This overlays the Russian discovery of U.S. and NATO regular troops killed in Ukraine, wearing "mercenary" uniforms (but having national markings). For Ukraine to join NATO would take off the glove---and give Putin a clear road to immediately devastate NATO resources and facilities with hypersonic conventional weapons. Nukes are not needed to cripple NATO; just an attack that cannot be defended against.
That includes the U.S. We have critical resources within several hundred miles of each coastline, accessible to cruise-missile-launching submarines. Why do you suppose they were built in the first place? (A little tricky. The SOSUS anti-submarine warning network would need to be taken offline, and there would be some interesting hide-and-seek with our own subs.)
This overlays the Russian discovery of U.S. and NATO regular troops killed in Ukraine, wearing "mercenary" uniforms (but having national markings). For Ukraine to join NATO would take off the glove---and give Putin a clear road to immediately devastate NATO resources and facilities with hypersonic conventional weapons. Nukes are not needed to cripple NATO; just an attack that cannot be defended against.
That includes the U.S. We have critical resources within several hundred miles of each coastline, accessible to cruise-missile-launching submarines. Why do you suppose they were built in the first place? (A little tricky. The SOSUS anti-submarine warning network would need to be taken offline, and there would be some interesting hide-and-seek with our own subs.)