And yet... and yet... MAD in some version would come into play under your posited scenario where Russia attacks us with EMP.
There is no way Russia or anybody else attacks us with nukes and we don't respond with something very serious.
Call it MAD, call it whatever you want, that's what's kept us from WWIII since 1945.
Just calling it what you called it to begin with. Why would I change it?
No it hasn't. It may have prevented a kinetic version of WWIII, but we are in WWIII. while the kinetic portion of the war is raging in Ukraine, it has great potential to expand considerably, and there is no guarantee that nuclear weapons won't become involved.
But for you to put all of the blame upon Russia is disingenuous. If Russia had done to the U.S. & the UE, what the U.S., EU, & N.A.T.O. has done to threaten Russia's security, we would have reacted as well. I mean, we invaded Iraq, & Afghanistan for 911, when it was most likely Saudi Arabian involvement than either of those nations. We invaded Syria, again by proxy, with our funding of ISIS.
You can try to cover up our misdeeds, but I can no longer do so in good conscience, for to do so is to avoid the evil we are doing.
You apparently can justify our evil, by saying that it's Putin's evil that caused this, because you have chosen to not see the evil our nation is engaging in. This time that evil involves Russia with whom we've started yet another proxy war, on purpose. We are no better than Iran, who also engages in proxy wars around the Middle East regions.
Combating evil with evil is not righteousness.
Now if Putin had done this without any provocation whatsoever, that would be different. But that was not the case. He tried to get the international community to intervene to get Ukraine to stop the hostilities in eastern Ukraine against Russian speaking Ukrainian citizens, and he was rebuffed for 8 years. That resulted with 2 Minsk Agreements in 2014 & 2015. But while Ukraine signed those agreements, they made no attempt whatsoever to enact the agreements with actions. In fact, they later admitted they only signed them to buy time, and had no intention whatsoever to act upon them at all. They did so because of assurances by the Obama Administration to have their backs. But Ukraine had to agree to be the battlefield, and their citizens endure the hostilities that would ensue at some point in time. Then Trump was elected, which screwed up their plans, Once they stole the 2020 election & were able to reinstall Biden, Putin realized that he had no choice but to solve it himself. He went in softly because he was given bad intel on how they would be received in eastern Ukraine.
Imagine of there was a large contingency of English speaking citizens living in northern Mexico on the border that is shared by the U.S. & Mexico. Then imagine them being terrorized by people in Mexico for speaking English. Then imagine that our president tried to get the international community to intervene, but the international community ignored those attempts. Do you think a president would, or even should, ignore such events, or do you think the reaction would be to intervene. Would our president then be the criminal you now claim Putin to be?
Now, I am not siding with Putin at all, I'm just pointing out that it's not as cut & dry like you cheerleaders always claim.
When you look at all sides a very different picture begins to show itself. But you have to be willing to do so, for if you don't then you can only see the evil on one side, while ignoring the evil on the other side. I love my country too much to allow myself to be duped by the evil in my country.
I prefer to vanquish evil on earth, where ever it's ugly head exists, and especially in this country before I desire it vanquished in other countries, because to ignore the evil here while worrying about it elsewhere is hypocritical.