RT News reported on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to casually threaten to use nuclear weapons against ISIS. The International Business Times opined that Putin’s implied threat was more for public relations than to put the fear of God into the hearts of the terrorist army that has ravaged northern Syria and Iraq and has perpetrated massacres in Paris and San Bernardino. The tactic seems to be designed to enhance Russia’s role as a reemerging super power. The “threat” lacked the flamboyance of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev taking off his shoe and pounding the table with it at the United Nations.
“We must analyze everything happening on the battlefield, how the weapons operate. The Kalibrs (sea based cruise missiles) and KH-101 (airborne cruise missile) have proved to be modern and highly effective, and now we know it for sure - precision weapons that can be equipped with both conventional and special warheads, which are nuclear Naturally, this is not necessary when fighting terrorists and, I hope, will never be needed.”
Putin’s actual words were along the lines of, “Nice Islamic State you have there. Pity if someone were to blow it up.” The threat was oblique enough that Putin could claim not to have actually made it.
Of course, if the ISIS capital of Raqqa were to go up in a mushroom cloud, it would be the biggest shock and awe move since President Truman ordered the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, convincing the Japanese to lay down arms. The Japanese of 1945 were just as obsessed with martyrdom as are the ISIS terrorists of 2015. Would nuking them have a similar effect? That supposition is debatable. In any case, the world is much more finicky about inflicting mass civilian casualties than they were 70 years ago.
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