President Joe Biden surprised his top advisers along with everyone else when, at a fundraising event, he referred to “Armageddon” in the Ukraine war: Russia’s possible use of a nuclear weapon. Though United States officials were quick to stress that they knew of no imminent threat by Russia, Biden’s remark underscored recent reports suggesting deepening U.S. concern about what Putin might do as Russian forces retreat in eastern and southern Ukraine.
The remark also was in response to Putin’s increasingly frequent allusions to nuclear weapons, such as on Sept. 21, when he said: “If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people. This is not a bluff.”
Biden said: “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis. I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”
Putin may not agree, however.
Nuclear weapons experts point to any number of “limited” nuclear-weapon use available to Putin–for example, a “nuclear display,” such as a strike on a nuclear power plant or a high-altitude detonation; or a targeted attack, such as on a Ukrainian military base or a single city.
CNN reports that in direct communications between Washington and Moscow in the last several weeks, Putin has been told about “the scale of the U.S. response” should he use a nuclear weapon in the war. Other sources indicate that the “scale” would be within the range of conventional weapons, presumably in order to reduce the chance of escalation to the nuclear level. How Putin would react to a NATO counterattack with conventional weapons is anybody’s guess, since conventional weapons these days can be as destructive as some nuclear devices.