Are the Red Coats still occupying the USA, Canada (okay, there is the Royal Mounted Police), Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa? South Africa in particular is now ruled by an African government.
Texas threw out the Mexican Army before the United States annexed it. There is a move in Texas, though, that would have it secede from the Union.
BTW, the US has not even hit the 500 year mark.
The Soviet Union collapsed as it was withdrawing from Afghanistan. Too bad NATO did not learn from that experience. But with that collapse came the freedom of a number of East European countries.
Short of a miracle? Well, Putin can't live forever.
;
No, but the descendants of British, French, Spanish, Dutch and other European colonists are still occupying the lands they took from the people who had been living here for a long, long time prior to 1492.
I really don’t think “in the history of empires, all invaders will eventually leave,” is an assertion that works out particularly well for you.
I don't expect the Ukraine to be totally absorbed within the Russian Empire. They have too many friends in the West for that to happen. But I can't see things going back to how they were either.
No, nothing ever stays the same. So, you're right on that point - the question is what can be permitted to change and what should be fought for retaining.
Ukraine will remain an independent nation state, there's virtually no way that the new Russian Empire can absorb it, it's too large a territory with a population hostile to such a take over. I can't even see how all of the territory taken by Russia in the last nine years of war (much less that taken since 2022) could be held by Russia long-term - the Soviets learnt the hard way that fighting a population is very costly, and there will always be a resistance movement within the Donbas (and to a less extent Crimea) against Russian occupation, with a lot of support from the Ukrainian people who have fled those regions - whether Ukrainian or Russian speakers. How many dead Russian soldiers will it take before they give up?
One thing that I see changing is that Ukraine will cease to be a bi-lingual nation, before 2014 there were large parts of the population of Ukraine who only spoke Russian, but that wasn't a problem as the nation had two official languages (and, is no way unique in that, Belgium is a nation with French-speaking and Dutch-speaking regions, for example). Since 2014 those languages have become dividing lines, and especially since 2022 there's been extreme polarisation within the regions dominated by Russian speaking people - with a few becoming more Russian, but the majority becoming more Ukrainian (there has also been an influx of people from Russia into Crimea and Donbas who don't identify as Ukrainian at all, which doesn't help reduce tensions and maintain a united Ukrainian nation at all). The post-war Ukraine will still include a large Russian-speaking minority, but they're also going to be much more inclined to learn Ukrainian and embrace Ukrainian culture, most of them have taken up arms to defend Ukraine (or otherwise support Ukrainian sovereignty). The Ukrainian speaking majority aren't going to forget that, though the position of those who aligned themselves with Russia is going to be untenable within Ukrainian territory - collaborators never are welcome.
No, but the descendants of British, French, Spanish, Dutch and other European colonists are still occupying the lands they took from the people who had been living here for a long, long time prior to 1492.
I really don’t think “in the history of empires, all invaders will eventually leave,” is an assertion that works out particularly well for you.
P.S. There is a difference between standing armies occupying lands and civilians continuing to live in former colonies. My point is about the standing armies continuing to occupy conquered lands.
No, but the descendants of British, French, Spanish, Dutch and other European colonists are still occupying the lands they took from the people who had been living here for a long, long time prior to 1492.
I really don’t think “in the history of empires, all invaders will eventually leave,” is an assertion that works out particularly well for you.
I think it works out very well. There are always exceptions to the rule.
When you say “all empires,” you pretty much rule out the possibility of exceptions.
P.S. There is a difference between standing armies occupying lands and civilians continuing to live in former colonies. My point is about the standing armies continuing to occupy conquered lands.
Er, when your colonists out-gun the natives, as in all of the Americas, Australasia, Israel and you become the majority, unlike South Africa, Africa Cape to Cairo in fact, India (from the Indus to the Irrawaddy), ooh, and, er, Roman Britain (I'm a descendent of the army that marched past my house 1900 years ago), whose army stands?
P.S. There is a difference between standing armies occupying lands and civilians continuing to live in former colonies. My point is about the standing armies continuing to occupy conquered lands.
Most of the British Empire was "occupied" by local troops (albeit often with white British officers). The Indian Army in WWI and WW2 was vast, far bigger than that recruited in Great Britain. The nature of any modestly successful empire is that it isn't reliant on large occupying forces.
