After ordering the invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin put his country's nuclear forces in a state of alert, causing fears of a nuclear war.
Russia's nuclear saber rattling is alarming, but most likely a signal for NATO not to get involved in Russia and Ukraine's conflict, experts said. Concerns are rising that Russia may try to strengthen its offensive with a tactical nuke. This is a subject of debate among experts.
The director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists said that they should be worried about the saber rattling by Putin.
Whether we should be worried about whether he will actually use them is another question, because there are no indications that he has taken any steps to ready.
Tactical weapons, also known as battlefield nukes, are designed to be used on a smaller scale and are likely to be used by Russia if they were to use nuclear weapons. Russian torpedoes can be fitted to destroy a naval base or air defense. Their blasts are typically smaller by a factor of 60 or more from Russia's inter-continental missiles, some of which carry multiple thermonuclear warheads.
Russia has more tactical nukes than the US but the US has more low-yield nukes. According to an analysis by the Heritage Foundation, this disparity could encourage Russia to take greater nuclear risks against non-NATO enemies, as well as make Moscow more likely to undermine NATO's nuclear credibility.
The move could be abracadabra type of chest thumping, but more than that, it is a very pointed message to NATO not to get involved.
In a March 1 interview, Joshua Pollack, Senior Research Associate at Middlebury and nuclear proliferation expert, said the same thing.
He said that every time Putin talked about nuclear weapons, it was to warn NATO. He said that tactical nuclear warfare is less of a concern if NATO stays out of the fight.
The consequences of nuclear combat are so extreme, with deaths measured in the hundreds of thousands if not millions, that some argue the West can't assume Putin is not bluffing, a view that is shaping the Biden administration's response. As NATO reiterates it will not defend Ukraine, some experts warn that an increasingly desperate Putin may have reasons to turn to a battlefield nuke.
More than 90 million people in Russia, the US and NATO countries could be killed within three hours if Russia were to use tactical nukes, according to researchers. The researchers from the Science and Global Security lab created a simulation that shows a nuclear warning shot from Russia could lead to a full-blown nuclear war.
The project is motivated by the need to highlight the potentially catastrophic consequences of current US and Russian nuclear war plans. The project states on its website that the risk of a nuclear war has increased in the past two years.
President Joe Biden has made it clear that the US has no interest in provoking Russia, and is trying to walk a fine line of hammering Russian with economic sanctions and continuing to arm Ukraine's military without being viewed by Russia as a combatant.
Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in February that provocative rhetoric about nuclear weapons is dangerous and should be avoided.
Although most experts agree that the chances of a nuclear war are very low, some are concerned that Putin would use a tactical nuke if he became desperate.
Kevin Ryan, a former defense attache to Russia and senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, is worried that Putin could use a small nuclear weapon.
Ryan said that it was not a good thing and that it was not something that everyone wanted to do.
The senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund said that Putin's nuclear threats should be taken seriously.
The difference between this conflict and Chechnya, Syria, and other attacks in the past is that NATO and the United States are standing right now on the other side of the border.
If this spills over into something more significant, he may decide to use whatever weapon is at his disposal.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
