One dark thought that I have been mulling over for the past few days was regarding a threat made by Putin earlier in the war.

It has always been a pro forma ‘ritual’ for Russia, just before they embark on a military adventure to remind the world that they have ‘nukes’.

But Putin later announced that he was placing Russia’s nukes on alert. This confused a lot of watchers as Russia’s strategic nuclear forces were always on alert.

Unnoticed by many at the time was the re-instituting of readiness status for the tactical nukes. That had been turned off after the end of the Cold War. At this point, to the best of my knowledge, from no status they were put into normal rather than high alert status.

I am guessing that this might have been an implied threat that tactical nukes might be a Russian option to use against Ukraine if the conventional forces failed. Certainly they could significantly damage urban areas very quickly, beyond what the current conventional efforts can do. They might also damage Ukrainian military concentrations and installations. And they would kill lots of innocent Ukrainians. Plus they can be fired from Russian territory.

I do not think that NATO would risk global thermonuclear war, and the death of many millions for a million dead innocent Ukrainians.

However, NATO has additional non-kinetic war fighting capabilities. I suspect that everything below actual shooting would be unleashed upon Russia. I think that at that point NATO would do everything to take Russia, as a country, apart.

Anyway, at this point, this is still a bad dream. And hopefully it will stay that way.