The Russians are officially batshit crazy:
Russia will perceive any ballistic missile launched at its territory as a nuclear attack that warrants a nuclear retaliation, the military warned in an article published Friday.
The harsh warning in the official military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) is directed at the United States, which has worked to develop long-range non-nuclear weapons.
Russia is setting a nuclear threshold so low that any conventional attack on Russia will be met with Russian nuclear missiles--which means Russia will be hit with nuclear missiles in turn.
Or does this mean Russia's missile warning system is that bad?
Or is this crazy nuclear doomsday machine level of talk disguise that Russia's nuclear arsenal isn't actually in good shape?
Mind you, I'm on record as saying we should not have weapons that increase the chance of someone mistakenly identifying a tactical nuke or conventional weapon as a strategic nuke.
But the Russians say they will just assume all incoming missiles are nukes. The proper attitude is that they will decide after seeing what is targeted and the effects. The Russians have a point that precision conventional weapons actually can replace nukes in going after some targets. So a conventional attack could in theory replicate the effects of a nuclear strike. But that sane attitude is not what the Russians displayed. My hope is that the Russian rulers don't actually believe what they said.
Sometimes I think China has aligned with Russia to alienate Russia from the West to set up an isolated Russia for a kill shot.
What is wrong with these people?!
Have a super sparkly day.
UPDATE: Oh, but I think that America keeps a close watch on Pakistan's nukes. Does that count as working the problem of people with nukes going nuts? Part way there, I suppose.
