If Vladimir Putin were to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, the attack would terrorize the country’s population and shatter a seven-decade-old international taboo, all while bringing few benefits on the battlefield, an expert says.
’s sweeping military gains in recent months. In recent speeches, Putin has made it clear that he is willing to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Such an attack would be the first battlefield use of atomic bombs since the United States detonated two over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in 1945. In response, the Biden Administration has made clear that there will be substantial—albeit unknown—consequences for Russia if it uses nuclear weapons.
It’s interesting to talk about these tactical nuclear weapons almost solely as weapons that could actually help Putin on the battlefield. So much of the conversation about them is not about what they would do on the battlefield but what they would signal, and what that signal would mean. So, if Putin did decide to cross this threshold, I think that would demonstrate that Russia perceives the stakes of this crisis to be substantially greater than what the West might be willing to tolerate. Each side has an unknown level of risk that they would be willing to tolerate in support of their objectives in Ukraine. If Putin escalated to the nuclear level, it would indicate that he is willing to go that extra mile to accomplish whatever his goals might be.
Before we started the conversation, you mentioned that you were working on a book about how our era of nuclear stability might be coming to an end. And that these taboos about using nukes might disappear or become weakened. But your answers have actually made me feel better rather than worse—it seems like, from a rational perspective, Russia using nukes both diplomatically and militarily wouldn’t do much good.
I’m a millennial. I’ve grown up in a world where nuclear weapons were, fortunately, rather in the background. But we’ve now seen that all of those trends reverse in rather concerning ways. So the prospect of nuclear danger and nuclear escalation is here to stay, and I do think that people around the world are beginning to wake up to this idea. This is where a lot of us who are working on reducing nuclear risks are really trying to build attention.
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