Joe Biden warns Russia about the existential risk of using nuclear weapons.
President Biden has warned the Russians that the use of a nuclear weapon in Ukraine could lead to a wider nuclear conflict. He’s right to be worried—and he’s right to warn the Russians yet again not to take that fateful step.
But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
The president of the United States said last night that he is concerned about nuclear war. “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily [use] a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon,” he remarked, seemingly off-the-cuff, at a Democratic fundraiser. The reactions were what you’d expect: Strategists and foreign-policy experts tried to unpack his statements, while right-wing pundits declared that the old man is too unsteady for the job. Many Americans are, understandably, scared.
I have criticized Biden for intemperate remarks in the past. I gladly stipulate that I never want any president talking about nuclear war extemporaneously (and I wonder what moved the president to speak out this time). But I understand the message Biden is trying, in every possible venue, to send to Russia, and I’m glad that he’s trying to shake us—and Russian President Vladimir Putin—out of our complacency about this potentially cataclysmic issue.
What I suspect Biden knows, and what Americans and their allies should realize, is that Putin is almost certainly talking a lot about nuclear weapons because he wants to accustom the West to the idea that he has the right to use them. From the first day of the war, Putin has woven nuclear threats into both his offensive against Ukraine and his warnings to the West. Like other Russia-watchers, I think the chances that Putin will resort to nuclear use are low. But I have been worried about it since the moment Russia’s military started collapsing on the battlefield.
Now the Russian president is making sure to keep mentioning tactical nuclear weapons, smaller bombs delivered over short distances. These arms, however, are “small” only relative to the massive weapons on bombers, submarines, and intercontinental missiles; even the tiniest of them can do immense damage, especially against civilian areas.
By raising the threat of tactical nuclear weapons, Putin is trying to play both sides of the nuclear game. He wants the rest of the world to internalize the idea that a small nuclear attack isn’t really all that different from any other kind of bombing, while still shattering the nuclear taboo, with all the anxiety that word provokes. He might see this as allowing him to use a nuclear weapon to achieve the trifecta of terrorizing the Ukrainians into surrender, holding the West at bay, and escaping the consequences of crossing the military world’s brightest red line.
