MAD or TACO?

Ukraine is a difficult problem for the West, but so is nuclear war

Jun 04, 2025

Ukraine’s security forces have been touting the huge victory of Operation Spider Web, and the mining of, and possibly critical damage to the Kerch Strait bridge connecting Russian-occupied Crimea to Russia proper. They’ve been comparing the damage to Pearl Harbor in World War II. I don’t think that’s a proper analogy for a couple of reasons. First, I think we know who won World War II, and it is not the nation that executed the Pearl Harbor strike.

Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

To expand on that a bit. IJN Admiral Yamamoto did not believe that a successful strike at Pearl Harbor would knock the United States completely out of the war. He did think that it was Japan’s best chance to get America to sue for peace—eventually. Yamamoto had lived in the U.S. for several years, attending Harvard University and traveling around the country, and then later as naval attaché in Washington, D.C. He knew Americans’ psyche regarding war. Even had Japan knocked out the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet carriers, which were primary targets but not at Pearl on December 7, 1941, Yamamoto believed that the U.S. would rebuild and still eventually overwhelm Japan.

Another reason I don’t like the Pearl Harbor analogy is that there’s a far better one, also in World War II, and in the Pacific theater. On April 18, 1942, just over four months after Pearl Harbor, 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers flew over Tokyo, on the Japanese home island of Honshu, and dropped their bombs. This was, until it happened, deemed to be impossible by Japan’s military leaders. It was a wake-up call to those leaders of the innovative spirit and determination of American warfighters. The raid was led by Lt. Col. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, and is commonly known as the “Doolittle Raid.”

Jimmy Doolittle didn’t plan a suicide mission. His bombers were set to land in friendly China, and the pilots would make their way home from the Chinese mainland. However, a Japanese scout plane spotted the carrier USS Hornet before it reached its planned launch position, and the bombers had to depart early, which meant most of them would run out of fuel before landing. The story of their journeys—11 pilots lost their lives—is legendary. One crew ended up in neutral Russia, and took over two years before they made it back, since the Russian government refused to repatriate them to the U.S., despite being an ally.

The value of the Doolittle Raid was psychological. The bombs didn’t do much damage to Tokyo or Japan’s war machine. But popping Japan’s bubble of invincibility from American strikes on its home island was extremely valuable in both U.S. morale and its effect on Japan’s war planning.

Russia has long believed its bases in Siberia were invulnerable to air attack, and remote enough to escape any possible ground or special operation assault. That belief is now debunked. The level of paranoia and panic displayed by Russian security forces now having to check every truck and driver is damaging and morale-building for Ukraine. What Ukraine pulled off was a Doolittle Raid, not a Pearl Harbor.

However, the desired outcome, which is to bleed Russia to the point where it might negotiate, is producing the opposite effect. Putin’s puppet and Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev posted on Telegram that Russia’s goal is the “complete destruction” of the Ukrainian government and “swift victory” in Ukraine. Russia aims to hit back hard and target individuals who oppose them. There will be no peace terms.

I still wonder what U.S. intelligence and military communities knew about the planning of Operation Spider Web, which had been in the works for well over a year. I find it difficult to believe that it was done without any U.S. assistance, and somehow kept from us for all that time, especially since it began in the Biden administration years. I wonder if those assets in the U.S. who knew about it ever briefed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, or President Donald Trump. If they didn’t, and the operation was a surprise, I wonder what the backlash will be. I think someone should be asking those questions, and I hope newsrooms at various outlets are pursuing this as a story.

This brings me to my main point here. What will be the U.S. reaction to Operation Spider Web and Russia’s response? I know some in the independent media, like Russia-loving Matt Taibbi, think that it’s “insane” and “treasonous” to cheer for Ukraine. Others believe that the West has a moral obligation to oppose evil aggressors like Russia and to support Ukraine’s struggle to remain independent. It’s a hard question, because all signs point to two facts: 1) Russia is in this war for a much longer term than just three years, to win it; and 2) Putin is not scared to threaten to end the world.

So Taibbi’s claim that “more war” or “forever war” as many other America First supporters call it, is not really false. There will be war in Ukraine, between Ukraine and Russia, until one side capitulates its demands. Even if Ukraine sets what appear to be reasonable terms for a cease-fire, Russia won’t accept anything less than complete capitulation. And Ukraine only went to the table because the Trump administration applied maximum pressure, by cutting off real-time intelligence sharing.

Without U.S. aid, I believe, with other NATO nations continuing military support, that Ukraine can continue its war effort for quite some time. But Russia is actually stronger than it was two years ago, and that’s troubling. The strikes in Operation Spider Web are bad for Russia, and potentially change its strategic footprint, especially in its nuclear delivery capabilities, but they are not fatal in Russia’s effort to package large strikes against Ukraine.

