WASHINGTON – If Russian President Vladimir Putin carries out his threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the United States would likely respond with a full-scale economic embargo combined with a massive conventional attack on Russian military positions that could quickly wipe out the Russian president’s invading military Armed Forces, said Joseph Cirincione, a national security analyst and leading expert on nuclear warfare.
The US and NATO “could destroy Russian forces in Ukraine within days,” Cirincione, author of the book Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late, said in an interview with Yahoo News “Skullduggery.” podcast. “That would be the end of the Russian army.”
President Vladimir Putin addresses Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions September 30 in the Kremlin. (Contributor/Getty Images)
But Cirincione also acknowledged that such a direct US or NATO military strike against the Russian military – even in response to Russian use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield – could also spiral out of control. “There are no good answers once you start with nuclear energy,” he said. “It’s extremely difficult to quit for the same reason a poker player who loses a hand is reluctant to fold. They keep thinking that they could make another move, another bet they could raise to try and get the other side to fold. So there are no good answers.”
Cirincione said that if Putin actually carried out his threat to go nuclear, it would not be a large-scale thermonuclear bombing campaign, but a more limited use of tactical weapons – far more limited in scope but still a large and unprecedented escalation. And Cirincione said the US military’s response was not limited to the battlefield. There would also likely be a sharp escalation in the psychological warfare used to unsettle Iraqi generals on the eve of the US invasion of that country. “The US called Iraqi generals to their homes and told them to withdraw. And they did so for two reasons. First, so they know we know where you live, right? Second, we can reach out to you and touch you,” Cirincione said, predicting that the US could use such a tactic in the Ukraine crisis.
The story goes on
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said US officials had warned that the Russians there would suffer “catastrophic consequences” if they used nuclear weapons, although he was not without an indication of what they were.
But even as Sullivan went public on the issue, Cirincione acknowledged that the threats didn’t stop Putin from discussing a nuclear scenario. Last Friday, Putin delivered a speech in the Kremlin announcing the annexation of four regions of Ukraine, mostly occupied by Russia but being pushed back by Kiev’s forces. Putin said Russia will use “all available means” to defend its territory. In a chilling passage, he noted that the United States was the only country to use nuclear weapons in wartime – dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki towards the end of World War II – and then added: “By the way, they set a precedent.”
When asked that the US warnings did nothing to slow Putin’s talk about nuclear weapons, Cirincione replied: “It tells me that he is desperate and confident in his own power and that the pressure on him is not yet sufficient. So you are absolutely right. He didn’t stop. Would he really do that? I think the answer to that is that we don’t know.”
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
But one cause for concern, Cirincione said, is that Russian military doctrine now explicitly contemplates the use of nuclear weapons not only in response to a nuclear attack on the country, but also in the event of a large-scale conventional military attack endangering Russia’s national security . “They call this strategy ‘escalate to de-escalate,'” Cirincione said. “We will use a nuclear weapon in a number of ways.” According to the Russians, if they used tactical nuclear weapons in such a scenario, they would argue: “‘We will not start a nuclear war. We will end a conventional war,’” Cirincione said. “That’s what they think. And that’s why it’s something to worry about more and more as Putin continues to lose the war in Ukraine. It is precisely under such circumstances that the use of nuclear weapons comes into play in teaching and in Putin’s thinking.”
“I think Putin is a fascist,” he added. “I think he built a fascist regime in Russia. We have never seen a fascist regime with nuclear weapons before. We had authoritarians. We’ve had some brutal dictators, but never anything on this scale. So this is a very dangerous area.”