dasein and thermo-nuclear war?

Social Forums Current Events
381

There is an article in a fairly conventional outlet that i can’t dig up fir the moment, thAt goes into the recent upsurge of resistance against Putin by a fairly broad based organization consisting if rather influenciak people close to the politbuteau, who also see the inavoidability of Putin being pushed out, as reactively proportional to the ebbing of successes in the war in Ukraine.

That given is of course, not yet having established a bilateral present status quo within it without the political structure of Russia, but most probably adds to the lessening position of both: Putin and those trying to dispose him.

382

[b]'President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accelerated his war effort in Ukraine on Wednesday, announcing a new campaign that would call up roughly 300,000 reservists to the military while also directly challenging the West over its support for Ukraine with a veiled threat of using nuclear weapons.

In a rare videotaped address to the nation, Mr. Putin stopped short of declaring a full, national draft but instead called for a “partial mobilization” of people with military experience. Though Moscow’s troops have recently suffered humiliating losses on the battlefield, he said that Russia’s goals in Ukraine had not changed and that the move was “necessary and urgent” because the West had “crossed all lines” by providing sophisticated weapons to Ukraine.'[/b] NYT

Yo, Biden! What say you?!!

Oh, to be inside the heads of these two men. With their proverbial fingers on the proverbial buttons. How far will they go?

Or, philosophically, how far are they obligated to go? Two “Kingdoms of Ends” as it were. With nuclear means.

Edit:

‘Analysis: Russia pushes the panic button and raises risk of nuclear war’ WP.

383

Escalation:

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with members of the government in Moscow in January 2020. (Alexey Nikolsky/Sputnik/Kremlin/Reuters)
What many watchers of the war in Ukraine feared is about to happen. Separatist leaders in four enclaves controlled by Russian forces and their proxies in Ukraine announced “referendums” to be staged Friday through Tuesday to decide whether their territories would join Russia. These votes, which are illegal under both Ukrainian and international law and viewed by most analysts as a sham, are similar to what Russia unfurled following its 2014 annexation of Crimea. Unlike then, the Kremlin’s military hold over these statelets in Ukraine’s Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions is more tenuous, with Ukraine in the midst of an ongoing offensive to push Russian troops out of more areas of the country.

Further Russian annexation of Ukrainian lands — no matter the spurious nature of the move — marks the latest roll of the dice by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Humbled on the battlefield in recent weeks, he may believe changing the political facts on the ground could stymie Ukrainian advances and force a recalculation among Western governments. “After annexing the territories, Moscow would likely declare Ukrainian attacks on those areas to be assaults on Russia itself, analysts warned, a potential trigger for a general military mobilization or a dangerous escalation such as the use of a nuclear weapon against Ukraine,” wrote my colleague Robyn Dixon.

Vladimir Putin warned the West that if it continued what he called its “nuclear blackmail,” that Moscow would respond with the might of all its vast arsenal. (Video: Reuters)
On Wednesday morning, Putin delivered a speech ordering a “partial mobilization” of Russian troops and warned that Russia “will use all the means at our disposal” to defend its territory — a veiled nuclear threat. His country’s rubber-stamp parliament is pushing through a bill that will stiffen punishments for a host of crimes, such as desertion and insubordination, if committed during military mobilization or combat situations. Pro-war hard-liners have called for such tougher measures to buttress Russia’s flagging war effort. They also believe that a tightening of control over Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia will up the ante in the Kremlin’s favor.

Story continues below advertisement
“Judging by what is happening and what is about to happen, this week marks either the eve of our imminent victory or the eve of nuclear war,” Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of state propaganda channel RT, tweeted. “I can’t see any third option.”

Ukrainian officials were unimpressed. “Sham ‘referendums’ will not change anything. Neither will any hybrid ‘mobilization,’” responded Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “Russia has been and remains an aggressor illegally occupying parts of Ukrainian land. Ukraine has every right to liberate its territories and will keep liberating them whatever Russia has to say.”

Ukrainian offensive thwarted Russia’s annexation plans in Kharkiv

#Russia’s state propaganda outlets already publish the results of “opinion polls” in occupied areas in #Ukraine, which are likely to be used as “targets” for the fake “referenda” on #annexation:

Donetsk region - 94%
Luhansk - 93%
Zaporizhzhia - 87%
Kherson - 80% pic.twitter.com/S8WAqKXdyE

— Alex Kokcharov (@AlexKokcharov) September 20, 2022
That sentiment was echoed by French President Emmanuel Macron when speaking Tuesday at the dais of the U.N. General Assembly. He cast Russian actions since the Feb. 24 invasion as “a return to the age of imperialism and colonies” and spoke directly to nations in the developing world that seem to be sitting on the fence during this conflict. “Those who are silent now on this new imperialism, or are secretly complicit with it, show a new cynicism that is tearing down the global order without which peace is not possible,” Macron said.

