Ukraine War | Russia launches (I)CBM (not nuke) at Ukraine?
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NYT reporting American officials doubtful of that theory
As Ukraine Mourns a Pilot’s Death, Jet’s Crash Is Still a Mystery
In a reversal, two senior U.S. military officials say the cause of the F-16’s crash was probably not friendly fire.
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Russia’s imperialist invasion is likely to result in Russia gaining territory, but at the expense of Russian centers of government, infrastructure, and cultural significance living under threat of terrorism, for decades, in addition dramatic economic and military degradation.
fsclark1
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This nuclear rhetoric isn't anything different than what Russia has put out numerous times over the course of the war. I seriously doubt Russia came "dangerously close" to using a weapon within Ukraine in 2022. I don't know what Sciutto is wanting to accomplish with this tweet. Ukraine absolutely needs enhanced Western support, and we shouldn't allow the latest in a long line of empty threats to curtail our aid.
genevabuck
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If Putin wanted to use a nuke he would. No amendments to documents needed.
Seriously. I can only imagine Putin going to his generals and saying “we must fire nuclear weapon now!” and them saying “well this document won’t allow us to until we change it.” More Sabre rattling.
gtyellowjacket
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Frankly, I can't imagine we would be much different if the United States was under dire threat. I can't imagine a scenario where Russia or China was closing in on DC and we didn't use nukes.
Which is one reason I can't imagine why we need to spend so much money to protect against China and Russia. First of all they aren't capable of invading ys but even if they were, we are going to Nuke them and to hell with the world before we let them conquer us. And they are going to do the same thing.
We're protecting our markets, not our territory. You're correct that no on is going to invade the US.
Russia is inherently aggressive and while it might be Ukraine today, they'll keep going. Or would have if we didn't prop up Ukraine's defensive capabilities. Eventually that would have come to a head. We kicked that problem down the road by decades for a fraction of our overall military budget, and not even a blip compared to our GDP.
We also need Taiwan to remain independent, at least until chip manufacturing can be domesticated or otherwise protected from rival countries. Imagine what would happen if we lost our ready supply to chips. The stock market would collapse.
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When I was in the Army in the early 1970's, I was assigned to a Lance missile unit in West Germany. The Lance missile had a tactical nuclear warhead. The authority to launch a Lance warhead was at the Corps Commander Level (a Lieutenant General, O-8) in our case the Commander of V Corps, which consisted of two Infantry divisions and various auxiliary units such as mine which was part of Corps Artillery. We were briefed as part of understanding what we were doing that the authority to launch tactical nuclear missiles in the Soviet Army was at the Battery Commander level, i.e., the Soviet equivalent to a US Army Captain. So in the Soviet Army an O-3 had authority to launch tactical nuclear weapons. In the US, such authority was at the O-8 level. If Russia is finally bumping up the level of authority needed to launch nukes, then that is a good thing.
gtyellowjacket
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Heck yeah we should spend $100B or $200B every few decades to neuter Russia. Heck yeah we can sell arms to the 21st largest economy in the world to make a Chinese invasion impossible.
Don't conflate that with spending $900B every single year on our defense. Its more than the next nine countries combined and 6 of those are our allies. Its way too much money and doesn't serve any purpose beyond getting politicians reelected.
gtyellowjacket
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I'll add that your statement about Russia will keep going doesn't seem grounded in facts. They didn't keep going in Georgia. They stopped after taking two provinces and it wasn't because Georgia's army stopped them.
And they can't keep going in Ukraine and it was because Ukraine stopped them. That's the formula for Russia and China: Spend a fraction of your yearly defense budget every 20 years and your adversaries will destroy themselves without spending our blood and less of our treasure.
gtyellowjacket
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Right, and Russia stopped anyway. Any claim that they will "keep going" is speculation that doesn't have much historical basis.
We're in 100% agreement on the second point. I think we're doing what we should, though we should allow for more freedom for Ukraine to use ATACMS against military targets in Russia.
As to the first point there (really in your follow up on the historical basis comment).
There are hundreds of years of history that says Russia is an imperial country.
Russian Empire - Wikipedia
After the dissolution of the Russian Empire, it was reformed as the Soviet Union 25 years later.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, we now have Russian leadership calling for the reformation of the borders of the Soviet Union. It is certainly not a fact that they would do so, but if they had rolled through Ukraine in a week, it's not a fact that they wouldn't.
And again it's about markets, we want eastern Europe to face west more. We don't want those countries dependent on Russian oil and Chinese technology.
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gtyellowjacket
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We're in 100% agreement on the second point. I think we're doing what we should, though we should allow for more freedom for Ukraine to use ATACMS against military targets in Russia.
As to the first point there (really in your follow up on the historical basis comment).
There are hundreds of years of history that says Russia is an imperial country.
Russian Empire - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
After the dissolution of the Russian Empire, it was reformed as the Soviet Union 25 years later.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, we now have Russian leadership calling for the reformation of the borders of the Soviet Union. It is certainly not a fact that they would do so, but if they had rolled through Ukraine in a week, it's not a fact that they wouldn't.
And again it's about markets, we want eastern Europe to face west more. We don't want those countries dependent on Russian oil and Chinese technology.
I mean if we go back 100's of years, every country in the area (and the US) is expansionist. I don't think that history is very indicative.
As to your point about markets, I'm not sure what that means. We sell plenty in Russia and Ukraine or we did before sanctions. The West collectively sells even more. What does defending against Russia have to do with markets?
And of course all that is dwarfed by what we sell to China. If its really about markets, why are we spending so much money to fight the owner of our third largest export market?
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