> They assumed that a lightning strike would cause near instant capitulation.
Yes, I'm well aware of this narrative. I happen to think their current plan, however we arrived here, is to play for time. The opposite of a blitz.
They are depopulating and starving Ukraine and flattening major cities with long range artillery. You aren't too far off. But it isn't to claim a "win", they aren't cartoon villains.
> At what point do we decide that a possible strategic nuclear escalation is a worse worry than a complete massacre of a sovereign nation?
Unfortunately at no point. That is part of their calculus.
They appear to have gained an edge over the US in both offensive and defensive nuclear capabilities as well as having caught the EU with their pants completely down. This is the likely reason why they wasted a few of their new hypersonic missiles as a demonstration. And why they flew into Swedish air space and flaunted hot nukes which has never happened before even during the Cold War.
> They appear to have gained an edge over the US in both offensive and defensive nuclear capabilities as well as having caught the EU with their pants completely down.
Citation needed. They appear to be a generation behind their adversary in just about every way.
I believe the hypersonic missile launched in Ukraine was a standard ballistic missile launched from an airplane and is really nothing that advanced (the article mentions this technology was invented in the 80s). Hypersonic glide vehicles are more of a question mark. Russia claims to have them, but their ability to reliably deploy them is unknown as they’ve never been used outside of tests. The U.S. is working on its own HGV, which should be superior in many ways. This attempt at achieving superiority is also what’s leading to the lag as more technical problems need to be worked through.
What you see here is a difference in doctrine, not better or worse systems.
US has heavily invested in their second strike capabilities, and is far ahead of Russia on that.
US has largely viewed investment in first strike capabilities as a waste, the DPRK is their only adversary that could possibly be decapitated with such weapons.
A first strike against Russia would result in an unstoppable second strike, what good are first strike weapons in this scenario?
The Mattis quote in your article provides a good tl;dr
>U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis stated Russia already has the capability to hit U.S. port cities with missiles, and said that Poseidon "does not change at all the strategic balance".
US is already incapable of stopping “regular” ICBMs, poseidon does not change the calculus at all.
You are very much on target. Just one correction. "Kinzhal" missile that Russia promotes as their hypersonic wonderwaffe is not in fact that.
"Kinzhal" is a slight modification of standard Russian "Iskander" ballistic missile allowing it to be launched from a plane (specifically an intercepter fighter jet MiG-31).
As with most ballistic missiles, the warhead flies a part of its trajectory at a hypersonic speed, but has to slow down at the final part of its trajectory. It is just as hard (or easy) to intercept as any other ballistic missile.
Mounting it on a plane gives it a longer range, and potentially makes it harder to be destroyed by a pre-emptive strike (although experts disagree on this).
Traditionally the term "hypersonic weapon" is used for very different class of weapons. Basically, a true "hypersonic weapon" is something able to maneuver while flying at hypersonic speeds, and able to maintain this speed all the way to the target. "Kinzhal" is nothing like it.
So it is not some fantastic wonderwaffe making NATO air defenses suddenly useless. It presents some additional challenges, but nothing drastic.
What makes possible nuclear war with Russia really dangerous is just the number of "conventional" ballistic missiles Russia has. In theory Russia may launch thousands of rockets carrying tens of thousands of warheads, and no air defense has any hope to intercept all or even most of them.
This is the same as it always was. The difference with Soviet Union is that Soviet leaders appeared to be afraid of a world suicide, and Russian leadership appears (or wants to appear) to be crazy and ready to destroy the world.
Welcome to Russia. They don't fly SEED. And they knew that going in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpzUCSdxi7k
> They assumed that a lightning strike would cause near instant capitulation.
Yes, I'm well aware of this narrative. I happen to think their current plan, however we arrived here, is to play for time. The opposite of a blitz.
They are depopulating and starving Ukraine and flattening major cities with long range artillery. You aren't too far off. But it isn't to claim a "win", they aren't cartoon villains.
> At what point do we decide that a possible strategic nuclear escalation is a worse worry than a complete massacre of a sovereign nation?
Unfortunately at no point. That is part of their calculus.
They appear to have gained an edge over the US in both offensive and defensive nuclear capabilities as well as having caught the EU with their pants completely down. This is the likely reason why they wasted a few of their new hypersonic missiles as a demonstration. And why they flew into Swedish air space and flaunted hot nukes which has never happened before even during the Cold War.