Story continues below advertisement
Other Western diplomats condemned the mooted annexation plans. “Russia, its political leadership, and all those involved in these ‘referenda’ and other violations of international law in Ukraine will be held accountable, and additional restrictive measures against Russia would be considered,” E.U. foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.

With the exception of the rhetorical backing of a clutch of far-right allies in Europe, Putin can’t count on much support from elsewhere, either. Last week at a summit in Uzbekistan, he faced a degree of pressure from the leaders of China and India, which have historically warm ties with Moscow, to draw down hostilities in Ukraine.

“Those countries signaled to Putin that he should end the war as quickly as possible, and stop claiming to represent the entirety of the non-Western world,” tweeted Alexander Baunov, a Russian journalist and international policy expert. “Moscow’s actions, therefore, are being taken to either end the war as soon as possible, or, if it that doesn’t work, to put the blame for that on other people, and turn Russia’s invasion of a neighboring country into a defensive war.”

Referendums planned in Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions on joining #Russia will not be recognized by the international community, said Emmanuel Macron and called the plans “cynical” and “a parody.”

Also, Macron guaranteed the continuation of arms deliveries to #Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/a2hCAGDW6k

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) September 20, 2022
As Ukraine advances, Putin backs further into a corner

Ukraine’s stunning victories in the northeast Kharkiv region set the table for this strategic turn. The rapid Ukrainian advance exposed a depleted, disorganized Russian military that melted away. It also further collapsed Putin’s propaganda narrative surrounding the war. For months, the Kremlin framed the Russian invasion as a “special operation” with an inevitable outcome — to bring an unruly little neighbor back into the Russian fold. The series of stinging setbacks have illustrated the seeming impossibility of a decisive Russian military victory.

Story continues below advertisement
And many in Russia are now getting the picture, too. “Judging by the scathing commentary in Russian Telegram channels and the shift of tone in the Kremlin-controlled media, Russians are in the process of losing the last remaining glimmers of their perceived military might,” wrote Gian Gentile and Raphael S. Cohen in Foreign Policy, likening the Ukrainian victory in Kharkiv to the American victory over the British at Saratoga in 1777, which turned the tide of the Revolutionary War.

That analogy may be a bit premature. Dara Massicot, Gentile and Cohen’s colleague at the Rand Corporation, warned that the next phase of the war — still massively influenced by Western military support to Ukraine as it bids to reclaim its lost territory — could see a whole new series of Russian provocations. “If the Kremlin’s annexation gambit fails to stop the fighting and support to Ukraine, the Kremlin will need to lash out to show it is serious,” she tweeted. “That means escalation that could come in different form” — including more missile strikes on Ukrainian civilian areas and energy infrastructure, cyberattacks, and exercises that involve the “brandishing of nuclear weapons,” if not their deployment.

The stakes are getting higher. The West “should remind Russia of the invisible rules of the war: that neither side wants to turn this conventional war into a wider NATO-Russian confrontation,” wrote Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage in Foreign Affairs. “A nuclear escalation would violate these rules and could lead to NATO involvement. It would be to everybody’s detriment.”

Story continues below advertisement
Meanwhile, Fix and Kimmage argued, Kremlin attempts to order a general mobilization may only plunge approval for the war among the Russian public and undermine Putin’s own grip on power. “Putin’s Russia has been unable to develop a clear concept for its war, unable to learn from its mistakes, and unable to execute many of the functions of a world-class military,” they wrote. “Mobilization per se would change none of this.”

War in Ukraine: What you need to know
The latest: Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial mobilization” of troops in an address to the nation on Sept. 21, framing the move as an attempt to defend Russian sovereignty against a West that seeks to use Ukraine as a tool to “divide and destroy Russia.” Follow our live updates here.

The fight: A successful Ukrainian counteroffensive has forced a major Russian retreat in the northeastern Kharkiv region in recent days, as troops fled cities and villages they had occupied since the early days of the war and abandoned large amounts of military equipment

© 1996-2022 The Washington Post

And the following:

"In a national address, Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the threat of a nuclear response in the conflict in Ukraine and ordered reservists to mobilize in an escalation of the war.

