Long story short, Putin's plan is, depending on how Ukraine goes, to further attack Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, maybe Finland (they'll join NATO by the end of the year if not sooner as will Sweden), maybe Poland , and push the United States and UK out of Europe. If Ukraine goes very well, this will be sooner. If Ukraine goes poorly but he still wins and installs a puppet government, it'll be on a longer time frame once he consolidates forces and adds the remnants of the Ukrainian and Moldovan militaries to the Russian and Belarusian ones.
The reasoning here is pretty sound, and the more I think about it the more I come to believe that NATO should be fighting Russia right now - at least deny them air superiority. Russia wants a war, whether NATO wants one or not, so you might as well give it to em' with the other consideration being letting the Russian military get ground down in Ukraine and seeing how that plays out.
What will happen is that if Putin wins Ukraine and invades, say, Latvia, he'll invade and then when NATO responds he will use one or more tactical nuclear weapons on the military bases that forces are responding from. So if NATO is launching air assets from a Polish airbase, he'll nuke that. And then he'll say - let me have what I want or I'll use more. Now what? Will NATO nuke a Russian base in exchange? Will it be a base in Belarus? Ukraine? Russia itself? It's easy to see this spiraling out of control. But if you believe Putin will use nuclear weapons (and I do) the endgame is that he destroys NATO and pushes "western" influence out of continental Europe.
Putin believes there are 3 pillars: US, China, Russia. He does respect the US, but thinks he can win. His goal is to create an ethnostate, similar to China, centered around Russian culture. Taking Kiev is super important to that because despite his rhetoric that Ukraine isn't a state or whatever, it is the historical cultural home of the Russian people. So he's going to want that to create a new shared ideology around the glory of the Russian people. He'll then look to cut out the US, UK, and any "liberal" sympathies.
> What about sanctions?
He doesn't care. He doesn't want to integrate with the US or the west. Russia has plenty of natural resources. Ukraine gives them plenty of farmland. Why would he need western money?
Currently we're playing along just like he planned. We tried negotiating, he went through the motions. We enacted sanctions, which he knew would happen. They shut down Nordstream 2, which he knew would happen (and leave Europeans with higher energy prices). And now he's just executing his plan and NATO is saber rattling about defending NATO territory, which... goes back to the Baltic question. Will NATO go to nuclear war over those countries? I think conventional war absolutely. But when Putin nukes a Polish air base or a Romanian one. Now what?
So we need(ed) to do something unsuspected. And I think the only option was to immediately go to war and force the issue on NATO's term. Unfortunately I think NATO is in a bad position.
Oh... and that's without literal traitors like Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump, Tulsi Gabbard, and others who are "pro-russia" while we're about to be in a war with Russia. So now we have to figure out how to deal with those people too.
The Russian Army is not the powerhouse the Soviet Army once was, relative to NATO. If the Russians go after Estonia/Lithuania/Latvia/Poland/etc conventional NATO forces can stop said invasions, no need to launch nukes.
Hell the German military might do some actual fighting for once if their Polish buffer state is threatened.
Of course, NATO's conventional forces can demolish Russia's conventional forces if they go toe to toe. But what do you do when once NATO war planes or a carrier strike group engage and shoot down Russian planes or bomb Russian tanks when Putin literally nukes an airbase with a small yield tactical nuclear weapon? Keep going at it? Try to stop? I mean that's the crux of the issue. Putin knows that he can't beat NATO toe to toe right? So why is he doing anything? It's because he thinks he can use nuclear weapons to get NATO to back down. IMO. Just taking these two eastern regions isn't enough, because he could have gotten those via diplomacy.
My take is basically he has gigantic ambitions, because otherwise everything he is doing makes no sense whatsoever and I can't help but think he's a rational actor.
If Putin is a rational actor, then what's he following up his tactical nuclear strike with? His conventionally defeated Army?
