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Ukraine

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Seeker_UK said:
Yes there is, albeit with POTUS authority. That's why Lavrov wants their removal from Europe.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00963402.2020.1859865

"Nonstrategic nuclear weapons
The Belgian, Dutch, German, and Italian air forces are assigned nuclear strike missions with US nuclear weapons. Under normal circumstances, the nuclear weapons are kept under the control of US Air Force personnel; their use in war must be authorized by the US president. "
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They are (gravity) nuclear bombs, as I have stated, and would require to be delivered by aircraft over targets-fat chance of that, the vulnerability these days from ground to air missiles.
I've linked to Pentagon assessments of the situation upthread the doctrine being to use conventional weapons such as thermobaric munitions.
Lavrov is railing against merely the threat that the US will again station Ground launch intermediate range missiles in Europe in response to Russia's Screwdriver(to name just one system capable of carrying nukes warheads).
 
gavreid said:
Or deliberately left vague?
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You can justify drafting things vaguely to build in flexibility, so it covers a multitude of unforseeable circumstances. If it was deliberately vague so as to render it nugatory, as here, that's probably a sign that the Russians wouldn't accept anything stronger or clearer.
 
Did anyone else hear Lord David Richards, former Chief of the General Staff on the BBC PM programme yesterday, talking about the Ukraine war? The gist of what he said was that unless we are going to enter the war ourselves, we should only be sending material support and weaponry to Ukraine if we think they are going to win on their own, otherwise we are simply prolonging the war and contributing to an increased death toll. It was his opinion that the Russians would win, and that we needed a serious debate about the wisdom and morality of prolonging the conflict. It sounds a bit defeatist I suppose, but I've had similar nagging thoughts, though was wary of articulating them until I heard Lord Richards. It does seem to me that we in the West are in danger of fighting the Russian to the last drop of Ukrainian blood without having a clear strategic view of what the outcome will be.

The interview with Lord David Richards is here. It is well worth a listen. It start at about 35:00 mins into the programme:

PM - 01/03/2022 - BBC Sounds
 
cooky1257 said:
They are bombs.
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The B61 is a nuclear weapon (freefall bomb) intended to be deployed against battlefield targets. In Europe, under NATO nuclear sharing, that means being carried / dropped by NATO jets.

You stated that:

cooky1257 said:
...there is no limited battlefield nuclear response available to NATO...
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So NATO has retained a battlefield nuclear response should POTUS authorize it, and the Russians don't like it. It's just not the Pershing 2s, Lance, M110/115s or Tomahawk of the 80s / early 90s.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
You can justify drafting things vaguely to build in flexibility, so it covers a multitude of unforseeable circumstances. If it was deliberately vague so as to render it nugatory, as here, that's probably a sign that the Russians wouldn't accept anything stronger or clearer.
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It may have been kept short because Yeltsin would have struggled with anything longer. :p
 
MikeMA said:
It was his opinion that the Russians would win, and that we needed a serious debate about the wisdom and morality of prolonging the conflict. It sounds a bit defeatist I suppose, but I've had similar nagging thoughts, though was wary of articulating them until I heard Lord Richards. It does seem to me that we in the West are in danger of fighting the Russian to the last drop of Ukrainian blood without having a clear strategic view of what the outcome will be.
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On the other hand, the longer the war goes on, and the harder it is to occupy Ukraine when the war is 'over', the less likely it is that Russia will attack another country, say, Moldova, next.

If our strategic objective is to stop Putin, I don't see any alternative.
 
Seeker_UK said:
The B61 is a nuclear weapon (freefall bomb) intended to be deployed against battlefield targets. In Europe, under NATO nuclear sharing, that means being carried / dropped by NATO jets.

You stated that:



So NATO has retained a battlefield nuclear response should POTUS authorize it. It's just not the Pershing 2s, Lance, M110/115s or Tomahawk of the 80s / early 90s.
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I stated that;
'following arms reduction agreements in the late 80' all US/ NATO intermediate range ground launched nukes were withdrawn from Europe and destroyed, all that remain are gravity nukes( bombs) that can be delivered from aircraft- the reality of which is they'd be shot out of the sky before they could deliver their payloads.

Pentagon assessment now is that they wouldn't be deployed such is their vulnerability to modern ground to air defences.
 
Seeker_UK said:
The B61 is a nuclear weapon (freefall bomb) intended to be deployed against battlefield targets. In Europe, under NATO nuclear sharing, that means being carried / dropped by NATO jets.


So NATO has retained a battlefield nuclear response should POTUS authorize it. It's just not the Pershing 2s, Lance, M110/115s or Tomahawk of the 80s / early 90s.
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The post, though, was pointing out that bombers carrying these nuclear armed battlefield weapons won't get anywhere near the battlefield, due to Russian anti-aircraft defences. So they're ineffective, and incapable of being deployed in any realistic battle scenario, which means that, in effect, NATO doesn't have any effective tactical nukes in the European theatre.
 
laughingboy said:
On the other hand, the longer the war goes on, and the harder it is to occupy Ukraine when the war is 'over', the less likely it is that Russia will attack another country, say, Moldova, next.

If our strategic objective is to stop Putin, I don't see any alternative.
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I thought about liking this, as I think that's right, but I couldn't bring myself to do so.
 
cooky1257 said:
I stated that;
'following arms reduction agreements in the late 80' all US/ NATO intermediate range ground launched nukes were withdrawn from Europe and destroyed, all that remain are gravity nukes( bombs) that can be delivered from aircraft- the reality of which is they'd be shot out of the sky before they could deliver their payloads.
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Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
The post, though, was pointing out that bombers carrying these nuclear armed battlefield weapons won't get anywhere near the battlefield, due to Russian anti-aircraft defences. So they're ineffective, and incapable of being deployed in any realistic battle scenario, which means that, in effect, NATO doesn't have any effective tactical nukes in the Eurpoean theatre.
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I was responding to post #2169, not the later clarifications. Apologies.

However, WRT effectiveness.

Toss bombing keeps the delivery platform at the limit / outside any battlefield air defence's system engagement zone. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toss_bombing#Tactical_use)

If they were ineffective, why does Russia want them out of the continent?
 
eternumviti said:
Who was, Johnson? Two points - it demonstrates that the UK doesn't need to be in the EU to partake in European security matters, and Poland and Estonia are anyway, like the UK, NATO members.

This government is more accountable than any government has been for years, despite their frantic attempts at all manner of obfuscations. They are searingly exposed. If you can't see that, you haven't been reading threads like this one. Or anything else.
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I stand corrected. I could have sworn you said "One of my main reasons for voting to leave the EU was to make our politicians accountable. .... Johnson can't keep rushing of to puffed up and self-important gatherings of EU heads of state."

And there he goes again. And if you are claiming they are exposed because of Brexit you're grade A deluded :)
 
Seeker_UK said:
I was responding to post #2169, not the later clarifications. Apologies.

However, WRT effectiveness.

Toss bombing keeps the delivery platform at the limit / outside any battlefield air defence's system engagement zone. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toss_bombing#Tactical_use)

If they were ineffective, why does Russia want them out of the continent?
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You'd have to ask them. The broader point was that Russia have been pulling a fast one unchecked by developing nuclear capable systems across their ground forces, low yield warheads for artillery for example, the threshold for their deployment and use is now much lower than during the Cold War. We have been asleep.
 
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