As Russia’s attempt to invade Ukraine continues to force the Kremlin’s military reputation to swirl around the proverbial drain, there has been increasing chatter from Vladimir Putin and his cronies about using nuclear weapons.
In fact, just this week a rather worrisome bit of news broke through, as major components of Russia’s nuclear arsenal were seen on the move toward the front lines of the war.
But, should Putin actually pull the proverbial trigger, the US would likely take some serious action.
If Russian President Vladimir Putin makes good on his threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the United States would likely respond with a sweeping economic embargo combined with a massive conventional attack on Russian military positions that could quickly wipe out the Russian president’s invading military forces, said Joseph Cirincione, a national security analyst and leading expert on nuclear warfare.
The U.S. and NATO “could destroy the Russian forces in Ukraine in a matter of days,” said Cirincione, author of the book “Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late,” in an interview on the Yahoo News “Skullduggery” podcast. “That would be the end of the Russian army in this.”
And there could be a great deal more coming Putin’s way than just conventional warfare.
Cirincione said that if Putin were to actually make good on his threat to go nuclear, it would not be a large-scale thermonuclear bomb attack, but a more limited deployment of tactical weapons — far more limited in scope but still a major and unprecedented escalation. And Cirincione said that the U.S. military response would not be limited to the battlefield. There would also likely be a sharp escalation in psychological warfare such as was used to unnerve Iraqi generals on the eve of the U.S. invasion of that country. “The U.S. was calling Iraqi generals in their home and telling them to stand down. And they did that for two reasons. One, to let them know we know where you live, right? Two, we can reach out and touch you,” said Cirincione, predicting that the U.S. might well adopt such a tactic in the Ukraine crisis.
Putin crossing the nuclear line would essentially guarantee that NATO and west get directly involved in the conflict, as he has no further threats to make one he goes atomic.
