Mick Hartley

Putin's suspension of Russian participation in the New Start treaty – the nuclear arms control treaty between Russia and the US, limiting their nuclear arsenals – is clearly another attempt to hint at the possibility of nuclear confrontation. At this stage it's about all that Putin has left.

Timothy Snyder wrote this before Putin's speech yesterday, but it's a clear analysis of why nuclear weapons are a distraction, and why we must help Ukraine win the conventional war against Russian aggression:

Russia has an interest in anxiety; media has an interest in anxiety; your body can get locked in anxiety.  Getting over that is the hard part.  Once we do, the strategic thinking is the easy part.  It starts in the real world.  Russia invaded Ukraine.  That happened…. Operating within a world where the invasion happened, the soundest nuclear policy is to help Ukraine win a conventional war.  This is for four reasons.

First, it would be a disaster for everyone if Russian nuclear blackmail succeeded.  If any nuclear state can coerce others by references to its nuclear stockpile, then foreign policy of any kind becomes impossible, non-nuclear states will always have to yield, and nuclear states will run the world.  If Russian nuclear blackmail succeeds, we can expect not only more Russian nuclear blackmail, but also nuclear blackmail from other nuclear powers.  We can also expect that other countries will build nuclear weapons to resist future blackmail.  And so support of Ukraine decreases the chances of nuclear war by showing that nuclear blackmail does not work.

Second, global nuclear proliferation should be prevented.  The risk of nuclear war has a mathematical character.  The more countries have nuclear weapons, the more likely it becomes that they will be used.  Russian policy pushes in the direction of nuclear proliferation.  Ukraine actually gave up its nuclear weapons.  Then Russia invaded, in 2014 and again in 2022.  The lesson for non-nuclear states is that they will need nuclear weapons to deter Russian invasion, or invasion by any nuclear power.  The way to prevent that conclusion is for Ukraine to win a conventional war.  And so support of Ukraine reduces the chances of nuclear war by reducing the likelihood of nuclear proliferation.

Third, the European scenario for nuclear confrontation should be made as unlikely as possible.  That scenario is a large war between Russia and NATO, in which there would be nuclear powers on both sides.  In its Soviet and then its later Russian variant, this vision has haunted the minds of Americans and Europeans for decades.  Thanks to Ukrainian resistance, such a war is far less likely than it has been.  The forces Russia might have used in an attack on a NATO member are being destroyed in Ukraine.  Even in the scenario where Russia somehow does mount an offensive against a NATO state, any temptation to use nuclear weapons in response has been reduced by the knowledge that Russia can be defeated in a conventional war.  And so support of Ukraine reduces the chance of nuclear war making the European scenario less likely.

Fourth, the Asian scenario for nuclear confrontation should be made as unlikely as possible.  In the last couple of decades, the possibility of a Sino-American confrontation over Taiwan has dominated discussions in Washington.  Americans have been frustrated and frightened by what they take to be the inevitability of the confrontation.  The idea that some other country might deflect it was never part of the debate.  But that is happening.  By resisting Russia, Ukrainians have forced Beijing to recognize that offensive operations are risky and can end badly.  Beijing has by no means lost interest in Taiwan, but it is safe to say that any drastic move has been delayed, at least for a few years. 

And these are an important few years.  A year ago, when Russia invaded, the conventional wisdom was still that China was a rising power.  In the broader American thinking about all this, this was the essence pf the problem: a rising power (China) must confront a declining power (the U.S.).  Now it is much less clear that China is a rising power.  The Ukrainians have delayed the most dangerous scenario; and in doing so, they might have gotten us through the most dangerous moment.  Notably, they have done all this without confronting China.  And so support of Ukraine reduces the chance of nuclear war by making the Asian scenario much less likely.

If we want to reduce the risk of global nuclear war, then we should arm Ukrainians.  Doing so reduces the appeal of nuclear blackmail, the risk of nuclear proliferation, and the likelihood of the scenarios.   […]

It has been almost a year since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.  The magic of anniversaries assures that there will be many articles about Ukraine on February 24th, no doubt some of them reflective and interesting.  I will nevertheless predict that there will be a number of essays along the lines of: "Hey, Let's Keep Talking About Nuclear War."  

It is also safe to say that no one will publish an op-ed along the lines of "We Talked About Putin's Mind For a Year, And We Were Wrong "; or "Despite Our Reflexive Use of the Word 'Escalation,' It Never Happened"; and certainly not "A Year After Russia's Invasion, Ukraine has Reduced the Risk of Nuclear Conflict Around the World." 

But that is the most important thing to say about nuclear war: it's not happening.