This is John Batcher, a conversation with my friend and colleague Gregory Coppley in Western

Australia about the news out of London that the US is deploying technical nuclear weapons

to UK, the first airbase in Suffolk. And the reason for this

deployment Gregory comments is to match the deployment of weapons in Belarus or perhaps in Kaliningrad, the ex-glave

on the Baltic Sea. The puzzle here is what do you use the nuclear weapon for?

Gregory observes the extreme impracticality of a tactical nuclear weapon in a world today.

However, here's Gregory nukes to the UK just like the Cold War,

just like the old days, back to the future. Well the nuclear escalation we've been seeing over the last two years has been an

escalation of words and these are you know if you like Wolf warrior diplomacy Russian style wolf warrior diplomacy

Washington style yes the US could well be re-introducing tactical or theater nuclear weapons into Lake and Heath where they have been

used or deployed for decades during the Cold War. This is where we had US Air Force F-111's taking

off to attack Libya, for example, with conventional weapons at the time, that's that was basically the area

where the US would deploy its nuclear forces before they went even further

forward to either Germany or for example to Cyprus but the British of course have their own nuclear arsenal of not

only tactical nuclear weapons but strategic nuclear weapons airborne,

submarine-born and the like. So the symbolism of the US doing this is literally just

that. The question is what would you use nuclear weapons for even tactical ones if you don't have a demonstrable

threat from for example a large armored formation or the like because nuclear weapons are just big bombs and you need to have suitable

targets for them. They're not war-winning weapons in themselves. So yes it's significant

but it's part of the escalatory rhetoric and I think

Washington at this particular point in an election year is looking to appear

strong to its domestic audience as well as to its NATO allies

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