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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023

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I assume you mean that "something" happens to Ukraine?

I recall the men with their hands on the buttons didn't launch even back during the Cold War when the chain of command was intact and clear. You think they will have more resolve/recklessness when it isn't?

That's not what I meant, but that would also be conceivable in that case, obviously.

I meant rogue states, terrorist groups, organized crime groups etc. gaining control of nuclear warheads and using them for blackmail etc. Nuclear warheads entering the black market. Ethnic conflicts, humanitarian catastrophe etc.

I don't think any of this needs to be spelled out actually, but I'll assume your question was honest.

My question was honest in that I wanted to hear what you had in mind when you alluded to that - some specific outcomes or just a generic nuclear scare.

It looks like whatever consequences there are would largely befall Russia itself. If the West can be confident that the concerted Russian nuclear stockpile is, at worst, MAD, surely they can laugh off a single straggler or two who tries to point a fraction of that stockpile at them?

Who are "them" in this context?

Who would a rogue Russian state want to target?

I wasn't referring to potential "Russian" (whatever that means in this context) rogue states in particular, but rogue states in general, in the sense of the word used by the State Department where, I suppose, the very term originates from.