Russia’s economy is smaller than Italy’s, and its military has yet to impress two weeks into its invasion of Ukraine. Still, the West is treating the crisis as a potential precursor to World War III for one simple reason: Moscow’s massive stockpile of nuclear warheads and the growing fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin may resort to using the world’s most devastating weapons.
Most of Western media’s focus has centered on the unfolding horror on the ground. Far less discussion has been about the potential for unprecedented nuclear escalation that could lead to millions of casualties across the continent.
Mr. Putin warned NATO nations last month of “consequences you have never seen” if they intervene in Ukraine. Days later, he put Russia’s nuclear forces in an undefined state of “special combat readiness.”
“No one should have any doubts that a direct attack on our country will lead to the destruction and horrible consequences for any potential aggressor,” Mr. Putin warned in his Feb. 24 declaration of war. Russia, he said, is “one of the most potent nuclear powers and also has a certain edge in a range of state-of-the-art weapons.”
Russia’s cache of more than 6,200 nuclear warheads is the largest in the world, according to the Arms Control Association, and has added an untold level of danger and complexity to the military campaign in Ukraine. Other recent conflicts, such as last year’s Armenia-Azerbaijan clash and ongoing civil wars in Yemen, Ethiopia and Syria, have killed more combatants but lacked a nuclear element. The risk for major escalation was relatively low.
The war in Ukraine, on the other hand, has the potential to quickly devolve into a world-altering nuclear showdown. U.S. officials said they had seen little evidence that Mr. Putin followed through on a claim that he had put his nation’s nuclear assets on high alert. Still, analysts warn that the U.S. and its NATO allies cannot write off the prospect of an increasingly erratic Russian leader turning to nuclear weapons as his last option to reclaim old Soviet territory across Eastern Europe.
SEE ALSO: DNI: Ukraine labs not involved with biological weapons, despite Russian charges
“Remember, few thought Putin would launch a full-scale invasion, which has now become the largest assault in Europe since World War II. Strong powers completely failed to deter a conventional attack by a weak one, so we should now be prepared for deterrence to fail again,” Gordon Chang, a longtime foreign affairs analyst and distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, wrote in a piece for Newsweek.
“If Putin’s nuke threats prevent others coming to Ukraine’s rescue, he will undoubtedly employ similar warnings to grab the Baltic states, Poland and other areas,” he said. “The ambitious Russian leader wants to reassemble the Soviet Union, but it looks like he also harbors even grander ambitions, such as incorporating all the territories of the old Russian Empire. He may even be looking for more than that.”
U.S. intelligence chiefs, including Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, told Congress this week that they had detected no “unusual” activity in Russia’s nuclear forces, but they warned that Mr. Putin is likely to grow increasingly desperate if his military gamble in Ukraine fails to pay off.
“Putin feels aggrieved the West does not give him proper deference and perceives this as a war he cannot afford to lose,” Ms. Haines said. She noted that Russia’s army had “begun to loosen its rules of engagement to achieve their military objective” in Ukraine.
President Biden late last month simply said “no” when asked whether Americans should be concerned about a potential nuclear war. Mr. Chang said that stance is misguided.
“The correct answer was ‘yes,’” he said.
SEE ALSO: Russian strikes hit western Ukraine as offensive widens
Nuclear escalation
With the world’s biggest nuclear weapons arsenal, Russia edges out its only real competitor, the U.S. It’s a legacy of the Soviet Union’s status as a global superpower.
Russia has at least 1,458 strategic warheads deployed on intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and strategic bombers, according to data from the Washington-based Arms Control Association.
Moscow has thousands of other nuclear warheads, though about 1,760 of those are theoretically retired and awaiting disarmament. Complicating the equation is that some of Russia’s nuclear weapons are lower-yield “tactical” nuclear weapons that could be dropped into a theater like Ukraine without immediately threatening the U.S. or its NATO allies.
In recent years, Russia has embraced what strategists call an “escalate-to-deescalate” nuclear strategy that in part envisions deploying a lesser nuclear weapon in a conflict and putting the onus on the adversary to either respond or stand down.
The U.S. has more than 5,500 nuclear warheads. China, France, Britain, Pakistan, India and Israel have much smaller arsenals.
Numbers tell only part of the story. A much greater threat lies in Mr. Putin’s apparent willingness to use nuclear weapons, or at least the threat of them, to get what he wants.
It’s something of a trump card for Mr. Putin. His nation’s military might is coming under serious question amid a blundering campaign in Ukraine that has moved much slower than expected. Russia’s economic power was already severely limited before the West unleashed an unprecedented slate of sanctions and major companies across all sectors announced they would stop doing business in Russia.
Nuclear weapons remain arguably Russia’s best way to get the world’s attention. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told his country’s RIA Novosti news agency last week that a third world war would include nuclear weapons. It was a not-so-subtle warning to the West as it tries to stop further incursions into Eastern Europe.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said unequivocally this week that the U.S. is prepared for war if Russian troops try to cross into NATO territory, including the Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, which were part of the Soviet Union.
“We will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full force of our collective power,” Mr. Blinken said.
The “full force” of NATO’s power, in theory, would include nuclear weapons. Some Western officials have offered warnings about the prospects of a full-blown nuclear exchange in Europe.
“Yes, I think that Vladimir Putin must also understand that the Atlantic alliance is a nuclear alliance. That is all I will say about this,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters late last month.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy, who has desperately pressed NATO for greater military support to ward off Russian forces, dismissed Mr. Putin’s nuclear talk as “a bluff.”
“It’s one thing to be a murderer. It’s another to commit suicide,” Mr. Zelenskyy told the German publication Die Zeit in an interview Wednesday. Mr. Putin’s threat, he said “shows a weakness. You threaten the use of nuclear weapons only when nothing else is working. I am sure that Russia is aware of the catastrophic consequences of any attempt to use nuclear weapons.”
U.S. officials say they don’t have the luxury of being complacent about nuclear weapons.
Army Lt. Gen. D. Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified Tuesday alongside Ms. Haines at a hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He warned that the danger of nuclear escalation in Eastern Europe is real and that Mr. Putin has invested in developing new tactical nuclear arms that provide an asymmetric military advantage.
“I also believe that when he says something, we should listen very, very carefully and take him at his word,” he told the committee.
• Bill Gertz contributed to this report.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.