Shrike
9mo ago
That's providing an overly strict definition of 'red lines' which assumes Russia actually provides clear coherent red lines and does so specifically via Putin, which isn't really how Russia operates.
Well, perhaps the term I used ("saber-rattling") makes more sense in the context of Russia than the "red-line" term, which is traditionally how Americans frame their responses.
In other words, it's a motte-and-bailey. It's a threat until it's challenged and retreats to the position of not being a threat, unless there's a counter-attack afterwards in which case it totally was a threat.
To the OP's point, though, I think it's fairly unlikely (but more on that below) that Russia will use nuclear weapons in response to ATACMS as the result of most foreseeable and probable events. And if they do, it's extremely unlikely that they use them against the United States. So - unless you disagree - Russia saying "hey if the United States gives Ukraine enough weapons to create a strategic threat to our state we will respond with nuclear force" probably isn't a statement that's being issued to provide "we warned you" cover, since it's unlikely that Russia responds with nuclear weapons except in the specific circumstances they mentioned, which are not likely to happen since it's unlikely the US provides support necessary for Ukraine to pull something of that magnitude off, perhaps due to all the saber-rattling by Russia. Unless you actually think Russia will pop a tactical over a few ATACMS - which would be an interesting argument, and I'd be very happy to hear it :)
I will say that I think Russia has some unusual ideas of what constitutes an existential threat. There's a story that they almost cracked open the silos over a Norwegian rocket launch in Yeltsin's time because they thought it could be a preface to a full-blown attack, and I've heard that the reason they are so concerned about the AEGIS Ashore sites in Romania is because they worry they could be used as a decapitation weapon (any antiballistic missile can technically be used as a ground attack missile...) So I can see a situation where they are preparing cover against a counter-attack because they think Ukraine will pull something like that, or they are afraid they will think Ukraine is pulling like that, and respond accordingly. Let's say hypothetically they use a nuclear cruise missile against a HIMARS they mistakenly(?) assess is being loaded with a WMD. In which case, I agree, the long string of "we told you so" would be helpful to them. But I kinda doubt they are planning to use a tactical nuke in the normal course of events and are laying a trail to justify that.
Personally, from where I sit right now, I think as long as the US is holding Ukraine's hands, they will keep aiming at random ammo dumps, the Russians will remind everyone of their nuclear doctrine periodically, and no nuclear weapons are likely be used (although I reserve the right to change my mind in the face of exciting new evidence!)
Shrike
9mo ago
My understanding of neutrality law is so-so, but as I understand it, you're very much incorrect here, at least as far as traditional understandings of neutrality goes.
Selling arms to a belligerent on normal commercial terms definitely doesn't breach neutrality under international law (although the arms shipments themselves are usually legitimate military targets).
My understanding is that it does not breach neutrality norms if they are being sold under equal terms to both sides. Which obviously is not happening here.
Nor does providing them on less-than-commercial terms (such as Lend-Lease in WW2, which was legally compatible with US neutrality).
It may have been legally compatible with US neutrality law, but that does not mean that it was not a breach of traditional norms surrounding neutrality - it was very obvious to everyone that the US was not a neutral party, and that it was aiding Britain against Germany.
It isn't obvious why giving them away free would change the logic.
This is a pretty clear breach of traditional neutrality. If you are aiding one party militarily, you aren't neutral (although that doesn't necessarily qualify as an act of war, as I understand it, but it might be considered a cause for war.) There was a huge fracas during the American Civil War when the Americans accused the British of breaching neutrality by building warships for the Confederacy.
Russia has claimed that Ukrainians are unable to use western weapons without a level of in-theatre technical support which would make the supplier a co-belligerent, but I don't believe them.
Well, as per US reporting, it appears that the Russians were at least partially correct about this, and the Pentagon is now soliciting bids for contractors to provide technical support in-theater.
(There's also the interesting question of how you define "in-theater"? The Russians are supposedly providing satellite intelligence to the Houthis to attack US shipping, is that a neutral act? Is it not an act of war, or, at a minimum, a valid cause for war? But of course the United States has been providing similar intelligence support to the Ukrainians since the beginning of the war, as has been acknowledged.)
