seems pretty undeniable that both Russia and NATO would be more willing to countenance a direct confrontation.

Without nuclear weapons, Russia would likely not have invaded in the first place, because a NATO intervention would have been likely and would have ended in the annihilation of the Russian military in just a few weeks.