Conflict won’t go nuclear.

Bokat-Lindell '3/2 [Spencer, 3/2/22, "Putin Is Brandishing the Nuclear Option. How Serious Is
the Threat?," https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/opinion/ukraine-putin-nuclear-war.html]
History is full of instances in which nuclear powers publicly threatened to use their arsenals.
Matthew Kroenig, a professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown, pointed to the Cuban missile
crisis of 1962, the 1969 border war between the Soviet Union and China, and the 1999 war between India and Pakistan, among
other examples. (More recently, President Donald Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury like the world has never seen”
after it conducted long-range missile tests.)
Perhaps one of the closest precedents to the current moment occurred during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Arab states, then
allied with the Soviet Union, launched attacks on Israel. As Nichols recounts, the Nixon administration responded by raising the
United States’ nuclear alert level, albeit with no formal announcement.
From a strategic standpoint, many experts say that there is no reason for Putin to use nuclear
weapons: His goal, according to Paul Hare, a senior lecturer in global studies at Boston University, is to “swallow
Ukraine” and restore the historical power of imperial Russia — not to instigate a nuclear
exchange, which, if it did not bring about civilization’s end, would make him a pariah not just
to the world’s democracies but also to China.
Among those who see Putin’s order as incongruous with that goal, the move has raised questions about his state of mind. “It makes
no sense,” said Graham Allison, a Harvard political scientist who worked on the project to decommission thousands of nuclear
weapons that once belonged to the Soviet Union. He noted that the incident is “adding to the worry that Putin’s grasp on reality may
be loosening.”
Other experts, though, are skeptical of such conjecture. “I don’t fully subscribe to this view that Putin’s lost it
completely ,” Stephen Walt , a professor of international affairs at Harvard, told Yahoo News. “I always like to remind
people, and occasionally remind my students, that plenty of leaders that we regarded as fairly smart and
fairly sensible did dumb things in the past.”
It’s also possible to see the alert as an attempt by Putin to guard against the threat of overthrow that he may see as the ultimate
goal of the countries issuing sanctions. In the view of Pavel Podvig, an expert on Russia’s nuclear forces at the United Nations
Institute for Disarmament Research, Putin’s announcement could make his government less vulnerable to decapitation.
Still, some experts and military officials warn that the risk for mistakes in a heightened state of alert is worrisome. “What would
happen if the Russian warning system had a false alarm in the middle of a crisis like this?” Jeffrey Lewis, a senior scholar at the
Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said on NPR. “Would Putin know it was a false alarm? Or would he jump to the wrong
conclusion?”
“Idon’t think we should look at this as a threat by Putin to use nuclear weapons against the
United States, against Europe, against NATO,” said Kimball. But, he added, “it’s a point in which both sides need
to back down and move the word ‘nuclear’ from this equation.”
The United States seems to be doing just that. The Biden administration could have countered Putin’s order by
putting its bombers, nuclear silos and submarines on a higher alert level. Instead, the White House made clear that it had not
changed. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations also told the Security Council on Sunday that Russia was “under no threat” and
chided Putin for “another escalatory and unnecessary step that threatens us all.”
 1NC – AT: Russia War
No Russia war – they won’t risk it
Amy F. Woolf 20, Specialist in Nuclear Weapons Policy in the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and
Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress, received a
Master’s in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1983,
“Russia’s Nuclear Weapons: Doctrine, Forces, and Modernization”,
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R45861.pdf
One analyst has postulated that Russia may actually raise its nuclear threshold as it bolsters its conventional

forces. According to this analyst, “It is difficult to understand why Russia would want to pursue military
adventurism that would risk all-out confrontation with a technologically advanced and
nuclear-armed adversary like NATO . While opportunistic , and possibly even reckless , the
Putin regime does not appear to be suicidal .” 144 As a study from the RAND Corporation noted, Russia
has “invested considerable sums in developing and fielding long-range conventional strike
weapons since the mid-2000s to provide Russian leadership with a buffer against reaching
the nuclear threshold —a set of conventional escalatory options that can achieve strategic
effects without resorting to nuclear weapons .”145 Others note, however, that Russia has integrated these “conventional precision
weapons and nuclear weapons into a single strategic weapon set,” lending credence to the view that Russia may be prepared to employ, or threaten to employ, nuclear
weapons during a regional conflict.

Their impact starts at 0.38%

Luisa Rodriguez 19, research fellow at the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities
Research, she also researched nuclear war at Rethink Priorities and as a visiting researcher at
the Future of Humanity Institute, holds an M.A. from The Heller School for Social Policy and
Management at Brandeis University, “How likely is a nuclear exchange between the US and
Russia?”, https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/PAYa6on5gJKwAywrF/how-likely-is-a-
nuclear-exchange-between-the-us-and-russia
My previous posts address how bad a nuclear war is likely to be, conditional on there being a nuclear war (see this post on the deaths caused directly
by a US-Russia nuclear exchange, and this post on the deaths caused by a nuclear famine), but they don’t consider the likelihood that we actually see a

US-Russia nuclear exchange unfold in the first place. In this post, I get a rough sense of how probable a nuclear war
might be by looking at historical evidence , the views of experts , and predictions made by
forecasters . I find that, if we aggregate those perspectives , there’s about a 1.1% chance of nuclear war each year,
and that the chances of a nuclear war between the US and Russia , in particular, are around
0.38% per year.
No Russia war.
Galeotti, 18 – Mark Galeotti (Senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations
Prague and head of its Centre for European Security; “Forget Britain’s nuclear deterrent – here’s
what Russia is really afraid of”;
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/19/nuclear-weapons-uk-defence-
review-russia; accessed 7/18/18)
Tanks are great for fighting other tanks, but there is little serious likelihood of a full-scale land war between
Russia and NATO. For everything else, from flag-flying and humanitarian intervention, to heading off Crimea-style landgrabs,
where what matters is getting to the battlefield when it counts, rather than too late, the special forces, Royal Marines and paras are
hard to beat. These forces also suit post-Brexit geopolitics . They allow the UK to achieve its usual aim of “punching
above its weight” and, blasphemy though it may be, make the French happy. On a recent trip to the French defence ministry, I
repeatedly heard concerns that Brexit leaves France as the last EU country with the will and the forces to mount serious out-of-area
operations. If we are still potential partners, that gives us credibility – and leverage. In a way, the Russians have a similar
perspective on the Royal Navy. What bothers them is not our massive new aircraft carrier, which one naval officer said
would make a great “missile magnet” in time of war. Rather, the concern is about smaller, lighter forces.
Submarines that can contest the northern waters. Frigates able to both protect our coastlines
and project power abroad. Simply having the number of ships to keep enough deployed at any
one time. As the officer continued: “If your navy is essentially one carrier battle group, you can do one thing well, but nothing
else.” Thirdly, it is not just specific forces and units that the Russians believe gives the UK its edge, but training and morale. Russian
successes in Crimea and Syria partly represent an unfamiliar new emphasis on the human side of
their military. Britain’s problems of having to scrimp on training and overstretch its forces have not gone unnoticed. One
Russian noted that “these days, the Europeans have armies but no soldiers, while the British have always had soldiers” – he actually
used the word boets, which really means something closer to “warriors” – “so why would they want to lose that?” Why indeed? Of
course there are many other facets essential to the UK’s defence capability. What doesn’t seem to worry the Russians? Not once
have I heard any taking our “independent nuclear deterrent” seriously. For all kinds of reasons, this is currently not under serious
debate – though taking its cost out of the defence budget would make a massive difference – but let us not pretend it is because
Moscow thinks it matters.

Russia or the US won’t just first strike each other

Viktor Murakhovsky, , 7-23-19, Victor is a retired Russian colonel, defense analyst, and editor-
in-chief of the Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine, to better get the Russian perspective on the
future of arms control. Murakhovsky is widely regarded in Russia as a leading military expert and
is frequently cited by Russian media, Are Russia and America headed toward a nuclear war?
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/are-russia-and-america-headed-toward-nuclear-war-68702
All this talk of decapitation strikes or counterforce strikes is just a pathological intellectual
exercise, which has very little to do with real-world combat implementation plans, to real-
world deployment of armed forces, and to how wars are prepared for, begin, and fought.
President Trump or President Ivanov won’t just wake up one morning on the wrong side of
the bed and decides to press the big red button. That just doesn’t happen. Deploying armed
forces and preparing strikes against an adversary requires a very considerable amount of time.
Concealing such preparation is absolutely impossible. For that reason, even if the New START
treaty will cease to exist, the world will not turn upside down.
No US-Russian nuclear war
UNIAN 18 (UNIAN, Ukranian Policy Institute, “U.S.-Russia nuclear war unlikely as Moscow
technically weak – expert”, https://www.unian.info/world/10379499-u-s-russia-nuclear-war-
unlikely-as-moscow-technically-weak-expert.html, December 26 2018)
Now all American missiles can reach Russia, and Russians only threaten Europe. defence.ru Taras
Chornovil, a Ukrainian political analyst and foreign relations expert, has said it is unlikely that a
nuclear war may begin between the United States and the Russian Federation, as Moscow is
technically weak. Read also Half of Europe in crosshairs of Russian missile attack – Ukraine intel "Putin sees his every sortie he escapes punishment for as a
weakness of the Western world and encouragement to escalate. Moscow has not fulfilled the terms of the agreement for a long time. It has created missile carriers
uncontrollably, equipped them with nuclear warheads, stuffed Kaliningrad region with missiles, and now violates the agreement on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons,
bringing carriers and, obviously, warheads into occupied Crimea. This is a critical threat to Europe, the European command of NATO and the geopolitical interests of the United

According to the
States. Of course, the threat is growing for Ukraine," he said during an online Q&A session with the Ukrainian news outlet Glavred's readers.

political analyst, Russia previously had a more favorable economic climate, which allowed the
Kremlin to secretly build up weapons. "The bubble has burst, and now the United States is
demonstrating its readiness to go back to the arms race. The United States has a financial and
economic 'fat,' while 'Putistan' has only skin and bones," the expert said. Chornovil added the
situation was similar to that during the Cold War, when Reagan nudged the USSR into
disintegrating. "With one thing that is different: Soviet and American missiles could have
mutually destroyed both superpowers. And now all American missiles can reach Russia, and
Russians only threaten Europe," he said. The political analyst stressed there is no parity of nuclear
weapons now , therefore only a "suicide killer may unleash a nuclear war."

Retaliation means no hypersonic weapons decapitation strikes

Viktor Murakhovsky, , 7-23-19, Victor is a retired Russian colonel, defense analyst, and editor-
in-chief of the Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine, to better get the Russian perspective on the
future of arms control. Murakhovsky is widely regarded in Russia as a leading military expert and
is frequently cited by Russian media, Are Russia and America headed toward a nuclear war?
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/are-russia-and-america-headed-toward-nuclear-war-68702
Of course, competition in the realm of military technology will continue. One clear example of
this is Russia’s introduction of Avangard hypersonic missiles. At the same time, one must
understand that these technologies were not suddenly born yesterday. These technologies were
developed over several decades, starting in the Soviet Union during the 1980s. Will the United
States eventually acquire this technology? I don’t doubt it. With the current level of financing
and effort, there are enough companies in the military-industrial complex that are capable of
making their own version of this technology. N Will this destroy strategic stability? No, it will
not because these are “judgement day weapons,” as they say, and they guarantee a
retaliatory strike under any development of a missile defense system. Can these weapons be
used for a decapitating first-strikes? Of course not, because the range of strategic nuclear
armed forces include other means of responding such as submarines, bombers, and so on.
Some analysts say about counter-force strikes, “Only 15 percent of missiles and 20 percent of
nuclear warheads will reach the adversary’s territory.” I always wanted to ask them, “Have
you ever seen with your own eyes any dead people whose bodies have been torn to pieces to
be so concerned about whether five to seven million people die instead of fifty to seventy
million?” In the real world, such calculations are not made. Therefore, to reiterate, I think that
even if the New START Treaty is not extended nothing catastrophic will happen in the military-
technical sphere. But something catastrophic will happen to the military-political trust between
the United States and Russia. The situation in this area is already very difficult and it will only get
worse.

US-Russia conflict will stay low level, won’t escalate

Kori Shake, Back to Basics, How to Make Right What Trump Gets Wrong,
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-04-16/back-basics?fa_package=1124201, KORI
SCHAKE is Deputy Director General of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the
author of Safe Passage: The Transition From British to American Hegemony. She served on the
National Security Council and in the U.S. State Department in the George W. Bush
administration.

Although war will remain a threat, renewed great-power competition is more likely to manifest
itself in persistent, low-level conflict. Post–World War II international law prohibits aggressive
conventional and nuclear war but says nothing about coercion below the threshold of military
force. States have always tried to pursue their interests through coercive means short of war,
but in recent years, interstate competition has flourished in new domains, such as cyberspace,
that largely operate beyond the reach of international law. China and Russia possess
devastating conventional and nuclear capabilities, but both wish to avoid a full-scale war.
Instead, they will pursue disruptive strategies through subtler means, including hacking,
political meddling, and disinformation. Sustained competition of this sort has not been seen
since the Cold War, and U.S. strategy will need to prepare for it.

No Russia war – both sides are passive and deterrence checks

Polikanov 16 (Dmitry, Vice President of The PIR-Center and Chairman of Trialogue
International Club. Author of more than 100 publications on conflict management,
peacekeeping, arms control, international relations and foreign policy. Member of the
International Institute for Strategic Studies, the International Sociological Association, the All-
Russian Public Opinion Research Center Research Council. “Why a military conflict between
Russia and the US is unlikely” http://www.russia-direct.org/opinion/why-military-conflict-
between-russia-and-us-unlikely)

The expert community has been crying wolf for a long time now: “War is at the doorstep!” The gloomy
predictions indicate that Russia and the U nited S tates are at the brink of direct military clashes, as if they
were trying to celebrate the 54th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis in some perverse way. However, any conflict, if it
happens, will most probably be accidental – the parties are not yet ready for full-scale military
confrontation. In the last few years, Russia has been modernizing its armed forces to replace the outdated
Soviet-era materiel and structure. Numerous exercises, trillions of rubles spent, new equipment and combat vehicles emerging out
of the blue, and a charismatic defense minister who changed the entire image of the Russian Army and brought back its popularity
with society – all these steps provided for the fast (and real) growth of national military might. However, it remains rather
limited in comparison with the overall total potential of the NATO states. Some would say that the
alliance is reluctant to take any serious decisions and is nothing more than a paper tiger. Nonetheless, the brainwashing of the last
two years has significantly improved the decision-making capacity of NATO and the chances for achieving consensus over the
“Russian threat.” The ability to mobilize quickly strong conventional forces is still low, as NATO generals admit themselves. However,
active recent revival of the nuclear sharing arrangements and the consolidation
of U.S. troops in various
countries of Central and Eastern Europe present enough deterrence against any light-minded action. It is clear
that the war will not happen in Europe (and not even in Ukraine with its unpredictable leadership). However, wherever it occurs,
NATO forces can eventually be mobilized to help their allies. Moreover, Moscow has largely been pursuing a
defensive policy over the past 16 years. Even now, when “the Russians are (seemingly) coming,” an independent
observer would probably notice that the lion’s share of the activities of Moscow are reactive rather than
proactive. The Kremlin enjoys petty provocations from time to time (like ongoing incidents in the air over
the Baltic Sea), but is quite cautious in undertaking any serious action, which would require the use
of force and lead to tangible casualties. Even when Turkey shot down the Russian plane along the
Syrian border, there was practically no military response and, on the contrary, it all ended up with a new
friendship with Ankara. Moscow is now fond of “asymmetric measures” and they do not leave any room for substantial armed
clashes. Russian President Vladimir Putin is fond of his status as the victim of Western pressure and the
image of the global peace supporter. It is not in his interests to start a war – he would rather
wait for the Western “attack” and would not necessarily give it an immediate response, in
order to get the proper media effect. The U.S. side is passive as well. Many analysts assume that both
of the presidential candidates would support a war – the difference is only in the scale. Republican candidate Donald Trump,
despite his extravagant nature, sounds more like an isolationist and would likely mean a “small war.” Democrat Hillary
Clinton, given her recent anti-Putin rhetoric, may be more willing to launch a “big war.”