Shrike
9mo ago
There's also the European factor. If Trump pushes Zelensky too hard (as perceived by Europe), there's a real possibility of a hard transatlantic split emerging. While Europe would struggle to fill the void left by the US if all aid was blocked, it would be interesting to see how far they could "step up", especially if they supplemented their military production with purchases made on Ukraine's behalf from suppliers like South Korea, Turkey, and Pakistan.
This would be a huge Russian victory. I don't think it would be remotely hard for them to make nice with Germany if the EU broke from the States, particularly since that plausibly means the end of NATO, no more US troops in Europe, no more US nuclear umbrella, no more US replacement for cheap Russian gas...
England would stick with the US and FVEYS would become the new NATO. The rest of Western Europe, led by Germany, would count the beans and bullets and make nice with Russia. (France and some of the former SSRs might have different ideas).
Shrike
9mo ago
I also think (regardless of whether or not Putin has tried to kill Zelensky) that a lot of the weight of Ukraine's decision-making complex is now effectively outsourced to the West. Meaning that killing Zelensky doesn't necessarily impact Ukrainian C&C (although it might impact morale).
Shrike
9mo ago
What do you mean? Russia just hit Ukrainian power supply facilities (again) – if they wanted to blow up the Ukrainian Congress building they could have done so. But the Ukrainian energy grid and power production facilities – which Russia has, over the course of the last year, damaged to the point of reducing it to 50% of its prior energy generation capacity – is slightly more relevant to the war effort than the Verkhovna Rada.
Shrike
9mo ago
Don't set ridiculous red lines that are easily broken. Don't threaten a massive response if you were never serious. You will lose face.
This might be a good lesson if Putin did this. Did he? You don't cite any evidence of this in your post.
What exactly, did Putin say? Here, on a quick Google, according to Newsweek:
In September, Putin changed Moscow's "nuclear doctrine" to include potential responses to an attack that poses a critical threat to the sovereignty of Russia, carried out by a nonnuclear power with the participation or support of a nuclear power.
"Aggression against Russia by any nonnuclear state, but with the support of a nuclear state, is proposed to be considered as their joint attack on Russia," he said during a televised meeting of Russia's Security Council.
"Russia will also consider the possibility of using nuclear weapons when receiving reliable information about a massive launch of means of aerospace attack and their crossing of our state border."
He added: "This includes strategic and tactical aircraft, as well as cruise missiles and drones, hypersonic and other delivery vehicles. Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in case of aggression, including if the enemy using conventional weapons poses a critical threat."
So (at least here) he actually did not threaten nuclear war in the event of ATACMS strikes. He reminded everyone of Russia's nuclear doctrine. Which – newsflash! – is the same as or arguably more restrictive than US nuclear doctrine in this regard (the United States, unlike some nations, does not have preconditions on nuclear use.)
Now, I'm not saying it's not saber-rattling when Putin comes out and reminds everyone of Russia's nuclear doctrine every few months. But Ukrainian ATACMS strikes are very unlikely to pose a critical threat to the sovereignty of Russia. And while people insist on interpreting this as an aggressive deterrent, it's also worth noting that if you read it literally Putin is telling the United States that if they let Ukraine use a few ATACMS inside of Russia
- Russia will consider it a joint attack (and as I understand it the US would be, legally, considered a co-combatant, so this isn't surprising)
- Russia is very unlikely to launch a nuclear retaliatory strike unless the launch is "massive" or poses a "critical threat."
You could see a contrarian newspaper reporting this as "Putin indicates limited ATACMS strikes inside Russia will not draw nuclear response." People always assume the point of these sorts of communications is to threaten, which isn't untrue, but it is also to communicate what is and isn't likely to trigger a genie you can't put back in the bottle, which is very important when two nuclear powers are fighting a proxy war.
Now, if Putin said something else that is actually a red-line, please feel free to comment so I can update my databanks. Otherwise, I think the nuclear portion of this won't be relevant until and unless Ukraine launches so enough ATACMS at critical Russian infrastructure to threaten the safety of the state.
And please, please understand that news stories saying stuff like "RUSSIA UPDATES NUCLEAR POLICIES TO INCLUDE A NUCLEAR RESPONSE TO CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS" are substantively the same ones that have appeared for years every time Russia tweaks its nuclear doctrine (seriously, my second link here links to my third link!) because this is in fact a longstanding part of Russian nuclear doctrine, which has acknowledged that certain conventional attacks may warrant a nuclear response since 1992.
