Chuck DarwinThe world must reject Russia’s nuclear posturing – but not ignore the danger
In 2014, Putin’s covert operation to seize and then annex Crimea shocked the world.
In 2015, Russia launched a surprise military intervention into Syria.
The following year Putin directed an unprecedented operation to sway the US presidential elections.
He did the same in Europe in 2017.
Then he tried to kill off an enemy by poisoninghim on British soil, attacked the US with cyberweapons, and, finally, carried out a full-scale invasion of a neighboring country – Ukraine.
Who can know with enough confidence when a reckless autocrat like this,
surrounded by yes-men,
might decide the time is right to teach the West a lesson with a tactical nuclear strike?
Internal Russian documents, as well as the latest Kremlin statement, suggest Russia’s threshold for using a nuclear weapon is fairly high
but getting lower.
Putin’s nuclear redlines are nearly impossible for Ukraine, Nato, or anyone outside Putin’s innermost circle to know with the certainty needed in light of the gravity of the issue.
That Russia has not used nuclear weapons yet offers little confidence that it won’t do so in the future.
It’s not hard to imagine circumstances in which using a nuclear weapon might seem like the rational choice from the Kremlin’s point of view,
especially if faced with a rapid reversal of the gains for which Russia has paid dearly,
or if confronting western escalation that only nuclear weapons can match
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