If he's willing to risk that level of escalation then we're beyond rationality. The world is not going to let Putin dictate international politics of entire continents at the point of a nuclear gun. Even the Chinese wouldn't be on board with that. I'm not sure what the best course would be in such an event, but if Russian forces can be otherwise conventionally defeated nuclear retaliation may not even be necessary.
If nuclear retaliation is deemed necessary, it would likely be of similar magnitude (targeting invading Russian military formations or something). To turn the question around, is Putin willing to launch ICBMs because NATO won't let him take Estonia?
So I'd say it's a little bit of timing right? Putin builds up forces yet again, says he won't do anything, "NATO at the border of Belarus this is for security", etc. and then he just goes right in and starts fighting. When the fighting starts and he starts attacking NATO forces and they start responding, he launches a tactical nuclear weapon on an airbase somewhere nearby in Central or Eastern Europe and now what? I mean if nothing else what worries me is the prospect of this spiraling way out of control. To your point about Putin being a rational actor... I mean this is rational for him if your world view is that these countries should be united under Russian leadership. If he were rational, then why would he even invade Ukraine? Why is he so paranoid about NATO? All we want to do is respect human rights (and we have tolerances even) and just have open market economies and democracies. If he were rational why not just integrate Russia with Europe and help Russians become fantastically wealthy?
I'm also not sure about the Chinese. I don't think they care. I think they love this.
> To turn the question around, is Putin willing to launch ICBMs because NATO won't let him take Estonia?
My take is yes. I don't think he's nuking New York and London... but military bases in central and Eastern Europe? I mean will NATO nuke Moscow and then actually trigger MAD over that? If we're being honest what are our actual red lines? For America probably US, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany. I honestly don't know about any other country in Europe.
What do you think?
-edit- (really sad to see people have downvoted you for having an interesting discussion and different point of view. I'm sorry to see that has occured at this point.
No worries, I don't structure my opinions for HN Karma :)
If he opened an attack on NATO with a tactical nuke he's just escalating things faster. After the shock wore off that would probably increase the odds of a tactical nuclear response in kind, at which point the Russian forces remain defeated. Or perhaps if the West remains restrained and no further nukes are launched, a conventional defeat in spite of Russian tactical nukes.
If his goal is to restore the Soviet Union's influence there are reasons to conquer Ukraine (food supply, gas line, black sea access, etc). Starting a war with NATO would be a quick end to those dreams, tactical nukes or not. The West has already proven less complacent than I think he anticipated. He was probably hoping for us to just collectively shrug our shoulders "oh well it's just Ukraine, something something human rights" and just let him have it. Instead we sent Javelins and canceled Nordstream 2, among other measures. On the spectrum of possible responses from "loud noises" to "all-out military intervention", we're closer to the latter than the former. Over a non-NATO country.
The West's institutions may be diminished, but they only diminished in the absence of a common adversary. If Putin wants to restore that adversary, the best he'll accomplish in the medium term is restoring our institutions.
> If he were rational, then why would he even invade Ukraine? Why is he so paranoid about NATO?
Because Russia in general has always seen Europe as posing a threat of invasion, and with reason. In WWII, Germany invaded Russia. In the Crimean War a bunch of European countries invaded Russia. In the early 1800s Napoleon invaded Russia. Putin is taking advantage of this general Russian attitude towards Europe to improve his own political position.
Which is all irrelevant now because Russia has an estimated 6,000 nuclear weapons and if the rest of Europe started moving all the required troops to invade Russia to the West Russia would be ready and could actually have a credible nuclear strike justification. And considering everyone in the West is cool just making money and dealing with internal problems I just do not have sympathy for the point of view anymore. If nuclear weapons can’t protect Russia then that’s just their problem.
I'm not the one you need to convince of all this (especially the "everyone in the West is cool just making money" part). Putin and the Russian people are. From where I sit, they aren't convinced.
