For Vladimir Putin, his advisers and propagandists, the nuclear taboo is gone. Or at least they speak and act as if it were just another weapon in their arsenal, quite naturally, even though it is the most extreme and last resort, perhaps the final.
On television, commentators explain how quickly nuclear-capable ultrasonic missiles are destroying European and American cities. Her wicked and cruel jokes accompany her with a smug smile, appealing to an apocalyptic nihilism that prefers nuclear war to a humiliated Russia devoid of imperial pride.
If their possessions were previously used to prevent war, thanks to Putin’s concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) they have become a tool to fight them under his threat. The war probably would not even have started if Russia had not been able to pull it off, at least rhetorically, and if Ukraine had not been disarmed in 1994 thanks to a multilateral agreement known as the Budapest Memorandum, under a guarantee from London and Washington that they would be exchanged for the Recognition of territorial integrity and borders of Ukraine Dismantled arsenals.
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Without the umbrella of nuclear protection, Russian territory would have been the military target of Ukraine’s retaliatory actions and even counter-offensives against the invasion. Kiev’s allies have considered options such as establishing safe areas to house civilians or banning overflights over Ukraine to avoid airstrikes on cities. Even a direct involvement of Allied troops, armored vehicles and aircraft alongside the Ukrainian army would have been considered. In short, without the Russian nuclear threat, the Ukraine war might now have spilled over and we would have a conventional European war.
So the nuclear deterrent remains in force. A general war like in the times of the Cold War was avoided for the time being. Instead, a new and troubling equation has emerged, such as covering the nuclear threat of a conventional war of aggression against a weaker power, leaving the latter vulnerable and with greater difficulty in gaining Allied solidarity.
If until now nuclear weapons were life insurance, as experienced by Iraq, Libya and Ukraine, who lost them, and North Korea and Iran, who have kept them, since this war and in the hands of an aggressive power, the license to invade or attack other countries without provoking a symmetrical reaction, as demonstrated by Putin’s aggression against Ukraine.
Even if Russia’s threat of a nuclear detonation against Ukraine does not materialize, the real setback this war has already presented to anti-nuclear proliferation policies is extremely worrying. The worst Russian example will spread easily.
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