President Vladimir V. Putin has threatened to intervene in Russia’s nuclear arsenal at three times in the past two years: once at the start of the war against Ukraine two years ago, once as he was losing ground, and again on Thursday when he feels he is wearing down Ukrainian defenses and American resolve.
In each case, the saber rattling served the same basic purpose. Mr. Putin knows that his opponents – led by President Biden – fear above all an escalation of the conflict. Even the excitement over the nuclear phase-out reminds Putin’s many opponents of the risk of pushing it too far.
But Putin’s equivalent of a State of the Union address on Thursday also contained some distinctly new elements. Not only did he signal that he was doubling his “special military operation” in Ukraine. He also made clear that he had no intention of renegotiating the last major arms control treaty with the United States, which expires in less than two years, unless the new treaty decides the fate of Ukraine, presumably with much of it in Russia hands.
Some would call it nuclear chess, others would call it nuclear blackmail. Putin’s insistence that nuclear controls and the survival of the Ukrainian state must be decided together carries the threat that the Russian leader would be happy if all current restrictions on the use of strategic weapons were to expire. This would give him the freedom to use as many nuclear weapons as he wants.
And while Mr. Putin said he had no interest in continuing another arms race that contributed to the bankruptcy of the Soviet Union, it meant that the United States and Russia, already in a constant state of confrontation, became the world’s worst competition Cold would return war.
“We are dealing with a state,” he said, referring to the United States, “whose ruling circles are taking openly hostile measures against us.” So what?”
“Are they going to seriously discuss strategic stability issues with us?” he added, using the term for agreements on nuclear controls, “while at the same time trying to inflict, as they say, a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia.” the battlefield?”
With these comments, Mr. Putin underscored one of the most striking and disturbing aspects of the war in Ukraine. Time and time again, its senior military officials and strategists have discussed the use of nuclear weapons as a logical next step when their conventional forces prove inadequate on the battlefield or when they need to deter Western intervention.
This strategy is consistent with Russian military doctrine. And in the early days of the war in Ukraine, it clearly unnerved the Biden administration and NATO allies in Europe, who were reluctant to provide Ukraine with long-range missiles, tanks and fighter jets for fear that they would provoke a nuclear response or Russia would attack beyond Ukraine’s borders into NATO territory.
A second concern about Russia’s possible use of nuclear weapons in October 2022 arose not only from Mr. Putin’s comments but also from American intelligence reports suggesting that nuclear weapons could be used on the battlefield against Ukrainian military bases. After a few tense weeks, the crisis subsided.
In the year and a half since, Mr. Biden and his allies have become increasingly confident that, for all Mr. Putin’s fuss, he did not want to take on NATO and its forces. But whenever the Russian leader invokes his nuclear power, it always triggers a wave of fear that, if pushed too far, he might actually try to demonstrate his willingness to detonate a weapon, perhaps in a remote location to make his opponents retreat.
“In this environment, Putin could begin nuclear saber rattling again, and it would be foolish to rule out risks of escalation entirely,” William J. Burns, CIA director and former U.S. ambassador to Russia when Putin took office, wrote recently in Foreign Affairs. “But it would be just as stupid to allow yourself to be unnecessarily intimidated by them.”
In his speech, Putin portrayed Russia as the injured state and not the aggressor. “They themselves choose targets for attacks on our territory,” he said. “They began to talk about the possibility of sending NATO military contingents to Ukraine.”
This possibility was raised this week by French President Emmanuel Macron. While most NATO allies talk about helping Ukraine defend itself, he said, “the defeat of Russia is essential to the security and stability of Europe.” But the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine has been rejected by the U.S., Germany and other nations immediately rejected it. (Mr Macron has played right into Mr Putin’s hands, some analysts say, by exposing divisions between allies.)
But Mr. Putin may have sensed that this was a particularly opportune time to test the depth of the West’s fears. Former President Donald J. Trump’s recent statement that Russia “can do whatever the hell it wants” with a NATO state that has not contributed sufficiently to the alliance’s collective defense and that it will not respond was met with outrage received a great response throughout Europe. This also applies to Congress’s previous refusal to supply Ukraine with more weapons.
The Russian leader may also have been responding to speculation that the United States, fearing that Ukraine is on a losing streak, might deliver longer-range missiles to Kiev or seize $300 billion in long-frozen Russian assets now lying with Western banks Hand it over to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to buy more weapons.
Whatever triggered it, Mr. Putin’s message was clear: He sees victory in Ukraine as an existential struggle central to his larger plan to restore the glory of the days when Peter the Great was at the height of the Russian Empire ruled. And once a battle is viewed as a war of survival rather than a war of choice, the leap to discussing the use of nuclear weapons is only a small one.
He assumes that the United States is going in the other direction, becoming increasingly isolationist, less willing to stand up to Russia’s threats, and certainly not interested in confronting Russian nuclear threats, as President John F. Kennedy was Jr. in 1962 or Ronald Reagan did it in the last days of the Soviet Union.
The fact that the current Republican leadership, which had enthusiastically supplied weapons to Ukraine during the first year and a half of the war, has now heeded Mr. Trump’s calls to cut off that flow is perhaps the best news Putin has received in years .
“Whenever the Russians return to nuclear saber rattling, it is a sign that they realize that they still do not have the conventional military capabilities that they thought they had,” said Ernest J. Moniz, the former Obama energy secretary government and now the executive director of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which works to reduce nuclear and biological threats, said in an interview Thursday.
“But that means they are becoming more and more reliant on their nuclear posture,” he said. And “that increases the risk.”
Source link
2024-02-29 21:43:14
www.nytimes.com