This is the Friends of History Debating Society.

I'm John Batchwith, Germanicus, Michael Leos, I am Gaius, and commenting on tactical nuclear

weapons.

I learn a lot reading about them these days because they've been tossed around Germanicus

in the 21st century, especially by Vladimir Putin.

What I learn is Vladimir Putin is no military man.

He's no veteran of the general staff.

He's been state securities whole life.

They don't deal with nuclear weapons at KGB to my memory.

They're about security, about surveillance, about loyalty, about betrayal.

Not about nuclear weapons.

The nuclear weapon doctrine, however, in Soviet circles before the fall of the Soviet Union

and continued in the Russian Federation, even with the chaos of the 1990s, is that tactical

nuclear weapons defined loosely as low yield, low short distance, either gravity bomb

or missile.

Tactical nuclear weapons are an integrated and vital part of the defense of Russia.

Over the last 40 years, Russia's understood that all of its borders cannot be protected

by conventional forces, that there must be a card you can play that will stop the advance

of the enemy.

And that is a tactical nuclear weapon.

It's part of their policy.

It's not extra.

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