Whether or not these strikes have indeed been done by Ukraine my predicted nuclear de-escalating counterstrike by Putin probably on Lviv is now imminent.
I guess it’s probably a false flag again by Putin. His desperate offensive has been bogged down in the mud and the heavy weapons that are now being provided make the future of Putin’s war look dim.
A long war as predicted by many analysts is highly improbable, for Putin is prepared to escalate even towards a Third World War going nuclear.
Up till now, I haven’t paid too much attention to how the West got here as I was putting the focus on Putin.
MAD mutual assured destruction of the fifties became untenable so NATO opted for the flexible response doctrine.
This Wikipedia is a nice intro to the problems and historic development of the thinking about nukes. It also shows where the reasoning has always been flawed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterrence_theory
Correctly Kissinger noted that in a world of suicide bombers getting hold of nukes they are not to be deterred from using them. Indeed. That is also not the case when a leader of a nuclear state like Putin is a suicidal gambler.
The problem stems from the fact that we live in 50% + 1 vote democracies. More and more neo-liberal right-wing types such as our ‘oligarchs’ like Trump are in polarisation with more or less left-wing Democrats in the USA. As yet less volatile as in the US Europe is following suit: Macron versus Le Pen and Forum for Democracy or Geert Wilders in the Netherlands.
Before this, we had a strong anti-nuclear anything in popular opinion. The antineutron bomb demonstrations and the fight against cruise missiles in the Netherlands for instance made talking or even thinking along the lines necessary to deter Russia effectively ended up that politicians were forced to treat such topics as taboo. And so did the press treat it as taboo.
Hence all higher-ranking military who wanted to make a career to become general needed to adhere to this taboo. I witnessed this in 1981 during a Northern Army Group exercise with my own eyes. A week of Russians / WP moving up and winning ground. And then the end of the exercise for NATO had gone nuclear. The world ended in MAD and that would deter the Russians and send a message to the politicians to spend more on conventional weapons.
The simple fact that as noted before that the declared Russian military doctrine has been acknowledged by most western military analysts as a de-escalating nuclear strike without fear of a nuclear counterstrike proved that even generals and all military analysts in their wake who talk about “what Russia” wants completely missed the whole bloody point! They still bloody well do!
It’s what a mobster Putin wants. He will gladly die in the Hell of WW3 dragging the whole world with him when he can’t stay in power.
Yet when one wants to make a career in general you need to ‘talk the talk’ about what politicians and the press can handle and that is in effect MAD. The truth is however that probably the world won’t end when Putin indeed strikes Lviv with one or more small tactical nukes to disrupt the flow of heavy weapons towards the Donbas.
As stated earlier the longer it takes to strike a deal in which the chance of the mobster’s inner ex-KGB circle is neutralized the more difficult it gets and the higher the price will be to get Putin to agree on that deal. After he has nuked Putin will feel strong and the west weak.
Especially Angela Merkel and now Schultz have been following an appeasement strategy being completely in a so-called Bayesian inversion. Doing exactly the opposite of what they should have been doing even in 2014. Drawing the line. And, guarding the line! In a clear stare down like boxers that even if it means the end of the world this isn’t going to stand. In stead of sanctions and slowly delivering ever more heavy weapons into an escalating fight.
The situation of being able to go nuclear simply didn’t arise in a way that Putin could use. The weather. Shockingly not being successful on the battlefield. The nuke strike will in Putin’s mind establish a status quo. Hence he brazenly recently demands all of the south coasts of Ukraine. As a former experienced lawyer, I see this as a bargaining chip showing strength. Even though near a complete loser. Akin selling a house. You ask too much to settle on a winner’s deal the mobster can sell to his mobster friends and people. That minimum is still only Donbas and the route to Crimea.
Well then give it to him in a way that he gets nothing. Entire Ukraine EU including this new free federal state. All Russian troops out of Belarus and all of pre-2014 border Ukraine. In return make the mobster bugger a modern monarch Tsar. That is all his brain wants. Yet having the Rasputin Dugin religious madness problem, requires the right wordings.
We absolutely must neutralize all these mobsters now even when it means war! Only when a mobster boss is convinced of these will he back down. A bitter pill indeed. yet our bloody fault as well.
Alas, everything I predicted since October 2019 (actually November 2017) has come true for near 99%. I correctly explicitly stayed away from predicting what would happen militarily or in the black box of the Kremlin. I didn’t bank on Putin being so stupid or having so little power that he’d use a false flag method. Most people and our leaders and military are simply in denial. They can’t believe what is happening and have their focus everywhere but on the real problem and solution.
Just a selection of posts on what I stated since New Year on Ukraine.