Where are We Going with This?

The discussion of a potential Russian first use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine should be setting off alarm bells in rational people’s heads

There’s a concept in relations between nuclear armed belligerents (or potential belligerents) called the firebreak. It goes like this: Threats are one thing; saber rattling happens, and in the absence of other stimuli, it doesn’t necessarily create a desperate situation. An example of this is North Korea. Little Kim pretends to lose his mind and threatens terrible things on a regular basis, but nobody takes him seriously. He wants attention, not war. He has neither a casus belli nor an ongoing kinetic relationship with South Korea or the United States.

But when two nuclear powers already have a conventional kinetic relationship, the danger increases exponentially. It is generally believed that rational leaders are constrained from employing nuclear weapons by common sense and the survival instinct in all but the most extreme circumstances. The problem arises when one belligerent employs a single nuclear weapon, perhaps out of desperation, or as a demonstration to increase leverage. That single employment brings the conflict through the firebreak to the point where both powers are unconstrained in nuclear employment. The probability of nuclear employment stopping at one is low.

There is no such thing as a singular, precipitate use of a nuke that holds belligerents within some imaginary firebreak. That firebreak will evaporate.

How might we restore he firebreak in the face of Russian employment of a battlefield nuclear weapon? The solution would rest with a large, costly operation that employs conventional forces to destroy the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and a joint NATO operation to rid the skies over and adjacent to Ukraine of Russian aircraft. Such an operation would be logistically intensive, and fraught with hazards, as are all war making operations. For those who haven’t noticed, war isn’t clean.

Russia is already back on its heels. Its missile attacks on Ukraine are mostly being carried out by converted surface to air weapons. The Russian military logistics system in general is strained near the breaking point.

Sadly, there are no guarantees in warfare. Those of us not in control must wait it out while mediocrities named Biden, Blinken, and Sullivan try to save the free world — not a comforting thought.