ResCon1

Deterrence, strength, and resolve are critical now, not weakness and fear.

With the Russian military reeling from massive casualties, defeats, and a surprise Ukrainian counteroffensive, Vladimir Putin has resorted, once again, to nuclear saber-rattling. Putin himself warned today that he is “not bluffing” about his willingness to use nukes. A key Putin ally, meanwhile, threatened London with a nuclear strike.

Of course, such talk is utterly reckless and dangerous and ought to draw worldwide condemnation. But how should the West—and specifically the United States and NATO—respond? Well, we need to remember several key things:

• First, Russian nuclear saber-rattling is nothing new. It was commonplace in the Cold War and, unfortunately, remains a staple of Russian foreign policy today. Yet, despite decades of this reckless talk, Russia never actually resorted to using nukes; and there is little reason to believe it would resort to using nukes in Ukraine today.

• Second, during the Cold War, Russian nuclear saber-rattling did not paralyze American presidents, Democrat and Republican, and it should not paralyze President Biden now. Nor did Russian nuclear saber-rattling paralyze NATO during the Cold War, and it should not paralyze NATO now.

The West cannot be intimidated and forced to back down each and every time Russia threatens to use nukes. If the West had respond in this way during the Cold War, the West would have lost the Cold War.

• Third, Russian nuclear saber rattling is a reflection of Russian weakness, not Russian strength. As Dr. Mike Martin of King’s College in London points out in The Telegraph this morning:

The Ukraine war has already hollowed out much of the Russian armed forces. This includes the sending of its training battalions into combat, and so the trainers of these mobilised reservists are, in many cases, already dead.

As for equipment, very few Russian soldiers even get body armour, and so much equipment has been destroyed by the Ukrainians that they are already having to press Soviet-era equipment into service.

Most of it belongs in a museum not on a modern battlefield.

Putin is sending these people to their deaths. The Ukrainian armed forces have killed tens of thousands of professional Russian soldiers with the best equipment that Russia could supply. What will they do with this mobilised reserve?

…Putin has shown us this morning that he is not strong, but that he is weak.

Exactly. Russia is losing the war and its military faces the very real prospect of collapse. Putin is resorting to nuclear saber-rattling out of desperation.

• Fourth, if Russia uses tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, this will not change the course of the war. It will not reverse Russia’s battlefield losses or its inability to conquer Ukraine.

Instead, all it will do is result in a more horrific loss of life and the very real danger of nuclear contamination blowing back on Russian military forces and the Russian populace. Putin surely knows this, or at least his military advisers surely know this.

• Fifth, Putin alone cannot launch nuclear weapons. He would need the buy-in of an entire military, and possibly civilian, chain of command. And it is by no means obvious that all of these officials would be so stupid and so reckless as do the unthinkable.

• Sixth, if Russia becomes the first and only country to use nuclear weapons since the Second World War nearly 80 years ago, it will seal its fate as a country thoroughly isolated and shunned for two or three generations at least.

Russia currently enjoys the good offices of China, Turkey, Israel, and India. All of these good offices end the minute Russia crosses the nuclear threshold and does the unthinkable. Putin knows this, and it is a big reason why he is highly unlikely to employ nukes in Ukraine.

• Seventh, the West does not have to respond in kind, with a retaliatory nuclear strike, if Russia employs nuclear weapons in Ukraine. In fact, the West should not do so and almost certainly will not do so.

Why? Because that is completely unnecessary from a military standpoint. NATO has more than sufficient conventional military means to destroy the Russian military in Ukraine and should do so if Putin launches a nuclear weapon there.

Moreover, by responding in kind, NATO and the United States cede the moral and diplomatic high ground in Ukraine. Why do so when that is completely unnecessary?

Ceding the moral and diplomatic high ground risks driving away China, Turkey, Israel, and India, all of whom can then say, in effect, “A pox on both your houses.”

• Eighth, the only time the West should launch a nuclear strike on Russia is if Putin launches a nuclear strike on a NATO country.

In other words, if Russia nukes Warsaw or London, then the West responds in kind with a retaliatory nuclear strike on Moscow. But if Russia nukes Ukraine, then NATO enters the war, destroys the Russian military there, and quickly ends the war with conventional weapons.

That at least is what should happen. Let us hope and pray that that is what President Biden, Prime Minister Truss, and other NATO leaders are communicating privately to Russian government officials.

• Ninth, the way to prevent nuclear war is through the time-tested method of deterrence, which served us well during the Cold War. Weakness and fear are provocative and could well result in a miscalculation by Putin.

The Russians should be under no illusions. If they use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, NATO will enter the war, quickly decimate and destroy the Russian military there, and end the war. And if Russia ever dared to launch a nuclear strike on a NATO country, it would result in the utter destruction of Moscow.

That is how we can and will prevent the unthinkable from ever happening. Pray for peace, but prepare for war.

Feature photo credit: YouTube screenshot of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, courtesy of CNN.

