Will Vlad Press that Little Red Button? By Richard Miller (London)

A friend often speaks of Putin pushing that little red button, but launching he nukes does not work like that, it involves giving commands to generals to do the dirty work. Just imagine one devise that could do this; oops, drop it, apocalypse now. And after the blowing up of the Kakhovka Dam, with the West blaming Russia, and Russia blaming the Ukraine, the war has intensified. Ukraine president Zelensky, described the bombing as “an environmental bomb of mass destruction,” so there will be consequences, perhaps more drone strikes into Russia.  

At some point a trigger will be squeezed and Russia will take the nuclear option, as Retired US Brigadier General Kevin Ryan has argued in detail. He sees the war as pretty much a stalemate, and Putin is likely to become more desperate over time, and in the end, the only way Russia can meet escalation with escalation is by introducing nuclear weapons.” Indeed, it is surprising that nukes have not been used yet.

If one accepts the thesis that the neo-cons in the West desire war, and add to this the Putin factor, things do not look good, if staying alive is one’s goal. Yet this issue which should be the number one priority, does not get the public discussion it deserves.  

https://unherd.com/2023/06/why-putin-will-use-nuclear-weapons/

“However, you try to spin it, the drone strikes that struck Moscow’s wealthiest neighbourhoods on Tuesday night represented a grim turning point in Putin’s flagging campaign against Ukraine. The surprise attacks — which killed eight people, and for which Kyiv has denied all responsibility — were the first against Russian civilians since the war began. They were also the most significant incursion into Russian territory since the Second World War.

Putin was quick to brand the strikes a “terrorist” act, while a rattled Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenaries, gave war chiefs a dressing-down for their inability to prevent three of eight drones from evading Russian air defences. Yet while this all provided a morale boost for the Ukrainian war effort, the question of retaliation hangs in the air.

Fifteen months into the war, Putin’s bombs have not broken Ukraine. An influx of 300,000 new soldiers over the winter has done little to improve the fighting of Russian units, and the reported deployment of tanks from the Fifties has added fuel to the rumour that Russian munitions are running out. Indeed, Russian military commanders appear to have exhausted their ability to effectively respond to Ukrainian escalation. It is becoming clear, in my view, that the only way Russia can meet escalation with escalation is by introducing nuclear weapons.

Many Western experts say they take the threat of a Russian nuclear strike in Ukraine seriously, but make the mistake of asserting that the odds are low. Last month, for instance, Avril Haines, the US Director of National Intelligence, told a Senate hearing that Putin’s weakened conventional force would make the Russian President more reliant on “asymmetric options” for deterrence, including nuclear capabilities — but he also said it was “very unlikely” that Moscow would do so. Speaking at the same hearing, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, also assessed the chances as “unlikely”.

And yet, there is strong evidence that Putin has resolved to use a tactical nuclear weapon in his war in Ukraine. In recent speeches and interviews, he has argued that Russia faces an existential threat — a situation, under Russian policy, that warrants the use of nuclear weapons. He has also reshuffled his military leadership, so that the three generals responsible for the employment of tactical nuclear weapons now command his “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Moreover, while NATO has made it clear that it will not sanction the use of its members’ nuclear weapons to defend Ukraine, Putin already has tactical reasons to deploy them: to save Russian soldiers’ lives, to shorten the war, to destroy Ukrainian forces. He also has strategic reasons: to rejuvenate the deterrent value of his nuclear arsenal and to prove that he is not a bluffer. We must therefore assume he is ready to use them, most likely in response to his faltering military’s inability to sufficiently escalate by conventional means. In other words, the nuclear genie is out of the bottle.

For much of the last 80 years, Russia’s security has rested on two pillars whose relative strength has waxed and waned — its conventional ground forces and its nuclear weapons. The conventional forces have been used to influence, bully and force Russia’s neighbours and adversaries to bend to its will. The nuclear forces were intended to deter the United States and the West from interfering militarily in Russia and its perceived zone of influence. Since the end of the Cold War, however, Russia’s conventional forces have at times struggled with their share of the task. To compensate, Russian leaders have had to rely on their nuclear forces to do both: strategic nuclear weapons to deter the West and tactical nuclear weapons to threaten neighbours.

Today, a single nuclear strike in Ukraine could thwart a Ukrainian counterattack with little loss of Russian lives. For Moscow, this consideration is as much practical as it is moral: last year’s large-scale mobilisation and increase in military units showed that Putin’s army was too small for its task. Nevertheless, Russia has managed to create only a few new battalions because most new personnel and equipment simply replaced losses in existing units. Putin and his military leaders are running out of the people and material needed to achieve his goals.

At the start of this year, Putin took several public steps to demonstrate that he is not bluffing about using nuclear weapons. In February, he signed a law “suspending” Russia’s participation in New Start, the strategic nuclear arms treaty. This step officially ended joint inspections of American and Russian nuclear weapons sites and released Russia from the obligation to limit its number of strategic nuclear weapons — though Russia promised to do so.

Then, in March, Putin announced that he would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, with a storage facility set to be built as early as July. Since Russia has already deployed nuclear-capable Iskander missile systems there — as well as thousands of troops — this would put nuclear delivery systems and warheads in close proximity to one another, greatly reducing the warning time of their use. Putin also suggested that Belarussian forces would be trained to use the weapons.

The Kremlin has taken these increasingly threatening steps in the belief that Nato and the West — in particular, the United States — is not paying attention to Russian demands on the global stage. In 2018, when Putin unveiled a bevy of new nuclear weapons, he warned: “You will listen to us now!” Except many didn’t: four years later, his invasion of Ukraine was a wake-up call for those who had ignored him