Without a doubt NATO would release every single nuke needed to make sure Russia can't launch another missile. We'd take tremendous damage and introduce a possibility of nuclear winter, but we aren't going to sit around and wonder what other targets Russia has in mind.
So yeah, we'd blast them back before the first nukes even landed.
Russia wouldn't need to plan an attack and disable NATO early warning systems. If all their nukes were detonated, humanity would be doomed regardless of where they were detonated. The fallout would eventually encompass the entire earth.
The NATO would be stupid if they nuked back, they have much, much more effective ways of striking back than tactical nukes.
One thing that has been suggested was the destruction of the black sea fleet for example which might thread an interesting needle:
- because it is stationed on Crimea one could argue it is not Russian soil, if one does not accept the Russian anexation of 2018
- it is mostly a military target so civilian casualties are not on the scale of e.g. nuking a city
- the defeat of the black fleet would certainly be felt in the (as of now) mostly isolated Moskow circles and political survival for Putin would be hard
As everything war you cannot really 100% rely on such planning tho. Unforseen dynamics may arise that take you for a ride with a destination you may not like. IMO Putin is currently on such a ride and if we had a machine that would return everything to a pre-Invasion state, I highly suspect there would be one Russian dictator that would like to use it.
But no such machine exists, and I think "the West" in case of tactical Nuke use has to find a way of threading the needle, with just enough retaliation to stop the Russians from doing more, but not so much that they completely panic. Doing nothing in return will normalize nukes, so it is not an option.
If the russians use small yield nukes not much bigger than regular missiles I really doubt any nato response would happen.
The reality is a response is a possible avenue to real nuclear war, its stupid to basically commit suicide like that.
Russia wouldn't dare let anything reach the rest of europe, any nukes they use are almost certainly going to be small yield which nato wouldn't bother responding too, they are about as big as regular missiles.
NATO can easily deny Russia using first strike nuclear attack.
Without centralised command issuing computerised targeting info, it will be for missile officers own initiative to launch them, fully knowing from what they learned in the military academy that an uncoordinated launch will likely be futile.
USA missile defences in Arctic, and North Pacific can guarantee intercept a dozen uncoordinated launches, if what Raytheon says is true.
How would russian aircrafts with known nuclear capability cross so much NATO airspace without being taken down immediately?
Also, I don't think answering a single nuke with another nuke would be a smart move, especially when the radioactive fallout would hurt allies. Conventional destruction of nuclear and military capabilities seems a much more reasonable and efficient defense to me.
Unless the Russians were total psychopaths, their first strike would probably be aimed mostly at our nuclear missiles and the military at large (i.e., a counterforce strike), and not on purposefully destroying our population (i.e., a countervalue strike). So our nukes would reduce their ability to do second, third, etc. nuclear strikes. It would also destroy their ability to continue to make war, which would prevent an invasion of Europe or the USA after the radiation levels drop.
If we had a policy to wait a long time, the Russians could strike our missile bases, large military bases, aircraft carriers, naval bases. But unless we acted fast, our military forces would be in shambles even though the eastern seaboard, Chicago, SOCAL, the major texas cities, etc. are all still standing. We'd still have second strike weapons but they are unusable if we still had domestic civilian targets to worry about. No sane President or General would order a coutervalue strike when faced with a counterforce strike from an enemy.
If we let the enemy successfully first strike the United States, Mutual Assured Destruction goes out the window.
TL;DR; the Russians could "win" a nuclear war unless we shoot back soon.
And if the Russians were total psychopaths who target our cities in a first strike? We have to be prepared to respond in kind or else we incentivize a one sided attack.
I don't think there's any way NATO can afford not to respond to the offensive use of nuclear weapons in a war of conquest, just outside their borders, against a friendly nation. But as long as it's a small, tactical nuke, I think NATO's response will be conventional, but still big enough to cripple all Russian positions in Ukraine, and possibly more.
Those inherently aren't tactical strikes, though. Threatening to nuke civilians if people don't agree with you is nuclear blackmail, and NATO would bring the guillotine down on Russia's head overnight.
The entire point of the cold war was that imagination kills us, and the only point of keeping nuclear weapons is to ensure proportional retaliation if someone else nukes you. Russia knows this; they aren't stupid, and they full-well know that deploying nuclear weapons in any capacity gives the west a fully-justified casus belli on any preparatory strikes they want to make. Russia loves to talk a big game, but it should be plainly obvious that they could not possibly hope to survive a second-strike attack from NATO. It is all or nothing.
I think NATO would respond, but non-nuclear. There is no need to answer tactical nuclear weapons with a nuclear strike. There are tons of NATO air forces available to strike against Russian troops in Ukrainian territory. They would just obliterate any Russian troops there.
It was a small but interesting news item, that a few days before the invasion, some of the US stealth bombers were moved to Rammstein air force base. So at any time there would be the capability of a forceful answer. But this also shows how ridiculous the claims were, that the NATO would seek to attack Russia, as that is the thing the NATO has tried hard to avoid so far.
Russian (and presumably Belarusian) nuclear doctrine is: strike when home territory is substantially threatened/invaded. There's no way that NATO wouldn't give warning of its intent and risk a nuclear exchange.
My guess is what would likely happen is NATO would yell loudly, look like it was ineffective and couldn't decide what to do, but in reality suddenly "Ukraine" would suddenly sink some expensive big ships in the Black Sea or take down a strategic bomber or two, using advanced US/European weaponry, and NATO would shrug and say "Huh. Neat. Wasn't us tho"
Assuming for a moment NATO can perfectly track each and every Russian submarine and take them all out at once, you've still got the Strategic Rocket Forces to contend with, especially their mobile launchers.
There's no feasible way the US can hit Russia with a first strike and not receive a nuclear strike in return. MAD remains in place, even if the US can knock down a few dozen missiles with ABMs.
What would occur from a geopolitical standpoint? Would the Western NATO alliance countries react, with nuclear weapons or with conventional weapons? If this happened, what would be the best way to neutralize further Russian action without escalating into a WW3 nuclear holocaust scenario?
Russia first strike on NATO will cause at most 40m dead in the most improbable scenario of NATO just standing doing nothing.
If NATO will disable the Russian nuclear C&C, they will no longer be able to launch a coordinated attack, and it will be for individual officers in bunkers to decide of fighting an unwinnable war.
So yeah, we'd blast them back before the first nukes even landed.
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