RT yesterday published a new article by Sergey Karaganov, the Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, who kicked up a storm of debate with his earlier June 13 article, “A Difficult but Necessary Decision,” which called for Russia to consider launching a nuclear strike against a European country. His latest piece ran under the unsubtle headline: “Here’s Why Russia Has To Consider Launching a Nuclear Strike on Western Europe.” (https://www.rt.com/russia/578814-russia-has-to-consider-launching-nuclear-strike/ )
The article is largely a repeat of the arguments and examples used in his first piece. He begins by noting that people today “have lost their fear” of nuclear weapons, and argues that the only way to re-instill the requisite level of fear sufficient to avoid a full-scale nuclear war, is by dropping a tactical nuke or two on Western Europe. “I hope we never use nuclear weapons, but the fact that we refuse to allow their use in all situations except in the case of mortal danger to the state itself seems to me to be reckless,” Karaganov writes. “I believe that our president must demonstrate his willingness to use nuclear weapons at some point.”
Karaganov says he doesn’t think a nuclear weapon has to be dropped right away. “We have time, but we must realize that it is rather short.” He tries to further reassure the reader that using a tactical nuke in Western Europe would not result in a U.S. nuclear attack on Russia: “When discussing a hypothetical atomic attack on Western Europe, the question arises: how would the U.S. answer? Virtually all experts agree that under no circumstances would the Americans respond to a nuclear attack on their allies with a nuclear attack on our territory.”
This last statement, besides being wildly irresponsible, is factually wrong. Many, if not most, nuclear experts argue that once a nuclear exchange of any sort begins, the logic of nuclear war is that there will be nearly instantaneous escalation to full-scale war on all sides.
