Russia Is Closer To Pressing The Nuclear Button Than You Might Think
We are nearing a precipice.
Ever since Putin decided to send his army into Ukraine, the world has been on high alert for nuclear war. Well, that is what we thought. This worry has fizzled out, and now, not even the most bombastic, scaremongering news outlets are talking about it. Whether this is because of fatigue or being swamped by other more pressing news, like, I don’t know, an election that could change the world, I have no idea. But we should be talking about this, as Russia is now closer to pressing the nuclear button than they were at the beginning of the war.
But before we get into that, we first need to gauge how close Putin was to launching an atomic nightmare when the war in Ukraine began.
In 2022, the CIA informed President Biden that the chances of Putin using a small tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine was over 50%! It turns out the CIA had intercepted increasing chatter from Russian forces about the possibility of using smaller-scale “tactical” nuclear weapons. The information they were able to intercept suggested Putin would launch such a weapon if their forces in Ukraine were declining dramatically and/or Crimea was at risk.
Such a launch would be unprecedented and could even make many Russian allies, like China, revoke their support. So, when the Kremlin started announcing Kyiv could use a “dirty bomb” (a type of improvised nuclear weapon that uses radiation to kill rather than explosive force) against Russia, the US began to worry even more. It would be very easy for the Russians to fake a dirty bomb in a false flag attack to legitimise a nuclear attack against Kyiv.
But how bad would such a nuclear attack be?
Well, current nuclear doctrine would mean a nuclear retaliation from the West would happen. After all, not retaliating would enable Putin to use nuclear weapons again. So, it would spark a nuclear exchange at best, or a nuclear war at worst.
Researchers at Princeton‘s Science and Global Security programme simulated what would happen if Russia used a single low-yield nuclear weapon. They found that 34.1 million people would die, and 57.4 million would be injured in just a few hours after the initial explosion, with the total death toll rising dramatically from there from knock-on effects such as radioactive fallout and global cooling of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Needless to say, it would be an utter catastrophe.
So, it was a huge relief when US intelligence announced they no longer believed there was an imminent risk of a nuclear strike from Russia. Basically, Crimea is no longer under threat, and while Russian forces are taking heavy casualties, they have been able to replenish that fast enough to not lose too much ground.
But this is about to change, as Russia is moving the nuclear goalposts.
In September, Putin announced the Kremlin was changing its nuclear stance. These changes would mean if Russia is attacked by a non-nuclear nation (such as Ukraine) with conventional weapons supplied by or supported by nuclear nations (such as the US or UK), it would be seen as a “joint attack on the Russian Federation”, and therefore, justify a nuclear retaliation.
All of a sudden, nuclear war is back on the table.
You see, while Ukraine is doing a sterling job fighting back the Russian army, they are significantly outnumbered and struggling to push them back. What’s more, they are fighting at a disadvantage, as countries and organisations supporting them, like the US, UK and EU, have placed limitations on how they can fight. For example, they aren’t allowed to hit military targets inside Russia with weapons they supply. Meanwhile, the Russian military has no such limitations, and is decimating critical military infrastructure deep in Ukraine.
As such, Zelensky has been pushing for a switch from defence to offence, and using long-range missiles to cripple the Russian military by taking out key infrastructure deep within Russia. This is one of the few tactics they can employ to gain ground, fight Russia back, and end the war.
Thankfully, the US and UK stopped Zelensky, and then a month after, Putin announced his new nuclear doctrine.
As such, we now stand at a nuclear knife edge, with Russian westward expansion on one side, and an atomic war on the other. Yet no one seems to be acknowledging the immense weight of this dire situation.
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