this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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I find that hard to believe, considering that nuclear weapons have no strategic or tactical military applications whatsoever and only serve as an (effective) PR-campaign for scaring opposing civilian populations.
... does the Russian civilian population have any influence on Russian decision-making? Is there any point in running expensive PR-campaigns against them?
Never forget Stanislav Petrov. In the end it’s a human that needs to press the button, at least for now.
Fair (with a special ominous shoutout to your "at least for now"), but do you think Petrov's or any similar individual person's decision making in this scenario would involve any considerations regarding the size launching nation's or block's arsenal? I.e. "Launch detected from US... hm, better play it safe. Launch detected from France... eh, hit that button!"?
I mean... nuclear threat is nuclear threat. I am not questioning the effectiveness of that threat, I'm questioning the premise of the article.
When evaluating Mutually Assured Destruction scenarios military must consider backup plan for what happens after we bomb ourselves back to Stone Age. Russia has much more capability to carry on due to size, low population density and being used to things being awful all around. They’re mad but they are also cold calculating bastards that they are probably estimating chances of Syberia / Arctic being habitable after bombs and global warming.
A full nuclear war would bring nuclear winter to the global north.
Full scale one would bring death and destruction to the whole world one way or another. But a limited one with UK/France? 🤷♂️
There was a recent study that even a limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan would cause a global nuclear winter with billions dying from hunger.
You’re very likely right. India and Pakistan have roughly the same combined amount of warheads as UK & France do. Russia has much more so even in the best scenario outlook is rather grim but thankfully the deterrence has been working amazingly for every state with nukes, so far.
What really worries me is that in the event of a global war we’ll be dealing with lots of previously secret weapons. Satnav will go poof once Russia explodes their garbage bombs in space and that’s just one of the credible threats done so far.
They very much do. Nukes can be fine-tuned pretty well regarding blast radius, radiation intesity and duration of effect. Someone dropping a huge bomb on a city is how everyone pictures the start of a nuclear war but tactical missile strikes on military equipment and infrastructure would be much more likely. It's extremely difficult to destroy fortified military structures with conventional weaponry.
Any tactical use would quickly escalate to strategic use. Anyone who claims otherwise doesn't know what they are talking about (including the authors of the original article).
France has more than enough nukes as a deterrent. More important are credible second strike delivery mechanisms. Which rules out those silly gravity bombs the US has stationed in Germany for political reasons. How effective the French submarine fleet is in that regard is largely unknown, but on paper at least it looks solid.
I'd say there is a chance of a large scale conventional counter attack in that scenario but it's a slim one. Definitely not a risk any sane person would ever take.
Well, maybe. But in which scenario would such a tactical nuke be used against an enemy that also has nukes? Most likely in one where the large scale conventional attack is already happening.
At least in Europe these tactical nukes are supposed to be a counter against a large scale conventional attack that can not be defended against with existing conventional means.
They have a pretty famous strategic use, actually. To be fair, it dovetails heavily with domestic politics, but MAD is still strategy.