I disagree. I believe the intentions would start as a non-nuclear response, but would rapidly spill out of control into a full send of all weapons.
This is the reality of the "Assured Destruction" of MAD. If you can take out your enemies ability to respond you can "win". With a tactical nuke in play and Rus-vs-US force engagement moves us to DEFCON 1. The name of that level is "COCKED PISTOL". A cocked pistol is something to handle gently, any wrong nudge could set it off.
Then in the background you have air to air engagements over the Black Sea - blockades of Kaliningrad, SSN's chasing SSBN's. Dozens of Cuban Missile Crisis type situations all playing out in parallel. One bad call by one local commander and a head of state is given 6 minutes to figure out if this is a first strike.
Once the line is crossed almost all of us die. It might take hours, days or weeks - but it will be an near inevitable conclusion.
This is the reality of the "Assured Destruction" of MAD. If you can take out your enemies ability to respond you can "win". With a tactical nuke in play and Rus-vs-US force engagement moves us to DEFCON 1. The name of that level is "COCKED PISTOL". A cocked pistol is something to handle gently, any wrong nudge could set it off.
Then in the background you have air to air engagements over the Black Sea - blockades of Kaliningrad, SSN's chasing SSBN's. Dozens of Cuban Missile Crisis type situations all playing out in parallel. One bad call by one local commander and a head of state is given 6 minutes to figure out if this is a first strike.
Once the line is crossed almost all of us die. It might take hours, days or weeks - but it will be an near inevitable conclusion.