The lack of solid intelligence on Russian nuclear escalation doctrine under Russian President Vladimir Putin, combined with the diplomatic blunderings of the Biden administration, has created a dangerous nuclear standoff in Europe, according to former national security officials and experts.
Consequently, the likelihood of a Russian tactical nuclear strike to change the balance of power in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is difficult to assess, they agreed, but the threat is real.
Meanwhile, an end to the war by a negotiated settlement will remain elusive, experts say, because both sides continue to underestimate the desire of all parties—Ukraine, Europe, the United States, and Russia—for total victory in the war.
Thus, the strategic nuclear ambiguity faced by the Biden administration could increase the risks in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, because President Joe Biden has previously shown a remarkable ability to misunderstand Putin, which the experts said, after Putin’s own miscalculations, is a main cause of the war today.
Whether those miscalculations will eventually force Putin from power is also difficult to say, according to the analysts, leading to a standstill in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Putin’s attempt to cobble together a new Russian empire.
The three national security experts interviewed by The Epoch Times all agreed that unlike in the days of the Soviet Union, where the top man in the Kremlin more or less shared power with the Politburo, in today’s Russia, where Putin’s power-sharing arrangements with other leaders are murky, the process by which nuclear release decisions happen also remains murky.
Putin Threatens Nukes, While Biden Talks ‘Armageddon’
Putin has a long history of making nuclear threats to quell opposition to his land grabs that stretch back to the annexation of Crimea in 2014.In September, Putin alluded to the use of weapons in a speech given before Russia annexed Ukrainian land.
“If the territorial integrity of our nation is threatened, we will certainly use all the means that we have to defend Russia and our people. It’s not a bluff,” Putin said.
Biden administration officials responded by vowing “catastrophic consequences” should Russia deploy nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Biden earlier this month said the Russian invasion invokes the highest “prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis.”
“Putin is ”not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming," the president said on Oct. 6.
Russia’s Vague Nuclear Doctrine
John Bolton, former national security advisor during the Trump administration, told The Epoch Times in an interview that earlier statements by Biden that implied that the United States might now take actions against “minor incursions” into Ukraine, helped encourage Putin to invade Ukraine.Similarly, Putin may have come to the conclusion based on previous inaction by both Biden and Biden’s Democrat predecessor, former President Barrack Obama, that a nuclear response would force the United States to negotiate, experts said.
Meanwhile, there is no real clarity such as a written or agreed to Russian doctrine about the use of nuclear weapons, said Bolton, which adds to the confusion.
“It’s hard to call something a doctrine when they’ve never used it in warfare,” Bolton told The Epoch Times.
“They have their phrases that people throw about like ‘escalate to de-escalate’ meaning, in the Russian approach, they will use a nuclear weapon to kind of shock to the other side and then force them to de-escalate,” the former official said.
That may be what Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons really imply, “but that’s not because it follows rigid doctrine,” said Bolton.
Annexation Gives Putin Excuse for Nuke Use
That’s one reason why Putin was so quick to annex Ukrainian territory in late September, analysts say.It allows Putin to use nuclear weapons to protect what he now said is Russian “sovereign territory” under annexation, Victoria Coates, the former deputy National Security advisor during the Trump administration told The Epoch Times.
In Putin’s mind, continued Ukrainian fighting is “an attack on Russia,” added Coates.
Thus the annexation makes a nuclear option more realistic—not less—unless both sides want to negotiate.
And it’s unclear if either side is ready to negotiate.
“I don’t know what the diplomatic off ramp is,” said Bolton.
“And you know, there are obviously divisions of opinion, but it’s not just the Ukrainians who insist that the off-ramp is restoring Ukrainian control over Ukrainian territory,” he added.
Peace Settlement: ‘If Anyone Could Do It, It’s Probably Trump’
Which territory makes up Ukraine finally, might hold the key to an eventual settlement, said one expert.Del Wilber, a former intelligence officer who has worked on security issues in Europe and the Middle East, said that, while difficult, a negotiated settlement might happen given enough bloodletting and time on each side.
He points to similar circumstances during the Bosnian war in 1995, which led to the Dayton Accords.
“In Bosnia, they made the Republic of Serbia, declared to be a semi-autonomous region, technically still part of Bosnia, but it’s as separate from Bosnia as it can practically be,” Wilber told The Epoch Times.
The Dayton Accords could be used similarly to save face for both Russia and Ukraine.
Wilber said that the numbers of ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, and other minorities in areas that have been invaded and annexed by Russia make a total victory by one side or the other unattainable, even if the majority simply want peace restored.
The disappointed side would likely continue to contribute to political instability, similar to the way an ethically divided Bosnia did, if not engage in an outright insurgency, said Wilber
“Unfortunately, I don’t know that there’s anybody in the Biden administration who’s smart enough to see this and to negotiate it,” said Wilber about a Dayton Accord-style settlement.
Complicating the matter still further is that Ukrainians have mixed but definite feelings about being governed by Moscow.
“The fact that that Ukraine’s identity is now a national identity, is a fairly recent occurrence, and it’s what made the Maidan protests and the change of government in [February] 2014 all the more dramatic because it was Ukraine saying ‘We do not want our Russian installed overlord,” Coates said, referring to the 2014 protests that resulted in the overthrow of the democratically-election pro-Russia government.
“And there is tremendous tension in the country between the ones who think that the Soviet era was just fine, that It’s fine to be part of Russia—and those are not an insubstantial minority,” and the majority who want independence for Ukraine, added Coates
The resolve by both sides to avoid negotiations likely makes offers of a mediated negotiation by former President Donald Trump unrealistic for right now, said Coates.
