I need more context. Are we already engaged with Russia? Because I believe the current Russian doctrine is to only use tactical nukes to “de-escalate” - that is, as a defense mechanism when overwhelmed by conventional forces. Case in point, if NATO invades Russia, Russia drops a tactical nuke to bring the west to the table. Nobody wants tactical nukes to be the new norm.
And they wouldn’t target a city, they’d target a military objective such as a ship or armor formation. Or maybe an airstrip.
I can’t imagine Russia using an ICBM to decimate Kyiv, cold-war style. That is simply unconscionable and counter to their strategic and ideological objectives.
The initial objective was to move into Ukraine quickly, decapitate the leadership and annex the entire country.
NOW, the objective has shifted. It seems to be sit back and try to destroy as much of Ukraine’s cities as possible, and cause the maximum amount of civilian casualties. I really don’t see what this gains for Russia now - so I think that they really don’t have any strategic or ideological objectives anymore.
They’re just breaking shit and killing people.
So nuking a city full of civilians would seem to fit right into whatever the hell they’re thinking now.
I get a vibe of “if you can’t convince, confuse” as their strategy … at least they can say that they left a country in ruins when done … and its less of a clear fail for them
It doesn’t have to be nuclear retaliation, but I would go for massive retaliation. Kalingrad is an easily accessible target, and St. Petersburg is only 85 miles from NATO territory. Blow up a few Russian forward staging areas, threaten Minsk to see how Belarus responds, all of this can be done with conventional weapons.
I’d say, “Putin, you better knock it off or I’ll have Susan Collins furrow her brow and say she’s quite concerned”.
I’d plan a Godfather attack with everything synchronized to the second to happen simultaneously. Sink all their subs, knock out their satellites, take out all their ICBM sites
I wish the thread had a more realistic scenario so I could see if normally liberal posters, who have become quite bellicose in this thread, would still be that way.
Are there battlefield nuclear weapons that wouldn’t kill, from radiation sickness, a few thousand downwind civilians? Just the suspense over whether this was happening would put pressure on the U.S. and U.K. to (over) react.
One answer to my last question is use against naval targets far from land, but that won’t apply here.
As an American, I am glad we have those nearly invulnerable nuclear submarines. Because of them, there is no acceptable justification for a rushed response.
Sure there is. A hostile enemy state just used a nuclear weapon in war which is very likely to escalate. That’s a really good reason for a quick response. Having missile subs disincentivizes a first strike but it doesn’t prevent one if you’re using them as a second strike. If you’ve got a scorched Earth megalomaniac and you’re not sure the normal rules of MAD apply, a slow response is giving him time to raise his nuclear force readiness level. It’s not much of a comfort that we’ll be guaranteed to get off a second strike after our civilization is ended.
I’d declare war on Russia with a live speech to the world, with clearly stated goals and plans for obtaining those goals.
The Putin government must go, and as of now, the US is officially at war with Russia until this goal is met.
This plan is going to be accomplished by conventional means unless Russia launches additional nukes.
State clearly that the people with their fingers on the button are not to launch. For each nuclear weapon not launched upon completion of the war, those turning it in will receive 10 million dollars, along with asylum in the US, as long as no further nukes are launched.
Make it clear that the enemy is Putin and his government, not the Russian people.
Start the war once the necessary preparations are made, with the entire might of the US military and any allies that are willing to join in the fight.
Once Putin’s government is overthrown, install a temporary American leader until a new Russian government can be set up. I’m thinking something along the lines of Macarthur in Japan after WWII, not the post invasion Afghanistan and Iraq governments of this century.
If you value the lives of billions of humans, the only acceptable response is to take it on the chin and mount more aggressive non-military punishments, such as more aggressive sanctions. That’s the ugly truth. Anything else will begin the process of ratcheting things upward on the escalation ladder.
Once the Band-Aid has been ripped off, if we start mobilizing more forces to Europe for a conventional punitive strike, those forces will get nuked wherever they are. We can fantasize about decap strikes all we want, but the hard truth is that the choice is either to take it on the chin like a sniveling coward, or condemn billions of people to death.
I think the sniveling-coward scenario is marginally more likely while a Democrat is in office (because it’s the more practical and humane scenario). Marginally. But my abiding fear is that Putin is surrounded by people who are convincing him that it’s highly likely.
This has been very interesting. But I am afraid that what is being missed is that the instant Putin stares at possible defeat, even with conventional weapons as @Kent_Clark suggests, he is likely to lash out with everything–and I mean everything–he’s got. There would be no rational mind left and he would go completely MAD. You gotta do something to de-escalate, not escalate.
Do you recall the time the former guy wondered out loud what all those nuclear weapons were for if we were not prepared to use them. Well I see Putin, while more intelligent, as cast in the same mold.
And I still don’t know what I would do. But attempting to actually defeat Putin is very dangerous.
If nothing else, it automatically certifies that Putin is a war criminal, so you could safely start operating a grab-and-bag man-hunt for him at the earliest convenient moment (though, that probably wouldn’t be for a few years).
Other than that, I think there’s probably no clear best response. You probably need to wargame out different options and see how they play out and choose, based on the result of that.
My personal expectation would be that we already have that done and so, functionally, all I would do is approve the pre-determined plan, or a mix of a few from off-the-shelf.
If Putin nukes Kyiv, then World War III has already begun. All the nukes are going to fly no matter what I do. All I have control over is how many of those nukes are aimed where. My options are either that every Russian military facility gets nuked within the hour, plus some uncomfortably large fraction of non-Russian cities, or every major non-Russian city in the world gets nuked. Because if Putin nukes one city and the response is anything less than the complete and total destruction of Russia’s military, then he’s going to do it again, and again, and again, as many times as it takes to eliminate all opposition.
F117s are famous but they were retired in 2008. In theory they could be brought back but I doubt that happens. BTW they were never fighter planes they were ground attack planes. Not sure why they were not A-117 , maybe to get more money from Congress. The A10 is the main air force attack plane now. Navy F/A 18 is also an attack plane and a fighter.