Thread by @jmkorhonen

Let's think for a moment about the unthinkable. What if Putin uses #nuclear weapons?

I don't believe he will, and I'll try to explain in this thread why. But this is uncharted territory, and Putin has been consistently stupid.

So buckle up. We're going down the rabbit hole. 1/

First, a disclaimer: I've been an utter nuclear weapon nerd for more than two decades and have some knowledge about military matters. I do believe I make pretty informed guesses in this thread but take everything here with a grain of salt regardless.
2/

The first thing to understand is this: nuclear weapons are in reality fairly useless for purposes other than 1) killing a lot of people, and 2) threatening to kill a lot of people.

They are NOT wonder weapons that delete armies and end wars the moment they are used.
3/

There's a lot of talk about "tactical" nuclear weapons, and an implicit belief that these would be some kind of a wunderwaffe that Putin could use as a last resort to break the Ukrainian forces, or even NATO armies if needed.

Probably not. Militarily, they aren't that useful. 4/

From a military point of view, nuclear weapons are essentially just sources of very large explosions, with some side effects. If such an explosion can be delivered to somewhere where it hurts, then of course it can be useful.

But not inordinately so, compared to alternatives. 5/

"Tactical" nuclear weapons have three fundamental problems.

One, the effects of any blast diminish rapidly as the distance to the blast increases.

Two, military targets are tough: often armored, usually dug in.

Three, military targets tend to be mobile and fleeting. 6/

Even if a military unit can be hit with a tactical nuclear weapon, it does not miraculously wipe the unit off the face of the Earth.

Here's the expected results from a 1977 US primer prepared for students in the Command and General Staff College.
7/

Let's unpack the diagram for those who retain their sanity and haven't been total nuclear weapons nerds like, uh, someone here.

The explosive power of the weapons listed on the left are
1. 0.072 kilotons of TNT (kt)
2. 5-10 kt
3. 1-100 kt
4. 0.3-400? kt or more.
8/

On the right are the targets these weapons can be expected to defeat, i.e. a hit should render a unit of such size and composition combat ineffective.

These are fairly small units. For example, the 155 mm nuclear artillery (weapon 1) could defeat a tank platoon - 3 tanks.
9/

The Lance tactical nuclear missile, with a warhead that could be dialed from 1 to 100 kilotons, could have ruined the day for a battalion (about 30-40 armored vehicles and up to ~800 men). Or it could seriously rough up a supply center, a bridge, or a railroad terminus.
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Such a hit could of course cause serious casualties. But it's very far from a popular conception of a single nuclear weapon winning the war.

Similar or even worse devastation can be wrought today with conventional weapons. From the same 1977 primer, a comparison:
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On the left, the amount of artillery-fired anti-personnel cluster munitions needed for the same effects as one kiloton nuclear weapon, against troops in open. On the right is the number of conventional artillery rounds needed for the same effect against troops in tanks.
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Note that these are 1977 tech. The ICMs on the left have been replaced by far deadlier artillery weapons that kill not just infantry but tanks as well.

A battalion caught by these weapons suffers just as much as one caught by a nuke would.

Ukrainians learned this in 2014. 13/

On 11 July 2014, a surprise Russian attack using conventional long-range rocket barrage reportedly wiped out a battalion of armored Ukrainian units and in total destroyed about two battalion's worth of equipment. That was a harsh lesson.
14/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelenopil…

In short, what the above means is this: nuclear weapons wouldn't produce miraculous battlefield results that surpass what modern conventional weapons already produce.

Furthermore, hitting a military unit with a nuke is not that easy, actually.
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The suitable target would first need to be identified by intelligence. There are no guarantees that targets just appear.

Then the decision to use nuclear weapons needs to be made.

Then the weapon needs to be readied and fired.

All this takes time. The target may move.
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For reasons outlined above, Cold War planners did not even bother to consider using single nuclear weapons.

A "limited" army corps defensive battle used as an example in the 1977 primer envisioned 136 nuclear detonations. For about a 100 km-wide stretch of the front.
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So. If Putin uses nuclear weapons, the likely targets are not military units on the front lines, and the likely use is not to hammer an opening in the Ukrainian lines for his barely trained conscripts to exploit.

Stationary supply hubs would be more likely targets. 18/

Hitting a Ukrainian supply hub with a nuclear weapon could cause big problems for Ukrainians. But these problems can be solved and mitigated.

If the Russian forces cannot exploit the situation, then the attack makes little difference in the overall military situation.
19/

Gaining any substantial military advantage would require multiple nuclear weapons, against targets that already prepare against Russian long-range missiles by e.g. spreading out and digging in.

Sure, Russia probably has more than one warhead still in working order. But.
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Even one nuclear detonation would change the game completely, and almost certainly in ways that would be very detrimental for Russia. The U.S. leadership has repeatedly warned of serious consequences. China probably wouldn't be happy either.
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The U.S.'s conventional supremacy is so overwhelming that they don't need to respond with nuclear weapons.

