[…]
Asked […] if Estonia would be willing to host Britain’s future fleet of F-35A fighters, defence minister Hanno Pevkur replied, “I’m always open. The door is always open for allies.”
The comments follow the incursion of three Russian MiG-31s into Estonian skies last week. The aircraft, flying without transponders or flight plans, remained over the Gulf of Finland for twelve minutes before being escorted out by Italian F-35s from Ämari airbase.
[…]
Western leaders urged caution over escalating the stand-off. Mr Pevkur said NATO’s response should be “proportionate” and decided “case-by-case.” Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, struck a harder line, declaring: “We will shoot down any flying objects when they violate our territory and fly over Poland. There is absolutely no discussion over that.”
[…]
For Estonia, NATO’s smallest frontline state, the latest incursion [of Russian drones] was a stark reminder of its reliance on allied air power. “The question is not whether Russia will try again,” one official said, “but how we will respond.”
Yes, that’s pretty much the only thing I can think of as well, but I don’t think it matters.
Ok. If you’re assuming NATO wants to do a nuclear first strike, the might be some value in that. But I don’t think that should or will happen, even with Trump. So I’m not considering that for now.
So let’s look what happens if Russia would start a nuclear war. Worst case scenario first: Russia launches ICBMs gains the US and Europe. In that case nukes dropped from airplanes only play a minor role. Within minutes after Russia’s launches are detected US and British ICBM and SLBM will be launched as well. That means hundreds of nuclear warheads will be striking targets in less then an hour. Dropping some additional nukes from planes a few minutes faster is just pissing in the ocean at this point. MAD has been triggered, it won’t make a difference of some nukes are 30 minutes late.
Now let’s consider the “best case” scenario (highly speculative). Russia uses a single tactical nuke in Ukraine. Let’s assume this won’t trigger MAD. Now NATO has to response in some way. But don’t think that dropping a nuke ASAP would be the response, so there is also no point in having some of them sitting right at the border. It will probably take days before NATO decides how to respond to that I think it might not involve nuclear weapons at all.
Then why have nuclear bombers at all?
And why should Estonia be enthusiastic about them? Russia then has not only a reason but a need to flatten the airport, which is easiest, I would assume, with nuclear weapons.
That is a very valid question and in my opinion it’s mostly a hold-over from the time before ballistic missiles became the more reliable delivery mechanism. And today everyone is researching and testing “hypersonic glide vehicle” as the new delivery mechanism. So yeah, I think nuclear bombers will become obsolete very soon. They are just too slow and easy to intercept in comparison.
I think the only “benefit” from deploying nuclear weapons to Estonia would be as a psychological assurance for Estonians, while not having any actual military value. But it could also be seen as a provocation by Russia, so I don’t think it’s worth it.
There are really very few scenarios of a limited nuclear war that I can think of. Using any nuclear weapon has a very high chance to result in MAD, so really I think we shouldn’t play around with them, even if it’s just using them as a PR stunt.