[NoMoreNicksLeft]

The ideal scenario would have been if Ukraine had secretly retained 30-100 warheads. Everyone likes to prattle on about how they couldn't even have used them: those people are mentally retarded. A sophisticated government with nuclear and aerospace scientists could have easily dismantled interlocks and installed their own. Maybe not in a hurry, but they had 3 decades more or less. And if they didn't have the expertise, they might have outsourced it to Taiwan for the fee of a few nukes to keep.

Ukraine *desperately* needs to be a nuclear weapons state. Nothing else will suffice. They need more than one bomb, really more than three or four. Putin has to be terrified that no matter how many nuclear strikes he endures, another waits to follow. When he fears that, the war will end.

[wat10000]

The war might end in Ukraine being flattened by Russian nuclear weapons if that happened. Putin would be backed into a corner. End the invasion after suffering a nuclear strike (or just the threat of one) and he'll risk being deposed and meet a gruesome end. Retaliate overwhelmingly and risk escalation from other nuclear powers. It's not clear to me that the second risk would be worse, and definitely not clear to me that Putin wouldn't see that as the better of two bad options.

As has been illustrated so well over the past few years, the power of nuclear weapons is a paradox. It allows you to make the ultimate threat. But that threat isn't credible unless people believe you'll use them. Because the consequences of using them are so severe, they're only credible if used in response to a correspondingly severe threat. Russia's arsenal hasn't allowed it to stop a constant flow of weapons to its enemy, an enemy which has invaded and still controls a small bit of Russian territory, and which frequently carries out aerial attacks on Russian territory. Ukraine faces much more of an existential threat (Ukraine has no prospect of conquering Russia, but the reverse is a serious possibility) so a nuclear threat from Ukraine would be more credible, but it could easily still not be enough. Certainly they're not an automatic "leave me alone" card.

[brabel]

I agree with most of what you said but there’s zero possibility Russia will take over all of Ukraine. Even Putin never claimed they would, this seems like a fantasy some people like to propagate to instigate fear in Europe or something. They spent three years on a gruesome fight to take less than a fifth of the territory and the rest is much harder as the further West you go, the more nationalist Ukrainians are. Check the maps of political opinion on Russia before the war started. Looks pretty close to the current frontline where the divide between pro and against Russia lies. Attacking a NATO country would mean the end for Russia and both sides know it perfectly well even if they may say otherwise publicly to either scare people into supporting their militarism or to gain political points.

[wat10000]

I don't think it's likely, but I do think it's possible. If the US and EU get tired of helping Ukraine, they'll have a much harder time resisting Russian attacks. Once they do, why would Russia stop? Maybe they would. Maybe they'd pause, declare peace, and take the rest a year or three later. Maybe they'd just keep going. Putin saying he doesn't want it doesn't convince me in the slightest. He's a Soviet Union revanchist in terms of territory if not political system, and they owned the place before.

Not sure what the consequences of attacking NATO has to do with this.

[brabel]

Russia would still stop because controlling the rest of Ukraine would be more trouble than it is worth for them. And they might gain some concessions from the West. Attacking NATO is a common talk point in the West about what happens after Russia takes over Ukraine and Zelenskyy is more than happy to suggest that is to be expected as he says they are fighting for all of Europe.

[wat10000]

Invading Ukraine in the first place appears to have been far more trouble than it was worth, and it didn’t stop them.

[brabel]

On the contrary they seem to be doing much better than anyone expected, maybe even themselves, and they appear to have successfully stopped Ukraine from ever joining NATO which was absolutely their main objective, just see what they have been saying since 1992.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

>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.

[wat10000]

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.

[mc32]

I dunno if I agree with them being nuclear. It just ups the possibility of a thermonuclear war instead of a conventional war. Just as I’d prefer that IN or PK or both not having those weapons.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

The only historical examples we have of nuclear war occurred when the capability was unilateral. MAD actually works. The fear you have of a thermonuclear war is a good thing, and that fear can exist in Putin as well... but only if Ukraine has the weapons to instill such fear.

> Just as I’d prefer that IN or PK or both not having those weapons.

The only reason we haven't seen a Ukraine-like invasion in that region is that they both have nukes. MAD works.

[mc32]

Mini nukes change the equation. If you get two crazy hot-heads making decisions where no-one can overrule their decisions; things could go in unexpected ways. MAD presumes rational actors. If Iraq and Iran would have had nukes in the mid 80s I’m not sure that they wouldn’t have used them.