[GK3]

there are reports from Ukraine that an ICBM has been launched aggressively for the first time in history.
it is possible that said missile was not carrying a payload of any kind.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/rus...024-11-21/

The obvious message here is that the next one contains a nuclear warhead. Part of the message is that this is an ICBM. Ukraine can't reach far enough with the weapons it has to stop such launches.

This launch doesn't tell anybody anything they didn't already know about Russia's capabilities. It was designed to indicate intentions, or at least to affect the US (and Ukraine's) analysis of Russia's intentions. To what extent it does that I do not know.

If Russia indeed is contemplating a nuclear response a great time to do it would be immediately before or after the change in administration. Our ability to develop a reasoned response near this transition time may not be all that great. Russia might believe we would be unable to respond. One would hope this has already been hashed out, but I have no idea if it has. I tend to doubt it. Russia needs to be careful with this idea, because it might elicit a response that is not at all what Russia expected. I am not thinking the US would start a nuclear war, but we might do something that would push Russia further into a corner.

At this point, no matter what the West does, I do not think Putin can agree to any sort of peace that doesn't give him a large part of Ukraine.  This little expedition has cost Russian brobdingnagian amounts of money, hundred's of thousands of casualties, loss of prestige, and billions of dollars in frozen assets around the world.  Politically, if he agrees to anything short of outright victory, it will have to give him a near victory with everyone assuming a few years down the road he will seize the rest of it.
The West might have stopped the whole thing if they had gone all in for the Ukraine at the beginning. Dribbles and drabs, bids and pieces at a time simply was the wrong approach.

[GK3]

there are reports from Ukraine that an ICBM has been launched aggressively for the first time in history.
it is possible that said missile was not carrying a payload of any kind.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/rus...024-11-21/

The obvious message here is that the next one contains a nuclear warhead. Part of the message is that this is an ICBM. Ukraine can't reach far enough with the weapons it has to stop such launches.

This launch doesn't tell anybody anything they didn't already know about Russia's capabilities. It was designed to indicate intentions, or at least to affect the US (and Ukraine's) analysis of Russia's intentions. To what extent it does that I do not know.

If Russia indeed is contemplating a nuclear response a great time to do it would be immediately before or after the change in administration. Our ability to develop a reasoned response near this transition time may not be all that great. Russia might believe we would be unable to respond. One would hope this has already been hashed out, but I have no idea if it has. I tend to doubt it. Russia needs to be careful with this idea, because it might elicit a response that is not at all what Russia expected. I am not thinking the US would start a nuclear war, but we might do something that would push Russia further into a corner.

At this point, no matter what the West does, I do not think Putin can agree to any sort of peace that doesn't give him a large part of Ukraine.  This little expedition has cost Russian brobdingnagian amounts of money, hundred's of thousands of casualties, loss of prestige, and billions of dollars in frozen assets around the world.  Politically, if he agrees to anything short of outright victory, it will have to give him a near victory with everyone assuming a few years down the road he will seize the rest of it.
The West might have stopped the whole thing if they had gone all in for the Ukraine at the beginning. Dribbles and drabs, bids and pieces at a time simply was the wrong approach.