Would Russia ever seriously think of nuking Britain?

Hi All,

First it is necessary to describe what I mean by nukes. There are 2 kinds. The first are called ‘strategic’ and this is often the ones used in world war 3 scenarios on youtube videos. They are called strategic because they are the more powerful of the 2 and are specifically designed to destroy strategic sites of the enemy’s homeland, be that naval ports or entire cities. They can be launched from missile silos, submarines and aircraft. In the cold war the submarines – the UK now only has nukes on subs- gave nuclear weapons states a ‘second strike’ capacity due to their virtual undetectability in the oceanic depths, this simply means in the USSR destroyed the UK, a British sub could have retaliated in any event. The missiles used are designed to carry more than one warhead and several decoys, to allow for an enemy being able to shoot them down before they explode. A nuclear explosion in the air (an ‘airburst’) will cause more destruction, because of the blast and pressure waves, but a ground explosion will kill more people due to the fallout of radiation.

The second type of nukes are called ‘tactical’ and are smaller in destructive power. They are there to destroy or halt an enemy army, rather than to destroy cities. In effect they are the modern version of nuclear canons.

The sad thing is that the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan (at 15-20 Kilotons) would nowadays be considered to be ‘tactical’ in their destructive potential and the ‘strategic’ nukes can range from 100 kilotons to 2 megatons. The largest ever detonation was by the Soviet Union and this nuke was so powerful at 58 megatons that they decided not to test the even bigger version which would have been 100 megatons.

So now we know about the different types of nukes, the question is would Russia use them in the context of the constant threat or call to use them against the UK? My answer is, alas, yes I believe that they would if they were pushed into a corner. In a way we westerners cannot understand, life in Russia is far more brutal and life, because of the collective ideal of the Soviet era is seen as more expendable . If you don’t believe me, look at the willingness to use human wave attacks and trench warfare in Ukraine. The Russians use their canon fodder troops to flush out Ukranian positions, after which they send in their better forces.

So how exactly do I think the Russians would be willing to use nukes and how do I think they would think they would ‘get away’ with such an attack.

The first thing is to ask yourself why a country like the UK has nukes in the first place. It was in part because the UK (and France) believed it would be a way of saying they were still great powers, but also because there was a suspicion (not unfounded) that America would not sacrifice New York for London (or Paris). Thus the UK would need a separate force to make sure the Soviets never gambled on this belief.

Now let us flip this and ask yourself would a British Prime Minister sacrifice London (the centre of the entire elite and the dominant part of the UK) and or the rest of the country for… Skegness. Or Londonderry. Or Aberdeen. Or Swansea? Whatever the bluster of the various Prime Ministers of our country and the pandering to the tabloids about pressing the ‘red button’ (which doesn’t exist) to look ‘hard’, I doubt that any rational PM would be prepared to do so. In fact I suspect that the woke civil service blob, let along the military would try to stop or sabotage anyone who tried.

In terms of why the Russians would be motivated to launch a nuke at the UK, I would suggest a situation in which the war in Ukraine was going badly and maybe Crimea has been lost. The Russians are about to be humiliated and think that this only happened because of the NATO alliance sending over aid. To try and stop the fall of Crimea and to halt aid to Ukraine, the Russians launch a nuclear strike at the UK. They dare not do so to America because they saw the response to 9/11. If America were to be hit, they would utterly destroy Russia. But UK? Maybe not. The UK is the size of Alabama. The Russians see us as woke and weak and see an opportunity.

The Russian strategy is called Maskirovka or deception tactics. This is what they do : they attack a provincial British town, say, Northampton, but with a tactical sized nuke, similar in size to those dropped on Japan, via airburst. This, according to nukemap will lead to 31,940 deaths and 55,550 injuries. In the east midlands there are 14 beds per 10,000 people. In the whole of the UK there are 158,000 hospital beds. You can see how, just on the basis of trying to treat people with severe burns, injuries from collapsing buildings and ARS, that an attack on a relatively small UK town would have on the NHS, forgetting any political or economic problems. It would all told be a catastrophe for the nation and a humanitarian crisis. Which is exactly what the Russians are counting on. In these circumstances I have no doubt that America, Europe and the Commonwealth would rally to Britain’s aid, but this is what Russia hopes. Those resources for Ukraine are now going to Britain instead.

But what about the risk of retaliation? This is where the ‘deception’ strategy comes in. They either deny Russian involvement and claim it was the bogeyman or claim that somehow their sub captain (like they do in the fictional hunt for red October) has ‘gone mad’ and set the missile off ‘by accident’ until the brave crew managed to restrain the poor unhinged fellow. But is it worth creating world war 3?

The Russians gamble that at worse they will be treated like North Korea, in that their state will function, but be cut off from the world. At best they can still continue trade with Brazil, China, India, South Africa etc. But they don’t think Joe Biden (or at least his handlers) - who is a well know Anglophobe- would risk war over it or at least a nuclear exchange. They don’t even think the Brits would have the balls to try a conventional attack and even if they did, they would conclude that Britain’s forces are too small to even intervene in Ukraine, let alone invade Russia. A final calculation would be that while allies would help Britain in a humanitarian crisis, they would not want to go to war over this, especially after the smooth talk of the Kremlin about accidents. Maybe back channels to the Germans and French say something like ‘yes we hit Northampton. This is warning. We won’t attack further, but if you hit us, we will obliterate the UK’. Or something like that.

What do readers think? Is that the way it would go? Or would Russia do something else? Thoughts below in the comments section !