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Notes -
Why not just attack from NATO territory in Poland, Finland (only decided to forego neutrality because of the Ukraine invasion), or the Baltics? They are closer to the presumable targets anyway.
Because nukes.
Any geopolitical discussion on what Russia needs to survive as a state that does not acknowledge or address the role of second-strike nuclear deterrence is not a serious discussion.
And how is that any different between attack from Ukraine vs attack from eg. Latvia?
There is no meaningful difference. Any existential invasion from any direction remains deterred by second-strike nuke capability.
So you agree that having western troops in Ukraine is irrelevant for Russia’s actual safety because if they attack in force, ”Nukes fall, everyone dies”?
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Typically though, you want to avoid situations where your two options are “lose and die” and “press the small red button marked ‘The End of the World’”
Why would they lose and die when losing and dying is followed by the end of the world for the attacker who forces them to lose and die?
This is where we get to the sillyness of pretending nukes don't matter or adopting inconsistent nuclear deterrence paradigms. Somehow nukes would be used for the end of the world, but not the end of nuclear state to hostile invasion which will result in the death of the people with nukes regardless.
But you notice that in either case, they still die.
I think the point is that NATO, knowing they have nukes and are willing to use them, would choose not to invade in the first place. They still die in a hypothetical world where NATO wants the world to end. They live in the world where NATO doesn't want the world to end and chooses not to invade them, because they have nukes.
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And thus them invading Ukraine does nothing to keep them from dying. It is a false pretense that doesn't resolve the problem it was claimed to prevent.
Ok, then why do Russia or America have armies? Why does China? Why does Israel? Why does France? They all have second strike capability, it’s just a giant waste of money for them to have armies. It’s especially wasteful in Israel’s case. No one has ever tried to invade and destroy Israel since they developed nuclear weapons, for the obvious reason that whoever tried it would be destroyed.
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The Southeastern border region of Poland is pretty mountainous which would make an armored thrust a lot more difficult. Then you would have to fight through 400 miles of Belarus before you got to the Russian border, and another 200-400 miles of Russia before you a start to get to the important rail network terminals around St. Petersburg and Moscow.
Invading from the Baltic states, you either have the same problem of fighting through Belarus, or you would have to confine your offensive to the very small section that is the Latvian border, because Lake Peipus makes most of the Estonian border unusable. If you did that and are successful you could potentially cut off St. Petersburg pretty fast but it would be a slog to get to Moscow.
Any attack from the Baltics would also have two additional logistical problems: First you would have to concentrate your entire invasion force in a pretty small area of Latvia, making it vulnerable to a tactical nuclear attack or a conventional thrust into your staging areas. In the event of a conventional thrust you are backed up against the ocean, and risk having your invasion force overrun before it can even start moving. Secondly, Russia owns Kaliningrad and has a substantial force garrisoned there so you risk being attacked from your rear and potentially pincered between two Russian forces. You could deal with Kaliningrad before your invasion, but that could take a while and gives your game plan up weeks or months early unless you are planning on a first-use nuclear strike to deal with it.
Invading from Ukraine has none of these problems. You can attack through the Sumy region along a wide front line and it’s just a straight shot of about 350 miles over flat open steppe and major road systems directly to Moscow. Additionally you can easily divide the Russian force from any potential Belorussian force.
Thanks, I did not realize that Moscow was that close.
Still, I think that 400km is still a lot of strategic depth, and trying to take that much quickly when your enemy has prepared fortifications seems over-ambitious.
I mean, look at Putin trying to take Kiev, which is half that distance to the border. From my understanding, Ukraine had not made it a top priority to defend against a Russian incursion before he attacked, and yet managed to fend off his initial attempt to take it. I do not think that NATO would manage to take Moscow from Kharkiv in a single decapitating strike, nor am I convinced that taking Moscow would cause Russia to surrender.
And all of that war gaming is contingent on nuclear fission magically stopping to work, because externally threatening the existence of the owner of the world's second largest nuclear stockpile seems like a utterly foolish thing to do.
Nothing Russia has is worth even the risk of getting bogged down in a conventional war like we see in Ukraine, never mind a nuclear war which would quickly escalate to an ICBM exchange.
To the point where the Prigozhin mutiny was able to get from the Ukrainian border to the outskirts of Moscow in force in about 12 hours. Admittedly they were not opposed in the way NATO would be.
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I am inclined to agree - the Ukrainian border is slightly closer to Moscow than the Finnish or Latvian borders, but not by much. And obviously St Petersburg is closer to NATO now than it would be if Ukraine had been allowed to join. But the question isn't what we think - it is what Moscow thinks. And Putin has repeatedly said that he sees NATO troops in Ukraine as a Soviet-nukes-in-Cuba tier security threat. (While saying, out of the other side of his mouth, that he wants to conquer Ukraine because it is in some sense supposed to be Russian).
I don't think the Mearsheimer realist explanation of Russia's behaviour is correct - I think Putin wants to invade and conquer Ukraine and forcibly Russianise the Ukrainian people because he is a Russian nationalist and that is where his Russian nationalism takes him. But a lot of people (including, importantly, key people in the Trump administration) do buy it. And in any case Putin negotiates in the same way whether Ukrainian "neutrality" is about honestly held security concerns or whether it is a bad-faith move to isolate Ukraine in preparation for a repeat invasion.
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