Is Russia actually losing the war?, page-109

sorry ,must have missed the first time .

definite No !
I do think there is a significant chance that PUtin could use a tactical nuke .
I can't see how the US could allow the threat of that to blackmail into inaction - would invite repetition of the ploy .
I don't believe the strong US response would be a nuclear one .
I don't believe Putin would likely use a strategic weapon , for obvious reasons .

So while troubling , and not discounting that there is danger , I can't see this escalating to nuclear conflict outside of Ukraine .
Any use of even a tactical would set a bad precedent and apparently the US has already informed russia of what the response would be in detail , in private .So doubt putin would be able to wring a net advantage out of it's use .

The biggest danger I suppose would be that putin was in such a bad (personal) situation that he decided to make an exit taking the whole world with him .
I would hope that orders would be disobeyed under that circumstance but have no way of knowing the likelyhood of that .
The US has contingency to prevent this as needs more than one man but don't know about the protocol in russia .

We've seen appeasement before - didn't work then and it's not an option now .
Doesn't mean there can't be efforts to improve our chances .