If everyone knows NATO can beat Russia using conventional weapons, doesn’t that force them to rapidly escalate to nuclear to have any chance?

Question

The logic goes like this: since both sides know, and they know that the other side also knows, the game theory conclusion for Russia to have any chance of something other than defeat is to massively attack with nuclear weapons the moment enough NATO countries demonstrate they are seriously committed to fighting and enough forces are assembled.

Since it’s understood that the Russian armed forces can’t possibly win an exclusively conventional battle if NATO commits, as the industrial capacity of North America + Europe is so much greater.

Although obviously the losses would be horrendous, with less than a fifth of the population, a 5 or 6 to 1 exchange in favour of Russia would cause vastly asymmetric damage. Thus giving a ‘relative victory’ to Russia, which may be perceived as better than a conventional loss.

This then produces the paradox that the more committed the NATO countries are to fighting, the less safe they become. And the more resources spent on their military, the less safe they become, as the conventional gap grows wider.

Whereas conversely the stronger and more confident Russia becomes conventionally, the lower the chance of them resorting to rapid nuclear escalation, thus making the world safer. (assuming nuclear forces remain constant on both sides)

In economic terms, every extra dollar of wealth generated, and every extra bit of productivity by the NATO countries above and beyond what Russia can produce, actually makes everyone less safe as they decrease the confidence that Russia can resist a conventional loss.

It sounds totally bizarre, is there a better interpretation?

Answer 1

Russia might also be convinced that NATO lacks the political coherence and will to fight, and that going nuclear would be a "Pearl Harbor moment" which turns it into a fight-to-the-finish. Russian tourists helping a separatists movement in the near abroad are one thing, nuclear weapons are something else. The term to read about is Hybrid Warfare.

My personal estimate is that MAD still stands, even if Russia professes to be worried about growing American missile defenses. And the Russian investment in hypersonics suggests that Russia is serious, not just making propaganda noises. Which brings up the stability-instability paradox: as long as MAD stands, minor conflicts won't go major, so minor conflicts can be risked.

Another interesting question is how long a conflict would last. An American think tank believes that Russia could overrun the Baltics in 60 hours. NATO has deployed tripwire forces in the Baltics, they can't stop Russia but they would make it a fight with a dozen NATO member states.

Compare the Western reassurances for Ukraine, which are far less robust. Biden all but admitted that they won't send troops, only arms and sanctions. Those sanctions are going to be interesting -- if the US bans Russia from SWIFT, will that stop the Russian sale of gas to Europe? With the Nord Stream pipeline system, they could still deliver gas even if Ukraine stops transit (or of the infrastructure in Ukraine is damaged). Then-President Trump complained that Nord Stream 2 increases the European dependence on Russian gas. It doesn't. It decreases Russian and European dependence on Ukraine for the gas transport.

Answer 2

The hypothesis cited is extremely speculative, to put it mildly. The world survived 44 years of high level competition between the USSR and NATO, when there was a fundamental drive by both systems to extinguish the other.

Avoiding total war was based on:

• strong mutual conventional deterrence, meaning that there was ample room to escalate and de-escalate using conventional forces.
• Mutually Assured Destruction at the nuclear level, should either bloc put the other truly at risk.
• well-honed communication channels that were set up to avoid misunderstandings.
• A clear understanding by both blocs that they had to keep their armed forces out of direct combat with each other, opting instead to work through proxies.

Most of this machinery is essentially still in place, yet what has dropped out is a very strong commitment by the US to end Communism, and a strong commitment by Russia/USSR to end capitalism. Compared to those times, what we are seeing today in the Ukraine arena is of very limited real danger to either bloc.

Russia does not have the forces to beat the West, but it also has no real reason to pursue the type of confrontation that would escalate to nuclear.

The US/Nato would never be able to "sell" to their electorate the idea of "putting Russia out of action". To be honest, it does not, nor should it, have the intent to fight Russia militarily to protect Ukraine. That sounds horrible, so let me repeat it: the West has no vital interest justifying putting its own troops in harm's way in Ukraine and risking an escalation chain. If Ukraine gets attacked, Russia will suffer consequences, but not of the type you imagine.

