Your explanation for the destruction of NS1 and NS2 can best be described as "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face".
A much simpler explanation is that now, even if European politicians or their populace were to offer peace for gas, that is no longer an option. That only benefits Washington.
You have produced remarkable writing in the past (I discovered you with the piece on family structure and Emmanuel Todd, subject I have had an amateur interest for decades, which was excellent - I shared it with friends working in Academia whom I take seriously and they were impressed as well). But I am sad to say that this post on Russia is just terrible. You start with the premise that Putin "was almost surely behind the sabotage of the natural gas pipelines reported by the Swedish and Danish authorities". This is of course absolutely ridiculous. Putin had leverage over Germany thanks to NS1 and NS2 and had no incentives to destroy a valuable asset co-owned by Russia. No motive, and also limited opportunity to blow up the pipes in the middle of a "NATO lake", next to Denmark. Otoh, the US has tried for the last seven years to prevent NS2 to happen, has threatened to take action in this direction in case of military intervention by Russia (Biden and Nuland made public statements in this regard last February), and has all the means necessary to carry out such an operation (including maneuvers in this precise area just a few weeks ago). Also, if the US and NATO had nothing to do with it, they would be happy to have independent investigation with Russian observers. Bottom line: the US had the motives to do it, had threatened publicly to do it, had the means to do it and was even carrying out exercises near the scene of the crime, and doesn't seem eager to have an investigation to find out who did it. Given the above, stating that Russia "almost certainly" did it is so obviously wrong that I will unfortunately start to read everything else you write with healthy skepticism and not succumb to the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. SAD!
One option to end the war is blatantly missing from this article. And that is to use the superior intelligence available to pinpoint the location of and assassinate the leader of Russia. The death of one single man will end this war. So why permit the death of so many to continue?
If us wishes to strategically weaken Russia and as you suggest here conceding all Russian gains now would lead to best outcome it’s not a reason to sue for peace rather the nuclear threat and continued war is part of strategic objectives. Continued war hurts Russia and using nuclear weapons would lead to complete isolation for them from China and India. Therefore US is content to wait and a nuclear demonstration would tactically benefit US if it got China and India to force Russia end operations.
it is unclear how Russia would escalate to attacking western countries with nukes. NATO's advantage is such that Russia would be turned into a smoldering ruin while many if not most of Russia's missiles would be intercepted. Eastern Europe would likely take the brunt of Russia's attack, unfortunately. It would be battered, but not destroyed. However Russia would be a wasteland. How this plays to Russia's advantage is a puzzle.
Your whole concept seems ridiculous. Using a nuclear weapon, even as a "demonstration", is such an escalation that Putin, unless he has gone insane, would not reasonably consider it; even if he did, he is not a dictator capable of acting unilaterally. The Russian elite would recognize the intolerable threat such an action would represent to themselves and Putin's days in power would be limited.
You are working under the assumption that defeat in Ukraine is an existential threat to Russia; it is not. Although it would be a severe blow to its prestige, Russia would still have its gas and oil supplies to exercise economic power (if greatly reduced), its influence in nearby areas like central Asia and the Caucasus, and its sort-of-almost alliance with China; most importantly, Russia would remain intact and its vast nuclear arsenal would ensure it would not shrink into a minor power. It would lose much of its influence in Europe and elsewhere in the world, but it already lost its influence in Europe and its importance in the rest of the world is already pretty minor. The truth is that Russia has already lost its status as a world power. And let's put to bed the nonsensical idea that NATO represents a threat to Russia: the Russians have stripped their frontiers opposite NATO and soon-to-be NATO countries of nearly all the troops previously stationed there. This is not the action of a man who feels threatened by NATO, it is the action of a man who knows NATO is no threat to Russia, just his inflated idea of re-establishing the USSR.
Now let's see what would happen if Putin launched his demonstration bomb. The rest of the world would be horrified; breaking the nuclear taboo would put the entire world at risk, not so much from a US-Russia catastrophe, but by freeing all the lesser nuclear powers of the onus of being the first one to use a nuke. Russian influence in the rest of the world would disappear and China would rapidly back away from any connection with them; to do otherwise would risk tarring them with the same brush and they would want to hold such a lunatic at arm's length, in any case. Putin would have to face the danger of his internal enemies being strengthened by the fear he created and pushed to take him down as soon as possible, for their own safety.
From the US point of view, Ukraine is not a minor side issue, it is central to our belief in ourselves and to our position in the world. Biden has invested American influence greatly in this conflict and clearly believes in it. He (and we) cannot back down without betraying ourselves, our allies, Ukraine and every other country that has looked to us for help. In more more cynical terms: we would be left looking weak and ineffectual. The minimum response would be to provide Ukraine with everything (short of nukes) they ask for, release them from keeping any strikes to within its pre-2014 borders and supporting attacks within Russia itself, and impose sanctions, not just on Russia, but anyone who deals with them.
