If we encourage it then he uses that as propaganda to shore up internal support. The US has been very smart to support from the shadows which makes it hard for Putin to shift blame for his mistakes on us/NATO. Wars take time. Your patience is strained. Imagine how Putin feels!
Every situation has its own logic or rules. Unless there is the threat of mutual destruction there is an incentive to use first. Once that happens there will be an uncontrollable escalation spiral. Some thing escalation can be controlled. I think thats a fantasy.
My guess is behind the scenes the NSC adviser and others have told the Russians exactly that. Also, we can deploy "signaling" assets, like doomsday planes, and a whole bunch of other things to make clear we are serious. When an SSBN pops up for a port visit in the Indian Ocean - a completely unnecessary activity - unless the sub is damaged or someone is dying on board and there are no US naval assets to do an extraction at sea away from CNN - we are 'speaking' to someone.
We have to be deadly serious. Putin is playing a brinkmanship game. Like Hitler and all the other similarly inclined despots, they keep pushing boundaries until they meet resistance. The rule was set by Vladimir Ilich Lenin — 'You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw'.
Yes, agreed, controlling escalation is a fantasy. The whole subject of nuclear weapons is drenched in fantasy. That said, here's my fantasy. :-)
Unless Putin attacks NATO with nukes, it seems we can simply not use nukes in this conflict ourselves. If Putin uses a nuke in Ukraine, and we don't respond with a nuke, it should become much easier to persuade more countries to stop doing business with Russia. The economic noose could be significantly tightened. Countries who now think this war doesn't affect them would start to recalculate that.
If we did respond with our own use of nukes, then the Ukraine conflict gets rebranded as "the great powers are trying to destroy the world", and the focus gets taken off of Putin and Russia as the source of this problem.
I dunno. The best outcome would seem to be the Russians taking out Putin. If there's anything we can do to encourage that, hopefully we are doing it.
Anyone who would willingly associate with Putin is not worth saving, so I'm on board with your hostage proposal.
I'm not sure I agree though that Putin using a nuke would require us to do the same. The smarter move would seem to be to simply wait, and let Putin's crime receive non-stop global media coverage for months. Why interrupt that propaganda bonanza?
Once the story starts to fade, we could then respond conventionally. I'm not qualified to suggest targets. Responding in this more limited manner paints us as the reasonable party working to stop Putin the psychopath on behalf of a terrified planet.
If we encourage it then he uses that as propaganda to shore up internal support. The US has been very smart to support from the shadows which makes it hard for Putin to shift blame for his mistakes on us/NATO. Wars take time. Your patience is strained. Imagine how Putin feels!
Every situation has its own logic or rules. Unless there is the threat of mutual destruction there is an incentive to use first. Once that happens there will be an uncontrollable escalation spiral. Some thing escalation can be controlled. I think thats a fantasy.
My guess is behind the scenes the NSC adviser and others have told the Russians exactly that. Also, we can deploy "signaling" assets, like doomsday planes, and a whole bunch of other things to make clear we are serious. When an SSBN pops up for a port visit in the Indian Ocean - a completely unnecessary activity - unless the sub is damaged or someone is dying on board and there are no US naval assets to do an extraction at sea away from CNN - we are 'speaking' to someone.
We have to be deadly serious. Putin is playing a brinkmanship game. Like Hitler and all the other similarly inclined despots, they keep pushing boundaries until they meet resistance. The rule was set by Vladimir Ilich Lenin — 'You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw'.
Yes, agreed, controlling escalation is a fantasy. The whole subject of nuclear weapons is drenched in fantasy. That said, here's my fantasy. :-)
Unless Putin attacks NATO with nukes, it seems we can simply not use nukes in this conflict ourselves. If Putin uses a nuke in Ukraine, and we don't respond with a nuke, it should become much easier to persuade more countries to stop doing business with Russia. The economic noose could be significantly tightened. Countries who now think this war doesn't affect them would start to recalculate that.
If we did respond with our own use of nukes, then the Ukraine conflict gets rebranded as "the great powers are trying to destroy the world", and the focus gets taken off of Putin and Russia as the source of this problem.
I dunno. The best outcome would seem to be the Russians taking out Putin. If there's anything we can do to encourage that, hopefully we are doing it.
Anyone who would willingly associate with Putin is not worth saving, so I'm on board with your hostage proposal.
I'm not sure I agree though that Putin using a nuke would require us to do the same. The smarter move would seem to be to simply wait, and let Putin's crime receive non-stop global media coverage for months. Why interrupt that propaganda bonanza?
Once the story starts to fade, we could then respond conventionally. I'm not qualified to suggest targets. Responding in this more limited manner paints us as the reasonable party working to stop Putin the psychopath on behalf of a terrified planet.