cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/28311786
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a revised nuclear doctrine declaring that a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power will be considered a joint attack on his country.
The signing of the doctrine, which says that any massive aerial attack on Russia could trigger a nuclear response, reflects Putin’s readiness to threaten use of the country’s nuclear arsenal to force the West to back down as Moscow presses a slow-moving offensive in Ukraine.
I’m from the only country that has ever dropped a nuke in anger. I bear some of the weight of that. It’s real to me.
Everyone knows Russia is just posturing, but it still personally offends me on a moral level.
To be honest it’s worse than that. Japan was already moving towards a ceasefire and looking to exit the war when we dropped the bomb. It was posturing, specifically against Russia that we dropped those two bombs.
We dropped those two bombs on Japan to justify the cost of the program and to showcase our new weapon that would project power and create a new US hegemony.
Here’s a great interview about it. https://www.npr.org/2023/08/11/1193189051/looking-back-at-the-decision-to-drop-atomic-bombs-on-hiroshima-and-nagasaki
The Soviet Union declared war on Japan six days earlier. The bombs were meant to send a strong message to the Soviets and prevent them from taking Japan.
Really not true. Minutes were taken during meetings where these decisions were made and it’s possible to see what people actually were thinking and saying rather than speculating.
That being said, the firebombing of Dresden was absolutely as a warning to the Soviets. The RAF put out a memo saying that they “want to show the Soviets what Bomber Command can do.”
That’s a very one-sided take on why the 2 bombs were dropped. Far more significant is that the Potsdam ultimatum had still not been publicly acknowledged let alone officially accepted and that Japanese resistance was significantly increasing every km closer the allies got to the Japanese mainland despite almost every city already being levelled due to prior bombing campaigns.
The Japanese government wasn’t working towards a ceasefire. It was split evenly for vs against surrender and the Hawks attempted a coup even after the bombs were dropped.
Saving American lives (and Japanese lives in the aggregate) was the foremost reason they were dropped. and fixating on tertiary bonus goals is disinformation when the whole situation is considered.
They aren’t though. They can drop a few nukes without suffering nuclear retaliation. Any nukes fired at Russia automatically triggers a full scale Russian launch.
So while Russia could nuke others, others cannot nuke Russia, not without triggering the end of the world.
Bold of you to assume Russia can nuke anybody. Putin would have to do a lot of talking to explain why they had to nuke Ukraine when the war is going sooo great according to all the state media. He isn’t invincible even in Moscow. And if they hit anyone else, then it’s pretty much all over but the crying for all of us.
I appreciate this comment because it’s the one thing that might stop Russia. It’s not going to be nuclear deterrence, it’s going to be internal and external pressure.
I don’t trust Putin to be rational though and neither should anyone else.
You know the US also has a launch on wanting policy.
If any of the billion dollar spy satellites see an ICBM launch that’s even vaguely going towards the US, we launch an overwhelming response.
Russia isn’t going to drop a few nukes and waltz away, because the US has the same system or better in place already. Especially if Russia hits a nato country, we’re all gonna die due to MAD. One bomb breaks MAD.
The US does not have a launch-on-warning system in place.
while the United States maintains the capability to launch nuclear forces under conditions of an ongoing nuclear attack, it does not rely on a launch-under-attack policy to ensure a credible response. Rather, U.S. nuclear forces are postured to withstand an initial attack. In all cases, the United States will maintain a human “in the loop” for all actions critical to informing and executing decisions by the President to initiate and terminate nuclear weapon employment.
https://media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/27/2003103845/-1/-1/1/2022-NATIONAL-DEFENSE-STRATEGY-NPR-MDR.pdf
