Are Putin's Ukraine war setbacks pushing us closer to nuclear war? - USA TODAY

Last Thursday evening, President Joe Biden dropped a governmental bombshell erstwhile helium said the satellite is present astatine the highest hazard of atomic "Armageddon" than astatine immoderate clip since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

For the archetypal clip since that Cold War confrontation began connected Oct. 16, 1962 – astir 60 years agone to the time – determination present exists "a nonstop menace of the usage of the atomic limb if, successful fact, things proceed down the way they've been going," Biden said.

The time before, 1 of the CIA’s apical erstwhile spies connected some the Russian geopolitical menace and weapons of wide demolition said thing astir identical astir the grave menace the satellite faces acknowledgment to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mounting losses successful Ukraine – and his progressively threatening connection astir utilizing a atomic limb to summation the precocious manus successful the struggle taking spot successful the bosom of Europe.

Are Biden and the erstwhile apical quality officer, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, correct? And what does Putin’s menace to usage atomic weapons mean for the information of millions of radical successful Ukraine and astir the world, including the United States, which Russian nuclear-tipped missiles can easy reach? 

USA TODAY spoke to Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA authoritative and a big of different atomic information experts and analysts for answers.

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'How adjacent are we to Armageddon?'

All of those experts agreed with Biden’s appraisal that the existent concern is fraught with potential danger, including if an progressively cornered Putin decides to deploy 1 of the smaller atomic weapons in his massive arsenal. That would astir apt beryllium a tactical atomic warhead atop 1 of its highly close Iskander missiles. The detonation of adjacent 1 of Russia’s slightest almighty nukes, they say, could termination perchance tens of thousands of radical and render an country unlivable – oregon surely inhospitable – for months if not years.

The interest is truthful large that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists may reset its “Doomsday Clock” to person to midnight erstwhile it convenes adjacent period successful Chicago. It is currently astatine 100 seconds to 12 a.m.

"You tin travel up with immoderate fig of scenarios and we person to look astatine them all," said Sharon Squassoni, who co-chairs the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, the planetary radical of experts who volition stitchery to vote. She said she could not sermon immoderate internal deliberations of the board. 

“How adjacent are we to Armageddon?” asked Squassoni, who served 3 decades arsenic a elder U.S. atomic nonproliferation and arms power official. “It’s going to beryllium a precise absorbing discussion." 

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Trump medication Secretary of State Mike Pompeo publicly criticized Biden precocious for utilizing "reckless language" successful describing the existent threat. 

But 1 longtime U.S. defense and quality official, Elbridge Colby, said Putin's longstanding preoccupation with gathering up Russia's atomic capabilities, combined with his existent predicament successful Ukraine, "leads maine to deliberation that it is simply a superior possibility" that helium could detonate immoderate benignant of atomic device, astir apt successful a battlefield setting.

"I've been struck that the Russians person enactment a batch of wealth and effort into overhauling their atomic forces and modernizing them," said Colby, a erstwhile lawman adjunct Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development. In 2017 and 2018, helium served arsenic the Pentagon's co-lead for the improvement of the U.S. National Defense Strategy.

"Putin himself seems to person enactment a batch of accent connected it," Colby told USA TODAY. "In fact, I've been struck implicit clip that, arsenic I recognize it, Putin considers himself a spot of a atomic strategist, which is worrying since he's present successful a atrocious concern from his constituent of view."

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How did we get to specified a unsafe point?

Putin has been threatening to usage atomic weapons successful his warfare connected Ukraine for months. But U.S. quality and subject officials became particularly alarmed astir the anticipation after Putin’s code Sept. 30, successful which his threats became overmuch much specific, and pointed. 

In announcing Moscow's annexation of wide swaths of Ukraine. Putin falsely proclaimed that four Ukrainian regions were present portion of the Russian Federation. And helium said helium would beryllium justified successful utilizing immoderate unit necessary to support Russian interests, implying that deploying atomic weapons was 1 imaginable option.

In 1 particularly alarming passage, Putin appeared to warrant specified a onslaught by suggesting that since the United States used a nuclear weapon to extremity World War II successful the Pacific, helium mightiness usage "all the means astatine our disposal" to extremity the existent struggle successful Ukraine.

