Velina Tchakarova: prediction

Transcript context

…But it doesn’t have to be Ukraine. I mean a strategic nuke. Say North Korea — if they’re approaching some kind of strange endgame. Or if American forces are doing badly in the South China Sea, and we’re tempted to take out a fleet of Chinese warships using a nuke. Of all the scenarios you can imagine, which is the one that would surprise you least? Maybe actually, the use of tactical nuclear weapon by Russia against Ukraine. If you outline all these scenarios, I just do not anticipate the United States using the nuclear weapon. Think of all the military defeats that the United States had experienced over the decades, and they still did not use the nuclear weapon, be it Vietnam or Afghanistan or whatever kind of military endeavors they had. North Korea — I think that North Korea would not go for the nuclear weapon because the moment when they decide this, they will be annihilated not by one, but by two critically important players because the whole lifeline for North Korea is coming from China and, by extension, from Russia. Neither China nor Russia will actually allow a small player in international relations to use the nuclear weapon because there is a scalability in the international relations. You are allowed, as a smaller player, to do some steps to create some havoc in the regional environment if it’s in the interest of some of your supporters, as is the case right now in North Korea. Why is North Korea receiving all this technological transfer and the whole political and diplomatic support from countries like China and Russia? Well, it’s obvious, activating the North Korean card plays into the cards of Beijing and Moscow because North Korea creates tensions in the Indo-Pacific and overstretches the attention of the US leadership. It also complicates the situation with South Korea. South Korea, together with Japan, are the most important Indo-Pacific allies of the United States. So long as North Korea plays its card smartly and in its allowed, let’s say, scope of activities, things will be fine, but I just don’t see why North Korea would actually be eager to use a nuclear weapon. Maybe, just because we are at the level of speculation, right? If we are at the level of speculation, one region that would probably see nuclearization, will witness more nuclearization, is actually the Middle East because Iran has never been closer to getting the nuclear weapon. Given the most recent escalatory part between Israel and Iran — Israel has the nuclear weapon, Iran still doesn’t have the nuclear weapon — we may argue that this could be one such scenario. Again, I don’t consider it to be probable, but because you want me to speculate, I will do this with big pleasure just for the sake of intellectual exercise, to outline a scenario in which Israel would consider using the nuclear weapon for the sake of not allowing Iran to do so. Now a question about your work at FACE. We’re recording a day after the Iranian helicopter crash, and we don’t know what happened. It might have just been a helicopter crash because of bad weather and fog, but surely you have clients calling you, messaging you, pinging you, wanting to know what’s going on. What is it you do in the course of the day to be able to respond to them coherently? What concrete steps do you take to have a message that is more interesting or more informative than what they might see on Twitter?…

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