Ukraine Just Re-Wrote the Rules of War

kyleb said:
I don't. And if it should escalate that far, it'll only be because Putin chooses to take it that way, which would be suicidal for him.
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Putin is trapped either way.
 
The problem is, Putin, and the Russian government is so mobbed up, even if he went away right now, I'm not sure things would be any better.
 
kyleb said:
I don't. And if it should escalate that far, it'll only be because Putin chooses to take it that way, which would be suicidal for him.
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But Putin has nothing to lose. This has been an embarrassment to him. I can see him hitting Kyiv with a tactical nuke. Even his own people are supporting this. Not like NATO is going to intervene. He’s backed into a corner and he’s gonna strike back. No way Putin is gonna accept defeat in Ukraine.
 
Velocity173 said:
But Putin has nothing to lose. This has been an embarrassment to him. I can see him hitting Kyiv with a tactical nuke. Even his own people are supporting this. Not like NATO is going to intervene. He’s backed into a corner and he’s gonna strike back. No way Putin is gonna accept defeat in Ukraine.
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Afraid you’re right.
 
Velocity173 said:
But Putin has nothing to lose. This has been an embarrassment to him. I can see him hitting Kyiv with a tactical nuke. Even his own people are supporting this. Not like NATO is going to intervene. He’s backed into a corner and he’s gonna strike back. No way Putin is gonna accept defeat in Ukraine.
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He's not backed into a corner. Ukraine isn't marching on Moscow. Putin can walk away today, take the nut punch, and live to steal and murder another day.
 
Consider the spying implications.

Putin decided to do an immense missile raid on Kyiv the day before the peace talks in Turkye, to be the largest so far in the SMO.

A truck pulled out of a warehouse, and started a 4000 km drive to a specified location.
Anther day, another truck pulled out from that same warehouse, and delivered another load a lesser distance, arriving at the same date.
A third truck departs later, arrives at another location, same time.
The last truck also arrives with its load, same time, many km away from the other three.
They left days apart.

At approximately the same time, the tops of all 4 loads open, and drones swarm out, fly a short distance to the nearby military airport, and destroy about half of the fully fueled, and ready to go bombers for that super raid the very next day.

Why did the undamaged planes stay on the ground, instead of flying the mission as planned?
Afraid since the raid was known by the Ukrainians, they would be attacked in the air?
That is a form of air superiority,

Who should Putin shoot, or push out a high window for the obvious security leak?

Which airports should he use for the huge retaliatory strike in response to that raid?

Who should plan this one?

How can he keep the Ukrainians from finding out about the next one in time to defeat it in Russia?

There must be a whole lot of Russians shaking in their boots if they had any knowledge of the destroyed raid.

Those loads in the warehouse were sitting waiting for the right time, and had plenty of lead time.
Is there another warehouse someplace else? :eek:
 
kyleb said:
He's not backed into a corner. Ukraine isn't marching on Moscow. Putin can walk away today, take the nut punch, and live to steal and murder another day.
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Debatable. Somebody might want his job.
 
kyleb said:
He's not backed into a corner. Ukraine isn't marching on Moscow. Putin can walk away today, take the nut punch, and live to steal and murder another day.
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No way Putin takes that nut punch and just tips the cap and walks away.
 
I thought they'd moved on from polonium enemas to defenestration?
 
Putin is KGB to the core. Totally calculating cold blooded reptile. He is not going to make a decision out of anger, fear, embarrassment, or anything other than his estimation of the path most likely to get him closer to his goals.

If and when he departs the scene, he will be backfilled by someone else from the Committee for State Security.
 
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kyleb said:
He's not backed into a corner. Ukraine isn't marching on Moscow. Putin can walk away today, take the nut punch, and live to steal and murder another day.
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Well that would be great if he did that but he’s not going to. He’s never really been interested in peace. His actions with the massive air bombardment of Ukraine just a week prior to peace talks demonstrated that.

Unfortunately I believe this fear of NATO expansion was nothing more than a ploy to stay in power. He was starting to lose public support and he wasn’t about to relinquish his title. Now he and his cronies (generals) have got to keep the war machine going. They all know that when the dust clears they’re going to be tried for war crimes. He’s not about to let that happen.
 
This entire conflict has been Ukraine punching above their weight and Russia punching well below it. Somehow... that results in a near-impasse.
 