Trump, in a social media post in late September, urged a negotiated settlement and offered to lead a group to mediate a peace deal.
“It is hard for me to see the Biden administration accepting [a Trump-led mediation] anyway, but if anyone could do it, it’s probably Trump,” said Coates.
“Former President Trump has a remarkable ability to work with a range of folks. And you know, he took a very strong line with Putin on Ukraine when he was in office,” she added.
She noted that Putin did not invade Ukraine when Trump was president, but the Russian leader did invade when Obama and Biden were in office.
Putin Emboldened by Biden, Obama Responses
To Coates, the idea of a negotiated settlement, or even an outright victory, is made more difficult because Biden has proven to miscalculate both Russian intentions and Russian military strength, which has led to increasing distrust of the Biden administration by leaders in the United States and in Europe.“I would be very cautious about authorizing the Biden administration to do much because they have been so wrong about this,” said Coates.
“And they’ve been so timid about escalation, when Putin went right to [threatening to use nukes] in the first week,” she added.
Coates noted that members of Congress were briefed before the war started that in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, the result would be a quick Russian victory, followed by U.S. support of an insurgency to drain Russia’s strength.
“That turned out not to be the case. And so we’re in a completely different world to what would have looked like a negotiated settlement in the first week in March,” she said.
Bolton agreed and added that after Putin met with Biden in 2021, the Russian strongman likely came to the conclusion that Biden, like Obama in 2014, would do little to retaliate against Russia in the event of an incursion into Ukraine, which in turn misled Russia’s own intelligence estimates about the U.S. response.
“Putin obviously saw this as an opportunity to gain ground, not lose more, and I think he felt the Russian troops would perform much better than they did, which of course that was what our intelligence told us as well,” the former national security advisor said.
“I think Putin believed that Biden was of the same ilk [as Obama] and that he would basically get away with it,” Bolton said.
“Because the 2014 annexation of the Crimea and setting up to the so-called autonomous republics in the Donbass created really very minimal Western response, it was a terrible lesson to teach the Kremlin.”
Russian tactics have been based on mass attacks by tanks, which were subsequently broken up by Javelins missiles.
Re-creation of Russian Empire Drives Putin
The driving force for Russia is the re-creation of the old Soviet empire, according to Wilber. It is a bear that has the hunger but apparently lacks the teeth and claws to beat the combined strength of Ukraine, the United States, and Europe, he added, in a reference to the country’s national personification.Bolton agreed, saying “Putin said in 2005 in an address to the Russian State Duma that the breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.”
Since then, Putin has attempted to piecemeal invade and annex former Soviet territories and has been remarkably successful.
“The Russians attacked Georgia in August of 2008; they attacked Ukraine in 2014; they’ve been working on Belarus, trying to bring it closer into the fold for quite some time; they’ve intervened politically in many respects in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” said Bolton.
“So all of these things could be construed as steps in a plan to possibly put the Motherland back together again,” he added.
For Europe, the stakes are high—beyond just the red line of a Russian empire stretching further into Western Europe.
“The reason it matters are the natural resources, the agriculture, and the ability to generate electricity,” said Coates.
“[Ukraine] is an enormously productive country—and the long-standing corruption issues in Ukraine notwithstanding—that’s why everybody cares,” she said.
On the other hand, the United States has been slow to admit Ukraine into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), because NATO isn’t just a messaging vehicle for Washington, like the threat of nuclear war is for Putin, said Coates.
Once admitted, the member countries are obligated to protect Ukraine, come what may, or the alliance is rendered meaningless.
“The notion that we’re going to let Ukraine into NATO tomorrow, is wrong, because you have to have unanimous consent by members,” Coates added.
“But sending the signal that we’re open to NATO membership costs us nothing,” she said.
In response to Ukraine’s recent request to fast-track its application to join NATO, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan said that the membership process “should be taken up at a different time.”
“Putin has us playing tiddlywinks when he’s playing nuclear war,” said Coates.
Putin Weaker But Still in Control
Still, all of the experts agreed that the war has weakened Putin at home even as they vary in their estimates as to whether that weakness could push the leader from power in favor of someone who supports an end to the war.“I think he’s definitely on the hot seat in Moscow, and he knows it too,” said Wilber.
“I think it’s very possible he has an unexpected health issue come up. He made a calculated risk when he did this invasion, because he assumed that Ukraine would just roll over and when they didn’t, he brought a lot of pain and suffering and embarrassment to Russia,” he added.
But even if forced out, it’s not certain that anyone chosen in a peaceful transfer of power would be better.
“It’s not clear to me that there’s anyone in place who could take power who would not be the same or worse,” said Coates.
“That’s in the hands of the Russian people, and they’ve risen up and changed their governments before. That’s their decision. I’m not going to say the United States is going to tell them what kind of government they should have,” she added.
The lack of a central power like the old Politburo in Russia makes it harder to predict how a peaceful transfer of power could happen.
“So that’s one reason why if regime change in Russia, if it comes and I don’t think we’re close to the point—but I think we’re closer to it than we were before the invasion—but if it comes, it could be very difficult to see how it gets arranged peacefully,” said Bolton.
In either event, a long protracted war is not something that favors Russia.
“I don’t think they can afford the war that much longer,” said Wilber.
That inequality of resources is, unfortunately, what makes the nuclear option tempting to Putin, according to Wilber.
“But for all of his faults, Putin doesn’t have a death wish—not for himself, nor for Mother Russia,” Wilber added hopefully.
Coates was less sanguine, noting that Putin has already tried to justify himself in using nuclear weapons through the recent annexation.
“So whether he [uses nuclear weapons] or not, I don’t know, but he is now in a place where he would feel he has justification under existing military doctrine,” she said.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.
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