Russia won’t start a war

Tsygankov, 16—Professor at the Departments of Political Science and International Relations
at San Francisco State University (Andrei, “5 reasons why the threat of a global war involving
Russia is overstated,” http://www.russia-direct.org/opinion/5-reasons-why-threat-great-power-
war-involving-russia-overstated, dml)

The contemporary discussion of security interactions among major powers is depressing to

participants and observers alike. Experts and politicians are warning us of an increasingly high
likelihood of a military conflict – possibly a nuclear one – between Russia , on the one hand,
and the U.S. or NATO , on the other.
In the West, many argue the dangers associated with a “resurgent” Russia and vow to defend
themselves from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “aggressive” actions in Eastern Europe and
the Middle East. Last month, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter accused Russia of threatening
the world order and starkly warned: “Make no mistake, the United States will defend our
interests, our allies, the principled international order, and the positive future it affords us all.”
The tensions have been growing and have become especially high since the 2014 Ukraine crisis. Russian military flights over the Baltic and Black Sea in response to NATO’s active buildup on Russia’s European
borders has done little to calm these fears. The Turkish decision to shoot down a Russian warplane by claiming violation of its airspace in November 2015 revived the discussion of Moscow’s possible military
conflict with Istanbul and NATO, of which Turkey is a member. More recently, the hype has been over the Kremlin’s alleged preparations to invade the Baltic States and the West’s need to respond.
In Russia, these threats and discussions are taken seriously, and the responsibility for these security tensions has been squarely placed on the Western powers. The frequently repeated charges are that the West
and NATO have encircled Russia with military bases and refused to recognize Moscow’s global interests. Russian media have actively discussed the U.S. National Security Archive’s Cold War documents on a
nuclear attack against Russia and China declassified on Dec. 22, 2015.
Last week, while attending the Munich Security Conference, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev compared the contemporary security environment with the one that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis and reminded the
audience of U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s words that “foreign policy can kill us."
In the meantime, contradicting Medvedev, Russian experts often bemoan the fact that the Cold War was far more predictable and less dangerous than today’s multipolar world. What many have initially viewed as
a generally positive transition from the U.S. “diktat” is now presented as leading toward a great power war.
This increasingly apocalyptic mood on both sides reflects a growing international instability and breakdown of important communication channels between Russia and the West. Since the beginning of Ukraine
crisis and up until the G20 meeting in Antalya in December 2015, the two sides have barely interacted. Appalled by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for Ukrainian separatists, Western leaders pursued
policies of sanctions and isolation, whereas the indignant Kremlin has sought to demonstrate its indifference toward such policies.
Only since Antalya have Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama resumed their attempts to regularly discuss issues of importance. Western and Russia military, too, severed their contacts although the two sides
have recently begun to coordinate their actions in the Syrian airspace. The aforementioned alarmist views and arguments are misplaced because they underestimate the dangers of the Cold War and overestimate
those of today’s world.
Despite some attempts to present the Cold War as generally stable, predictable, and peaceful, this is not the time to feel nostalgic about it. Multiple crises from Berlin to Cuba and Afghanistan extended across
much of the Cold War era. State propaganda on both sides was reinforced by an intense ideological confrontation accompanied by drills and necessary preparations for a nuclear war.
The Oscar-nominated film “Bridge of Spies” directed by Steven Spielberg reproduces some of that hysterical atmosphere in the United States where the public was mobilized for any actions in support of the
government. In the Soviet Union it was no different. For the world outside the West and the U.S.S.R., this was not a peaceful, but rather an increasingly chaotic and violent time – the conclusion well documented
by scholars of the Third World.
Why today's world is less dangerous than the Cold War

Today’s world, while threatening and uncertain, is hardly more dangerous than the Cold War,
for the following reasons.
First, whatever the rhetoric , major powers are not inclined towards risky behavior when
their core interests are at stake. This concerns not only the nuclear superpowers, but also
countries such as Turkey . The prospect of confronting Russia's overwhelmingly superior
military should give pause even to someone as hot-tempered as Turkish President Tayyip
Erdogan . Even if Erdogan wanted to pit Russia against NATO, it wouldn’t work .
So far, NATO has been careful to not be drawn into highly provocative actions , whether it is
by responding to Russia seizing the Pristina International Airport in June 1999, getting involved
on Georgia’s side during the military conflict in August 2008 or by providing lethal military
assistance and support for Ukraine. Unless Russia is the clear and proven aggressor, NATO is
unlikely to support Turkey and begin World War III .
Second, Russia remains a defensive power aware of its responsibility for maintaining
international stability . Moscow wants to work with major powers , not against them . Its
insistence on Western recognition of Russia’s interests must not be construed as a drive to
destroy the foundations of the international order, such as sovereignty, multilateralism, and
arms control.
Third, the United States has important interests to prevent regional conflicts from escalating
or becoming trans-regional. Although its relative military capabilities are not where they were
ten years ago, the U.S. military and diplomatic resources are sufficient to restrain key
regional players in any part of the world. Given the power rivalry across several regions,
proxy wars are possible and indeed are happening, but they are unlikely to escalate .
Fourth, unlike the Cold War era, the contemporary world has no rigid alliance structure. The so-
called Russia-China-Iran axis is hardly more than a figment of the imagination by American
neoconservatives and some Russia conspiracy-minded thinkers. The world remains a space in
which international coalitions overlap and are mostly formed on an ad hoc basis.
Fifth, with the exception of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS), there is no
fundamental conflict of values and ideologies. Despite the efforts to present as incompatible
the so-called “traditional” and “Western” values by Russia or “democracy” to “autocracy” by the
United States and Europe, the world majority does not think that this cultural divide is worth
fighting for .
Despite the dangers of the world we live in, it contains a number of important , even
underappreciated, checks on great powers’ militarism. The threat talk coming from politicians
is often deceiving. Such talk may be a way to pressure the opponent into various political and
military concessions rather than to signal real intentions . When such pressures do not bring
expected results , the rhetoric of war and isolation subsides .

No Russia war
Tsygankov, 16—Professor at the Departments of Political Science and International Relations
at San Francisco State University (Andrei, “5 reasons why the threat of a global war involving
Russia is overstated,” http://www.russia-direct.org/opinion/5-reasons-why-threat-great-power-
war-involving-russia-overstated, dml)

The contemporary discussion of security interactions among major powers is depressing to participants and observers alike.
Experts and politicians are warning us of an increasingly high likelihood of a military conflict – possibly a
nuclear one – between Russia, on the one hand, and the U.S. or NATO, on the other.
In the West, many argue the dangers associated with a “resurgent” Russia and vow to defend themselves
from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “aggressive” actions in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Last month, U.S. Defense
Secretary Ash Carter accused Russia of threatening the world order and starkly warned: “Make no mistake, the United States will
defend our interests, our allies, the principled international order, and the positive future it affords us all.”
The tensions have been growing and have become especially high since the 2014 Ukraine crisis. Russian military flights over the Baltic and Black Sea in response to NATO’s active buildup on Russia’s European
borders has done little to calm these fears. The Turkish decision to shoot down a Russian warplane by claiming violation of its airspace in November 2015 revived the discussion of Moscow’s possible military
conflict with Istanbul and NATO, of which Turkey is a member. More recently, the hype has been over the Kremlin’s alleged preparations to invade the Baltic States and the West’s need to respond.
In Russia, these threats and discussions are taken seriously, and the responsibility for these security tensions has been squarely placed on the Western powers. The frequently repeated charges are that the West
and NATO have encircled Russia with military bases and refused to recognize Moscow’s global interests. Russian media have actively discussed the U.S. National Security Archive’s Cold War documents on a
nuclear attack against Russia and China declassified on Dec. 22, 2015.
Last week, while attending the Munich Security Conference, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev compared the contemporary security environment with the one that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis and reminded the
audience of U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s words that “foreign policy can kill us."
In the meantime, contradicting Medvedev, Russian experts often bemoan the fact that the Cold War was far more predictable and less dangerous than today’s multipolar world. What many have initially viewed as
a generally positive transition from the U.S. “diktat” is now presented as leading toward a great power war.
This increasingly apocalyptic mood on both sides reflects a growing international instability and breakdown of important communication channels between Russia and the West. Since the beginning of Ukraine
crisis and up until the G20 meeting in Antalya in December 2015, the two sides have barely interacted. Appalled by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for Ukrainian separatists, Western leaders pursued
policies of sanctions and isolation, whereas the indignant Kremlin has sought to demonstrate its indifference toward such policies.
Only since Antalya have Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama resumed their attempts to regularly discuss issues of importance. Western and Russia military, too, severed their contacts although the two sides
have recently begun to coordinate their actions in the Syrian airspace. The aforementioned alarmist views and arguments are misplaced because they underestimate the dangers of the Cold War and overestimate
those of today’s world.
Despite some attempts to present the Cold War as generally stable, predictable, and peaceful, this is not the time to feel nostalgic about it. Multiple crises from Berlin to Cuba and Afghanistan extended across
much of the Cold War era. State propaganda on both sides was reinforced by an intense ideological confrontation accompanied by drills and necessary preparations for a nuclear war.
The Oscar-nominated film “Bridge of Spies” directed by Steven Spielberg reproduces some of that hysterical atmosphere in the United States where the public was mobilized for any actions in support of the
government. In the Soviet Union it was no different. For the world outside the West and the U.S.S.R., this was not a peaceful, but rather an increasingly chaotic and violent time – the conclusion well documented
by scholars of the Third World.
Why today's world is less dangerous than the Cold War
Today’s world, while threatening and uncertain, is hardly more dangerous than the Cold War, for the following reasons.
First, whateverthe rhetoric, major powers are not inclined towards risky behavior when their
core interests are at stake. This concerns not only the nuclear superpowers, but also countries such as Turkey. The
prospect of confronting Russia's overwhelmingly superior military should give pause even to someone as hot-tempered as Turkish
President Tayyip Erdogan. Even if Erdogan wanted to pit Russia against NATO, it wouldn’t work.
So far, NATO has been careful to not be drawn into highly provocative actions, whether it is by
responding to Russia seizing the Pristina International Airport in June 1999, getting involved on Georgia’s side during the military
conflict in August 2008 or by providing lethal military assistance and support for Ukraine. Unless Russia is the clear and proven
aggressor, NATO is unlikely to support Turkey and begin World War III.
Second, Russia remains a defensive power aware of its responsibility for maintaining
international stability. Moscow wants to work with major powers, not against them . Its insistence
on Western recognition of Russia’s interests must not be construed as a drive to destroy the foundations of the international order,
such as sovereignty, multilateralism, and arms control.
Third, the
United States has important interests to prevent regional conflicts from escalating or
becoming trans-regional. Although its relative military capabilities are not where they were ten years ago, the
U.S. military
and diplomatic resources are sufficient to restrain key regional players in any part of the
world. Given the power rivalry across several regions, proxy wars are possible and indeed are
happening, but they are unlikely to escalate .
Fourth, unlike the Cold War era, the contemporary world has no rigid alliance structure. The so-called Russia-China-Iran axis is hardly
more than a figment of the imagination by American neoconservatives and some Russia conspiracy-minded thinkers. The world
remains a space in which international coalitions overlap and are mostly formed on an ad hoc basis.
Fifth, with the exception of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS), there is no fundamental conflict of
values and ideologies. Despite the efforts to present as incompatible the so-called “traditional” and “Western” values by
Russia or “democracy” to “autocracy” by the United States and Europe, the world majority does not think that this
cultural divide is worth fighting for.
Despite the dangers of the world we live in, it contains a number of important, even underappreciated, checks
on great powers’ militarism. The threat talk coming from politicians is often deceiving. Such talk may be a way
to pressure the opponent into various political and military concessions rather than to signal
real intentions. When such pressures do not bring expected results, the rhetoric of war and
isolation subsides.

No impact Even a US-Russia nuclear exchange would de-escalate from all-out

war
Quinlan, King’s college, 9
[Michael, former British Permanent Under Secretary of State for Defence, former Director of
the Ditchley Foundation, Visiting Professor at King's College London, “Thinking About Nuclear
Weapons: Principles, Problems, Prospects,” Oxford University Press, p. 63-4, Accessed: 10-24-
15, ECD II]

Even if initial nuclear use did not quickly end the fighting, the supposition of inexorable
momentum in a developing exchange, with each side rushing to overreaction amid confusion
and uncertainty, is implausible. It fails to consider what the situation of the decisionmakers
would really be . Neither side could want escalation . Both would be appalled at what was
going on. Both would be desperately looking for signs that the other was ready to call a halt.
Both, given the capacity for evasion or concealment which modern delivery platforms and
vehicles can possess, could have in reserve significant forces invulnerable enough not to entail
use-or-lose pressures. (It may be more open to question, as noted earlier, whether newer
nuclear weapon possessors can be immediately in that position; but it is within reach of any
substantial state with advanced technological capabilities, and attaining it is certain to be a high
priority in the development of forces.) As a result, neither side can have any predisposition to
suppose, in an ambiguous situation of fearful risk, that the right course when in doubt is to go
on copiously launching weapons. And none of this analysis rests on any presumption of highly
subtle or pre-concerted rationality. The rationality required is plain.

