Earlier quoted context omitted.
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All limited exchanges end in annihilation, parties are required to tit for tat the exchange and it's really easy to run out of targets when you are using nukes - forcing an escalation. If Taiwan was invaded, the only military targets for the US are in close proximity to major population centers. The response would be nukes on US Naval bases (in close proximity to US population centers). This would rapidly escalate to…
Which is why tactical nukes will be used in the future - likely by the US, Russia, or later on, maybe China. The British and French only have enough if we support them - India and Pakistan hardly have enough for each other...
Essentially - if we did take out say half a city somewhere and Russia doesnt go to their "final at bat" forever, for some country that isn't Russia - nobody else will attack us directly either bc they can't destroy our capacity to entirely remove them from existing.
China would want to fire back - but do you waste a billion people to make your enemy really, really angry and determined to use all of their remaining capabilities - which is more than everyone else (cept Russia), with just what is outside of the US in subs...
I'm not actually joking here - trading a part of an iconic city, to be taught an unwanted lesson, is superior to losing all the skylines of all the cities and learning no more lessons ever.
That modern understanding is actually entirely different than Mao originally approached an exchange - he said he wasn't worried - bc China has enough people and cities.
This is the real reason America has so many - bc with our large sprawled out country and global distribution of nuclear capabilities - we will always be the last one pushing red buttons. That is all that matters in an actual nuclear war/exchange - being the last one left IS Winning.
I wont explain more, bc it clearly is uncomfortable to people, but essentially, if the US and Russia were to "allow" each other to use tactical nukes (with rules, they set for each other) - like my example with Kiev (which would accomplish sooo many things - I wont elaborate further in case the Pentagon has somehow that) - with that one move, condoning "limited tactical nukes" bc they are "so weak" compared to the "real ones" - we would immediately return to a bipolar world split between the US and Russia.
All those conversations about the end of NATO would immediately stop, for example.