The Kremlin leader’s speech is the clearest sign yet that seven months into the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II, Russia is unable to counter Ukraine and the West.

Later, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, President Biden asserted that Russia had “shamelessly violated the core tenets” of the global organization’s charter, pledging continued work with allies to impose costs on Mr. Putin.

“No one threatened Russia and no one other than Russia sought conflict,” Mr. Biden said."

AP

Further fuel to the fire

U.S. Needs to Threaten Russia With Nuclear Strike: Ukraine

WORLD RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY UNITED NATIONS

Asenior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is urging the United States to flesh out specific retaliatory measures if Russia were to invoke nuclear strikes against Ukraine.

Mykhailo Podolyak, Zelensky’s senior aide, requested that the U.S. and other allies outline the consequences of Russia using nuclear warfare in an interview with the presidential administration today in Kyiv.

“The other nuclear states need to say very firmly that as soon as Russia even thinks of carrying out nuclear strikes on foreign territory—in this case the territory of Ukraine—there will be swift retaliatory nuclear strikes to destroy the nuclear launch sites in Russia,” Podolyak was quoted by The Guardian.

Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened nuclear attacks in a televised address Wednesday morning, stressing the threats were “not a bluff.” Putin used the same address to call for a partial mobilization of Russian citizens with military experience to join the war. Russia has ramped up its military measures since Ukraine began a strong counteroffensive attack that is reclaiming key territories, destroying Russian equipment and sending Russian soldiers fleeing from the area.

President Joe Biden responded to the threats in an address to the United Nations Wednesday morning and called Putin’s actions “outrageous.”

“The United States is ready to pursue critical arms control measures. A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” Biden said during the televised address.

Zelensky to Address United Nations
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a press conference following talks with the European Union in Kyiv on September 15. Zelensky is expected to address the United Nations regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilization and nuclear threats on Wednesday afternoon.
PHOTO BY SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
According to The Guardian, Putin has threatened nuclear attacks several times since invading Ukraine in February, but his latest warning has analysts reconsidering if the threats hold any weight. Podolyak said Putin’s seriousness is something that cannot be predicted.

NEWSWEEK SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS >
“It’s hard to make predictions when a person is completely irrational,” he said. “We have a big country that enters Ukrainian territory, starts a war, seizes some territory, and then says this territory is now ours and if you try to take it back we’ll use nuclear weapons. It looks absolutely absurd, and furthermore it destroys the whole global system of nuclear deterrence.”

Other Ukrainian officials believe the threats should be taken seriously as well, including Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

“You can’t have someone wandering around with a grenade with the pin removed and threatening everyone with it just because he can,” Vereshchuk told The Guardian.

BBC news correspondent Hugo Bachega said in an interview earlier this morning with CBS News that one of Zelensky’s top advisers told him Putin’s threats were a “predictable response” to Russia’s struggle in the Ukraine war.

“He also said this is the beginning of the collapse of Putin’s regime,” Bachega told CBS News.

READ MORE
Ex-Putin Advisor Threatens Nuclear Weapons in First 20 Seconds of Interview
Vladimir Putin Issues Nuclear Threat Over Ukraine—‘This Is Not a Bluff’
Putin ‘Accepting Greater Political Risk’ by Doubling Down in Ukraine: U.K.
Later today, Zelensky is expected to address the United Nations. Bachega anticipates Zelensky will use the address as an opportunity to request more weapons and more assistance to strengthen Ukraine’s forces.

“I think they are going to use the gains of this counteroffensive to tell Western partners, ‘Look, we have the ability, we have the capacity to reclaim territory, but we need your help,’” Bachega said.

Newsweek reached out to the United Nations for comment.

REQUEST REPRINT & LICENSING OR VIEW EDITORIAL GUIDELINES

ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/35 … telligence

384

U.S. & Ukraine to speak soon:
youtu.be/JPq4s04lMg0

385

Note to God [the one that really does exist]:

You’re omnipotent, right?

How about you put a stop all of this right now? [-o<

386

Note to made-in-God’s-image:

Why do you destroy crops if feeding the world is important? Why do you treat human beings like capital and energy? Why do you line the pockets of drug lords and utility gangsters? Why do you stifle income-based housing inventory in favor of lesser priorities?

You are free. To the consequences you choose.

387

Tricked her again!

Note to her God:

How do You reconcile being loving, just and merciful with this:

388

  1. remove those caused by humans

  2. remove those that can’t be used to make us stronger

You got nuthin.

