However, “what really influences Russian decision-making is the scale of US deterrence”, he said.
I find that hard to believe, considering that nuclear weapons have no strategic or tactical military applications whatsoever and only serve as an (effective) PR-campaign for scaring opposing civilian populations.
… does the Russian civilian population have any influence on Russian decision-making? Is there any point in running expensive PR-campaigns against them?
You’ve got to be joking acting like you dont understand the stakes of war
I think there might be some misunderstanding here - what do you think I wrote in my previous post? What am I missing?
For example that you cannot just invade other countries to take them over, that you shouldn’t kill people with other religions or sexual preferences, or that your country is superior to all the others.
Apologies for not wording that more clearly, but I was not asking for examples of value differences. I was asking why you think value differences make more and more people refusing to risk their lives not a good thing.
It can only be a good thing if the enemy shares the same values, which is not the case with Russia.
Even if it only leads to reconsidering and restructuring conventional “militaries” then I’d also count that as a drop in the good-bucket. I can’t quite see values factoring into it, what do you mean by that?
Can’t blame anyone for not wanting to risk their lhealth or even lives. More and more people doing that is probably a good thing in general. Brings everyone closer to making the old adage “imagine there’s war and nobody comes” a reality.
Fair (with a special ominous shoutout to your “at least for now”), but do you think Petrov’s or any similar individual person’s decision making in this scenario would involve any considerations regarding the size launching nation’s or block’s arsenal? I.e. “Launch detected from US… hm, better play it safe. Launch detected from France… eh, hit that button!”?
I mean… nuclear threat is nuclear threat. I am not questioning the effectiveness of that threat, I’m questioning the premise of the article.