Posted on 03/14/2024 9:19:50 PM PDT by bitt
The move sends a clear political message, but some experts downplay its military significance.
Russia has moved tactical nuclear weapons from its own borders into neighboring Belarus, several hundred miles closer to NATO territory, Western officials confirmed to Foreign Policy, as Russian President Vladimir Putin threatens a wider military showdown with the alliance over its continued support for Ukraine.
The move, which Putin first announced in June of last year, is likely aimed at ramping up pressure on NATO’s eastern flank. It follows years of nuclear saber-rattling intended to scare the West into paring back its support for Ukraine, now in its third year of war against Russia’s invasion, though top NATO officials insist that the move doesn’t drastically change the nature of Russia’s military threats to NATO.
Arvydas Anusauskas, Lithuania’s defense minister, was the first top official within the NATO alliance to confirm the news of the deployment. He warned that the risks of Western inaction were high, citing the lackluster response in the West to Russia moving more nuclear weapons to the Kaliningrad Peninsula, which is bounded by Poland and Lithuania on either side.
“We would like to see a harder response on that,” Anusauskas said. “If [the] Russians move nuclear weapons closer to us, we need to move as well.”
The nuclear question has hung over the heads of Western leaders ever since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. Top U.S. officials believed that Putin floated the possibility of using limited-yield tactical nuclear weapons in 2022 as he faced Ukrainian victories and significant battlefield setbacks before the conflict ground into a stalemate the following year.
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
P
Getting rid of Pershing II’s, with the bear’s neck on the line, was a terrible mistake.
“citing the lackluster response in the West to Russia moving more nuclear weapons to the Kaliningrad Peninsula”
This genius didn’t tell us what we supposed to do about them moving weapons around in their own territory.
Biden does what he has always done, &@$#ing up everything and selling Americans out for fun and profit.
Biden is a traitor to America.
So the Luthuanian defense minister says... that Russia moving weapons closer to their border.... requires a response?
Interesting.
If nukes start flying it won’t matter how close they are to you.
Tit for Tat.
Move NATO tactical nukes into Ukraine.
That’ll show them!
Putin will back down.
If he doesn’t, it’s on him not us.
Bless your heart! You are all kinds of special.
Thank you.
I’m not perfect but I try.
One of those tactical nukes will be smuggled into the USA with the approval of Puppet Biden.
It will be detonated in Washington DC, just in time for the Juneteenth holiday, yeah.
Vlad Putin will have plausible deniability. It wasn’t us, he will say. That weapon was sold to Iran or North Korea or China or Cuba or Venezuela or South Africa.
Meanwhile, under the smoldering ruins of the District of Caligula, a flower will emerge from the radioactive soil to spawn a new hope, a new beginning with 4 million dead Rats. /spit
So is a certain J6er
I remember back when we were all just humble virologists. Now we're all nuclear tacticians.
Our foster daughter and her husband are in Belarus. This is the 4th year they are trying for the visa lottery to come here and live with us. It is announced the first week in May. Please say a prayer if you can. Thank you.
I don’t pray I worry.
I’ll worry a LOT for your daughter and her husband.
While I worry for my daughter who is going into major surgery May 1st, I may as well worry for yours. No point in not doubling up on worry...
Will pray for your daughter!
Going head to head with another nuclear power is just stupid.🙄
And it says “feed me”.
I’m phrasing it poorly indeed.
What advantage does having nukes give if they must never be used (again). What benefit has having some degree of nuclear weaponry conferred upon North Korea? Pakistan? South Africa? Has it made Israel safer? How much have spent developing, deploying, and maintaining our triad? If all players in the nuclear club understand and tacitly agree not to use them, what is the benefit and by what metrics is it measured?
I’m not a greenie peacenik or a disarm-first loon at all but perhaps the world’s worst kept secret is that many nuclear war scenarios are role played and war gamed as survivable with considerable casualties.
How truly close has the world been to large scale nuclear combat over the years? Does the public even know?
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