I hope all those here that disagree with my analysis of the situation are correct, ( and it is true that it is entirely probable that even the smaller ones might not go boom ) , but it would be foolish to discount the possibility of Putin using a small nuke or 2 on the battlefield if he feels he is losing. He obviously has zero interest in how the rest of the world views Russia, and a huge, misguided lust for restoring the Russian empire…. Plus he’s a bit of a wild cannon… We ( the west ) should absolutely not bow down to him, but I believe it is also wise to keep both eyes open. The danger of huge escalation is present and real.

You would think that Putin would pop one off just to prove he can. But he has not. Why. Its been over 30 years. It can’t be because he is worried about the environment.

I think you mean “triad.”

”…however I can easily imagine a situation where they use a tactical nuclear weapon if Putin feels HE is going to lose the Special military operation in Ukraine. Sad as it is, I don’t see an organized effective response from the west if he did…”

This is one area in which the Biden administration was head and shoulders above the Trump administration. Early in the current invasion Biden quietly informed the Russians the consequences of their use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine: America would sink their entire Black Sea fleet and destroy their prized naval base at Sevastopol. It would be a humiliating defeat for the Russians, so they didn’t do it.

By early 2024 the situation on the ground had changed. Ukraine had sunk the flagship of the Black Sea fleet, destroyed about a quarter of the rest of the fleet and damaged another quarter, and had driven almost all of the Russian combat vessels out of Sevastopol. Sevastopol became untenable as a naval base. Ukraine had already accomplished much of what would have been America’s response, so the threat lost its deterrence value.

So Biden quietly informed Russia of the new red line: if Russia used a nuke in the conflict, America would enter the war on the side of Ukraine and destroy everything Russia had there. She would not attack Russia proper, but everything in Ukraine — about 75% of Russia’s ground forces — would be gone. That threat regained the deterrence America needed to keep Russia in line.

Sadly, that threat disappeared with the change of administration and with it the deterrence that the threat carried. Trump, Vance, Elon Musk, and many members of the new administration have spoken of the need to acquiesce to Russian demands out of fear of Russia’s nuclear weapons. In fact, the official 2024 Republican Party platform reeked of fear of Russian nukes. Even Zelensky spoke of that fear after his first meeting with Trump’s envoy.

That fear of Russia’s nukes makes their use far more likely. The Russians can be deterred if one can convince them that the consequences of their actions will far exceed any expected gain they would get from them. But if you convince them, whether intentionally or not, that they will profit from a vile action, they will do so. We had this figured out in the late 40’s, but sadly, this administration, in its zeal to rewrite American foreign policy, seems to have forgotten many lessons of the past.

Unfortunately, that means we’re all likely to have to relearn those lessons hard way.

You make a very good argument for Russia’s weakness in the Ukraine war… It is certainly telling they have been recruiting from north Korea, and Ukraine’s spectacular drone attack on the Russian air facility was as heartwarming as impressive. The point you missed tho was Russia’s tactical nuclear capabilities. NATO or the US are never going to attempt to take out any Russian assets… The consequences would no doubt be catastrophic… Russia has its own … ( I might be getting the term wrong ) Trifecta, however I can easily imagine a situation where they use a tactical nuclear weapon if Putin feels HE is going to lose the Special military operation in Ukraine.

Sad as it is, I don’t see an organized effective response from the west if he did… More sanctions? It would cement Russia as an international criminal state, but this war is all about Putin’s desire for a Russian empire like the good ol’ days, he’s not getting any younger, and is certainly not getting any more predictable ( as Trump is finding)

I appreciate your analysis of the situation, and sincerely hope you are correct… But I still think there is every need to hope for the best… And prepare for the worst.

NASA is not spending billions on any company to build a new space station. But it has spent much less than that, split three ways, on three consortia toward getting – potentially – as many as three new stations. The lead companies that have gotten some NASA money thus far for this purpose are Axiom, Voyager and Blue Origin. Vast has also tossed its hat in the ring hoping for some NASA money down the road but is building its first small station, Haven-1, “on spec” as the saying goes.

NASA would like to maintain some sort of presence in LEO, post-ISS, but doesn’t want to spend $3 billion annually for the privilege – maybe a third that much. All of the companies chasing NASA Commerical LEO Destinations money understand that NASA will not be paying the whole bill, either now or in the future, and that other investors and customers must be found to close a business case.

