[Salon] Why Russia’s mobilization may lower the risk of nuclear war — for now

[Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/21/why-russias-mobilization-may-lower-risk-nuclear-war-now/?isMobile=1

Why Russia’s mobilization may lower the risk of nuclear war — for now

If Putin were truly desperate, he might have turned to ‘non-strategic’ nuclear weapons

Analysis by Caitlin Talmadge

September 21, 2022

In the face of Russia’s stunning recent losses in northeastern Ukraine, President Vladmir Putin has just announced the mobilization of 300,000 Russian reservists. These are conventional (i.e., nonnuclear) forces, but Putin used the occasion to lob nuclear threats: “In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff,” he warned. “Those who are using nuclear blackmail against us should know that the wind rose can turn around.”

Despite this threatening rhetoric, Putin’s partial mobilization of Russia’s conventional forces may actually lower the risk of Russian use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine — at least for now. Unfortunately, however, it will also prolong a brutal war while potentially paving the way for Putin to engage in other forms of devastating nonnuclear escalation from which Russia has so far largely refrained.

The Good News

For all the nuclear bluster, Putin’s main move today was announcing partial mobilization — and from a nuclear risk perspective, that may be good news. A truly desperate Putin might have turned to nuclear weapons simply due to a lack of other options for arresting the collapse of his military and what he sees as a politically vital project in Ukraine.

Instead, Putin’s attempt to bolster his conventional forces suggests he is not eager to turn to nuclear attack as a means of achieving his goals in Ukraine. Putin certainly knows that any Russian nuclear use would carry severe and unpredictable consequences, as the Biden administration has repeatedly signaled.

Yet Russian military setbacks in recent weeks had raised concerns that Putin might nevertheless gamble on nuclear escalation. The concern was not that Putin would suddenly lob nuclear weapons at NATO, a nuclear alliance that can credibly threaten retaliation. Rather, the fear has been that Putin might use nuclear weapons against Ukraine itself, which lacks a nuclear arsenal or a security guarantee from a nuclear power.

Caitlin Talmadge (@ProfTalmadge) is associate professor of security studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She is the author of “The Dictator’s Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes” (Cornell University Press, 2015).