The danger is less that Putin will use nukes and more that the West might be intimidated and back down because of Putin’s threat to use nukes.
Vladimir Putin doesn’t want to use a nuclear weapon to win a military victory in Ukraine, because he knows that won’t work. A nuclear strike makes no military sense and will not alter the course of the war.
Instead, Putin wants to use the threat of a nuclear strike to secure a political and territorial victory in Ukraine without having to further employ his inept and incapable military.
Putin hopes to intimidate the West into backing down and to force Ukraine to the bargaining table, where it will have to acquiesce in Russia’s sham annexation of five Ukrainian regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea.
As the New York Times reports:
The revelation of the Ukraine conflict—that Russia’s conventional forces were poorly trained, unimaginative and ill-equipped—has made Mr. Putin all the more dependent on his unconventional weapons…
[However], the threat [to use a nuclear weapons] may be more effective than actually using [such] a weapon because the cost to Russia of breaking a 77-year taboo could be astronomically high.
Indeed, and so, the question for the United States and NATO is:
Will we allow Russian nuclear blackmail to succeed? Will we set a new international precedent that might makes right; and that bad men with nuclear weapons can force good men with a conscience to back down and surrender?
Fortunately for Ukraine and for humanity, it doesn’t look like that will be the case. President Biden and other NATO leaders have been steadfast in their refusal to be cowed and intimidated by Russian nuclear threats and bluster.
- President Biden: We “are not going to be intimidated by Putin and his reckless words and threats. He’s not going to scare us… We’re going to continue to provide military equipment, so that Ukraine can defend itself and its territory and its freedom…”
- French President Emmanuel Macron: “France expresses its firm opposition [to Russian threats and Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory. We] will continue to stand by Ukraine in order to deal with Russian aggression and to enable Ukraine to recover its full sovereignty across its entire territory.”
- German Chancellor Olaf Schloz: “The sham referendums carried out by Putin in the illegally occupied areas of Ukraine are worthless. They violate international law. Germany will never recognise the so-called results. I assured [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky of this in a phone call yesterday.”
- British Prime Minister Liz Truss: “We will not hesitate to take further action, including imposing more sanctions to cripple Putin’s war machine. We will ensure he loses this illegal war.”
These assurances are important, critical, and welcome: because if Putin’s nuclear blackmail gambit succeeds in forcing the West to back down, it will give license to further nuclear blackmail by other bad actors and incentivize them to acquire nuclear weapons. The results could be catastrophic.
Now is the time and Ukraine is the place to draw a clear red line. The use of nuclear weapons cannot and will not be tolerated. Any Russian use of nukes will be met with a catastrophic consequences for Russia. Then and only then might we prevent the unthinkable from ever happening while securing a real and lasting peace.
President Biden and other NATO leaders clearly recognize this. So, too, should the Russian dictator, Putin. The West, sir, ain’t bluffing.
Feature photo credit: U.S. President Joe Biden (L) and British Prime Minister Liz Truss (R), courtesy of The Independent.