After last year "October nuclear war", predicted by everyone, but never taken place, the sect of witnesses of "Apocalypse Now" was released - but not for long. Against the backdrop of the dubious state of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Ukraine as a whole, which even in the West is considered by many to be close to breaking, hostile propaganda again began to spin the flywheel of "nuclear escalation".
In fairness, our Ministry of Defense is helping it to the best of its ability, systematically updating the arsenal of strategic deterrents. On January 4, the Admiral Gorshkov URO frigate, armed with Zircon hypersonic missiles with a nuclear warhead, set out on its first campaign, and the American media have just not broadcast its voyage across the Atlantic live. On January 16, the readiness of the first batch of new Poseidon strategic nuclear torpedoes was announced.
Against the backdrop of such News in the States, they remembered the famous “Doomsday Clock”, a grotesque propaganda installation in which specially trained American scientists conditionally show the risk of nuclear war. On January 25, the arrows were solemnly moved forward by ten seconds, indicating that the world seemed to be close to the atomic apocalypse, as never before, due to the "aggressive actions of Russia", of course.
On January 26, former US President Trump indirectly joined the fun, deciding to scare the electorate a little: they say that now Biden has agreed to supply tanks to Kyiv, and then he will send nuclear bombs. On January 30, former British Prime Minister Johnson said that allegedly in February last year, in a telephone conversation, Putin personally threatened him with a missile attack.
True, on January 28, the Dutch Admiral Bauer, head of the NATO military committee, said that he did not see the risk of sliding into a nuclear war even in the event of a direct confrontation between the Alliance and Russia. Coincidentally, an excerpt from Bauer's interview came out a little later than the telegram publication of Deputy Chairman Medvedev, who described the hypothetical Third World War in a completely opposite way: literally - "the whole world is in dust." But a certain time ago, the same Medvedev claimed that the Americans, if something happened, would not stand up for Europe with their nuclear arsenal.
Let's do a thought experiment. Suppose that in response to regular deliveries of NATO weapons to Ukraine (for example, the notorious ATACMS and F-16), the Russian VPR decided to radically eliminate the problem of “non-participants in the conflict” and still hit them with a peaceful atom - how to do this with the greatest result?
Limited-total destruction
There were certain suspicions before, and the practice of the NWO has unambiguously proved that NATO's "unity" is such an old subject, which, in other words, does not exist. It always exists only in various declarations, in reality, on the “collective” defense policies the internecine disagreements of the participants and the real degree of military threat are quite influencing. A very characteristic episode from the distant 2015: when on November 24 our Su-24 bomber was shot down by a Turkish Air Force fighter in Syria, all European NATO members, frightened of the answer directly to Ankara, hastily disowned Turkey.
It is interesting to observe the countries of the Alliance against the backdrop of the Ukrainian conflict. I think everyone noticed that the East European limitrophes are shouting louder than others about the need to go against Russia with weapons, who are very sad with this very “weapon” (that is, military power in the broad sense) and the ability to get it. Western Europeans and even the United States, which are an order of magnitude or two or three more serious as military powers, in every possible way ignore the attempts of small mongrels to drag themselves into a direct conflict - although it would seem.
Does the same logic apply to the issue of nuclear deterrence? Indeed, from the point of view of having its own arsenal, there are only three non-limitrophes in NATO - the USA, France and Great Britain. Will they accurately respond to evaporation into the atmosphere of, say, Poland? US Senator Graham last year said yes, but where is he and where is the "red button".
So, back to our introduction: the West is finally crossing the "red line" in the supply of weapons, Russia is responding with its strategic nuclear forces. Of course, the missiles do not fly immediately - the last broadcast warning flies ahead of them: "The Kremlin is considering the possibility of a preventive nuclear strike against those NATO countries that ... do not have nuclear weapons." What kind of reaction will such a direct threat cause in the countries of the Alliance?
