If Russia breaks out chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, the calculation on (b) changes. The cluster bombs are pretty bad, yes, and reflect very badly on Russia, but they're still conventional munitions. The impression I have thus far is that this is becauseĪ) Russia has not invaded/declared war on "the West" in a meaningful way yet: it has invaded the Ukraine, which is not a member of NATO, the EU, or any other specific mutual defense pact with the rest of "the West".ī) Relevantly to this thread, Russia has not yet used any forms of warfare that truly cross the line into "mad dog that needs to be put down at all costs". > Right now West's response to Russian invasion is highly asymmetric - essentially sanctions vs missiles. I'm hoping it doesn't.Įdit: A bit of a read, but basically, Tactical Nukes have historically been a more practical aspect of Russian Military Doctrone. So now you're breached the "nuclear" threshold in a way you tell yourself is "limited" and "tactical" and "justifiable", but other side certainly doesn't perceive it as such, and brings "proportional response" otherwise you'll just go ahead and do it again, and off we go from there. Somebody somewhere decides that a kilotone-range tactical nuke (as opposed to megaton range ICBM) is justifiable on the battlefield, will bring swift victory, and other side won't dare escalate further. My assumption is that the intervening, enabling step is tactical nukes. But there's a lot between guns and even thermobaric missiles and cluster bombs, and global thermonuclear annihilation. "I'll escalate so high they won't dare follow". I think in conflicts like this, each side tries to be the one to make the big, unanswerable bluff. It always surprises me that most of the discussion on nuclear Armageddon is about sudden push of big red button.
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