ANALYSIS: The world has three options if Putin goes nuclear: completely cut Russia from the Western world; deploy tactical nuke for show or strike Russian forces; or plan for regime change.
Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t want to use nuclear weapons, just as he doesn’t want to still fight his “special military operation” against Ukraine.
This is why he might dust off a Russian doctrine that Western analysts call “escalate to de-escalate”. It means going nuclear to avoid losing a conventional war.“tactical” nukes. These are low-yielding blasts large enough to eliminate a Ukrainian army position or logistics hub, but too “small” to erase an entire city.
Putin’s escalation would burst the Cold War-era taboo against using nukes for anything other than deterrence. If he’s seen to get away with that, other nuclear rogue states would take their cues.This in turn would force countries that have forsaken nuclear weapons in the name of non-proliferation or disarmament, as Ukraine did in the 1990s, to build their own arsenals. Arms control would be dead.
The problem is that this would turn the confrontation into an apocalyptic staredown, possibly leading to a series of tactical detonations. And Russia, which is roughly even with the US in strategic nukes, has about 10 times as many tactical warheads to play with. The scenarios become impossible to calculate, especially when factoring in human error. There would be a risk of Armageddon.The better military option is therefore a conventional US strike on Russian forces.
This raises another question Biden must answer: once he has decided how he would respond to various levels of nuclear escalation, how should he communicate that – to Putin, allies, enemies, and the public?
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