Everybody gasp and cower. Or duck and cover. If you forgot, the tsar has some nukes. A lot of them, actually, and gun to his head, he might have to use them.
Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a revised nuclear doctrine self-authorizing the Kremlin to deploy nuclear weapons in the event “any nonnuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear state” demonstrates “aggression against the Russian Federation and/or its allies.” In such a situation, the aggressors are considered to be acting in a “joint attack” against Russia, the decree said.
The reference, obviously, was to Ukraine and the West. Late last week, Joe Biden granted Kyiv’s long-standing request for clearance to use ATACMS against targets inside Russia, prompting partisan catastrophizing across the Republican echo chamber in the US.
As a quick reminder, Biden initially changed the rules of engagement back in May. In a bid to deter a brutal aerial barrage on Kharkiv, he lifted a ban on the use of HIMARS against Russian positions across the border. ATACMS can travel roughly four times further.
The ATACMS decision wasn’t unprovoked. In a move straight out of a Tolkien novel, Putin leveraged his strategic partnership with Pyongyang last month to summon thousands of Kim Jong-Un’s 1.3 million active-duty soldiers to the fight in Ukraine. Some suggested Putin might tap that line of “credit” for as many as 100,000 North Korean troops over time. The US is hoping the ATACMS threat will dissuade Kim. Somehow, I doubt it, but it does raise the stakes a bit for the Kremlin.
Russophiles and the GOP’s born-again isolationists (there’s considerable overlap between those two groups) conveniently failed to mention this week that Putin’s move to lower Russia’s nuclear threshold is actually old news. The document itself was already drafted. Putin quoted directly from it during one of his cartoonish long-table cabinet meetings a few months ago. He previewed the new language and specified that it applies to attacks which pose a “critical threat to [Russia’s] sovereignty.”
All Putin did on Tuesday was sign that pre-drafted doctrine. That’s not to suggest it isn’t concerning, it’s just to say it’s no more concerning than it was two months ago, and no more concerning than any of the other tens of hundreds of times Putin and his minions have threatened, explicitly or otherwise, to nuke everybody over the past decade or so.
And folks, he’s not going to nuke anybody. Putin’s the most dangerous man on the planet, yes, but deploying a nuclear weapon would be the beginning of a very quick end for him. Russia doesn’t have the strategic wherewithal nor the hardware to fight a war against the United States. And as I’m sure Beijing has made clear to Putin, even if China “wants” a war with the US eventually, they don’t want to be pulled into one now by somebody else. The idea of anyone — even Putin — “forcing” Xi Jinping to do anything, let alone something as potentially disastrous as fighting World War III, is laughable. Totally laughable.
I don’t mean to suggest Xi would leave Putin on his own. He probably wouldn’t. But if the question is whether the PLA’s locked and loaded and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice alongside Putin’s motley collection of criminals, alcoholic teenage conscripts and North Koreans in a bid to conquer Europe, the answer’s “no.” A hard “no.”
If you’re curious, the old language in Russia’s nuclear doctrine suggested the Kremlin would only consider deploying a nuke against another nuclear state, and only in response to either a nuclear strike against Russia or a conventional attack that threatens “the very existence of the state.” In other words: The old language effectively ruled out the use of nukes, given that i) no one was going to nuke Russia and ii) the sheer size of the place means no conventional attack could threaten its “very existence,” although I’m sure a conventional strike against Moscow or the Kremlin itself (i.e., the nation’s physical seat of power) would’ve counted as existential for the purposes of the doctrine.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Putin’s “winning” in Ukraine (or what counts as “winning” when you botched things initially but managed to turn it around) and assuming Donald Trump can’t get the war ended by Inauguration Day (which he promised repeatedly on the campaign trail), you can be sure that one of the first things he’ll do in his second term is rescind Kyiv’s ATACMS carte blanche. Putin knows that. It’d be ludicrously counterproductive bordering on the nonsensical to nuke someone with t-minus two months until Trump’s back in the Oval Office.
So, it’ll be fine. Probably. And depending on your definition of “fine.”
Not to question the morals of a politician, but if I’m Joe Biden and I don’t actually value the well-being of people over partisan strategy, I’m thinking about thinking about how convenient it would be to hand Trump a deteriorating situation where Kyiv is hitting oil facilities. Second order effect might be to boost Trump’s energy agenda but it also might be to throw another variable into a tenuously balanced s-show. IDK obviously, I’m not listening in to Biden’s calls with Zelensky, but it crossed my mind.
Why not just send them over some mobile deploy nukes? Wouldn’t that provide the deterrence they lack to actually scare Putin?
“The US is hoping the ATACMS threat will dissuade Kim. Somehow, I doubt it…”
This is pure win for Kim. It’s not like the West can make things any worse for him. We’ve already sanctioned just about everything coming out of or into North Korea, and two of the three countries that border it are quite happy to ignore those sanctions. NK maintains a huge standing army, but for the last 70 years, they haven’t seen much of anything in the way of real combat. Whatever soldiers make it back from Russia will be hardened veterans. The ones who don’t make it back will merit a huge shrug. They’ll probably get some banging parades in their honor though, which is more than they could have ever hoped for in life. As an added bonus, for as long as North Korea’s soldiers are on Russian soil, Kim doesn’t have to feed them.
Two disappointing things: 1) that it took this long for Biden to loosen the restraints, and 2) that it was telegraphed in advance. I’m sure the Russian MoD has spent a productive last few days in a massive scramble to move high-value assets out of ATACMS range.
Mostly correct except for the parade part. The Parade will be in Kim’s honor because they died for him. As will go any and all future military ceremonies in the US as well.
Happy to see Ukraine getting right after it with the ATACMS, though as often is the case with U.S. military tech/capability (nb: M-1 Abrams), the results are likely to fall short of the hype.
It’s a laughable piece of political propagandizing for Putin to sign a piece of paper to let us know he can now use nukes when he wants. Of course he’s always been able to do that. “Piece of paper, I don’t need no stinking piece of paper comrade!”.
Right.
If Americans can’t read a Trump con they sure should be able to see through Putin. He’s a mad dog calling wolf, an arsonist complaining about hot coffee.
The Americans who went over to Trump this election mostly don’t even know who Putin is.
I’ll take that thought a step (perhaps an Olympic long jump) further and suggest Biden should have been the one to threaten to use nukes, in the lead-up to Putin invading Ukraine almost 3 years ago. And perhaps send Zelensky a few tactical ones along with the next shipment of tanks and missiles…
Restrictions eased on use of Storm Shadow missiles, supplied by UK but containing US technology. US also supplying anti-personnel mines for the first time.
So, the Ukraine war will probably “end” aka temporarily pause, with Russia keeping provinces in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. Ukraine will rebuild and re-arm for renewed hostilities. During the war, Ukraine has developed some domestic defense industry: 4MM drones/yr (the combat use of which they now know more about than any Western country) and munitions (to be expanded via a Rheinmetall-built facility). It will probably become an arms exporter, after the government lifts wartime export restrictions. I wonder if we’ll get the chance to invest in those companies?