There is a great deal of discussion internationally about how to deal with ISIS. The U.S. has been bombing them for years with little to show for it. Now Russia is in Syria at the invitation of President Assad to help them fight ISIS. The Russians have moved men and equipment to Syria and are conducting bombing raids. After the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, the French have stepped up their bombing runs in Syria and the British have joined in with their air force. The problem with all the bombing is that ISIS is very good at blending in with the general population and civilian infrastructure. Supply dumps and military installations can be found and bombed but when the fighters are living with the civilians and they are storing munitions in hospital basements, bombing is difficult to target and causes many civilian deaths with little actual effect on the ISIS military capacity.
The Russian military is known to be brutal in dealing with rebels and terrorists. They have powerful weapons that they are willing to deploy without particular concern about civilian deaths and destroyed infrastructure. Russian President Putin has been threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons if Russia is losing in a conventional war with NATO in Eastern Europe. Russia has been flying nuclear bombers into the airspace of other countries and sailing submarines with nuclear weapons into the territorial waters of other countries in the past several years. Russian officials and high ranking military officers have been saying privately that Putin would consider exploding a small nuclear device in a conventional conflict simply for the purpose of intimidating his enemy.
The Russians have been firing Kalibr cruise missiles from Russian submarines in the Caspian Sea to hit ISIS targets in Syria. At a recent military briefing in the Kremlin, Putin mentioned that the same cruise missiles that they have been firing at ISIS could be equipped with nuclear warheads. He says that he "hopes they (nuclear weapons) will never be needed in the fight against terrorists." Don't we all! Given the intermingling of ISIS fighters and munitions with civilian populations, the use of even small tactical nuclear weapons could kill millions of innocent people and poison major cities in Syria and Iraq for generations.
Of course, the reaction of other nations was swift and negative. The Russian Foreign Minister was quick to try to calm the concern over the question of whether the Russians would actually consider the use of nuclear weapons in the fight with ISIS in Syria. He said, "Of course not, and the president has stated this, that there is no need to use any nuclear weapons against terrorists, as they can be defeated through conventional means, and this is fully in line with our military doctrine."
Russia has been entirely too casual recently about the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons in conventional conflicts. Putin may be bluffing but there will come a time when such a bluff fails and then the Russians will have to decide whether or not they are willing to escalate to the use of nuclear weapons or back down. This may be a difficult decision for the Russian government which has been very aggressive in foreign affairs recently. Let us hope they choose wisely.
Russian Kalibr cruise missile:
