Russian Paranoia

[Mortblanc]

(2 April 2015, 19:29)Devonian Wrote: In my ignorance, why would use a nuke against something as small as a surface naval ship?

Surely one of these new generation Russian Cruise missiles, with a conventional war head, would be more than enough?

I did not say "ship", I said "fleet".

When we send a carrier to a remote location to reinforce an action or display power we do not just send a carrier, we send a "carrier task force". There are all sorts of ships that go along with such things ad even the obsolete main battleships travel with escorts, fuel tenders and supply trains.

If one looks back at the early testing of nukes they will find that some of the earliest testing was done in places where a large number of ships could be anchored and examined after the event. One of the first concerns was protecting the fleets.

Remember when Argentina took out the British cruiser with the air to surface missile in the Falklands? What if they had possession of an atomic warhead, took out the whole fleet and all troops present and did it 30,000 feet above ground without ever hitting a specific target?

Placing the nukes on the table by reminding the west that Russia still has them changes the stakes from "conventional being enough to scare you" to "willing to engage in the ultimate overkill if it seems we are going to lose".

The Russians do not think like the British, or the Americans either. They have no natural borders and their history is one of invasion and oppression by the invaders. They trust no one and expect invasion by any and all foes. They know the cost of that invasion will be thousands of Russians that die for their mother country.

They are not just pessimists, they are fatalists.