I doubt it. At some point, a Great Power will inform a Lesser Power that robot war will not be tolerated and will result in the loss of a major population center.
Lesser Power will doubt the threat, call the bluff, and future Lesser Powers will not assume that robot war can be waged without risk.
Everyone is high-fiving Ukraine...but the West won't be there to help when Russia responds (which is surely being planned now). For some reason, saying obvious things like "Russia will respond" offends HN and it isn't clear why.
prmph•6mo ago
Russia is raining deadly missiles on Ukraine regardless.
Do you really think Russia is limiting their attacks on Ukraine because of some benevolence?
> Lesser Power will doubt the threat, call the bluff, and future Lesser Powers will not assume that robot war can be waged without risk.
not sure what point you are trying to make here
uukka2•6mo ago
Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia is considering the next day with Ukraine.
They want a good part of Ukraine to return to the fold.
Whether they achieve this is debatable. It would not help if they bombed indiscriminately.
drysine•6mo ago
>Do you really think Russia is limiting their attacks on Ukraine because of some benevolence?
Yes, obviously.
Just consider the rate of civilian death toll in Ukraine vs. military casualties. Civilian deaths are a small fraction of the total number of deaths due to war. For comparison, look at the Israel's special military operation in Gaza, where they are considering deaths of 20 civilians for a single Hamas fighter to be acceptable [0]
The civilian death toll in Ukraine is severely underreported due to a lack of access to the occupied territories, while the death toll in Gaza is greatly overreported because Hamas is the primary source of information and they are known for inflating the numbers a lot.
Another factor is the nature of the warfare. Russia uses forced conscripts from occupied territories (a war crime on its own) in a deliberately wasteful manner to exterminate them. A significant portion of military deaths deserve to be counted as Ukrainian civilians. Nor am I entirely sure that the tens of thousands of convicts coerced into the military can be considered "military" in the conventional sense. Modern standards and definitions are not well aligned with such a feudal behavior.
AnimalMuppet•6mo ago
As far as I can see, Russia has three possible responses.
1. Nuke a Ukrainian city.
2. Launch an all-out conventional war.
3. Continue more or less what they have been doing, just upping the intensity or more targeting civilians or something, to make a "statement".
Of those, #3 changes very little. #2 Putin won't like, because there (I trust) there are limits to the number of casualties he can absorb without triggering domestic unrest, and because it would reveal the "special military operation" to be an actual war, and not (so far) a success.
#1... If I understand correctly, Russian force doctrine calls for using their nukes when they have lost 20% of their delivery mechanisms, or when their homeland is under immediate threat. Losing 40% (perhaps an overestimate) of their strategic bombers isn't quite at the threshold, but it's getting into the neighborhood.
Problem is, Putin is trying to take Ukraine. Nuking it - even one city - diminishes the value of what Putin wants to take.
So option 1 is... I wish it were more clear that Putin will not do that. I still think it to be less likely than not, but it is far less clear-cut than I would wish.
prmph•6mo ago
Will he nuke Ukraine, and risk all out war with the West, WW3, kill his babies, and nullify all the gains Russia has had in this war so far?
Because, trust me, all hell WILL break loose if he does that, even in a sparsely populated area.
The chance he nukes Ukraine is pretty much zero
uukka2•6mo ago
This is a war of attrition. Russia wants Ukraine to collapse.
If Russia believes that Ukraine will collapse, then they will continue and not get distracted.
oldpersonintx2•6mo ago
Lesser Power will doubt the threat, call the bluff, and future Lesser Powers will not assume that robot war can be waged without risk.
Everyone is high-fiving Ukraine...but the West won't be there to help when Russia responds (which is surely being planned now). For some reason, saying obvious things like "Russia will respond" offends HN and it isn't clear why.
prmph•6mo ago
Do you really think Russia is limiting their attacks on Ukraine because of some benevolence?
> Lesser Power will doubt the threat, call the bluff, and future Lesser Powers will not assume that robot war can be waged without risk.
not sure what point you are trying to make here
uukka2•6mo ago
drysine•6mo ago
Yes, obviously.
Just consider the rate of civilian death toll in Ukraine vs. military casualties. Civilian deaths are a small fraction of the total number of deaths due to war. For comparison, look at the Israel's special military operation in Gaza, where they are considering deaths of 20 civilians for a single Hamas fighter to be acceptable [0]
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/world/middleeast/israel-h...
mopsi•6mo ago
Another factor is the nature of the warfare. Russia uses forced conscripts from occupied territories (a war crime on its own) in a deliberately wasteful manner to exterminate them. A significant portion of military deaths deserve to be counted as Ukrainian civilians. Nor am I entirely sure that the tens of thousands of convicts coerced into the military can be considered "military" in the conventional sense. Modern standards and definitions are not well aligned with such a feudal behavior.
AnimalMuppet•6mo ago
1. Nuke a Ukrainian city.
2. Launch an all-out conventional war.
3. Continue more or less what they have been doing, just upping the intensity or more targeting civilians or something, to make a "statement".
Of those, #3 changes very little. #2 Putin won't like, because there (I trust) there are limits to the number of casualties he can absorb without triggering domestic unrest, and because it would reveal the "special military operation" to be an actual war, and not (so far) a success.
#1... If I understand correctly, Russian force doctrine calls for using their nukes when they have lost 20% of their delivery mechanisms, or when their homeland is under immediate threat. Losing 40% (perhaps an overestimate) of their strategic bombers isn't quite at the threshold, but it's getting into the neighborhood.
Problem is, Putin is trying to take Ukraine. Nuking it - even one city - diminishes the value of what Putin wants to take.
So option 1 is... I wish it were more clear that Putin will not do that. I still think it to be less likely than not, but it is far less clear-cut than I would wish.
prmph•6mo ago
Because, trust me, all hell WILL break loose if he does that, even in a sparsely populated area.
The chance he nukes Ukraine is pretty much zero
uukka2•6mo ago