How adorable, the Bear's trying the Dulles Foreign Policy approach:
http://jewishbusinessnews.com/2016/02/22/did-russia-just-threaten-turkey-with-nuclear-weapons/
So now Putin's basically claimed that he'll use tactical nuclear weapons on a NATO power that has very clear and present interests in deposing a dictator free to shell its cities at will and not wanting to create an even more endemic bunch of baby-killing nationalist bloodthirsty terrorists with a new state propping them up over the border. This is, of course, from one remove nothing more than the old US Massive Retaliation approach where the USA turned any geopolitical that ever happened in the history of ever into a nuclear war scenario because fuck the planet, we'll nuke humanity to the medieval era again if we don't get what we want.
Thing is that the USA had two advantages when it did that: a bigger arsenal than everyone else, and two, the ability to blast everyone else to rubble. Now Russia can do this, in theory, just as well as the USA can.
Russia actually has a larger nuclear arsenal than the United States at present, with 200 more active weapons and around that same amount of total weapons:
http://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report
Now, since nobody except North Korea's fired the damn things off in thirty years, what that means in practice is an open question. Russian technology is rugged and fairly shitty in material terms but it also tends to work more efficiently than overly computerized US analogues.
However, that implies that Russia is going to go beyond this precedent:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War
Which, as might be straightforward, was another of those quasi-not really but kinda yeah nuclear wars between zealously Muslim US-sponsored terrorist creating Pakistan and quasi kinda sorta meh whatever secularist India, when it's not got problems with both Muslim and Hinduvta fanatics wanting to retcon Nehru's idea for a new religious state joining all the other great success stories that exist only in the minds of deluded religious adherents. Even when one side believes Brahman justifies itself and the other is all hot and willing to blow up its sons and daughters in Helmand and Kabul for Allah, nuclear weapons never were fully resorted to.
But sure, like the USA over Cuba and the Soviet Union with the Ussuri River, Russia will totally end the period when the only state to use nuclear weapons in anger is the USA over fucking Damascus. Even goddamn Israel ain't willing to use fucking nukes in the region over wars that are much more relevant to it than any war here is to people in Putin's Russia. The USA has set a precedent of nuclear brinksmanship, but at the same time the last time anyone used the damn things was 1945. Endless posturing about this is just empty bravado, and in this case in no small part a reflection of a regime that judging by the forgotten protests is not entirely as stable as its KGB Apparatchik likes to think.
Now if the USA is fucking stupid enough to elect the walking hairpiece with a mummified animal on his bald skull, we might actually see WWIII from two macho posturers incapable of walking their way back from anything halfway intelligent. If. But right now, this is just a sign of further escalation, a sign that the bear learned the wrong lessons very well from the eagle, and yet more proof of what a smashing success Hillary Clinton's Reset policy was. Yes, the USA did reset things all right....right back to 1953! And for this we want to reward the dipshit that reverted the clock back a few decades with the same power Putin and Obama have, the ability to fire nukes in anger!
If there are any alien imperialists out there wanting to blaze Earth for an intergalactic highway, c'mon ahead, humanity keeps sinking the bar lower enough that you couldn't do any worse with this space than we are!
So now Putin's basically claimed that he'll use tactical nuclear weapons on a NATO power that has very clear and present interests in deposing a dictator free to shell its cities at will and not wanting to create an even more endemic bunch of baby-killing nationalist bloodthirsty terrorists with a new state propping them up over the border. This is, of course, from one remove nothing more than the old US Massive Retaliation approach where the USA turned any geopolitical that ever happened in the history of ever into a nuclear war scenario because fuck the planet, we'll nuke humanity to the medieval era again if we don't get what we want.
Thing is that the USA had two advantages when it did that: a bigger arsenal than everyone else, and two, the ability to blast everyone else to rubble. Now Russia can do this, in theory, just as well as the USA can.
Russia actually has a larger nuclear arsenal than the United States at present, with 200 more active weapons and around that same amount of total weapons:
http://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report
Now, since nobody except North Korea's fired the damn things off in thirty years, what that means in practice is an open question. Russian technology is rugged and fairly shitty in material terms but it also tends to work more efficiently than overly computerized US analogues.
However, that implies that Russia is going to go beyond this precedent:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War
Which, as might be straightforward, was another of those quasi-not really but kinda yeah nuclear wars between zealously Muslim US-sponsored terrorist creating Pakistan and quasi kinda sorta meh whatever secularist India, when it's not got problems with both Muslim and Hinduvta fanatics wanting to retcon Nehru's idea for a new religious state joining all the other great success stories that exist only in the minds of deluded religious adherents. Even when one side believes Brahman justifies itself and the other is all hot and willing to blow up its sons and daughters in Helmand and Kabul for Allah, nuclear weapons never were fully resorted to.
But sure, like the USA over Cuba and the Soviet Union with the Ussuri River, Russia will totally end the period when the only state to use nuclear weapons in anger is the USA over fucking Damascus. Even goddamn Israel ain't willing to use fucking nukes in the region over wars that are much more relevant to it than any war here is to people in Putin's Russia. The USA has set a precedent of nuclear brinksmanship, but at the same time the last time anyone used the damn things was 1945. Endless posturing about this is just empty bravado, and in this case in no small part a reflection of a regime that judging by the forgotten protests is not entirely as stable as its KGB Apparatchik likes to think.
Now if the USA is fucking stupid enough to elect the walking hairpiece with a mummified animal on his bald skull, we might actually see WWIII from two macho posturers incapable of walking their way back from anything halfway intelligent. If. But right now, this is just a sign of further escalation, a sign that the bear learned the wrong lessons very well from the eagle, and yet more proof of what a smashing success Hillary Clinton's Reset policy was. Yes, the USA did reset things all right....right back to 1953! And for this we want to reward the dipshit that reverted the clock back a few decades with the same power Putin and Obama have, the ability to fire nukes in anger!
If there are any alien imperialists out there wanting to blaze Earth for an intergalactic highway, c'mon ahead, humanity keeps sinking the bar lower enough that you couldn't do any worse with this space than we are!