> I just do not have sympathy for the point of view anymore
Considering that Russia's history for many centuries has been one of having to deal with external invasions (it took them three hundred years to learn how to deal with the Mongols, for example), and that Europe's history up until World War II has been filled with wars, I have a hard time having sympathy for a point of view that thinks that half a century of so of Europe apparently behaving itself must be sufficient to outweigh all that and convince Russia that they can chill because everyone else is ready to play nice.
> I think in that case we will just wind up in nuclear war.
I don't think so. I emphasize Russia's history in order to explain why it is entirely credible that Putin does not intend to continue invading country after country after the Ukraine. He is not trying to conquer countries just for the sake of conquering. He is trying to establish a buffer around Russia. And, in doing so, to consolidate his domestic political power.
In other words, your belief that Putin must be bent on invading country after country was based on your inability to see any other rational reason why he would be invading the Ukraine. I am giving you such a rational reason. The fact that the beliefs on which it is based appear to you to be out of sync with current reality in Europe is irrelevant because your beliefs about current reality in Europe are not driving Russia's actions; Russia's beliefs are. Rationality does not require that all of one's beliefs be correct, only that one's actions make sense in the light of one's beliefs.
We can set aside this discussion about rationality, because I'm not suggesting that Putin doesn't have rational reasoning for doing what he's doing, what I'm suggesting is that Ukraine would not suffice for any rationale I've so far been exposed to. I'm also suggesting that he is objectively wrong about his beliefs, even if he follows them. It doesn't actually provide any buffer that makes sense from a geographic standpoint - it does have a lot of resources though. NATO is much closer to Moscow from the Baltic states. He's also going to have to occupy a country, on his border, with 44 million people. If even 1% of them are violent anti-Russians because of collateral Russian damage caused by the invasion then how does he expect to protect Russia from terrorist attacks? How does he protect a potential puppet government from such attacks? Not to mention now he's galvanized NATO, Finland and Sweden are going to join (in my view) by the end of the year, and people aren't going to associate with his country anymore.
If Putin wants to I guess further expand his buffer, then we'll have a nuclear war because there is no doubt that the United States will absolutely go to war with full force against Russia over any NATO country. There is no reconciliation to be had here. If Russia believes NATO is out to get it, despite a world of evidence to the contrary, then they can stop at Ukraine or keep going, but if they keep going, which is likely (because Ukraine isn't worth the devastation being caused to Russia) then we will just have nuclear war. If Russia believes this then we might as well just go ahead and have it out. I mean there isn't anything else to that. I'm not sure why you're suggesting that I'm "out of sync with the current reality in Europe". The reality is that the United States will go to war and fight Russia to defend NATO. That's why I'm concerned (OP) - it can easily spiral out of control.
> It doesn't actually provide any buffer that makes sense from a geographic standpoint
Huh? It's right in between Russia and Europe. Right on the route by which previous invasions of Russia from Europe have come.
> He's also going to have to occupy a country
He doesn't have to permanently occupy it. He just has to prevent it from joining NATO.
> he's galvanized NATO
I think "galvanized" is a little strong. No NATO country is going to actually try to help Ukraine resist the invasion. The worst consequence is economic sanctions, and the historical track record of economic sanctions is not good. I expect Putin believes that his country can manage no matter what economic sanctions NATO nations throw at it.
> Finland and Sweden are going to join (in my view) by the end of the year
I think that's highly likely, yes. And it doesn't change Russia's threat environment in the least because no invasion of Russia is going to come via Sweden and Finland. If Russia intended to invade Finland and Sweden, them joining NATO would be a negative consequence, but I doubt Putin intends that.
> and people aren't going to associate with his country anymore.
I don't think Putin cares about that either.
> the devastation being caused to Russia
What devastation? If you mean economic sanctions, I think you are drastically overestimating their effects on Russia.
> The reality is that the United States will go to war and fight Russia to defend NATO.
So all Putin has to do to avoid that is to not attack a NATO member country. Which Ukraine is not. In fact, your argument here is an argument for the view I've been taking, that Putin does not intend to keep on invading country after country--because he knows invading a NATO country would bring consequences he doesn't want.
