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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   35066 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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The most salient lesson of the post-Cold War era: Get nukes or die trying.

A nation's relationship to other states, up to and especially including superpowers, is completely different once it's in the nuclear club. Pakistan can host bin Laden for years and still enjoy US military funding. North Korea can literally fire missiles over South Korea and Japan and get a strongly-worded letter of condemnation, along with a generous increase in foreign aid. We can know, for a fact, that the 2003 Iraq War coalition didn't actually believe their own WMD propaganda. If they thought that Saddam could vaporize the invasion force in a final act of defiance, he'd still be in power today. Putin knows perfectly well that NATO isn't going to invade Russia, so he can strip every last soldier from the Baltic borders and throw them into the Ukrainian meat grinder.

Aside from deterring attack, it also discourages powerful outside actors from fomenting revolutions. The worry becomes who gets the nukes if the central government falls.

Iran's assumption seems to have been that by permanently remaining n steps away from having nukes (n varying according to the current political and diplomatic climate), you get all the benefits of being a nuclear-armed state without the blowback of going straight for them. But no, you need to have the actual weapons in your arsenal, ready to use at a moment's notice.

My advice for rulers, especially ones on the outs with major geopolitical powers: Pour one out for Gaddafi, then hire a few hundred Chinese scientists and engineers and get nuked up ASAP.

Iran's assumption seems to have been that by permanently remaining n steps away from having nukes (n varying according to the current political and diplomatic climate), you get all the benefits of being a nuclear-armed state without the blowback of going straight for them. But no, you need to have the actual weapons in your arsenal, ready to use at a moment's notice.

It's entirely possible Iran ALREADY has the weapons in their arsenal.

But the weapons are militarily and strategically useless for Iran in this particular situation.

Why they probably have them:

Between how much time they've had to develop them, and that the half-ton of 60% HEU could have be easily boosted to weapons grade by removing the third of lighter uranium atoms from it (it'd only take days), it's nonsensical to believe Iranians do not already have nuclear weapons. Making an detonating an implosion uranium bomb is something the Chinese managed in 1963 or so. Today, with supercomputers it's not hard at all.

This is obvious but it's obviously not talked about because then the normies would get hysterical, even though a nuclear bomb is not particularly destructive, and even the maximum of 15 20kt bombs isn't particularly destructive either. (Israeli cities are not made out of wood nor would burn as readily as Japanese WW2 ones). Nor are so dense. If Iranians wanted to have their country H-bombed, they could gravely hurt Israel by killing ~20,000 people with each bomb, tops.

Something tells me they're not the wholly irrational frothing at the mouth fanatics we're being told the are.

But they, probably correctly, calculate that if they nuked an Israeli air-base, Israelis would H-bomb all of their major military sites and production facilities. They're probably working on hydrogen bombs, but have not conducted a test yet.

No, really, what do you think they could do with these bombs if they declared they have them?

Militarily, the only possible 'clean' target are US carrier groups. US doesn't want to invade, nor could it invade. Unless it were attempting a full scale conquest of the country, this wouldn't happen.

Israeli airbases are mostly in populated areas areas, each strike would cause collateral damage. Israelis do not have the resources for a sustained campaign, so why strike them? They're going to give up. If Iran used them on Israeli military infrastructure, their own military installations would get glassed much more thoroughly.

Obviously, even if they had the bombs, they'd keep them secret, locked up in a bunker and work on producing hydrogen bombs and ICBMs and enough of a tunnel network to guarantee survival of a second strike capability.

Announcing that they have the bombs would

  • feed Israeli narrative
  • not actually provide them with the required capability to deter anyone
  • cause normies in Israel/West to demand an actual end to Iranian nuclear program

the only upside would be boosting national pride.

My advice for rulers, especially ones on the outs with major geopolitical powers...

It seems like "on the outs with major geopolitical powers" is doing a lot here. It's not even "be a democracy": nobody is threatening to invade Eritrea (not far from Yemen, also a dictatorship). It's not exclusively Muslim nations either (Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea are in the club).

As best as I can tell, the only consistent rule seems to be "don't be jerks to your neighbors beyond your borders," but I'll accept there's some level of Realpolitik at play.

Yes. I think if Iran were preaching peace with their neighbors instead of having a countdown clock to Israel's annihilation, the world would treat Iran's nuclear program very differently.

world would treat Iran's nuclear program very differently.

If only there was some kind of agreement to monitor the nuclear program and help chill the situation out. It could be a joint plan between nations, it could be really comprehensive.

Sucks no one ever tried that

Plus, ya know, destabilizing Lebanon.

And supplying the Houthis with weapons to attack shipping in the Red Sea.

And logistical support and training for HAMAS' 10/7 operation.

Iran has spent the last 25 years fucking around and is now in the "find out" stage of thier life cycle.

Yeah, the lesson from this whole thing is not so much "have nukes at all costs" as "if you're gonna fight a war uncoordinated vassal swarm is a bad tactic because the AI will get defeated in detail". The second lesson for those who object is "swinging on someone a few times to save face is consenting to a war, prepare accordingly".

Iran simply miscalculated the strength and wisdom of its proxies. If anything, this is an argument for a durable conventional deterrent. North Korea probably wouldn't find itself in this situation even without nukes.

if you're gonna fight a war , uncoordinated vassal swarm is a bad tactic because the AI will get defeated in detail

Sic semper those-who-invest-in-the-Diplomatic-Ideas-group

How easy is it to smuggle a nuke, and how long would it remain viable once smuggled?

My impression of nuclear prevention and watchfulness is that it takes a lot of science and infrastructure to refine uranium into a usable state for weapons, and you can't really build all of that stuff without a lot of commotion that foreign powers will notice.

But lots of nations already have all of that infrastructure, and the country wanting nukes only needs the end product. If country A without nukes allied with country B with nukes, would country B be able to use their own infrastructure to do most of the work and then secretly pass them enough weapons grade uranium and/or assembled nuclear warheads to stick into missiles that everyone else thinks are non-nuclear? And then several years later when it became relevant they announce "Tada! We have nukes!"

