WE LIVE IN DANGEROUS TIMES. KYIV’S SUCCESSES ON THE BATTLEFIELD ARE heartening, but they are pushing Vladimir Putin into a corner. “In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people,” Putin warned, “we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.” He clearly meant nuclear weapons. If Russian forces are further routed, Putin conceivably could use a tactical nuclear weapon—a so-called battlefield nuke.
There is, however, no such thing as a battlefield nuclear weapon. The United States has around 200 tactical nukes, with an explosive equivalency ranging from 0.3 to 170 kilotons of TNT. The Russians probably have around 2,000 such “small” nukes. (By comparison, the Hiroshima bomb produced an explosion…