The most foolhardy thing I’ve read today is Robert Farley’s essay at The National Interest in which he considers how the U. S. would fight a war today against China and Russia simultaneously:
U.S. alliance structure in the Pacific differs dramatically from that of Europe. Notwithstanding concern over the commitment of specific U.S. allies in Europe, the United States has no reason to fight Russia apart from maintaining the integrity of the NATO alliance. If the United States fights, then Germany, France, Poland and the United Kingdom will follow. In most conventional scenarios, even the European allies alone would give NATO a tremendous medium term advantage over the Russians; Russia might take parts of the Baltics, but it would suffer heavily under NATO airpower, and likely couldn’t hold stolen territory for long. In this context, the USN and USAF would largely play support and coordinative roles, giving the NATO allies the advantage they needed to soundly defeat the Russians. The U.S. nuclear force would provide insurance against a Russian decision to employ tactical or strategic nuclear weapons.
and that’s saying something since I read John Bolton WSJ op-ed today.
I presume that Mr. Farley knows as well as I do that every war game of great power war involving Russia or China in which the rules did not preclude it quickly turned into a nuclear exchange. Nuclear deterrence ends when you’re at war and you think you’re losing. What it’s supposed to do is deter great power war, something it has done effectively for 70 years, our best efforts notwithstanding.
Unless Russia, China, or the US were invaded, I do not see any nuclear war. China’s nuclear arsenal is lacking, and Russia’s is not much better.
I do not see the US or Russia going nuclear over the Balkans, and I doubt China would go nuclear over a few built-up coral reefs. Among the presidents since Harry S. Truman, Nixon and LBJ are the only possible presidents to go nuclear, and it would have taken a lot for them.
The more likely scenarios would be using proxies, but then, we are back to Cold War 2.0.
On the other hand, eliminating LA, NYC, and DC is a mighty tempting. The only downside is not being able to roast my hotdogs and marshmallows over the radioactive fires.
(Did I mention that I am well-stocked.)