Or would this be immediately caught while happening and result in massive international penalties for countries A and or B?

There is a rumor that Saudi Arabia put up a lot of the funds for the Pakistani bomb project, and as a result has an agreement that they could get a shipment of nukes if they ever decided to ask for them.

@MathWizard

It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.

There’s nothing preventing such a transfer. The problem is, if whoever you gave them to uses them, the victim is probably going to hold you liable for that and respond accordingly. And second, who would you trust with that, long term? Alliances sour, governments change and maybe in forty years they are pointed at you.

According to wiki, it's not just a rumour- it's the opinion of the CIA and the Mossad, has been confirmed by at least one Pakistani ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and is treated as fact by NATO.

Isn't there probably some deal where Pakistan will sell a nuke to Saudi Arabia if Iran tests one already on the books?

Worth note that North Korea didn't have nukes for a long time, and they stayed safe even though they did a lot to piss of the US and all their neighbors. And they still only have a few shitty low-yield nukes.

It seems like you you just have to be seen as a hard target. NK did it with mountains a ton of artillery. Ukraine was seen as a much weaker target by everyone.

North Korea was a strategically located part of the communist bloc, which made them pretty tight with the Soviet Union and China. So they weren’t really in too much danger until the beginning of the 90s, and only in critical danger after 9/11. The Kims realized this and made a successful attempt at nuclear breakout.

Didn't North Korea have a stupidly large battery of artillery lined up ready to shell Seoul as deterrent?

Allegedly, North Korea had enough artillery in range that the casualty estimates for the first days of shelling Seoul could be on the scale of a Hiroshima/Nagasaki, i.e. a nuclear weapon.

Start the war during the Lunar New Year when Seoul is nigh-deserted, problem solved.

Prior to the last week, I would have assumed Iran was a hard target and thus somewhat untouchable (smaller strikes/assassinations being the limit of messing with them). It's surprising how hard they've been slapped.

But also in some ways, they are still. No one is going to be launching a ground invasion, and the regime is not looking hot right now, but still has power.

It blows me away that despite a close connection to Russia, and increasingly China, they had such terrible IADS. If you can't get invaded, the only way your adversary, who has one of the world's best Airforce's, can cause you serious issues is by air striking you into pieces.

They must have thought their missiles and proxys were a deterrent, which they were at one point. But man it kills me. In PvP video games, if things are going well/fine, you should always be asking yourself "how do I lose" and it doesn't seem like the gang in Iran did that at all.

That being said. It's not hard to imagine a world in which Israel's air campaign culminates eventually as they run low on munitions and a deal of some flavor is worked out. Then Iran spends the next 5 years rebuilding and furiously fortifying. Maybe they get some tips on anti-espionage purges from the Chinese. And then in 2030 were right back to two weeks ago status quo but this time Iran has hardened everything.

This is a devastating tactical victory for the Israelis, the strategic outcomes remain to be seen...

It's not hard to imagine a world in which Israel's air campaign culminates eventually as they run low on munitions and a deal of some flavor is worked out.

I do not know why we wouldn't continue funding Israel to keep doing decapitation strikes on Iran leadership and maintain air superiority. This is incredible edge at incredible ROI.

Requires no ground invasion and civilian deaths are minimized. I would contribute to this GoFundMe.

Eventually, either Iran ruling committee #133 decides to surrender or the central government looks like a pathetic clown show and the nation disintegrates.

I wonder what kind of pitch deck the Kurds are circulating right now.

Because that has never worked, not even once, in the history of humanity?

Wars simply cannot be won by assassinations. This has been tried again and again. It doesn't work. It didn't work on Al-Qaeda. US blows up their leaders all the time (Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2022, who nobody has heard of) and they're still around, doing their thing, building camps in Afghanistan... It didn't work on ISIS. US blew up Al Baghdadi to no effect. What defeated ISIS was losing their territory and army, even then they're still lurking underground.

Israel tried this on Hamas. They blow up Hamas leaders all the time. It has no effect, Hamas is still fighting.

To win a war, there are no sneaky tricks, you have to actually achieve your military goals on the battlefield, in service of a broad political goal. Assassination is a tactic to achieve some kind of short-term, minor advantage - like sniper fire. It's not a strategy and cannot substitute for victory. Until recent counter-insurgency wars nobody was even silly enough to try this and for good reason.

If Iran blew up Donald Trump and Hegseth plus some generals what effect would this have on America? Would the country collapse? Would there even be any significant impairment to capabilities? No, it wouldn't do anything beyond sparking lots of discourse and cause some stock market shenanigans.

It did work on Al Queda; they're no longer a threat to the United States. It won't work on Hamas because Israel would have to kill basically every Palestinian before they got to a point where the remaining ones won't re-form something like Hamas, but I don't think Iran's enmity of the US, while deep, is quite that deep. Iran's enmity with Israel might be, though.

Assassinating Bin Laden and other leaders is not why Al-Qaeda isn't a major threat to the US right now, that has more to do with improved security and intelligence operations preventing major attacks and ISIS stealing their thunder in the Islamist world. Right now they're focused on building up and developing with their return to Afghanistan.

alqueda controls syria

they're no longer a threat to the United States

not because of bombing and killing their leaders, it's because the US pays and supplies them and uses them against their enemies like they did before they started attacking the US

alqueda controls syria

Well, an organization controlled by a guy who was once part of al-Qaeda in Iraq controls Syria. The terrorist-to-statesmen pipeline isn't such a bad thing; with some notable exceptions (like another AQI successor, ISIS), it usually calms them down. Ask the Sons of Liberty.

is your claim the organization which controls syria's only connection to al qaeda is it's controlled by the emir of al queda branch and that this means they're not al qeada?

do you have the same story about al qaeda in yemen?

bombing and killing al qaeda leaders didn't beat al qaeda and it's not the reason they're not longer a threat to the US

More comments

Counter-example: Hezbollah is refusing to help Iran after Israel’s campaign against them.

