by Sixstrings » Sun 15 Mar 2015, 18:04:32
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', 'T')here is also one other problem. Right now, people do not believe, in the West, that Russia will use its nukes. The hardliners *need* to nuke a city, in order for Europe to take them seriously.
Short of "nuking a city," an option for them would be to use just a *tactical nuke* against Ukrainian army or something like that.
Tactical. They'd never, ever, nuke a whole city just off the cuff Agent -- they're Russians, not monsters.
But they won't even ever use a tactical nuke -- Ukraine will just bitterly hate them for another thousand years if they ever did that. Seriously, Russia has enough people it has pissed off and introducing nukes into the equation isn't a way to win friends and influence people.
Calm down about the nuke fears -- even assuming they wanted to go that route, there are a lot of brinksmanship steps they can do between here and there.
The offensive strategic value of nukes is not in using them, but rather, just talking about using them.They could do all kinds of things, without "pushing the button," like for example just make a public show of moving tactical nukes into Crimea, etc. They're walking a thin line with this stuff though. That line is making people think you're a little bit crazy, even though you aren't. And you never want to go totally crazy, because Russian people don't actually want to live in some kind of lunatic North Korea nuclear cult.
edit: my only concern about nukes and Russia is the same as with north korea; we have to be worried about accidents, and if there were ever a launch that would only happen if their government flies apart and some rogue lunatic is in charge. Otherwise.. as long as they have some kind of organization in their leadership.. then talking about them nuke first striking is just silly.