The Lord disciplines those he loves.

389

:laughing:

No, seriously.

390

It’s back!

The big bold headline:

Biden Asks U.N. to Hold Russia Accountable as Putin Digs In NYT

Biden or Putin? We know which one is scarier. But which one is the least altogether mentally?

Or, sure, is it still all more about boosting circulation?

391

Max Boot at the WP

[b]'With defeat looming, Putin is trotting out a new strategy: He will annex Ukrainian territory and then threaten to use nuclear weapons if the Ukrainians and their allies in the West don’t let him get away with it. If the West were to give in to his nuclear blackmail, what would stop him from announcing tomorrow that Kyiv is also Russian territory (which he clearly believes)? Or Tallinn? Or Tbilisi? Or even Warsaw or Helsinki? We cannot live in a world where an evil dictator can redraw international borders at will with threats of nuclear annihilation. And we don’t have to.

'Before we panic over Putin’s reckless threats, let’s remember that we have nearly as many nuclear weapons as Russia and that this is hardly the first time that Putin has threatened to go nuclear. At the very beginning of the war, on Feb. 24, he said that any country that interfered with his invasion would suffer consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history.” Well, the West has supplied Ukraine with weapons that have killed or wounded at least 70,000 Russian soldiers, and Putin still has not made any nuclear move. Nor has he gone nuclear over Ukrainian attacks on Crimea, which he annexed in 2014. He is not suicidal or crazy.[/b]

Sure, this argument may well be closer to the way this will all play out than mine.

Mine is that no one really knows how crazy Putin in. And no one really knows if, a la Dr. Strangelove, Putin has a contingency plan to survive a nuclear war.

Again, given that I don’t believe in an afterlife and that, living about 35 miles from Washington D.C., which might possibly be nuked out of existence, I’m all for accepting that Putin is interested only in recreating the U.S.S.R…and is not another Hitler out to gobble up the entire planet.

But that’s all “existential” isn’t it? I’m sure some here can provide us with the most rational assessment and the most imperative moral obligation for all truly virtuous men and women.

392

I scream, you scream, we all scream for our hearts and minds:

ichthus77.com/2008/01/03/napole … -conquers/

393

:laughing:

No, seriously.

394

Paul Sonne and John Hudson at the Washington Post

[b]'U.S. has sent private warnings to Russia against using a nuclear weapon

'The United States for several months has been sending private communications to Moscow warning Russia’s leadership of the grave consequences that would follow the use of a nuclear weapon, according to U.S. officials, who said the messages underscore what President Biden and his aides have articulated publicly.

'The Biden administration generally has decided to keep warnings about the consequences of a nuclear strike deliberately vague, so the Kremlin worries about how Washington might respond, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive deliberations.

‘The attempt by the White House to cultivate what’s known in the nuclear deterrence world as “strategic ambiguity” comes as Russia continues to escalate its rhetoric about possible nuclear weapons use amid a domestic mobilization aimed at stanching Russian military losses in eastern Ukraine.’[/b]

So, the narrative shifts from how far will Putin go to how far will Biden go if Putin goes too far.

Of course, we all know that this “private communication” goes on all the time around the globe. But we don’t know ourselves how far it does go here.

Like back in Vietnam with Nixon and Kissinger going back and forth with North Vietnam…trying to secure the least humiliating exit strategy for Goliath.

Is that what’s going on here? Giving this new Goliath a way to save face?

Or, instead, will Biden just end up pissing Putin off. Pissing him off to the point that Putin uses nukes as a way in which to tell Biden to go fuck himself.

And most of the rest of us when it all gets out of hand.

395

Fareed Zakaria at the Washington Post

washingtonpost.com/opinions … tastrophe/

[b]'Putin has just made the world a far more dangerous place…

Let’s not play down what has happened this week. The leader of the world’s largest nuclear power publicly threatened to use nuclear weapons. In an address in Moscow on Wednesday, Vladimir Putin declared that Russia would use “all weapon systems available to us” to defend the country. He emphasized, “This is not a bluff.”

‘It might be. Putin’s threat is at odds with traditional Soviet military doctrine, which once ruled out “first use.” Under his leadership, the Russian military now contemplates scenarios in which it could use nuclear weapons. But Putin knows that the West has powerful nuclear weapons of its own; and he knows that the doctrine of “mutually assured destruction” has prevented any power from deploying them since 1945. Moreover, these kinds of threats must rattle China, India and all those countries that have been trying to steer a course between Russia and the West.’[/b]

Back to this: policy embedded “deeper down” in the state and policy embedded existentially in the mind of any particular leader of the state. What will Putin do? What will those embedded in Russia’s own rendition of the military industrial complex permit him to do? Fail safe there under Putin and fail safe here under Biden.

