Russian nuclear blackmail
Or, how not to respond
In the recent round of duelling speeches between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden, Putin again reminded the world of the fact of Russia’s immense nuclear arsenal. He did so by extolling the virtues of a new Russian ICBM system code-named Sarmat (known chillingly as “Satan 2” among Western experts) and putting Russia’s treaty obligation under the NEW START pact with the United States on hold.
Biden responded by saying this was a “big mistake.”
Putin called the Sarmat rocket invincible. True, in the sense that its multiple warheads would be difficult to intercept, but otherwise meaningless verbiage. More telling is Putin’s announcement that Russia would cease to meet its treaty obligations under NEW START. NEW START is an important arms control treaty signed between Russia and the United States in 2011. Its significance was in fixing limits on nuclear weapons delivery systems (ICBMS, submarines, bombers); these limits were reached in 2018 and have not been exceeded. NEW START also allowed for mutual, on-the-ground inspections by each power of the other’s nuclear arsenal. In “pausing” NEW START Putin told his Russian audience that he could not allow “NATO” inspectors into Russia. This does not leave the United States blind to Russian nukes, as they have other “technical means” (e.g. satellites) to keep an eye on Russian developments, but aside from being anti-NATO propaganda, the Russian declaration is a pretty clear indication that arms control with the US is dead for so long as Putin remains in power.
https://www.state.gov/new-start/
By its very existence the Russian nuclear arsenal constitutes a dangerous threat in the midst of the Ukraine war. Putin does not even need to make explicit the threat, for it to be real.
US leaders have been clear that any use of even tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine would be a “serious mistake,” conjuring up the Cold War doctrine of “mutually assured destruction” (yes MAD). Experts agree that Putin should not, and likely will not, go there, largely on the grounds that use of tactical nukes by Russia in Ukraine would, however horrific, not be a military game-changer and, more importantly, would completely alienate Russia’s only real backer for its Ukraine war—China.
In its recent 12 point peace plan for the Ukraine war, China stated that “Nuclear weapons must not be used and nuclear wars must not be fought.”
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/202302/t20230224_11030713.html
Ukraine’s leadership has pushed back hard against the implicit power of Russian nuclear blackmail, which it knows adds caution to Western military support for Ukraine. It has been especially virulent in denying unfounded claims by Russia that Ukraine was developing its own “dirty bomb” capability, something also denied by the UN watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Experts feared that such Russian claims could be a “false flag” operation to justify a Russian use of nuclear weapons in turn.
Are we safe from the threat of a nuclear war in Ukraine? No. Russia values it nuclear blackmail capabilities. Vladimir Putin’s so-called “red lines” are unclear, though we do know that Russian military-political doctrine allows for the use of nuclear weapons in defence of Russian territory (which could include the newly and illegally annexed provinces of Ukraine). In war, there can be miscalculation and accident, and with them escalation, so a rationalist perspective is not fully reassuring. In the context of all that we have learned about Russian military command incompetence, and Putin’s interventions in military decision-making, it is hard to take comfort in any idea of a solid Russian command and control system for the use of nukes. We are into potential “Dr. Strangelove” territory with the Russians.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/how-russia-decides-go-nuclear
Worrying about Russian nukes will be a persistent theme of the Ukraine war for as long as it lasts. The challenge for Western support for Ukraine will lie in not succumbing to nuclear blackmail and fatally weakening Ukraine’s military capacity as a result.
If you are watching the famous “Doomsday” clock, established by a group of scientists, including Albert Einstein, after World War Two to measure how close the planet is to extinction, you will know that it has moved to 90 seconds before midnight, the highest level ever. Contrast this with 1991 and the fall of the Soviet Union, when the Doomsday clock was set back to 17 minutes before midnight. To stop the clock from inching any closer to midnight requires the denunciation of nuclear blackmail, not a false policy of appeasement.