In high school one of my teachers was not impressed with a a research paper that I wrote suggesting that the USSR as a unitary political entity would not have survived the Nazi assault without direct US Aid (statistics here are from ru.usembassy.gov ).
  • 400,000 jeeps & trucks
  • 14,000 airplanes
  • 8,000 tractors
  • 13,000 tanks
  • 1.5 million blankets
  • 15 million pairs of army boots
  • 107,000 tons of cotton
  • 2.7 million tons of petrol products
  • 4.5 million tons of food
  • 149 naval vessels, the largest a USN cruiser
  • 2,000 railway locomotives
  • A 165 mile railway built by the USATC
In context, we shipped more wheeled vehicles to the USSR than Germany had and produced during the war. More fighters than the Luftwaffa produced, more gun tractors than Germany and Italy produced. In addition the US replaced on a 1:1 basis every tank, truck, gun limber, and fighter that Great Britain shipped to the USSR. During Lend-Lease the US shipped more trucks, locomotives, and naval vessels to the USSR than were produced domestically. And the USSR had one imported Sherman for every 5.5 domestically produced T-34.
 
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Ralph Parmenter Bennett said:
...9/11 all GA aircraft will be grounded for the duration unless you are a CFI and under the terms of a public law all flight instructors will be immediately drafted...
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To what end? Coming from over 20 years flying the military, I can confidently say there is zero chance this will ever happen. Before you say "that's what they did in WWII" yes that's true, that's also when they needed 200 bombers to take out a single target. Those days are long behind us. The military doesn't want (and can't allow) 50 hour pilots to jump in airplanes and go to war anymore. The training pipeline could be shortened, but there will never be enough cockpits to warrant a mass push a'la WWII again.

GA grounded for the duration? You know the GWOT went on for....well you could argue it's still going after 9/11 so clearly GA wasn't grounded "for the duration".

The sky really isn't falling.
 
Gotta take issue with the above two posts. Military historical sources consistently show that never less than 82-83% of the German military was deployed within the Soviet Union from June 1941. If Hitler had not invaded the USSR and had adhered to the Soviet/German nonaggression treaty, then it would have been a much different war in western Europe. The USSR could have won their war against Germany with or without Allied supplies.
Other than those killed at Pearl Harbor and offshore from U-boat warfare, America lost 8-10 civilians on the continent from Japanese balloon bombs floating onto our west coast. The Soviets lost 23-25 million citizens. Beware of "zero chance" assumptions of a nuclear war which could be a Very dangerous assumption. We are closer to nuclear war than at any time in world history, the Cuban crisis included. The Russian Federation has a few overseas bases, the US has over 450 OCONUS military bases, 119 within Japan alone. It is vital we do not lose our fear of war so "the sky does not fall". General aviation was grounded during the second war. 1945 was the year of greatest GA aviation accidents unsurpassed to our present day. Also, the greatest number of divorces. Should we slide into global war it will be likely go nuclear and everything you and I have accomplished will be gone and hopes for a vital future erased. I am an old man now but began by awareness at the bottom of a Montana missile tube, then an SSN and am now ex-State and DOD. In my youthful times I had a good case of denial and arrogance but now I fear for our future.
 
Ralph Parmenter Bennett said:
The USSR could have won their war against Germany with or without Allied supplies.
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That's an interesting hypothetical statement insofar as it has no bounds. Could the USSR have won if the rest of the Allies kept up their fight on Germany's western front? I suppose, though I'd call that an Allied victory, not specifically a Soviet victory. Could the USSR have defeated Germany if only those two nations were at war? I guess it depends on how you define 'defeated.' I don't believe Germany would have been invaded, occupied, and placed under Soviet rule. I further doubt Germany's ability to do that to the Soviets, with or without American intervention.

I highly doubt Soviet chances against Germany in the absence of Allied efforts elsewhere.
 
172andyou said:
Not an assumption, a calculation. Putin does things that benefit Putin. Nuking Ukraine does not benefit Putin, it ends him.
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This. Putin understands ambiguity of international support for Ukraine is crucial. US support has become half hearted as of late. The Euros talk a good game but aren't backing it up with serious $$. China sees self interest in Russia succeeding, and many historically "non-aligned" states are business as usual.