Except "winning" the war with Iran in this case means simply preventing them from projecting force into the rest of the Middle East. If Iran can't stop Israel from blowing up their military assets or nuclear developments or their leaders they aren't much of a threat anymore.

They're projecting force into Tel Aviv right now. You can see videos of missiles coming down and discourse about who gets let into the bomb shelters.

This is just like the campaign with the Houthis. The US drops bombs, blows things up. Who can say if they're hitting real targets or dummy targets or whatever. Yet the Houthis retain the ability to strike shipping, it's a stalemate. The US doesn't achieve the goal of 'stopping attacks on shipping' and the Houthis don't achieve the goal of 'stopping the Israeli campaign in Gaza'.

I suppose we'll see how long until they exhaust their missile supply on Israel. Two more weeks of this, or will they be in for it for years?

The Houthis haven't attacked commercial shipping since December and haven't attacked US ships since the bombing campaign.

The Houthis say they'll renew their anti US shipping campaign with the current strikes on Iran. And they have continued their anti-Israel missile/drone attacks throughout.

Eventually, either Iran ruling committee #133 decides to surrender or the central government looks like a pathetic clown show and the nation disintegrates.

"The nation disintegrates" isn't necessarily a desirable outcome.

My understanding is that from a realpolitik standpoint, the issue is that it becomes a fertile ground for terrorists and extremist groups. In the case of Iran, given hiw much support they already provide to Hezbollah/Hamas/Houthis... how much more could a disintegrated nation export?

Worked fine in Syria.

It blows me away that despite a close connection to Russia, and increasingly China, they had such terrible IADS.

I would be careful not to overrate these connections. China and Russia have traditionally been rule followers when it comes to arms exports to Iran, which is to say that they complied with sanctions. China hasn't sold Iran any major systems and Russia only sold Iran four batteries of S-300s. Likewise, there's been much talk of Su-35 fighters being purchased, but no evidence of their deployment.

For comparison, Ukraine is a bit over a third of the size of Iran and reportedly had 100 S-300 batteries at the start of hostilities in 2022, enough to absorb the initial Russian strike and stay in the fight long enough for western-supplied systems like the Patriot to start picking up the slack.

Likewise, while we know that Iran supplied Russia with Shaheed drones (which Russia now produces and develops as the "Geranium"), for all the talk of Iran supplying Russia with short-range ballistic missiles, I've yet to see any evidence of them actually being deployed (i.e. actually having been shot at Ukraine or having been blown up by Ukrainians), unlike certain North Korean artillery pieces (e.g. the Koksan 170mm SPG).

This is a devastating tactical victory for the Israelis

...Israel claims. While flooding every diplomatic channel with desperate pleas to the United States to join the war, closing the borders and airports so their citizens can’t leave, and passing laws to make it illegal to film ballistic missile impacts.

I don’t mean to bag on Israel in particular here, but this is a wartime situation with all the propaganda that implies. Iran has already imposed wartime censorship and shut down the internet, so the only confirmation we’re getting for any strikes on Iran is from the Israeli military spokespeople. Meanwhile there have been dozens of ballistic missile impacts against high value target locations in Tel Aviv, and the missile defense systems seem to have dropped from a 96% intercept rate to a 50% intercept rate, to a 10% intercept rate. But don’t worry, like Russia in late February of 2022, Iran is just two weeks away from running out of missiles.

The Israelis are still a big part of the western internet it would be impossible to hide if many thousands of Israeli civilians had died in Iranian strikes.

the Ayatollah is hiding in some Persian bunker, wondering if the Americans or the Israelis will give him the martyrdom he's being hoping for.

Bibi is on Fox News, talking about his friend Trump.

I think Israel is winning.

Prior to the last week, I would have assumed Iran was a hard target and thus somewhat untouchable (smaller strikes/assassinations being the limit of messing with them). It's surprising how hard they've been slapped.

This has long been an error in the Iranian model. Iran simultaneously has been persuing a near-breakout strategy, but also an asymmetric proxy war strategy, betting that the former would deter retaliation against the later.

Nuclear deterrence really doesn't work that way, for the same reason that Ukraine didn't refuse to fight Russia because of nukes, and that fears that supporting Ukraine with material to fight back would lead to WW3 were non-credible. Nukes don't really deter retaliation in principle, only the form. So your point here-

But also in some ways, they are still. No one is going to be launching a ground invasion, and the regime is not looking hot right now, but still has power.

-is absolutely correct. But also nukes weren't needed for it. Iran is a mountain fortress, and the US didn't have the stomach for the much 'easier' Iraq occupation. A conquer/displace/occupy threat was not, and still is not, going to happen, even though nukes are the solution to that level of intervention, and even though said nukes aren't present.

It blows me away that despite a close connection to Russia, and increasingly China, they had such terrible IADS. If you can't get invaded, the only way your adversary, who has one of the world's best Airforce's, can cause you serious issues is by air striking you into pieces.

They Tried (TM). It's not that Iran's IADS was terrible- they had a number of modern systems. It's just that any system can be taken apart, and Israel has done a lot of prep work.

They must have thought their missiles and proxys were a deterrent, which they were at one point. But man it kills me. In PvP video games, if things are going well/fine, you should always be asking yourself "how do I lose" and it doesn't seem like the gang in Iran did that at all.

It wasn't just the missiles and proxies, but specifically Syria. If Assad hadn't fallen, this wouldn't be happening today, because Assad wasn't just a proxy/ally, but kept the airspace closed. When Assad fell, the Israeli's bombed the old regime (technically new regime's) air defense systems, which has opened up the air corridor they're using now.

At a larger level, Iran's strategy over-estimated Assad's resilience, missing the scholerosis of how the regime military was becoming more brittle rather than more firm when the Syria civil war went long. In turn, neglecting the defense, Iran over-leveraged the offense. Whether you believe they were directly involved/aware of Hamas' October attack or not, and IIRC there were elements of the IRGC/proxy network that claimed they did, Iran via Hezbollah tried to play it to the hilt in what was probably an attempt at a broader intifada.