Russia can’t initiate larger conflict – too weak

Bowen 6-7-15 (Andrew S. Bowen is a Ph.D Candidate in Political Science at Boston College.
Andrew S. Bowen is an editorial assistant for The Interpreter, a Russian language translation and
analysis journal, and a member of the strategic-consulting firm Wikistrat. "Russia's Deceptively
Weak Military", The National Interest, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/russias-deceptively-
weak-military-13059, 6-7-15)
Yet, little attention has been paid to what actually constitutes the Russian military. Indeed, many commentators lauding the return
of the Russian military have pointed to the plans and statements of the Russian military, focusing on the toys used more than actual
capabilities. Beyond the public displays lays a more complicated view with more nuanced
realities. While Russia has produced new technological toys (such as the Armata series tanks and armored
vehicles), Moscow’s ability to pay and sustain modernization efforts leaves lingering doubts
about a resurgent Russian military. Despite the almost ebullient hysteria surrounding Russia’s new equipment and
capabilities, its military is still hampered by structural, economic and strategic constraints that not
only limit its evolution and growth, but also threaten its current progress . The “New Look”
modernization effort Russia began in 2008 has created two militaries; an elite (or more professional) force capable of conducting
rapid, complex operations with generally modern equipment; and the rest of the military, which still relies upon
conscription, mass mobilization and mixed levels of modern equipment . Even among the “little green
men,” the outlook is far more mixed than the Crimea annexation would suggest. Most spetsnaz are actually conscripts on one
year terms, although they do get the pick of the conscription call up. As Mark Galeotti notes, “the bulk of spetsnazovets may
arguably best be compared with the French Foreign Legion, the British 16th Air Assault Brigade or the U.S. 75th Ranger Regiment, in
that they are elite, mobile light infantry able to function in a range of operations and climates, and optimized for interventions, but
not a 'Tier One' special operations force.” Moscow does retain around 500 tier one troops (equitable to Delta or Seal
Team Six) in a separate force, which were utilized in seizing the Crimean parliament. And while the more elite units of the military
are starting to embrace small unit independence and rapid deployment, theconventional Russian military
continues to be influenced by the old Soviet structure of numerous under-manned units, pre-
positioned with equipment to be brought up to full staffing levels during times of conflict. The
drawbacks of this design were laid bare during the 2008 war with Georgia, where airborne
units (VDV) were able to deploy faster from interior Russia than those units stationed in the
Caucasus. The 2008 modernization effort sought to replace this unwieldy division structure with smaller, more agile and
autonomous Brigades. Although, the efforts to reduce the reliance upon mass mobilization and undermanned units continue, this
trend has been somewhat reversed as some divisions have been brought back. Despite plans for fully staffed units, the
troops
injected into Ukraine have been pulled from fully (or partially) staffed subunits all across
Russia and thrown together to fulfill requirements . Reports of casualties of “Russian volunteers” are indicative
of troops from various regions and units being put together for mission specific operations (although most have come from the elite
Paratrooper and Spetsnaz). Even with the efforts to eliminate the mass mobilization structure of the
Army, most units remain woefully undermanned . The vacillation between unit structures is in part confounded
by the same strategic issues that have always plagued Russia. It has too few men to guard its borders and the
diverse threats the country faces. Russia today must have a technologically advanced military to guard against NATO, a
counter-insurgency force for rapid deployment in the Caucasus and Central Asia, forces for the increasingly competitive Arctic, and a
large conventional force able to guard against threats in the Far East. Russia is still debating how to balance between guarding
against all threats and fielding more efficient unit structures. Complementing plans to increase units to permanent readiness status
have been efforts to increase the level of professional troops, kontrakniki. These efforts have fallen considerably short (the retention
rate for kontrakniki remains unacceptably low, and recruitment targets are struggling to keep up with the attrition rate). Slightly
increased housing, pay and status have remained unconvincing to most of Russian society. Efforts to recruit kontrakniki were also
designed to create an NCO corps that the Russian military never had (not to mention never having a professional recruiting corps
that has also limited the recruitment of professional soldiers). NCO roles in western armies are filled in the Russian military by lower
level officers, contributing to a bloated officer corps. While many nations do not retain a professional NCO corps (China),
experienced NCOs are crucial not only to manage the increasingly technical components of warfare (especially with the emphasis on
increasing the military’s network-centric and C4ISR capabilities), but also to ensure the proper training and readiness of the units. As
much as Russia has announced and displayed its modern army, it is still reliant upon the conscription of its youth to project its great
power status. In
terms of new equipment, it is easy to look at specifications and be impressed by
details. However, this ignores considerations of how these systems will actually operate . The
new toys Russia displayed during May 9th parade—such as the Armata T-14 tank, Kurganets 25, T-15 IFV and Boomerang—are
extremely impressive in isolation, and do represent a dramatic revolution in Russian armament design (although it remains to be
seen if they can produce high quality optics domestically. Russia currently imports its optics from Thales for its T-90 tanks). And
while their actual utilization will represent large increases in capability for the Russian
military, their utility is constrained by their ability to arrive on the battlefield. Russian
strategic transport capabilities remain woefully lacking and still rely upon rail transportation,
with little improvement of air and sea transport, limiting the Russian military’s capacity to
rapidly reorient its forces. The Kurganets 25 IFV, for example, is ten tons heavier than previous BMP units, making it far
more difficult to rapidly transport to conflict zones. The Soviet military compensated for its inadequate
transportation infrastructure by pre-positioning large equipment depots to supply conscripts
once they arrive. This strategy is inadequate in a threat environment relying upon the rapid
movement of troops (and equipment) to emerging crisis. While the Airborne (VDV), Naval Infantry and Spetsnaz units
retain sufficient logistical support to conduct operations like Crimea, the same cannot be said for the regular troops necessary to
support those rapid deployments. Despite the issues over strategic design, manning and transportation, economic considerations
may well determine the extent of Russia’s grand military designs. As Dmitry Gorenburg notes, with
the economy suffering
from sanctions, investment flight and low oil prices, “the money allocated may not be
sufficient to build what they want to build.” The situation is succinctly summed up by one of Russia’s most famous
economists (now in self-imposed exile in Paris) Sergei Guriev, “In any case, Kudrin's economic and financial logic is even more valid
today than it was at his dismissal from office. If
Russia could not afford a 4 percent-of-GDP defense budget
in good times, it cannot possibly manage such a high rate of military spending now, when it
confronts rock-bottom oil prices, Western sanctions and economic recession .”

No war – 7 reasons
Peck 14 [Michael Peck (Contributor on defense and national security for Forbes); “7 Reasons
Why America Will Never Go To War Over Ukraine”; 3/05/2014;
http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2014/03/05/7-reasons-why-america-will-never-go-
to-war-over-ukraine/]
America is the mightiest military power in the world. And that fact means absolutely nothing
for the Ukraine crisis. Regardless of whether Russia continues to occupy the Crimea region of
Ukraine, or decides to occupy all of Ukraine, the U.S. is not going to get into a shooting war
with Russia .
This has nothing to do with whether Obama is strong or weak. Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan
would face the same constraints. The U.S. may threaten to impose economic sanctions, but here
is why America will never smack Russia with a big stick:
Russia is a nuclear superpower. Russia has an estimated 4,500 active nuclear warheads,
according to the Federation of American Scientists. Unlike North Korea or perhaps Iran, whose
nuclear arsenals couldn’t inflict substantial damage, Russia could totally devastate the U.S. as
well as the rest of the planet. U.S. missile defenses, assuming they even work, are not designed
to stop a massive Russian strike.
For the 46 years of the Cold War, America and Russia were deadly rivals. But they never fought.
Their proxies fought: Koreans, Vietnamese, Central Americans, Israelis and Arabs. The one time
that U.S. and Soviet forces almost went to war was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Neither
Obama nor Putin is crazy enough to want to repeat  that.
Russia has a powerful army. While the Russian military is a shadow of its Soviet glory days, it is
still a formidable force. The Russian army has about 300,000 men and 2,500 tanks (with another
18,000 tanks in storage), according to the “Military Balance 2014″  from the International
Institute for Strategic Studies. Its air force has almost 1,400 aircraft, and its navy 171 ships,
including 25 in the Black Sea Fleet off Ukraine’s coast.
U.S. forces are more capable than Russian forces, which did not perform impressively during
the 2008 Russo-Georgia War. American troops would enjoy better training, communications,
drones, sensors and possibly better weapons (though the latest Russian fighter jets, such as the
T-50, could be trouble for U.S. pilots). However, better is not good enough. The Russian military
is not composed of lightly armed insurgents like the Taliban, or a hapless army like the Iraqis in
2003. With advanced weapons like T-80 tanks, supersonic AT-15 Springer anti-tank missiles, BM-
30 Smerch multiple rocket launchers and S-400 Growler anti-aircraft missiles, Russian forces
pack enough firepower to inflict significant American losses.
Ukraine is closer to Russia. The distance between Kiev and Moscow is 500 miles. The distance
between Kiev and New York is 5,000 miles. It’s much easier for Russia to send troops and
supplies by land than for the U.S. to send them by sea or air.
The U.S. military is tired. After nearly 13 years of war, America’s armed forces need a breather.
Equipment is worn out from long service in Iraq and Afghanistan, personnel are worn out from
repeated deployments overseas, and there are still about 40,000 troops still fighting in
Afghanistan.
The U.S. doesn’t have many troops to send. The U.S. could easily dispatch air power to Ukraine
if its NATO allies allow use of their airbases, and the aircraft carrier George H. W. Bush and its
hundred aircraft are patrolling the Mediterranean. But for a ground war to liberate Crimea or
defend Ukraine, there is just the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Italy, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary
Unit sailing off Spain, the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment in Germany and the 82nd Airborne
Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
While the paratroopers could drop into the combat zone, the Marines would have sail past
Russian defenses in the Black Sea, and the Stryker brigade would probably have to travel
overland through Poland into Ukraine. Otherwise, bringing in mechanized combat brigades from
the U.S. would be logistically difficult, and more important, could take months to organize.
The American people are tired. Pity the poor politician who tries to sell the American public on
yet another war, especially some complex conflict in a distant Eastern Europe nation. Neville
Chamberlain’s words during the 1938 Czechoslovakia crisis come to mind: “How horrible,
fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here
because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing.”
America‘s allies are tired. NATO sent troops to support the American campaign in Afghanistan,
and has little to show for it. Britain sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, and has little to show for
it. It is almost inconceivable to imagine the Western European public marching in the streets to
demand the liberation of Crimea, especially considering the region’s sputtering economy, which
might be snuffed out should Russia stop exporting natural gas. As for military capabilities, the
Europeans couldn’t evict Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi without American help. And
Germans fighting Russians again? Let’s not even go there.

Nuclear Deterrence

Weitz 11 - senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a World Politics Review senior
editor(Richard, 9/27/2011, “Global Insights: Putin not a Game-Changer for U.S.-Russia Ties,”
http://www.scribd.com/doc/66579517/Global-Insights-Putin-not-a-Game-Changer-for-U-S-
Russia-Ties)
Fifth, there will inevitably be areas of conflict between Russia and the United States regardless
of who is in the Kremlin. Putin and his entourage can never be happy with having NATO be
Europe's most powerful security institution, since Moscow is not a member and cannot become
one. Similarly, the Russians will always object to NATO's missile defense efforts since they can
neither match them nor join them in any meaningful way. In the case of Iran, Russian officials
genuinely perceive less of a threat from Tehran than do most Americans, and Russia has more to
lose from a cessation of economic ties with Iran -- as well as from an Iranian-Western
reconciliation. On the other hand, these conflicts can be managed, since they will likely remain
limited and compartmentalized . Russia and the West do not have fundamentally conflicting
vital interests of the kind countries would go to war over. And as the Cold War
demonstrated, nuclear weapons are a great pacifier under such conditions. Another novel
development is that Russia is much more integrated into the international economy and
global society than the Soviet Union was, and Putin's popularity depends heavily on his
economic track record. Beyond that, there are objective criteria, such as the smaller size of the
Russian population and economy as well as the difficulty of controlling modern means of
social communication, that will constrain whoever is in charge of Russia.

Crimea won’t escalate other countries.

Posner 14 [Eric Posner (Professor at UChicago Law, co-author of The Executive Unbound);
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_chicago/2014/03/
sanctions_against_russia_why_everything_we_are_doing_about_crimea_is_completely.single.h
tml; “What to Do About Crimea? Nothing.: Why all our responses in Crimea are wrongheaded
and doomed to fail.”; 3/27/2014]

A more straightforward reason for sanctioning Russia is to deter it from attacking other countries. But most
countries don’t
invade others. Crimea was uniquely vulnerable, with a majority ethnic Russian population that
welcomed the invaders; existing Russian military bases; and historical ties to Russia. Putin
grabbed Crimea to avenge Ukraine’s defenestration of his puppet, Viktor Yanukovych. Russia’s
other neighbors are either already compliant or extremely hostile, like Ukraine itself. Rather than
occupy hostile territories, powerful countries prefer to exert influence from across the border
while letting the foreign population misgovern itself. It’s just too much trouble to invade a
country and be forced to govern a restive population, as the United States recently learned, to its sorrow, in
Afghanistan and Iraq. An invasion of Ukraine—at least, beyond a few marginal regions in the east—would
offer Russia nothing but a guerilla war on foreign territory.

Economics has absolutely nothing to do with it even in the face of an

overwhelming western threat., heres a re-highlighting.
Royner 8/26/15 Joshua Rovner is the John Goodwin Tower Distinguished Chair in
International Politics and National Security at Southern Methodist University, where he serves
as Director of the Security and Strategy Program, The Week, August 26, 2015, “How Vladimir
Putin's paranoia could lead to nuclear war”, http://theweek.com/articles/572575/how-vladimir-
putins-paranoia-could-lead-nuclear-war
But Putin's incompetence also creates new risks. His inability to learn from Ukraine, for
instance, suggests that he might be willing to try the same gambit in the Baltics on the
pretext of defending ethnic Russians. Putin may believe that he can attempt a similar sort of
covert coup using special operators and supporting separatists while publicly denying any
involvement. He might also begin overt conventional maneuvers near the Estonian or Latvian
border to send a tacit threat of Russian intervention. Making good on that threat , however,
would risk a conflict with the U nited S tates, which would be obligated to come to the
defense of its NATO allies. What would happen if NATO sent conventional forces to contest
Russian moves in the Baltics? Some analysts correctly note that while NATO possesses
overwhelming advantages in the aggregate, it would be outnumbered locally. This means that
Russia could quickly establish a foothold on some slice of Baltic territory before the United
States could organize a response. NATO would need some time to arrive in theater with the
strength needed to confront Russian forces, and it would have to fight very hard to eject
them. And beyond the costs of conventional fighting, they would also face the risk of a
nuclear exchange . While escalation is not inevitable, Putin's strategic ineptitude makes it
more likely. In the abstract, there are psychological, political, and military pathways to
nuclear escalation. First , intense wartime psychological stress might cause leaders to
misinterpret signals of restraint , exaggerate the costs and danger of fighting , and become
risk-acceptant. Second , paranoid leaders might believe the price of losing is regime change .
If they are convinced that staying in power requires decisive victory, even against a vastly
superior conventional enemy, they might be willing to gamble for resurrection by crossing the
nuclear threshold. Third , leaders may opt to use nuclear weapons through a process of
inadvertent escalation. They may reasonably construe attacks on their command and control
systems, for instance, as part of a campaign to disable their deterrent force. Under these
circumstances they might act on a terrible "use it or lose it" impulse , even if their adversary
had no intention of destroying their nuclear capabilities. While all three of these scenarios
could occur during a NATO–Russia conventional conflict, Putin's strategic myopia is
particularly troubling because it exacerbates the psychological and political pathways to
escalation. The inability to recognize failure might give him false confidence about Russia's
prospect against NATO forces, especially because Russia would enjoy initially superior
numbers in a hypothetical war. This lead might not last long. In the last 30 years the United
States has demonstrated extraordinary abilities to overcome enemy defenses through a
combination of rapid maneuver, electronic warfare, suppression of enemy air defenses, and
brute force. A successful counter-attack against Russian forces, especially including strikes on
Russian air defense installations, would come as a terrifying shock to Russian leaders. In this
case a host of familiar psychological pathologies could take hold, making it possible for Putin
to lash out in anger and frustration rather than seeking some way of limiting the damage.
There is also reason to believe that Putin may view losing to NATO as tantamount to regime
suicide. Putin's domestic popularity rests on a self-constructed narrative that Russia is
threatened by duplicitous and hostile states, and that he is the only leader strong enough to
resist them. Putin's inability to recognize failure probably encourages this delusion.
Unfortunately, this worldview implies that backing down is intolerable , because it would
suggest Russian weakness and invite more aggression from the West. Rather than concede
defeat in the wake of conventional losses, Putin might opt for nuclear weapons to preserve
his own rule. Instead of suing for peace in a limited conflict, he might be willing to take the
extraordinary risk of escalation to force NATO to accept his terms. There are indications that
Russian strategists are preparing for this contingency. Indeed, Russia's nuclear doctrine has
included variations on the logic of these so-called "de-escalatory strikes" since 2000.