You seem unacquainted with any of this – which I find odd as it has all been covered and commented on copiously in the space press and on space websites for a number of years now, including here on BtB.

Artemis does have a LEO component, but manned space stations are not it. Both the SpaceX and Blue Origin lander architectures require, at a minimum, some propellant replenishment in LEO. That means depots. Longer term, that capability will be needed in lunar orbit as well.

The Russians were given an opportunity to be part of Artemis and there was some initial interest. But then former Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin got his panties in a twist – as he was frequently wont to do – and the Russians backed out of Artemis. The 2nd invasion of Ukraine pretty well nailed down the coffin lid on any future Russian participation in Artemis. Apparently, Russia used up all of its allowance of good decisions some time ago and has made nothing but bad ones since. That includes, most especially, ignoring the First Rule of Holes – namely, when you’re in one, stop digging.

I don’t think much of anyone at NASA really cares, anymore, whether or not Russia is part of the future in space. Given the high-handed way Russia has repeatedly treated NASA in recent years, I suspect most current staffers there – even ones who hate President Trump – would be happy to be rid of all Russian entanglements at the earliest opportunity consistent with NASA’s wishes. That means putting up with them until 2030 and then never having to concern ourselves with them again.

That is my preference too. I am hoping the Russians don’t take a dump in the ISS mess kit, so to speak, by having one of their under-engineered, wonkily-assembled and hard-used station modules cause NASA any more trouble than they already have. Get to 2030, bid the Russkies goodbye, drop ISS into Point Nemo and get on with the human expansion into the universe – entirely sans Russians.

It is my fond hope that, once the Ukrainians have sufficiently bled and enfeebled it, that Russia can be deprived of its nukes and its threadbare remaining navy by NATO special ops troops in lightning strikes. After that, I would leave Russia and the Russians to the tender mercies of the current descendants of all those it has conquered and enslaved over the centuries of its baleful existence. Russia needs to be gone – as a nation, as a people and as a culture. It would be lovely if, by mid-century, the only places the Russian language was any longer spoken were Hell and Brighton Beach.

The Russians do seem to enjoy their bloody work – at least the ones safely out of range of Ukrainian munitions. But they, of course, see themselves as the good guys, not the villains.

Putin rose to power for internal Russian political reasons. Russian popular sentiment certainly favored the Serbs during their immediate post-Yugoslav ethnic cleansing period, but Russia didn’t provide much more than verbal support. The Serbs have accommodated themselves to new realities since the late 90s – so much so that they are now distancing themselves, more and more, from their Orthodox cousins.

The Russo-Ukraine War has done huge damage to Russia’s influence even in its own immediate neighborhood. The Armenians, for instance, have been making overtures to Turkey, of all places, since the Russians did nothing to protect them from recent Azeri land-grabs. As Russia continues to bleed we can expect to see more and more of this sort of thing. Politics are particularly unsentimental in that part of the world.

Now I understand the argument that the cost of replacing the whole of the ISS module by module is out of the question. Its just far to expensive vs just replacing the whole with new.
But I am only talking about replacing one module.

“NASA commit to a private commercial station? That is against everything NASA stands for.”

Au contraire mon frere. That is official NASA policy and has been for some time.

ISS is an antique. It requires most of the time of its crew just to maintain its continued functioning. Commercial stations will be designed to minimize required maintenance – including spacewalks. It’s the Russians who need to keep desperately clinging to the past because they have no future. We do have a future. And we are building it with all deliberate speed. ISS has no rational place in that future. It needs to go – and it will. At this point, we need to do our best to see that it goes on schedule and not earlier due to some catastrophic failure.

Rob Crawford,

It does take chutzpah. But, while the Jews coined the word, a decent argument can be made that Russia invented the thing it denotes.

sippin_bourbon,

New York has been called that since the Brits took it from the Dutch in 1664. I don’t believe a single building that was standing in NYC in 1664 is still there. But it’s still NYC.

Joe,

There are plans to remove quite a bit of the interior science gear from ISS before it is de-orbited along with certain items of memorabilia. The original solar arrays have long since decayed, functionally, to the point where those roller-shade-style overlays became necessary. But it would probably cost more than just making and sending up new ones to salvage the latter from ISS. And they will have accumulated significant wear and tear in ISS service by the time any such salvage could be undertaken. Same with the Canadarm.

