Comment by potsandpans
6 days ago
Yeah yeah yeah, this is the new narrative that I keep seeing. "A small nuke, as a treat."
It's scary, but it's fine!
6 days ago
Yeah yeah yeah, this is the new narrative that I keep seeing. "A small nuke, as a treat."
It's scary, but it's fine!
It's happened before, although with no loss of civilian life.
In 1998 neither India nor Pakistan were considered members of the nuclear warhead club.
Then India detonated 5 warhead sized kiloton and sub kiloton class thermonuclear (fusion / hydrogen) weapons .. and within 20 days Pakistan responded with six atomic tests (non fusion, larger than warhead size).
The interesting thing about that exchange is that India suprised the world intelligence community pants down with capability and execution, and Pakistan's speed of response was equally suprising.
Despite the spectacle of rapid cross fire of eleven nuclear weapons and tense international responses the small nuke treats didn't escalate into anything larger .. and likely served to keep heads a little cooler wrt both India and Pakistan.
All up there has been > 2,000 nuclear detonations across the globe, some definitely intended to intimidate or otherwise push the envelope of possibility.
In that light another small nuke that avoided civilians and had a military target is unlikely to escalate although it would certainly cause a collective intake of breath and give pause.
Where did I characterize it as a treat or fine?
I said Russia dropping a nuke on a Ukranian military site will not escalate into a nuclear war. I say this because so many people assume that it would and it makes no sense.
Ukraine might have some possible retaliatory options in that case though. Far from ideal, but they could for example load a big ship full of explosives and blow up much of St Petersburg.
Of course, other options such as biological weapons have been explored in the past. Ukraine wouldn't necessarily have to invest all that much to prepare retaliatory operations capable of killing millions of Russians in the case of a nuclear attack.
The only problem with such less orthodox means is that they're almost necessarily covert, and therefore can provide limited deterrence. "We have ways to impose immense costs if necessary" just doesn't sound that scary when the means are a secret.
Sure. That proves my point though - no nuclear response.