Ukraine

8204 readers

603 users here now

News and discussion related to Ukraine

*Sympathy for enemy combatants in any form is prohibited.

*No content depicting extreme violence or gore.

Donate to support Ukraine's Defense

Donate to support Humanitarian Aid

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

107

CIA boss says west should not be intimidated by Russia’s nuclear threats (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/28496413

Western leaders should not be intimidated by Kremlin threats of nuclear escalation, the head of the CIA said on Saturday, and be willing to consider allowing Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles to be used inside Russia.

Bill Burns, on a visit to London alongside the head of MI6, said the US had brushed off a previous Russian nuclear scare in autumn 2022, demonstrating that threats from Moscow should not always be taken literally.

“Putin’s a bully. He’s going to continue to sabre rattle from time to time,” Burns said. “We cannot afford to be intimidated by that sabre rattling … we got to be mindful of it. The US has provided enormous support for Ukraine, and I’m sure the president will consider other ways in which we can support them.”

MBFC
Archive

top 7 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

nukes are basically zero sum except tactical nukes and dirty bombs

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

Tactical nukes aren't real. They start an escalation ladder that gets you to global thermonuclear war in a few hours. Using a "tactical nuke" is just laying naked your intent to have things go nuclear while giving your opponent a chance to respond.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis Kennedy wanted to nuke Cuba. The joint chiefs told him that if he wanted to do that he would also have to nuke Russia in a massive fully committed first strike.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

tactical nukes escalate all the way to strategic anyway and dirty bombs don't work

[–] BombOmOm 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The modern tactical nuke is as strong as what the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. People have this idea that a tactical nuke is 'small', but what is really the case is they are full sized nukes, and strategic nukes are simply larger. From a MAD perspective, there is no reason why dropping a nuke the strength of what was dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki would somehow be notably different than a larger nuke.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

tacnukes were obsoleted by DPICM and later PGMs

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

I wasn't?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Since when are we listening to whatever the fucking CIA says as if they were the good guys/ on our side?

edit: That being said, never trust anything Putin's boasting about either