Vladimir Putin's readiness to resort to nuclear threats, from a certain point of view, can be regarded as a good sign. This means that Russia is likely to lose in the war against Ukraine.. But these threats can also be potentially catastrophic..
The Financial Times writes about this, adding that if Putin's goal was to scare the West, then he failed.. NATO continues to supply weapons to Ukraine. The question is what will he do if he realizes that Russian defeat in the war is inevitable. Putin keeps hinting that he knows the answer for sure. Anyway, the genie is already out of the bottle..
Putin broke the taboo on nuclear threats that arose after the Cuban Missile Crisis. This fact alone indicates that the world is now in uncharted territory..
“Most people don’t know this, but the world has entered its most dangerous period since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.. Most of those under 50 grew up with the idea that the nuclear ghost is a relic of the last century.. Over the past few weeks, the prospect of a nuclear exchange has become the biggest threat to the world this century..
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As for public awareness, the debate around Putin's rhetoric has become a good example of a situation where " It's easy to dismiss Putin as a poker fan who is bluffing out of a bad bet.. In the end, he must fold. But US civilian and military officials are not so naive.. Many of them participated in military exercises that involved the use of limited tactical nuclear weapons that did not escalate into an exchange of strikes using strategic arsenals.. The last one would be the end of the world.
If there is a 5% chance that Putin will detonate a nuclear weapon on the battlefield, the world will be in greater danger than at any time in the lifetime of most people on the planet.. Over the past few days, Moscow's statements have raised the odds to one in ten. Putin said the test of the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile is a reason for the West to " Such words would be appropriate only for Ernst Stavro Blofeld - the super-villain from the James Bond films of the 20th century.. On Wednesday, Putin said: “We have all the tools to respond to an existential threat to Russia that no one else can boast of.”. And we use them if we have to."
The natural reaction was that President Joe Biden and his European counterparts made it clear that NATO would not fight in Ukraine.. In other words, the West poses no " But this is how the West sees the situation. Threats by Putin and his officials came in the context of claims that Russia seems to be already at war with NATO. Russians are told every day that they are fighting for the survival of their people against the Western-backed Nazis..
Such rhetoric surpasses anything that was heard during the Cold War.. The concept of mutually assured destruction, which appeared after 1962, suggested that each side must clearly know what the opponent is doing and thinking.. But over the past decade, most channels of information exchange have been severed.. Putin closed all Cold War protocols and even accused Russian nuclear physicists of espionage who wanted to meet their US counterparts.. This means that the enemies, who own 90% of the world's nuclear warheads, do not know more about each other than they did in the 1970s or 1980s.. In this situation, ignorance is not a blessing..
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The burning question is how Biden will respond if Putin detonates a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine. He has several options.. It is possible to launch a non-nuclear strike at the place where the Russian missile comes from: a factory or, for example, a launch site. Another way to respond is to impose a complete trade embargo and related sanctions against those who refuse to comply with it, in particular China..
The first option, that is, a strike on Russian territory, is the risk of provoking a dangerous escalation that could get out of control. And the second one would be insufficient. There are also intermediate steps between the two responses, such as strikes on Russian ships or a powerful cyber attack.. In any case, one can only guess how Putin will respond.. No one knows what scenarios are being developed in the White House, not to mention the Kremlin. However, now there is nothing more important for our destiny.