A world-wide "embargo" on Russian oil and gas, with any non-Chinese (we're not suicidal) tanker being stopped and seized at any suspicion they might be carrying Russian fuels, is a real possibility. Seizing any Russian ship abroad is another, as is seizing any Russian food exports under the assumption that it was stolen from the Ukraine. There are a lot of possible actions that the West can take, even extending the US nuclear umbrella over the Ukraine, as it has done over NATO, and state clearly and unambiguously that any nuclear attack on the Ukraine would be considered an attack on the US.
These actions would not put the West in direct military conflict with Russia (they have no way to effectively protect their shipping), but would still raise the stakes intolerably for Putin. If he wanted to create an existential threat to his own power, a nuclear "demonstration is the way to do it.
People in the US and the West are the ones talking about "small scale nuclear exchange" or limited use, etc. It isn't Russia. Small scale exchange is absolutely insane on its face because it would immediately escalate. It would be a complete disaster. If Russia (or anyone for that matter) had incurred upon US territory in the way NATO has, the situation would be far more dire than it currently is. Putin is no saint, but he also is not a maniac, which he is always portrayed as in western media.
Do you have any evidence that Russian nuclear forces are any better at their job than Russian conventional forces? These are weapons that have not been tested in decades, belonging to a regime that has corroded and hollowed out everything through corruption, and they were built with assumed failure or interception rates of 30 percent, so there is a nonzero change that Putin ends up giving Ukraine a free nuclear weapon with a "demonstration strike." Or an embarrassing fizzle. Heck, some of his delivery systems frequently fail on launch.
Washington did everything possible to prevent Nordstream from ever being built, and you expect us to believe that the Russians sabotaged their own pipeline? We are not all of us gullible fools.
Russia does not have nuclear parity with the united states. The united states can fairly easily take out their nuke storage sites. Russia can do nothing of the sort. They can destroy a few cities before they are wiped off the face of the earth. Obv not a good outcome but Russia has no winning options other than retreating from occupied territories. But Putin can't do that and survive, so it really does come down to whether Putin will sacrifice his country just to be a sore loser.
There is another, more terrifying approach: a Russian nuclear strike against the main cities of western Ukraine, for example Lvov, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Lutsk, Ternopol, Vynnytsa, excluding Kiev and not touching any NATO country.
This would lead to millions of Ukrainian casualties and leave Ukraine devastated for decades. At that point it wouldn't matter if the battle on the ground was won by Ukraine because the country would be a basket case for a generation.
In that case, would the US be willing to escalate militarily to a case of nuclear hostage taking?
If Russia's strategy is to “escalate-to-deescalate” it's important to recognize the end-goal: deescalation. If they pursue this by means of a “demonstration detonation”, wouldn't a prudent option for the US/NATO/Ukraine be to simply stay the course? This includes rhetorical admonishment and further sanctions, but a limited reaction is not what that sort of demonstration is meant to elicit. The West may be wise to continue to support Ukraine's effort as they have been forcing Russia to pursue deescalation by other means (this assumes that Russia prefers deescalation to nuclear war with the Wes, of course). Tldr; get out of the zugzwang by refusing to make a move
"Now is therefore the time to get the Russians to the table"
How exactly do you think Russia will come to the negotiation table? What levers does the West have to pull for this to become a reality? A maniac like Putin would never back down; coming to the negotiation table is perceived to be backing down.
There is too much at stake for Putin to drop the n-bomb. The isolation of Russia on world stage will be almost complete, not to mention its clout in Europe will diminish to the point of no recovery.
Boomer here. You young folks never really learned how nuclear deterrence works. I am sure Joe Biden remembers that part:
Rule one: You use nuke, you get nuked. Rule 2: no such thing as rule 2.
In the Putin scenario: Full strike on all known Russian missile sites. Conventional when sufficient, nuclear if more effective. As most Russian nukes are probably as well working as their tanks, there would not be much left to retaliate - and not many Russian commanders left in the mood of retaliation.
That said: the mini-nuke somewhere in South-Ukraine may (or may not) be answered with just a strong military US-strike on several or all of the other relevant military targets out of reach of the HIMARS. Some say: just the black fleet in Sevastopol. And then peace with Putin. As pointed out by Kamil Galeev https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1575510055369293824
I agree, this sounds like a very high risk plan that might work out. Biden's way out could be to offer Putin to declare war now. ;)
Mostly Joe should follow the time-tested boomer-way to do MAD - esp. as in 2022 it means mostly just ADofR: assured destruction of Russia.
The US would enter the war and along with NATO destroy all Russian forces within the pre 2014 borders of Ukraine, no nuclear response needed. It is only good as a threat, to try to get negotiations. Ukraine has lost to much to stop attacking if it happened.
It is rather doubtful Russia did Nordstream.