US will never go to war with Russia – self-preservation, war-fatigue, empirics

Peck 14 – Contributing editor for Foreign Policy Magazine, a writer for the War is Boring defense
blog and of course a contributor at Forbes. My work has also appeared in the Washingon
Post,Slate, Defense News, USA Today, the Philadelphia Inquirer  (Michael, 7 Reasons Why
America Will Never Go to War over Ukraine,” Forbes.com, March 5, 2014,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2014/03/05/7-reasons-why-america-will-never-go-
to-war-over-ukraine/)
America is the mightiest military power in the world. And that fact means absolutely nothing for the Ukraine
crisis. Regardless of whether Russia continues to occupy the Crimea region of Ukraine, or
decides to occupy all of Ukraine, the U.S. is not going to get into a shooting war with Russia.
This has nothing to do with whether Obama is strong or weak. Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan would face
the same constraints. The U.S. may threaten to impose economic sanctions, but here is why America will never smack

Russia with a big stick :

Russia is a nuclear superpower . Russia has an estimated 4,500 active nuclear warheads , according
to the Federation of American Scientists. Unlike North Korea or perhaps Iran, whose nuclear arsenals couldn’t inflict substantial

damage, Russia could totally devastate the U.S. as well as the rest of the planet . U.S. missile

defenses, assuming they even work, are not designed to stop a massive Russian strike.
For the 46 years of the Cold War, America and Russia were deadly rivals. But they never fought.
Their proxies fought: Koreans, Vietnamese, Central Americans, Israelis and Arabs. The one time that U.S. and Soviet
forces almost went to war was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Neither Obama nor Putin is
crazy enough to want to repeat that.
Russia has a powerful army. While the Russian military is a shadow of its Soviet glory days, it
is still a formidable force. The Russian army has about 300,000 men and 2,500 tanks (with another 18,000 tanks in
storage), according to the “Military Balance 2014″  from the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Its air force has almost
1,400 aircraft, and its navy 171 ships, including 25 in the Black Sea Fleet off Ukraine’s coast.
U.S. forces are more capable than Russian forces, which did not perform impressively during the 2008
Russo-Georgia War. American troops would enjoy better training, communications, drones, sensors and possibly better weapons
(though the latest Russian fighter jets, such as the T-50, could be trouble for U.S. pilots). However, better is not good enough. The
Russian military is not composed of lightly armed insurgents like the Taliban, or a hapless
army like the Iraqis in 2003. With advanced weapons like T-80 tanks, supersonic AT-15 Springer anti-tank missiles, BM-30
Smerch multiple rocket launchers and S-400 Growler anti-aircraft missiles , Russian forces pack enough firepower to
inflict significant American losses.
Ukraine is closer to Russia. The distance between Kiev and Moscow is 500 miles. The distance between Kiev and New York is 5,000
miles.
It’s much easier for Russia to send troops and supplies by land than for the U.S. to send
them by sea or air.
The U.S. military is tired. After nearly 13 years of war, America’s armed forces need a
breather. Equipment is worn out from long service in Iraq and Afghanistan, personnel are
worn out from repeated deployments overseas, and there are still about 40,000 troops still
fighting in Afghanistan.
The U.S. doesn’t have many troops to send. The U.S. could easily dispatch air power to Ukraine if
its NATO allies allow use of their airbases, and the aircraft carrier George H. W. Bush and its hundred aircraft are patrolling the
Mediterranean.
But for a ground war to liberate Crimea or defend Ukraine, there is just the 173rd
Airborne Brigade in Italy, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit sailing off Spain, the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment in
Germany and the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
While the paratroopers could drop into the combat zone, the Marines would have sail past
Russian defenses in the Black Sea, and the Stryker brigade would probably have to travel
overland through Poland into Ukraine. Otherwise, bringing in mechanized combat brigades from the U.S. would be
logistically difficult, and more important, could take months to organize.
The American people are tired. Pity the poor politician who tries to sell the American public
on yet another war, especially some complex conflict in a distant Eastern Europe nation . Neville
Chamberlain’s words during the 1938 Czechoslovakia crisis come to mind: “How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be
digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know
nothing.”
America‘s allies are tired. NATO sent troops to support the American campaign in
Afghanistan, and has little to show for it. Britain sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, and has little to show for it. It
is almost inconceivable to imagine the Western European public marching in the streets to
demand the liberation of Crimea, especially considering the region’s sputtering economy , which
might be snuffed out should Russia stop exporting natural gas. As for military capabilities, the Europeans couldn’t evict Libyan
dictator Muammar Gaddafi without American help. And Germans fighting Russians again? Let’s not even go
there.

No Chance – good luck Russia…

Charap 15 (Samuel Charap Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the IISS. “Is Russia an Outside Power in the Gulf?”, Survival:
Global Politics and Strategy, 57:1, 153-1702/5/15 )
When Russia is invoked in analysis of outside powers’ role in the Middle East, it is often thought of in two related ways:
either as a shrunken Soviet Union or as a potential regional security guarantor should the U nited

S tates abdicate that role. Following the 2013 IISS Manama Dialogue, a Gulf leader was quoted as saying: ‘the Russians have
proved they are reliable friends … As a result, some states in the region have already started to look at developing more multilateral
relations, rather than just relying on Washington.’1 This particular statement was alleged to have been fabricated, but the sentiment
contained therein is broadly reflective of regional elite opinion about Russia.2 The
implication is that Russia seeks
clients, as the Soviet Union did;
is active in the region largely to compete with the US; and could, if asked, step
in to displace or supplement the US regional role. Despite all of the headlines generated by the Ukraine
crisis, however, Russia is not a shrunken Soviet Union, nor is it in a position to replace the US
in the region
While the Soviet Union had global ambitions and reach, Russia has neither . The Soviet Union
was engaged in a global ideological competition with the US that created imperatives to seek
influence and connections everywhere. That ideology also gave it a presence in many regions via communist parties,
workers’ movements, or governments with anti-Western policies. In contrast, post-Soviet Russia lacks both the

ideological impetus and the geopolitical imperative to compete with the US in every region.
Moreover, despite the country’s economic recovery during the Putin era, it lacks the resources
to project power – be it hard power, economic power or soft power – in the way that the Soviet Union
did.
Post-Soviet Russia is a qualitatively different kind of outside power for the Middle East than the US.
Firstly, it does not value what could be called ‘regional public goods’ enough to sacrifice for and
provide them on its own – beyond its immediate neighbourhood, that is. Russia has not created military
alliances, nor even offered security guarantees , beyond its neighbourhood. Moreover, it has no
interest in doing so . This means that Russia does not have to balance its national interests in the region against broader
objectives, a dilemma the US faces regularly due to its focus on regional public goods and its commitment to allies’ security. For the
US, goals such as maintaining stability in energy markets and countering Iran often trump worries about extremism or human-rights
concerns. For Russia, however, there are no similar balancing factors that prevent it from pursuing its more narrow national
priorities. While extremism is arguably an equal threat to both the US and Russia, the two countries focus on this problem in
completely different ways.

Ukraine backfired—Russia will suffer massive international backlash

Dingli 1/29/15 (Shen, Professor and Associate Dean of the Institute of International Studies, Fudan University. “Balancing
interests in Ukraine”, http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2015-01/29/content_34685198.htm)
While the United States has been much hurt by handling the Ukraine disaster erroneously, Russia has
been no less discredited this time , as many would view its absorption of Crimea as a rampant
interference of internal affairs of a sovereign country. This might also be the first case of
changing international boundary since the end of World War II through coercing or using
force by a major power . The UNGA has to make its response to the Crimean referendum to secede from Ukraine invalid.
Russia's legitimate national security concern regarding EU expansion into Ukraine ought to be respected. Often times such expansion
has been followed by a NATO expansion. Clearly America would not feel comfortable if the Soviet Union or Russia would deploy its
military at the doorstep of the United States, as the Cuban missile crisis demonstrated. Therefore it will be sensible to perceive and
respect a similar Russian security sensitivity, especially when the then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych made a concession last
February to call an early election, after which his sudden removal invoked controversy and confrontation inside his country, and
between Russia and the West.
Despite Russia's own justification of its high-handed intervention , its international image has
certainly not been improved . On the Crimean issue, China has maintained its position that Ukraine's sovereignty shall
be properly honored, though this matter per se has its own historical background. With Crimea's change of status by external forces,
Ukraine's sovereignty has been undoubtedly challenged. Thus far, Beijing's argument has won the respect of Kiev government and
many others.
With the sanctions that the EU and the U.S. have pushed for , Russia's energy, financial and
defense sectors have been undercut . Even worse, the OPEC members have chosen an
inopportune time for Russia to play their oil price game. As a country that depends heavily on exports of fossil
energy, Russia has been hit by international circumstances which may not have been

meticulously choreographed at all .

Russia is not a big deal –they’ll fall in line with the American order
Campbell 14 (Benjamin W., Southern Illinois University Carbondale, “Revisionist Economic Prebalancers and Status Quo
Bandwagoners: Understanding the Behavior of Great Powers in Unipolar Systems”, http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1378&context=uhp_theses)
The immediate question to follow is whether
or not Russia has the capability to revise the international
system in the short-run. Given the sheer power disparities between Russia and the United States,
the answer is simply no . If China, a state that is stronger than Russia in many essential indicators – ground force size,
military expenditures, naval strength, GDP, and GDP growth rates – is unable to challenge the United States in the short-run, than it
is illogical to suspect that Russia could. Russia, much like China,
lacks the naval capabilities necessary to
challenge the United States – an example of such is that they do not have a blue water navy as
they did in the Soviet era. They only have one aircraft carrier, again, a tenth of what the United
States possesses.
Second, Russia lacks the economic power or growth rates to supplant the United States in the short-

run. Russia must make a large amount of economic reforms to have an economy stable enough to grow and
challenge the United States. On a list of global GDP figures, Russia appears at the end of all great powers studied by this paper,
including the United States, China, Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. In addition, Russia’s
economic
growth rates are only marginally larger than the United States and do not demonstrate a
trend towards exponential growth (World Bank).
Given that Russia is a revisionist state that lacks the capabilities to challenge the U nited S tates in the short-
run, does the empirical record confirm my finding that it is pursuing a strategy of economic
prebalancing? The answer is not a definite as in the case of China, but is leaning more towards economic prebalancing than any
other alternative strategy.
Russia’s accession into the W orld T rade O rganization, and various economic reforms to liberalize
their economy reveal a transition towards privileging economic growth over material power
gains in the short-run. While Russia very much continues to use its energy exports as a weapon ,
the disputes between Russia and Ukraine between 2005 and 2009 serve as evidence, they are
focusing more upon economic growth than challenging the U nited S tates. In 2013, the Kremlin released
its foreign policy goals, which indicated a decision to increase economic growth in the long run through “technological
modernization” and “innovation-based development,” (Putin 2013).
Russia won’t escalate—serious conflicts won’t occur
Baran et al, Senior Fellow and Director Center for Eurasian Studies and member
of the Hudson Institute, ‘07
[Zeyno, Summer 2007, “U.S. – Russian Relations: Is conflict inevitable?” Pg. 26.
http://www.hudson.org/files/publications/Russia-version%202.pdf, accessed 7/12/13, J.J.]
How far is Russia ready to go to pursue its assertive agenda? Is the Russian elite ready for
confrontation with the West? Definitely not. A significant part of the Russian elite is not
ready for serious conflict with the West . But at the same time it is ready to continue to use
anti-Western rhetoric to consolidate society. In fact, it is trying to have it both ways:
integration with the West for themselves, but not for the rest of society. There is a logic to this
seemingly schizophrenic behavior. The Russian elite can maintain their privileged status only in
a society that is hostile to the West. The question, however, could be raised: will the Russian
elite be able to control the consequences of this dual-track policy?

Cold war calculations no longer apply – neither side would consider war
Cartwright et al 12 [Gen (Ret) James Cartwright, former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff; Amb. Richard Burt, former ambassador to Germany and chief negotiator of START; Sen.
Chuck Hagel; Amb. Thomas Pickering, former ambassador to the UN; Gen. (Ret.) Jack Sheehan,
former Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic for NATO and Commander-in-Chief for the U.S.
Atlantic Command; GLOBAL ZERO U.S. NUcLEAR POLicy cOMMiSSiON REPORT,
http://orepa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/cartwright-report.pdf]
These illustrative next steps are possible and desirable for five basic reasons. First, mutual nuclear
deterrence based on the threat of nuclear retaliation to attack is no longer
a cornerstone of the U.S.-Russian security relationship. Security is mainly a state of
mind, not a physical condition, and mutual assured destruction (MAD) no longer
occupies a central psychological or political space in the U.S.-Russian
relationship. To be sure, there remains a physical-technical side of MAD in our relations, but it is
increasingly peripheral. Nuclear planning for Cold War-style nuclear
conflict between our countries, driven largely by inertia and vested interests left over from the Cold War,
functions on the margins using outdated scenarios that are implausible
today. There is no conceivable situation in the contemporary world in which
it would be in either country’s national security interest to initiate a
nuclear attack against the other side. Their current stockpiles (roughly 5,000 nuclear weapons
each in their active deployed and reserve arsenals) vastly exceed what is needed to satisfy reasonable requirements of
deterrence between the two countries as well as vis-à-vis third countries whose nuclear arsenals pale in comparison
quantitatively.
 Extension – Nuclear Deterrence Solves
Nuclear Deterrence – Russia and US are rational
Weber, Senior Editor at TheWeek, 14
[Peter, 3-5-14, TheWeek, “What would a U.S.-Russia war look like?,”
http://theweek.com/article/index/257406/what-would-a-us-russia-war-look-like,
accessed 7-13-14, J.J.]
Even with the slow mutual nuclear disarmament since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. and
Russia each have thousands of nuclear warheads at the ready. As Eugene Chow noted earlier
this year, the entire stockpile of U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) — 448 active —
is essentially aimed squarely at Russia. Russia's hundreds of ICBMs are probably returning the
favor.
In all, the U.S. has about 7,700 nuclear warheads, including 1,950 warheads ready to deploy
via ICBM, submarine, and airplane, plus thousands more in mothballs or waiting to be
dismantled, according to the latest tally by the Federation of American Scientists. Russia has
slightly more warheads overall — about 8,500 — but a slightly fewer 1,800 of them
operational. China, in comparison, has about 250 nuclear warheads, a bit less that France
(300) and a bit more than Britain (225).
Nuclear war with Russia is still mutually assured destruction. Hopefully, that's still deterrent
enough .