That strategy fell flat, in a series of events that led to here. Because the West Bank did not rise up as well, the war was focused on Gaza specifically. Because it was focused on Gaza specifically, Hezbollah was used to open a northern front via the artillery campaign. Because Hezbollah was was using so many munitions for the artillery campaign, Iran was dependent on Syria to keep the flow.

But when Israel thwacked Hezbollah via the pager campaign and follow on fighting, Hezbollah was throne into disarray. Because Hezbollah was thrown into disarray, Iran was unable to rush forces to the Syrian capital to stop the rebel offensive. Because the rebel offensive could not be stopped, the logistic chain to resupply Hezbollah was broken. And the air corridor over Syria was opened. And so on and so on and so on.

That being said. It's not hard to imagine a world in which Israel's air campaign culminates eventually as they run low on munitions and a deal of some flavor is worked out. Then Iran spends the next 5 years rebuilding and furiously fortifying. Maybe they get some tips on anti-espionage purges from the Chinese. And then in 2030 were right back to two weeks ago status quo but this time Iran has hardened everything.

This is a devastating tactical victory for the Israelis, the strategic outcomes remain to be seen...

Pretty much. There are things that could result this in being a bigger strategic and not just tactical victory, but they more or less hinge on the Iranians agreeing to some sort of international seizure of their more highly enriched Uranium, and I'm not sure I see that coming.

We can know, for a fact, that the 2003 Iraq War coalition didn't actually believe their own WMD propaganda. If they thought that Saddam could vaporize the invasion force in a final act of defiance, he'd still be in power today.

?

The Iraq War coalition was framed as a pre-emptive war on the basis that Saddam did not yet have nukes (the only WMD to 'vaporize), but that he was trying to maintain the ability to create them in the future. The theory- propaganda, if you prefer- was that he was known to have pursued them in the past, there was reason to believe he was trying to maintain capabilities while actively circumventing sanctions, and that the consequences would be in the future if not acted upon now.

It was a casus belli premised on the argument that Saddam could not vaporize the invasion force in a final act of defiance.

I'm wondering if we watched a different Iraq war.

I remember nothing but breathless exhortations about him definitely having WMDs. And that there was evidence because of yellow cake refinement. I don't even really know what that is. But then we invaded Iraq and there was a two or three year search for WMDs that then turned out to be totally fruitless. The only thing approaching WMDs were the defunct chemical weapons stockpiles we gave to them to fight Iran.

For a lot of people it was a huge black pill moment on media credibility.

I remember nothing but breathless exhortations about him definitely having WMDs. And that there was evidence because of yellow cake refinement. I don't even really know what that is. But then we invaded Iraq and there was a two or three year search for WMDs that then turned out to be totally fruitless. The only thing approaching WMDs were the defunct chemical weapons stockpiles we gave to them to fight Iran.

Agreed on "breathless exhortations", but ... there is a but. Certainly many people walked away thinking the purpose of Iraq war to get rid of Saddam's nukes but I can't really find evidence anyone ever said they had nukes. Overuse of word "WMD" is another move that was both brilliant yet frustrating: conflated anything from mustard gas to nerve agents and nuclear weapons.

Like, here's the press release of February 5 2003 briefing to UNSC by Colin Powell. Powell made many claims: that Iraq was hiding stuff from the inspectors and that Iraq had had a biological and chemical weapons programs in 1990s (true), that Saddam had mobile laboratories (not), that Saddam "remained determined to acquire nuclear weapons" and was trying to acquire various machines such as high-specification aluminum tubes and magnets and machines (not really). Afterwards, it became evident the Saddam's nuclear program was vaporware and had been after the 1990s, but notice how elusive the original claims were here: "Those illicit procurement efforts showed that Saddam Hussein was very much focused on putting in place the key missing piece from his nuclear weapons programme -– the ability to produce fissile material." Tubes, magnets, "Saddam Hussein very focused on", "key missing piece". Sounds very scary indeed, but it was not a claim that Saddam had yet nukes.

There was a set of statements that Saddam was procuring uranium material ("yellow cake") from Africa (GWBs State of the Union 2003 and many statements by Dick Cheney). Again, it was nearly all claims about obtaining uranium, not having weapons. While searching for sources for all this, apparently there's bunch of anti-war websites who love to quote how Dick Cheney said "And we believe he has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons" on Meet the Press aired March 16, 2003. Looking at the transcript that particular phrase looks like bit of word salad to me. He did say (twice!) "reconstituting his nuclear programs", which makes more grammatical sense, probably the phrase he was supposed to repeat. If Cheney was making a claim Saddam had nukes, he was being surprisingly circumspect about it. Its all "what could happen" "if they had a nuclear weapon", "he’s out trying once again to produce nuclear weapon", "it’s only a matter of time until he acquires nuclear weapons". (Later on, the US troops found yellow cake, only it was material IAEA knew of.)

To me, the 'historiography' of media reporting looks like gaslighting twice over. First round in 2003, with a frenzy of statements by admin trying to make Saddam's alleged WMD program appear maximally bad while alluding more than what they exactly said, knowing they were warmongering on flimsy ground and hypotheticals but tiptoeing close to some imagined line they thought was supported by "evidence". Too bad that all the evidence and intelligence was blatantly false or fabricated. Second round of mischaracterization happened after the war, when everyone was angry or disillusioned or both, with anti-war side painting a picture where GWB and Cheney and Powell had said all the maximal claims of Iraqi nukes everybody thought they had heard.

Disclaimer: I was like 10 at the time, so directly I most remember just like, graphics on TV of the invasion with arrows and stuff.