Shrike
9mo ago
Therapists also are financially incentivized not to "fix" you. This is a danger in a lot of professions, but due to the nature of mental health, it's not nearly as obvious when there's malpractice – at least you can tell when a doctor has failed to set your leg. And it's also easier for someone to fail to do what's best for the patient in subtle ways; a surgeon might make a mistake or cut a corner out of tiredness, but it's even easier to deceive yourself about your own motives and undermine your patient for any number of reasons, as a therapist.
I'm not saying all therapists are evil, greedy, or even useless. But the incentives flow in directions that really should make you think twice and very carefully before you reach for your wallet.
Shrike
9mo ago
Texas recently had a bad power outage during a cold snap which I don't think more solar would solve. And Texas is growing quickly. Abbott is probably trying to get ahead of the curve; power outages make us and him look bad and do actual material damage. In terms of predictable scandals that could seriously harm Abbott and/or his party, more grid problems is probably up there.
Shrike
9mo ago
Shrike
9mo ago
Yeah I think Trump can easily win #2 if you include self-deportations, even if his program isn't particularly effective in terms of per capita removals, there's just a lot of people here who will probably leave.
Shrike
9mo ago
Correct, but that was two years ago. Even if the Russians still don't have front-like troop superiority, they have larger manpower reserves and have narrowed the deployed troop gap considerably.
Shrike
9mo ago
Yes, my understanding is that the entire reason for the 18 - 25 conscription ban is to preserve the youth demographic they badly need.
It definitely seems plausible to me that they are shorter on equipment than they are on manpower, but they wouldn't have lowered conscription standards if manpower was abundant. Of course, in an existential war you can hardly have too many of either if you are losing and Russia absolutely has them beat on both fronts.
Shrike
9mo ago
What's Tulsi going to head, DHS?
Yes please, I want to find out if they put her on a watchlist (which almost certainly should be eliminated anyway) for partisan reasons. If the answer is yes, DHS should be dissolved. It's a newer agency anyway and I think the actually useful parts can just go back to being standalone or parts of other agencies. Nonsense like that should be punished severely and publicly.
Shrike
9mo ago
Zelensky is still resisting Western calls to conscript 18-25 year olds but there may be no other choice.
Man. The 18 - 25 year old conscription ban (on basically prime warrior years) is kinda a funky choice, but I'll feel pretty bad if they lift it. I already don't think Ukraine will recover from this for a long, long time.
Shrike
9mo ago
my modal scenario is actually that in a year's time a stronger Ukraine steamrolls a weaker Russia
I think this is uh improbable without economic and military aide that the West seems to already be unwilling to give (Russia still has a massive production advantage in key areas, and a huge manpower advantage that will not go away), but I agree that there's basically zero reason for Putin to agree to a pause (especially given what apparently happened last time they tried to negotiate) because I think it would disproportionately aid Ukraine. Even if the West doesn't use a pause to rearm and reequip Ukraine, it gives them a tremendous amount of time to build new fortifications. There are also still Ukrainian troops on Russian soil, and I doubt that Putin will agree to a truce of any sort that doesn't involve them retreating. However, I am not necessarily good at anticipating Putin's next move.
If there is a truce, I expect it to be short. I'm unsure as to what Trump finds palatable, but as I see it, for Putin to agree to anything less than territorial concessions and a no-Ukraine-in-NATO treaty would be a geopolitical mistake. It seems likely to me Russia attempts to force Ukraine to disarm, as well.
Shrike
9mo ago
Off the top of my head (so I might get a few details wrong):
The Tic Tac videos were (essentially) an intel operation – it was Mellon, Elizondo and Company getting the UAP topic into the New York Times and into the public discourse. The actual incident had been publicly discussed (and IIRC even video footage released) well before it made it into the Times, but Team Mellon was able to get the footage released with a chain of custody and get their narrative into the big leagues. The goal of the operation (ostensibly) was to get people to take the UAP topic seriously. If there's a psyop, it seems to lead straight into the little grey men territory rather than just showing off advanced technology (although of course the US of A might want China to think it has a crashed flying saucer...)
