Vladimir Putin is losing his war in Ukraine. In a surprise attack a few weeks ago, the Ukrainian army routed Russian forces and recaptured over 3,000 square miles of territory near Kharkiv. As the Russians retreated, many left behind their weapons and ammunition, including over 200 tanks the Ukrainians plan on using against their previous owners. While Russian forces remain entrenched in the east and southeast, the rapid collapse of Russian defenses in the northeast has some wondering just how resilient the Russian lines are throughout occupied Ukraine.
Putin responded to his setback in Kharkiv by calling up 300,000 reservists with military experience. In turn, Russians responded by fleeing their country; airlines sold out tickets for international flights, and long lines of cars formed at border checkpoints with Finland, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Georgia. Protesters took to the streets of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other major cities. It is estimated police arrested more than 1,000 people. (Some of those arrested have been ordered to report to their local draft office.) Putin has also signed a law that could lead to the conscription of one million Russians and (in what is surely a desperate move) may press Ukrainians in Russian-held territory into military service. But Putin isn’t only feeling pressure from those opposed to the war; hardliners are also beginning to criticize his regime for its incompetence in managing the war. It’s possible Putin is more worried about them than those in the streets.
Given its struggles on the battlefield and with supplying and equipping its soldiers, it’s far from clear if a new batch of troops would make a difference in the Russian war effort. The Pentagon recently estimated Russia has lost approximately 80,000 soldiers to either death or injury, many of them members of Russia’s best combat units. By all accounts, low morale continues to plague the Russian army. As it fights a war of choice in a neighboring country, the vaunted Russian military machine has been exposed as poorly trained, poorly prepared, and poorly led. Putin is reportedly issuing commands directly to generals in the field. Ukraine has also sustained heavy losses, of course, and it faces its own challenges when it comes to manpower and supplies. Ukrainians, however, are fighting to defend their homeland from an invader and remain motivated; Russia is engaged in what many of its own soldiers regard as a pointless folly.
Russia’s support is also flagging around the world. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called on Putin to return all the territory Russia has taken from Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi told Putin directly that now “is not an era of war.” Chinese leader Xi Jinping stated he had “questions and concerns” about Putin’s special operation. While Europe is certainly strained economically by the war, it still remains united behind Ukraine’s efforts.
Perhaps Putin is looking for a way to end his special operation before winter sets in/the war devolves into a long stalemate/he loses more territory/he straight-up loses. This past week, Putin staged sham referendums in Russian-held Ukraine on the question of annexation, and then promptly annexed that territory into Russia. (He also used the occasion to lash out at the West and cast the conflict as a civilizational struggle.) Territorial expansion of that nature clearly flies in the face of international norms. No one recognizes its validity. It’s entirely possible Putin’s control over that territory crumbles in a few weeks times. For Putin’s purposes, however, annexing those lands allows him (however falsely) to claim the war he initiated (and is losing) is now being fought on Russian land.
Reframing his war of offense as a war of defense and survival obviously serves a domestic audience. That shift in perspective, however, may also be how Putin justifies the use of a nuclear weapon. Putin alluded to this in his speech calling up 300,000 military reservists, stating, “The territorial integrity of our homeland, our independence and freedom will be ensured, I will emphasize this again, with all the means at our disposal. And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the prevailing winds can turn in their direction.”
I will not pretend for a second to know what the odds are that Putin deploys a nuclear weapon in Ukraine. It’s one of those things that’s entirely unimaginable until it actually happens, at which point it will appear as though the writing had always been on the wall. But it’s worth considering for a moment when and how Putin might use a nuclear bomb and how the United States might respond.
The first thing to know is that Russia has a large arsenal of both strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. A strategic nuclear weapon is what most of us think about when we imagine a nuclear weapon: A 100 kiloton to 1+ megaton warhead attached to an intercontinental ballistic missile that, when detonated, could destroy a city. Putin almost certainly would not use a strategic nuclear weapon, as he would risk retaliation in kind from the United States, which in turn could lead to retaliation from Russia, all-out nuclear war, and the end of human civilization. That sort of tit-for-tat gamesmanship isn’t likely to produce the sort of outcome Putin wants.
