Former high-ranking Pentagon official Gregory Weaver is confident that traditional nuclear deterrence based on the principle of mutually assured destruction in the event of a full-scale conflict with the Russian Federation is not enough
NATO has published an article by ex-Pentagon high ranking official Gregory Weaver urging the alliance to actively prepare for a potential war against Russia with the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
Weaver is confident that the traditional nuclear containment approach is not sufficient in the event of a full-scale conflict with Russia. He thinks that “strategic nuclear forces alone are insufficiently flexible and timely to convince Russian leadership that NATO is fully prepared to counter limited nuclear first use with militarily effective nuclear responses of our own. Given Russian strategy, doctrine, and capabilities, and the potential for simultaneous theater conflicts with two nuclear peers, additional NATO theater nuclear capabilities are required.”
According to him, “the US could preposition more heavy ground force equipment and provide more deep precision strike capabilities in Europe.”
“The bottom line is that European Allies will have to provide more conventional capability more efficiently, without perceiving the US request to do so as signaling a reduced US commitment to the defense of NATO. And the US needs to provide additional theater nuclear capability. Failing to do both will risk opportunistic aggression in Europe, and a war in which NATO will be more reliant on nuclear weapons against an adversary that has a growing theater nuclear advantage,” Weaver concluded.
Earlier, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev stressed, citing Russia’s nuclear doctrine, that Moscow could use nuclear weapons in response to aggression against Russia and its allies involving such weapons, or an attack involving conventional weapons that threaten the very existence of Russia.
Source: TASS
