The Age of Predatory Nuclear-Weapon States Has Arrived(politico.com)
politico.com
The Age of Predatory Nuclear-Weapon States Has Arrived
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/09/30/putins-nuclear-threats-towards-ukraine-00059571
8 comments
Russia will not use a nuke.
I think tacticals will work surprisingly well, just the opposite of using tanks without air support.
The world maybe horrified at seeing a couple nukes blowing in the middle of a field, but tactics could end using very effectively a bomb that can clean a couple of square km. in one sweep. The low-yield thing just add an icing to the cake; you can swifly move ahead your own army almost just after the nuke has went off, without waiting for a deadly fallout ends in a couple of days.
And think about this: the enemy has no nukes and there's no way to stop the nukes. The battlefield has not seen this kind of radical strategic advantage since the invention of the tank.
The world maybe horrified at seeing a couple nukes blowing in the middle of a field, but tactics could end using very effectively a bomb that can clean a couple of square km. in one sweep. The low-yield thing just add an icing to the cake; you can swifly move ahead your own army almost just after the nuke has went off, without waiting for a deadly fallout ends in a couple of days.
And think about this: the enemy has no nukes and there's no way to stop the nukes. The battlefield has not seen this kind of radical strategic advantage since the invention of the tank.
What range of EMP effect can you get from a tactical nuke lofted to the height a howitzer can send it?
Eh? What?
Hiroshima? Or is that OK because it's the US doing it?
Hiroshima? Or is that OK because it's the US doing it?
You compare nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki to what Putin is doing in the Ukraine? Throwing troops over the border in a war Putin started and then howling about how he was going to launch the nukes if anyone stopped him from planting his flag in Ukrainian soil?
Contrast that with a US that has since gone out of its way to avoid using nuclear weaponry (very notably during the Korean War). The US has many, many faults, but this comparison strikes me as absurd.
Contrast that with a US that has since gone out of its way to avoid using nuclear weaponry (very notably during the Korean War). The US has many, many faults, but this comparison strikes me as absurd.
It arrived since 1945.
Russia will use a nuke, or several, and won't achieve much. Then the effect will be the opposite of what they expect. It will become a pariah state, think North Korea, but times ten. And there won't be gains on the battlefront to justify the international excommunication.
Other dictators contemplating the use of nukes will learn a lesson.
But, yes, most likely Russia will use a nuke, unfortunately.