- Mellon wrote the forward to Lue's book. He's not necessarily vouching for all of the claims, but he seems to take them seriously. This is notable in my mind since he probably was behind the scenes helping write Congressional legislation around this stuff, and if you look at what Congress has been drafting it has, unironically, been stuff along the lines of "GIVE US THE ALIEN CRAFT."
- Milley/Haines/McMaster/Brennan seem more to take e.g. the issue seriously, but haven't to my knowledge made claims along the lines of Grush or Elizondo. I believe Haines was open to the possibility of ET life being responsible for UAP sightings, and Brennan suggested UAP might be (or be the product of?) some form of life.
- Ratcliffe basically said "we're picking up crazy signatures from classified intelligence capabilities" (I think he at least implied recon satellites, but he may have stated it outright.) I'm not as familiar with what Gallaudet said, but I think it was along similar lines – he had seen good footage or other evidence during his time in the navy. He might be open to the "little grey men" stuff but I don't think he claims to have firsthand experience.
- I assume Malmgren used the term "otherworld technologies" on purpose. He said his informal briefing was "60+" years ago, so if there's an op to fool the PRC it's gone back decades (perhaps involving the 1952 UFO flap over D.C. and the 1971 treaty we signed with the USSR that mentions the risk from unidentified objects on early warning radars? Interestingly Nixon was president in '71, I wonder if Malmgren was involved in that treaty.) Note that Malmgren has said he has no firsthand experience, it seems like (he claims) Bissel informally brought him up to speed in case it ever came up. Which of course raises the possibility that Bissel was just lying (or of course that Malmgren is lying, but I dunno why he would bother).
Shrike
9mo ago
Christopher K. Mellon (former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Irish descent) doesn't just have a patrician-sounding first name and middle initial, he's a member of an old patrician family (the Mellons), and he's one of the main drivers on the UAP topic. John Ratcliffe (former Director of National Intelligence, English extraction I guess?), John Brennan (former Director of the CIA, Irish descent), H.R. McMaster (former National Security Advisor, Scottish extraction I presume), Avril Haines (Director of National Intelligence, Jewish on her mother's side), Mark A. Milley (Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Irish), Timothy Gallaudet (Rear Admiral US Navy, French extraction I guess?), and Harald Malmgren (senior aide to Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Nordic) have all publicly indicated that they take the UAP issue seriously, although some of them, like Haines and Milley, might feel under pressure from Congress to do so.
From what I've seen, the ethno-cultural divide, if there is one, are that the ones that I would view as patrician-types are often more refined in their presentation. Mellon is careful about what he says, although he indicates that he thinks that UAP are real and a serious concern. Haines, Milley, and McMaster say things like "there are puzzling things out there that we don't understand and are hard to get to the bottom of," Ratcliffe and Gallaudet refer to having seen direct video/photographic evidence, Brennan circumspectly suggests that UAP might be a type of life, and Malmgren – who is now almost 90 – decided to go on Twitter and tell the world that he was told about "otherworld technologies" by Richard Bissel (of the CIA and NRO). Perhaps Malmgren behaves a bit differently because (he says) he was never under an official oath – Bissel spoke to him informally. But I'd be genuinely interested in which of the above people you classify as "serious" and which you don't – I'm very interested in American ethnography, and it would make my day if you did an assessment of them.
On the UFO topic, I am inclined to agree that normal "heuristics of trustworthiness and willingness to make stuff up" don't apply. But I don't think that they apply to "serious" members of the US military on this topic either. People who are cleared into SAPs (special access programs) are, apparently, supposed to lie if directly asked about a SAP they are cleared into, and most of the people on the above list are or have been read into such programs. UFO fans often assume that this means that the people in the military who talk about UFOs are telling the truth and the people who are denying knowledge of them are lying, but I would remind people that the knife of deception may cut both ways.
Shrike
9mo ago
I think the idea that UAP are necessarily connected to extraterrestrial lifeforms is wrong. We could have a ship full of dead bodies in a hangar at Area 51 and still have no proof of extraterrestrial life. Likewise, if we detect a megastructure around a nearby star that's the product of alien life, it doesn't prove anything about UAP.
Shrike
9mo ago
One of the most enduring constants in UFOlogy is that people who go down the UFO rabbit hole often find that it stares back (yeah yeah it's a horrible mixed metaphor.) I uh didn't realize that Erik Prince had been tied to back-engineering Nazi time-travel technology, though, so thanks for the spare link to peruse.