In other words, “mutually assured destruction” vs. “strategic ambiguity”.

[b]'It is still hard to see how, even if he loses this war, anyone in Moscow could dislodge him. More than perhaps any major nation in the world, Russia is now ruled by one man. There are no institutions — no Politburo, no Central Committee, no monarchy. Nothing. The largest country in the world, with the most nuclear weapons, is ruled by one man. It is, as he once described it, a “vertical of power.” And that vertical looks more unstable than ever.

All of this suggests that we have entered one of the most dangerous periods in international relations in our lifetimes.'[/b]

Uh, stayed tuned?

396

There is a hidden caviat lurking around here, that is based on definitions of what experts so called are thinking here.

The use of ‘tactical’ nukes may create an impression in the popular mind that such lesser evils may be a sort of affirmed sign to limited engagement that may be signal some kind of bilateral hidden agreement , which would or could form some limit before MAD become merely an optical progression.

Or more likely escalation would continue in par with the inversely effected mind of an increasingly uncertainly rational autocrat.

Sztalin was a precedent his doctors who suggested such were allegedly responsible for his death in 1952. They saw it coming.

Can the same be said in this case? Maybe as an ex KGB operative, no such fall ability remain.

Of course desperate situations call for desperate acts, but look even at Hitler’s foiled assassination plot, everybody is afraid of retribution.

US has privately warned Russia of consequences of using a nuclear weapon

09/23/22 07:41 AM ET

The U.S. has privately been warning the Kremlin for months of consequences if they use a nuclear weapon in their conflict with Ukraine, according to officials.

Anonymous officials told The Washington Post that the White House has publicly been purposefully vague about what those consequences would be in an attempt to build concern among Russian leaders, a method of nuclear deterrence called “strategic ambiguity.”

President Biden underlined his opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons in an interview with CBS’s “60 minutes” on Sunday, where he warned the Russian leader not to “change the face of war.”

“Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. You will change the face of war unlike anything since World War II,” Biden said when host Scott Pelley asked for a message to Putin concerning weapons of mass destruction.

Biden added that the U.S. response to Russian use of nuclear weapons would depend on “the extent of what they do.”

Deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev stoked fears about Russia’s possible use of weapons when he announced on Thursday that the country would be willing to use “strategic nuclear weapons” to protect itself.

“The protection of all joined territories will be significantly strengthened by the Russian Armed Forces,” wrote Medvedev on Telegram.

“Russia announced that not only mobilization capabilities, but also any Russian weapons, including strategic nuclear weapons and weapons based on new principles,

Escalation

America and its allies will act “decisively” if Russia uses a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, reaffirming the Joe Biden White House’s previous response to mounting concerns that Vladimir Putin’s threats are in increased danger of being realized.

“We have communicated directly, privately and at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia, that the US and our allies will respond decisively, and we have been clear and specific about what that will entai

l,” Sullivan told CBS’s Face The Nation.

397

David Brooks at the NYT

nytimes.com/2022/09/23/opin … putin.html

[b]'I’m told that somewhere between 80,000 and 110,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded in the past seven months. Russia has lost 50 percent of its prewar military tanks. It’s lost 20 percent to 30 percent of its infantry fighting vehicles and a tenth of its advanced fighter planes. The Russians have also burned through huge amounts of precision munitions. Morale is awful. Over the past weeks, most Russian forces have been on the defensive, or falling back.

'This terrible situation has induced not humility in Putin but audacity. In his speech to the Russian people this week, he portrayed the operation in Ukraine as a defensive measure against Western forces that want to divide and destroy Russia. He signaled that he considers Crimea part of Russia and will regard eastern Ukraine as part of Russia too. He’ll view attacks in those regions as attacks on Russia itself, especially if they are made by Ukrainian forces using American weapons. The crucial passage in his speech was this: “In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.”

'American officials are now preparing for all the ways Putin could escalate the war, if he pretends Russia itself is being invaded. He could lob missiles onto American installations in Poland and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe. He could escalate in space by destroying satellites. He could launch a missile strike against a NATO ally. And of course he could use a tactical nuclear weapon — perhaps on a Ukrainian town, on a Ukrainian military unit or just in an open field to show he means business.

