Talk about playing nuclear “chicken.” Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has one more warned the US not to seek to punish Russia for the war in the Ukraine, let alone attempt to undermine Russia. The reason is simple: Russia has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, and is prepared to use it. The West thinks that Russia holds to the Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D) doctrine, but the Russians do not. Putin once said that even in the worst case, Russians would go to Heaven and the US to hell. Apart from Putin’s questionable theology, Russia has the alternative doctrine of to “escalate to deescalate,” meaning that it might launch a limited number of nukes, then sit back and see what the West does. But since the West holds to M.A.D, this attack would be interpreted as the beginnings of a nuclear war, and it is on, then quickly over. It is surprising that the average punter is not into mad survivalist mode like my friend G. who is already digging a massive bomb shelter out on his Victorian sheep farm.