Empirics prove that nuclear deterrence will work, even if Russia gets aggravated
—leaders are rational
Tepperman, Managing Editor at Council of Foreign Affairs, 2009
[Jonathan, 8-28-9, The Daily Beast, “Why Obama Should Learn to Love the Bomb,”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/08/28/why-obama-should-learn-to-love-the-
bomb.html, accessed 7-13-14, J.J.]
A growing and compelling body of research suggests that nuclear weapons may not, in fact,
make the world more dangerous, as Obama and most people assume. The bomb may actually
make us safer. In this era of rogue states and transnational terrorists, that idea sounds so
obviously wrongheaded that few politicians or policymakers are willing to entertain it. But that's
a mistake. Knowing the truth about nukes would have a profound impact on government policy.
Obama's idealistic campaign, so out of character for a pragmatic administration, may be unlikely
to get far (past presidents have tried and failed). But it's not even clear he should make the
effort. There are more important measures the U.S. government can and should take to make
the real world safer, and these mustn't be ignored in the name of a dreamy ideal (a nuke-free
planet) that's both unrealistic and possibly undesirable. The argument that nuclear weapons can
be agents of peace as well as destruction rests on two deceptively simple observations. First,
nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945. Second, there's never been a nuclear, or even
a nonnuclear, war between two states that possess them. Just stop for a second and think
about that: it's hard to overstate how remarkable it is, especially given the singular viciousness
of the 20th century. As Kenneth Waltz, the leading "nuclear optimist" and a professor emeritus
of political science at UC Berkeley puts it, "We now have 64 years of experience since Hiroshima.
It's striking and against all historical precedent that for that substantial period, there has not
been any war among nuclear states." To understand why—and why the next 64 years are likely
to play out the same way—you need to start by recognizing that all states are rational on some
basic level. Their leaders may be stupid, petty, venal, even evil, but they tend to do things only
when they're pretty sure they can get away with them. Take war: a country will start a fight
only when it's almost certain it can get what it wants at an acceptable price. Not even Hitler or
Saddam waged wars they didn't think they could win. The problem historically has been that
leaders often make the wrong gamble and underestimate the other side—and millions of
innocents pay the price. Nuclear weapons change all that by making the costs of war obvious,
inevitable, and unacceptable. Suddenly, when both sides have the ability to turn the other to
ashes with the push of a button—and everybody knows it—the basic math shifts. Even the
craziest tin-pot dictator is forced to accept that war with a nuclear state is unwinnable and thus
not worth the effort. As Waltz puts it, "Why fight if you can't win and might lose everything?"
Why indeed? The iron logic of deterrence and mutually assured destruction is so compelling,
it's led to what's known as the nuclear peace: the virtually unprecedented stretch since the end
of World War II in which all the world's major powers have avoided coming to blows. They did
fight proxy wars, ranging from Korea to Vietnam to Angola to Latin America. But these never
matched the furious destruction of full-on, great-power war (World War II alone was
responsible for some 50 million to 70 million deaths). And since the end of the Cold War, such
bloodshed has declined precipitously. Meanwhile, the nuclear powers have scrupulously
avoided direct combat, and there's very good reason to think they always will. There have been
some near misses, but a close look at these cases is fundamentally reassuring—because in each
instance, very different leaders all came to the same safe conclusion. Take the mother of all
nuclear standoffs: the Cuban missile crisis. For 13 days in October 1962, the United States and
the Soviet Union each threatened the other with destruction. But both countries soon stepped
back from the brink when they recognized that a war would have meant curtains for everyone.
As important as the fact that they did is the reason why: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's aide
Fyodor Burlatsky said later on, "It is impossible to win a nuclear war, and both sides realized
that, maybe for the first time." The record since then shows the same pattern repeating:
nuclear-armed enemies slide toward war, then pull back, always for the same reasons. The best
recent example is India and Pakistan, which fought three bloody wars after independence
before acquiring their own nukes in 1998. Getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction
didn't do anything to lessen their animosity. But it did dramatically mellow their behavior. Since
acquiring atomic weapons, the two sides have never fought another war, despite severe
provocations (like Pakistani-based terrorist attacks on India in 2001 and 2008). They have
skirmished once. But during that flare-up, in Kashmir in 1999, both countries were careful to
keep the fighting limited and to avoid threatening the other's vital interests. Sumit Ganguly, an
Indiana University professor and coauthor of the forthcoming India, Pakistan, and the Bomb, has
found that on both sides, officials' thinking was strikingly similar to that of the Russians and
Americans in 1962. The prospect of war brought Delhi and Islamabad face to face with a nuclear
holocaust, and leaders in each country did what they had to do to avoid it. Nuclear pessimists—
and there are many—insist that even if this pattern has held in the past, it's crazy to rely on it in
the future, for several reasons. The first is that today's nuclear wannabes are so completely
unhinged, you'd be mad to trust them with a bomb. Take the sybaritic Kim Jong Il, who's never
missed a chance to demonstrate his battiness, or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has denied the
Holocaust and promised the destruction of Israel, and who, according to some respected Middle
East scholars, runs a messianic martyrdom cult that would welcome nuclear obliteration. These
regimes are the ultimate rogues, the thinking goes—and there's no deterring rogues. But are
Kim and Ahmadinejad really scarier and crazier than were Stalin and Mao? It might look that
way from Seoul or Tel Aviv, but history says otherwise. Khrushchev, remember, threatened to
"bury" the United States, and in 1957, Mao blithely declared that a nuclear war with America
wouldn't be so bad because even "if half of mankind died … the whole world would become
socialist." Pyongyang and Tehran support terrorism—but so did Moscow and Beijing. And as for
seeming suicidal, Michael Desch of the University of Notre Dame points out that Stalin and Mao
are the real record holders here: both were responsible for the deaths of some 20 million of
their own citizens. Yet when push came to shove, their regimes balked at nuclear suicide, and
so would today's international bogeymen. For all of Ahmadinejad's antics, his power is limited,
and the clerical regime has always proved rational and pragmatic when its life is on the line.
Revolutionary Iran has never started a war, has done deals with both Washington and
Jerusalem, and sued for peace in its war with Iraq (which Saddam started) once it realized it
couldn't win. North Korea, meanwhile, is a tiny, impoverished, family-run country with a history
of being invaded; its overwhelming preoccupation is survival, and every time it becomes more
belligerent it reverses itself a few months later (witness last week, when Pyongyang told Seoul
and Washington it was ready to return to the bargaining table). These countries may be brutally
oppressive, but nothing in their behavior suggests they have a death wish.

Mutually Ensured Destruction means that the US and Russia won’t go to war.
Nuclear Threat Initiative, 12
[No author, August 22, Global Security Newswire Produced by National Journal, “U.S.
Antinuclear Steps Should Focus on Russia: State Dept. Advisers,”
http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/us-antinuclear-steps-should-focus-russia-state-dept-advisers/,
accessed July 7, 2014, EK]

In a world political climate characterized by "mutual assured stability," countries would no

longer use nuclear weapons to ward off aggression because their connections would include
no "major, core security issues such as ideological, territorial, or natural resource competition
issues, and the benefits from peaceful integration in economic, political, and diplomatic
spheres provide a counterbalance to the perceived advantages of nuclear conflict," according
to the Aug. 14 analysis by the International Security Advisory Board.
It would be "a critical, first step" to establish the dynamic in U.S.-Russian ties, as the former
Cold War rivals' "nuclear weapons stockpiles are so large as to overshadow other nations’
stockpiles," the document says. Moscow and Washington are believed to hold more than 90
percent of all nuclear weapons.
The sides have achieved "some modest progress" since the Soviet Union's collapse in creating
such conditions, but "many years" would be required to achieve them more fully, the paper's
authors wrote.
 Ext – Russia Lacks Resources to Initiate War
No Russian conflict—they lack the resources
Motyl and Menon, The American Interest, 7
[Alexander J., World Affairs Correspondent Rajan, Nonresident Senior Fellow, South Asia Center,
March 1, The American Interest, “The Myth of Russian Resurgence,” http://www.the-american-
interest.com/articles/2007/03/01/the-myth-of-russian-resurgence/, accessed July 12, 2014
As with almost any broad generalization, this one is not entirely false. Indeed, it cannot be.
Russia sprawls across Eurasia, contains 148 million people, possesses more than 3,000 strategic
nuclear warheads, is the world’s second-largest exporter of oil and armaments, is the foremost
exporter of natural gas, and is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Any
country with these attributes will have strategic heft. But a scrutiny of its power reveals that
Russia is far weaker than the reigning consensus suggests. Russia is not “back.” If anything, the
next few years may show Russia with its back to the wall.
RUSSIA’S POWER
Russian power can be assessed in four aspects: military prowess, economic vitality, human
capital and “soft power” assets. We take these in turn.
The once mighty Red Army is now a pale imitation of itself, a wheezing symbol of Russia’s
deterioration. From a total of three million men under arms toward the end of the Cold War,
the Russian armed forces have shrunk to one million. That would be good news were it now a
better force. But except for some elite units, most Russian troops are poorly trained and
demoralized draftees subjected to pitiless hazing and prone to alcoholism, suicide and
corruption. Ninety percent of the males supposedly required to complete the two-year stint of
military service evade the draft both legally and illegally. Service contracts signed in 2004
ranged from 17 percent of the recruiting goal in the Moscow region to 45 percent in the North
Caucasus.22.
International Institute for Strategic Studies, Military Balance, 2005-2006 (Routledge, 2005), p.
151.
Less than a fifth of the kontraktniki (those who sign up for the money) re-enlist, complaining of
paltry pay and primitive living conditions.33.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, August 24, 2006.
The problem transcends raw numbers. In 2005 an astonishing 40 percent of draftees were
declared unfit to serve on account of physical or mental disabilities. Russia’s weaponry is aging
and falling behind qualitatively, and new equipment reaches the armed forces in insufficient
numbers. Defense spending has risen 25 percent annually since 2004, but years of neglect
ensure that it will be a long time before existing armaments are replaced and soldiers’ morale
and quality of life improve. The upswing in hardware expenditure is also mitigated by the 8
percent average inflation rate in 2004–06 and the need to allocate a large chunk of these
monies to attract better-qualified people (particularly if plans for a volunteer force are to pan
out).
Russia remains a nuclear power, having inherited the Soviet nuclear arsenal, but there have
been no dramatic improvements in its capabilities. Russia’s nuclear armory certainly suffices
for deterrence, but it cannot thwart smaller yet more urgent threats in its immediate
neighborhood, among them terrorism, Islamic radicalism and failing states; nor, as other
nuclear powers have found, can nuclear weapons be translated into prosaic political influence.
Paradoxically, and unlike during the Cold War, the principal threat now posed by Russia’s
nuclear arms is that they, or the fissile materials they require, could end up in terrorists’
hands.

No Russia war---no motive or capability

Betts 13 Richard is the Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of War and Peace Studies @ Columbia.
“The Lost Logic of Deterrence,” Foreign Affairs, March/April, Vol. 92, Issue 2, Online
These continuities with the Cold War would make sense only between intense adversaries. Washington and Moscow remain in an adversarial
relationship, but not an intense one. If the Cold War is really over, and the West really won, then continuing implicit deterrence does less to protect
against a negligible threat from Russia than to feed suspicions that aggravate political friction. In contrast to during the Cold War, it
is now hard
to make the case that Russia is more a threat to NATO than the reverse. First, the East-West
balance of military capabilities, which at the height of the Cold War was favorable to the Warsaw Pact or at best even, has not
only shifted to NATO's advantage; it has become utterly lopsided . Russia is now a lonely
fraction of what the old Warsaw Pact was. It not only lost its old eastern European allies; those allies are now arrayed on the
other side, as members of NATO. By every significant measure of power -- military spending, men under
arms, population, economic strength, control of territory -- NATO enjoys massive advantages
over Russia. The only capability that keeps Russia militarily potent is its nuclear arsenal. There is no plausible way , however,
that Moscow's nuclear weapons could be used for aggression, except as a backstop for a
conventional offensive -- for which NATO's capabilities are now far greater. ¶ Russia's
intentions constitute no more of a threat than its capabilities. Although Moscow's ruling elites
push distasteful policies, there is no plausible way they could think a military attack on the
West would serve their interests. During the twentieth century, there were intense territorial conflicts between the two sides and a
titanic struggle between them over whose ideology would dominate the world. Vladimir Putin's Russia is authoritarian, but unlike the Soviet
Union, it is not the vanguard of a globe-spanning revolutionary ideal.