'The intent would be to intimidate the West into ceasing all support for Ukraine.

‘American officials don’t seem to know whether Putin will or won’t use nukes, but they are taking the possibility quite seriously. In their communications with the Russians, they are trying to convey that any use of nuclear weapons would put the world in a very different place. They are not talking about what their contingency plans are in such a circumstance, but they imply they are grave.’[/b]

One more attempt to get inside Putin’s head. To assume that he either is or he is not bluffing.

The fate of the entire planet, perhaps, hanging in the balance?

[b]'My parting thought is that too much of Western strategic thinking ignores the Ukrainians themselves — what they desire. They are winning, passionate and filled with righteous indignation, and seem to be thirsting for the kind of maximalist victory that they apparently feel is within their grasp — including getting Crimea back. Why should the heroes of this conflict settle for a tepid, incremental approach and a partial win, and what happens if they won’t?

‘The Ukrainians’ efforts have demonstrated that liberal democracy and human dignity are causes people are still willing to fight and die for. They are showing that these ideas have great power. Unfortunately, tyrants are sometimes more dangerous when they are losing.’[/b]

Each of us here of course will weigh in on how far we believe the West should go in supplying the Ukrainians with all that they need in order to satisfy their desires.

To hell with the possible consequences?

398

My point exactly:

nytimes.com/2022/09/24/opin … ussia.html

Ross Douthat at the NYT

[b]'Across almost eight decades the possibility of nuclear war has been linked to complex strategic calculations, embedded in command-and-control systems, subject to exhaustive war games. Yet every analysis comes down to unknowable human elements as well: Come the crisis, the awful moment, how does a decisive human actor choose?

‘This problem is worth pondering because the world is probably now closer to the use of nuclear weapons than at any point in decades — and just how close may depend on the unknowable mental states of the Russian dictator.’[/b]

For all we know Putin may literally be mentally unbalanced. “In the moment” – a moment of frustration and outrage – he may just go right over the edge. And decide to take as many if us with him that he can.

‘And the mobilization speech was explicit in its promise that a full collapse simply would not be permitted, even if that required the use of nuclear arms. By announcing referendums in ‌‌occupied regions of Ukraine, Putin was essentially declaring that Russia intended to absorb them into its own territory. By promising to defend Russian territory ‌‌with‌ “all the means at our disposal” he was pledging to defend the conquests with, at the very least, tactical nuclear strikes.’

Thus, if the West continues to provide Ukraine with sophisticated weapon systems that the Ukrainian army uses to attack those “absorbed” regions, Putin can claim it is an attack on Russia itself.

And who really knows for certain what is now percolating inside Biden’s head?

[b]'This creates an unusually perilous dynamic. We are not in a traditional balance-of-terror situation, where nuclear superpowers are threatening one another with massive retaliation and the greatest danger is the sort of miscalculation or simple accident that brought us close to the precipice a few times in the past.

Instead, we have an active conflict, a hot war, where a non-nuclear power is trying to win a victory with conventional forces and the other side is attempting to draw a red line past which nukes will be deployed — meaning that if the war continues on its current trajectory, that side’s bluff will be called, and it will face an immediate choice between the nuclear option and defeat.'[/b]

Pick a variable and try to pin down the likelihood of it leading to a nuclear exchange.

‘This doesn’t mean that we should expect Putin to use nuclear weapons (and it’s unclear from the Russian chain of command just how singular the decision would be). The world-historical recklessness of such a decision would carry its own potentially regime-destroying consequences — the possibility of escalation to outright war with NATO, the total abandonment of Russia by its remaining quasi-friends and the full collapse of its economy. It’s a reasonable-enough bet that even facing defeat, he or his regime would blink.’

Meanwhile over at the Doomsday Clock…

“It is 100 seconds to midnight”

399

"America and its allies will act “decisively” if Russia uses a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, reaffirming the Joe Biden White House’s previous response to mounting concerns that Vladimir Putin’s threats are in increased danger of being realized.

“We have communicated directly, privately and at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia, that the US and our allies will respond decisively, and we have been clear and specific about what that will entail,”

Sullivan told CBS’s Face The Nation.

newsweek.com/nuclear-war-ru … in-1745191

TheHill

DEFENSE

US faces bleak options as Putin turns bellicose on nukes
BY ELLEN MITCHELL AND BRETT SAMUELS 09/26/22 06:07 PM ET

U.S. officials are walking a careful line in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest suggestion that he may be willing to resort to nuclear weapons.

