Message for Vladimir Putin: We have nuclear weapons, too

BACKGROUND

Francesca Ebel, Natalia Abbakumova, Robyn Dixon, and Catherine Belto, “Russia’s nuclear doctrine to include attacks on nonnuclear states; Russian President Vladimir Putin said non-nuclear states supported by nuclear ones could face Russia’s nuclear deterrent in an expansion of its policy,” Washington Post, September 25, 2024 (Updatedat 5:01 p.m. EDT;

2)”Farnaz FassihiAlan Yuhas and Ivan Nechepurenko, “As Zelensky Calls for Global Focus on Ukraine, Putin Rattles Nuclear Sabers; Hours after the Ukrainian president appealed for the West’s continued support, Russia’s authoritarian leader, Vladimir V. Putin, moved to significantly ease the circumstances under which his country might counter with nuclear weapons,”:New York Times, September 25, 2024;

3) Phillips P. O’Brien, “The Precipice of Failure–US Foreign Policy and Ukraine; The one hope is that Harris is different:” Phillip’s Newsletter (paid): September 24, 2024;

4) Isabelle Khurshudyan, Siobhán O’Grady, Michael Birnbaum and Ellen Francis,”Debate over Ukraine weapons restrictions divides allies, administration ; The discussion over weapons restrictions is ongoing in Washington, splitting the Biden administration and Capitol Hill and confounding America’s partners in Europe., Washington Post, September 24, 2024 (3:00 a.m. EDT)

Once again, Vladimir Putin has resorted to his most powerful weaon, his nuclear threats

While other leaders understand that Putin’s nuclear threats and “red lines” are .essentially empty threats and bluffs, Joe Biden is terrified by these threats, as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also appears to be.

Someone needs to remind Putin—and also Biden—that the U.S. and NATO partners France and the U.K, also have nuclear weapons, and that any use of a nuclear device against Ukraine would be likely to produce a NATO response that would have devastating consequences for Russia’s conventional forces and for the country as a whole.

Moreover, such an action would probably end the Chinesee export to Russia of the dual-use parts and equipment that has helped fuel Russia’s war machine and its continuing aggression against Ukraine.

To put it bluntly, Putin’s shrewd understanding of Biden’s psychological vulnerabilities and irrational fears of his nuclear threats have deprived Ukraine of its ability to fully exercise its right of self-defense under international law and the United Nations Charter.

Biden’s stubborn insistence on prohibiting the use of Western-supplied weapons against targets in Russia, now slightly relaxed along the border, has probably cost tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives and the destruction of large parts of cities (e.g., Mariupol) and much of its civilian infrastructure )e.g., electricity, water) since Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

Now Ukraine and many countries are calling for Biden to drop these restrictions.

Biden has a chance to redeem, in some small way, his policy of cowardice in facing Russia and Putin, by dropping all restrictions on the supply and use by Ukraine of weapons supplied by NATO countries and other allies.This includes restrictions on the use of American-made components of weapons systems manufactured by other NATO countries.

Biden benefits in avoiding criticism from the fact that the Republicans have no coherent ideas for confronting Putin.

Yet Biden is unlikely to authorize the supply or use of weapons against targets deep inside Russia because he is a stubborn old man governed more by emotions and fears than by reason.

The same stubbornness that led him not to withdraw from the presidential race until he faced overwhelming opposition from within his own Democratic Party, and was staring at the prospect of almost certain defeat, remains at play.

It is the same hubris and stubbornness that led him to overrule his military advisers and decide to withdraw all U.S. forces and contractors from Afghanistan in 2031, in a manner that would inevitably lead to the collapse of the Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani and the victory of the Taliban.

He is a stubborn old man whose thinking has become even more rigid as he appears to be sliding toward senility.

One can always hope, however, that outside pressures will become so strong that Biden will reverse course, as he did in withdrawing from the presidential race, and save what he can of his tattered reputation in the field of foreign policy.

FURTHER READING

1)David Ignatius, “Ukraine is bleeding out. It cannot fight forever; Supporting Ukraine “as long as it takes” does not match the reality of this conflict,” Washington Post, September 15, 2024 (5:22 p.m. EDT);

2) Ben Wallace, “The West is fast forgetting the laws of deterrence – to Putin’s delight; But Britain does have one trump card – we have real and old friends. Russia has none,” The Telegraph, September 17, 2024 (3:59pm).

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.James Rowles is a former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and professor of international law at other universities. He is the author of The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021 (September, 2024, now available on Amazon and soon to be available from IngramSpark).

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