This morning I posted a blog, who is the Biggest Satan?
Within few hours I am obliged to share President Joe Biden’s warning about the
possibility of ‘Armageddon’. Over the last eight months, I have been saying that
in this proxy war Ukrainians are the biggest losers. One point is sure that the
US considers Putin a ‘bad guy’ and all US policies seem to be touching
insanity.
President Joe Biden’s warning about the possibility of ‘Armageddon’
rumbling from the battlefields of Ukraine has scrambled an already complicated
picture in the eight-month conflict. He raised this warning during a recent
appearance at a Democratic fundraiser.
But
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, asked Friday if there
were any new intelligence assessments that had caused Biden to “ratchet up the
level of concern,” responded, “No.”
Jean-Pierre sought to cast the president’s words as a
general warning about the dangers of an escalation and as a riposte to Russian
President Vladimir Putin’s saber-rattling — not as an actual
prediction that there would be a nuclear attack.
“We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic
nuclear posture, nor do we have indications that Russia is preparing to imminently
use nuclear weapons,” the press secretary told reporters on board a short Air
Force One flight to Hagerstown.
The
debate over Biden’s comments is in many ways a classic Washington
back-and-forth, focused on the question of whether the president’s words were
out of whack with intelligence assessments and whether the White House will now
have to walk them back.
Ukraine has made startling gains against Russian forces in
recent weeks, taking back enormous swathes of territory that Putin’s troops
once held. Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky claimed late
Thursday night that his forces had liberated more than 500 square kilometers of
territory since the beginning of this month alone, after having run up much
bigger gains throughout September.
But the Ukrainian gains have had the grimly ironic effect of
making Putin more desperate— and more willing to countenance the kinds of tactics
that have not previously been used since the Kremlin launched the invasion in
February.
In a
speech last week, Putain said that the United States had created a “precedent”
for the use of nuclear weapons by its atomic bomb attacks on the Japanese
cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War.
The
idea that Putin might use nuclear weapons causes outrage for obvious reasons.
But it has also stirred discussion as to what the United States and its allies
might do in response.
The Biden administration has been adamant that it will not
put American boots on the ground in Ukraine, even as it backs Kyiv with
billions of dollars in military aid.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said last month that
the US had warned Russia that there would be “catastrophic” consequences in the
event of such a move.
But it’s simply not clear what those consequences might be.
Experts advance various different ideas, most of which stop short of a direct
American military attack.
“I would expect NATO would respond through the Ukrainians,”
said Robert Wilkie, who served as Under Secretary of Defense during the Trump
administration and is now a distinguished national security fellow at the
America First Policy Institute.
He
suggested this could be done by using weapons supplied by the US and other
Western powers to complete the encirclement of Putin’s troops in Crimea —
meaning weapons would be used to take out their lines of retreat there, but
NATO forces would never touch the ground in Ukraine.”
Joel Rubin, who served as a deputy assistant secretary of State
during the Obama administration, cautioned against the idea that the use of
nuclear weapons by Putin would necessarily be expected to bring a symmetrical
and instant response.
“There is a narrative from some folks that if he uses nukes,
we have to use nukes. But there is no winner in a nuclear war — everyone
loses,” Rubin said.
Instead, he suggested, “all options would be available and
nuclear would be one of them, but that is not the preferred choice. There would
certainly be new moves to completely cut Russia off from every actor on the
planet, whereas now China and Saudi Arabia are still giving oxygen to this
leader.”
“Maybe that would be enough,” Rubin added of such isolation.
“Who knows?”
In some ways, it is the kind of scenario for which Biden is
well-prepared. He was steeped in foreign policy throughout his decades in
the Senate, including a stretch as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
His career has been long enough to encompass an era when there were real
worries about nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Biden’s handling of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has won
a degree of approval even from some ideological opponents, especially regarding
his effectiveness in assembling and maintaining an international coalition.
On the other hand, there is a legitimate question of whether
he overstepped with the “Armageddon” remark, perhaps raising the very tensions
he is seeking to ease.
Wilkie, the Trump administration veteran, called it “very
disturbing” that Biden would make such a remark apparently off-the-cuff at a
fundraising dinner.
The gravity of the situation, Wilkie argued, “Demands going
to the American people and explaining what’s at issue and what’s at stake —
instead of these off-script, ‘I’m a tough guy’ moments.”
