[Goose]

Well my counterfactual, hypothetical thought experiment...suppose he was known to have nuclear weapons and the capability of delivering them reliably as far away as Israel?  Would our response have been the same?  To risk the utter destruction of Israel for the liberation of Kuwait?

A good thought experiment. You are correct that when the other side has nuclear capability, one always has to take that into account. On the other hand, nuclear blackmail can't be tolerated or it would be used continually. I think that we would have indeed liberated Kuwait, but I think we would also have made it clear to Saddam if he so much as twitched in the direction of Israel (or anywhere else in that footprint), we would turn Iraq into a glass parking lot. We would also point out Israel might not even wait for him to twitch, so he better be real, real, careful.

Having nukes always changes the calculus of the other side, and having a LOT of nukes as Russia has, changes the calculus in the way you expertly describe.  This puts US Foreign policy with respect to Ukraine in a kind of moral dilemma:  we must balance doing the just thing (helping Ukraine) with the risk of enormous harm to civilization.  Given that war is littered with miscalculations and irrational decisions, the risk of nuclear escalation  has to be taken seriously, and that puts a different cast on the war in Ukraine than on our much more vigorous response in Desert Storm.



Have we been too timid?  Probably.  But we could probably keeping saying so right up to the tipping point, and we can't afford to be wrong even once.

Absolutely agree, well stated. It ain't an easy problem. I just wish I had confidence all the NATO nations had thought this through BEFORE the war started. Politicians (and probably most people) tend to shy away from difficult problems that have no real good solution until the problem simply can't be ignored. Then they often do ill thought out things. Let's hope this isn't one of those times.

[Goose]

Well my counterfactual, hypothetical thought experiment...suppose he was known to have nuclear weapons and the capability of delivering them reliably as far away as Israel?  Would our response have been the same?  To risk the utter destruction of Israel for the liberation of Kuwait?

A good thought experiment. You are correct that when the other side has nuclear capability, one always has to take that into account. On the other hand, nuclear blackmail can't be tolerated or it would be used continually. I think that we would have indeed liberated Kuwait, but I think we would also have made it clear to Saddam if he so much as twitched in the direction of Israel (or anywhere else in that footprint), we would turn Iraq into a glass parking lot. We would also point out Israel might not even wait for him to twitch, so he better be real, real, careful.

Having nukes always changes the calculus of the other side, and having a LOT of nukes as Russia has, changes the calculus in the way you expertly describe.  This puts US Foreign policy with respect to Ukraine in a kind of moral dilemma:  we must balance doing the just thing (helping Ukraine) with the risk of enormous harm to civilization.  Given that war is littered with miscalculations and irrational decisions, the risk of nuclear escalation  has to be taken seriously, and that puts a different cast on the war in Ukraine than on our much more vigorous response in Desert Storm.



Have we been too timid?  Probably.  But we could probably keeping saying so right up to the tipping point, and we can't afford to be wrong even once.

Absolutely agree, well stated. It ain't an easy problem. I just wish I had confidence all the NATO nations had thought this through BEFORE the war started. Politicians (and probably most people) tend to shy away from difficult problems that have no real good solution until the problem simply can't be ignored. Then they often do ill thought out things. Let's hope this isn't one of those times.