What (I wonder) does the Ship's Seer think will happen, though? Will Trump nuke Russia, or perhaps Ukraine?
It's all the same to him, like China and Taiwan will be. He'll only nuke Ukraine metaphorically. Unless Boris has turned him. Which he hasn't. He's more likely to nuke New York.
Are the indigenous Russophones of Crimea and Donbas invaders? They can always be ethnically cleansed on an impossible Ukrainian victory I suppose.
@Martin54, I presume you don't actually want the Russophones of Crimea and Donbas to be ethnically cleansed; Ship's policy here states that it is unhelpful to present opinions that are not one's own without being clear about the fact.
Are the indigenous Russophones of Crimea and Donbas invaders? They can always be ethnically cleansed on an impossible Ukrainian victory I suppose.
@Martin54, I presume you don't actually want the Russophones of Crimea and Donbas to be ethnically cleansed; Ship's policy here states that it is unhelpful to present opinions that are not one's own without being clear about the fact.
No, but the descendants of British, French, Spanish, Dutch and other European colonists are still occupying the lands they took from the people who had been living here for a long, long time prior to 1492.
I really don’t think “in the history of empires, all invaders will eventually leave,” is an assertion that works out particularly well for you.
I think it works out very well. There are always exceptions to the rule.
When you say “all empires,” you pretty much rule out the possibility of exceptions.
The jury is still out when it comes to present empires. But it does seem lately, when the US has invaded another country, it eventually does withdraw its military.
No, but the descendants of British, French, Spanish, Dutch and other European colonists are still occupying the lands they took from the people who had been living here for a long, long time prior to 1492.
I really don’t think “in the history of empires, all invaders will eventually leave,” is an assertion that works out particularly well for you.
I think it works out very well. There are always exceptions to the rule.
When you say “all empires,” you pretty much rule out the possibility of exceptions.
The jury is still out when it comes to present empires. But it does seem lately, when the US has invaded another country, it eventually does withdraw its military.
No, but the descendants of British, French, Spanish, Dutch and other European colonists are still occupying the lands they took from the people who had been living here for a long, long time prior to 1492.
I really don’t think “in the history of empires, all invaders will eventually leave,” is an assertion that works out particularly well for you.
I think it works out very well. There are always exceptions to the rule.
When you say “all empires,” you pretty much rule out the possibility of exceptions.
The jury is still out when it comes to present empires. But it does seem lately, when the US has invaded another country, it eventually does withdraw its military.
Withdrawing it's military is one thing, withdrawing its influence another. The US State Department has its fingers in all sorts of pies.
It's no defence of Putin to point to US interference in Latin America, in the Philippines, in the Middle East and lots of other places besides.
Your equation of imperial action with uniformed boots on the ground falls far short of the mark.
The Anglo-Saxons invaded this country in the 5th century. They haven't gone away. They're still here. The Portuguese invaded Brazil in the 16th century. They haven't gone away either.
The point I'm trying to make - however clumsily - is that Russia and the Ukraine's identities and histories are so closely intertwined that even if Putin woke up tomorrow morning and said, 'Hey everyone, I've made a terrible mistake. I'm going to withdraw my troops immediately and never bother the Ukraine ever again' - that wouldn't be the end of it.
There was an Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century. Part of the island of Ireland gained independence in 1922. People are still occasionally killed or injured in sectarian violence in Northern Ireland 25 years after The Good Friday Agreement.
You seem to fondly imagine that all this will be over by Christmas.
History, I submit, would say otherwise.
There are some historians who argue that the Crimean War of the 1850s destabilised Eastern Europe to the extent that the ripples were among the disruptions that led to WW1.
We can't have war in Europe (or anywhere else for that matter) without it having far-reaching and devastating effects for generations to come. It's not as if Kosovo is settled.
The worst case scenario is that we could be seeing a 'Yugoslavia with nukes'.
There are very real prospects of ethnic cleansing and atrocities on both sides in all of this.
At the risk of a Hell Call you seem to have a Hollywood Movie view of history. Send in the 7th Cavalry and the F16s and everything will be OK.
I say 'bollocks to that'.
If Putin dropped dead or changed his tune tomorrow the shit would continue in some form or other.
I don't =nk I ever said the Ukrainian War would be over by Christmas. I haven't given any timeline to it, though I did say it will be over sooner than later, but I was giving a thousand-year window.