Following Putin’s thinly-veiled reference to the nuclear option in remarks last week, Biden administration officials have said they are taking the comments seriously, while trying to avoid escalating the situation with more bellicose rhetoric.

The Kremlin’s announcement, which also detailed aggressive new steps to try and turn the tide of the war in Ukraine back in Moscow’s favor, has U.S. officials caught between a bleak set of options with Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling.

“We have communicated to the Russians what the consequences would be, but we’ve been careful in how we talk about this publicly because, from our perspective, we want to lay down the principle that there would be catastrophic consequences, but not engage in a game of rhetorical tit for tat,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday on ABC.

Putin last week said Moscow was prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend any of its territory, accusing the U.S. and its allies of “nuclear blackmail” and moving to “destroy” his country.

“I want to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and some components are more modern than those of the NATO countries,” Putin claimed in a nationally televised address.

The White House has said it has not seen a reason to adjust its nuclear posture in response to Putin’s comments. U.S. officials have instead tried to balance forceful calls for Russia not to escalate the conflict with a desire to keep conversations with Moscow private.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told “60 Minutes” in an interview broadcast Sunday that Putin was using “irresponsible rhetoric.” He also reiterated that the White House has publicly and privately cautioned Moscow against resorting to nuclear weapons.

Blinken would not get into the specifics of the U.S. message or strategy, but he said the administration does have a plan should Russia deploy nuclear armaments.

“President Biden has been determined that as we’re doing everything we can to help the Ukrainians defend themselves, as we’re doing everything we can to rally other countries to put pressure on Russia, we’re also determined that this war not expand, not get broader,” Blinken said when asked if it was a plan to “prevent World War III.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday refused to get into what the potential response would be if Russia used nuclear weapons, following the lead of President Biden and the secretary of State in recent weeks when asked about the consequences.

Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday confirmed that Moscow was in contact with Washington on nuclear issues, but said it was “very sporadic” dialogue.

“There are channels of interaction between the Russian Federation and the United States, they are very sporadic, but they allow you to bring emergency messages about each other’s position,” Peskov told state-run Russian media, referring to Sullivan’s statement.

Much speculation has also been given as to the exact kind of weapon Putin is brandishing. There are fears the Russian leader could resort to using tactical nuclear weapons, also known as nonstrategic nuclear weapons, which are meant to win a battle. Strategic, or long-range, nuclear weapons, meanwhile, are designed to end a war, much like when the Allies dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

A major issue, however, is that nuclear technology has advanced greatly, with Russia and U.S. both owning tactical weapons in their arsenals that would do far more damage that the bombs used nearly 80 years ago.

Then-Defense Secretary James Mattis in 2018 said he didn’t believe “there’s any such thing as a ‘tactical nuclear weapon.’ Any nuclear weapon used at any time is a strategic game changer.”

What’s more, the icy relationship between the two nations only underscores the risks in play as administration officials seek to bluntly warn Russia of consequences without escalating an already fraught situation.

“I think Putin has been very clever in keeping the west on edge with his nuclear threats. The west reacts very excitedly to these threats, and I think reads more into them than they should. But I think it’s worked to his advantage,” said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Cancian said U.S. officials have thus far taken the proper course in using strategic ambiguity to respond, putting Russia on notice without creating wider panic by pledging a military response to any use of nuclear weapons.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, meanwhile, agreed that Washington’s messaging to Moscow over the last week has been solid, with no sign that Putin’s warnings have deterred the West from continuing to provide weapons to Ukraine.

“It seems that we have said to the Russians ‘don’t do it. If you do, our response is going to be devastating. You’re not going to like it.’ That’s good,” Herbst told The Hill Monday.

“Putin, the lifelong KGB officer, knows how to play psychological games. … So he has skillfully built this image to scare us out of our pants and not defend our interests,” Herbst said, adding, “we cannot afford to fall for that.”

Herbst suggested that the U.S. could try to rope in other nations as a lobbying effort to privately try to sway Putin from nuclear force, including China and India.

“The Chinese are clearly not our friends, but they have expressed unhappiness with Putin’s, at this point, failed war in Ukraine,” he said. “I imagine the Chinese would not be thrilled if Putin were to use weapons of mass destruction. So we should have a conversation with the Chinese and for that matter, the Indians to have them — obviously only in private — urge the Russians not to do this.”