UFOs are very interesting because the intelligence agencies either have pretty hard proof or they don't, but I find it interesting that there does seem to be such an overlap within the intelligence community between people who are "into" UFOs and people who are "into" stuff like poltergeists. If you had e.g. satellite imagery of a UFO reentering the atmosphere, presumably you wouldn't connect that to woo stuff like remote viewing, but we live in a world with people like Hal Putoff and Lue Elizondo.
Makes you wonder what they know (Grush referred to UFOs as "inter-dimensional," which has been the conjecture of leading UFOlogists like Jacques Vallee – who of course has his own ties to intelligence agencies) – or if they don't know and it's just weird topics attract weird thinkers.
I suspect there's actually something to the weird, but I think it's also important to note that a good intelligence operative is probably very good at making connections between seemingly unrelated things. Seems quite likely that intelligence agencies are brim-full of people who are very good at reading a lot into very small amounts of data, which pays of spectacularly when they're right...and also when they're wrong.
Shrike
9mo ago
Am I completely wrong in my guess that the Greens don't want nuclear weapons stationed on German soil?
Shrike
9mo ago
I dunno. Some of the international customs, though, for instance around executing people out of uniform, not conducting false surrenders (and respecting noncombatant status of POWs) predates the Geneva Conventions considerably. The Civil War, for instance, is full of screeching about international law – the North threatened to hang Southern privateers as pirates, for instance, under the logic that the Confederacy wasn't a real state. And guerrilla combat was part of the Civil War (and many wars before that).
Even during the Second World War – which was the birth of the modern Conventions – partisans and guerrilla fighters were very commonplace. So while I agree that the world has changed – it might not be the world the Conventions anticipated – a lot of these problems are very old and in fact predate modern international laws.
Shrike
9mo ago
Yeah, it seems like the clear implication here is that such forces are supposed to convert themselves into regular armed units in a timely manner. So in the GWOT context, it seems very clear that insurgents operating 5 years into the war, dressing like civilians, hiding their weapons, and not conducting themselves as a "regular armed unit" aren't conducting themselves as expected by the laws of war.
And from the context of Hamas and Hezbollah, it seems to me that (for the reasons you describe) there's no excuse for their forces not to conduct themselves as regular armed units (to whatever extent that they do so) except that it's inexpedient for them, which isn't a justification under the laws of war.
(I should note that I'm not necessarily claiming the Geneva Convention is 100% aligned with morality – there might be instances were guerrilla warfare, like spying, is morally acceptable. But if you're a spy, and you get caught, and executed, you can't very well complain about it – you knew the risks when you signed up. I'm hardly a fan of Hamas or Hezbollah, but my fact claims about the customs of war are just that.)
Shrike
9mo ago
Under traditional international law, it's illegal to engage in "classic guerrilla warfare" if by that you mean "not wearing uniforms" or "wearing the uniforms of the enemy," which are both traditional guerrilla war tactics. (The latter was a big sticking point during the US Civil War, as Confederates would sometimes wear captured uniforms.)
I'd need to dig more into how this applies in the Israel/Palestine conflict (especially given Palestine's ambiguous status), but the whole "not wearing uniforms" was something which lots of combatants in the GWOT did. There's a reason that, AFAIK, none of the people who were getting waterboarded were surrendered Iraqi POWs was because the people who were getting waterboarded weren't part of a traditional lawful combatant and thus arguably not protected by the laws of war – my understanding is that that was the logic used by the GWB administration.
I'm not saying waterboarding was the correct decision, but there was a legal reasoning behind the decisions the Bush administration made. They didn't just decide "well we don't have to obey the law because our enemies are evil."
NB, there's provisions in the Geneva Convention, IIRC, for spontaneous resistance to an occupying force.
Germany has been sitting around on the fence despite all the butter we've put on their bread for years. I suspect that they think that Russia is permanent and must be negotiated with, and that one of these days the United States is going to nope off into another isolationist fit (they're probably correct). So while I agree it's a huge lift and don't predict it, I get the feeling people overestimate German resolve for a confrontation with Russia.
I would add at least one more scenario: Trump releases evidence that the US blew up Nordstream. (NB: I'm not claiming that's what happened. Just a black swan that popped into my head!)
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