All I can say is eventually it will be over. The Russians will retreat.
It was clarified earlier, 22nd June is the anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. And, of course, the Ukrainian government will be well aware of the significance of that date and avoid the optics of launching a major offensive at that time while Russia is calling them Nazi's.
It was clarified earlier, 22nd June is the anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. And, of course, the Ukrainian government will be well aware of the significance of that date and avoid the optics of launching a major offensive at that time while Russia is calling them Nazi's.
It was clarified earlier, 22nd June is the anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. And, of course, the Ukrainian government will be well aware of the significance of that date and avoid the optics of launching a major offensive at that time while Russia is calling them Nazi's.
A 'thousand year window' gives your sunny optimism some wriggle room.
'It'll all be over by Christmas,' was an optimistic saying that did the rounds in the UK during the summer of 1914. It's become something of a by-word for misplaced optimism over here. I was citing that not any overly literal timescale you may have foretold.
You seem to want it both ways. An iminent Russian defeat but with a timescale of up to a millenium.
Nobody knows what the world will look like in a thousand years time, let alone next week.
You also seem to have this idea that invasions are only ever about people in regular armies in regular uniforms and so on. What I've been trying to argue is that it isn't as simple as that.
You'll be telling us that good guys wear white hats and bad guys black hats next.
History itself is a process of flux. The tides of time ebb and flow. If you look at a physical atlas of Eastern Europe. and compare it witha historical atlas of the same area, you will see how few natural boundaries there are between Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and Germany, to say nothing of Moldova, the Baltic States and Finland.
Nuclear weapons to be deployed in Belarus from July, says Putin
Russia will start deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus after the facilities are ready on 7-8 July, President Vladimir Putin told his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko on Friday in a meeting in Sochi, Russia.
According to a readout from the Kremlin, Putin said:
So everything is according to plan, everything is stable.
The two leaders had previously agreed the plan to deploy Russian land-based short-range nuclear missiles on the territory of Moscow’s close ally, where they will remain under Russian command.
Latest news is that tactical nuclear weapons are to be based in Belarus in about a month's time.
Is this a sign of impending Armageddon?
No. If Russia wanted to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine (or against NATO countries supplying Ukraine) it already has the ability to do so. Stationing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is a PR move, not a strategic one.
Latest news is that tactical nuclear weapons are to be based in Belarus in about a month's time.
Is this a sign of impending Armageddon?
No. If Russia wanted to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine (or against NATO countries supplying Ukraine) it already has the ability to do so. Stationing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is a PR move, not a strategic one.
It's also a political move, cementing support from Belarus giving them the ego boost of having the trust of nuclear power to have nukes based there. And, with that a signal to Ukraine that their northern neighbour isn't neutral.
Latest news is that tactical nuclear weapons are to be based in Belarus in about a month's time.
Is this a sign of impending Armageddon?
No. If Russia wanted to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine (or against NATO countries supplying Ukraine) it already has the ability to do so. Stationing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is a PR move, not a strategic one.
It's also a political move, cementing support from Belarus giving them the ego boost of having the trust of nuclear power to have nukes based there. And, with that a signal to Ukraine that their northern neighbour isn't neutral.
Well, a PR move, yes, I suppose so.
Politically, yes, I see that as well - although I doubt if President Zelenskyy has had any illusions about the thuggish Lukashenko for quite some time...
I may well be kin to men who marched past my house two thousand years ago. A million times diluted admittedly. And yeah, I know. Even if they were ancestral I may have none of their DNA at all. But we're still here. And wherever you are is halfway. My strongly Nigerian descendants in a thousand years will still have German and Celtic ancestry.
Blowing up the dam may end up poisoning the Black Sea. It has likely scattered unexploded mine fields which will take years to clean up. Thousands of acres have been destroyed and may be unusable for some time. People have been displaced; Animals killed. Oh, yea, four nuclear plants are now at risk of melt down should the emergency ponds fail. Maybe worse than detonating a tactical nuclear weapon.
Blowing up the dam may end up poisoning the Black Sea. It has likely scattered unexploded mine fields which will take years to clean up. Thousands of acres have been destroyed and may be unusable for some time. People have been displaced; Animals killed. Oh, yea, four nuclear plants are now at risk of melt down should the emergency ponds fail. Maybe worse than detonating a tactical nuclear weapon.
