Thread by @KuldkeppMart

The idea that the West – or anyone else – should succumb to Russia’s nuclear blackmail is deeply irresponsible and rests on a number of entirely non-credible assumptions. (1/18)

Firstly, no power has ever used nuclear weapons when cornered and losing the war. The only time nuclear weapons have been used, (2/18)

it was done by a power winning and seeking to shorten the war. The case for claiming that a losing belligerent would have anything to gain by use of nuclear weapons is very weak. If Russia used them against Ukraine, they would bring about massive destruction, (3/18)

significantly reducing the value of the territory it apparently wants to claim for itself. Such a move would also turn Russia even more into a pariah state, and galvanise the West against it for decades. (4/18)

Even Russia’s few remaining friends would be under a lot of pressure to turn against it. All in all, it would make Russia’s strategic defeat much worse.

And this is assuming that there would not be a Western nuclear response. (5/18)

But Russia obviously cannot assume that there will be no Western response. The West has a credible response capability. (6/18)

Use of nuclear weapons would be a form of escalation that would entail a higher risk for Russia itself than anything else it could do in the current war. Is making some sort of a deranged point in Ukraine worth the danger of Moscow and St Petersburg turning into rubble? (7/18)

Anyone claiming that the West wouldn’t strike back, should critically review whether they have perhaps been recently wrong about anything else about what the West would or wouldn’t do. Moscow is certainly doing these exact calculations.

Secondly, (8/18)

the idea of using nuclear weapons because Russia is losing in Ukraine is incompatible with Russia’s own nuclear doctrine, which specifies that nuclear weapons are to be used defensively when there is an existential threat against Russia itself. (9/18)

Putin’s moves this far: introducing and then abandoning war aims, while also refraining from announcing a general mobilisation, indicate that this is not a war of existential importance to Russia. From Russia’s point of view, (10/18)

it is indeed a ’special operation’ that the Russian public and the elites support entirely because they support Putin. It is not in any way the Great Patriotic War vol 2. In fact, Russia is currently militarily the weakest it has been in decades, (11/18)

so it would be the perfect opportunity for its enemies to invade. But nobody is interested in invading Russia.

Thirdly, the idea of giving in to nuclear blackmail rests on the idea that, at some point, (12/18)

Putin will stop his blackmail and Russian-Western relations will return to some form of ’normality’ (albeit at the regrettable cost of Ukrainian lives). This highly cynical view assumes, in effect, that only nuclear powers count in international politics, (13/18)

and everyone else is somehow an acceptable casualty in the process of them balancing each other out. But why would Putin stop? In fact, when blackmail is rewarded it is only likely to get worse. (14/18)

Threats are cheap and effective and do not entail the very significant costs that the actual use of nuclear weapons would carry for Russia. And Russia’s Western appeasers would inevitably face the next round of very similar threats. If Russia should have Ukraine, (15/18)

why shouldn’t it have the Baltics? If the Baltics, why not Poland? If Poland, why not Germany? If me, why not you?

In conclusion. Russia’s threats should be taken for what they are: threats. They are meant to introduce uncertainty and inhibit collective action. (16/18)

The chance that Russia would actually use nuclear weapons is very low. Its threats are empty. They need to be taken seriously, but only as a damning indictment for Russia’s utterly criminal behaviour that it now tries to get away with by brainwashing the West. (17/18)

END of this thread. (18/18)