> Huh? It's right in between Russia and Europe. Right on the route by which previous invasions of Russia from Europe have come.
Well it's in Europe. But yea you can just keep on invading that same route. Not that an invasion is going to happen anyway.
> He doesn't have to permanently occupy it. He just has to prevent it from joining NATO.
???? What? Yes he does? If Russians leave than Ukraine goes back to what it was. Unless he tries and installs a puppet government, and then he might be facing some insurgency. Not fun.
>
pdonis 1 hour ago | parent | context | flag | on: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders a...
> It doesn't actually provide any buffer that makes sense from a geographic standpoint
Huh? It's right in between Russia and Europe. Right on the route by which previous invasions of Russia from Europe have come.
> He's also going to have to occupy a country
He doesn't have to permanently occupy it. He just has to prevent it from joining NATO.
> I think "galvanized" is a little strong. No NATO country is going to actually try to help Ukraine resist the invasion. The worst consequence is economic sanctions, and the historical track record of economic sanctions is not good. I expect Putin believes that his country can manage no matter what economic sanctions NATO nations throw at it.
I mean now all of a sudden we're about to add Finland and Sweden to NATO. NATO allies just got woken up to the fact that war can still break out in Europe, which means militaries that have been languishing are going to get beefed up. Etc. The sanctions may not "work" but it also doesn't matter. No reason to deal with Russia if they're going to be a bad actor.
> I think that's highly likely, yes. And it doesn't change Russia's threat environment in the least because no invasion of Russia is going to come via Sweden and Finland. If Russia intended to invade Finland and Sweden, them joining NATO would be a negative consequence, but I doubt Putin intends that.
Gotland
> I don't think Putin cares about that either.
I agree - this was in my OP.
> What devastation? If you mean economic sanctions, I think you are drastically overestimating their effects on Russia.
Why?
> So all Putin has to do to avoid that is to not attack a NATO member country. Which Ukraine is not. In fact, your argument here is an argument for the view I've been taking, that Putin does not intend to keep on invading country after country--because he knows invading a NATO country would bring consequences he doesn't want.
But then his invasion of Ukraine doesn't make sense. All he did was cost himself a bunch of money to invade a country that definitely doesn't want him there and is now pissed off, he lost the Russian people a lot of money, and he's no more "safe" than he was before because the Baltics are still on his doorstep. What was gained?? If he believes that he gained security by attacking Ukraine than I do believe he's not a rational actor.
> If Russians leave than Ukraine goes back to what it was.
I'm not sure that's true. But that may be because I have a different view of Ukranian internal politics than you do. See below.
> Why?
Because, first, I don't think Russia's economy is all that dependent on the products that Western sanctions would cut off, and second, I don't think the sanctions are going to be all that well enforced long term, since that is the way sanctions usually are. (And I expect Putin thinks that too.) For one thing, Europe is dependent on some key products from Russia, such as the natural gas that is now not flowing. Past experience suggests that European countries will find ways to route around the sanctions while publicly giving them lip service.
> a country that definitely doesn't want him there and is now pissed off
Some Ukranians are. I'm not so sure a majority of them are, at least not in any sense that matters for Russia. Eastern Ukraine, in particular, I think is generally sympathetic to Russia.
I mean I'm not sure either. I don't think anybody is really sure. Now, NATO has deployed thousands of troops to the Baltic states, the US has deployed elements of the 82nd Airborne to Europe. Estonia is tweeting that it will do more to supply munitions to Ukrainian forces. Sweden said they're escalating military intervention. So now instead of having very few troops on his border, Putin has more than he's had in decades. The security angle is complete bullshit.
I agree that Russia isn't "dependent" on the west. Again going back to my OP I assert that this is a non-factor for Putin as he seeks to create a Russian-lead Slavic ethnostate in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Baltics, and more. Ukraine is a key piece not for security reasons - again Russia has 6,000 nuclear weapons and if you feel insecure than you are actually irrational - but because of the extensive amounts of resources which he'll need to feed the Russian people and create industry. Russia has all the resources it needs, they won't have iPhones but they'll build rockets and cars and stuff like that.
