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You are as equally unlikely to nuke Russia over Ukraine as Russia is unlikely to nuke Ukraine over Ukraine, or the Afghans over Afghanistan, or the Chechans over Chechnya. The Cold War, and the post cold war, has a number of examples of both powers accepting losses in wars of choice- even when internationally humiliating- rather than invoking nuclear weapons.
Common misconception of what Madman Strategy counter-play is. When someone is suspected of invoking madman theory, the equilibrium is to be less, not more, cautious.
Ultimately, there's only two general conditions when dealing with a nuclear madman: either they are faking it, in which case they are actually rational, or they are not faking it, in which they are not rational. This is binary, not spectrum- you can't be both simultaneously rational and irrational from a nuclear deterrence perspective, because deterrence itself is a binary. You are either deterred from an action, or your are not.
If they are rational, you don't make concessions in the name of caution, because doing so is unnecessary (they aren't actually mad), it incentivizes the rational-madman to continue to continue to fake madness (as a rational means to get further concessions), and it also obfuscates the ability to identify actual madmen. You continue to operate below assessed nuclear thresholds, you just do so based on your own analysis of what the actual thresholds are, not what the fake-madman claims (because he is a liar), based on common lines of assessment.
If they are not rational, you don't make concessions because if they responded rationally to concessions, they wouldn't be irrational, but faking irrationality. When dealing with truly irrational actors, the counterplay isn't rationality-based deterrence, but capability degradation that limits their ability to inflict harm, which cannot be assumed to be traditionally deterred. This means a lot of things, many of which harmful, but critically targeting the irrational-madman's rational support network whether that is domestic or abroad.
The common mistake people have with Putin and nukes in Ukraine is being bound up in a general narrative where Putin is simultaneously a rational actor and an irrational actor, and that nuclear actions will be done for simulateneously rational and irrational reasons.
Interesting points as always -- to be clear, I'm saying that if Biden is dumb enough that his response to Putin nuking some stuff in Ukraine might be 'full exchange' -- Rational Putin needs to be pretty cautious about what he nukes in Ukraine. "Nuclear Moron Strategy" if you will.
Not sure how this works if Biden is only pretending to be retarded; isn't the point of it that it's hard for Putin to be sure?
Of course if Biden is a moron and Putin is a madman none of it works all that well.
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