One mushroom cloud changes all that. I don't think we go to war over it, but Russia becomes a true pariah state, and the EU will get serious about defense and arming Ukraine without restraint. The current right wing flirtation with Russia will end.

Right now Putin has control over events. He just has to continue being willing to spend lives to achieve his long term aims. A tactical nuke unleashes many forces he cannot control. Zero chance.
 
@Ed Haywood

Minor quibble. The EU, and broader Europe including the UK have all very quietly ramped up support for Ukraine over the past year and it has accelerated since the fall of 2024. So, are they at the level required to kick Russia out of Ukraine? I think not. Are they at a level which likely prevents Russia from taking over Ukraine? I think so. At this point, it looks more and more like most of Europe, and to a degree the USA previously was going with an approach to make the price of acquisition too high for Russia to take over Ukraine.

Never forget, what was the public justification for Russian invasion of Ukraine? It was about Nazi's. If Ukraine makes it painful enough for Russia to walk back to previous borders, as long as Zelinski and a couple others are kicked out of office; Putin can claim victory and save face.

Tim
 
172andyou said:
Not gonna happen. There isn't a computer in the world powerful enough to do the math necessary to show Putin coming out ahead on that plan.
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If I was putin i'd consider it. The western world wont retaliate with nukes, you put the fear of god into the rest of the world (omg he's actually willing to use them) and you wont see a conventional military response from the west (aforementioned omg he'll use nukes). You'll be economically sanctioned but if you maintain some trading partners china and whoever else willing to go along its not as crazy as it would seem imho.
 
falconkidding said:
If I was putin i'd consider it.
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You aren't Putin. Putin has shown himself to be many things over the decades, one of them is that he's coldly calculating. There is no equation in which nuking ukraine works out well for Putin. There are some irrational leaders in the world, some with nuclear bombs. They are a bigger threat than Putin precisely because they won't do the math. Putin has succeeded in enriching himself while weakening his country. Expect that to continue until he's out of office. Nuking ukraine makes him neither more wealthy nor more powerful. It weakens him because it will unify the world against him.
 
Ralph Parmenter Bennett said:
The Soviets lost 23-25 million citizens.
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I was told, by an individual from the Soviet Union who's father had some level of connection with the WW-II era government, that after the war Stalin and the heads of various departments sat down in a room to determine how many civilians had died during the war. They wanted a number that was large enough to reflect the suffering of the Soviet people, but not so large that it made them look weak. After some discussion, the official number was selected.
 
falconkidding said:
If I was putin i'd consider it. The western world wont retaliate with nukes, you put the fear of god into the rest of the world (omg he's actually willing to use them) and you wont see a conventional military response from the west (aforementioned omg he'll use nukes). You'll be economically sanctioned but if you maintain some trading partners china and whoever else willing to go along its not as crazy as it would seem imho.
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Incorrect. US and NATO official policy is use of ANY nuclear weapon is automatic retaliation with nuclear weapons. Both NATO and USA policy prevent first strike usage; but the policy is very clear on retaliation.

There is zero incentive for the USA and/or NATO to ignore the use of a nuclear weapon. If they do so, they will never be able to face an enemy with such weapons. This is effectively called a moral hazard issue. Therefore, if Putin does nuke Ukraine, I would expect fairly swift and complete response to take out at least every military force and major city (especially Moscow) basically leveling all of Russia using nuclear weapons. Only if Ukraine formally requests to not retaliate would I expect there to be an exception. Somehow, I doubt Ukraine would do such a thing.

What the must be avoided, and this was the stated reasons by the Biden Administration for slowly increasing the military support; was that the cost for Russia must be painful enough to get them to pull out, but not so painful that Russia feels an existential threat to its existence. As long as Ukraine is effectively doing pin pricks (expensive and painful ones to be sure) but not invading Russia based on the boarder from 2014, the actual existential threat to Russia does not exist.

Tim
 
tspear said:
Incorrect. US and NATO official policy is use of ANY nuclear weapon is automatic retaliation with nuclear weapons. Both NATO and USA policy prevent first strike usage; but the policy is very clear on retaliation.

There is zero incentive for the USA and/or NATO to ignore the use of a nuclear weapon. If they do so, they will never be able to face an enemy with such weapons. This is effectively called a moral hazard issue. Therefore, if Putin does nuke Ukraine, I would expect fairly swift and complete response to take out at least every military force and major city (especially Moscow) basically leveling all of Russia using nuclear weapons. Only if Ukraine formally requests to not retaliate would I expect there to be an exception. Somehow, I doubt Ukraine would do such a thing.

