Defend, diffuse, discourage, obstruct, frustrate
10 March 2022 (Krakow, Poland) – On one of my trips to Krakow, I learned about Nikolai Sokov, a senior fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, who previously worked at the Soviet and Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and participated in the START I and START II negotiations. He is the author of “Russian Strategic Modernization: Past and Future”, and he co-wrote and co-edited the first Russian-language college-level textbook on nuclear nonproliferation.
This piece is the best I have read so far on the current conventional / nuclear weapons dilemma with Russia. This analysis of Russia’s potential use of nuclear de-escalation doctrine provides a metric for applying increased conventional support to Ukraine.
💥💥 It must be defensive, outside of Russian occupied territory (Crimea, Donbas), shouldn’t push to a tipping point.
💥💥 Defend, diffuse, discourage, obstruct, frustrate.
Those are the parameters for success.
For the piece click here.