Whether-or-not it has been achieved today, I expect that that means that the US believes a first-strike capability to be achievable. I've linked to a paper, The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of US Primacy paper a few times before that talks about the implications of of these, and that was well before some of this had been rolled out.
The BMD build-out - especially considering the limited scale, which makes it unsuitable for use to defend against a first strike - major expansion of the stealthy bomber fleet with the B-21s (which permit a strike to be landed without prior warning), and upgrading SOSUS (the detection of submarines being useful to destroy an opponent's second-strike capability relying on SLBMs). The super-fuze on the W76-1 is pretty purely a first-strike tool. The US has been putting a lot of resources into things that either have first-strike application or are only really suited to first-strike. If Russia goes all-in and moves first, then, yeah, the US gets pretty boned.
#World war 3 russia vs uk full
I'm not convinced that the US doesn't have first-strike capability against Russia today, though that's only germane to a "Russia initiates" case if Russia tries for a limited nuclear war, that "escalate to de-escalate" thing that they were going on about a few years back, and then there is a full response from us. How does the next world war begin? The same way the last one did.If Russia started a nuclear war then Putin is right NATO would not emerge victorious, but neither would Russia, the whole world would lose. And his fellow travelers in Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang take note. He suffers consequences only marginally graver than the ones already inflicted. If he uses chemical weapons, as Bashar al-Assad did, or deploys a battlefield nuclear weapon, in keeping with longstanding Russian military doctrine, does he lose more than he gains? The question answers itself. There’s little evidence so far that Putin is eager to cut his losses on the contrary, to do so now - after incurring the economic price of sanctions but without achieving a clear victory - would jeopardize his grip on power.īottom line: Expect him to double down. There is now a serious risk that these illusions could collapse very suddenly. And our vocal aversion to confrontation is an invitation, not a deterrent, to Russian escalation. Americans squared off with Soviet pilots operating under Chinese or North Korean cover in the Korean War without blowing up the world. But the idea that doing so could start World War III ignores history and telegraphs weakness. Refusing to impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine may be justified because it exceeds the risks NATO countries are prepared to tolerate. For a primer on that, look at what Putin did to Grozny in his first year in office. The ability to subdue a restive population is chiefly a function of the pain an occupier is willing to inflict. This war is only in its third week it took the Nazis longer to conquer Poland. Refusing to do so may only prolong Ukraine’s agony.įrequent suggestions that Putin has already lost the war or that he can’t possibly win when Ukrainians are united in their hatred for him or that he’s looking for an offramp - and that we should be thinking up ingenious ways to provide him with one - may turn out to be right. Providing Kyiv with MIG-29 fighter jets and other potentially game-changing weapon systems could help turn the tide. This is to the president’s credit.Īrming Ukraine with Javelin and Stinger missiles has wounded and embarrassed the Russian military. Sanctions have hurt the Russian economy, arms shipments to Ukraine have helped to slow the Russian advance, and Russia’s brutality has unified NATO. The Biden administration now faces the question of whether it wants to bring this cycle to an end. The devastation of Ukraine is the fruit of this appeasement. Contrary to the claim that Putin’s behavior is a result of Western provocation - like refusing to absolutely rule out eventual NATO membership for Ukraine - the West has mainly spent 22 years placating Putin through a long cycle of resets and wrist slaps. 24, that he wouldn’t be able to get away with his invasion? In short, did Putin have any reason to think, before Feb. Were any of these sovereignty violations, legal violations, treaty violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity met with a strong, united, punitive response that could have averted the next round of outrages? Did Western responses to other violations of global norms - Syria’s use of chemical weapons against civilians, Beijing’s eradication of Hong Kong’s autonomy, Iran’s war by proxy against its neighbors - give Vladimir Putin pause?
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