yeah, this last part is key. This isn’t a 20th century war where both sides have massive tank and artillery formations, and Putin could use a tactical nuke against a tank/artillery formation. He basically can only use it against a population center. That by definition is not a tactical use.
Does it? This was basically the European theater. Although I guess the fact that I’m saying euro theater and ignoring the pacific means a lot
I’m concerned about a semantic debate over what time of nuclear weapon use Putin is contemplating!
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Is this on Twitter somewhere? I don’t see it.
https://twitter.com/armchaircopelrd/status/1574164902217977856?s=46&t=Ob-dPoT0U4bXyeFLWWA4Wg
https://twitter.com/armchaircopelrd/status/1574167005522845696?s=46&t=Ob-dPoT0U4bXyeFLWWA4Wg
Pretty fucked up
Are these guys going to be any less motivated to run away when they’re dropped off at the front line?
Only the slow ones would have been caught
There’s a difference though and it’s not semantics. If he nukes a city that’s probably ball game, I don’t see how we dont’ devolve into full blown nuclear war.
If it comes to it we can hope it matters but I recall reading that NATO policy does not distinguish between tactical and strategic use of nuclear weapons. I don’t recall but I think it was a former NATO commander saying that. Maybe it’s a kind of bluff idk.
the distinction of tactical and strategic is dubious. especially since its use is literally not upto our definition, but upto whatever putin can rationalize. plenty of people opined that a small nuke is somehow not big enough for a tactical strike, whereas it’s clearly big enough for a strategic strike, as you just agreed with.
and putin is already firing long range missiles at krivyi rih, kyiv, and lviv, with seemingly no tactical purpose. thus, he’s conducting strategic strikes, with combined power into kilotons (e.g ~.5+ ton/kalibr).
and he has plenty of tactical targets. he could conceivably give up kherson and use a 50kt warhead while afu are securing it. the catastrophe would essentially tie the southern force to that area rather than advance. he could rationalize that a destruction zone between kharkiv and belgorod would be a buffer, or creating an exlusion zone on the way out of kupyansk toward luhansk, as a way of delaying or stopping the counteroffensive there. he could do the same to breakthrough afu defenses outside of donetsk, in an effort to have wagner finally capture bakhmut.
i understand the hesitation to claim that putin is ready to use nukes, precisely because it’s a warning or bluff designed to keep nato from intervening. but i have operated from the beginning with the assumption that putin will use nukes when backed into a corner or losing, as he has signaled for years. and he is currently backed into a corner and losing at the same time. this is the exact situation where i thought he’s a lock to do it.
eta: i guess i would say it is still a lock, because i have met and interacted with plenty of russians backed jnto a corner in the last few years
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It’s been a while since I looked, but I thought the idea was that tac nukes had pretty small yields, like some not much more powerful than shit like MOAB. I remember Duncan Hunter (criminal cali r congresscritter) talking about using some variation of a nuclear tipped bunker buster against Iran nuclear facilities or the like in the mid 2010s. Like the Russians could use a small yield nuke just to use it, then deny that they have used it, for … reasons.
It’s button-clicking because losing isn’t considered an option. This should be looked at psychologically. Is Putin the kind of guy who will do anything to avoid taking the “L”? If so, then it seems like he eventually has to come around to using nukes.
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The idea behind distinguishing between tactical strategic nukes is to artificially create multiple nuclear rungs on the escalation ladder, so that you can justify a smaller response.
If I were Putin, I would consider assassinating Trump and trying to frame Dems/Ukrainians for it in the hopes of creating domestic chaos in the US that forces the government to concentrate on interior matters and pay less attention to foreign policy.
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That sounds like some pretty bad fancy play syndrome.
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Yeah what if they just supported the whole Republican Party that supported trump? Oh wait
At least trying to induce MAGA idiots into opening what amounts to a second front inside the US isn’t using nukes.
All this generally informed talk about potential nukes and responses makes me think it would be worth going after Putin personally even at very high cost and high risk. Certainly if a tactical nuke were used, there should be multiple contemporaneous conventional efforts to eliminate Putin. Like there should probably a $10bn per year program concerning ways to locate and kill Putin. I very much doubt there is, but there should be.
that’s what i came up with, but i’m just an armchair nuclear strategist specializing in post-soviet politics, with a jerk-arate thesis on the greatness of motherland.
fwiw, it’s not that hard to monitor all known bunkers and yachts, and the movements of his personal guard unit. but even fidel escaped assassins for a long time. 
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I think capturing or killing Putin in Russia would be really, really hard to do if that is the plan. For reference it took 9 months for USA #1 to capture Sadam Hussein after they invaded Iraq.
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