President Joe Biden said on Monday the threat of Russian President Vladimir Putin using tactical nuclear weapons is “real”, days after denouncing Russia’s deployment of such weapons in Belarus. On Saturday, Biden called Putin’s announcement that Russia had deployed its first tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus “absolutely irresponsible”.
The idea-here is two-fold:
With those ideas in mind, the West does have a response available that doesn’t bring us to MAD, but does make another using a tactical nuke in any capacity an awful idea: overwhelming conventional force.
If Russia gains a local tactical advantage by nuking 5,000 Ukrainian troops, then a response that involves the entire Russian Black Sea fleet exploding, logistical depots all over the front exploding, troops all over the front exploding, and the Kerch Bridge exploding has made what was a tactical victory for Russia into a massive strategic defeat for Russia. Using this method, we have not escalated to MAD, and have made it a very, very poor idea to use nukes for any purpose.
I am not aware of an explicit plan that says only a conventional response is authorized. However, notable US commanders have said a direct and overwhelming conventional response from the West is what will likely occur if Russia uses tactical nukes against Ukrainian troops.
What is MAD?
Mutually assured destruction
Mutually Assured Destruction.
The idea that if one country targets cities with nukes, nothing will stop both countries from having large swaths of their cities and infrastructure destroyed from the following nuclear exchange. Therefore, it is in the best interest of both countries to never target an enemy city with nukes.
The US military undoubtedly has secret abilities they do not advertise. My guess is that in the event of real nuclear threat they will reveal and use something we’ve never seen before. Large scale EMP attacks perhaps?
space lasers