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The US also was pretty clear about it's intent to rebuild it, and this was at a time when cyberweapons weren't available that could achieve similar effects. As the joke went before Iraq, the best way to American investment was to declare war on America.
The good reason for the Russians not to go after Ukrainian power power generation is because it's very easy for someone else to give the Ukrainians the means to go after Russian power generation, both directly or via cyber attacks. This is a similar parallel to why the Russians did not destroy the oil pipelines going through Ukraine and instead have kept paying oil transit revenues through the war- because if they destroy Ukrainian pipelines, it's not very hard for someone to give Ukraine the ability to do so to Russian pipelines.
To paraphrase a different war, it would be a very naive belief to hold that the attacker will be the only one attack the other party's cities, and that the defender will not do the same if they have the ability to. The reason Ukraine has largely limited its engagements in Russia has been of western concerns of escalation driving Russian mobilization. If Russia mobilizes and escalates the war instead of taking a loss, the western concerns limiting Ukrainian operational freedom be undermined as well since what they ward against- Russian mobilizing- is already occuring.
Are we talking about the 1991 Gulf War or the 2003 Gulf War? Because I'm pretty sure it (also) applies to the former, in which case American rebuilding wasn't on the table.
I'm also sure that the Russians plan to rebuild destroyed capacity in the areas they plan to capture.
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In WW2, the Germans refrained from using their advantage in nerve gas because they feared that the Allies would use gas against them via aerial bombing. The Allies held escalation dominance over Germany in that they could make things worse for Germany than Germany could do to them. Compare the effectiveness of V1 and V2 attacks to the UK's thousand bomber raids, incinerating German cities.
Today, Russia holds escalation dominance over Ukraine. Even if the Ukrainians hit back as hard as they can, unless we're giving them a full nuclear triad the Russians can hit harder. At lower escalation levels the Russians can also hit harder, since Ukraine is a smaller country with a smaller number of targets and a smaller arsenal.
Furthermore, is it really wise for the West to be blowing up Russian pipelines during a global energy crisis? That fuel is going somewhere. Removing it from circulation will reduce global supply.
Escalation dominance is, of course, why the Ukrainians have not raised their capabilities to resist since the war started, because escalation dominance prevents retaliation at lower levels.
Alternatively, escalation dominance theory runs into the reality of deterrence, which works when the opponent's capacity to retaliate is enough that even though you could hit back harder, it doesn't matter because you don't want to be hit in that way in that context, and that overwhelming annihalative capacity doesn't actual deter people from fighting back if you attack them, and that people will often fight back in kind.
Russia's ability to nuke Ukraine harder than Ukraine can nuke Russia is irrelevant to the reasons why Russia wouldn't want to do something that could be done back to them if they did so. Nukes do not stop Ukrainian from counter-artillery fire, nor do they magically prevent Ukraine from retaliating in kind in other ways.
Okay. In other news, water is wet. It still doesn't change that were Russia to knock out Ukrainian energy infrastructure, other people would happily help the Ukrainians do it back to the Russians. The Europeans can afford it, the Americans will profit from it, and the Poles would probably do it even if they couldn't afford or profit from it.
reducing risk of getting again invaded by Russia is worth a lot.
WW II when allied Russia and Germany invaded resulted in 16% of Poles being murdered, to say nothing about economical and political losses.
Sure. So is deterring the Russians from knocking out your energy generation by targetting theirs. Note that you are increasingly far from the claims of escalation dominance being relevant in negating deterrence.
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The Russian recent actions have demonstrated that this is a fools errand, It seems clear at this point that the only way to reduce the risk of Russian invasion is to cripple Russia's ability to invade anyone. Every Russian soldier killed in Ukraine, every plane shot down, armored vehicle destroyed, and Russian naval vessel sunk, makes Poland, and the rest of Eastern Europe safer.
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It certainly looked that way back before the most recent invasion. But the actual course of events has shown the Russians can't hit harder unless they go nuclear; if they could, they would. If they go nuclear, they risk WWIII with the US and Western Europe directly involved. This does not give them escalation dominance.
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