Suppose Trump is dead (or in jail) by the time the next presidential election comes around?
Technically, there is nothing in the constitution that says he cannot serve as president if convicted or even in prison. True, he may be impeached--assuming the Democrats are in control of the House, but the Senate would need 66 votes to convict. A pretty high bar, considering the division in the Senate.
Now there may be some state laws that could prevent him from running if convicted of a crime, but I am not sure.
Blowing up the dam may end up poisoning the Black Sea. It has likely scattered unexploded mine fields which will take years to clean up. Thousands of acres have been destroyed and may be unusable for some time. People have been displaced; Animals killed. Oh, yea, four nuclear plants are now at risk of melt down should the emergency ponds fail. Maybe worse than detonating a tactical nuclear weapon.
No . it's . not .
With the destruction of the dam there's damage across a wide area (in this case the area actually flooded, along with the various pollutants picked up and transported elsewhere, and the even larger indirectly impacted areas which have lost their source of irrigation water), quite small loss of life but displacement of very large numbers of people from flooded homes. Restoration of that territory will take decades - about 10y to rebuild the dam assuming an end to hostilities so engineers can get in there, and then restoration of agricultural land as irrigation is resumed and decontamination of land that would have been under polluted water for extended periods of time.
A tactical nuclear weapon will result in massive destruction and loss of life in a very small area. Use of a large number will result in significant widespread pollution from radioactive products, but an individual nuke will only impact an area within 1-2km of the blast point (much lower impact beyond that would only be an issue if there's the cumulative effect of lots of them). Of course, the precise impact of something with highly local effects is going to depend on where a tactical nuke would be used, which probably makes a "better vs worse" comparison impossible. A nuke detonated in a rural area away from civilian population would have small impact, the same nuke dropped in the middle of a city would have an unimaginable loss of life and long term injury and destruction of infrastructure.
Ideally, war (if it's necessary at all) would just target military assets and not include mass destruction of civilian life and infrastructure - whether that's by the use of a nuke or conventional explosives targeting a large dam or blanket bombing of cities. In WWII the death tolls from fire bombing of Dresden or Tokyo significantly exceeded those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - which of those actions was worse? Or, do we have to concede that both were evil actions and we resort to debating if these actions were more evil than not degrading enemy manufacturing capabilities and prolonging the war. And, where do we put the destruction of the Ruhr dams on that list of lesser or greater evil?
Suppose Trump is dead (or in jail) by the time the next presidential election comes around?
He's not the only evil moron available. And jail is no impediment.
Indeed, the question of whether DeSantis would be significantly better than Trump comes to mind. The question is whether Biden can get sufficient aid to Ukraine in the next year to swing the direction of the war in favour of the Ukrainian defenders before the next election and the risk of a Republican presidency who will be more in favour of supporting the aggression of Russia (by not providing Ukraine the means to recover occupied territory). Without US aid the war will become a long term attritional affair - Ukraine won't give up and still have European support, and especially if some sanctions that exceed the impact of Brexit on the UK can be imposed on Russia then will they be able to make up for the loss of men and equipment?
Comments
Texas threw out the Mexican Army before the United States annexed it. There is a move in Texas, though, that would have it secede from the Union.
BTW, the US has not even hit the 500 year mark.
The Soviet Union collapsed as it was withdrawing from Afghanistan. Too bad NATO did not learn from that experience. But with that collapse came the freedom of a number of East European countries.
Short of a miracle? Well, Putin can't live forever.
;
I really don’t think “in the history of empires, all invaders will eventually leave,” is an assertion that works out particularly well for you.
Ukraine will remain an independent nation state, there's virtually no way that the new Russian Empire can absorb it, it's too large a territory with a population hostile to such a take over. I can't even see how all of the territory taken by Russia in the last nine years of war (much less that taken since 2022) could be held by Russia long-term - the Soviets learnt the hard way that fighting a population is very costly, and there will always be a resistance movement within the Donbas (and to a less extent Crimea) against Russian occupation, with a lot of support from the Ukrainian people who have fled those regions - whether Ukrainian or Russian speakers. How many dead Russian soldiers will it take before they give up?