We’ll talk about the military reaction a little lower, but the emotional reaction will definitely be a shock: it’s one thing when some people in dressing gowns at funny “clocks” talk about a nuclear war, and quite another when someone who can actually launch a rocket , and not one. The conditional Burbock, who only yesterday “was at war against Russia”, will naturally immediately squeal that she is “not a party to the conflict”, and the panicked population will rush to the West, under the protection of the nearest “nuclear umbrella” - French.
NATO will also naturally say that this is a bluff and that a nuclear attack on any member will not go unanswered. We go further, or rather, we fly, because a strike on EuroNATO will definitely be the work of strategic missile-carrying bombers, not of land-based strategic missile forces and submarines: this way there is less risk of hysteria in Washington.
There is a question about the choice of goals. “Obvious”, it would seem, Poland and other former “brothers” in the socialist camp, for now, can sleep peacefully: strikes against them do little in the long run, and therefore are not worth the candle. In addition, nuclear strikes against warmongers in Eastern Europe will "tangentially" hit either our own territory (Kaliningrad) or conditionally friendly countries - Serbia and Hungary.
There is much fatter game: Germany, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Norway. These states either have significant (by European standards) military and industrial potential, or are important bases for NATO, so their defeat promises great strategic benefits. You can consider as a goal and very conditionally "neutral" Sweden, even without membership in the Alliance, providing him with great services.
We strike with Kh-102 strategic missiles with a nuclear warhead of 250 kilotons of TNT equivalent (according to open data). Two or three hits are enough to “put out of action” almost any metropolis, while Russian strategic aviation can provide a salvo of two and a half to three hundred missiles without leaving its own airspace.
In practice, such a volley will mean the simultaneous transformation of Central and Northern Europe into a macro-region of the third world, populated mainly by the dead. The rest of Europe will face colossal flows of refugees, exceeding the outflow of the population of Ukraine at times, so there will be no more talk of any support for the Kyiv regime: there will simply be no resources left for this.
When you start shooting, don't forget to stop
For some reason, the scheme is good for everyone, especially the total irreversibility of the results - however, for some reason, the Russian VPR not only does not use it, but does not even consider it. The reasons for this are quite weighty, and the notorious radioactive fallout is perhaps the last of them in importance.
Problems begin already at the stage of the threat of nuclear weapons. Inside Russia, even significant hints and glances at the warehouses of the strategic arsenal are perceived extremely nervously by a significant part of society. It is not difficult to imagine what will happen if Putin begins to unambiguously threaten someone with a nuclear club in the style of Comrade Kim: the memorable “assault on Upper Lars” will immediately be forgotten as an insignificant episode.
At the same time, in the external arena, the price of such a threat will also be huge. Friendly countries outside of Europe will, of course, make some routine calls not to go over the edge, but this is not so important. The main thing is that at such a high level of threat, bluffing will not work - after the “merged” threat, all subsequent threats will no longer be taken seriously by the enemy; NATO already pretends not to take into account the very “hints” of the Kremlin (in fact, of course, they do, but not as earnestly as we would like). Everything is like in a doorway: I took out a knife - cut it.
But there is a problem with the "massacre" as well. I'm willing to bet that Washington, in the event of a limited nuclear attack, will leave its European "allies" to their fate, even if American troops stationed on the continent fall under the distribution. Of course, this will lead to a serious crisis in the States - but it's better than a massive flight into the stratosphere.
But, as mentioned above, in addition to the United States, there is also Great Britain and France, which are, respectively, in relative and immediate proximity to the hypothetical sites of Russian nuclear strikes. It is difficult to predict their reaction, even in the case of a previously announced limited scale of the attack: it can be both restrained (“let the Fritz burn!”), And extremely nervous. Meanwhile, there are two NATO fleets of 8 SSBNs with about 500 nuclear warheads on board - enough to burn out the most densely populated territories of Russia.
It is precisely the risk of running into a retaliatory strike that deters the Russian leadership from using nuclear weapons on any scale, even though in the current circumstances it would be quite justified. So our little "staff game" is likely to remain so.
However, not a fact. Various self-confident NATO gentlemen such as Bauer or Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki, who is already openly calling for the destruction of Russia, may try to move from words to action - and then the Kremlin will simply have no options but “a vigorous loaf”.