Going nuclear is back on the table
Apparently going nuclear, as in unleashing a nuclear attack on a battlefield, is back as an option. All as a result of Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.
For a few decades it certainly seemed like the prospect of nuclear war was relegated to the pages of history books. The Cold War was over. A new era of East — West relations had begun. Humanity was finally making progress.
Those were the heady days around the fall of the Berlin Wall (and by extension the entire Iron Curtain), along with seismic changes in Russia as the USSR disintegrated. Hope in the air. A feeling of unbounded opportunity. Even the prospect of Russia taking its place along other European countries as a member of the European Union. It felt like East and West was coming together. Finally.
Before things got that far, SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) had aimed at curtailing the threat of suddenly unleashed mutually assured destruction by intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Tactical nuclear weapons
I grew up in a very different world. One where nuclear attack was part of the everyday threat picture. Where it was a real and valid option to unleash, or threaten the use of, nuclear weapons on a conventional battlefield.