One thing that I see changing is that Ukraine will cease to be a bi-lingual nation, before 2014 there were large parts of the population of Ukraine who only spoke Russian, but that wasn't a problem as the nation had two official languages (and, is no way unique in that, Belgium is a nation with French-speaking and Dutch-speaking regions, for example). Since 2014 those languages have become dividing lines, and especially since 2022 there's been extreme polarisation within the regions dominated by Russian speaking people - with a few becoming more Russian, but the majority becoming more Ukrainian (there has also been an influx of people from Russia into Crimea and Donbas who don't identify as Ukrainian at all, which doesn't help reduce tensions and maintain a united Ukrainian nation at all). The post-war Ukraine will still include a large Russian-speaking minority, but they're also going to be much more inclined to learn Ukrainian and embrace Ukrainian culture, most of them have taken up arms to defend Ukraine (or otherwise support Ukrainian sovereignty). The Ukrainian speaking majority aren't going to forget that, though the position of those who aligned themselves with Russia is going to be untenable within Ukrainian territory - collaborators never are welcome.
Here is a short summary of past and present empires. Not very many present ones. Of the vast majority, they either collapsed or withdrew.
I think it works out very well. There are always exceptions to the rule.
Er, when your colonists out-gun the natives, as in all of the Americas, Australasia, Israel and you become the majority, unlike South Africa, Africa Cape to Cairo in fact, India (from the Indus to the Irrawaddy), ooh, and, er, Roman Britain (I'm a descendent of the army that marched past my house 1900 years ago), whose army stands?
Most of the British Empire was "occupied" by local troops (albeit often with white British officers). The Indian Army in WWI and WW2 was vast, far bigger than that recruited in Great Britain. The nature of any modestly successful empire is that it isn't reliant on large occupying forces.
What will happen on (or before) that day?
Martin's back to his shroud waving regarding the US presidential election, January 20th being inauguration day.
What (I wonder) does the Ship's Seer think will happen, though? Will Trump nuke Russia, or perhaps Ukraine?
Oooh, ah, have I contravened our gentleman's agreement? Still no counteroffensive. No F16s.
It's all the same to him, like China and Taiwan will be. He'll only nuke Ukraine metaphorically. Unless Boris has turned him. Which he hasn't. He's more likely to nuke New York.
I believe we said end of June as the cut-off so we're both ok for now.
I just hope they don't go full tilt on June 22nd...
@Martin54, I presume you don't actually want the Russophones of Crimea and Donbas to be ethnically cleansed; Ship's policy here states that it is unhelpful to present opinions that are not one's own without being clear about the fact.
la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
Dear me no. I'm sorry.
O come on. What happens on June 22nd? These cryptic utterances really do need some clarification, especially for those of us who aren't omniscient.
Barbarossa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa
The jury is still out when it comes to present empires. But it does seem lately, when the US has invaded another country, it eventually does withdraw its military.
That's the one.
You can add overdressed as well.
Withdrawing it's military is one thing, withdrawing its influence another. The US State Department has its fingers in all sorts of pies.
It's no defence of Putin to point to US interference in Latin America, in the Philippines, in the Middle East and lots of other places besides.
Your equation of imperial action with uniformed boots on the ground falls far short of the mark.
The Anglo-Saxons invaded this country in the 5th century. They haven't gone away. They're still here. The Portuguese invaded Brazil in the 16th century. They haven't gone away either.
The point I'm trying to make - however clumsily - is that Russia and the Ukraine's identities and histories are so closely intertwined that even if Putin woke up tomorrow morning and said, 'Hey everyone, I've made a terrible mistake. I'm going to withdraw my troops immediately and never bother the Ukraine ever again' - that wouldn't be the end of it.
There was an Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century. Part of the island of Ireland gained independence in 1922. People are still occasionally killed or injured in sectarian violence in Northern Ireland 25 years after The Good Friday Agreement.
You seem to fondly imagine that all this will be over by Christmas.
History, I submit, would say otherwise.
There are some historians who argue that the Crimean War of the 1850s destabilised Eastern Europe to the extent that the ripples were among the disruptions that led to WW1.
We can't have war in Europe (or anywhere else for that matter) without it having far-reaching and devastating effects for generations to come. It's not as if Kosovo is settled.
The worst case scenario is that we could be seeing a 'Yugoslavia with nukes'.