Lee S,

Regarding ISS and its replacement by commercial successors, perhaps it’s simply a matter of being a Brit expat in Sweden, and not having the irrational emotional investment in ISS that some of my fellow American space cadets seem to harbor. In any case, good on ya for that mate as the Aussies say.

Anent Russia, history only gets one so far. Among other things Russia has heedlessly hastened to incinerate in its profoundly ill-conceived war with Ukraine, a lot of its own history has been shoveled into the furnace of war in quantity – along with even more of its decidedly limited future.

Nations can die just like individual humans. It’s happened a lot since the invention of the nation-state six or so millennia ago. As I’ve noted here before, no current nation-state concerns itself with what the Medes, Phrygians or Thracians think about the geopolitical situation as those nations have long since ceased to exist. Russia will be joining them shortly. The reasons are many and the current Russo-Ukraine War is only the accelerant, not the fire.

Russia has been an expansionist imperium for its entire history. It reached its imperial peak in the 1970s, as the Soviet Union, then took one bite too many in attempting to subdue Afghanistan. From there it has been a continual downhill slide. The Eastern European and Central Asian territories departed upon the fall of the Soviet Union along with part of the Caucasian territories. Except for the sub-decadal Yeltsin era, Russia has been trying its poor best to take back what the Soviet Union lost ever since. Putin has made no secret of this. It’s his obsession.

Unfortunately, the history of declining empires offers little solace to someone of Putin’s ambitions. The best performance by a post-imperial rump was that of the Eastern Roman Empire – aka the Byzantines. They were unique. Russia will be no Byzantium 2.0.

For one thing, Russia does not have a “huge” population. India and the PRC have huge populations. The US has a very large population. Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Brazil have large populations. Bangladesh and Russia have moderately large populations as do Mexico, Japan, the Philippines, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Egypt and Vietnam. Of these 16 most populous nation-states, Russia is only at the top of the lower half of the list.

It is true that Russia started its current war with roughly three times the population of Ukraine, but it had a materially smaller advantage in military-age males and that advantage has been shrinking – rapidly – for 3-1/2 years. Russian fertility had fallen well below replacement level even before the Soviet Union’s demise and fell off of a cliff in its wake. Russia is severely underpopulated in the 0 – 40 demographic and has far too many citizens who are older than that. Of its pre-war 18 – 40 year-olds, Russia now has about three million fewer. A million – perhaps more – have died on battlefields. Roughly twice that many have permanently absented themselves from Russia to avoid the same fate.

Then there’s the matter of roughly half of Russia’s population not actually being ethnic Russians. Russia has tried to preferentially conscript non-Russian minorities as cannon fodder, but that process seems to have reached its limit. So Russia has now arranged for North Korean levies. Their combat effectiveness has been poor and their casualty rates have been calamitous. Now Russia has been trying to arrange for a million Indian guest workers to come staff its industries so as to free up more native manpower to feed into the Ukrainian meatgrinder. The Indians were apparently seriously considering doing such a deal – at least before Pres. Trump slapped them with punitive tariffs. I suspect that is now off the table.

In addition to its military requirements, Russia also needs manpower to keep its inefficient industries manned and – something that tends to be overlooked almost entirely by most Western commentators – keep its own citizenry in line. Dictatorships have need for large internal security apparats that free nations can do without. In the PRC, for example, the headcount of the internal security organizations is roughly twice that of the active-duty military. Russia’s own internal security apparat can hardly be smaller, proportionally, as it has a larger fraction of non-Russian population to keep in line than does the PRC anent non-Han Chinese and other minorities. And there is, of course, an increasingly unpopular war going on.

Nor does Russia any longer have a “huge amount of ordnance.” It used to, but has long since used most of it up. For the last two years, Russia has been relying more and more on North Korea for artillery shells and rockets and on Iran for drones. The Ukrainians increase their ability to hit both ordnance production facilities and ammo dumps by the day.

The same is true of every other type of military hardware. Ukraine had been pecking away at Russian strategic airpower almost since the war began, but its recent Spider’s Web drone infiltration coup took out roughly a third of such assets in a matter of minutes. Russia cannot replace any of the big bombers thus destroyed.

