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Karaganov's argument for a nuclear war with NATO seems to be somewhat mis-interpreted in our media, but at least someone was listening. Here's what Mearsheimer said on DDDD:

DAVIS: What do you make of this situation?

MEARSHIMER: What's going on here has very little to do with the battlefield. It's important to emphasize that the Ukrainians with assistance from the West are increasing the number and the sophistication of attacks on the Russian homeland. And furthermore, you have all this warlike rhetoric in the west to go along with these western aided attacks on the Russian homeland. And the Russians have come to the conclusion uh that they have no sufficient deterrent against the west anymore or against Ukraine in terms of attacking the Russian homeland and that something has to be done to rectify this situation. They ... in another words have to reestablish deterrence and the Russians basically have concluded that the only way that this can be done is to attack targets in Europe and in effect you're saying attacking targets in NATO member states.

It's the only way to send a clear message and reestablish deterrence. And as Karaganov argues, and it's very important to emphasize that Karaganov's views are shared by many, including in the upper echelons of the Russian elite, you start with conventional weapons. And if that doesn't work, if attacking a European state with conventional weapons doesn't cause deterrence, doesn't cause the Europeans to back off and doesn't cause the Europeans to tell the Ukrainians to back off, then you use a limited number of nuclear weapons. And you do that not to win the war in any military sense, but you use that to send a powerful signal to the Europeans that you mean business, that you are so serious that you're willing to use nuclear weapons and throw all states out on the slippery slope to oblivion. And you're telling the West that the last chance to avoid going down the slippery slope is for them to cease attacking uh Russia, to cease helping Ukraine to attack Russia. So that's what's going on here.

And the problem is that in the West, most people don't take Russian threats seriously. Uh, and they think, people in the West think, and the Ukrainians think that you can continue to poke the Russians in the eye, and when they complain or say that they're going to take drastic action against you, you can just brush it off. They won't do that. They haven't done it in the past, they won't do it now. So, let's just keep poking them in the eye.

So as you can see, there's more to Karaganov's proposals than "let's nuke NATO". Mind, I'm not saying nuking NATO is going to work out for him, Russia, or the world any more than attempts to bomb Iran worked out for Trump.

One other thing, I absolutely heard people say that Russian's won't do anything. Dara Massicot argued it in an episode of War on The Rocks podcast:

MASSICOT: So, if they (Russians) want to have attitude with us, I highly recommend that we remind them of that fact. And I have lots of other suggestions for how we can remind the Russians of things. Just ask me.

MODERATOR: I'm asking you. You havew a microphone.

MASSICOT: Okay. Well, here's one. So, you know, how did Russians end up in Syria? By the Russians telling the legitimate government of Syria invited them to come in. Well, the Zelensky government has invited us to come in to provide some sort of air defense protection of Western Ukraine. They invited us in for multiple reasons. So, if Russians want to have an attitude about foreign presense in Ukraine, I have two pieces of advice.

Remind them of that fact. And then also, my advice for anyone considering putting boots on the ground, they really turn up the noise on the escalation question against you. Ignore that. But if you're going to put people into Ukraine, do it quickly. Don't give them the opportunity to do anything about it. Just have them there. They're not going to do anything once you're there, but just don't have a long lead. Put them in. My two cents, my soap box.

Many such cases.

They are going to continue thinking that Russians will not do it until Berlin is nuked.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at 08:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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