RUSSIA NUKING UKRAINE

If Putin cannot bring Ukraine under control he will NUke Ukraine, anyone who says otherwise is foolish because he has no choice; The long and the short of it is - "No". The arguments that Putin won’t use nuclear weapons because doing so would endanger Russians, including himself, are blind to the fact that Putin believes he has the right, possibly the moral obligation, to sacrifice hundreds of thousands or millions of people. The argument that a nuclear strike wouldn’t help Putin achieve his strategic goals mistakes Russia’s strategic goals as anything but inflicting terror on Ukrainians. The losses the Russian military is suffering now can only motivate Putin to create more terror, against more people. The one credible argument remaining is that Putin may fear repercussions. He is not afraid of nuclear retaliation—because Ukraine doesn’t have its own nuclear weapons and NATO is unlikely to mount a nuclear response against the use of a nuclear weapon inside Ukraine. (And, if NATO did, Putin believes that he would have a totally mobilized, albeit diminished, nation.) What he may fear, however, is an extreme response from NATO using conventional weapons—a series of strikes, for example, that would devastate Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and destroy all its remaining military capability in Ukraine. This would be a blow so humiliating that nothing but a second, more powerful nuclear strike could avenge it. Is that a prospect that Putin is unwilling to contemplate? Possibly not, but it is as close as the West can get to deterrence these days. PG KO