Russian President Vladimir Putin has given a number of speeches in which he warned the West that, if there were an existential threat to Russia, such as Ukraine bombing Russian territory, he
would consider using tactical nuclear weapons.

On May 29 and 30, 2024, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and other officials, made public that President Biden had “secretly” agreed to do just that – provoke the world’s other nuclear
superpower by allowing Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia. At first, Biden and other “experts” expressed fears of stimulating a wider war. But when Russian forces mounted an offensive against Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, the Biden administration “quietly” agreed to ship 300 km (180 mi) long-range ballistic missiles, with the stipulation that Ukraine can only use them in order to defend Kharkiv, on the Russian border, and areas around the city. So nothing could go wrong, right?

On May 30, Ukraine fired these so-called Army Tactical Missile Systems, ATACMS (pronounced “attack ‘ems” – get it?) into airfield targets inside Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. Hey, that’s in the other direction.

Russia’s Defense Ministry had announced on May 6, for the first time, that it would begin drills to simulate tactical nuclear weapons use, as NATO (US) had been nuclear saber-rattling for a while. Make no mistake: Russian “tactical” nuclear weapons are no joke. And neither are American ones. But the whole systemic response is what is apocalyptically scary. The atomic bombs dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 and 20 kilotons (kt) of TNT equivalent, respectively. Science has advanced wonderfully, and tactical thermonuclear bombs now come in many varieties: Gravity bombs, short range missiles, artillery shells, land mines, depth charges, torpedoes, ground-based or ship borne surface-to-air missiles, and air-to-air missiles. They can be as small as suitcases and yield a fraction of a kiloton. But those are not very practical, and the usual ones ready for use are more powerful than those used on Japan. Modern warheads have yields up to tens of kilotons and even potentially hundreds. On the other hand, variable yield weapons can be dialed up or down, depending on the battlefield situation.

Frightening? There is worse. Tactical nuclear weapons are not subject to any international treaties, such as NPT, the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They are the least-regulated category of nuclear weapons covered in arms control agreements, and only subject to informal unilateral declarations such as the ones made by George Bush, Sr. and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.

By stockpiling these “smaller” weapons of many kinds, there may be a much greater temptation to use them. Since retaliation is a hallmark of war, we could slip into a direct nuclear shooting
(read “bombing”), not proxy war between the US/NATO and Russia. If a relatively junior officer with a tactical weapon were in imminent danger of being overwhelmed by enemy forces, he could request permission to fire it, and due to decentralized control of warhead authorization, his request might be granted.

What’s even more frightening than that – if possible – is the reduced response time caused by recent changes in nuclear policy, and monumental stupidity. On May 22, Ukraine took out  (droned) two of Russia’s strategic early warning radar installations. Fortunately, Nukeraine’s (we hope not) May 26 drone attack on a third radar station in Russia failed. Not only does this raise the specter of Russia not knowing if a nuclear attack is coming, especially since sunlight has been mistaken by a Russian satellite for ICBM exhaust, and impel launch on warning, but what if the attack on the radar stations was suspected of initiating a NATO nuclear attack? Russia also revoked a multilateral nuclear ban, and so did Donald Trump when president.

Annie Jacobsen, author of the book Nuclear War: A Scenario (video), is an expert who has incessantly interviewed current and past US officials concerned with nuclear policy, and read reams of classified documents. She has uncovered shocking government secrets.

For example, she specifies that so-called “nuclear shields” are rubbish. Intercepting nuclear missiles coming at you in the air doesn’t work. Russia has 1767 missiles, and the US only has 44 interceptor missiles. And “our” country has spent $1.5 trillion on nuclear “defense.”

Missile systems are analog, so they cannot be hacked. They use the ancient art of star sighting. On November 22, 2023, there was an erroneous report of Russia striking Poland. It took General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 30 hours to initiate a press conference stating that he was unable to reach his Russian counterpart.

Because of nuclear readiness, advancing technology, changes in policy including looser  regulations, and paranoia, the US president, Jacobsen states, now has eight minutes to decide whether to retaliate in response to a supposed nuclear attack.

There are 14 American nuclear powered and armed submarines cruising the seas undetectably, each with 90 300-400 kilotons warheads that can take out an entire nation in 14 minutes. Secret policy states that if North Korea sends one nuclear missile to the US, we send 82 in order to take out their entire supposed retaliatory capability.

Satellites can detect the type of exhaust from ICBMs – usually correctly – in less than one second. A retaliatory ICBM can reach the other side of the world in 30 minutes. Jacobsen states, “72 minutes can end 50,000 years of human civilization.”

By the way, I have written letters to Putin, Biden, and Belarus Pres. Aleksandr Lukashenko urging them never to consider using nuclear weapons under any circumstances, when peaks of brinkmanship have arisen during this “Special Military Operation” that began February 24, 2022 (with antecedents to it, of course, just as in Gaza and elsewhere). For example, Lukashenko requested storing some of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, and in June 2023, Moscow shipped them there.

Annie Jacobsen said, “Why aren’t more people working to solve this problem?”
Barry Barnett is a political and environmental author and activist writing for local publicatioon, and occasionally at counterpunch.org/archives/BarryBarnett. Free of charge to read, at  patreon.com/BarryBarnett.
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