I very much agree. I think what's also missing in the conversation is that it seems to me that the US population was also still pretty bloodthirsty at the time and honestly was relatively easy to convince. A lot of post-9/11 anger still without easy outlets (Afghanistan's insurgency hadn't yet kicked into major gear and was relatively quiet, Bin Laden was elusive, etc) was still in the air. Sure, Bush coined the Axis of Evil but a ton of people ate that stuff right up (maybe we didn't learn the Cold War lessons as deeply as we should have...) All of this means that when Iraq's stability had majorly deteriorated by early to mid 2004, at the same time that year the big post-op intel reports were coming out to the public and were pretty damning. In that context, I think there's a very human motivation to try and wash your own hands and absolve yourself of responsibility, and it's very easy and cheap to say "I was tricked". And even then, there's some major revisionism going on. Polling data and the behavior of politicians both seem to agree that a lot of the regret only started to spike when Iraq and then later Afghanistan war deaths continued to rise, which was well after the facts of Iraq's WMD's were well known. So yeah, people also "backdated" their opposition to the war quite a bit. All you need to do is simply look at the contrast of the 2004 and 2008 election seasons.

I always refer to this video lecture as a counter argument of why, at the time, the decision to invade Iraq can be justified by US/UK head of governement

It detailed the information available at the time for US/UK, then laid out the potential internal political backfire in case of Iraq actually having WMD and used it

After listening to the lecture, to me it always seems like invading Iraq is the rational move at the time with the available intel, while simultaneously and evidently a wrong decision after the fact as we gain more information due to the war

The most important reason for every sane countries to defence Ukraine is nuclear non-proliferation.

Gaddafi served as the original prime counter-example of nuclear non-proliferation. Obama et al. can still marginally justify the action with human right violation (to which, as a realist, I totally disagree, in my opinion they should protect Gaddafi at all cost, to set the example of what the world are willing to do for you with the virtue of giving up nuclear)

Ukraine now being the newest example of why you should not give up nuke and instead one should seek it. Obama and Trump 1 failed nuclear non-proliferation by not helping Ukraine in the 2014 Crimean war with everything they can, under the context of Budapest Memorandum. If the Budapest Memorandum failed to protect Ukraine's border, what is the point of giving up nukes?

Then 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War started and once again, Biden and Trump 2 failed them by not protecting Ukraine's border after they give up nuke, and in some way what Biden demostrated by not wanting to esculate with Russia, and what Trump 2 is demostrating with his esculating action against Iran, is that nuclear weapons will protect you

With these 2 ongoing conflicts, there is no way any rational non-nuke country support nuclear non-proliferation anymore, any real support of such is basically treason.

It would not surprise me if more are secreatly developing nukes now, and announce the possesion of nuclear weapons in 10-15 years, or even attempt to deceive others by announcing the possesion while not actually have one or announce it to gain time while only being close to getting one.

Edit 1: For everyone how said Ukraine don't have the launch code: There is a saying that government with access to nuclear weapons is more stable from oursiders due to the risk of nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorist. If terrorists are said to be capable of using nuclear weapons from arbitrary country, a functioning industrialized economy with actual nuclear weapon engineers and nuclear scientist, should be able to make use of those USSR nukes

It's worth remembering one critical fact:

Owning nukes changes the strategic calculus away from conventional... But dramatically tilts it towards nuclear war. Because if you have nukes, suddenly it becomes reasonable for any hostile country to perform a counterforce first-strike to destroy your nukes before you could use them. The existing members of the nuclear club have conventional militaries and/or alliance networks of such size as to makke that unappealling... But an isolated, belligerent ghaddafhi might have actually lead to the destruction of libya in nuclear fire.

I’m not sure how nukes stop internal security problems from getting you butchered. Gaddafi didn’t fall to a ground invasion.

Gaddafi did fall to a NATO air campaign stopping and then reversing the civil war's progress, which at the time of intervention he clearly had the momentum in. Had Gaddafi had a nuclear weapon, it's extremely doubtful the NATO air campaign would have occurred, and without that, he would have been doing the butchering.

Who would Gaddafi have nuked? France?

Who would Gaddafi have nuked? France?

He could have, and that might well have been enough to keep NATO out of it.

I find it very hard to believe that the consequence of a not-even-third-tier power nuking Paris would be Gaddafi being allowed to stay in power.

That’s the kind of hypothetical reserved for a Russia/China/USA level MAD situation where someone fires first and you hope against hope that cooler heads prevail and the attacked party ‘settles’ for a big payoff and apology (but still very unlikely).

A minor nuclear power firing a nuke like that would just result in absolute extermination for Gaddafi, because it’s not like the Chinese or Russians were going to nuke London or Washington in retaliation for an attack on Tripoli.

I find it very hard to believe that the consequence of a not-even-third-tier power nuking Paris would be Gaddafi being allowed to stay in power.

The consequence of Gaddafi nuking Paris is "no more Gaddafi", but also no more Paris. The consequence of Gaddafi being able to nuke Paris if the alternative is going to be "no more Gaddafi" anyway is quite a different matter.

I agree that it's hard to look at the current state of global conflict/deterrence and not concluded that having nukes is the dominant strategy for maintaining sovereignty.

But Ukraine couldn't keep the nukes. They didn't have the launch codes, they didn't have the economy to maintain them indefinitely. They definitely didn't have the economy to build out the other two legs of the nuclear triad (especially SLBMs). And finally, there's a 0.0000% chance the big dogs were ever letting them keep them.

Ukraine could trade the nukes for a "deal" or they could give them up later once they got sanctioned into oblivion, at a time their economy was already imploding.

The critical problem of getting function nukes is enriched uranium, delivery mechanism can be a truck, like the recent Ukrinian drone carrier

While they don't have the launch codes, by definition nukes must be weapon grade enriched uranium, the big dogs are likely bluffing

All of this myopic talk of nukes, in a world where thermobaric/ air burst fuel mixture bombs exist. They are comparatively just as destructive and as a bonus don't leave a fallout. A few MOAB equivalents together can absolutely annihilate a town

Pretty much. People radically overestimate how hard it would have been for the Ukrainians to disassemble the Soviet nukes and make their own triggering device.

Which is what most of nuclear arms security comes down to. When nuclear munitions have unlock codes in the first place, the 'failsafe' mechanisms are failsafes in the sense of 'this trigger device will be borked.' They are not failsafes in terms of rendering the underlying material unable to be used, only unable to be used by the specific device.

Replace the device, and you have a possibly less efficient, but still effective, nuclear device. Which is among the less challenging parts of the nuclear problem.

