Putin: to Nuke or Face Political Oblivion: That is the Question By James Reed
Let’s get today’s blog off to a bang. Maybe a nuclear one that could lead to billions of dead, according to some views, but dare I say, contrarians like me, think, perhaps not. Anyway, if it happens we will know. Well, maybe not. In an On the Beach scenario, we in Oz may not know what happened in the hot seat of the northern hemisphere. In any case, as Brandon Weichert argues, Putin may not have any option left to save his regime but being the ultimate strongman and pressing that little red button. We will see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdWGp3HQVjU
Barry McGuire became a Christian after this classic song.
“The current view from the Kremlin is not pretty. After initiating a foolish war of choice with neighboring Ukraine, Russia’s conventional military strength has been sapped. As a result of Ukraine’s unprecedented and ongoing military success, Russian President Vladimir Putin has had to do the one thing he had thus far refused to do: escalate the conflict by calling up his reserves.
Until now, Putin’s regime had insisted the majority of Russians supported the war effort. But the stakes were relatively low, since many people were not impacted directly by the war. Now, as the new mobilization commences and the Russian position in Ukraine is faltering in the face of Ukrainian counterattacks, Putin is about to see just how deep—or, more likely, how shallow—the support for his war really is among the people.
Russia’s capacity for suffering may be legendary, but even the Russians have their limits.
Putin’s apparatchiks have delighted in highlighting for the public how Russia’s economy has not collapsed in the face of intensified sanctions the West imposed in the wake of the invasion. Russia is the world’s largest nation in terms of land and sits atop vast mineral and natural resources. The Putin government has done an able job of exploiting its natural resources to become a major energy exporter and agricultural superpower. Russia’s natural resources have become essential for Europe’s economy.
Naturally, Russia’s aggression prompted European governments to cut off Russian energy supplies until Moscow ends hostilities. Instead, nations like China and India have stepped in to pick up Russia’s excess capacity—helping ensure that Russia’s economy and its war machine grinds on, despite sanctions and embargoes.
Russia’s Economic Woes
After several months of dealmaking with New Dehli and Beijing, however, the Indians and Chinese have started to balk at subsidizing Russia’s Ukrainian misadventure. To Putin’s credit, he has skirted a complete economic collapse that many Westerners predicted in the wake of intense sanctions. The fact that the war has lasted this long—and does not appear to be ending any time soon now that the Western-backed Ukrainians are pushing back hard—means Russia’s economy has plenty of time to implode. Viewed in this light, Putin’s management of the Russian economy appears more like coasting on inertia and much less of a deft reorientation of the nation’s economic and trading policies.
According to a comprehensive Yale University study, things are about to change. The Yale economists predict Russia’s economy will collapse within the next six months absent drastic policy changes. That, coupled with the growing unpopularity of the war at home (unpopularity now being exacerbated by Putin’s desperate conscription order), would spell the end of Putin’s regime.
While Western observers may be dreaming of precisely such an outcome, remember that the enemy gets a vote. Putin understands the stakes better than anyone. He knows what happens if he fails in Ukraine and his economy implodes: He’ll be overthrown and likely wind up with a bullet in his head.
So, Putin is unlikely to abandon his drive for the total destruction of Ukraine. He has shown in the past year that he is willing to escalate militarily—and to keep doing so until he can change the facts on the ground and the fight to his favor. He may never be able actually to win, but Putin cannot be seen as losing. If his latest gambit fails, Putin will seek another solution that strikes directly at the Western powers supporting Ukraine—especially the United States.
With no good options left, Putin would not hesitate to use nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction against Ukrainian targets.
Putin’s Changing Nuclear Calculations
For Putin’s forces to have a chance in effectively using WMDs against Ukrainian targets, though, Russia would need to attack Western targets in space, cyberspace, and across the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. Russia’s goal is to divorce Western military support for Ukraine at all costs. Of course, there are several steps between that point and where we are today. But, it is imperative to see where these trends are headed. Remember that Russia under Putin cannot sue for peace under present conditions and Putin cannot be perceived as a loser by his people—but he is now being viewed that way.
As Russia mobilizes mostly unwilling citizens to go fight a Ukrainian force enjoying generous Western assistance and galvanized because they are defending their homeland, Putin will seek to pressure European governments with his energy lever. Countries such as Germany still need cheap Russian natural gas to heat their homes during what many are predicting will be an unusually cold winter. Putin will throw more troops into the meat grinder to slow the Ukrainians down and prevent them from pushing Russian forces out of Ukraine entirely. Meanwhile, he will insidiously attempt to divorce Europe from the United States (and therefore from Ukraine) by effectively freezing Europeans out this winter.
Despite his best efforts thus far, however, Putin has been unable to play the energy card in Europe as effectively as he believed he could. It is unlikely the Europeans will buckle, even as their own economies descend into recession and their people suffer in the frigid conditions of a European winter.
Coming out of what many are calling Europe’s “Winter of Discontent,” Putin will be in a bind. His war plans will have failed as will his strategy of breaking Western resolve by strangling Europe from critical energy sources. At that point, Putin is likely to escalate in a dramatic fashion.
Putin’s Risk of Overthrow Comes from Within
It isn’t just Western analysts who claim Putin’s personal and political survival depend upon success in Ukraine. Aleksandr Dugin, one of the most influential thinkers on the Russian imperialist Right, has made similar predictions about Putin’s longevity. Shortly before the bizarre attempt on his life in August (which resulted in his daughter’s death), Dugin predicted publicly that Putin’s regime would be taken down by the Ukraine War. The gonzo Russian geopolitical theorist called for Putin’s removal from power and argued his replacement should be an even more strongman who would finish the war with Ukraine by any means necessary.