No war---Russia has no capability

China Daily 14, “US-Russia relations frosty, but no Cold War II afoot,” 7-28-14, L/N, Y2K
US-Russia relations are at a low point not seen for more than a decade, but chilled ties between the two are
unlikely to plunge the world headlong into another Cold War. WASHINGTON - US-Russia relations are at a low
point not seen for more than a decade, but chilled ties between the two are unlikely to plunge the world headlong into another Cold
War, experts here said . As the crisis in the Ukraine threatens to escalate amid US claims that Russia is firing artillery rounds
into Ukrainian territory, US media is likening the now frosty relations between Washington and Moscow to a new Cold War. But
experts contend that description amounts to journalistic hyperbole , as current US-Russian tensions
in no way resemble the Cold War that engulfed the globe for decades and sparked fears of nuclear destruction .
"It's a good headline, but it's not an accurate reflection of either what the Cold War was or what we are
seeing today," RAND Corporation Senior International Policy Analyst Olga Oliker told Xinhua. "The Cold War was a conflict
that lasted decades in which the United States and the Soviet Union were basically fighting over the fate of the world. It involved the
entire planet," she said, adding that today's situation is a far cry from that dark chapter of world history. "This (current issue) is
Russia and the United States not getting along...over something that's going on within Europe," she said. " It's not a global
standoff. It's not going to drive all of the defense spending and foreign policy of the US and
(Russia)," she said. Still, the Ukraine crisis does amount to a fundamental and serious disagreement between the US and the
Russian Federation, she said, adding that Russia has challenged a vision of European security that the US and its European allies have
held to since the end of the Cold War. US santions In a bid to voice their displeasure of what they believe is a disruption of that
vision, the US and European Union hit Moscow with a new round of sanctions earlier this month. Russian President Vladimir Putin
has billed the sanctions as "aggressive foreign policy," referring to the sanctions that hit Russian banks, defense firms and energy
companies. Putin urged the US to work to stop the bloodshed in the Ukraine instead of slapping sanctions on Russia. But the
sanctions are not expected to stop the crisis, and the White House seems to have few concrete solutions. "It's a difficult situation
because there aren't a lot of easy, satisfying actions one can take," Oliker said of the options available to the administration of US
President Barack Obama. "The Obama administration continues to weigh its options," she said. Military conflict A full-on
military conflict between the US and Russia is highly unlikely, experts said, and Russia would stand little
chance in a conflict against fully mobilized US forces, David Clark, chairman of the Russia Foundation, told
Xinhua. He added there are doubts about Russia's capacity to sustain military operations, even in
neighboring countries, pointing to the 2008 war with neighboring Georgia. The conflict exposed
significant deficiencies in Russian military equipment and organization, so much so that many
analysts believe Moscow suspended military operations sooner than it wanted to, Clark said.
Nuclear Deterrence – Russia and US are rational
Weber, Senior Editor at TheWeek, 14
[Peter, 3-5-14, TheWeek, “What would a U.S.-Russia war look like?,”
http://theweek.com/article/index/257406/what-would-a-us-russia-war-look-like,
accessed 7-13-14, J.J.]
Even with the slow mutual nuclear disarmament since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. and
Russia each have thousands of nuclear warheads at the ready. As Eugene Chow noted earlier
this year, the entire stockpile of U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) — 448 active —
is essentially aimed squarely at Russia. Russia's hundreds of ICBMs are probably returning the
favor.
In all, the U.S. has about 7,700 nuclear warheads, including 1,950 warheads ready to deploy
via ICBM, submarine, and airplane, plus thousands more in mothballs or waiting to be
dismantled, according to the latest tally by the Federation of American Scientists. Russia has
slightly more warheads overall — about 8,500 — but a slightly fewer 1,800 of them
operational. China, in comparison, has about 250 nuclear warheads, a bit less that France
(300) and a bit more than Britain (225).
Nuclear war with Russia is still mutually assured destruction. Hopefully, that's still deterrent
enough .
Empirics prove that nuclear deterrence will work, even if Russia gets aggravated
—leaders are rational
Tepperman, Managing Editor at Council of Foreign Affairs, 2009
[Jonathan, 8-28-9, The Daily Beast, “Why Obama Should Learn to Love the Bomb,”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/08/28/why-obama-should-learn-to-love-the-
bomb.html, accessed 7-13-14, J.J.]
A growing and compelling body of research suggests that nuclear weapons may not, in fact,
make the world more dangerous, as Obama and most people assume. The bomb may actually
make us safer. In this era of rogue states and transnational terrorists, that idea sounds so
obviously wrongheaded that few politicians or policymakers are willing to entertain it. But that's
a mistake. Knowing the truth about nukes would have a profound impact on government policy.
Obama's idealistic campaign, so out of character for a pragmatic administration, may be unlikely
to get far (past presidents have tried and failed). But it's not even clear he should make the
effort. There are more important measures the U.S. government can and should take to make
the real world safer, and these mustn't be ignored in the name of a dreamy ideal (a nuke-free
planet) that's both unrealistic and possibly undesirable. The argument that nuclear weapons can
be agents of peace as well as destruction rests on two deceptively simple observations. First,
nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945. Second, there's never been a nuclear, or even
a nonnuclear, war between two states that possess them. Just stop for a second and think
about that: it's hard to overstate how remarkable it is, especially given the singular viciousness
of the 20th century. As Kenneth Waltz, the leading "nuclear optimist" and a professor emeritus
of political science at UC Berkeley puts it, "We now have 64 years of experience since Hiroshima.
It's striking and against all historical precedent that for that substantial period, there has not
been any war among nuclear states." To understand why—and why the next 64 years are likely
to play out the same way—you need to start by recognizing that all states are rational on some
basic level. Their leaders may be stupid, petty, venal, even evil, but they tend to do things only
when they're pretty sure they can get away with them. Take war: a country will start a fight
only when it's almost certain it can get what it wants at an acceptable price. Not even Hitler or
Saddam waged wars they didn't think they could win. The problem historically has been that
leaders often make the wrong gamble and underestimate the other side—and millions of
innocents pay the price. Nuclear weapons change all that by making the costs of war obvious,
inevitable, and unacceptable. Suddenly, when both sides have the ability to turn the other to
ashes with the push of a button—and everybody knows it—the basic math shifts. Even the
craziest tin-pot dictator is forced to accept that war with a nuclear state is unwinnable and thus
not worth the effort. As Waltz puts it, "Why fight if you can't win and might lose everything?"
Why indeed? The iron logic of deterrence and mutually assured destruction is so compelling,
it's led to what's known as the nuclear peace: the virtually unprecedented stretch since the end
of World War II in which all the world's major powers have avoided coming to blows. They did
fight proxy wars, ranging from Korea to Vietnam to Angola to Latin America. But these never
matched the furious destruction of full-on, great-power war (World War II alone was
responsible for some 50 million to 70 million deaths). And since the end of the Cold War, such
bloodshed has declined precipitously. Meanwhile, the nuclear powers have scrupulously
avoided direct combat, and there's very good reason to think they always will. There have been
some near misses, but a close look at these cases is fundamentally reassuring—because in each
instance, very different leaders all came to the same safe conclusion. Take the mother of all
nuclear standoffs: the Cuban missile crisis. For 13 days in October 1962, the United States and
the Soviet Union each threatened the other with destruction. But both countries soon stepped
back from the brink when they recognized that a war would have meant curtains for everyone.
As important as the fact that they did is the reason why: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's aide
Fyodor Burlatsky said later on, "It is impossible to win a nuclear war, and both sides realized
that, maybe for the first time." The record since then shows the same pattern repeating:
nuclear-armed enemies slide toward war, then pull back, always for the same reasons. The best
recent example is India and Pakistan, which fought three bloody wars after independence
before acquiring their own nukes in 1998. Getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction
didn't do anything to lessen their animosity. But it did dramatically mellow their behavior. Since
acquiring atomic weapons, the two sides have never fought another war, despite severe
provocations (like Pakistani-based terrorist attacks on India in 2001 and 2008). They have
skirmished once. But during that flare-up, in Kashmir in 1999, both countries were careful to
keep the fighting limited and to avoid threatening the other's vital interests. Sumit Ganguly, an
Indiana University professor and coauthor of the forthcoming India, Pakistan, and the Bomb, has
found that on both sides, officials' thinking was strikingly similar to that of the Russians and
Americans in 1962. The prospect of war brought Delhi and Islamabad face to face with a nuclear
holocaust, and leaders in each country did what they had to do to avoid it. Nuclear pessimists—
and there are many—insist that even if this pattern has held in the past, it's crazy to rely on it in
the future, for several reasons. The first is that today's nuclear wannabes are so completely
unhinged, you'd be mad to trust them with a bomb. Take the sybaritic Kim Jong Il, who's never
missed a chance to demonstrate his battiness, or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has denied the
Holocaust and promised the destruction of Israel, and who, according to some respected Middle
East scholars, runs a messianic martyrdom cult that would welcome nuclear obliteration. These
regimes are the ultimate rogues, the thinking goes—and there's no deterring rogues. But are
Kim and Ahmadinejad really scarier and crazier than were Stalin and Mao? It might look that
way from Seoul or Tel Aviv, but history says otherwise. Khrushchev, remember, threatened to
"bury" the United States, and in 1957, Mao blithely declared that a nuclear war with America
wouldn't be so bad because even "if half of mankind died … the whole world would become
socialist." Pyongyang and Tehran support terrorism—but so did Moscow and Beijing. And as for
seeming suicidal, Michael Desch of the University of Notre Dame points out that Stalin and Mao
are the real record holders here: both were responsible for the deaths of some 20 million of
their own citizens. Yet when push came to shove, their regimes balked at nuclear suicide, and
so would today's international bogeymen. For all of Ahmadinejad's antics, his power is limited,
and the clerical regime has always proved rational and pragmatic when its life is on the line.
Revolutionary Iran has never started a war, has done deals with both Washington and
Jerusalem, and sued for peace in its war with Iraq (which Saddam started) once it realized it
couldn't win. North Korea, meanwhile, is a tiny, impoverished, family-run country with a history
of being invaded; its overwhelming preoccupation is survival, and every time it becomes more
belligerent it reverses itself a few months later (witness last week, when Pyongyang told Seoul
and Washington it was ready to return to the bargaining table). These countries may be brutally
oppressive, but nothing in their behavior suggests they have a death wish.

Mutually Ensured Destruction means that the US and Russia won’t go to war.
Nuclear Threat Initiative, 12
[No author, August 22, Global Security Newswire Produced by National Journal, “U.S.
Antinuclear Steps Should Focus on Russia: State Dept. Advisers,”
http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/us-antinuclear-steps-should-focus-russia-state-dept-advisers/,
accessed July 7, 2014, EK]

In a world political climate characterized by "mutual assured stability," countries would no

longer use nuclear weapons to ward off aggression because their connections would include
no "major, core security issues such as ideological, territorial, or natural resource competition
issues, and the benefits from peaceful integration in economic, political, and diplomatic
spheres provide a counterbalance to the perceived advantages of nuclear conflict," according
to the Aug. 14 analysis by the International Security Advisory Board.
It would be "a critical, first step" to establish the dynamic in U.S.-Russian ties, as the former
Cold War rivals' "nuclear weapons stockpiles are so large as to overshadow other nations’
stockpiles," the document says. Moscow and Washington are believed to hold more than 90
percent of all nuclear weapons.
The sides have achieved "some modest progress" since the Soviet Union's collapse in creating
such conditions, but "many years" would be required to achieve them more fully, the paper's
authors wrote.
 Russia Threat Answers

Russia is not a challenger to US global power

Dr. Jeremy W. Lamoreaux , Brigham Young University – Idaho, May 2019, Russian Strategic
Intentions, https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000016b-a5a1-d241-adff-fdf908e00001
Indeed, even if the EU is considered as a potential balancer to US economic dominance, the concept of liberal internationalism is still the predominant
“global” politicaleconomic ideology, an ideology that both the US and the EU share. Even would-be rivals such as China are not blind to the liberal
nature of the global economy. Nor is Russia. Russia
certainly wants to be a great power, and are increasing
their military spending accordingly, but in all three abovementioned metrics, they are still far
behind the US (Kuhrt & Feklyunina, 2017).

Lack of popular support blocks military aggression

Dr. Thomas Sherlock United States Military Academy, West Point, May
2019, Russian Strategic Intentions,
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000016b-a5a1-d241-adff-fdf908e00001
Most Russians applaud the official narrative that Russia has re-emerged as a great power under Vladimir Putin, particularly with the annexation of
Crimea, and also agree with the claims of the Russian state that America is an unfriendly power. Yet they increasingly disagree with the assertions of
the Kremlin that the United States is a looming external danger and a subversive force in Russian domestic politics. In line with these opinions, many
Russians are unwilling to bear the economic burden of an escalating confrontation with the
West, demonstrating the initially limited, and now waning, political significance of the
“Crimea euphoria” (or “Crimea effect”) and the “rally ‘round the flag” phenomena generated by the
annexation of 2014 and ensuing tensions with the West. Russian elites often differ from the general public in their
stronger backing for a more assertive foreign posture. Nevertheless, such preferences are often moderated by a preoccupation with socioeconomic
problems at home and by the apprehension that Russia will neglect domestic modernization indefinitely if its foreign policy is confrontational. Like
Russian mass publics, Russian elites often view the external environment as dangerous, a perception that is cultivated by the Kremlin to help produce
patriotic “rally” sentiments. Yet this “rally” effect is dulled by the belief among elites and masses that the greatest threats to Russia are rooted in its
social and economic underdevelopment. Russian society often finds domestic problems much more
worrisome than US military power or a “color revolution” fomented by the West, both of
which the Kremlin has framed as important threats in its efforts to mobilize domestic
supporters and isolate opponents. Drawing extensively on opinion surveys in Russia, the
paper concludes that a majority of Russians are likely to believe that the Kremlin should not
emphasize costly policies intended to counter US military power or other potential American
threats Most Russians embrace the official narrative that Russia has re-emerged as a great power under Vladimir Putin and also agree with the
claims of the Russian state that America is a hostile power (Gerber and Zavisca, 2016). Yet, they increasingly disagree with the assertions of the Kremlin
that the United States is a looming external danger and a subversive force in Russian domestic politics (Sherlock, 2019). In line with these opinions,
many Russians are unwilling to shoulder the economic burden of an escalating confrontation with the West, demonstrating the limited political
significance of the “Crimea euphoria” (or “Crimea effect”) produced by the annexation as well as the “rally ‘round the flag” phenomenon generated by
ensuing tensions with the West. The
“Crimea effect” strengthened Putin’s authority by some measures but
was less successful in providing durable support for Russia’s socio-economic and political
institutions and policies. Belief among Russians that the country was headed in the right direction increased from 40% in November
2013 to 64% in August 2014 (five months after the annexation of Crimea), but then dropped to 44% by March 2019 (Levada, March 2019). Even Putin’s
approval numbers have suffered significant decline, due in part to an unpopular government proposal in mid-2018 to raise the retirement age.
Although a modest majority of Russians (54% in October 2018) still approve “on the whole” the Kremlin’s foreign policy, they are increasingly
preoccupied with problems at home (VTsIOM, “Otsenka vlastei,” 2018). Survey data reveal relatively weak approval among the public for a forceful
external posture, including intervention in the “near abroad” to check American power or protect Russian-speakers from perceived discrimination.
Similarly, a large majority of Russians do not favor the creation of an empire reminiscent of the Soviet Union or tsarist Russia. Russia’s elites, unlike its
mass publics, often advocate the projection of state power, including the creation of a sphere of influence in Eurasia which experts in the West often
identify as a central goal of the Kremlin’s foreign policy (Kotkin, 2016). Nevertheless, many, perhaps most, of these elites (like mass society) want their
government to emphasize domestic socio-economic development, not the production and demonstration of hard power. Lev Gudkov, the Russian
sociologist and director of the independent Levada Center, a public opinion and sociological research organization that is highly respected in the West,
provided a similar assessment in mid-2018. Gudkov observed a waning “Crimea effect”— popular approval of Russia’s foreign policy as a reemerging
great power—among Russians who increasingly believe that the Kremlin’s pursuit of its geopolitical goals comes “at the [social and economic] expense
of the population” (BBC, Russkaia sluzhba, 2018). The
low quality of health care and government social
programs, as well as limited employment opportunities, are fundamental concerns of the
general population; elites are also concerned with Russia’s stalled socio-economic and politial
modernization (Sherlock, 2019). Other experts and scholars underscore why these conditions pose a serious problem for the Kremlin. Dmitri
Trenin, the head of the Carnegie Center in Moscow, observes that Putin and his ruling circle understand that Russia’s
future, and their own, “depends mostly on how ordinary citizens feel …. Russia is an autocracy, but it is an
autocracy with the consent of the governed” (Trenin, 2016). Trenin echoes Hans Morgenthau, who identified “national morale,” or the “degree of
determination” with which society approves its government’s foreign policy, as a core element of state power. For Morgenthau, morale is expressed in
the form of public opinion, “without whose support [i.e., consent] no government, democratic or autocratic, is able to pursue its policies with full
effectiveness, if it is able to pursue them at all” (Morgenthau, 1967). While
most Russians currently back, if often
cautiously, the Kremlin’s foreign policy, a costly and unpredictable escalation of conflict with
the West in the context of Russian socio-economic stagnation or decline could undermine
“consent” with uncertain political consequences. Survey evidence shows Russia doesn’t support aggression A question
in the March 2017 Levada survey focused on one of the Kremlin’s justifications for the the annexation of Crimea in 2014: Should Moscow protect
Russian speakers in the countries of the “near abroad” (other than Ukraine) if they experienced serious discrimination (Levada, March 2017)? The
survey question asked: “If the rights of ethnic Russians in neighboring countries (apart from Ukraine) are seriously violated, what should Russia do ?”
35.8% selected the response “Russia should work toward a peaceful settlement of the problem” while 29.8% believed that Russia should not become
involved in such disputes. 28.1% of the respondents felt that “all means” (including military force) should be used to protect Russian-speakers who
might be mistreated in the region. That
each of the three possible responses garnered roughly equivalent
levels of support underscores the divisions within Russian society on this central issue—and
the domestic political risk for the Kremlin in fomenting aggression of the sort feared by the
Baltic states. It is noteworthy that the villages, towns, and small cities in Russia’s “heartland”
that the Kremlin moved to activate as conservative counterweights after the political protests
in 2011 and 2012 exhibited only modest levels of approval for the “right to protect” Russians
in border countries. These population centers were slightly above or below the national average of 29.8% in advocating non-intervention.
Respondents in Moscow were least willing to approve direct involvement by Russia in ethnonationalist disputes. 41.2% of Muscovites felt that
intervention would be an unjustified intrusion into the “internal affairs of other countries.” This number marked a 22% increase over the percentage of
responses (19%) among Muscovites to the same question administered two years earlier, in the July 2015 Levada survey (Levada, 2015). A question in
the March 2017 Levada survey also probed how Russians would react to Ukraine’s possible acceptance of an invitation to join western political,
economic, and security institutions. 37.7% of respondents overall thought that Russia should allow Ukraine to join either the European Union or NATO,
despite that country’s strong historical, cultural, socio-economic, and strategic importance to Russia. Close to 48% of Muscovites supported this
position as did 37% of respondents from Russia’s villages and towns. Opposition to Ukraine’s entry into NATO, but not the EU, was expressed by 27.8%
of survey participants. Just under18% of respondents felt that Russia should “block any decision by Ukraine to join either the EU or NATO.” Surveys on
attitudes toward Ukraine reveal an important distinction in how Russians evaluate possible external threats: a majority is less troubled by the risk of
foreign attack and more concerned about Russia being drawn into a conflict in a bordering country like Ukraine. Despite significant public sympathy for
the insurgency in eastern Ukraine, only 13% of respondents in a late 2014 Levada survey (at the height of patriotic and expansionist enthusiasm in
Russia) would approve a son joining the pro-Russia militias (Levada, November 2014). Just 3% of respondents in a February 2015 survey would
“definitely” (22% would “probably”) support the introduction of Russian troops into the conflict (Levada, Ezhegodnik, 2015). Another survey by Levada
in October 2014 found that a majority approved the efforts of independent Russian NGOs to compile lists of active duty soldiers of the Russian Army
killed or wounded in the Kremlin’s clandestine war in eastern Ukraine (Levada, Ezhegodnik, 2014). Mass
perceptions of economic
vulnerability help explain why many Russians do not support an aggressive foreign policy even
if they are strong supporters of Putin. Russians of all demographic categories are often
reluctant to risk greater economic difficulties for the sake of the state and its foreign policy,
reflecting the limitations of what Russian sociologists refer to as “practical patriotism” (Gorshkov
and Tikhonova, 90). According to surveys administered by the Institute of Sociology, only 8% of respondents were “absolutely” willing to approve
policies designed to restore Russia’s international power and defensive capacity “even if these measures were linked to a significant decline in their
standard of living,” while 30% were “somewhat willing” to endure such costs, for a total of 38% (Gorshkov and Tikhonova, 90, 96). 23% of respondents
were “absolutely” unwilling to do so, and 39% were “more unwilling than not” to engage in such self-sacrifice (for a “willing/unwilling” ratio of 38:62).
For respondents who approved “the activities of V. Putin in the post of President of Russia,” the ratio, at 45:55, demonstrates that approval of Putin’s
foreign policy is very often conditional even among his devoted followers; the ratio’s imbalance grew to 30:70 for those who supported Putin’s
presidency only “in part” ((Gorshkov and Tikhonova, 100). Kremlin leaders will follow public opnion The Russian Elite 2016, the Institute of Sociology
survey and other data demonstrate that while Russia’s elites are sensitive to international threats, a significant
number do not believe that the West, particularly the United States, poses a critical military or
political danger to the Russian state or regime. Numerous large-N surveys of the Russian
public reveal similar perspectives. Such attitudes challenge the Kremlin’s core narrative of Russia as a resurgent great power
threatened by the United States and its fifth columnists (Sherlock, 2019). Analysis of the views of elites and mass publics
also suggests that a majority of Russians define a great power and its priorities more in terms
of domestic socio-economic development than in the production and demonstration of hard
power. From this standpoint, Russians often view the pathologies of their country’s developmental and political model as the most important
threat to Russia’s international influence and domestic well-being. APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE Sherlock APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE 19 As the
plausibility of the Kremlin’s meta-narrative weakens (and as the “Crimea effect” decays) an important question is whether (or to what extent) the
perspectives of much of Russian society and its elites will influence the Kremlin’s domestic and foreign policy. While several other factors clearly push in
the opposite direction, toward an aggressive foreign policy, it remains true that public
opinion matters to the Kremlin and
that much of Russian society at the mass and elite level values restraint in foreign policy and
greater attention to domestic socio-economic development.