“Everyone is struggling close present to fig retired however acold helium is going to instrumentality this,” said Squassoni, a prof astatine George Washington University’s Institute for International Science and Technology Policy successful Washington, D.C. “But that’s the decision I drew from his speech.”

Two days aft Putin's speech, nationalist information advisor Jake Sullivan said the Biden medication has warned the Kremlin successful the strongest imaginable presumption that it cannot usage atomic weapons successful Ukraine amid Moscow's increasing battlefield setbacks successful its warfare and its determination to telephone up thousands of reservists. Despite Putin's claims of victory, Russian troops have withdrawn from cardinal strongholds successful Donetsk Oblast and different top-priority areas it is attempting to "liberate." 

"If Russia crosses this line, determination volition beryllium catastrophic consequences for Russia," Sullivan said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "The United States volition respond decisively.”

“In backstage channels,” Sullivan added cryptically, “we person spelled retired successful greater item precisely what that would mean."

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to Putin’s remarks by saying helium did not judge the longtime Russian person was bluffing.

Last Thursday night, Biden weighed in.

"We've got a feline I cognize reasonably well," Biden said of Putin astatine a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “He's not joking erstwhile helium talks astir the imaginable usage of tactical atomic weapons, oregon biologic oregon chemic weapons, due to the fact that his subject is, you mightiness say, importantly underperforming."

"It’s portion of Russian doctrine that ... if the motherland is threatened, they'll usage immoderate unit they need, including atomic weapons," Biden said.

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'We've ne'er been here' 

Mowatt-Larssen, a erstwhile CIA Moscow presumption chief, stood up the spy agency’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Department successful its Counterterrorist Center aft the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. He has spent the past 2 decades watching intimately the perchance intertwined threats of Russian aggression nether Putin and its imaginable usage of its atomic arsenal, which is believed to beryllium the world’s largest.

In an interrogation with erstwhile acting CIA manager Michael Morell, Mowatt-Larssen said helium has kept successful interaction with those wrong the U.S. and allied governments monitoring these threats, and that they are taking Putin’s saber rattling precise earnestly and “preparing for immoderate fig of options.”

There is “very aggravated wargaming going on, tabletop workout benignant things, we telephone it successful the government, that would measure what would beryllium the ways that Putin mightiness determine to bash this and what would beryllium our effect accordingly,” Mowatt-Larssen said.

And, helium told Morell connected his podcast “Intelligence Matters,” “I don't deliberation we should bounds ourselves to reasoning purely tactical atomic weapons. It's astir unimaginable to deliberation of the different things. But we've been done astatine slightest 1 clip successful our past … the Cuban Missile Crisis backmost successful 1962, wherever the satellite was astir destroyed successful a atomic confrontation betwixt the U.S. and Russia. And we shouldn't astatine slightest disregard the anticipation we whitethorn extremity up successful a akin spot today.”

“And arsenic immoderate experts that I truly respect person precocious written oregon stated, and I hold with them, we are astatine the highest constituent successful atomic risks than we've been since the Cuban Missile Crisis 60 years ago,” Mowatt-Larssen said.

 The 23-year CIA veteran put it successful adjacent starker presumption successful an interrogation with USA TODAY.

“We've ne'er been here, successful a spot wherever it's wide that it's a possibility,” said Mowatt-Larssen, who besides served 3 years arsenic the manager of Intelligence and Counterintelligence astatine the Department of Energy and its atomic weapons programs. “And the reasons for it are beauteous self-evident, fixed the grade to which the Russian service is failing, which it is, and the Ukrainians are strengthening, which they are. That makes it much apt due to the fact that helium has less and less options.”

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Why would Putin usage atomic weapons against Ukraine?

Traditional U.S. atomic information doctrine has ever been that astir countries person specified potent weapons not to really usage them, but chiefly to deter their adversaries from utilizing them and to summation their ain geopolitical vantage simply by the menace of utilizing them. That’s wherefore Putin has been truthful assertive successful Ukraine, due to the fact that helium knows that without the menace of a atomic World War III, the U.S. oregon NATO allies would person intervened straight successful the Ukraine struggle agelong ago, according to atomic information adept Matt Bunn.

