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Everyone tired of RU/UA war? Well, Biden okayed long-range missile strikes against Russian territory as most of you know. Russia's response? After Putin threatening nuclear war in the event of this happening for months, Lavrov (the FM) came out today by going out of his way saying Russia doesn't want nuclear war.
What can we learn from this?
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.
What's bizarre to me is that Russia is clearly winning the war, so this type of rhetorical hysteria was an unforced error by Putin. It should also be noted that the recent decision by Biden is a naked attempt to bind the hands of Trump, in order to make it harder to de-escalate once he enters the WH.
This also creates a bizarre internal dynamic within Russia as I'm already seeing Russians on social media saying that Putin is once again displaying weakness. This is of course nonsense (Putin's threats could never be realised), but it nevertheless allows for a narrative to set in that will make any negotiation harder for the Russian side as a popular understanding of Putin as a softie will slowly calcify. Any concession will be ferociously contested as proof of Putin once again going soft.
I'm not sure the red line argument here is very compelling. Are we supposed to believe that Russia is going to nuke the Ukraine or attempt to nuke other US allies because the US gave Ukraine missiles to strike Russian military targets with?
Were a red line to have been advertised, the game theory error here wouls be Putin's because his threat of escalating all the way to nukes would have been implausible. It is like if a parent tells their kids that they are going to cancel Christmas knowing that they would never actually do so. I terrified my kid one time by not telling them I would cancel Halloween if they misbehaved again, which they knew I would not do, but by telling them I would inmediately confiscate all their candy, which they knew I would be happy to do for dental/health reasons. Your threat has to be one that the other side believes you would follow through on, and nuke escalation except in response to nukes is generally not that.
Imagine for a second: you are a the head of a nuclear armed country and currently in a proxy war against other nuclear powers.
You are informed that a large scale ballistic missile attack is under way against targets on your soil including infrastructure, political buildings and military installations, including part of your deterrence chain.
If these missiles are nuclear tipped, your deterrent will be severely weakened. If they are not it will only be slightly blunted.
Do you retaliate with the full strength of your nuclear arsenal, do you launch a conventional attack, what do you do?
Doctrinal answers to this question vary of course. In France we launch a full scale nuclear response. And we make (pretty good) movies about it to make sure people know.
Maybe that's what the French tell themselves: in practice, France will not unilaterally launch a nuclear strike. Maybe they're more independent than other NATO countries but France is not doing this alone. A catastrophic decision like this will be consulted with the US government.
In practice, the President is ultimately the one giving the order, and he has full latitude to ask or tell allies about it. And frankly I hope there's as much clarity as possible when nuclear weapons are involved.
The system is setup for unilateral strike though. Mostly since it was so in the cold war, when France was distrustful of American leadership and legitimately afraid of Russian tank columns rolling across Europe in a few days.
I have little doubt we would launch if necessary though. The discipline for it is there and the credibility of the deterrent is taken seriously. The last time it was a political topic, the President declared that even a terrorist strike may trigger it if necessary.
I sure hope it's all bluster/madman theory. I do think one should refuse such an order. I understand the need to tolerate collateral damage, but this is nothing but collateral damage. With any luck nuclear disarmament weirdoes have infiltrated the siloes and are just waiting for the right time to not push. Possibly the most lives a man could ever save, allbeit at the cost of a boring career.
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