I think that preposes a whole lot of competance that the CCP simply doesn't have.
My money is that the over centralization of political authority has paralized their system and their just fucking up because of it.
peter Zeihan 2020
- Thread starter Cherico
- Start date
I think that preposes a whole lot of competance that the CCP simply doesn't have.
My money is that the over centralization of political authority has paralized their system and their just fucking up because of it.
Yinko
Well-known member
Oh yeah, almost certainly, never attribute to malice what is likely incompetency, but they'll take a happy accident when it falls in their lap.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
I think he's being somewhat overly pessimistic. Not because the scenario that he sketches out is implausible, but because it's not the only way this might end.
If Putin and his cadre are taken out, whether by an internal coup, Putin just dying, or whatever else, a white peace is possible.
If Putin and his cadre are taken out, whether by an internal coup, Putin just dying, or whatever else, a white peace is possible.
DarthOne
☦️
I’m not so sure. Any government that does so after all the (justified or not) propaganda that Russia has been putting out and feeding to its citizens about how they’re fighting against ‘NATO aggression’ and so on runs a huge risk of looking like they’re pawns of the enemy who ‘stabbed Russia in the back when it could have still won’. Regardless of if Russia can actually win in Ukraine. All of which could lead to a very unstable situation.
See example A, Imperial Germany at the end of WW1.
Hence why pretty much all of europe is fighting to the very last Ukrainian, and why they have been lavished with money, intel, supplies weapons and training. The goal is to make this Russias very last war and that means killing a lot of Russians sad thing if they do win? That means that more russians will be killed because Ukraine isn't the last of it.
Its Nato countries next and nuclear weapons are fully on the table because of russian paranoia.
No, it's really not. Putin has been running Russia for two decades and has the full support of the national security apparatus and the Russian business community.
There is no one in any position to coup him, or replace him, that isn't fully on board with him when it comes to policy.
For Russia, this is a war of existential survival.
There is also zero chance of a viable economic deal occurring. And remember, Russia has the worlds second most capable nuclear arsenal while also having all the natural resources that it is ever going to need.
Ukrainian troops cross Russia's borders at any kind of scale? Russia WILL nuke Kyiv. After all, what's the rest of the world going to do in response? Russian territorial integrity would have been violated and Russia would have responded in line with its long standing nuclear policy (see the threats they have made to China clear back to the 1960's). Sanctions? Russia is already basically a pariah state. Military action? That gets a nuclear response.
Russia can't rely on the nuclear threat for its security in the long term. The next big US defense project is going to be missile defense, Starlink is the proof of concept and testbed for it. But it can rely on its nuclear arsenal for protection in the short to medium term.
Realistically, the war in Ukraine ends with a Russian victory (whatever Russia has decided that means, I could see them settling for everything East of the Dnipro River) or Russia exhausting its non nuclear military capacity in Ukraine without Ukraine (or anyone else) giving Russia the justification needed to go nuclear or Russia exhausting its war making capability and deciding that it must have a victory regardless of the consequences and so going nuclear to win.
the problem of them going nuclear is quite simply put their weapons had a 20% failure rate when they were new, now these weapon systems are 40 years old, how much matinace did they do? How well do they work? And america has been working on anti nuclear missles for 40 years now. Russia has a little under 6,000 nukes Brand new those had a 20% failure rate.
Now there old, now we don't know how much matinace was done, now their cut off from high end electronics, and america has been working on anti missle tech for 40 years. Fact is once the nukes start flying.
Russia dies as a country.
It doesn't really matter what the failure rate is. Russia has a large enough arsenal that no one is going to test it.
Seriously, what are the possible responses if Russia goes nuclear?
Economic sanctions? Russia doesn't need to import to survive as a nation, and it is already under the most extensive sanctions regime in history.
Military attack? No one is going to risk a nuclear response after Russia has already proven that it will go nuclear if its territory is invaded.
Nuclear attack? No nuclear power is going to take that risk.
If Russia goes nuclear it becomes a pariah state but its odds of survival actually increase. Afterall, it will have proven that it is willing to go nuclear and it will have the rest of the world helping to keep it isolated so that it can deal with its own internal problems.
By Russian definition of Russian territory, Ukrainian troops already hold quite a lot of it, and will hold even more without doing the West worrying things like taking over Briansk, just recovering the pre-2014 borders.
Where does the real red line lie, as opposed to the countless fake ones that were given in word and already crossed? Probably somewhere between Briansk and outskirts of Moscow.
If Russia goes nuclear in a war of conquest, it will experience the paradox of North Korea, in exactly the same form - which is also a nuclear pariah state with a giant military and a general fuck off policy in regard to running its affairs.
Yet it is stuck begging China and threatening the world to give it life support in the economic sense regularly. And in the same way, Russia would end up in a position where China has veto powers over the existence of Russian economy, with all the implications of that.
It's already heading there regardless, but a poorly justified nuclear escalation would set it in stone.
I would not overestimate Putin's support in the business community. That is, even many of those who have no better replacement, would in fact celebrate if the war ended with a return to 2014 borders, because there is absolutely nothing good coming out of it to their business.
As for coups and replacements - all the people involved are highly intelligent assholes who would absolutely lie to be close to power, so i would not count on many of them sharing Putin's views even *after* Putin no longer has power. And then all the rest who have any brain cells left will suddenly share the replacement's views instead of Putin's, just like a day before Stalin's death far more people had Stalin's views than in the day after Stalin's death.
Even though most would be some degree of imperialist, the Ukraine situation is so far demonstrated to be a quagmire, and at least some of them would understand throwing good money after bad is not a sound business strategy. By virtue of not being Putin and not having made the decision, unlike for Putin the political cost of withdrawing from it would be considerably lesser to them than it is to Putin, and on top of that the West would cut the newcomer some slack in a "new start" beyond what it would give Putin.