In October, 2022, I wondered in a post if Russia was about to shoot its last cruise missiles. Then, Russia appeared to have about 1,800 3M14 Kalibr cruise missiles, with a range of 2,500 km. These are typically launched from mobile, ship, or submarine platforms. Currently, Russia appears to still possess over 400 Kalibr missiles, according to ISW, and they produce 25 to 30 new ones each month. The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air launched cruise missile has a range of around 2,000 km, and travels at up to Mach 10. Russia produces 10 to 15 new Kinzhals each month, and has a stock of around 100. Altogether, Russia still possesses over 13,000 missiles of various types, which is enough to batter Ukraine for quite some time.

Russia continues to import thousands of Shahed drones from Iran, and produces decoys that, to radar and other surveillance systems, look almost identical, by the tens of thousands. ISW reports that roughly half of Russia’s drone strike packages against Ukraine consist of decoy drones, and the reset are real Shahed drones. Coupled with the missile strikes, even with the loss of some strategic aircraft to put more Kinzhals and other ALCMs in the air in strike packages, Russia’s ability to target Ukrainian civilian, military, and infrastructure has not been fatally crippled.

The ground war is at a standstill, but Russia slowly, grindingly, has been taking ground, a square kilometer at a time, while Ukraine marshals its infantry strength through preservation. Even at a 10:1 casualty rate, Ukraine cannot afford to lose its ground operators in a protracted war that goes on for many more years.

So this is indeed a “more war” scenario, and the loss of some of Russia’s irreplaceable strategic aircraft does not make it more likely Ukraine will come out on top. But it does make things more unstable regarding Russia’s strategic (read: nuclear) stance. I wondered if Russia takes great care of its nuclear stockpile, and the answer is: yes, it does, much more so than the U.S., though the U.S. is no slouch in keeping our nukes “shelf” fresh.

Thermonuclear weapons need regular maintenance and replacement of core components, as plutonium, tritium, and the other parts of the “physics package” of a warhead are not permanently shelf stable. Russia spends a lot of time and effort maintaining and modernizing its nuclear stockpile and delivery systems. The RS-28 Sarmat (“SATAN II” in Western parlance) ICBM is a new variant capable of carrying multiple warheads and countermeasures. It is designed to devastate the United States, not Ukraine.

Regardless of the outcome of the Ukraine war, Russia remains our largest strategic adversary. They reportedly still have their “dead hand” system operational, meaning if Putin dies under mysterious circumstances, there’s a chance things can spiral out of control. China is a great adversary to the U.S. and our allies, including Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, but Russia is now, as it has been for most of 100 years, the big strategic bear.

Anything that destabilizes Russia has the ability to ripple into the nuclear realm. And the core belief in the nuclear realm, at the strategic level, is “use’em or lose’em.” If Russia believes it is compromised in a strategic nuclear stance, that’s not good for anyone. It potentially has the effect to invalidate the “MAD” (Mutual Assured Destruction) doctrine that has ruled nuclear poker since the 1950s. The nuclear threat, in fact, is what Putin has used since Day One of the Ukraine invasion, to keep the U.S. from directly engaging.

What Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web has done is not to injure Russia’s core ability to attack Ukraine, though it has somewhat degraded that capability. It is to destabilize Russia’s strategic stance on the nuclear stage. It is also to increase the level of paranoia in Moscow, and in Putin’s mind. None of these things are great for world stability and avoidance of nuclear holocaust.

The decision facing U.S. policymakers is how to handle this reality. Will President Trump follow through with much harsher sanctions on Russia for refusing to negotiate with Ukraine? Will he count on MAD to keep Russia from having its way, or will he go the other route, as the popular meme says “Trump Always Chickens Out”—TACO?

What would TACO look like? It’s walking away and leaving Ukraine to Europe for its long war. It’s telling the Russians that MAD is more or less alive, but not to be used to defend anything in particular, other than what Trump considers useful or sacred to him. TACO means Russia gets to threaten Europe with nukes, and the U.S. shrugs. There is no MAD to cover Europe when TACO is in control.

And that will factor in big on how Ukraine and Europe prosecute this long war. For Russia to lose, it will have to lose its industrial capability to replace missile stocks. This means more Operation Spider Web type planning. It means more paranoia from Russia. It means more nuclear threats. That could change the way European NATO powers handle Russia. They could make a deal that leaves Ukraine out in the cold.

I don’t know the answer, and I am making no predictions. But I do know that what Ukraine did will have an effect, and everyone will be watching both Moscow and Washington, D.C. to know what that effect will be. Will it be MAD, or TACO? Comments are welcome.

MAD or TACO?

Ukraine is a difficult problem for the West, but so is nuclear war

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