We are supposedly at greater risk now than we were say in 1985 and we would be safer if we were unarmed?

Color me skeptical. Both groups will continue to vie for regional influence, but at the end of the day nothing very significant will come out of it, except possibly some more misery for Ukraine. And a lot of economic pain to Russia if that happens.

Russia, in 2022, is not a long term existential threat to the West. China might end up taking on that role (hopefully we will avoid a second Cold War), but Russia is not. Russia teaming up with China? Quite possible, but also exactly the kind of development that would strongly rebut your advice.

Answer 3

This question seems to simply presuppose that NATO is an aggressive entity bent on wiping out Russia, as "The West is wealthy" is treated as identical to "The West can support a large military", which is identical to "The West can conquer Russia", which is identical to "The West will conquer Russia". There's no question that the US could wipe out Mexico's military rather easily, but I don't see Mexicans clamoring for nukes. It would be absurd for Russia to launch a nuclear attack against the West simply because the West has high productivity and could launch an attack on Russia. Russia loses nothing by waiting for an actual attack before launching, and gains in the case where the West was not planning on attacking in the first place.

Since the dissolution of the USSR, Russia has repeatedly engaged in aggression against former states of the USSR, and a decrease in conventional power on the part of the West simply encourages such behavior. Russia is an oligarchy largely controlled by one man, while the West is a collection of states with a large degree of democratic control. This makes Russia much more likely to be the aggressor, and giving them more power decreases stability.

Answer 4

No, because game theory assumes you have to play the game

As von Clausewitz famously said, war is a continuation of politics by other means. War is not an end in itself, and war is not the only way to win. The West did not win the previous Cold War by being militarily stronger, they won it by being economically stronger. For another way to win economically, China are currently taking over the world quietly by making large infrastructure loans to developing nations, and then taking assets from that country instead when they can't repay their loans.

War also assumes you have something to gain once it's over. Typically this is economic resources, as exemplified by Germany and Japan in WW2. If it's purely a willy-waving exercise where you start posturing and find you can't back down (as in WW1) then you generally need some way to present the enemy as an existential threat to your people. That's fairly achievable for immediate neighbours, but rather harder for an entire continent. Alternatively (as with Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran) you need to be a sufficiently brutal dictator that your people will do what you say because they're more scared of you than the enemy - this is an option, but it's harder to do in more advanced countries.

And more than that, this game theory assumes "acceptable losses" are genuinely acceptable. Fewer UK military personnel were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq over both campaigns than die on UK roads in a single year - but these weren't deemed acceptable losses. Is it genuinely acceptable to have every major city nuked, lose 80% of your population, and have the survivors reduced to a life of hand-to-mouth subsistence for at least a generation with all industrialisation basically destroyed?

To quote a well-known film, "The only winning move is not to play."

Answer 5

Frame Challenge:

You forgot about the likelihood of China and Russia aligning in any conventional armed conflict. They have a rough past sure, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If NATO is the enemy, they're best buds. This tips the scales far closer to even. Even if not a direct alliance, China would most likely supply the difference in armaments on loan. It's in their interest to protect the shared border with Russia from any Western influence.

To be clear here, my point is that M.A.D. is practically guaranteed in modern conventional war as well (note Russia FOAB mentioned in the article, amongst the literal 100,000's of "small" bombs in each nations stockpiles), if the U.S. and any other large, modern nation "went at it" without holding back. It's unlikely a full-scale conventional war between any of the powers mentioned will occur again - instead the countries will opt for proxy wars fighting for influence, as they've done for decades. In terms of "taking over" another nation, that's much more likely to be attempted (and accomplished) through economic, and even cultural "warfare".