The Russo-Ukraine War is likely to be to Putin’s rule what the Russo-Japanese War a century ago was to that of Czar Nicholas II: the triggering event that will lead to the regime’s destruction. Like that war a century ago, the Russians assumed they would easily defeat the smaller, upstart power. Instead, they are being routed. The blowback for Russia will be immense. The difference between then and now, however, is that Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons, and its leaders are moving to a place where they appear increasingly willing to use them.
Now is the time to prepare. America needs to deploy a rudimentary space-based missile defense while enhancing protections for its existing satellite constellations. Washington must prepare critical infrastructure for a massive cyberattack that will come once Putin decides he has no choice but to use nukes in Ukraine. Six to eight months is not a long time, but it is still some time. Our leaders have chosen to make war on Russia via Ukraine. We must now prepare for the consequences of those decisions while we still can.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18942/biden-russia-nuclear-strikes
"If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia," National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told NBC's "Meet the Press" on the 25th of this month, referring to threats to use nuclear weapons. "The United States will respond decisively."
Sullivan was responding to, among other things, a warning Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered in a televised address on September 21. "I want like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have," the Russian leader said. "In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us."
"This is not a bluff," he added.
"The idea of nuclear conflict, once unthinkable, has become a subject of debate," said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres the following day at a Security Council session on Ukraine. "This in itself is totally unacceptable."
Acceptable or not, the use of nuclear weapons is fast becoming likely. The world can thank President Joe Biden for helping create the conditions for history's first total war.
Putin's threat to use nukes — presumably against Ukraine but perhaps others as well — was made at the time he announced a military mobilization, Russia's first since World War II.
The Russian leader has made a series of implicit and explicit nuclear threats this year. On February 27, for instance, he put his nuclear forces on high alert. On March 1, he sortied his ballistic missile submarines and land-based mobile missile launchers in what was called a "drill."
Russia's nuclear doctrine is called "escalate to deescalate" or, more appropriately, "escalate to win," which means threatening or using nukes early in a conventional conflict.
Even if Putin is now bluffing — most analysts think he is — he is getting what he wants with threats. Biden, for instance, has been cautious and even timid in providing military assistance to a beleaguered Ukraine. Putin has obviously noticed, which is the reason he has been making more such threats.
"A nuclear war cannot be won," Biden stated in his September 21 U.N. General Assembly speech, but that applause line is not necessarily true.
With nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, the Russian leader could, in a moment, reverse his fortunes by incinerating Ukraine's cities and large concentrations of military assets, eventually allowing Russia to annex the entire country.
Could Putin get away with such a bold move? The main deterrent to a first strike with tactical nuclear weapons is a threatened second strike with nukes. At this time, the U.S. has tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, in the form of "gravity bombs" delivered by F-16 and F-35 jets.
These bombs, as destructive as they are, are not, as a practical matter, much of a deterrent to the first use of tactical nukes. They can be destroyed on the ground, and any that survive have to be flown long distances through contested airspace to reach targets. In short, Putin is unlikely to be afraid of America's bombs.
That leaves the president of the United States with only one other nuclear threat for deterrence purposes: the launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles. ICBMs carrying nuclear warheads can completely destroy Russia, but Putin knows Biden will never make good on any threat to use these weapons in this situation. Putin knows that Biden knows that Putin can obliterate the United States in a second strike with his ICBMs.
When Sullivan says "catastrophic," Putin undoubtedly thinks "hollow." American threats to use its most destructive weapons are simply not credible in this situation.
Why, then, doesn't the United States have what it needs at this crucial moment: nuclear-tipped cruise missiles like Putin's? The arms-control community, arguing that such low-yield weapons would make nuclear war more likely, persuaded American presidents not to build them. President Trump authorized their development, but Biden cancelled the program.
Unfortunately, arms-control advocates got it backwards. As evident from today's developments, America lacking low-yield nuclear warheads on cruise missiles is making nuclear war more likely, not less.
So, what does the arms-control community now recommend?
"The United States will need to reduce its nuclear arsenal to encourage Russia to do the same," wrote Tom Collina and Angela Kellett on the 21st of this month on the Defense One site.
Entice Russia into disarmament? Been there. Tried that. Failed miserably.
"In 2010, we killed the Navy nuclear-armed cruise missile and Russia responded by confirming they were indeed building 32 new strategic nuclear systems of which 90% are now complete," the Hudson Institute's Peter Huessy tells Gatestone. "The comparable Chinese number is 28."
Nonetheless, Collina and Kellett urge the Biden administration to not let Putin's war prevent negotiations with Putin to limit nuclear weapons. "If we want to prevent Russia from using its nuclear weapons to enable more aggression against weaker states, we must find a way to work with Moscow to reduce its nuclear arsenal," write the pair in "War Is No Reason to Put Arms-Control Negotiations on Hold," their Defense One article.
Is it possible to work with Putin at this time?
Even if we can put aside the morality of talking to a genocidal mass murderer — we cannot — it is reckless to believe Putin might actually honor arms-control agreements when he has continually violated them with impunity.
Moreover, it is bad enough to argue for disarmament in peacetime, but it is the height of folly to do so during war — and when China and North Korea are making first-strike nuclear threats of their own.
America's arms-control advocates have always been naïve. Now, they are delusional.”
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