Obama and Trump 1 failed nuclear non-proliferation by not helping Ukraine in the 2014 Crimean war with everything they can, under the context of Budapest Memorandum. If the Budapest Memorandum failed to protect Ukraine's border, what is the point of giving up nukes?

The Budapest Memorandum doesn't suggest anyone do anything more than complain to the UN when triggered. It's a meaningless pinky-swear to avoid attacking them, not a guarantee of their defense. When someone brings it up at this point, years into the war, I just assume they're a support-maximalist who hopes no one knows what's actually in it.

Ukraine never had launch codes for "its" nukes and when Russia demanded them back its choices were to either comply or have the world force them. They never had any actual leverage and that's why the Budapest Memorandum was a worthless cumrag from the start.

Budapest Memorandum is always worthless in wording, but ideally should serve as the example of what the global powers are willing to commit for nuclear non-proliferation, which, many years later, is little to none

No country even make the claim that they support Ukraine base on the virtue of giving up nukes, instead of they support Ukraine mainly because it is a defensive war close to Europe

Your point's a strong one, but I don't think your last sentence lands as the flourish you probably intended.

One question I feel is underexplored is, to what extent would things have gone differently for a hypothetical nuclear-armed Ukraine? It seems plausible enough that in the first few weeks of the conflict, when Russia was actually aiming for the jugular, Nuclear Ukraine could have countered with a credible nuclear threat. However, if Ukraine magicked up a full nuclear triad now, would much of anything change? That is, would it be able to credibly threaten MAD to demand back Crimea and Donbass alone? (I don't think so. It seems pretty obvious that the more realistic form of their current war goals - EU and NATO membership for a rump state minus approximately what Russia has taken, plus or minus some more parts of Donbass - is too valuable to go va banque over, plus the West has an enduring interest in maintaining the nuclear-strike taboo lest the End of History gets undone any further.) Consequently, could it have credibly threatened MAD when Russia grabbed Crimea? ...when it supported the Donbass separatists in uprising? ...if, instead of doing the push for Kiev, Russia only had blitzed for the territory it controls now from the start, declaring that it wants to seize a buffer zone for Crimea and the Donbass separatists? In the worst case, Ukrainian nukes would merely have stopped Russia from making its grand opening mistake (blowing its confidence and certain classes of special force reserves on a useless operation).

Ukraine's fundamental dilemma is that while the EU/NATO exists and is friendly to it, it is very hard for it to credibly signal that it has its back to the wall; but if the EU/NATO backstop were to disappear, it would become very hard for it to marshal the will and unifying purpose to resist Russia.

In an alternate history of nuclear-armed Ukraine, I believe Putin will choose a different country to invade instead

The alt-path will likely start with Ukraine not signing the Budapest Memorandum thus keeping their Soviet nukes, while Ukraine will likely suffer some form of international trade sanction (but not a lot, as the newly created Russia will likely not sanction them to cripple they own nation)

Going into the 2000s, I believe Ukraine will achieve a status similar to pre-2022 Finland, where they will be a Friend of Russia economically, with the promise of not joining NATO, after all, everyone knows there is no benefit for Ukraine to join NATO when they have nukes, thus Russia unironically will feel a lot safer from Ukraine compare to our history

In our history, Ukraine is always a somewhat Russian friendly country before Russia fucked them hard by all the means after 2000, would Russia fuck with the government of a nuclear-armed, Russian friendly Ukraine?

As long as Ukraine demonstrate their discipline on international affairs and don't actively fuck with others, they likely achive at worst the status of Pakistan (who hosted Osama bin Laden without real consequences), likely the status of India (internationally not one give a fuck on what they do internally), at best the status of pre-2022 Finland (Staying friendly to everyone, everyone want them to be the buffer state while giving you some form of trade access), all depends on what Ukrainian can achieve diplomatically

In an alternate history of nuclear-armed Ukraine, I believe Putin will choose a different country to invade instead

...which one? Do you figure there is some priority list of countries he wants to invade? What does it look like?

In our history, Ukraine is always a somewhat Russian friendly country before Russia fucked them hard by all the means after 2000, would Russia fuck with the government of a nuclear-armed, Russian friendly Ukraine?

The Russian view there is quite different - as they contend, at some point after the early 2000s, Ukraine started responding to its economic malaise by stealing gas meant for transit to EU customers to help itself meet its own demand, with some complicity from EU states who refused to hold Ukraine responsible for this diplomatically while also working to sabotage any projects for new pipelines that would bypass Ukraine completely (in EU propaganda, this was framed as the bypass pipelines "enabling Russia to blackmail Ukraine" - as in, blackmail it with the threat of taking away the free gas). If a nuclear-armed Ukraine becomes a pariah in your scenario, is the dominant consequence that its economy is in even more shambles (so it needs to steal more gas) or that the EU objections to bypass pipelines disappear (so it never gets the opportunity to steal as much gas)?

A scenario in which Russia still depends on them for transit but now they are even more desperate to extract unnegotiated concessions for it may not be one in which Russia sees it as friendly. Certainly, my memory is that even in reality, the gas siphoning resulted in a lot of grassroots resentment towards Ukraine among Russians at the time, to the point that they could have easily been persuaded to endorse some punitive aggression against it by a thus inclined statesman.

(I find it interesting that the gas transit story is never mentioned in mainstream reporting on the war, not even with a framing that puts all the blame on Russia. Through my conspiracy goggles, this looks like another instance of a general pattern of producing simple good/evil narratives by cutting off history at a convenient point - in the media, the Israel/Palestine war started on 24-10-07, Russia/Ukraine started in 2014 with a little exemption for the Budapest Memorandum in murky prehistory, and everyone/Iran started with the Islamic Revolution. No hard questions about who shot first. Not that this is new - America/Japan, they claim, started with Pearl Harbor, too.)

Ukraine started responding to its economic malaise by stealing gas meant for transit to EU customers to help itself meet its own demand

Wasn't it just propaganda? Just like Russia banned Latvian canned fish imported to Russia every time they had a dispute about Soviet legacy in Latvia and the status of Russian language? On flimsy pretense that the fish was spoiled, or whatever. I still remember numerous reports on Russian state TV about Latvians trying to poison Russian population with their rotten fish, Georgians -- with their vine, Moldavians — with their apples...