Putin would be more likely to use a tactical nuclear weapon. A tactical nuclear weapon varies in yield from less than 1 kiloton to close to 50 kilotons. (The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 15 kilotons.) These weapons can be launched from ground-mobile units (see below), ships, and planes, and are propelled by rockets that have a relatively short range (about 300 miles). Due to the increasing power of conventional bombs, the United States has largely eliminated its tactical nuclear arsenal, with only about 150 warheads currently housed in Europe. Russia, however, retains about 2,000 of these weapons and has made them a centerpiece of their defense strategy. The Russian military deploys these weapon systems in their war games, and field commanders are authorized to use them in battle if their positions are being overrun. While the ground-mobile units that could launch these weapons are currently on-the-ground in Ukraine, the nukes themselves are not.
A big question concerning Russia’s tactical weapons is what sort of shape they’re in. It’s believed the warheads themselves are well-maintained; the delivery systems maybe not so much. But Putin probably wouldn’t use many of these tactical weapons anyway, so he’d only need a few in working order. The other thing to know is that these weapons are not scattered willy-nilly throughout Russia. If Putin planned on using one, it would have to be brought to the frontlines from a depot somewhere in Russia. The United States presumably has eyes on these sites, so it’s unlikely (outside an intelligence failure, which is entirely possible) that Putin could put one into play without us knowing beforehand.
That knowledge could be pivotal. As you may recall, the United States forecast Russia’s intention to invade Ukraine weeks in advance. Usually such intelligence is kept close to the vest, but the U.S. chose to disclose it ahead of time to ensure the world disapproved of a potential (and then very real) Russian invasion. The United States could do something similar if they detected Russian forces prepping a nuke in order to build up international condemnation and hopefully deter its use.
But what if Putin decided to use a tactical nuclear weapon regardless? Under what circumstances would he use one? He’d probably have to feel like he’s on the ropes: Further loss of territory, particularly if the territory at risk was territory Ukraine did not control prior to the start of the war in February; a weakening of defensive positions he could not strengthen; the introduction of weapons to the field of combat that Russia couldn’t counter; a Ukrainian operation that threatened to isolate or surround Russian forces; the prospect of a prolonged stalemate that Russia could not sustain economically; or civil unrest at home that either threatened his regime’s grip on power or that saw regions breaking away from Moscow. In other words, Putin would use a tactical nuclear weapon to either freeze or end the conflict in the event he thought he was bound to lose the conflict and/or his hold on power. (By extension, that means the price of victory for Ukraine and its allies could entail a high if not impossible-to-match price.)
The next question to ask is what Putin would target with the bomb. Just as I doubt he would use a strategic weapon to destroy a city, I also don’t think he would attack a major population center with a lower yield tactical weapon, as the number of civilian casualties (and the contamination he would leave behind) would turn him from a belligerent autocrat into an enemy of humanity. I also don’t think he would simply detonate a bomb over the Black Sea as a warning and an indication of his willingness to use a weapon. If he did that, the world would view him as a weak monster—someone who dared to do the unthinkable but in a way that revealed his limits—and move to kneecap him before he did something worse.
Instead, I suspect Putin would use a tactical weapon in a way that could plausibly achieve a tactical end. My guess is he would bomb a Ukrainian military base, a command center near the front lines, or a cluster of Ukrainian troops in a critical position. If he wanted to minimize casualties, he might opt for a supply depot, an airfield, or a warehouse. Or if he wanted to signal his willingness to inflict civilian casualties if necessary (and thus his willingness to escalate his use of nuclear weapons) he might attack a military target near a small town (i.e., a transit hub or base.) (Note Putin’s indiscriminate attacks on apartment buildings and hospitals already indicate his willingness to terrorize civilians in an attempt to wear down their resolve.) My guess is Putin would use two bombs initially: One in an attack with few casualties he could equate to nothing more than a conventional bombing and another in a different attack that included some collateral damage to signal his unwillingness to spare civilians. Another good question is whether he would launch the attack from within Ukraine (so he could claim the attack originated from the battlefield) or from across the border in Russia (which would provide greater protection to the units launching the missiles.)
The key is that Putin would want to be able to claim he felt the use of nuclear weapons was necessary to achieve a legitimate military objective (which, in the midst of war, may not be much of a stretch at all) in defense of Russia’s interests. More than anything else, though, the use of the bomb would be the end in itself, a signal these sort of weapons were now in play and that Russia was prepared to use them.
After using the weapon, the Kremlin would likely demand a ceasefire, a withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the east, and that Ukraine recognize the new borders Russia would impose on eastern Ukraine, which would either correspond with the location of the front line or with the borders of Russia’s newly annexed territories. Russia would then warn Ukraine it was willing to use more nuclear weapons to defend these territories from Ukrainian incursion. I assume at this point Russia would be unable to launch an offensive against Ukraine, as the nuclear weapon would have been used to shore up Russia’s position.
