The recent deployment of nuclear units on the global geostrategic chessboard, manifested by the United States deploying nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom and Russia conducting nuclear submarine exercises off the coast of Florida, had marked the culmination of the competition between these major nuclear powers. From the perspective of Aggressive Realism, these actions did not reflect miscalculations or misunderstandings, but strategic clarity: imposition on an anarchic system requires aggressive capability, proximity, and significant coercive power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This analysis does not reject the liberal view of nuclear weapons as primarily deterrent tools, but at the same time supports their full and binding use in a first strike should a nuclear power face an existential threat. In this case, there is no turning back, and a nuclear response is guaranteed, effectively destroying the planet through food elimination, water poisoning, shelter destruction, radiation sickness, and nuclear winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Furthermore, this analysis debunks the myth of \u201ctactical nuclear weapons.\u201d Nuclear weapons are inherently strategic, their effects uncontrolled, transnational, and time-persistent. Should NATO or the United States pose a serious conventional threat to Russia\u2019s territorial integrity or the survival of its regime, Moscow\u2019s response will not be gradual or limited, but full-scale existential. Nuclear war, once started, will not and cannot be compartmentalized. Nor will there be a return to normal life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. Aggressive Realism and the Return of Proximity Coercion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Aggressive Realism argues that great powers seek regional hegemony and will act preemptively to deny other states the same privilege (Mearsheimer, 2001). The reintroduction of US nuclear weapons to RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom after decades of absence is not a symbolic act but a strategic promotion of proximity coercion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n