Using that argument, Bunn and different atomic information analysts interest that Putin could take to detonate a atomic limb successful Ukraine due to the fact that Kyiv doesn’t person specified weapons of its own, oregon allies that would usage them connected its behalf. Bunn notes that Washington and Ukraine’s different allies person been precise circumstantial successful pledging billions successful subject adjutant portion insisting they volition not straight intervene and prosecute Russian troops.

The usage of atomic weapons has different immense disadvantages too the menace of escalating a section oregon determination struggle into an all-out satellite war. The radioactive fallout would apt termination galore thousands of civilians, destruct buildings and different critically important infrastructure and contaminate the nutrient and h2o supply. That would render an country unfit for anyone – including Putin’s ain forces.

And Russia has capable accepted subject unit to wreak that benignant of harm without utilizing atomic weapons.

“But what truly does marque a quality is the fearfulness that the powerfulness of atomic weapons creates,” says Bunn, a erstwhile advisor to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy who now runs the atomic proliferation programme astatine the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. “I interest astir coercion; astir the Russians utilizing a fewer (nuclear warheads) connected subject targets and past saying, you know, ‘Agree to our presumption oregon cities volition beryllium next.’”

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The Armageddon Option

Every warfare fought since the U.S archetypal deployed an atomic weaponry implicit the Japanese metropolis of Hiroshima successful 1945 has included – nevertheless flimsy – the anticipation of a atomic exchange, particularly if 1 oregon much of the planetary superpowers were involved.

The U.S. and its allies successful NATO person been grooming for this for decades, arsenic has the Soviet Union and, since its breakup, Russia, which fundamentally kept each of the weapons successful the Soviet bloc’s atomic arsenal.

Currently, Russia’s atomic forces dwell of some long-range, strategical systems – including intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and dense bombers to present its astir almighty nukes – and short and medium-range transportation systems, according to Amy Woolf, a specializer successful atomic weapons argumentation astatine the Congressional Research Service, the autarkic probe limb of Congress that provides investigation for lawmakers.

In an April 2022 report prepared for Congress, Woolf said Russia is modernizing its atomic forces, including replacing Soviet-era systems with caller missiles, submarines and craft portion processing caller types of weapons.

Although Russia’s fig of atomic weapons has declined sharply since the extremity of the Cold War, Woolf reported, “it retains a stockpile of thousands of warheads, with much than 1,500 warheads deployed connected missiles and bombers susceptible of reaching U.S. territory” – and surely targets successful and astir Ukraine.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union pledged publically that it would not beryllium the archetypal to usage atomic weapons successful a conflict. But since the breakup of the Soviet bloc in aboriginal 1992, and particularly nether Putin, Russia has dropped that pledge, Woolf concluded, and alternatively spent the past respective decades integrating atomic weapons into its warfighting plans.

This “evolving doctrine,” Woolf warned, “has led immoderate U.S. analysts to reason that Russia has adopted an ‘escalate to de-escalate’ strategy, wherever it mightiness endanger to usage atomic weapons if it were losing a struggle with a NATO member, successful an effort to person the United States and its NATO allies to retreat from the conflict.”

Even though Ukraine is not a subordinate of NATO, the aforesaid logic would use successful the existent conflict. That's due to the fact that Putin has vowed to usage atomic weapons to support Ukrainian territories that helium claims are present portion of Russia adjacent arsenic Ukraine has had occurrence successful taking them back.

“And that means Putin volition beryllium forced to face a concern wherever either helium carries retired his menace oregon he's shown to beryllium bluffing,” said Bunn. “A wounded and cornered carnal is the astir dangerous, and that's benignant of wherever Putin is astatine the moment."

A much apt but inactive terrifying scenario

Most U.S. experts interviewed by USA TODAY believe adjacent Putin wouldn’t situation to usage a accepted atomic limb similar the “Tsar Bomba” that it detonated astir 60 years agone successful what is believed to beryllium the world’s largest-ever thermo-nuclear explosion. The hydrogen bomb, dropped successful October 1961 implicit an archipelago supra the Arctic Circle, had the unit of 50 cardinal tons of accepted explosives, and created a immense fireball and 37 mile-high mushroom cloud, according to previously classified footage Moscow released successful 2020.

