Bill Burns calls Vladimir Putin a ‘bully’ whose ‘sabre-rattling’ should not always be taken literally

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/28496413

Western leaders should not be intimidated by Kremlin threats of nuclear escalation, the head of the CIA said on Saturday, and be willing to consider allowing Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles to be used inside Russia.

Bill Burns, on a visit to London alongside the head of MI6, said the US had brushed off a previous Russian nuclear scare in autumn 2022, demonstrating that threats from Moscow should not always be taken literally.

“Putin’s a bully. He’s going to continue to sabre rattle from time to time,” Burns said. “We cannot afford to be intimidated by that sabre rattling … we got to be mindful of it. The US has provided enormous support for Ukraine, and I’m sure the president will consider other ways in which we can support them.”

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    • BombOmOm@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      The modern tactical nuke is as strong as what the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. People have this idea that a tactical nuke is ‘small’, but what is really the case is they are full sized nukes, and strategic nukes are simply larger. From a MAD perspective, there is no reason why dropping a nuke the strength of what was dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki would somehow be notably different than a larger nuke.