The same is even more true of armored vehicles – especially tanks. Russia has burned through pretty much its entire pre-war stocks. What is left in the storage bases is unrepairable junk. There is no new tank production of consequence and Russia has refused to commit the few new-model T-14s to combat. Between foreign-supplied units and those captured from the Russians, Ukraine now has appreciably more armored vehicles in service than does Russia.

There are, in short, no positive trend lines of any sort evident anent Russian war efforts. Ukraine still takes losses, but it has shifted the ratio of such losses further and further in its own favor as the war has ground on. Russia seems bent on fighting to its very last, but that last is now heaving into view. All Ukraine has to do to beat the Russians is simply to continue not to lose – something they have gotten steadily better at and continue to do.

I think we are already well past the mid-point of the Russo-Ukraine War. We simply won’t know how far past until Russia finally throws in the towel.

The ISS is outdated , by all accounts very smelly, and has a non zero chance of a catastrophic failure which would set back all sorts of planned missions decades. Get it splashed down safely and let the free market fill the gap. ( A strange comment from left wing me I know… )…. Speaking of which…

@Dick Eagleson, although I hope you are right regarding Russia Ukraine, it is never wise to bet against Russia… They have a huge population, a huge amount of ordinance ( even if outdated ) and tactical nuclear weapons, which who knows if Putin would use rather than losing face. History shows that Russia has very rarely lost a direct face to face confrontation. Don’t expect Ukrainian tanks rolling into Moscow any time soon.

Just a thought.

That is against everything NASA stands for.

I am sure that if the Russian leaky modules were replaced with just rooms connection the rest of the station that the station would last longer than 5 years. Weakest link and all that.

How long would it take to build, deploy, and attach one more more new American modules to replace the functions that Zvezda fulfills?

I would hope the problem is obvious here.

The more plausible solution is for NASA to hurry up and commit to a commercial space station as an anchor tenant. (Which, I know, would require a permanent administrator, which we will be lucky to even get this year.)

If we replace the Russian modules with American ones we would have no need for Russia at all and the station could keep going for a few more years.

Cosmonauts could come here and pay us to fly them to space. They would love that since a ride on a Space X ship is like a luxury cruse compared to their own junk.

Its like riding in a Tesla model 3 vs a Trabant 500.

If you tore down all of the buildings at Los Alamos National Lab and replaced them with newer, better buildings, is it still Los Alamos?

It’s a Laboratory of Thesus!

If you tore down all of the buildings at Los Alamos National Lab and replaced them with newer, better buildings, is it still Los Alamos?

If they want to keep going to space, let them kiss up to the Chinese, who will treat them with the disdain they deserve, and with any luck be severely hobbled by them!

A Falcon 9 or even a Heavy could carry more than enough mass to the ISS to replace any single module.

You could think of it as a great training project for in space construction.

I’m not saying *I* would have done it, but I grokked the argument.

Today, the rationales that existed in those days no longer apply. Honestly, if there were a way to eject the Russian segment that wasn’t prohibitively difficult and expensive, it would be difficult to oppose it.

So, enjoy it while it lasts, Dmitry.

There are, of course, easily imaginable scenarios under which that date arrives sooner. Russia builds military missiles in some of the same factories that also turn out its space launcher hardware. The growing ability of Ukraine to smash Russian industrial facilities at steadily growing distances from its nominal borders with Russia may make it impossible for Russia to continue space activities – including manned and cargo launches to ISS – well before an additional five years have elapsed.

And then there’s the decidedly non-zero probability of a Ukrainian column of Abrams and Leopard II tanks rolling into Red Square and reducing the Kremlin to powder with point-blank direct fire. At the rate Russia is burning through both men and equipment, I think such a scenario is fairly plausible at pretty much any point beyond roughly two years hence. With a bit of luck and increased Western support to Ukraine, it might even happen sooner.

There’s your problem

The Swedes go by Jante’….the Greeks wanted low taxes and big benefits–and it looks like they dragged the krauts down.

No more “free” health care, I guess.

Germany’s Fiscal Free Fall: Record Debt, Recession, and Welfare Crisis
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/germanys-fiscal-free-fall-record-debt-recession-and-welfare-crisis

Ray Van Dune: Heh. Please, tell us what you think of this. :)