| The NATO would be stupid if they nuked back, they have much, much more effective ways of striking back than tactical nukes. One thing that has been suggested was the destruction of the black sea fleet for example which might thread an interesting needle: - because it is stationed on Crimea one could argue it is not Russian soil, if one does not accept the Russian anexation of 2018 - it is mostly a military target so civilian casualties are not on the scale of e.g. nuking a city - the defeat of the black fleet would certainly be felt in the (as of now) mostly isolated Moskow circles and political survival for Putin would be hard As everything war you cannot really 100% rely on such planning tho. Unforseen dynamics may arise that take you for a ride with a destination you may not like. IMO Putin is currently on such a ride and if we had a machine that would return everything to a pre-Invasion state, I highly suspect there would be one Russian dictator that would like to use it. But no such machine exists, and I think "the West" in case of tactical Nuke use has to find a way of threading the needle, with just enough retaliation to stop the Russians from doing more, but not so much that they completely panic. Doing nothing in return will normalize nukes, so it is not an option. |