The latest round of talk of Russia’s use of nuclear weapons comes roughly seven months after Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine. The Russian president hinted shortly after the start of the war that nuclear weapons could come into play. The U.S. government in March said it was not adjusting its nuclear posture in response to those comments.

But Putin’s mention of nuclear weapons last week comes as he has dug in his heels in response to a Ukrainian counteroffensive that pushed back Russian forces and took back control of key cities.

Putin said nuclear weapons could be in play to respond to any invasion or attack on the Russian homeland, leaving some to wonder if he was referring to autonomous areas of Ukraine that Moscow has laid claim to via manipulated referendums.

Defense & National Security — US mum on options over Russia’s nuclear threats On The Money — Shutdown looms as Congress spars over funding
In the same taped address where he referenced nuclear war, Putin called for the conscription of hundreds of thousands of military-age men. That move has led to viral footage of Russian men leaving their families, pushback from lawmakers and protests from civilians.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with “Face The Nation,” pointed to Russia’s occupation of nuclear facilities in Ukraine and Putin’s past rhetoric as cause to take him seriously when he dangles the threat of nuclear warfare.

“I don’t think he’s bluffing,” Zelensky said. “I think the world is deterring it and containing this threat. We need to keep putting pressure on him and not allow him to continue.”

400

Russia Says U.S. Approaching ‘Dangerous Line’ Amid Nuclear Warnings

NEWS RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR UKRAINE CONFLICT WAR NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov recently warned the U.S. against bringing tensions with Russia “closer to a dangerous line” following key Biden administration officials warning Moscow against the use of nuclear weapons.

The potential of Russia using nuclear weapons became a global concern when President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24. After seven months of fighting, Ukraine’s stronger-than-expected defense has prevented Putin’s military from accomplishing any of its major goals in the conflict.

Amid mounting losses, last Wednesday, Putin announced a partial mobilization in an effort to recruit about 300,000 reservist troops. His announcement renewed worries that he could resort to nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

Over the weekend, U.S. officials warned Russia against using nuclear weapons.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during an appearance on CBS’ 60 Minutes said U.S. officials have made the consequences of nuclear weapon use “very clear.” He did not say what those consequences would be, but said the Biden administration has a plan in place if nuclear weapons are used in the conflict.

“We have been very clear with the Russians publicly, and, as well as privately, to stop the loose talk about nuclear weapons,” Blinken said.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also said on NBC’s Meet the Press that Russia would face “catastrophic consequences” if they “went down the dark road of nuclear weapons use.”

“Russia understands very well what the United States would do in response to the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine because we have spelled it out for them, and I will leave it at that today. But as far as the question of deterrence is concerned, you know, Russia will make its decisions, but it will do so fully understanding that the United States will respond decisively,” he said.

NEWSWEEK SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS >
Russia warns U.S. bringing tensions dangerous line
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov attends a meeting in Moscow on March 15, 2022. On Monday, Ryabkov warned the U.S. against bringing tensions with Russia “closer to a dangerous line” after Biden administration officials warned Moscow against using nuclear weapons.
MAXIM SHEMETOV/POOL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Following these warnings, on Monday, Ryabkov said the U.S. should “cool down” before they bring the conflict “closer to a dangerous line” while speaking on Russian state television, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

“We tell our American interlocutors again and again, to use the most neutral word, that they should, as they say, cool down and not pump up the situation, not bring it closer to a dangerous line,” Ryabkov said, according to RIA.

Russian TV Host’s Call to Kill Enlistment Officer Resurfaces After Shooting

Voting Underway in Ukraine Regions to Determine if They Should Join Russia

Huge Fire at Russian Steel Plant Owned by Putin Ally Abramovich—Video
What Russia Has Said About Nuclear Weapons Amid Partial Mobilization

On Wednesday, September 21, Putin announced Russia’s partial mobilization following weeks of Ukrainian gains amid counteroffensives near the key cities of Kherson and Kharkiv. There have been mixed messages coming from Russia about the use of nuclear weapons—with officials at times using cautious about the issue, while Russian state television has at times resorted to more inflammatory remarks.

During his address announcing the partial mobilization, Putin appeared to threaten the use of nuclear weapons. He said he was willing to respond to what he called “nuclear blackmail” from the West by using his country’s own weapons, which could include nukes.

“If Russia feels its territorial integrity is threatened, we will use all defense methods at our disposal, and this is not a bluff,” Putin said.

“Those who are trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the winds can also turn in their direction,” Putin said.

Newsweek reached out to the U.S. Department of State for comment.