What the must be avoided, and this was the stated reasons by the Biden Administration for slowly increasing the military support; was that the cost for Russia must be painful enough to get them to pull out, but not so painful that Russia feels an existential threat to its existence. As long as Ukraine is effectively doing pin pricks (expensive and painful ones to be sure) but not invading Russia based on the boarder from 2014, the actual existential threat to Russia does not exist.

Tim
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I am not doubting you, you seem to know the subject pretty well, but you realize you are talking about the end of the world, at least as we know it? Moscow nuked? They would take out Washington, and where would it end? I just pray that smarter people than me have thought all this out and figured out how to avoid these scenarios. Thanks for a thoughtful (if terrifying) post.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
I was told, by an individual from the Soviet Union who's father had some level of connection with the WW-II era government, that after the war Stalin and the heads of various departments sat down in a room to determine how many civilians had died during the war. They wanted a number that was large enough to reflect the suffering of the Soviet people, but not so large that it made them look weak. After some discussion, the official number was selected.
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Well, I could say that is how most "official history" is written . . .
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
I was told, by an individual from the Soviet Union who's father had some level of connection with the WW-II era government, that after the war Stalin and the heads of various departments sat down in a room to determine how many civilians had died during the war. They wanted a number that was large enough to reflect the suffering of the Soviet people, but not so large that it made them look weak. After some discussion, the official number was selected.
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It was probably unknowable, so a WAG was inevitable.
 
Iflydogs said:
I am not doubting you, you seem to know the subject pretty well, but you realize you are talking about the end of the world, at least as we know it? Moscow nuked? They would take out Washington, and where would it end? I just pray that smarter people than me have thought all this out and figured out how to avoid these scenarios. Thanks for a thoughtful (if terrifying) post.
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Putin would not nuke anyone, because the second he did it, his reign would end and he would very likely be executed by any number of NATO/US combat teams or targeted bombings. Osama Bin Laden didn't drop a nuke and he was hunted down like a dog. Putin would sign his own death warrant if he ever used nuclear ordinance on another country and crossed that line in the sand. He only wishes to remain in power/wealth and continue posturing toward former Soviet countries. He's Kim Jong Un with more money/resources. I have no idea who would be "elected" to replace him, but I have a feeling the Russians would find another man of the same mold.
 
This assumes he is not terminally ill or suicidal, and has “nothing left to loose”, but wants his name to be remembered forever…
 
Flatiowa said:
This assumes he is not terminally ill or suicidal, and has “nothing left to loose”, but wants his name to be remembered forever…
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Well there is certainly that to consider . . . although I'd guess that his trusted associates would be smart enough to handle that issue without relaying orders to launch nukes. Their names are likely well-known to all of the various agencies, so I doubt they have much interest in being a military target after they were complicit in a tactical nuke launch ordered by Putin.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Well there is certainly that to consider . . . although I'd guess that his trusted associates would be smart enough to handle that issue without relaying orders to launch nukes. Their names are likely well-known to all of the various agencies, so I doubt they have much interest in being a military target after they were complicit in a tactical nuke launch ordered by Putin.
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Yeah, being sane enough to convince people to follow orders could be a challenge. But I'm not sure we know how the cheget works well enough to know if that's actually a requirement. I suspect it is, but who knows. For some reason that's a closely guarded secret. :-)
 
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SoonerAviator said:
Putin would not nuke anyone, because the second he did it, his reign would end and he would very likely be executed by any number of NATO/US combat teams or targeted bombings. Osama Bin Laden didn't drop a nuke and he was hunted down like a dog. Putin would sign his own death warrant if he ever used nuclear ordinance on another country and crossed that line in the sand. He only wishes to remain in power/wealth and continue posturing toward former Soviet countries. He's Kim Jong Un with more money/resources. I have no idea who would be "elected" to replace him, but I have a feeling the Russians would find another man of the same mold.
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I’m not at all convinced any of that would happen over a tactical nuke in Ukraine. Are we willing to end the world over a nuke in Ukraine? I am certainly not.

I’m also doubtful that he wants all of Ukraine or has any desire to nuke it.
 
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