A rising China forces the US to cooperate with Russia

Simes, July 2, 2019, Dimitri Alexander Simes is a contributor to the National Interest, Trump-
Putin Meeting: Where Does Russia Go from Here?, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/trump-
putin-meeting-where-does-russia-go-here-65331
Second, the United States will realize over the next five to ten years that it cannot
simultaneously confront both China and Russia. Beijing’s growing economic and military
power will incentivize the United States to make a play for better relations with Russia.
 No Extinction
Even a nuclear exchange would de-escalate
Quinlan 9 [Michael Quinlan, former British Permanent Under Secretary of State for Defence,
former Director of the Ditchley Foundation, Visiting Professor at King's College London,
“Thinking About Nuclear Weapons: Principles, Problems, Prospects,” Oxford University Press, p.
63-4]
Even if initial nuclear use did not quickly end the fighting, the supposition of inexorable
momentum in a developing exchange, with each side rushing to overreaction amid
confusion and uncertainty, is implausible. It fails to consider what the situation of
the decisionmakers would really be. Neither side could want escalation.
Both would be appalled at what was going on. Both would be desperately looking for
signs that the other was ready to call a halt. Both, given the capacity for evasion or
concealment which modern delivery platforms and vehicles can possess, could have in reserve
significant forces invulnerable enough not to entail use-or-lose pressures .
(It may be more open to question, as noted earlier, whether newer nuclear weapon possessors can be immediately in
that position; but it is within reach of any substantial state with advanced
technological capabilities, and attaining it is certain to be a high priority in the development of forces.)
As a result, neither side can have any predisposition to suppose, in an
ambiguous situation of fearful risk, that the right course when in doubt is
to go on copiously launching weapons. And none of this analysis rests on
any presumption of highly subtle or pre-concerted rationality . The rationality
required is plain.

No war---Putin’s a rational dude

Akhilesh Pillalamarri 15 is an assistant editor at The National Interest, “Putin: Russia’s Last
Remaining Pragmatist?” 3/11/’15, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/putin-russia
%E2%80%99s-last-remaining-pragmatist-12398
Russian-American relations are at their frostiest levels since the cold war. Can the two sides reach an accommodation? Or are
relations doomed to continue their downward spiral? These are some of the questions that Dimitri K. Simes, the President of the
Center for the National Interest, who visited
Russia for a series of high-level meetings with officials and
other experts last week, addressed at a luncheon this Tuesday. Simes was the speaker at an event at the Center for the
National Interest titled The Crisis in U.S.-Russia Relations. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, ambassador to the UN, Iraq and Afghanistan
during the George W. Bush administration, moderated. Simes carefully distinguished
between two groupings in
the Russian government, the first convinced that relations with the West can conceivably be
repaired; the second, that Russia must prepare for a protracted conflict. Putin himself, Simes
emphasized, is still inclined toward the first camp and is not ideologically driven. He is “not crazy” and
“not a Communist,” Simes said. Putin, along with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in particular, are relatively
moderate on Ukraine and relations with the U nited S tates, particularly when contrasted
with what Simes called a “second school of thought” in Russia, which believes that the Kremlin should
“absolutely challenge the existing world order” and treat the United States as Moscow’s main enemy. Putin is well-
aware of Russia’s limitations and the fact that it can’t “play the sanctions game.” Russia does not
want to incorporate eastern Ukraine and is content with a united Ukraine that grants autonomy
to its Russian-speaking east. Moreover, Russia would insist on a guarantee that NATO would not include Ukraine in the
foreseeable future. It is important, Simes said, for the United States to understand that Putin is not
prepared to permit the Ukrainian rebels to be defeated, as he does not want to “look like a
loser.” However, Putin might be receptive to a grand bargain that will protect Russian interests .
According to Simes, this is desirable because it is not in the West’s interests for Russia to become a rogue nuclear power, to move
closer to China or for the confrontation between Russia and the West to “dominate global politics.”

Putin is moderate and playing a political game---NATO would have to

invade Russia to cause nuclear use
Jeffrey Lewis 14, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin
Center for Nonproliferation Studies, “A Boy and His Toys,” 9/6/’14,
http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/09/06/a-boy-and-his-toys/
Regardless of what sort of nuclear weapons or strategic concepts Washington develops , U.S.
policymakers will always worry that Moscow or other nuclear powers might be willing to take
risks that the U nited S tates simply will not. In this way, Washington falls victim to its own self-doubt. The rub is that
different nuclear weapons won’t solve what is essentially a lack of courage or resolve. The president probably would be just as well
off with a stiff drink or two than some new nuclear weapon. Well, not too many stiff drinks. Fortunately, Putin
is not
quite so bold as we might worry. I doubt Putin’s enthusiasm for aggression extends to initiating
the limited use of nuclear weapons — at least not in scenarios short of a NATO invasion of Russia. Piontkovsky
notes (in Russian, sorry) that Putin’s motives are more " modest " than the destruction of the U nited
S tates — "the maximum expansion of the Russian World, the collapse of NATO, [and to] discredit and humiliat[e] the United
Putin needs a neutral Germany . As
States as the guarantor of the security of the West." If Piontkovsky is right, then
I’ve argued before, the centerpiece to Putin’s strategy is a de facto neutral Germany that prevents
NATO from offering a robust defense of its easternmost members. (It’s worth remembering that the Soviet
Union desperately tried to keep a unified Germany out of NATO.) That’s why Putin does things like show up at
former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s birthday party and avoids mentioning that he would have
sent in the tanks in 1989. Using nuclear weapons is, at a basic level, contrary to this strategy. That is to
say, Putin’s maintenance of the increasingly flimsy fiction that Russia has not invaded Ukraine is largely
about trying to avoid inflaming German opinion to the point where NATO stands up to the
aggression; Putin wants to take Ukraine, but he needs to do so in small pieces . Nuking Warsaw , of
course, throws that strategy out the window .
 Extensions – Russia Won’t Initiate War
Russia won’t strike NATO countries---there’s no draw in
Kevin Lees 14, Suffragio founder, editor and chief political analyst Kevin Lees is a journalist and
attorney in Washington. He has written for in The Atlantic, Americas Quarterly, E!Sharp,
EurActiv, EUObserver, Deutsche Welle, Huffington Post, McClatchy Newspapers, The National
Interest, The New Republic and Reuters. He has participated on a panel discussion at the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, A graduate of Duke University and New York
University Law School, he also studied law and European integration at the European University
Institute in Florence, Italy. "The idea of a nuclear war with Russia is absolutely crazy," 9-5-2014,
No Publication, http://suffragio.org/2014/09/05/the-idea-of-a-nuclear-war-with-russia-is-
absolutely-crazy/, DOA: 4-13-2015, y2k
commentary took a huge leap
As if timed to coincide with this week’s NATO summit in Wales, which could mark the most important gathering of Western allies since the end of the Cold War, US-based this week

forward in assessment of the Russian threat

its — though not necessarily in a way that’s incredible rational. Russia Flag Icon Call it the ‘underpants gnome’ theory of understanding

Russian aggression
Russia today: = World War III! in Ukraine + ????? But even as a ceasefire takes effect today between the Ukrainian military and the Russian-backed separatists based in Donetsk in

writers are
eastern Ukraine, based on a plan put forward earlier this week by none other than Russian president Vladimir Putin and brokered by talks hosted by increasingly nervous officials in Belarus, US nevertheless openly

contemplating notion of a potential Russian nuclear strike.

the audacious In Foreign Policy yesterday, Jeffrey Tayler writes that Putin could launch a limited
nuclear strike on a peripheral NATO member. His reasoning is that Putin can neither easily withdraw from his standoff over Ukraine nor launch a conventional attack, because the Russian military would be sure to lose a conventional war. That’s because the
defending NATO member would presumably invoke Article 5 of the NATO charter — the ‘all for one and one for all’ article that states that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all NATO members. As David Frum wrote earlier this week at The Atlantic, US
president Barack Obama’s speech in Tallinn on Wednesday established that the Article 5 principle extends to eastern Europe just as surely as it does elsewhere: And he forcefully assured Estonians—and all NATO’s new allies—that waging war on them meant waging
war on the United States. “[T]he defense of Tallinn and Riga and Vilnius is just as important as the defense of Berlin and Paris and London,” Obama said. “Article 5 is crystal clear. An attack on one is an attack on all. So if, in such a moment, you ever ask again, who’ll
come to help, you’ll know the answer: the NATO alliance, including the armed forces of the United States of America, right here, present, now.” This is the ultimate commitment, given by the ultimate authority, in the very place where the commitment would be
tested—and would have to be honored. There’s no turning back from that. Today, for the first time perhaps, Eastern Europeans have reason to believe it. That, Tayler, writes, backs Putin into the corner of nuclear war: That leaves Putin only one option: a nuclear
attack. Not a massive launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles at the United States or Western Europe, which would bring about a suicidal atomic holocaust, but a small, tactical strike or two against a NATO member that few in the West would be willing to die to
protect. Piontkovsky surmises that, in such a conflict, the nuclear-armed country with the “superior political will” to alter the geopolitical “status quo” and — most importantly — with the “greater indifference to values concerning human lives” would prevail. Any
guesses which country that would be? Tayler’s argument is that Putin is willing to call Obama’s Article 5 bluff. After all, would a tactical nuclear strike on Tallinn actually be the same as an attack on London? Would a war-weary United States be enthusiastic about
fighting and dying for Estonians and Latvians and Lithuanians? Tayler envisions a scenario whereby Putin starts stirring up trouble in a city like Narva, Estonia’s third largest city, where nearly 19 out of 20 residents is a native Russian speaker. If you look at a map of

the Estonian-Russian border, it’s quite clear just how vulnerable a city like Narva might be to a potential attack: Still, it’s noteworthy that Russian aggression in the Putin
era has targeted non-NATO members like Ukraine and Georgia. If there’s a reason that NATO was hesitant to offer membership to former Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko and to former Georgian

