Poking the bear
As if you didn’t already have enough on your plate to worry about, the leaders of the United States and Russia are once again talking about nuclear war for some reason. Or at least one of them is, anyway. President Joe Biden decided to give an interview to 60 Minutes (scheduled to air tonight) in which Scott Pelley asked him what would happen if Russia deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine as a result of recent Russian setbacks amid the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Biden didn’t really flex his vocabulary much in response, telling Putin “Don’t.” He even repeated the word three times, adding that such a move would “change the face of war” in a way not seen since World War 2. When pressed as to what the American response would be to such a move, Biden remained appropriately vague. But why are we suddenly talking about nuclear war again at this stage of the game? (Fox News)
Pelley attempted to press the President on how the scenario would play out. To his credit, Biden didn’t offer any specifics in terms of what America would do in response to the use of nuclear weapons. But at the same time, he suggested that we don’t actually have a plan. He began his response by saying, “You think I would tell you if I knew exactly what it would be?” Not for nothing, but I’m pretty sure that most of the country expects you to be up to date on this and already have some sort of fallback plan set up with the Joint Chiefs.