> he seeks to create a Russian-lead Slavic ethnostate in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Baltics, and more.
Since, as you point out, the consequence of invading the Ukraine has been to cause a lot more troops to be deployed in the Baltics and other places you say Putin wants to eventually conquer, I don't see how this "Slavic ethnostate" is a rational goal.
I agree that the resources in the Ukraine are a rational goal, but if that is Putin's goal, we would not expect him to invade other countries. The resources in the Ukraine might be worth what it will cost Russia to get them (or at least that might be how Putin has calculated it); the resources in other countries, particularly NATO countries, would not.
Right - the question just comes down to what his goals are. I'm worried that he's looking to roll up Ukraine and Belarus and start conscripting people and sending them to die fighting NATO forces. And when NATO forces resist he'll say something like "I'm here to free the people of Lativa and if NATO intervenes further I'll nuke NATO bases wherever they are in central and eastern Europe". It's completely rational and it'll cause NATO to dissolve if he follows through and NATO backs down.
I just have such a hard time thinking he invaded Ukraine just to get resources. Or just for security.
There's another way to look at this: Putin is a rational, risk-averse actor who only engages in territory acquisition when he can encircle the target and guarantee a win in days during winter (because spring and fall are too muddy for vehicles). Crimea follows this pattern: Russia has a navy in the Black Sea and Sea of Azoz.
The New York Times map [1] of the build up prior to invasion is enlightening and encouraging for Finland and Poland, less so for the Baltic states.
And... the US and allies and also Russia because if Russia attacks them we're 100% going to war with Russia to defend those allies. There's 0 question of that. It goes back to my OP which is what happens after that starts. Putin knows he can't take on NATO 1-1, so why would he attack those countries? Well he has nuclear weapons and can launch tactical nuclear strikes on NATO airbases and dare the west to risk nuclear war over these countries.
> It's because he thinks he can use nuclear weapons to get NATO to back down.
When Putin intends to use nuclear weapons against NATO members, then the one and only answer that NATO will come up with is nuclear. This brings us either back to a cold war scenario or doomsday.
I disagree. These plays have been available since the establishment of the nuclear deterrent. The soft-peddling from the US and NATO is indicative of their respect for the deterrent. People calling for NATO to counterattack are delusional. NATO and Russia still benefit from minimizing shared borders, so I don't think Russia will annex Ukraine and instead will leave it demilitarized.
Look I hope you're right. I want to agree with you 100%. But just neutralizing Ukraine I'm not sure what that actually gets him. He could have gotten diplomatic agreements of some fashion to not have Ukraine NATO (and it wasn't seriously on track to join either). Idk. I hope you're right.
Kiev is 529 mi (~10h) from Moscow. If Ukraine were to join NATO, there would be a NATO base inside that range in days. Lockheed Martin claims its Precision Strike Missile has a 310 mile range [1]. I can understand why Putin would want Ukraine to be a friendly puppet or be demilitarized.
Diplomatically, it wouldn't be advisable to give an adversarial foreign power control over the membership of your alliance, so NATO can never give those guarantees. My belief is that Putin only sought those guarantees to fabricate a casus belli.
I think you forgot your own argument. Let me remind you: "If Ukraine were to join NATO, there would be a NATO base inside that range [529 mi] in days."
You are trying to justify Putin's actions by inventing a hypothetical while ignoring the fact that the NATO borders within 500 miles of Moscow is a reality for years.
Sure but the US and NATO had no interest in doing anything like that. Nobody gives a crap about Russia as an enemy except to the extent that they make themselves an enemy.
NATO alliance members have NATO military bases, but you're right that US and NATO have no interest in adding Ukraine as a member. As we are seeing, the country is in a weak geographic position: Russia was able to stage forces to encircle >80% of the country prior to the invasion. Who would want that kind of ally?