The same with "stolen" gas -- you still need to keep "technical gas" inside the pipes to keep the pressure, and as countries westward of Ukraine still consumed their (as they paid for it), Ukraine had to siphon gas off some in order to keep operating the compressor stations. EU also didn't find any proof that the gas was stolen IIRC. But at the core, Russians hated that Yushchenko was the president of Ukraine, and not their puppet Yanukovych. That's why they raised the price of the gas from something like $50 to $250 in the first place -- as to pressure Ukraine to submit.

No hard questions about who shot first.

True. But if you do your diligence, you'll find that we (Russians) were rarely good guys.

My understanding is that some amount of actual stealing took place and was admitted to early on (the 2005 end of the dispute), and after that it was mostly arcane contractual disputes which can best be approximated by something like: Russia was selling gas to Ukraine at well-below-market/charity rates while it was a puppet state, but wanted to start charging market after they had the revolution to bring in the pro-Western guy, which Ukraine couldn't afford (and they might already have been in arrears from before), and so UA decided to basically hold westward transit hostage to demand continued sub-market deliveries (and may either have stolen gas from transit attempts, or asserted a contractual right to take it; hard to find objective information); while the Western states, having alternatives and not liking the idea that Ukraine would be incentivised with cheap gas to not be pro-Western, approved of this process.

EU also didn't find any proof that the gas was stolen IIRC.

This means as little in the context as if Russia found "proof", since the EU wanted to back their own puppet. If we wanted objective information, perhaps we should have put an Indian investigative team on the case as they did in the Korean war...

True. But if you do your diligence, you'll find that we (Russians) were rarely good guys.

Eh. My reading is that at least in several of the post-'90s conflicts, their moral batting average was pretty average. I do think it was evil on the strategic level that they essentially wanted to keep Ukraine perpetually poor and dependent, though the exact ways in which they did it seem more business-as-usual to me; on the other hand, e.g. in Georgia 2008, I think they were morally in the right (Georgia shot first, and I don't see their moral claim to the separatist areas). Chechnya, and the quite possibly false-flag apartment bombings - evil, for sure (though I think the Chechens were/are also a nasty bunch, so it was black-on-dark-grey warfare like the US invasion of Afghanistan). In the case of Transnistria, I also don't see Moldova's moral claim.

More importantly, though, I think it doesn't matter because orthogonally to interior politics, the post-WWII US (and friends) is more evil than Russia. (I mean, just in this year, Israel has killed more civilians in Gaza than Russia has in Ukraine for the whole duration of the war!) I'd rather have zero tyrants on the world stage than one, but if we have to have at least one, I'd rather have 2+, so they at least have to throw some morsels to us in the NPC countries occasionally lest we all align with the respective other. When I argue against the morality of the US camp, it's strictly in the service of the implications of this viewpoint: a world in which every credible challenger to the US has been neutered is worse than the one we currently inhabit.

...which one? Do you figure there is some priority list of countries he wants to invade? What does it look like?

A quick list from wiki of actual wars he/Russia involved in since 1991:

  • 3 Georgian related wars (1 civil war, 2 war of independence)
  • Moldova's Transnistria war (war of independence)
  • Tajikistani Civil War (this time Russia seems to be on the "good" side, with UN support)
  • 2 Chechen wars (1st is war of independence from Russia, for the 2nd one I am not familiar with the subject to form a justifiable opinion, but I think this is a full scale invasion)
  • war with Georgia, again
  • 2014 Crimean war, then 2022 full scale invasion

I think this is quite an impressive list of wars within 21 years

I think Putim start these war due to internal political struggles, like, start and win a war is one of easiest war to remain in power for political leaders, democracy or dictatorship. Remember the prelude of 2022 Ukrainian war was Ukraine will fall within a few months, this is the public consensus of the world at the time

If a nuclear-armed Ukraine becomes a pariah in your scenario

I don't believe Ukraine will becomes a pariah at all, Pakistan did not become a pariah with their much worst actions.

On the gas stealing part, I think Ukraine will either not have the chance of stealing due to new pipelines bypassing them which lead to a less prosper Ukraine, or no new pipelines bypassing them while Ukraine in a much better stand to negotiate trading agreements with Russia without the fear of being invaded.

All in all, I think Russia instead will attempt to culturally and economically influence Ukraine so that Ukraine stay within their sphere of influence which justify the cheap selling of gas to Ukraine.

this looks like another instance of a general pattern of producing simple good/evil narratives by cutting off history at a convenient point

As expected, part of this is war time propaganda from every country for justification of supporting the "good" guy

actual wars he/Russia involved in since 1991

Also in the article wasn't mentioned intervention in Kazakhstan, behind-the-scenes FSB operations in Belarus, Montenegro etc., or simply acts of terrorism like Skrypal poisoning, or murder of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin, or dozens of similar acts around the world. It indicates that Putin is "adventuresome" and prone to risk-taking, even at the cost of worsening relationships with other countries who do not threaten him. Having nuclear weapons is certainly an additional factor of why he is so bold, coupled with masterful utilization of useful idiots in the West, both on the left and the right, who'll cry about escalation every time someone will threaten to respond in kind.

Ukraine is already striking Russia. I don’t think that, if they had a nuke, they wouldn’t launch it.

How does this follow? Ukraine could do great damage to Russia if it used one nuke or a handful, sure, but Russia could use a fraction of its nuclear arsenal to turn Ukraine into an uninhabitable wasteland. Besides, there is already a level of escalation available to Ukraine that is of the nuke nature without being of the same degree, which is that they could use their ample supply of mid/long-range drones to strike civilian centers with incendiary charges. Why do you figure they do not do that, by the same reasoning, whatever it is?

Highly doubt that Ukraine could inflict significant civilian casualties in Russia with drones. It takes thousands of tonnes of incendiaries to ignite a big city-killing firestorm. Plus modern buildings are harder to burn down.