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Russia has been very firm that its response to any substantive invasion of its territory will get a nuclear response. To the point where they explicitly told a nuclear armed China that if they tried anything in Siberia, Russia would nuke Beijing as its first response.
Bluntly, Russia can't afford not to go nuclear in the event that its territory is invaded. The stone cold certainty that Russia will go nuclear in response is at the very core of Russian national security. The only excuse not to do so is if they 1) can crush the invasion immediately with conventional force and 2) can compel the invading power to make public, and extreme, recompense.
If Ukraine is in a position to send forces into Russia then Russia won't be in a position to crush those forces conventionally. Ukraine would then be faced with either immediately surrending and being humiliated or getting, at a minimum, those forces nuked.
As for a coup, again this is seen (correctly) by the entire Russian leadership as an existential war. If Putin got replaced it would be because the other powers that be think he has gone senile and can't effectively persecute the war, not because they want an out from the war.
If Ukraine win's, it will be by outlasting the Russian ability to throw military force at them while simultaneously avoiding any excuse for Russia to go nuclear.
gral
Well-known member
My guess is no one in Russia wants to be the one to sign a peace treaty that doesn't have Ukraine surrendering to Russia, so unless faced with destruction, the Moscow elites won't depose Putin. Putin dying by himself is somewhat better to them, but they would still have to sign that treaty. So, I'd say we have at least another year of fighting at the very least, because Putin won't leave that chair anytime soon.
China's final warning - Wikipedia
Russia could go nuclear if Ukraine strikes Crimea
As the war in Ukraine is about to head into its sixth month, the ferocity with which it is fought shows no signs of abating – neither on the battlefield
asiatimes.com
Yet no nukes flying so far...
The point is, we have seen many, many times that Russian leadership loves making over the top threats that they have little to no intention of actually following through with. And it makes sense, threats cost nothing, they have no reputation with those who care about those to lose anyway, so why not? Either the threat works, in which case they get the enemy to back down at no cost, or they don't, in which case it costs them nothing for that nothing, it's like a lottery ticket you got for free. Russians do not include the safetyist concerns over risks and "optics" involved in their consideration for they are not safetyists and "optics" fans like westerners are.
There would be threats, warnings, counterattacks, negotiations... Nuclear response would be on the table, but in case of a minor territorial loss, far from certain.
It is seen as an existential war because Putin sees it as such (and even that involves layers upon layers of questionable assumptions, word games and not so reliable theories). Once Putin's opinion ceases to be the opinion everyone who wants to have any deals with or in government follows, all sorts of turnarounds can happen.
On the other hand, if Putin or his replacement decides that he wants to go nuclear (or do anything at all in general), you can rest assured that his propaganda department will effortlessly find at least a half-assed excuse for him, that's part of their job after all.
It is unrealistic to assume the whole leadership would have the same opinion on such a controversial and troublesome matter, though in Russian system pretending that they do is absolutely expected.
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See, all this operates on Russia/Putin being rational actors and taking Russia/Moscow at their word.
They aren't, and have proven this time and time again. Russia threatens nukes as often as NK does, and it is about as toothless now because fewer and fewer folks are scared of Russia, instead of pissed at them.
This also relies on the idea that the CCP would be ok with Russia using nukes in Ukraine, when doing so would give Japan, Taiwan, and most other nations on the brink of having the perfect excuse to openly develop nukes of their own.
Ukraine doesn't need to invade Russia to win, but they will need to strike Russian military assets across the border when those fire on them, because a Korean DMZ along the 2014 borders is pretty much the best outcome here.
And frankly, the second Russia uses a nuke, is the second Putin eat a nuke, and the West just negotiates with his successor.
Russia is a rational actor. Their actions in Ukraine aren't irrational.
And no, the CCP's opinion is irrelevant. China needs Russian natural resources more than Russia needs Chinese goods. China also has its own problems to worry about.
And who in the world do you think is going to nuke Russia over Ukraine? The US sure as hell won't. The instant a US nuke detonates on Russia is the instant that the entire Russian nuclear arsenal is launched and LA, New York, DC, Miami, Dallas, Seattle, Houston, Denver, and a dozen other major cities get their own mushroom clouds.
China? France? UK? Israel? North Korea? Japan? Taiwan? Sweden? Really, just who do you think is going to nuke Russia, regardless of what they do in Ukraine?
It's funny you honestly think Russia's a rational actor; kinda defeats the rest of your argument.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
Russia as a rational actor?
Please support this position, because I'm really not seeing it.
Also yes, I do think that Russia would get nuked if it nuked Ukraine. Perhaps not by direct action, but handing one off to the Ukrainians or some similar intemediary measure, sure.
What you do not seem to be recognizing, is that if a precedent is set that Russia can deploy nuclear weapons to get its way, why would it not continue to do so? Thus, there is a very strong incentive for every western nuclear power to not let Russia nuking Ukraine as part of a war of naked aggression stand.
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Rationality has nothing to do with morality.
Why do you think Russia is being irrational?
Who do you think is going to provide the nuke, and why in the world do you think they would risk it?
The US? No chance in hell that the US goes nuclear in response to Russia nuking Ukraine. Even Biden isn't insane enough to trade US cities for Ukrainian cities. Hell, try it and he would be impeached in thirty seconds flat.
China? They aren't going to give a fuck, especially when they are likely to need nukes if they decide to go after Taiwan and are fully aware of that fact.
The UK? You think they will risk London to retaliate?
France? Paris would become a crater and France is fully aware of that.
North Korea? Israel? Japan?
Just where do you think this nuke would be coming from and whose interests do you think it would serve?