I believe that the economic sanctions are also a way of making it painful without crossing the nuke threshold. I’ve been watching the train-wreck that is the rouble to yuan exchange rate. China is their last large trading partner, and Russia’s purchasing power has halved in 10 days. I believe it’s as strong as it it is because the treasury is burning money to keep it there - not sustainable at all.
Breaks my heart what this is doing to average Russians, but it beats nuclear war. I hate the choices on offer here.
Even if he knows exactly why not and believes it, it’s an excellent negotiating tactic when asking for more support. It gives the foreign politicians a bone to throw those among their electorate who don’t want to get involved: “We won’t shoot down Russian planes; we’ll just send weapons / aid / money, which is cheaper and safer”.
For a No-Fly-Zone NATO has to achieve air supremacy. Which is not just taking out Russian planes over Ukraine. They also have to take out Russian air defence systems which are not only in Ukraine but mostly in Belarus and Russia itself. Attacking the systems in those two places ‘Holy Escalation, Batman’.
At the moment most of the death and destruction is being delivered by rocket systems and artillery from guess where; Belarus and Russia itself. So by and large the ordinance is not being delivered by aeroplane.
I would like to recommend the podcast Doomsday Watch hosted by a former British diplomat. The second series is about Russia’s “special operation”/war.
I guess they think Gandalf will wave his staff and the Russian planes will go home.
The Russian troops on the ground would be puckering every time NATO planes overfly, know that their convoys would be rapidly turned into crematoriums if “neutrality” ever changed.
I totally agree that a NFZ is not a viable option for reasons discussed above, but some of the specific interventions that are and are not on the table seem weird and arbitrary to me.
Example: there seems to be no limit on how many anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles we can send to Ukraine, and we’ve given them tens of thousands so far. These weapons are being used to destroy Russian tanks and planes, obviously killing their occupants as well. But there’s a big debate in the Biden administration on how much real-time intelligence our spy agencies can share with the Ukrainian government before we cross the line as “participating in the war.” So we can arm the Ukrainian army to the teeth with weapons that are intended for killing Russians but if we say “just FYI, we saw some tanks over in that forest” then we’re suddenly being participants.
Wartime diplomacy is hard and I’m glad I’m not the one who has to make these decisions.
Okay, so the neighbor kids aren’t just out in the next-door neighbors yard beating them over the head, they’re also lobbing rocks from the windows.
You’re still okay with that, because maybe they’ll throw Molotov cocktails and set their house on fire – which would likely set their own house on fire?
If you ask me, the western states are too preoccupied with how “inconvenient” it would be for them to et up and go outside to spray everybody with the water hose.
ETA: The escalation part is the linchpin. I really don’t believe Putin would push the button, because there would be no gain, and he might even die in the process (but very likely soon after, even).
I might disagree with the framing here. If this happens, it will be due to article 5, “An attack upon one will be regarded as an attack upon all.” “Attack” being the key word here. NATO would not be “starting” so much as “responding to” aggression. Still immensely bad, either way, though.
So far, everything being done is to deescalate the conflict or at worst hold a steady state. It’s all very passive type stuff. Nobody is going out with the water hose, but they are leaving buckets of water nearby that can be picked up an used.
The root problem is, going out with the hose, spraying everyone down, then walking away isn’t a real option. A decision to do that is effectively a decision to also take over the house and kick them out. A very large and active escalation beyond what’s going on today.
Nobody likes not doing more. But they understand that there isn’t some happy nice middle ground where new actors show up, kick Russia out of Ukraine, hit the boarder, and then stop and go home.
It’s either talk them into leaving on their own. Using whatever indirect pressure is possible while also passively helping. Or, it’s go all in. There isn’t really some middle ground. Going all in is going to lead to some bad outcomes.
The strategy is to make the endeavor as expensive as possible without collapsing Russia.
I believe there is real concern for Ukraine, there’s just not much the world can do about it without making things worse fore everybody, including Ukraine. It’s not selfishness or lack of forethought, of that I’m sure.
Consider that a defeated Russia is dangerous as well, a scramble to control its resources and nuclear armament has the potential to turn ugly.
The only way to convince Putin that Nato would use nuclear weapons is to actually be prepared to use nuclear weapons, there was no failure of signaling or strategy here. It’s not poker. Putin attacked Ukraine before NATO membership started to look like a reality. In this sense, deterrence works.
Putin knows Russia can’t win against NATO, it’s even conceivable that Russia could be defeated without launching a single nuclear weapon, but Putin also knows that a broken Russia would bring so much instability that nobody wants to risk that either.
You always ask for more than you can expect to get. This will anger some people of both parties . “We already do this and that, the audacity of this guy! We help, but we don’t want to go to war.” And “They are not really helping.”
But I assume that sane people can look behind that when it comes to rebuilding ( by which I mean Ukraine, Russia can pay for itself) and getting them on track for the EU.