They were basically dropping nuclear weapon's worth of conventional explosives on Hamburg, Tokyo, Dresden in 1943 and 1945, especially when you account for how much nuke energy is lost going up into the sky, many smaller bombs are more efficient in energy terms.

But obviously Russia has the upper hand here, as you say.

This is a super interesting comment.

On a first read, I totally agree. If I'm zelensky, I'd infinitely prefer to be the leader of "the remaining 75% of Ukraine" versus "the shattered remains of the country once known as Ukraine".

But then that completely undermines the entire concept of deterrence. If your neighbor, who you have a long and shitty history with, is invading you with the full might of their army with the goal of totally capitulating you, isn't a high enough bar to use nukes, what is?

Further, it's really interesting to consider the history (or lack thereof) of nuclear war. The USA and the USSR were locked in what I'm sure felt like a profoundly existential struggle to determine the forward looking economic/social paradigm of the human race. One in which (until the maturation of SLBMs) the first mover's advantage could realistically result in complete victory for one side, and nuclear genocide for the other.

And yet, despite all that pressure, and moments where it seemed credible the other side had or was about to launch, the actual human(s) in charge of pushing the button always found a way or a reason to not do it.

And it raises an interesting question about the game theory and logic of deterrence. Under the framework, it's extremely "logical" to both ensure your nation state opponent believes you'll nuke them if they push you too far. It's also "logical" to actually nuke them if they do push too far, otherwise they'll realize you're a phony and they'll fuck with you as much as they want. But! As an individual enjoyer of industrial civilization who enjoys having their friends and family alive and not vaporized or starving to death, it's also extremely "logical" to absolutely not press that button. Sure, maybe someone else will, but hopefully when it finally comes time to do it, they'll think of their families too.

As an enjoyer of industrial civilization myself, I'm glad the second group seems to have been around when it counts.

Well fortunately thanks to Ukraine/Russia, India/Pakistan and Iran/Israel we now have an excellent iterative stress-test of just how far you can push a nuclear power before they push that big red button. Yeeting quadcopter drones into a leg of the nuclear triad? Check. “Accidentally” blowing up the other side’s nuclear weapons with a conventional strike? Check. Chucking ballistic missiles with a 4,000 lb warhead into the densely populated high rise downtown area of the capitol city? Check. And of course the control group for the study, China/USA, where nothing ever happens, but it’s always looming.

Thanks for your kind words.

I think that you are on to an important aspect with your consideration of the history of nuclear war - this history is also a history of our theory of and intuitions on deterrence, which may not be fully applicable to modern-day situations. Most of our expectations around it evolved in the peculiar setting of two fragile apex powers locked in what felt like an unstable equilibrium in a life-or-death struggle - both the US and the USSR saw themselves as standing atop a slippery slope to complete defeat, as a USA that lost a single direct engagement with the USSR would thereafter just be a strictly weaker, less intimidating USA (and vice versa), and if they were barely stemming the tide of global communism (capitalism) now, how would they fare then? In such a setting, a "not a step back" policy is sensible and credible.

On the other hand, is this true for Ukraine? One can argue that a Ukraine that has lost Crimea, and even Donbass, is in some meaningful sense a leaner and meaner Ukraine - they are rid of the albatross around their neck that were the initially about 50% at least ambivalently pro-Russian population, both by capture and galvanization of those who remain, and backed by a West with a significantly greater sense of urgency and purpose. As 2022~ showed, Ukraine's subjugation is not in fact a monotonic slope but comes with a very significant hump around the 25% mark. What should be the theory of nuclear deterrence for that scenario? I think there is at least circumstantial evidence that it is different - since 199X, aggression towards nuclear-armed countries has not proceeded in line with the Cold War at all, whether it is India/Pakistan or in fact US/Russia.

Could you imagine, in 1980, US-made weapons hitting Russian cities using US targeting and US satellites? I'd say that the reason this is possible is that there is common knowledge that some HIMARS hits on Belgorod do not in fact leave a Russia that is strictly less able to prosecute a conflict against the West in which it is already barely managing. The modern theory of deterrence may look more like identifying the humps that disrupt the slippery slope, and trying to beat your opponent back to one of those humps but no further, versus... trying to push your humps as far up the slope as possible?

The modern theory of deterrence may look more like identifying the humps that disrupt the slippery slope, and trying to beat your opponent back to one of those humps but no further, versus... trying to push your humps as far up the slope as possible?

I think the term in the literature you're looking for is "escalation dominance."

I completely agree.

I would add that having defensive alliances between nuclear and non-nuclear states is a great boon to non-proliferation. Being in NATO is very much preferable from owning a few nukes, but if NATO membership was not an option for former east block states (like Poland, whose past experience with Russia/USSR would make them wary), then these states might have started pursuing nuclear weapons after the fall of the USSR.

However, the Ukraine war also shows that nukes are not the "I win" button. Instead, the button is labeled "Fuck you, fuck me, fuck everyone". Threatening to press it outside the most existential crisis of a regime is not credible, for the most part. (The death star gambit, to blow up whichever polity annoyed you most from time to time pour encourager les autres might or might not work.)

An interesting factor here is that a number of not-themselves-nuclear powers in NATO(including Poland, but also Turkey and the Netherlands) have technically-American nuclear weapons in their arsenals. Absent this program I'd expect Poland and Turkey, at the very least, to have their own nukes.

It's similar to cluster munitions: a number of American allies are very willing to sign global treaties banning their use, knowing that in a shooting war, the USA will happily bust out its own stock.

My advice for rulers, especially ones on the outs with major geopolitical powers: Pour one out for Gaddafi, then hire a few hundred Chinese scientists and engineers and get nuked up ASAP.

Alternately, build them with native talent(after all, Pakistan managed it, we can assume most major non-African countries have the ability to do so) and don’t publicize it until you’re done. Or just buy one from Pakistan.

Or just buy the tech from France (and in some way Canada) like how most new nuclear country does it, then assemble a few actual working one before you develope the in house tech and logistic to build more

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