Nuclear weapons are not a military game changer in Ukraine and Putin and his generals know it.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive has sparked renewed fears that a desperate Vladimir Putin might resort to nuclear weapons; and that, to forestall this possibility, Ukraine should be careful not to beat back the Russians too far too fast. Otherwise, Putin might lash out and do the unthinkable.

As dovish New York Times’ columnist Ross Douthat put it:

The danger is that desperation might push Moscow toward nuclear brinkmanship—especially given the Russian strategic posture that envisions using tactical nuclear weapons to reverse battlefield defeats.

As the United States learned to its cost in the Korean War, when our push to the Yalu River reaped an unexpected Chinese intervention, the question of how far a victorious army should push is not an easy one, and whether in Crimea or the Donbas, there may be a line that’s perilous to cross.

Military historian Victor Davis Hanson agrees: The Ukrainians, he warns,

are getting very close to the Russian border, and that raises the question: You have an ailing dictator, [Vladimir Putin], with 7,000 nuclear weapons, the world’s largest arsenal. And there are some scenarios that we don’t think about.

Is he just going to say, “I lost 100,000 dead, wounded, and missing. I’m sorry. We lost,” and then quit. I don’t think so…

I think he’s going to say:

“You’re getting very close to the Russian border. You’re hitting targets with NATO and American weapons inside Russia. You’re attacking ships,” and we’re back to 1962, [the Cuban Missile Crisis].

And he’s going to do something dramatic [engage in nuclear brinksmanship if not the use of nuclear weapons].

Excuse me, but this is ludicrous and nonsensical. Douthat and Hanson are serious-minded analysts, but what they are doing here is unserious. It is scaremongering, not serious analysis.

Nuclear Weapons. First, what is at issue in Ukraine are tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons, not strategic nuclear weapons. No one is suggesting that Russia might launch nuclear weapons at the United States or any NATO country.

That would be suicidal for the Russians because it would invite, obviously, a devastating counterstrike that would destroy Moscow. Putin knows this and so, it won’t happen.

The question is: might Russia use tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons on Ukraine?

International Politics. Of course, no one can never say never, because leaders sometimes do stupid things and make horrendous mistakes. But such a move would make no military sense, and it would isolate Russia, politically, to an extent rivaled perhaps only by Kim Jong-un’s hermit kingdom in North Korea.

Russia currently enjoys the good offices of China, India, Israel, Turkey, and other countries that are trying to have it both ways vis-à-vis Russia and Ukraine. Heck, even the Germans and the French sometimes suggest that they are ready, if not eager, to abandon Ukraine for the sake of “peace.”

All of these good offices end the minute Russia crosses the nuclear threshold and does the unthinkable. Putin knows this, and it is a big reason why he is highly unlikely to employ nukes in Ukraine.

Military Disadvantage. Moreover, Russia gains nothing, militarily, by using nuclear weapons.

“They [tactical nukes] don’t really do that much,” explains military analyst Ralph Peters. “You can do more in many cases,” he explains, “with a HIMARS, [the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System]…

A tactical nuclear weapon, he adds, “is not gonna stop the Ukrainians… and it won’t change the course of the war.” Again, Putin knows this, or at least his military advisers know this.

Russia also “would have to worry about the fallout coming from the [nuclear] explosion drifting onto Russian soldiers, pro-Russian separatists, and Russian citizens,” notes Brent M. Eastwood.

Finally, as former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis observes, Putin’s use of a tactical nuclear weapon, “while highly unlikely… would probably bring NATO into the conflict with the creation of a no-fly zone.”

Of course, the last thing Putin and his military commanders want is a direct engagement with NATO. The Russian military is being beaten by Ukrainian citizen soldiers and would be quickly decimated were NATO to enter the conflict.

The bottom line: Putin has every reason not to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. And, to the extent he may be deluded on this score, it is important for the United States and NATO to disabuse him of his delusions: by communicating to him  and his military commanders the inevitable consequences should he dare to cross the nuclear threshold and do the unthinkable.

In short, although Russia has the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, this is of no real political or military significance in Ukraine. What matters is that the Russian military is incompetent at waging war.

What matters is that the Russian economy is incredibly weak and anemic and cannot long sustain Putin’s war of conquest, war of choice.

What matters is that although public opinion polls suggest most Russians support Putin, the Russian people have no appetite for fighting in Ukraine, which is why Putin has not imposed a draft or mass mobilization of the populace.

Support Ukraine. The possibility of a nuclear war always exists, of course, but it is highly unlikely and should not be used as a pretext to scale back Western support of Ukraine and limit Ukrainian political and military objectives.

Ukraine should aim to drive every last Russian out of their country, and America and NATO should stand by the Ukrainians until this objective is achieved.

In other words: don’t listen to the scaremongers. They don’t know what they are talking about. Slava Ukraini.

Feature photo credit: YouTube screenshots of military historian Victor Davis Hanson (L) and New York Times‘ columnist Ross Douthat (R).