Events wouldn’t have to unfold that way, but I think those are Putin’s plausible first moves. From here on out, things get hazy, as international players would now be reacting to Putin and one another, which allows for a number of different scenarios to unfold. Initially, all eyes would be on Ukraine and whether Volodymyr Zelenskyy would want to continue the war under the threat of nuclear annihilation. It would be understandable if he agreed to end the conflict. He might also conclude, however, that Putin is acting out of weakness and that Ukraine’s military remains well-positioned to make gains on the battlefield and thus order an advance. Such a move, though, would obviously raise the likelihood that Putin would use more nuclear weapons. Zelenskyy might also conclude that if he did not stand up to Putin at this juncture that Putin would use nuclear blackmail to eventually annex all of Ukraine.
The other major player in this drama would be NATO. It’s possible NATO would let a small attack slide by equating it with a conventional attack undertaken with conventional bombs. That’s something worth considering, particularly if the damage is mainly physical and the number of casualties are small.
But I think NATO would be compelled to respond for both moral and strategic reasons. Given the destructive potential of nuclear weapons, there is a tremendous stigma attached to their use short of a last resort in war. NATO would likely feel bound to retaliate against Russia for deploying a nuclear weapon in order to reassert the principle that forbids their use. Strategically, NATO would regard any use of a nuclear weapon as either an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine or a signal Russia was prepared to escalate the conflict. NATO would feel a need to counter that escalation. Furthermore, the use of a nuclear weapon would imply to the world that a major world power no longer considered the use of such weapons taboo. That has the potential to seriously destabilize Europe and the world, as other nations would begin building their own stockpiles of nuclear bombs with varying degrees of destructive power. NATO would want to signal to the world that any nation that used a nuclear weapon would pay a tremendous price for doing so and that developing them would not be worth their while.
In response to Putin’s recent nuclear warning, United States National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated the United States and its allies would act “decisively” and with “catastrophic consequences for Russia” if Putin used a tactical nuclear weapon. What would that look like? The first step would be to isolate Russia internationally and turn it into a pariah state. Another, much more severe round of economic sanctions would probably occur to cut Russia off from the international economy. Efforts would be undertaken to strip Russia of its status as a permanent member of the United Nations’ Security Council. The US would also make a big diplomatic push to convince other nations to sever their ties with Russia. That might be relatively easy to do with India and Middle Eastern nations like Saudi Arabia and Iran, who wouldn’t want to normalize the use of nuclear weapons in combat given their own national security concerns. China would be the wild card and might prefer to distance themselves from Russia while maintaining their economic and strategic ties.
And then there’s the more fraught question of how NATO might respond militarily. Some argue the United States would need to respond proportionally, but it’s highly doubtful we would use a nuclear weapon ourselves. Instead, if NATO felt compelled to respond with force, it would probably use conventional weapons to target the missile delivery systems that either launched the attacks and/or had the potential to launch further attacks. A big unknown is if NATO would destroy targets on Russian territory if Russia’s missile strikes originated within Russia. If Putin was seen as striking out of weakness, NATO might also attack Russian defensive positions in Ukraine to allow Ukrainian forces to sweep into Russian-held territory. Again, that gets more complicated if Putin is prepared to launch attacks on those Ukrainian forces from Russian territory.
If the conflict froze after a retaliatory NATO attack, Russia might accept that as the price of using a nuclear weapon to force a stalemate and declare the war over. But if Ukraine pressed ahead with NATO’s help, Russia could very well take the gloves off and begin attacking supply lines and border checkpoints in the west of the country. If NATO’s attacks stretched beyond Ukraine into Russia itself, Russia might fire missiles at NATO bases in Poland and the other Eastern European nations that border Ukraine. This risks a wider war, and while Russia would find itself stretched thin militarily, it would have plenty of missiles to lob around NATO’s eastern periphery. In return, NATO would fire their own missiles at Russia’s military installations in the west. I’m guessing that would be about as far as the Russia-NATO skirmish would go: Russia, knowing it couldn’t defeat Ukraine in its own backyard, wouldn’t want to risk a land war with NATO, while NATO, knowing the history of armies that have marched onto Moscow and tolling the devastation within their own borders, would call it even. The obvious danger, however, is that this exchange would get out of hand or turn nuclear, at which point all bets are off.