Ukraine has warm water ports in the Black sea, huge oil pipeline capacity from Russia, and farmland, all of which are valuable to Russia. I won't claim to understand the reasoning but I believe Russia intends to control all three of those either directly or through a puppet state.
This whole Trump being pro-russia needs to die. It's so dumb. If repeated enough times it'll become truth unfortunately.
Trump looked to increase NATO defenses and aggressively pump oil and gas to crash the global price of Russia's chief source of foreign exchange. That's hardly pro russian. Ironically, Biden comes in and kills oil production in the US, forcing us to then rely on external oil markets for our resources which gives Putin money to pull shit like this.
Trump also unilaterally left the assymetrical US-Russia missile accord. Hardly pro russian.
Trump ordered lethal force to be used against large numbers of Russian mercenaries who attacked a U.S. installation in Syria. He also sold offensive weapons to Ukraine.
The oil and gas pumping you mention started under Obama, and responding to an attack on American forces with lethal force is an incredibly low bar. The other state department actions don't change that his administration was vocally pro-Russia.
Me too friend. Me too. I think that as described is the worst-case scenario, but also the only one IMO that explains his actions. Hopefully someone else can come in and demolish everything I wrote so I can feel better.
You would have said the same thing if someone had written that Putin was going to invade Ukraine two weeks ago.
What is paranoia and what isn't has just materially changed, the question now is not whether or not the poster is paranoid, but whether they are too paranoid or not paranoid enough.
> They shut down Nordstream 2, which he knew would happen
I heard that the German president's speech mentioned Nordstream being done. He didn't specify Nordstream 2 as expected. I read somewhere that referring to both Nordstream 1 & 2 caught Putin by surprise.
The reasoning here is pretty sound, and the more I think about it the more I come to believe that NATO should be fighting Russia right now - at least deny them air superiority. Russia wants a war, whether NATO wants one or not, so you might as well give it to em' with the other consideration being letting the Russian military get ground down in Ukraine and seeing how that plays out.
What will happen is that if Putin wins Ukraine and invades, say, Latvia, he'll invade and then when NATO responds he will use one or more tactical nuclear weapons on the military bases that forces are responding from. So if NATO is launching air assets from a Polish airbase, he'll nuke that. And then he'll say - let me have what I want or I'll use more. Now what? Will NATO nuke a Russian base in exchange? Will it be a base in Belarus? Ukraine? Russia itself? It's easy to see this spiraling out of control. But if you believe Putin will use nuclear weapons (and I do) the endgame is that he destroys NATO and pushes "western" influence out of continental Europe.
Putin believes there are 3 pillars: US, China, Russia. He does respect the US, but thinks he can win. His goal is to create an ethnostate, similar to China, centered around Russian culture. Taking Kiev is super important to that because despite his rhetoric that Ukraine isn't a state or whatever, it is the historical cultural home of the Russian people. So he's going to want that to create a new shared ideology around the glory of the Russian people. He'll then look to cut out the US, UK, and any "liberal" sympathies.
> What about sanctions?
He doesn't care. He doesn't want to integrate with the US or the west. Russia has plenty of natural resources. Ukraine gives them plenty of farmland. Why would he need western money?
Currently we're playing along just like he planned. We tried negotiating, he went through the motions. We enacted sanctions, which he knew would happen. They shut down Nordstream 2, which he knew would happen (and leave Europeans with higher energy prices). And now he's just executing his plan and NATO is saber rattling about defending NATO territory, which... goes back to the Baltic question. Will NATO go to nuclear war over those countries? I think conventional war absolutely. But when Putin nukes a Polish air base or a Romanian one. Now what?
So we need(ed) to do something unsuspected. And I think the only option was to immediately go to war and force the issue on NATO's term. Unfortunately I think NATO is in a bad position.
Oh... and that's without literal traitors like Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump, Tulsi Gabbard, and others who are "pro-russia" while we're about to be in a war with Russia. So now we have to figure out how to deal with those people too.
MAD is dead.