Russia invades Finland. Germany announces it's going to send lots of troops to Finland to fight against the Russians. Putin announces that if Germany does this he will drop an atomic bomb on Berlin. Germany then backs down.
I think the scenario will be a wee bit different:
Russia invades Finland. Germany announces it's going to send lots of troops to Finland to fight against the Russians. Putin announces that if Germany does this he will drop an atomic bomb on Berlin. Terrified Russian elites remove Putin from power.
Even in Russia I don't think there is any political faction which thinks that a nuclear exchange is a good idea.
Even in Russia I don't think there is any political faction which thinks that a nuclear exchange is a good idea.
Unfortunately, the idea of limited nuclear exchanges or making credible or close to credible threats of such exchanges is is depressingly popular in Russian military and political discussion. See e.g. here. More generally, this is actually an old idea that of the "tactical nuclear exchange" with a few nukes being perhaps exchanged in Eastern Europe without a full-scale war. During much of the Cold War this was actually more common as...
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