An alternative to a retaliatory military strike would be for NATO to deploy its forces into Ukraine alongside Ukrainian forces and bring the country under the umbrella of NATO and the EU. NATO would at least initially keep its soldiers away from the conflict’s front lines and at a distance from Russia’s borders, serving instead to militarize Ukraine, provide logistical support, and supply the front. It’s highly likely NATO would also impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine (which would result in some very tense airborne confrontations) and deploy anti-missile systems near the front lines. NATO’s forces in Ukraine would effectively serve as a tripwire from that point on, a reminder to Putin that any further attacks on Ukraine could end up entangling NATO and lead to war with the military alliance.
Would Putin tolerate the presence of NATO in Ukraine? He may have no choice once he’s used a nuclear weapon: He would have few allies left on the world stage who would want to appear to side with him at that point, and NATO could frame their reaction as a way to contain Putin without resorting to violence. The irony would be that Putin, who hoped to push back against NATO by invading Ukraine, will only have brought the alliance closer to Russia’s borders as a result, not only in Ukraine but in Finland as well. He will also have revealed the weakness of his military. His consolation prize, however, would be a buffer between Russia and NATO in eastern Ukraine and Cold War II, which he could use to shore up his standing domestically if his Ukraine fiasco does not cost him his suite in the Kremlin.
I’m no military expert, so I may have this all wrong. I’m sure Russia, the U.S., and the rest of NATO have gamed-out these scenarios and adjusted accordingly. It may be the United States is already doing what it can to prevent these events from happening by, for example, encouraging nations like India to tell Russia they’ll cut ties if Putin uses a nuclear weapon or providing Ukraine with the weapons and intelligence they would need to prevent a nuclear attack from occurring in the first place. Russia is certainly weighing their options as well, perhaps concluding they need to strike from a position of strength rather than one of weakness. It’s also possible the reservists Russia has called-up aren’t intended to replace the soldiers Putin has lost in the conflict but as manpower to turn the front lines into a new hard border between Russia and Ukraine/NATO.
The general consensus is that Putin probably wouldn’t use a nuclear weapon, as the potential cost of doing so would be too high. Putin is doing his own calculations, however, and we can’t know for certain the price he’s willing to pay or the price he thinks we’re willing to pay to stop him. (He seems convinced war is always a viable option.) And who knows how Putin—let alone Zelenskyy or Biden or any other European leader—would react in the moment to an unanticipated development. We can game this stuff out as much as we want, but we have to admit the situation involves a lot of uncertainty. And since that uncertainty involves nuclear weapons, it goes without saying this is also an exceedingly dangerous situation.
Additional Reading:
“What If We’re Already Fighting the Third World War with Russia?” by Susan B. Glasser for The New Yorker
“Putin is Trying to Outcrazy the West” by Thomas L. Friedman for the New York Times
Signals and Noise
“F**k the voting, let’s get right to the violence.”—Republican operative and Trump ally Roger Stone the day before the 2020 election.
There is no evidence Joe Biden won the 2020 election because of voter fraud. But as Aaron Blake at the Washington Post notes, it has been nearly 700 days since the 2020 election, and according to a Monmouth poll, 61% of Republicans believe Joe Biden won that election on account of voter fraud. Again, there is no evidence Joe Biden won the 2020 election because of voter fraud.
“The question I get asked more than any other question: ‘If you had to do it again, would you have done it?’ The answer is, yeah, I think so. Because here’s the way I look at it. I have so many rich friends and nobody knows who they are.”—Don Trump, reflecting on what it meant to “serve” as President of the United States, as reported by Maggie Haberman
From that same interview: Trump claimed he wasn’t watching TV on 1/6 and that he didn’t learn about the riot that day until “late.” Witnesses have testified otherwise; if true, how could a president be so oblivious to a direct assault on American democracy taking place just a few miles from his location (and after he had urged his followers to riot and wanted to join them)?
A group of Oath Keepers are going on trial for sedition this week. According to the New York Times, this is their defense: “They intend to tell the jury that when armed teams of Oath Keepers made plans to rush into Washington from Virginia on Jan. 6, 2021, they believed they would be following legal orders from the president himself. Lawyers for the five defendants are set to argue at the trial…that the Oath Keepers were waiting on Jan. 6 for President Donald J. Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, a Revolutionary-era law that grants the president wide powers to deploy the military to quell unrest in emergencies. As the trial in Federal District Court in Washington moves forward, lawyers in the case have said, [militia leader Stewart] Rhodes intends to take the stand himself and testify that even though Mr. Trump never did invoke the act, the Oath Keepers believed that he was going to do so. Their preparations for violence on Jan. 6, he will argue, should be thought of as a lawful attempt to help the president, not as an illegal attack against the United States.”
