Comment by jonplackett
6 days ago
This isn’t how nukes would get used. They wouldn’t just fire them at cities to start with. It would most likely be something tactical, but perhaps end up escalating to insanity anyway
6 days ago
This isn’t how nukes would get used. They wouldn’t just fire them at cities to start with. It would most likely be something tactical, but perhaps end up escalating to insanity anyway
You don't leave room to escalate beyond use if nukes anymore. Russia's response to a tactical nuke would be to turn Ukraine into glass. All leaving additional escalation on the table does is make sure that you don't make good on your word to make everyone lose too.
> You don't leave room to escalate beyond use if nukes anymore. Russia's response to a tactical nuke would be to turn Ukraine into glass
Tactical nukes are in ambiguous territory. Russia launching a blizzard of nukes at Ukraine is difficult to distinguish from Russia nuking NATO. To turn Ukraine into glass, Russia would need to gamble that Washington and France trust it.
Sure, but that practically looks like Russia telling NATO what it's going to do, then most of NATO sitting at DEFCON 1 and being ready to respond the instant any Russian missiles look like they're not going towards Ukraine. NATO has no reason to inject themselves into a nuclear exchange more than diplomatically, and has the ability to respond well after they know where Russian missiles are going to land.
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