...and World Peace!

Why we are unlikely to have a nuclear conflict this time around

Remember movie Miss Congeniality, when every contender in a beauty pageant had to finish her list of wishes with the wish for World Peace? Well looks like ladies in a pageant and the rest of the world are getting their wish for peace, well, at least for no nuclear conflict, granted!

World Peace - clip from movie Miss Congeniality

Today (12/05/2022) was an interesting day, to put it mildly. Ukraine attacked airfields deep inside of Russia, about 700 km or 50 kilometers farther than Red Square in Moscow is from Ukraine/Russia border. According to Russian MoD attack was performed with Soviet military jet powered drones Tu-141 "Strizh" and it was at least partially successful. Earlier this year one of these 30+ year old Ukrainian drones wandered off into NATO territory and fell to the ground somewhere in Croatia after running out of fuel. For unknown reasons NATO air defense didn't react to air space perpetrator either. According to Russians, their air defense managed to shut drones down, but already above the airfield where unprotected strategic bombers stood in the open. In one instance they attacked military airfield in the city of Engels. In that airfield Russia keeps their strategic long range bombers Tu-95 and Tu-160 capable of carrying nuclear bombs. The other airfield, subject of Ukrainian attack, was in the town of Diagilevo where heavy transport planes Il-76 are stationed as well as the other type of strategic Russian bomber - Tu-22M3. While as a result of the attack on Engels airfield there were no casualties, but two of the strategic bombers Tu-95 sustained some damage. As a result of the other attack on Diagilevo three of ground crew personnel were killed and four were injured. Electric generator plane starter truck was destroyed and at least one strategic bomber Tu-22M3 sustained damage to the rear part of the aircraft.

Damaged Tu-22M3 bomber and destroyed fuel tanker truck at Diagilevo airfield

What is notable about this attack:

1. Lack of properly working air defense systems on the Russian side. Shooting the drones down, if they were shot at all, above the airfield is not good enough. What it means in reality that Ukrainian drones managed to go through multiple perimeters of the Russian air defense systems to get that deep inside the Russian territory. There are talks that this could possibly be not attack by the Soviet jet drones, but by smaller devices launched by saboteurs from location in close proximity to the airfield. The other leaked unverified information from the “Ukrainian president’s office” suggests that attack was performed by stealth drones supplied by Brits capable of flying at super low altitude to avoid radar detection. Even if latter suggestion was true, the official story by MoD insists on the Soviet drones that indirectly puts Russia anti-missile defenses in a bad light. To recognize Britain’s involvement in the attack on Russian nuclear triad component would mean inevitable escalation that Russia wants to avoid at all costs. Btw, where are the praised S-400 and S-500 systems? Are they like the Russian newest tank, T-14 Armata, nowhere to be found on the battlefield?

2. Just coincidentally Ukraine stated couple of days ago that they are close to have in their possession a drone with a range of 1000 km capable of carrying 75 kg explosive charge. They said the drone is going to be ready for deployment by the end of December this year. Question comes, was it really a Soviet manufactured drone they used for attack or was it a new model developed by Ukrainian engineers with Western assistance? If restricted by sanctions Iran could build pretty efficient long range attack drones, so can Ukraine that enjoys no limits in access to high-tech components. No word on this yet. Russian official version shared by military spokesman general Konashenkov insists it was a Soviet drone Tu-141..

3. As far as I remember, and correct me if I’m wrong, this is the first attack by anyone on the element of a nuclear defense system of any country, especially a major nuclear power that Russia still is. Just like US, Russia has a concept of a "Nuclear triad" - three element nuclear defense system consisting of land based ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines and strategic long range bombers. This last one - strategic bombers, was attacked with at least three planes rendered incapacitated. Question remains if they can be restored at all.

4. Russia's own doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons says that it reserves the right for a nuclear strike in response to a nuclear or conventional weapon attack against their nuclear defense system incapacitating one or more elements of such force. Here we have a clear casus belli.

Along with this attack Ukraine continued shelling rebel republics. Bombardment of Donetsk was one of the heaviest today since the start of the conflict in 2014. Many direct hits with NATO supplied 155 mm howitzers of the multistory apartment buildings in Donetsk Republic - 4 civilians killed. Also city of Alchevsk in Lugansk Republic was hit today with HIMARS precision rockets. Two multistory residential buildings sustained direct hits, 9 civilians died as a result.

In response, or perhaps according to earlier plan, Russia continued attacks on Ukraine's military and energy infrastructure. 3 pm Moscow time rocket attack was launched. As a result city of Odessa reports not having running water today and power outages are reported throughout the country. To be fair, dozens of successful Russian rocket and drone air raids on Ukrainian infrastructure including military objects tells us that Ukrainian air defense is not perfect either and they are now equipped not just with Soviet air defense systems, like S-300, but also with some of the systems used by NATO.

So today, as you can see, we had a pretty significant exchange. I'd say that Ukraine definitely had an upper hand in this altercation as they managed to demonstrate that Russian air defense, that was considered to be one of the best ones in the world, is not as good. For US this is a confirmation that their strategy of a "Prompt Global Strike”, when massive attack using conventional weapons is launched against nuclear capabilities of a country like Russia or China, may be a sound strategy after all. As this example showed, strike to overwhelm adversary's air defenses doesn't even need to be that massive, it just needs to happen. As far as I'm concerned this was one of the more serious humiliations of the Russian military during this conflict, far more serious than elimination of the Black See fleet's flagship cruiser "Moskva" with far reaching consequences for Russia and the world.

I could have ended this update right here, but wait, there is more! Can you imagine for a second if part of US nuclear triad was attacked in such way? The deafening screech we would've heard from every American media outlet, from politician of every stripe and color and from president of the United States? The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 would have appeared a children's quarrel in a sandbox in comparison! The heads would roll both inside of US, of those who allowed for this to happen and on the enemy side, of the people that dared to execute such a brazen attack. But Russia is different... It is different not only from US but from a country predecessor, USSR. After German teenager pilot, Mathias Rust, landed his Cessna on the Red Square in 1987 even pretty mild tempered Gorbachev had the guts to fire the minister of defense and the chief of Soviet air force from their jobs. But Putin prefers inaction. He said nothing about the incident. Peskov, Putin's spokesman, merely acknowledged that Putin was informed of the attack. And what does Putin do? Does he go to the city of Engels to see first hand the results of the drone strike? No, he doesn't. Does he at least go to the city of Donetsk to support people there after yet another brutal bombing of the city? Wrong on this one too! Instead he goes to take a drive in a Mercedes SUV to inspect repairs of his favorite toy and pride - the Rotenberg, pardon, Crimean bridge.

President Putin driving Mercedes SUV across Crimean bridge on December 5, 2022 to inspect ongoing repairs after Ukrainian attack in October of 2022

President of Russia taking a joyride in a German Mercedes after probably one of the most significant attacks of this war so far. What a symbolism! Well, perhaps this was action intended as a message by Putin . “We want peace along with unrestricted access to German automotive industry products!”

In any case, the silver lining in all of that is the conclusion that Putin is not going to be the politician to start a nuclear war, not even a limited edition. Can you imagine this guy pressing a red button? I don't... And this is actually for the better. So, beauty pageant contestants everywhere, rejoice! Your wish for World Peace was granted this time!