There are very real prospects of ethnic cleansing and atrocities on both sides in all of this.
At the risk of a Hell Call you seem to have a Hollywood Movie view of history. Send in the 7th Cavalry and the F16s and everything will be OK.
I say 'bollocks to that'.
If Putin dropped dead or changed his tune tomorrow the shit would continue in some form or other.
All I can say is eventually it will be over. The Russians will retreat.
The solstice, and perhaps that's Martin's point. Or perhaps it's not.
[Fixed code - la vie en rouge, Purgatory host]
Thanks for that, I must have missed it.
Thanks, @Alan Cresswell . Good point.
'It'll all be over by Christmas,' was an optimistic saying that did the rounds in the UK during the summer of 1914. It's become something of a by-word for misplaced optimism over here. I was citing that not any overly literal timescale you may have foretold.
You seem to want it both ways. An iminent Russian defeat but with a timescale of up to a millenium.
Nobody knows what the world will look like in a thousand years time, let alone next week.
You also seem to have this idea that invasions are only ever about people in regular armies in regular uniforms and so on. What I've been trying to argue is that it isn't as simple as that.
You'll be telling us that good guys wear white hats and bad guys black hats next.
No, the Ukrainians wear a blue and yellow patch. The Russians wear a white, blue and red tricolor patch.
To see pictures of Russians purposely shelling rescuers trying to help civilians in the flood disaster they created pretty much says it all.
Is this a sign of impending Armageddon?
From the Guardian, earlier this afternoon:
Nuclear weapons to be deployed in Belarus from July, says Putin
Russia will start deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus after the facilities are ready on 7-8 July, President Vladimir Putin told his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko on Friday in a meeting in Sochi, Russia.
According to a readout from the Kremlin, Putin said:
So everything is according to plan, everything is stable.
The two leaders had previously agreed the plan to deploy Russian land-based short-range nuclear missiles on the territory of Moscow’s close ally, where they will remain under Russian command.
No. If Russia wanted to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine (or against NATO countries supplying Ukraine) it already has the ability to do so. Stationing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is a PR move, not a strategic one.
Well, a PR move, yes, I suppose so.
Politically, yes, I see that as well - although I doubt if President Zelenskyy has had any illusions about the thuggish Lukashenko for quite some time...
No it's not.
A doomsayer will be along in a moment to tell me I'm wrong, I expect.
Well, whatever else it says, it says to me that people who are capable of such things aren't going to quit anytime soon.
Neither are the Ukrainians of course.
So what we seem set for is a long, bloody and grinding war of attrition.
Lord have mercy!
This doomsayer won't. They are the best of us. But in 21 months an evil moron will be freely, fairly, democratically chosen to save another.
Suppose Trump is dead (or in jail) by the time the next presidential election comes around?
He's not the only evil moron available. And jail is no impediment.
No . it's . not .
Technically, there is nothing in the constitution that says he cannot serve as president if convicted or even in prison. True, he may be impeached--assuming the Democrats are in control of the House, but the Senate would need 66 votes to convict. A pretty high bar, considering the division in the Senate.
Now there may be some state laws that could prevent him from running if convicted of a crime, but I am not sure.
A tactical nuclear weapon will result in massive destruction and loss of life in a very small area. Use of a large number will result in significant widespread pollution from radioactive products, but an individual nuke will only impact an area within 1-2km of the blast point (much lower impact beyond that would only be an issue if there's the cumulative effect of lots of them). Of course, the precise impact of something with highly local effects is going to depend on where a tactical nuke would be used, which probably makes a "better vs worse" comparison impossible. A nuke detonated in a rural area away from civilian population would have small impact, the same nuke dropped in the middle of a city would have an unimaginable loss of life and long term injury and destruction of infrastructure.
Ideally, war (if it's necessary at all) would just target military assets and not include mass destruction of civilian life and infrastructure - whether that's by the use of a nuke or conventional explosives targeting a large dam or blanket bombing of cities. In WWII the death tolls from fire bombing of Dresden or Tokyo significantly exceeded those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - which of those actions was worse? Or, do we have to concede that both were evil actions and we resort to debating if these actions were more evil than not degrading enemy manufacturing capabilities and prolonging the war. And, where do we put the destruction of the Ruhr dams on that list of lesser or greater evil?