Instead, Putin would apt usage immoderate of the thousands of “non-strategic,” oregon smaller and much tactical atomic warheads that it tin connect to 1 of its galore rocket systems, including the highly close Iskander missiles and people a circumstantial country wrong Ukraine, according to Squassoni, Mowatt-Larssen, Bunn and Colby. 

They accidental Russia has a wide scope of options, including astatine slightest respective 1000 tactical nukes with varying yields that it could mates with an array of transportation systems, including a caller ultra-fast hypersonic missile.

Even the smallest of those could origin horrific destruction, particularly if Moscow decides to usage a “ground burst” atomic limb that detonates connected interaction with the earth, arsenic opposed to an “air burst” that explodes implicit a people area, said Bunn.

In a “ground burst” detonation, the explosive instrumentality penetrates the earth, sucking up an tremendous magnitude of rock, ungraded and different debris that it past contaminates arsenic it goes up into a fireball. Then it comes down and renders uninhabitable an country of astatine slightest a fewer quadrate miles, according to reports by the Federation of American Scientists.

“With an airburst, astir of that nasty worldly goes mode up into the precocious ambiance wherever it disperses, fundamentally implicit the full world, alternatively than locally,” causing acold little radiation poisoning, Bunn said. “That’s however Hiroshima and Nagasaki got rebuilt rather quickly.”

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Decades of grooming for a tactical atomic strike

In 2015, Colby, earlier his astir caller Pentagon appointment, wrote a prescient study informing that the U.S. and its allies needed to wage much attraction to the increasing atomic threat successful Europe posed by an progressively assertive Russia.

Under Putin, Colby wrote successful a paper, Russia already was focusing progressively “on manipulating its ample and diversified atomic forces for strategical advantage.”

Colby, the grandson of a legendary CIA Director William Colby, warned that the astir plausible “escalation pathway” would beryllium for Moscow to effort to usage atomic weapons to intimidate NATO forces into backing down, particularly successful immoderate benignant of struggle successful Europe.

That included refining a strategy of utilizing atomic weapons “in tailored and pointed ways” that would not lone show Russia’s willingness to “go nuclear,” Colby wrote, but besides “shock the alliance, interruption its governmental cohesion, and yet compel it to … terminate a struggle connected presumption favorable to Russia.”

Colby, who co-founded and heads the Marathon Initiative, cited what helium described arsenic an authoritative Kremlin papers from 2003, “Russia’s Nuclear Doctrine,” that lays retired however to usage specified tailored atomic strikes arsenic an “escalate to de-escalate” strategy to get adversaries to backmost down.

Russia’s wide willingness to usage specified tactics posed a important situation for Washington and NATO, Colby concluded, “neither of which presently appears adequately prepared oregon postured to respond efficaciously and appropriately to a struggle with Moscow, particularly 1 involving atomic weapons.”

“Indeed, determination is important evidence,” helium wrote, “that Russia plans to marque specified higher-order capabilities portion of a warfare with NATO.”

In an interrogation this week, Colby said helium thinks Putin's threshold successful Ukaine is adjacent little than it would beryllium against NATO. "Why bash they person thousands of atomic weapons? Why person they spent truthful overmuch clip and wealth recapitalizing this capableness if they don't deliberation they mightiness usage it? To me, that conscionable doesn't clasp water."

Last Friday, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre was asked astir Biden's usage of the word "Armageddon" erstwhile referring to Putin and the imaginable usage of atomic weapons. She said determination was nary caller quality that led Biden to usage that term. He was conscionable responding to Putin's "irresponsible rhetoric."

Biden himself was asked successful a caller interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes what helium would archer Putin astir the imaginable usage of atomic – oregon chemic oregon biologic – weapons.

"Don't. Don't. Don't,” was Biden’s response. “You volition alteration the look of warfare dissimilar thing since World War II.”

Meanwhile, Reuters reported Wednesday that a elder NATO authoritative said a Russian atomic onslaught would alteration the people of the struggle and astir surely trigger a “physical effect from galore allies, and perchance from NATO itself.”

Any usage of atomic weapons by Moscow would person "unprecedented consequences" for Russia, according to the official, who was attending NATO’s ministerial gathering successful Brussels. The official, who Reuters did not identify, besides said Moscow was utilizing its atomic threats chiefly to deter NATO and different countries from straight entering its warfare connected Ukraine.