As I understand it, Russia still perceives itself as a superpower in a decades-long cold war against USA. The fall of Soviet Union was a temporary setback, but now they are back in the game.

From Russian perspective, there are currently only two (or maybe three -- I have no idea how Russia perceives China) agents on this planet. Everyone else is an NPC. Some states are "NPCs owned by USA". Some states are "NPCs owned by Russia". Other NPCs are neutral and passive. But there are only two (or three, if also China) player characters who have actual agency, and everything that happens on this planet should be interpreted as a military move made by one of them. Any other interpretation means falling for someone's propaganda, hook, line, and sinker. From Russian perspective, explaining things from any other perspective makes you either a liar (which is a good thing, considering the alternative), or an idiot (if you actually believe what you say).

If you do not grok this perspective, you simply do not understand what Russians actually mean by the things they are saying, e.g. when Putin makes a speech to the Russian public. I am not commenting here on what Putin actually believes -- I have n... (read more)

Interesting summary and interpretation of a speech outlining Putin's intentions, "The End of Western Hegemony is INEVITABLE":

This is a reproduction of my live Twitter summary/translation of Vladimir Putin's speech:

I wish every single person in the West would listen to Putin's speech. Obviously, that won't happen so let me summarise as a professional translator for 10+ years. He states, as he has done from the outset, what his intentions and complaints are in the plainest terms possible.

Setting aside his brief comments on the recent "referendums", he spends most of his speech discussing the West. His primary complaint isn't NATO expansion, which gets only a cursory mention. The West is greedy and seeks to enslave and colonise other nations, like Russia.

The West uses the power of finance and technology to enforce its will on other nations. To collect what he calls the "hegemon's tax". To this end the West destabilises countries, creates terrorist enclaves and most of all seeks to deprive other countries of sovereignty.

It is this "avarice" and desire to preserve its power that is the reason for the "hybrid war" the collective West is "waging on Russia". They want us to be a "colony".

Russia gets nothing from burning bridges. They profit from selling their oil and there are a lot of plausible scenarios where it allows them leverage to negotiate the lifting of sanctions in the winter if the gas runs out in Germany. The only thing Russia could benefit from is if it weakens cooperation between the US and Germany and the rest of the EU.

One interesting aspect of Russia's response is that they are saying:

"The sanctions were not enough for the Anglo-Saxons: they moved onto sabotage," Putin said. "It is hard to believe but it is a fact that they organised the blasts on the Nord Stream international gas pipelines."

If it would be a propaganda move, I would have expected them to have a story about how the US did it prepared and not be as vague about who did it. 

When I look at the situation, I find Poland a plausible actor as well. It's interesting that Radoslaw Sikorski who's a Polish MEP thanked the US for it. The timing of Poland opening its pipeline with Norway and them imposing more sanctions on Gasprom makes them seem like a plausible actor to me. 

The United States profits from the attack as long as it doesn't damage its relationship with Germany and other EU countries. 

(Meta: writing this in separate comment to enable voting / agreement / discussion separately)

If you want to make the case for tactical nuclear deployment not happening (which I hope is the likely outcome), I want to see a model of how you see things developing differently

I'll list a few possible timelines. I don't think any of these is particularly likely, but they are plausible, and together with many other similar courses of events they account for significant chunks of probability mass.

1. Discontinuity in power in Russia.
2. Internal turmoil or collapse in Russia (e.g. regions start declaring independence). It becomes clear that nuclear weapons won't save Russia.
3. Abrupt cut in western support to Ukraine, including ammunition (e.g. due to another big war). Putin thinks he can win without nuclear weapons.
4. Russian army starts being competent. Putin thinks he can win without nuclear weapons.
5. Conflict freezes over winter, then turns into boiling-the-frog: events happening too slowly to trigger nuclear response. Over the years defeat slowly becomes an accepted fact in Russia.

I'm less concerned. Russian nuclear doctrine lists the circumstances under which Russia would launch its nukes.

a) ICBMS are launched against Russia.

b) WMDs are deployed against Russia or its allies.

c) Russia's ability to retaliate with nukes is threatened.

d) Russia's state faces an existential threat.