Your explanation for the destruction of NS1 and NS2 can best be described as "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face".
A much simpler explanation is that now, even if European politicians or their populace were to offer peace for gas, that is no longer an option. That only benefits Washington.
You have produced remarkable writing in the past (I discovered you with the piece on family structure and Emmanuel Todd, subject I have had an amateur interest for decades, which was excellent - I shared it with friends working in Academia whom I take seriously and they were impressed as well). But I am sad to say that this post on Russia is just terrible. You start with the premise that Putin "was almost surely behind the sabotage of the natural gas pipelines reported by the Swedish and Danish authorities". This is of course absolutely ridiculous. Putin had leverage over Germany thanks to NS1 and NS2 and had no incentives to destroy a valuable asset co-owned by Russia. No motive, and also limited opportunity to blow up the pipes in the middle of a "NATO lake", next to Denmark. Otoh, the US has tried for the last seven years to prevent NS2 to happen, has threatened to take action in this direction in case of military intervention by Russia (Biden and Nuland made public statements in this regard last February), and has all the means necessary to carry out such an operation (including maneuvers in this precise area just a few weeks ago). Also, if the US and NATO had nothing to do with it, they would be happy to have independent investigation with Russian observers. Bottom line: the US had the motives to do it, had threatened publicly to do it, had the means to do it and was even carrying out exercises near the scene of the crime, and doesn't seem eager to have an investigation to find out who did it. Given the above, stating that Russia "almost certainly" did it is so obviously wrong that I will unfortunately start to read everything else you write with healthy skepticism and not succumb to the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. SAD!
One option to end the war is blatantly missing from this article. And that is to use the superior intelligence available to pinpoint the location of and assassinate the leader of Russia. The death of one single man will end this war. So why permit the death of so many to continue?
If us wishes to strategically weaken Russia and as you suggest here conceding all Russian gains now would lead to best outcome it’s not a reason to sue for peace rather the nuclear threat and continued war is part of strategic objectives. Continued war hurts Russia and using nuclear weapons would lead to complete isolation for them from China and India. Therefore US is content to wait and a nuclear demonstration would tactically benefit US if it got China and India to force Russia end operations.
it is unclear how Russia would escalate to attacking western countries with nukes. NATO's advantage is such that Russia would be turned into a smoldering ruin while many if not most of Russia's missiles would be intercepted. Eastern Europe would likely take the brunt of Russia's attack, unfortunately. It would be battered, but not destroyed. However Russia would be a wasteland. How this plays to Russia's advantage is a puzzle.
Your whole concept seems ridiculous. Using a nuclear weapon, even as a "demonstration", is such an escalation that Putin, unless he has gone insane, would not reasonably consider it; even if he did, he is not a dictator capable of acting unilaterally. The Russian elite would recognize the intolerable threat such an action would represent to themselves and Putin's days in power would be limited.
You are working under the assumption that defeat in Ukraine is an existential threat to Russia; it is not. Although it would be a severe blow to its prestige, Russia would still have its gas and oil supplies to exercise economic power (if greatly reduced), its influence in nearby areas like central Asia and the Caucasus, and its sort-of-almost alliance with China; most importantly, Russia would remain intact and its vast nuclear arsenal would ensure it would not shrink into a minor power. It would lose much of its influence in Europe and elsewhere in the world, but it already lost its influence in Europe and its importance in the rest of the world is already pretty minor. The truth is that Russia has already lost its status as a world power. And let's put to bed the nonsensical idea that NATO represents a threat to Russia: the Russians have stripped their frontiers opposite NATO and soon-to-be NATO countries of nearly all the troops previously stationed there. This is not the action of a man who feels threatened by NATO, it is the action of a man who knows NATO is no threat to Russia, just his inflated idea of re-establishing the USSR.
Now let's see what would happen if Putin launched his demonstration bomb. The rest of the world would be horrified; breaking the nuclear taboo would put the entire world at risk, not so much from a US-Russia catastrophe, but by freeing all the lesser nuclear powers of the onus of being the first one to use a nuke. Russian influence in the rest of the world would disappear and China would rapidly back away from any connection with them; to do otherwise would risk tarring them with the same brush and they would want to hold such a lunatic at arm's length, in any case. Putin would have to face the danger of his internal enemies being strengthened by the fear he created and pushed to take him down as soon as possible, for their own safety.
From the US point of view, Ukraine is not a minor side issue, it is central to our belief in ourselves and to our position in the world. Biden has invested American influence greatly in this conflict and clearly believes in it. He (and we) cannot back down without betraying ourselves, our allies, Ukraine and every other country that has looked to us for help. In more more cynical terms: we would be left looking weak and ineffectual. The minimum response would be to provide Ukraine with everything (short of nukes) they ask for, release them from keeping any strikes to within its pre-2014 borders and supporting attacks within Russia itself, and impose sanctions, not just on Russia, but anyone who deals with them.
