Read this sobering analysis at UnHerd by Brigadier General Kevin Ryan.

Ryan argues that Putin has given ample and explicit warnings about his red lines for nuclear use, and that he has made the argument for their use to the Russian public. More ominously, Ryan sees signs that Putin has already rehearsed the deployment of nuclear missiles during the war:

In response, a number of Western observers have pointed out that, since we have not seen any movement of nuclear weapons, we have no tangible signs of intent to use them. I disagree. Last autumn, officials in Kyiv reported that Russia was firing “Kh-55 nuclear cruise missiles” with dummy warheads. Observers suggested these missiles — which are designed to carry only a nuclear weapon — were launched to erode Ukrainian air defences by “decoying” them into destroying the Kh-55s rather than missiles with conventional explosives. This claim makes little sense: missiles, even unarmed, would be too valuable for Russia to use as decoys. What does make sense, however, is launching Cold War-era missiles with dummy warheads to test their reliability for use in a real nuclear strike.

Testing whether the old weapons work is a necessary precondition for firing them.

Ryan is not, like me, critical of U.S. policy in Ukraine but generally supportive of it. So his warning should be read as a realist’s evaluation of American policy. He is urging the United States to take more seriously the warnings Putin is giving us, to prepare our military for survival in a nuclear battlefield, and to begin thinking through what he sees as the likely result of a potential nuclear use: the normalization of nuclear weapons in war.