Putin Threatens to Nuke the World
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Putin Threatens to Nuke the World | Opinion
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Russia sortied ballistic missile submarines and land-based mobile missile launchers on March 1 in what was called a drill.
Two days earlier, Vladimir Putin put Russian nuclear forces on "special combat readiness ," in other words, high alert.
Minutes before the Ukraine invasion, the Russian president warned of "consequences that you have never experienced in your history."
"Yes, Putin might do the unthinkable," said James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, to Business Insider .
For almost a decade, Russian doctrine has been to "escalate to deescalate," to threaten or even to use nuclear weapons early in a conventional conflict or crisis. John Hyten, until last year the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, more correctly termed the doctrine "escalate to win, escalate to end."
As Hudson Institute senior fellow and GeoStrategic Analysis president Peter Huessy told Newsweek , "escalating to win" assumes nuclear threats will "coerce an enemy to stand down and not fight."
Ukraine, at the moment, is still fighting. Putin apparently believed the country would fall in a few days. With the conflict now in its third week, Russian forces are continuing to struggle on the battlefield.
Many analysts say nuclear weapons have no utility in Ukraine, but that assessment does not take into account Putin's maliciousness. One use of tactical nukes would be to avoid high-casualty, street-by-street battles in Kyiv and other cities.
Why is the now-famous Russian 40-mile tank column not entering the Ukrainian capital? Mud, fuel shortages and enemy attacks may not be the only reasons. Russia could be thinking of employing weapons of mass destruction—chemical or nuclear—before trying to capture Kyiv.
As Russian forces have encountered unexpected resistance, Russia's threats have come at a fast pace. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that World War III would be nuclear.
"Nuclear war is part of our strategic culture," an unnamed retired Russian diplomat told American foreign policy analyst Harry Kazianis on the sidelines of a Track 2 dialogue in 2012. "Yes, we would start one if our homeland, our way of life, was threatened, absolutely. Why wouldn't we?"
Remember, few thought Putin would launch a full-scale invasion, which has now become the largest assault in Europe since World War II. Strong powers completely failed to deter a conventional attack by a weak one, so we should now be prepared for deterrence to fail again.
For three decades, Americans did not think seriously about nuclear weapons. Instead, they resorted to slogans, such as the one President Biden adopted just last June in a joint statement with Putin : "A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought."
Moreover, Biden could be going beyond mere sloganeering. Up until the Ukraine invasion, many expected his administration would announce in the Nuclear Posture Review the adoption of a No First Use or Sole Purpose policy. Both policies, radical departures from the one in place since the 1940s, would prevent the U.S. from using nukes to protect allies from non-nuclear attacks.
"This gives the enemy the initiative, should they wish to go nuclear under an escalation-to-win strategy, and seriously undercuts the extended nuclear umbrella deterrent that we provide to our NATO and western Pacific allies," Huessy told Newsweek last year, referring to Biden adopting such policies. "This would be a huge gift to China and Russia," noted a "European official" to the Financial Times .
China, Russia's "no limits" partner (the pair adopted the phrase in the 5,000-word joint statement last month), has formally adopted No First Use. And Beijing is keenly watching what happens in Ukraine.
If Putin's nuke threats prevent others coming to Ukraine's rescue, he will undoubtedly employ similar warnings to grab the Baltic States, Poland and other areas. The ambitious Russian leader wants to reassemble the Soviet Union, but it looks like he also harbors even grander ambitions, such as incorporating all the territories of the old Russian Empire. He may even be looking for more than that.
China is also demanding "lost" territory. To grab it, Beijing has periodically made unprovoked threats to incinerate American population centers. And beginning last July, Chinese propaganda talked about lobbing nuclear weapons into Japanese and Australian cities.
Beijing's primary target remains Taiwan. Former Chinese disarmament diplomat Sha Zukang once issued a public warning that China would nuke the island republic .
"As Russian nuclear forces have already deterred President Biden from sending troops to Ukraine and deterred NATO from giving more combat aircraft to Ukraine, so China has long ago decided to use nuclear blackmail to keep the U.S. out of its future murder of Taiwan's democracy," said Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center to Newsweek . "But that's not all. For the last decade, China and Russia have been building a military entente that has long included cooperation in 'strategic defense,' or defense against U.S. nuclear missiles. It is highly plausible that China and Russia already have decided to cooperate in 'strategic offense,' or the coordination of their nuclear forces to blackmail or even to destroy the United States."