Nothing about the Ukraine war meets any of the above criteria.

Metacomment on speculations on who might have sabotaged NordStream.

It seems like people here mostly implicitly treat possible state actors as coherent, unified agents. But maybe it wasn't any particular state acting as a whole but rather some small group within that state that decided to do it on their own. Even if they considered it likely to be identified after the fact, the subgroup may have judged the sabotage to be in the interest of the whole nation or maybe that particular subgroup.

(I don't know how much fragmentation of that sort there is in any given country but I think it's at least plausible)

I’d be willing to take a bet that the U.S. will not respond with nuclear retaliation against Russia, regardless of what Russia or any of its governmental actors do, for a 1 year period. If you believe there’s any chance.

On Nord Stream sabotage: 

1. Looks like sabotage. Accidents very rarely look like this. (Very high confidence.)
2. Probably by state actors. It seems like a task that requires significant resources and planning. Also there was plenty of military presence in the area, it's just hard to believe that non-state actors could perform something like this unnoticed. (Medium confidence.)
3. It wasn't an ally of Germany. There is always a chance that you get caught / leave evidence, and after attacking the critical infrastructure of an ally no one will have a reason to trust you. None of the allies of Germany stand to gain anything that is anywhere near comparable to that risk (that I can think of). (High confidence.)
4. Given geographic reach, the countries that could perform something like this are probably those around the Baltic sea, plus USA, UK, France. (Medium confidence.)

That leaves us with Russia and Germany. I don't see what Germany could gain from this. I don't see what Russia could gain from this either, but then Russia has developed a habit of doing things despite having nothing to gain from them. Also, I see some reasons why Russia could think this is a good idea (implicitly threatening the West by demonstrating willingness to use grey-zone warfare against their critical infrastructure, to try to get them to back down).

So possibly Russia. (Low confidence.)

Epistemic status: proof by lack of imagination.

Kamil Kazani proposed that Putin may be planning to use nukes as a face-saving gesture (in the eyes of Russian public opinion, not yours, you don't matter to him no matter how absurd you think he's being), since it's not humiliating to lose to a retaliatory strike from powerful America, but losing to "inferior" Ukraine certainly is.

Thoughts on this?

1. Russian military doctrine allows the usage of nuclear weapons to defend Russian territory.

This is ~false. See: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TkLk2xoeE9Hrx5Ziw/nuclear-attack-risk-implications-for-personal-decision?commentId=ukEznwTnD78wFdZip#ukEznwTnD78wFdZip

The scenarios I think are most likely (my guess of order of likelihood):

1 - Russia / Ukraine peace deal, involving Ukraine officially ceding Crimea and maybe some/all of these other annexations to Russia in exchange for an end to hostilities/maybe something else. (Russia would say no, but it would be hilarious for Ukraine to ask for the gift of an independent, Russian-made, nuclear deterrent in exchange for the territory. "In 1990's we gave up our nukes for a piece of paper you gave us guaranteeing our territory. the paper did not work, so this time you wi... (read more)

The mobilisation in Russia is seemingly an expensive bet. In the short term, he annoys draftees/prospective draftees, deprives the Russian economy of their labour and loses a bunch of working age men from the country. In the medium run, I think having relatives involved is more likely to push ambivalent families to an anti war position than the reverse.

So if it’s a costly bet, then what is it a costly bet on? Seemingly, it is not a bet on the prospect of using nuclear weapons to force Ukraine to negotiate on favourable terms with shock and awe - it’s possi... (read more)

If Russia were to nuke Ukraine with a tactical nuke, they will put the US into a position of being forced to respond.

If we go all the way up the escalation ladder to a full nuclear exchange, it's essentially impossible for Russia to win.

So they probably will need to either not escalate, or plan to deescalate at an intermediate point, e.g. if there's an exchange of tac nukes or a tac nuke is exchanged for a nasty conventional strike, Russia may intend to stop the escalation at that point.

Russia has much more reason to bark about nukes than to bite. The bite might happen but I don't see a strong reason for it.