How not to talk about nuclear war

Since at least early September, when Russian forces began to melt away from the positions they occupied in Eastern Ukraine under intense pressure from advancing Ukrainian forces, I became convinced that we needed to have a national conversation about nuclear deterrence. Well, Joe Biden took up the charge on Thursday night, and it’s a reminder that I should be more careful about what I wish for.

Speaking at, of all places, a closed-door Democratic fundraiser in New York City, the president let loose a volley of half-baked thoughts about the prospect of global thermonuclear war.

Putin “is not joking when he talks about [the] potential use of tactical nuclear weapons,” the president said. “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily [use] a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”