Russian President Vladimir Putin’s implicit threat to turn the war in Ukraine into a major nuclear conflict leaves President Joe Biden facing options rarely contemplated in the atomic age, including whether to raise the alert level of US nuclear forces United or not.
This turn of events is made even more remarkable by the fact that, less than a year ago, Putin and Biden issued a statement at their Geneva summit that seemed more in keeping with the idea that the threat of atomic war was a relic. of the Cold War. “Nuclear war cannot be won and should never be waged,” they agreed.
Putin asked his top military and defense officials to place nuclear forces on a “special combat duty regime,” but it was unclear how that might have changed the status of Russia’s atomic forces, if is that he did.
Russia, like the United States, maintains its land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in a state of high readiness at all times, and Russian submarine-based nuclear missiles, like American ones, are believed to They are in a similar position.
Putin indicated that with this he was responding to the economic sanctions that the United States and other Western nations have imposed on him in recent days for his invasion of Ukraine, as well as the “aggressive statements regarding our country”, of which he gave no further explanation. .
The Biden administration is evaluating Putin’s move, saying it unnecessarily escalates an already dangerous conflict.
In fact, Putin’s words amount to the kind of threat rarely heard even during the Cold War, when the much larger nuclear arsenals of the United States and the former Soviet Union threatened the world with a nuclear armageddon.
1) HOW DOES THIS CHANGE THE RISK OF NUCLEAR WAR?
Although US officials expressed concern about Putin’s words, they said they did not know what he is up to. But it is so rare for an American or Russian ruler to issue an implicit nuclear threat, especially in the current context of the war in Ukraine, that the risk that he does take on an atomic overtone cannot be ruled out. In Russia, as in the United States, the president is the only one with the authority to order a nuclear attack.
Washington and Moscow have the two largest nuclear arsenals in the world, by far. These include weapons that can be launched from aircraft and submarines, as well as ground-based ballistic missiles.
The only time in history that atomic weapons have been used in combat was when the United States twice bombed Japan in August 1945, at which time Washington had a worldwide monopoly on nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb in 1949.
Arms Control Association executive director Daryl Kimball said Putin’s instruction to put his nuclear forces on heightened alert was unfortunate but not entirely surprising, given his previous implied threats against any nation that tried to stop him in Ukraine.
“Introducing nuclear weapons into the Ukraine war equation at this time is extremely dangerous, and the United States, President Biden and NATO must exercise extreme restraint” and not respond in kind, Kimball said. “This is a very dangerous time in this crisis, and we need to urge our leaders to step back from the nuclear cliff.”
2) WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PLACE NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON ALERT?
Under US nuclear doctrine, the alert level of weapons is critical to their role in deterring attacks. The idea is that being prepared to respond at short notice makes it less likely that an enemy will strike first and risk retaliation that would cause untold damage.
One argument against it is that having ICBMs—which the Pentagon considers the most sensitive part of its nuclear arsenal—on high alert during a crisis compresses a president’s decision-making space and leaves open the possibility of ordering their launch in response to a crisis. false alarm. The 400 deployed US ICBMs remain armed, ready to fire at all times.
Some arms control experts have advocated removing ICBMs from high alert by separating the missiles from their nuclear warheads. But in a crisis, perhaps like the one implied by Putin’s alert order issued on Sunday, a decision to rearm the missiles would be interpreted as escalating tension and potentially worsening the crisis.
During the Cold War, American and Russian weapons were not only more numerous, but also more agile.
In 1991, President George HW Bush took the historic step of removing nuclear-capable strategic bombers from alert status as part of a broader effort to reverse the nuclear arms race. Since then, the bombers have remained off alert.
3) HOW HAS THE UNITED STATES RESPONDED TO PUTIN SO FAR?
There is no evidence that the Biden administration in any way reciprocated Putin’s announcement that he ordered his nuclear forces to go on “special combat duty regime,” perhaps in part because it was unclear what that meant in practical terms. .
Washington also said nothing about having evidence that Putin had taken worrying steps, such as loading nuclear weapons into all or part of Russia’s nuclear-capable air fleet, or sending more ballistic missile submarines into the sea.
In addition to his strategic nuclear force, Putin has at least two thousand so-called non-strategic atomic weapons. They are called non-strategic because they cannot reach the United States, but this is little consolation for the countries of Europe that are within the range of these weapons.
Washington has some 200 non-strategic weapons in Europe; they are bombs that would be dropped from planes located on that continent.
For years, some US officials have worried that Putin, faced with the prospect of losing a war in Europe, might resort to the use of non-strategic nuclear weapons, thinking he would quickly end the conflict on his terms.