Nuclear Strike on Europe to Restore Deterrence?

All arms control agreements have been trashed by the West. This leaves only the fear of nuclear destruction (MAD or Mutually Assured Destruction) to prevent nuclear war. Now it seems that even this is losing its deterrent effect. European leaders think they can get away with manufacturing and targeting drones used to kill Russian civilians. Even Latvia thinks it can do this, and Russia will not respond even though it could crush Latvia like a bug, for no reason other than fear of nuclear war. Latvia is a member of NATO and under the US “nuclear umbrella”. If Russia invades Latvia, the US would respond by nuking Russia. But that umbrella is getting very tattered. Trump wants to get out of Europe and let the Europeans defend themselves. If Russia did invade Latvia, the US would not respond with nukes. Perhaps it has not yet dawned on the Latvia’s idiot leaders.

Professor Karaganov thinks that the only way to restore nuclear deterrence may be to use them in a limited way to restore nuclear deterrence. Exactly where or how they would be used he does not specify. Using nuclear weapons to restore nuclear deterrence seems like a pretty crazy idea to me. It would incentivize other large countries to acquire such weapons. Invading Latvia would make more sense. I imagine Russia could achieve “regime change” in less than a week. When the US did nothing, European would understand that they could not rely on US protection and would stop antagonizing Russia. I don’t see why Russia would need to use nuclear weapons to achieve this deterrent effect.

Karaganov goes even farther off the deep end when he starts talking about Germany. The problem with the US getting out of Europe is that Germany will remilitarize. German leaders are talking about rearming for war with Russia in a few years. There are plenty of descendants of old Nazis in positions of power in Germany. They want revenge on Russia for their defeat in WW2. Germany certainly has the ability to develop their own nuclear weapons in a very short time. Karaganov says if they try to do this, Germany should be exterminated, wiped from the face of the earth. He goes on about how Europe has been the cause of all the evil in the world for the past 500 years, and how the rest of the world should repudiate Europe’s phony “values” which have not stood in the way of centuries of exploitation. Mearsheimer points out that Germans are no more inherently aggressive than an other people, and Europe cannot be “pushed aside” but must be included in a general security agreement. Such an agreement between rational human beings, is the only way of having security.