Congress is making headway on the Electoral Count Act.
What’s the point of having a special master if the judge who appointed him is just going to overrule his decisions?
Georgia Republicans are using a new law to try to purge thousands of Georgians from the state’s voter rolls.
“When he dresses like that, it’s not an accident. He’s kicking authority in the balls. He’s saying, ‘I’m the man. I’ll show those guys who’s boss.’”—Republican Pennsylvania Senate nominee Mehmet Oz, gifting Democratic Pennsylvania Senate nominee John Fetterman (who regularly wears shorts and a hoodie on the campaign trail) one of the greatest political slogans of all-time. (The longer clip, pinned below, also gives away the whole MAGA game: They’re not anti-establishment. They just want the old order and the old bosses back in charge.)
It only took eight days for Republican New Hampshire Senate nominee Don Bolduc to go back to questioning the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake says she relates to new Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni because “if you’re not being called [a] ‘fascist’ [and a] ‘racist’ [then] ‘you’re probably not representing the people of your country.’” The reason Meloni has been called a fascist is because she leads a party descended from the supporters of Benito Mussolini.
Republican candidates in this year’s midterms are focusing hard on crime.
Nate Cohn at the New York Times notes the advantage House Republicans derive from gerrymandering is at a historical low, maybe just 3 seats.
The Texas Attorney General’s office, led by Republican grandstander Ken Paxton, is a s***show.
Is that a dog whistle I hear?
"President Biden will let any illiterate gang banger, oftentimes with drugs, come right on it" -- Sen. John KennedyOr maybe just regular old whistles by now.
“I sympathize with the victims of Hurricane Sandy and believe that those who purchased flood insurance should have their claims paid. At the same time, allowing the program to increase its debt by another $9.7 billion with no plan to offset the spending with cuts elsewhere is not fiscally responsible. Congress should not authorize billions in new borrowing without offsetting expenditures in other areas….[T]he proper way to address disaster relief is to release the funds in installments to make sure the resources are spent wisely. They should also strip out all immaterial line items, and fully offset all expenditures with spending cuts elsewhere. Serious reform would also include a way for the states to take over the responsibility for future disaster relief funding so that accountability is more localized.”—Then-Rep. Ron DeSantis nearly 10 years ago explaining his ‘no’ vote on Superstorm Sandy relief. This week he asked for politics to be put aside to help the state he governs recover from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Ian.
From Politico: “The top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Kay Granger, who helped negotiate the [short-term government funding bill], joined the swath of GOP members who opposed it. Asked if she could explain why she voted against it, the Texas lawmaker replied Friday: ‘No, I can’t.’’’
Of all the people in the world who you would expect to give a eulogy at the funeral of Hell’s Angels president Ralph “Sonny” Barger, who among us would have guessed the grandson of Thurston and Eunice Howell, Tucker Carlson?
In light of the state’s near-total abortion ban, the general counsel for the University of Idaho has advised the university to no longer make birth control available to students. Employees were also advised not to speak in favor of abortion at work or counsel students on how to get an abortion.
Yeesh, as far as presidential gaffes go, this one’s particularly cringeworthy. At a White House event about hunger, Biden asked if Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-IN) was in attendance. She wasn’t because she was killed in a car accident in August.
As we were reminded again this week, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California is suffering cognitive decline. My worry is she may not be lucid enough to resign under her own volition.
China’s economic growth has fallen behind the rest of the Asian-Pacific region for the first time since the 1990s, as the country’s zero-COVID policy and faltering housing market has cooled off its economy.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reports factory jobs are booming in the United States, just not in the fields typically associated with “factory work.”
But note this: October has often been a bad month for the economy, and right now, things are looking pretty shaky. The Fed keeps telling the public they’re prepared to initiate a recession to fight inflation. The new UK government created an economic panic by proposing regressive tax cuts. Germany is beginning to feel the squeeze brought on by Russia’s war in Ukraine in its manufacturing sector. If you’re looking for an October surprise, don’t be surprised if an international economic meltdown is it.
Damon Linker has a breakdown of Italy’s recent election, in which a right-wing coalition including a party descended from the followers of Benito Mussolini gained power. Linker notes what happened in Italy isn’t much different from what’s happening throughout Europe and the United States.
The New York Times wonders if the latest protests in Iran—which began following the death of a woman in the custody of the state’s morality police and which have united both poor and middle-to-upper class Iranian youth—might be different this time.