This almost certainly deters Putin. He may believe that the West wouldn't dare respond with nuclear weapons as that could escalate the war into a nuclear world war.
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But a conventional response to a nuclear weapon attack is very credible. A significant increase in military aid to Ukraine would be a given. Gloves would come off: long-range weapons would be released and used to further demolish the already groaning Russian supply system.
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Putin now rattles his nuclear saber to scare people in the West. Nuclear weapons are fundamentally psychological weapons.

But if the opponent doesn't budge, would nuclear weapons be used? I doubt that, but let's continue to think about the unthinkable.
24/to be continued...

Putin is a cynical mass murderer who absolutely won't care about how many *Russians* he kills in his pursuit of power and glory. This is very clear from his decision to mobilize what is essentially untrained cannon fodder.

Perhaps he would use nukes too to stave off defeat. 25/

But if he is going to use nukes to stave off defeat, then he is going to use nukes. Because Putin is going to lose this war, very badly.

The mobilization only means that Ukrainian victory may take longer and certainly will mean many, many more dead and maimed Russians.
26/

Russian forces have been using their last precious precision weapons to spitefully hit civilian targets in Ukraine. Perhaps Putin ends up using nuclear weapons as well, not to gain an advantage in the war but just out of petty vengeance.

If he does that, then he does that. 27/

Ukrainians will fight. They have made this eminently clear. They have said out loud that they will keep fighting even if Putin wrecks their cities with nuclear weapons.

I would, too. Because surrendering to a genocidal fascist is not a wise move. 28/

Even worse, if Putin or any leader of Russia is now allowed to set a precedent and retain their imperial conquests by merely threatening nuclear weapons use, then war will be in our future.

The current leadership in the Kremlin won't stop. They may pause for a while at best. 29/

Russia's nuclear weapons are unlikely to be in much better shape than their conventional forces were. Corruption runs amok. As late as 2019, electronics and even copper wiring were stolen from their nuclear command post planes.

30/

bbc.com/news/world-eur…

Russian missiles are not the most reliable, and it will be interesting to see if soldiers ordered to fire a nuclear missile would actually even do so, given how common videos like this are.

Even if they are fired, they may turn out to be duds.
31/

Of course, some of the missiles and warheads probably work, and we shouldn't discount their threat.

But problems like these further complicate the Kremlin's possible desire to use nuclear weapons.

Add the certainty of the conventional response, discussed above.
32/

So I doubt Putin will use nukes. Even Hitler refrained from using his massive stocks of chemical weapons that had been stockpiled and were meant to be used e.g. against Allied landings in France.

But if Putin uses them, he uses them. He won't win with them unless we let him.
33/

This is a test of all democracies. We may not want to live through times like these, but that is not for us to decide. We can only decide what we do.

The more we help Ukraine to win, the less time Putin has to contemplate nuclear use, or any other dirty tricks. 34/34

PS. Any nuclear weapon use would cause mass casualties. Used against a city, the casualties from a Russian tactical weapon (reportedly 50 kilotons on Iskander missiles) could be in thousands or even tens of thousands.

But no war has yet been won by bombing cities.

The fallout would be a relatively minor issue if nuclear weapons were used against cities. One estimate suggested that Chernobyl produced about the equivalent of 12 megatons (12 000 kilotons) of nuclear weapon use. That was bad, but not the end of the world.

Soot from the burning cities could conceivably lower global temperatures, and possibly cause a major disruption in the global food supply. But hitting one or two cities with one fairly small weapon each is unlikely to produce firestorms on a scale needed.

These impacts are not negligible and I don't mean to downplay what a horrific disaster even a single nuclear detonation in a city would be.

But we are still very far from the nuclear holocaust scenarios that were really a threat during the Cold War.

My final word is this: nuclear weapons should not be used, and if they are used, it would be a horrible disaster.

But abandoning Ukrainians to a genocidal fascist dictatorship because the latter threatens nuclear weapon use would also be a horrible disaster.

PPS. A version of the illustration above, with some descriptions of what the weapons are and what the symbols mean.

PPS 2. The U.S. intelligence community has done much to redeem itself after the 2003 fiasco and seems to have impressive means of keeping tabs on what the Kremlin is doing. They are probably watching very keenly what Russian nuclear-capable units are doing.

Preparations to actually use nuclear weapons give out signs that (probably, in most cases) are detectable. I wouldn't be surprised if a unit that rolls out its nuclear Iskanders for instance might suffer an unfortunate accident of explosive nature.

PPS 3. A continuation of this thread: why I believe bombing civilians won't win wars.

https://twitter.com/jmkorhonen/status/1574668469676937216?s=20&t=53xkq7BKjusW2VvVrC0yMA