Thread by @jmkorhonen

Yesterday, I argued that #Russia cannot win the war with #nuclear weapons - unless the West lets it win.

For battlefield advantage, mass nuclear use would be needed. And no war has been won by bombing cities, i.e. civilians.

Let's take a look.

1/

https://twitter.com/jmkorhonen/status/1574301225910157312?s=20&t=StjOzQqYRHTz_E_VM3KGuw

First, a disclaimer, again. I believe the following is an informed assessment, but these are uncharted waters. No one really "knows."

I also DO NOT mean to trivialize nuclear weapons in any way. I merely try to think what might happen if they are nevertheless used. 2/

There is a tendency to think that nuclear weapons are so horrible that any use would pause history and end whatever wars may be going on. Yes, they are existential-level horrible weapons.

But one or a few nukes probably won't end major wars. 3/

As I argue in more detail in this thread, a few nuclear weapons wouldn't make a decisive difference on the battlefield. This was true in the 1970s and this is especially true today when conventional long-range artillery systems are far deadlier. 4/

https://twitter.com/jmkorhonen/status/1574290727713927169?s=20&t=BPGaw3jWhO155W-LlQcEAg

I very much doubt the Kremlin would start with the mass use of battlefield nuclear weapons, not least because Russian conscripts are almost unprotected. If Putin is going to use nuclear weapons, he will start with a single or at most few weapons against other targets. 5/

There is much speculation about how they might be used. But let's assume they are used as weapons of - essentially - terror - and targeted against Ukrainian cities.

Casualties from such attacks would be very severe. Death tolls would range in many tens of thousands. 6/

But would that cause Ukraine to fold?

This is the big question. Many simply assume that this must be the case.

History suggests it's at the very least more complicated. Attacks against civilians have never been very effective at ending wars. Will to fight may even increase. 7/

Claims that the latest wonder weapon makes wars so horrible that they will not be fought are very old. Alfred Nobel thought his dynamite would do that.

Even before airplanes were practical, some argued that future wars would be decided by bombing. 8/

After the First World War, a doctrine/cult known as "douhetism" after its most ardent advocate specifically called for attacks against enemy population centers and industry, predicting that the collapse of civilian morale would end future wars in days, if not hours. 9/

Douhetism's belief in the bomber guided most air forces in the 1930s. Even the tiny Finnish Air Force invested substantially in small two-engined bombers. As the war approached, there were near-panics about cities being wiped out in hours.

Well. It didn't work out that way.
10/

Probably the most thorough efforts to end a war through bombing civilians were made by the Allies. British bombers explicitly targeted German "morale" despite evidence from the Nazi "blitz" strongly suggesting that it wouldn't work.
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But bombers at the time could hit only area targets. So for nearly two years, British bombers hammered German cities. The heaviest attacks were extremely intense: sometimes 1000 heavy bombers would appear over the target city within a 20-minute window.
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The devastation was massive. Firestorms sometimes engulfed entire districts, leaving few if any survivors within their limits.

But despite cheery predictions that bombers would make the Germans capitulate by 1944, city-busting did not do much to end the war.
13/

Probably the most comprehensive analysis, Ehlers's Targeting the Third Reich, makes the case clearly. Strategic bombing did have a big impact in the war - but only when it was directed against critical industrial and transportation targets in combination with a land attack.
14/

Transportation hubs, especially railyards, were often near city centers, so these attacks also killed a lot of civilians. But they were very distinct from "morale bombing" i.e. terrorizing civilians to surrender.

Similar observations resulted from the U.S. bombing of Japan.
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By the time Hiroshima was bombed, 67 other large Japanese cities had been devastated by fire bombing. Many were destroyed more thoroughly than Hiroshima - where the fires killed far more than the direct blast and radiation.

Did this cause the Japanese to surrender? No.
16/

The idea that atomic bombs ended the war is stubborn. But it is almost certainly a half-truth at best. While atomic bombs were a factor in the Japanese surrender, they were certainly not the only factor and likely not the main one. Here's one historian summing it up.
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Without direct and credible threat of land attack, in this case the Soviet advance that the thin screen of Japanese troops couldn't even slow down (the advance halted basically only to refuel) and the looming Allied invasion, bombing alone had not produced results.
18/

The same story repeats in war after war. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Serbia: all suffered devastating aerial attacks, but needed pressure from ground forces (in case of Serbia, a credible threat of ground invasion) to fold, if they folded at all.

Air power certainly helped, a lot.
19/

But wars are synergistic. Unless pressure can be brought to bear from multiple directions at once, even heavy attacks can be endured.

No doubt mass use of nuclear weapons could change that. Cities are after all important transportation and industrial hubs.
20/

If enough nuclear firepower is used, then certainly one can destroy a country's ability to wage war.

But experience suggests that wars don't end the moment civilians are mass-murdered.

Here's Mariupol. 90 % or more of the city has been destroyed. At least 22 000 are dead.
21/

Some accounts suggest that over 100 000 may have died in Mariupol by now.

These are casualty numbers that a single hit from a relatively small-ish nuclear weapon in a concrete city (which is not that prone to firestorms) would struggle to produce.
22/
euromaidanpress.com/2022/08/30/870…

Did Mariupol's fate cause Ukrainians to lose heart and surrender?

No.

Would a nuclear strike against Kyiv do so?

Probably not.

After all, if already genocidal enemy breaks the nuclear taboo to kill more of your relatives, would that signal "it's a good idea to surrender"?
23/

Nevertheless, Putin is vindictive and becoming desperate. Russians are already wasting their precision weapons on civilian targets, and Putin may choose to use nuclear weapons out of pure spite and vengeance.

I'm just saying it likely won't win a war for him.
24/to be cont'...

If Putin goes nuclear, there will be massive panic in the West. I believe too many have refused to think about what may happen if nuclear weapons are actually used.

Too often, thinking stops with the conclusion "nuclear weapons are horrible and must never be used."
25/

I totally agree with that sentiment.

I very strongly advocate abolishing these infernal machines before they abolish civilization. I support all reductions in nuclear armaments in the meantime. These are existential-level horrors we have to get rid of.
26/

I don't believe nuclear use is likely. But the reality is that we are closer to nuclear use than we have been in decades. And unless nuclear weapons are abolished, sooner or later someone probably uses them again.

We have to be able to think what to do if that happens.
27/

I say we support Ukraine and ukrainians and listen to them. If they want more weapons, as they do now, we should give them more weapons. If they at some point want peace, we should help them negotiate.

Putin's last gamble could be a nuclear use to scare the West off.
28/

I don't think that would work, and it's remarkable that the Russian foreign ministry quickly backtracked after U.S. officials said that there would be massive - conventional - consequences if Russia uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

As a result, I don't think they use them.
29/

But the more the people in the West panic about the mere possibility of nuclear weapon use, the more they talk as if the war would end the minute they are used (and in a Russian victory, at that), the more emboldened the Kremlin is likely to become.
30/

Caving in to the Kremlin's nuclear blackmail would be a major mistake. Setting a precedent that imperial conquests are totally possible if they are then defended by nuclear threats practically guarantees more war in our future.

Putin's a bully. Stand firm now.
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(The previous thread is here:)

https://twitter.com/jmkorhonen/status/1574290665390981121?s=20&t=53xkq7BKjusW2VvVrC0yMA