NATO website calls for nuclear war preparations

According to RT, NATO recently published an article by a retired US defense official, calling on the bloc to fight and win a limited nuclear war against Russia. If the US and China clash over Taiwan, the author claims that an all-out war in Europe could occur.

This article was written by Gregory Weaver, who served as the chief nuclear and missile defense advisor to the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In it, Weaver argues that, contrary to Moscow's longstanding nuclear doctrine, Russia could use tactical nuclear weapons to prevent defeat on the battlefield or bring about a quick victory in a conventional conflict, such as in Ukraine.

In such a scenario, Russian military leaders may assume that the West will not respond in kind for fear of an uncontrolled escalation.

Rather than fear nuclear war, Weaver argues that the West should embrace it. NATO should arm its fighter jets and submarines with tactical nuclear weapons to deter a Russian tactical attack, while “convincing the Russian leadership that NATO is fully prepared to counter limited nuclear first use with our own militarily effective nuclear responses.”

According to RT, Russia's nuclear doctrine allows the use of atomic weapons in the event of a first nuclear strike on the country's territory or infrastructure, or if the existence of the Russian state is threatened by nuclear or conventional weapons. This position has not changed since 2010 and makes no exceptions for the use of tactical nuclear weapons (which are much less powerful than the strategic nuclear weapons that NATO and Russia would fire at each other in the event of an all-out war).

Despite these clear nuclear guidelines, Weaver stated that Russia could launch an attack on NATO countries in Europe if the United States were preoccupied with fighting China over Taiwan, a scenario he considered likely and did not elaborate further.

To counter this, he recommended that NATO move “more precision strike capabilities” to Europe, establish “several modern armored divisions” in the Baltic states and Eastern Europe, and press European members to “provide more conventional capabilities,” while the US sends them tactical nuclear weapons.

Weaver does not mention the consequences that nuclear war would have on the European countries where such a conflict occurred.

Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that Western leaders had become so obsessed with inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia that they had lost their “sense of self-preservation”.