Biden’s Nuclear Policy Fails the Ukraine Test – By Tom Z. Collina (Defense One) / Nov 14, 2022
His administration’s Cold War-style thinking is missing a golden opportunity.
Senior Russian military leaders reportedly recently discussed how they might use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, while other Russian officials were suggesting that Kyiv might detonate a “dirty bomb”—suggestions widely dismissed as a setup for a false-flag excuse to escalate the war. And even before all that, President Joe Biden reckoned that the world was closer to “Armageddon” than any time since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
Cause for concern? You bet. But if you’re looking for new ideas to address Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempts at nuclear blackmail in Ukraine, you won’t find them in the Biden administration’s new statement on nuclear policy. Known as the Nuclear Posture Review, or NPR, the report is a disappointing defense of the status quo. It breaks little new ground, and it fails to respond to the Ukraine moment. Reading it, you might almost forget that the world is facing the most serious nuclear threat in 60 years.
President Putin has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons to keep the United States and NATO from getting too involved in the war. The NPR notes that Russian leaders view their nuclear arsenal “as a shield behind which to wage unjustified aggression against their neighbors.” Not only do these reckless actions increase the risk of nuclear war, but they also threaten the future of U.S.-Russian arms control and could give non-nuclear states new motivations to get the bomb.
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