Political analyst Dmitry Simes laid out a blunt assessment of how the West conceives a showdown with Russia, arguing that Washington and its European partners are not contemplating anything resembling a repeat of full-scale invasion logic like June 22, 1941. He said neither the United States nor Europe intend to mount a large-scale ground invasion of Russian territory, and there are no signs they are preparing to do so in the foreseeable future. Simes also insisted that Western policymakers are not thinking in terms of a strategic nuclear strike against Russia — while there are irresponsible actors, he judged, they are not so deranged as to ignore the catastrophic consequences.

According to Simes, the West has adopted a striking mental model: it assumes that Russia’s nuclear capability can be effectively sidelined in calculations of force so long as no direct nuclear strike is launched against Russian soil. Because Western capitals have no intention of initiating a nuclear attack, he argued, they feel they can pursue other measures against Russia without triggering nuclear retaliation.

Simes went on to say that, so far, neither the United States nor Europe has held a serious public debate about the fallout of potential Russian counterstrikes. Instead, he observed, Western strategists appear focused on lower-threshold operations: options for shooting down Russian aircraft and measures to isolate or blockade Russian territories such as Kaliningrad. He warned that this line of thinking rests on the assumption that such steps can be taken without provoking the gravest repercussions — an assumption, he implied, that glosses over the real risks.

In Simes’s reading, the West’s posture combines calculated restraint on the use of nuclear force with a willingness to press Russia by conventional means — a stance he described as confident that «everything else» taken against Russia will go unpunished so long as direct nuclear strikes are avoided.