president Mikheil Saakashvili, there’s a reason why Putin hasn’t sent Russian soldiers and tanks headlong into the Baltic. NATO’s expansion, while robust, has a much more delicate footprint than you might expect. NATO today includes just three former Soviet
republics, the three Baltic states, all of whom joined in 2004. Between 1999 and 2009, however, eight former members of the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact joined NATO: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Albania and Croatia. For
now, however, NATO has been hesitant to extend membership to additional former Soviet republics, including Ukraine and Georgia. Though they are forging closer ties with NATO, Sweden and Finland never actually joined the alliance. (Notably, fellow Scandinavian
Jens Stoltenberg, the former social democratic prime minister of Norway, will become NATO’s new secretary-general on October 1). Anne Applebaum, the typically thoughtful foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Post, and the spouse of Polish foreign
minister Radek Sikorski, perhaps the most prominent (and understandably) hawkish voice in the European Union with respect to Russia, got the ball rolling last week. She suggested that, just as no one in Poland believed in the summer of 1939 that the annihilation of
World War II was necessarily coming, it’s equally naive for Americans and Europeans today, in our integrated and globalized world, to believe that war with Russia is so far-fetched: Not long ago, Vladimir Zhirinovsky — the Russian member of parliament and court
jester who sometimes says things that those in power cannot — argued on television that Russia should use nuclear weapons to bomb Poland and the Baltic countries — “dwarf states,” he called them — and show the West who really holds power in Europe:
“Nothing threatens America, it’s far away. But Eastern European countries will place themselves under the threat of total annihilation,” he declared. Vladimir Putin indulges these comments: Zhirinovsky’s statements are not official policy, the Russian president says,
but he always “gets the party going.” Zhirinovsky, however, is well past his sell-by date. Back in 1996, when his LDPR (Политическая партия ЛДПР), formerly the Liberal Democratic Party (which was neither liberal nor democratic) was the second-largest bloc in the
Russian parliament, he ran for president on a platform that Russia should extend south to the Indian Ocean. He’s one of a handful of politicians that now exist as the approved opposition in Putin’s Russia. Zhirinovsky, in March, suggested that Russia should annex all
of central Asia, and even in the presidential ‘election’ in March 2012, he was rattling the nationalist saber against the Baltic states. (In that election, Zhirinovsky won all of 6.2% of the vote). That Applebaum cites Zhirinovsky as a credible source of Russian policy
intentions should be a caution sign that her analysis might be worth taking with a heap of skepticism. Both Applebaum and Tayler draw from the writings of Andrey Piontkovsky, a Russian mathematician and dissident who’s been highly critical of Putin’s ‘managed’
democracy. It’s Piontkovsky who has suggested the possibility of a limited nuclear strike. Piontkovsky argues that by calling Obama’s (and NATO’s) bluff with a very limited nuclear strike against a Baltic (or Polish) city, Putin could show that the Article 5 guarantee
means very little. In the language of the Cold War, the logic of ‘mutually assured destruction’ has broken down today, because NATO leaders aren’t willing to start World War III over Narva or another Baltic city. It’s true that late last month, Putin chillingly reminded
the world that Russia remains one of the world’s leading nuclear powers: “Russia’s partners…should understand it’s best not to mess with us,” said Putin, dressed casually in a grey sweater and light blue jeans. “Thank God, I think no one is thinking of unleashing a

launching preemptive nuclear strikes seems like a

large-scale conflict with Russia. I want to remind you that Russia is one of the leading nuclear powers.” Nevertheless,

risky step
relatively If NATO won’t go to war for Narva or even Tallinn it would stand
to take to make an academic point. , certainly

up to Russian aggression against Warsaw , especially now that Polish prime minister Donald Tusk will assume the presidency of the European Council in December. So “calling the Article 5
bluff” only goes so far as a credible strategy. Undoubtedly, much of Putin’s aggression in Ukraine involves Russian domestic politics. In one of the most brilliant analyses to date on Putin’s motivations, Vox’s Max Fisher argues that Putin’s anti-Western, nationalist
rhetoric has its roots in the December 2011 parliamentary elections, which took place in the context slowing Russian economic growth, marred by accusations of fraud, and met with widespread protests in Moscow and elsewhere: Putin panicked. He saw his
legitimacy slipping and feared a popular revolt. So he changed strategies. Rather than basing his political legitimacy on economic growth, he would base it on reviving Russian nationalism: imperial nostalgia, anti-Western paranoia, and conservative Orthodox
Christianity. That, in turn, propelled Russian mischief in Ukraine, which boosted Putin’s approval ratings at home, thereby massively increasing the costs for Putin to back down over eastern Ukraine: In a rational world, Putin would have cut his losses and withdrawn
support for the rebels. But, thanks to months of propagandistic state media, Russians do not live in a rational world. They live in a world where surrendering in eastern Ukraine would mean surrendering to American-backed Ukrainian Nazis, and they believe
everything that Putin has told them about being the only person capable of defeating these forces of darkness. To withdraw would be to admit that it was all a lie and to sacrifice the nationalism that is now his only source of real legitimacy. So Putin did the only thing
he could to do to keep up the fiction upon which his political survival hinges: he invaded Ukraine outright. In addition, Ukraine is one of the few countries in the former Soviet Union that’s developed a relatively strong, institutionalized form of democracy. Given that
much of eastern Ukraine (and many of Kiev’s residents) are native Russian speakers, that makes Ukraine a particularly dangerous example of how democracy might work in Moscow as well as Kiev — in the same language that everyday Russian citizens speak. But it’s
not like Putin lacked strategic reasons to slow Ukraine’s turn back toward the West. When the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych fled office in February, it made sense that Putin would want to complicate and delay what felt like a whipsaw move from east to
west. In part, it worked — his annexation of Crimea is now largely regarded as successful, and his tactics arguably resulted in the election of a more Russian-friendly president in Petro Poroshenko, who as recently as 2012 served as Yanukovych’s minister of trade and

If during the heart of the Cold War the U S wasn’t willing to start W W III over
economic development. , , nited tates orld ar

Hungary or Czechoslovakia it makes no sense

in 1956 to do so in 2008 over Georgia or
in 1963, strategic for the United States

today over Crimea — or even southeastern Ukraine or the breakaway coastal strip of Transnistria within Moldova, another non-NATO member. Critics like Frum would also
be more credible if they acknowledged that Yanukovych’s ouster, however justifiable on moral grounds, was undemocratic — Yanukovych was duly elected in 2010 with a majority of the Ukrainian electorate. It’s also true significant far-right and nationalist elements,
including the newly formed Right Sector (Правий сектор) made common cause during the anti-Yanukovych protests over the winter, and many of their leaders held key roles, especially in defense, in the interim Ukrainian government. Even today, as the ceasefire
between Kiev and the rebels takes effect, it wouldn’t seem too difficult for Putin to declare victory in Ukraine — with or without taking more territory in eastern Ukraine, such as a ‘land bridge’ that links Crimea to the Russian mainland. I argued in July that the crash
of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 would actually bring Putin and Poroshenko closer to a ceasefire and, ultimately, a peace deal. As world opinion hardens against Putin, and US and European sanctions tighten against an increasingly flagging Russian economy, Putin has a
pecuniary incentive to back down. Likewise, Poroshenko has both personal and policy reasons to prefer peace with the Kremlin, and Germany and other leading European countries have both strategic and economic reasons that are smoothing the peaceful option.

Though Ukraine is still in crisis mode, it’s not such an existential crisis that there isn’t time for domestic politics, with parliamentary

Writing about the geopolitical forces that are causing the Ukraine crisis to
elections now scheduled for October 26.

smolder from flames into dull embers isn’t as sexy as World War III or unhinged nuclear
strikes on Tallinn that kind of talk is irresponsible While US commentators are
. But ultimately, both and a bit silly.
forecasting doom Europeans and Ukrainians are
, quietly getting on with the work of finding a
peaceful solution to the Ukraine-Russia standoff.

Russian public doesn’t want war and Putin has to side with the public—Ukraine
proves even if they hate the west, there’s no risk that the public will agree with
violence
Rojansky, Former Deputy Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at
Carnegie Endowment, & Yalowitz, Former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of
Belarus, 14
[Matthew & Kenneth, 6-25-14, Thomson Reuters, “No matter what Putin says — Russian
people have no appetite for war,”
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/06/25/russian-people-have-no-appetite-
for-war-no-matter-what-putin-says/, accessed 7-13-14, J.J.]
Russia and the West are again at odds, eying each other with suspicion over Moscow’s
annexation of Crimea and support of armed separatists in Eastern Ukraine. Basic rules of the
game for security, stability and prosperity in Europe and beyond are at stake. Some
commentators are calling this a “new Cold War.”
But the crucial fact is that the public on each side does not have any appetite for a sustained
conflict .
Attention has focused on the key leaders — President Barack Obama, Russian President
Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Putin has used his acts of aggression to build public support. Yet the focus should be on
whether the Russian people want renewed confrontation — or would even countenance
something like a “new Cold War.”
Russia may not be a democracy, but it is also not the totalitarian Soviet Union. The flip side of
Putin’s brand of authoritarian populism is his reliance on public opinion to maintain
legitimacy.
Putin’s popularity ratings have soared from roughly 50 percent to more than 80 percent since
the annexation of Crimea, and his domestic opposition has been effectively muted. The less
educated, more conservative and nationalistic segments of the Russian public have
enthusiastically bought into his attacks on the West for ignoring or threatening Russia’s
strategic interests.
More than half of all Russians, according to the polling agency VCIOM, now agree that relations
with the West “can only be tense and be based on distrust.” Nor is this a new phenomenon —
eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Western support for Kosovo
independence and the “color revolutions” throughout the post-Soviet periphery all heightened
Russians’ sense that the West was taking advantage of their weakness.
Popular support for translating this anti-Western resentment into a sustained confrontation,
however, appears shallow at best. Though another Russian polling agency, the Levada Center,
reports negative attitudes toward the United States at a 20-year high, both Levada and VCIOM
confirm that nearly two-thirds of Russians view isolation from the West as unlikely or
impossible.
In addition, despite strong opposition to the new Western-backed government in Ukraine,
most Russians oppose further military intervention there, even while they support diplomatic
and economic assistance for Russian speakers in the region. Russian troops are still present
near Ukraine’s eastern border, but Putin has clearly backed off from a full-scale invasion — likely
calculating that the Russian public would not tolerate the high costs of a prolonged and
bloody conflict in Ukraine .

Russia won’t escalate—serious conflicts won’t occur

Baran et al, Senior Fellow and Director Center for Eurasian Studies and member
of the Hudson Institute, ‘07
[Zeyno, Summer 2007, “U.S. – Russian Relations: Is conflict inevitable?” Pg. 26.
http://www.hudson.org/files/publications/Russia-version%202.pdf, accessed 7/12/13, J.J.]
How far is Russia ready to go to pursue its assertive agenda? Is the Russian elite ready for
confrontation with the West? Definitely not. A significant part of the Russian elite is not
ready for serious conflict with the West . But at the same time it is ready to continue to use
anti-Western rhetoric to consolidate society. In fact, it is trying to have it both ways:
integration with the West for themselves, but not for the rest of society. There is a logic to this
seemingly schizophrenic behavior. The Russian elite can maintain their privileged status only in
a society that is hostile to the West. The question, however, could be raised: will the Russian
elite be able to control the consequences of this dual-track policy?

No Russian conflict—they lack the resources

Motyl and Menon, The American Interest, 7
[Alexander J., World Affairs Correspondent Rajan, Nonresident Senior Fellow, South Asia Center,
March 1, The American Interest, “The Myth of Russian Resurgence,” http://www.the-american-
interest.com/articles/2007/03/01/the-myth-of-russian-resurgence/, accessed July 12, 2014
As with almost any broad generalization, this one is not entirely false. Indeed, it cannot be.
Russia sprawls across Eurasia, contains 148 million people, possesses more than 3,000 strategic
nuclear warheads, is the world’s second-largest exporter of oil and armaments, is the foremost
exporter of natural gas, and is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Any
country with these attributes will have strategic heft. But a scrutiny of its power reveals that
Russia is far weaker than the reigning consensus suggests. Russia is not “back.” If anything, the
next few years may show Russia with its back to the wall.
RUSSIA’S POWER
Russian power can be assessed in four aspects: military prowess, economic vitality, human
capital and “soft power” assets. We take these in turn.
The once mighty Red Army is now a pale imitation of itself, a wheezing symbol of Russia’s
deterioration. From a total of three million men under arms toward the end of the Cold War,
the Russian armed forces have shrunk to one million. That would be good news were it now a
better force. But except for some elite units, most Russian troops are poorly trained and
demoralized draftees subjected to pitiless hazing and prone to alcoholism, suicide and
corruption. Ninety percent of the males supposedly required to complete the two-year stint of
military service evade the draft both legally and illegally. Service contracts signed in 2004
ranged from 17 percent of the recruiting goal in the Moscow region to 45 percent in the North
Caucasus.22.
International Institute for Strategic Studies, Military Balance, 2005-2006 (Routledge, 2005), p.
151.
Less than a fifth of the kontraktniki (those who sign up for the money) re-enlist, complaining of
paltry pay and primitive living conditions.33.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, August 24, 2006.
The problem transcends raw numbers. In 2005 an astonishing 40 percent of draftees were
declared unfit to serve on account of physical or mental disabilities. Russia’s weaponry is aging
and falling behind qualitatively, and new equipment reaches the armed forces in insufficient
numbers. Defense spending has risen 25 percent annually since 2004, but years of neglect
ensure that it will be a long time before existing armaments are replaced and soldiers’ morale
and quality of life improve. The upswing in hardware expenditure is also mitigated by the 8
percent average inflation rate in 2004–06 and the need to allocate a large chunk of these
monies to attract better-qualified people (particularly if plans for a volunteer force are to pan
out).
Russia remains a nuclear power, having inherited the Soviet nuclear arsenal, but there have
been no dramatic improvements in its capabilities. Russia’s nuclear armory certainly suffices
for deterrence, but it cannot thwart smaller yet more urgent threats in its immediate
neighborhood, among them terrorism, Islamic radicalism and failing states; nor, as other
nuclear powers have found, can nuclear weapons be translated into prosaic political influence.
Paradoxically, and unlike during the Cold War, the principal threat now posed by Russia’s
nuclear arms is that they, or the fissile materials they require, could end up in terrorists’
hands.

No Russia war – no capacity

O’Hanlon, Brookings Foreign Policy Director of Research , 2015, (Michael, Specializes
in national security and defense policy, “The Future of Land Warfare”, Brookings, 47-48, PAS)
Russia will not be able to restore its previous superpower status under any of the above approaches to
national security policy. It's population base and economic strength are too limited , and will remain so even
if Russian political leadership makes occasional conquests, as with Crimea. But it can sustain very substantial capabilities. Russia
might, for example, spend 3 percent or perhaps an even higher fraction of GDP on the nation's armed
forces. That could imply a total of perhaps 5 percent or more of GDP spent on all security capabilities, including internal defense,
an area of recent emphasis in light of various internal challenges, among them unrest from growing Muslim populations and
exclusionary groups.14 This level of effort would exceed that of any major Eurasian power and would also exceed projected levels
for the United States, as a percentage of national economic output. ∂ Because
Russia's economy will remain so much
smaller than that of the United States, China, or even Japan or Germany under any realistic extrapolation from today, such a
higher level of military spending as a fraction of national economic power would not elevate
Russia to superpower status. But Russia would probably be able to retain and indeed solidify its position as the world's
number 3 military spender, after the United States and China. And it may be able to create a sense of military momentum over a
period in which American and other Western defense spending may continue to decline, a momentum that Russia could seek to
translate to favorable strategic outcomes, at least close to home. ∂ Notionally, under this approach, in 2020 U.S. military spending
might total around $500 billion to $550 billion. China might tally around $300 billion. Russia's military spending, depending on what
happens to its economy in the interim, might range from $100 billion to $150 billion annually, with several major American allies and
India ranking next on the list, in the range of $50 billion a year each. ∂ With all of that money, Russia
would still be hard-
pressed to maintain a military with full capacity to secure all its land borders through
conventional military means alone. ∂ It would, of course, remain incapable of recreating the kind of military that the
Soviet Union once possessed. ∂ A million-man force, up modestly from today's, would be a realistic ceiling on the total active duty
strength of the armed forces, even with the resources presumed in this scenario.