President Biden, when asked on February 28 whether Americans should be worried about a nuclear attack, gave a one-word response : "No."
The correct answer was "yes."
On the day after Putin raised nuclear forces to high alert, the U.S. Strategic Command put its "doomsday plane," the E-4B, into the air . The craft is designed to protect the president, senior civilian officials and top military commanders in the event of a nuclear attack.
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The end of the world may be nigh. Buy stocks, this firm says.
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KEY WORDS
The war in Ukraine is significantly raising the risk of nuclear apocalypse, but investors should nonetheless remain “bullish,” according to a recent report.
Related video: Uranium stocks hit on Ukraine nuclear plant attack (CNBC)
“Although there is a huge margin of error around any estimate, subjectively, we would assign an uncomfortably high 10% chance of a civilization-ending global nuclear war over the next 12 months,” said a team of BCA Research analysts, led by chief global strategist Peter Berezin, in a Friday report.
“If an ICBM is heading your way, the size and composition of your portfolio becomes irrelevant.”
The researchers said that if the war in Ukraine continues to go badly for Russia, and “Putin concludes he has no future, the risk is that he will decide that no one else should have a future either.”
For more: Complete MarketWatch coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
The report found that even if a third world war is averted, global markets could “experience a freak-out moment” in the coming weeks akin to what happened at the beginning of the pandemic in February 2020, as nuclear fears rise.
But the report from the Montreal-based company concludes on a practical, if not particularly reassuring, note, saying that despite the increased risk of nuclear war, “it makes sense to stay constructive on stocks” over the next year, betting that civilization will not actually end.
“If an ICBM is heading your way, the size and composition of your portfolio becomes irrelevant,” they wrote. “Thus, from a purely financial perspective, you should largely ignore existential risk, even if you do care about it greatly from a personal perspective.”
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The depressing thought is that one day these sort of predictions will come true.
I think Putin is more than capable of launching. Question is, will the military do it? Will the missile crews? Might be a good time for people to reassess their position on God.
Do you think God would like to help? He could cause Putin to have a major grabber you know.
LOL, I've never heard that term before. Grabber!
major heart attack
Yeah, I figured it was that.
Would God let the world end in mushroom clouds before He would give Putin a killer heart attack? Its hard to fathom.
If I understand prophesy even halfway, that won't be how the world ends. Doesn't mean a few nukes don't get used. For sure, though, the end of the world isn't in Putin's hands.
Prophesy is tricky. Jesus was predicted throughout the OT but when he finally arrived no one believed him because he wasn't what they were expecting from their understanding of prophesy.
Lots of people out there who've made a career out of figuring out exactly what's going to happen. There are some things most agree on, some that most don't. Me? I figure I'll just do what I can to try to understand and believe I'll know it when I see it happening. Assuming I'm still here, anyway.
Yep, everyone knows The Dead in Christ will rise up at the Zombie Apocalypse in the end. SMH...
I think a tactical level nuke as a way to force Ukraine's surrender is more likely than global thermonuclear war. . At least I hope.
I don’t think that would force a surrender, only strengthen resolve.
Remember that the US came close to using nuclear weapons in Korean war and again in the Vietnam war generals were bringing up the subject of nuclear weapons.
Is it possible that Putin will use them in Ukraine, yes I think that he would if he felt he was losing the war, it would be tactical type but once used it opens the door to others (US) doing the same.
I think a sneak attack across the board is more likely. What would he gain by using a tactical nuke? It would just turn everyone more against him than they are already?
IMO, Putin couldn't care less what other countries think of him. His mission is to go down in history as the person that rebuilt the Russian Empire and he cannot afford to lose this war, I believe it would be the end of Putin.
He also has the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church as a cheerleader.
But does he care about that? I don’t think so.
Definitive proof for the rest of the world that he will use nukes if he feels like it. I think he wants to use them because he's a megalomaniac and wants the world to know he's the biggest badass on the planet. He very much cares what the rest of the world thinks of him as long as they see him the way he wants to be seen. Problem is, even if he just uses a tactical nuke, we have to respond. Definitively. Else he will simply take it as evidence he can get what he wants with more nukes while showing the rest of the world there is no one who has the stones he has.
That's what I think, for whatever it's worth.