A world-wide "embargo" on Russian oil and gas, with any non-Chinese (we're not suicidal) tanker being stopped and seized at any suspicion they might be carrying Russian fuels, is a real possibility. Seizing any Russian ship abroad is another, as is seizing any Russian food exports under the assumption that it was stolen from the Ukraine. There are a lot of possible actions that the West can take, even extending the US nuclear umbrella over the Ukraine, as it has done over NATO, and state clearly and unambiguously that any nuclear attack on the Ukraine would be considered an attack on the US.
These actions would not put the West in direct military conflict with Russia (they have no way to effectively protect their shipping), but would still raise the stakes intolerably for Putin. If he wanted to create an existential threat to his own power, a nuclear "demonstration is the way to do it.
People in the US and the West are the ones talking about "small scale nuclear exchange" or limited use, etc. It isn't Russia. Small scale exchange is absolutely insane on its face because it would immediately escalate. It would be a complete disaster. If Russia (or anyone for that matter) had incurred upon US territory in the way NATO has, the situation would be far more dire than it currently is. Putin is no saint, but he also is not a maniac, which he is always portrayed as in western media.
Do you have any evidence that Russian nuclear forces are any better at their job than Russian conventional forces? These are weapons that have not been tested in decades, belonging to a regime that has corroded and hollowed out everything through corruption, and they were built with assumed failure or interception rates of 30 percent, so there is a nonzero change that Putin ends up giving Ukraine a free nuclear weapon with a "demonstration strike." Or an embarrassing fizzle. Heck, some of his delivery systems frequently fail on launch.
Washington did everything possible to prevent Nordstream from ever being built, and you expect us to believe that the Russians sabotaged their own pipeline? We are not all of us gullible fools.
Russia does not have nuclear parity with the united states. The united states can fairly easily take out their nuke storage sites. Russia can do nothing of the sort. They can destroy a few cities before they are wiped off the face of the earth. Obv not a good outcome but Russia has no winning options other than retreating from occupied territories. But Putin can't do that and survive, so it really does come down to whether Putin will sacrifice his country just to be a sore loser.
Excellent article!
There is another, more terrifying approach: a Russian nuclear strike against the main cities of western Ukraine, for example Lvov, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Lutsk, Ternopol, Vynnytsa, excluding Kiev and not touching any NATO country.
This would lead to millions of Ukrainian casualties and leave Ukraine devastated for decades. At that point it wouldn't matter if the battle on the ground was won by Ukraine because the country would be a basket case for a generation.
In that case, would the US be willing to escalate militarily to a case of nuclear hostage taking?
If Russia's strategy is to “escalate-to-deescalate” it's important to recognize the end-goal: deescalation. If they pursue this by means of a “demonstration detonation”, wouldn't a prudent option for the US/NATO/Ukraine be to simply stay the course? This includes rhetorical admonishment and further sanctions, but a limited reaction is not what that sort of demonstration is meant to elicit. The West may be wise to continue to support Ukraine's effort as they have been forcing Russia to pursue deescalation by other means (this assumes that Russia prefers deescalation to nuclear war with the Wes, of course). Tldr; get out of the zugzwang by refusing to make a move
"Now is therefore the time to get the Russians to the table"
How exactly do you think Russia will come to the negotiation table? What levers does the West have to pull for this to become a reality? A maniac like Putin would never back down; coming to the negotiation table is perceived to be backing down.
There is too much at stake for Putin to drop the n-bomb. The isolation of Russia on world stage will be almost complete, not to mention its clout in Europe will diminish to the point of no recovery.
Boomer here. You young folks never really learned how nuclear deterrence works. I am sure Joe Biden remembers that part:
Rule one: You use nuke, you get nuked. Rule 2: no such thing as rule 2.
In the Putin scenario: Full strike on all known Russian missile sites. Conventional when sufficient, nuclear if more effective. As most Russian nukes are probably as well working as their tanks, there would not be much left to retaliate - and not many Russian commanders left in the mood of retaliation.
That said: the mini-nuke somewhere in South-Ukraine may (or may not) be answered with just a strong military US-strike on several or all of the other relevant military targets out of reach of the HIMARS. Some say: just the black fleet in Sevastopol. And then peace with Putin. As pointed out by Kamil Galeev https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1575510055369293824
I agree, this sounds like a very high risk plan that might work out. Biden's way out could be to offer Putin to declare war now. ;)
Mostly Joe should follow the time-tested boomer-way to do MAD - esp. as in 2022 it means mostly just ADofR: assured destruction of Russia.
The US would enter the war and along with NATO destroy all Russian forces within the pre 2014 borders of Ukraine, no nuclear response needed. It is only good as a threat, to try to get negotiations. Ukraine has lost to much to stop attacking if it happened.