We Need More Bombs

A former big wheel in the US Defense Dept. has written an article for NATO Review giving his analysis of the of the possibilities of tactical nuclear exchanges in the continuing conflict between western Europe, the US and Russia. Tensions with China enter the nuclear equation as well.

The main points of the piece are:

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 In sum, deterring Russian nuclear escalation will still matter after the war in Ukraine ends for four main reasons:

1. Russia’s leaders have demonstrated a propensity to take risk and miscalculate in doing so.

2. Those leaders’ experience in Ukraine may have convinced them that NATO is vulnerable to nuclear coercion.

3. Russia will likely increase its reliance on nuclear weapons due to the performance of its conventional forces in Ukraine.

4. Russia could be presented with an opportunity to attack NATO if the US becomes engaged in a major conflict with another nuclear peer.

Deterring Russian nuclear use against NATO will thus remain an urgent imperative, even after the war in Ukraine ends.

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International relations usually involve some form of risk. Miscalculations aren't an exclusive property of the Russian leadership. In fact, US meddling in the internal affairs of Ukraine may turn out to be a miscalculation. Pushing NATO to the western border of Russia could be considered a miscalculation by the relatives and friends of dead Ukraine soldiers, as it was by the survivors of US adventures in Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq and other corners of the Middle East and Africa.

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To enable that strategy, NATO nuclear and conventional forces must be capable of:

1. Providing a robust range of response options to restore deterrence by convincing Russian leadership they have direly miscalculated, that further nuclear use will not achieve their objectives, and that they will incur costs that far exceed any benefits they can achieve.

2. Countering the military impact of Russian theater nuclear use.

3. Continuing to operate effectively to achieve US and Allied objectives in a limited nuclear use environment.

To meet these requirements NATO needs a range of continuously forward deployed, survivable theater nuclear capabilities that can reliably penetrate adversary theater air and missile defenses with a range of explosive yields on operationally relevant timelines.

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How much "survival theater nuclear capability" does the US and NATO need to restore deterrence? Won't many little theater H-bombs actually equal the destruction of ICBM weaponry? If a rain of smaller nuclear weapons falls on Russia why wouldn't they respond with strategic weapons? Aren't there "conventional" explosives that are equal in destructive capability to theater nuclear weapons? Wouldn't they, too invite a cataclysmic response?

At the same time, the US is being invaded from the south by a multi-national unarmed force that could conceivably take over the country without firing a shot. Uncle Sam is so obsessed with the Russian leadership and citizenry that he's willing to ignore what's going on in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. In reality, illegal immigration is a huge problem in the NATO countries as well. The Russia-Ukraine conflict may well be a smoke-screen for the invasion of Europe by Africa and the Middle East as well as an enormous opportunity for the western arms industry.