Thread by @olga_chyzh

It’s natural to be worried about the threat of a nuclear war, especially with all the rhetoric coming out of Russia. Here is some analysis from the perspective of research on authoritarian regimes, war outcomes, and international bargaining.

The bottom line is that the threat of nuclear escalation is low, no matter how this war ends for Russia.

Putin is NOT cornered. He does NOT need an offramp to save face. He is NOT going to lash out and nuke the world—even if Ukrainian forces kick his troops all the way out of Ukraine, including Donbas and Crimea.

And this is because the war in Ukraine is NOT his do-or-die moment, it’s NOT the rope he will hang on, and it will NOT lead to his removal from power, no matter what happens. To understand this, you have to understand the inner workings of the Putin regime and some IR theory.

Every leader stays in power as long as they maintain the support of their winning coalition. In democracies, this coalition is the minimum number of voters that guarantees an election win. In autocracies, the voters don’t matter, and the winning coalition consists of top elites.

Putin’s winning coalition consists of a handful of FSB/SBU officers and top military officials—people that helped him rise to power, and who he repaid with keeping/giving them top positions within his government.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Putin will stay in power for as long as he can maintain the support of this group of people. He maintains this support by providing a mix of private rents and policies they support. So how does the outcome of this war affect Putin’s support? It doesn’t.

His inner circle is behind this war 100%--this group of people are politically conservative, anti-West, and anti-democracy. They are using the war to reign in the last of the independent media and political opposition.

They are unconcerned with sanctions and the economy. In their view, Russia will only benefit from becoming more self-reliant. A new iron curtain is their dream come true.

What happens to the support of this group if Russia loses the war? Nothing. No matter what happens, the outcome will be viewed as an honorable draw in a fight with NATO.

NATO may not think they are fighting Russia—because there are no NATO troops in Ukraine—but Russia definitely thinks that it is fighting NATO.
corriere.it/economia/azien…

What would Putin do in case of a catastrophic defeat in Ukraine? Let’s see, we actually have historical precedent. The 1st Chechen War was a fiasco: Russian forces suffered tremendous losses and a decisive defeat in the battle of Grozny against an outnumbered & outgunned opponent

What happened to Yeltsin who was President at the time? He won his re-election (Did he win it fair and square? No, but Putin is no stranger to voter suppression, media control, and arresting his political opposition either).

The point is that Putin does not need to win, or even do reasonably well, in this war to stay in power. To him, this war is not even a real war—it is a side mission, a “special operation,” a real-life game of risk he is playing for entertainment.

The stakes are not real to him—he places no value on human life. To him, casualties are simply fewer mouths to feed.

Had the stakes been real, he would have modernized his military. Instead, he fired Serdyukov, who was actually trying to modernize the military, and replaced him with Shoigu, a push-over whose only talent is to divvy up rents.

Had Putin’s own fate been on the line, he would have put real generals in charge (rather than micro-managing the battles himself down to the rank of brigade commander).

Now, does he want you to think that he might use nukes if case of a defeat? Of course, he does. It’s a bargaining strategy. He thrives on the mass hysteria in the West, he laughs at NYT op-eds that pedal his talking points for him.

Bluffing is the name of the game in international bargaining. He is not going to start a nuclear Armageddon. Not over sanctions. Not over offensive weapons. Not over planes.

But there is no cost to him to keep threatening: he counts on mass hysteria in the West to help him extract some sweet concessions, like a bigger chunk of the Black Sea coast in exchange for a ceasefire.

To clarify: this thread is about the use of strategic nuclear weapons, the ones that cause massive destruction and long-term radioactive fallout. Tactical nukes are a diff topic—Ru may use them in Ukraine or elsewhere, but their purpose/effects are completely different/limited.