That’s the thing though a tactical nuke on a specific target isn’t going to produce as much fallout and it’s arguably less deadly immediately than a full scale WWII era style firebombing. Like obviously the Hiroshima long term effects were horrible but firebombing of Tokyo killed way more people agregately. He’s definitely not using ICBMs against NATO but tactically nuking one city in the middle of nowhere would scare the shit out of people and rightly so….maybe I’ve watched too many episodes of 24 but the thought of a nuke going off in like San Bernardino an hour or so from LA was equally terrifying.
If asked, most Americans probably believe the U.S. and Russia are pretty evenly matched on nuclear weapons due to arms control treaties such as the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty—aka New START. That’s not exactly correct.
www.heritage.org
If I may, it's a little different than that. The targeting of a city with any sized nuclear weapon would provoke a strategic escalatory response.
I mean, start over. It's like this. A conventional kinetic conflict that goes nuclear is generally assumed to include the tactical
battlefield use of nuclear weapons. This was part of NATO defensive plans in the coldwar to prevent overwhelming Soviet armored superiority from crossing the Fulda Gap and reaching the Rhine and further west. On the Soviet side, under one prominent 1979 now known Soviet plan, they never used nuclear weapons on the UK or France, just conventional strikes at RAF bases in the UK -- likely out of fear of a nuclear response. They did include smaller tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield and, if escalated, move to cities such as Vienna, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Munich and some industrialized northern Italian cities like Padua and Milan.
In total, they expected to use around 7megatons in the operation. This is nothing compared to a strategic release using ICBM/SLBMs that would see hundreds of thousand of megatons used.
Furthermore, there are extablished nuclear strategy paradigms and doctrines that countries follow. The first is called
counter-force and is generally how the US and Russia would play out the opening rounds of a nuclear exchange. Using nuclear weapons on the battlefield against forces and then ratcheting up to targeting the other parties ability to use their nuclear force. So, this is why the Russians would turn the Dakota's into glass, because that's where our minuteman silos are. The US developed the B-2 bomber for this reason to survive and literally fly around contested Soviet airspace and search out mobile ICBM sites and destroy them (as well as hardened command and control bunkers, but an ICBM can do that just as easily). So, in the opening rounds the target is the other forces ability to wage war and strategic sites like command and control (ie. SAC headquarters, DC, Livermore, Sandia, Los Alamos, there are 17 labs I think). Again, the point isn't to win, but to survive and turn-off the conflict.
EDIT2: The Russian perspective is that NATO in Ukraine and AEGIS Ashore in Poland and Romania is an extistential threat as these system, could, theoretically, be used to house nuclear-tipped Tomahawks that could reach Russian targets quickly and upset the balance. This would be like putting Russian missiles in Canada. Granted, we offered to let them inspect the sites and opened it up for them, but they are paranoid fucks.
The opposite strategy, which the French employ, is called a
counter-value strategy whereby you knowing target civilian populations and make it known that you're doing this, driving up the cost of conflict so it never occurs.
Now, using a tactical nuclear weapon on San Bernadino is kinda silly. It accomplishes nothing but ensures a strategic nuclear response because you already ratcheted up to the counter-value part, the second phase. Any nuclear strike against NATO would entail an escalation, which is why the Soviets didn't even plan to do it during their wargames in which they plotted to drive to the Rhine in 7 days. To do it now is odd.
EDIT: The only strike on NATO I could foresee is if the US went through with that Polish offer to transfer their MIG-29s via Rammstein AB. I could see the Russians considering this an escalation on the west's part and that hitting Rammstein with stand-off weapons was a defensive maneuver to protect their forces in Ukraine. This would be highly escalatory and where things would spiral from.
Modern nuclear weapons aren't the radioactive things from WW2, which is why they're getting renewed interest in the West as deep penetrating bunker-busting munitions as you'd use in North Korea or Iran. But what would you do with one in Ukraine? There's no big maneuver warfare or open-field battles. There is no equivalent of the Fulda Gap. There is close quarter urban battles. The most effective way is to shell the fuck out of the city, starve it and then take it. Which is exactly what the Russians are doing.
I know this from a previous life in which I studied Cold War strategy in Bologna at SAIS for a bit, but take it or leave it.
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/NRWCA5LS4JKMJGKIEETGGVCIVI.jpg)
