In the event of an attack on the Baltic states, Russian troops will launch a swift offensive that even NATO’s tactical nuclear weapons cannot cope with, said Michael Peck, an expert for the American edition of The National Interest.
The analyst noted that NATO nuclear weapons have ceased to be a deterrent for Moscow, because Europe will lose much more from an exchange of tactical nuclear strikes than Russia.
According to him, during a military simulation conducted by the RAND Corporation in 2019, the US military considered the option of being the first to use NSNW (non-strategic nuclear weapons), but it became clear that the weapon would not be able to hit “not concentrated military formations”, but would cause greater harm to civilians. the population.
“Ultimately, in a simulated situation, NATO players decided to send a signal to Russia by dropping five tactical nuclear weapons on a Russian mobile air defense missile battery right on the border with Latvia. Alas, it has been calculated that the most likely Russian response will be a direct strike against five NATO air bases.
“NATO’s infrastructure is vulnerable, and damage from even a limited number of nuclear attacks could significantly reduce NATO’s military capabilities. Russia, on the other hand, is capable of withstanding nuclear strikes of a comparable level”, Peck stressed.
The analyst noted that even if Russia “does not escalate to a general war and does not conduct a more massive attack on targets across Europe, it will be able to continue limited attacks against lucrative NATO military targets”.
“The problem, therefore, is that NATO will not have enough conventional troops to slow down or stop Russia’s rapid advance. By themselves, NSNW forces do not compensate for the lack of conventional troops in NATO”, the expert summed up.