There are statements from British politics which claim that Ukraine must win this war and Russia must learn to lose. This is how they seriously talk about the largest nuclear power on earth - assuming that it would NOT use its atomic potential - because the result would be a chain of all-destroying counter-attacks.
This assumption is fundamentally wrong in that it ignores various psychological aspects.
1. On May 17, 2022, the Ukrainian government has permanently broken off all negotiations and even a ceasefire is rejected. This is forcing Russia to continue fighting.
2. For the alleged option of a complete withdrawal from all occupied territories - a precondition for new talks - is unacceptable from the Russian point of view, if only because it would ignore the right of self-determination of the Crimean people, who belong to Russia since 1783.
3. In addition, a withdrawal would generally hand over the predominantly Russian-speaking residents to the growing Ukrainian repressions - 2017 Education Law, 2019 Language Law, 2021-Febr. 2022 closure of 6 TV stations, 2022 ban of 11 parties and mid-2023 ban of Russian place names. This course continues with the threat of harsh prosecution for all pro-Russian "collaborators."
4. After the de facto rejection of a negotiated solution, the only option left to both war opponents is to push for a military victory.
5. As thousands of historical examples have shown, a truly conclusive military victory must always trigger a series of psychological reactions on the part of the losing side. These include fear at the end of the fight and a willingness to submit. After the fighting, fear is replaced by respect. This stabilizes the now clarified hierarchy and thus the security structure of the region. Ideally, if the winner sends conciliatory signals, opposition turns into cooperation.
6. But in the Ukraine war, both adversaries lack any requirements for establishing respect, on the Ukrainian side exactly as long as it receives every conceivable military support in the make-a-wish mode - and is even kept in the illusion by the British government to be able to win this war.
7. The entire situation is characterized by maximum incompatibility of the two warring parties - the opposite of what Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King recognized as a basic requirement for non-violent conflict resolution - namely understanding the opponent.
8. Since all non-violent alternatives are blocked, the escalation with attacks against Crimea and with the delivery of uranium ammunition and cluster bombs inevitably leads Russia to a red line beyond which no predictability is left. (Psychologically, this applies to all situations that are perceived as life-threatening.)
9. According to Niccolo Machiavelli's findings, a superior conflicting party tends to swiftly strike a decisive blow in order to invoke the finally stabilizing respect.
10. On the current course of escalation, this almost inevitably means the first use of nuclear weapons by the Russian side, because the psychological requirements for a deterrent effect of NATO nuclear weapons are only patchy.
11. The only correct side of the deterrence hypothesis is that a first strike that largely eliminates the enemy's defense capability in a conventionally waged war (as in Israel's 1967 6-Day War) under normal circumstances cannot be conducted between nuclear powers. Because even an "extensive" destruction of the enemy nuclear systems is not sufficient, since the remaining ones can still cause unacceptable own losses.
12. But there are two other viable nuclear options, one being the use of smaller, tactical nuclear warheads - as an enhancement to the warfare already brutalized by cluster bombs. On the other hand, it is a singular big warning strike with the aim to demand respect. The stark proof of its working came with the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 78 years ago. However, the then military goal to avoid a sacrificial American invasion of Japan could have been achieved in a much more humane way. For this purpose, only militarily relevant targets such as centers of the armaments industry would have had to be selected instead of the two densely populated cities.
13. But against Ukraine, even a purely militarily-defined nuclear warning strike is a no go. Because after the anti-democratic interventions mentioned under point 3, their government has a free hand to manipulate people on the surreal course of "victory or sinking". Thus, respect for the enemy is impossible - as long as the supply of weapons is flowing.
14. A warning strike can therefore only be effective if it does not demand respect from Ukraine, but from the countries supplying arms. Among these supplier countries, the United Kingdom is particularly exposed by always pushing ahead in servicing the spiral of escalation. In addition, since Brexit, protection from the EU treaty which provides for military assistance in Article 42/7, doesn´t exist anymore.
15. The protective effect of NATO, on the other hand, is greatly overestimated. The relevant Article 5 of the NATO treaty regulates the obligations in the event of an alliance in a complicated and vague manner. France had already felt the consequences when it was left alone in the Algerian war.
16. While Russia's existence is at stake at the moment of a nuclear warning strike, this is not at all the case for NATO countries that are not themselves affected. In addition, the American NATO high command - also with regard to China - would have reason for nuclear restraint towards Russia.
17. However, many of the above considerations are called into question by the fact that there is another, very strong influencing factor. - When the American President Dwight D. Eisenhower left office in 1961, he warned in his farewell speech about the MIC, the Military-Industrial Complex, which he identified as a danger to freedom, democracy and security. According to current understanding, this grouping of politicians, leading figures in the military, the secret services and the armaments industry is only part of a larger system that can be defined as the "rule of big money".
18. This trading and financial empire, which burst into history on December 31st 1600 by giving privileges to the notorious East India Company, has managed to transfer the inhuman practices of plundering, expropriation, cheating, manipulation of opinion, paternalism and the use of military force by feudal sovereigns into the epoch of free-democratic civilization.
19. When Pope Francis stated in 2014, "Capitalism needs war" - he did not mean the market economy, but the rule of big money. This non-democratically controlled power with its privileged trade oligopolies, the equally privileged financial system, with its media influence, the MIC and tens of thousands of large organizations (NGOs) is in the process of manipulating civilization into a third great fratricidal war.
20. The unmistakable influence of this ultra-rich group of people, who dispose over the most elaborate protective systems and show no solidarity towards the nations of European civilization, also overrides the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons that is valid under normal circumstances according to point 11.
21. Even a moderately in-depth study of the kind of militaristic policies that have taken place under the influence of the MIC from Korea to the Afghanistan disaster shows that there can hardly be anything worse for a country and its people than to be "defended" or "liberated" by these allegedly good forces.
22. For Europe in general and for the United Kingdom in particular, the question arises whether they wouldn´t be sacrificed without hesitation in a slugfest with Russia if the great goal recognizable since the Crimean War (1853-1856) of finally dissolving Russia could be achieved.
23. Cynically, one can imagine the impending "limited" nuclear war as similar to NATO exercise scenarios in Soviet times, in which the extensive use of tactical nuclear weapons in densely populated Central Europe was considered appropriate(!). This time it's (also) about more easterly theaters of war - the German military already disposes over Russian terrain maps.
Thus, all western governments should be advised to exercise extreme restraint with further arms deliveries and to tie them to the conditions of a ceasefire and a return to the negotiating table.