The frame challenge is that neither Russia nor the U.S. has any real, worthwhile interest in a full scale conventional war with the other. A key factor would be, if nukes were entirely eliminated, that other parties besides Russia would have an interest in harming the U.S. effort, namely China given the modern political landscape.

https://www.voanews.com/a/china-deepens-informal-alliance-with-russia/6338773.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Russia_relations

https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2021/10/15/china-russia-launch-joint-naval-drills-in-russian-far-east/#:~:text=The%20exercises%20Joint%20Sea%202021,and%20firing%20on%20seaborn%20targets.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-russia-america-military-exercises-weapons-war-xi-putin-biden-11641146041

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a37272876/russia-china-joint-military-exercises/

Answer 6

I really hope that in the case of the WWIII, both sides would agree to fight with ordinary weapons only regardless the end because deploying nuclear weapons still does not ensure any easy victory for Russia. NATO has nuclear weapons as well, the strike back will follow and will also be devastating. If in general it could be a winner in a nuclear war, may still not be Russia.

History knows cases like that. For instance, during WWII, A.Hitler had chemical weapons, and he also lost the war but (apart few limited cases) these weapons were not deployed.

Answer 7

At present, Russia, like many other Nuclear Powers, has a second strike only policy. This means that in the event of war with another nuclear power, Russia would only launch it's Nukes if it detected a launch from the belligerent side. They would never be the first to use nukes. The United States is one of the few nations that did not adopt a second strike only policy, opting for one that basically said we will keep the war restricted to conventional arms until we detect Nukes inbound OR we think a tactile nuclear strike is in our interest (Read: We're about to lose and the only way to win the battle is if all the opposing conventional forces were suddenly vaporized). Considering which of the two is the only nation to ever use nuclear arms in actual combat... and you could see why the Russians were so nervous about the West... which was politically opposed to Soviet style government.

It also explains why the Soviets added a "dead man switch" to their nuclear command and control. They will launch if a signal is not received from Moscow within a certain amount of time (the engineering of this system is such that the only way for Moscow to fail to send the signal is if Moscow suddenly was no longer on the face of the earth. Russia has historically been very vulnerable to decapitation strikes. Their capital is much more important than any other city. It's also one of the reasons Russia is pretty difficult to invade.).

That all said, many Nuclear War scenarios, especially in the 80s when the cold war started to go towards a hot one, was that NATO-Warsaw Pact war would start off with a flashpoint crisis of some sort (Trouble in East Berlin or a Crisis in the Middle East) which raise tensions with both powers until the opening salvos of a conventional war begin, at which point, it's a conventional war with infintry, tanks, air battles, and naval battles. The thought is that NATO would have the naval advantage, Warsaw would have the land advantage, and it would be a dead even split on air superiority.

At some point, one of the land battles is going bad for their side... they can barely hold the line and enemy reserves are enroute to the front lines and once there, they will break through. For whatever reason, losing this position in the opening actions of war is unacceptable so the side that is on the ropes will launch a tactical nuke at the re-enforcements because its all they have left. The side that is nuked sees this on early warning detections and, with the fog of war, have no way of knowing if it was the only nuke.

But the thing about Nuclear arms is that the best national defense against a nuclear bomb... is to have a nuclear bomb of your own. That, and the ability to convince the enemy that if backed into a corner... we will use it.

It's estimated that in a total nuclear war between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. that all but 3% of either side's Nuclear Arsenal will be delivered to the intended target when launched. And that both sides had 30 minutes of travel from ground launch points until they reached their target. Now, to the side that sees that lone nuke fired at their re-enforcements... they have no way of knowing if that missile is a shot that will win the battle, or the first shot in a war ending salvo. They have no way to talk to the other side at this point. They have less than 30 minutes at best to retaliate before they lose that capability and the lives of everyone on the home front. It doesn't matter if it's one launch or one thousand launches... if they want even a hope of a chance to win this war, be it for mom and apple pie, or perogies and suka, there's now only one thing to do. Launch everything, and hope that the 3% of arsenal that survives is your own. Of course... the only way to learn their true intentions, is to see if they launch all of theirs before you've launched all of yours... either way... who lost the war is now decided... all that can be said is that we will know who won sooner... because at either rate, nobody does.

And what is troubling, is that in so many scenarios, the implication if not outright statement was that it was the U.S. losing ground that pressed the button first... and those were the predictions from the West... because as was said in the film "War Games," in global-thermonuclear war, the only winning move is to not to play the game. It's how we won the Cold War.

Much like in my family when my sister suggest we play Monopoly (sorry, after writing all that sobering stuff, I had to get a laugh in somehow.).