Nuclear attacks on a NATO country would begin escalation that Russia could not control. The use of multiple nuclear weapons would do so, but would also inflict huge and lasting damage on Russia. A single nuclear strike would not alter the military balance in the war. Nuclear warfare against Ukraine makes no sense. It is conceivable that this fear is the main restraint on their support for Kyiv. Privately, politicians and officials from various European countries have told this author of their belief that Russia could or would use nuclear weapons if it faced the prospect of defeat in Ukraine. But they will not allow the country to recapture its territory and defeat the Russian military.
Rather, they seem to have come from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats to escalate if the West supplied Ukraine with certain systems.Ĭurrent Western efforts to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons are just enough to keep it in the fight. Such arbitrary restrictions cannot have come from military advice or from independent risk-benefit calculations. Nonetheless, Germany will not provide Ukraine with the Leopard 1 because it is a particular class of weapon. The former has a much greater range than the latter, potentially allowing it to strike targets in Russia. A modern Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzer of the kind Germany has now supplied to Ukraine is far more lethal than a 1970s-era Leopard 1 main battle tank. But this is an incoherent approach to the challenge. Militarily, these swap deals make no sense, as they only delay assistance to Ukraine and provide it with inferior materiel.įrench President Emmanuel Macron later stated that it was “almost” NATO policy not to supply certain weapons systems to Ukraine, hinting that other Western European governments shared Berlin’s views. He decided that Germany would only deliver certain systems – main battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles – to its eastern European allies so that they could provide Soviet-era systems to Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stated in April that “ there must not be a nuclear war” as a defence of his reluctance to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons. This prompted widespread speculation about whether the war aims of the White House differed from those of the state and defence departments.įear of nuclear escalation is even more apparent in some western European capitals than in Washington. The administration has also demanded that Ukraine avoid strikes on targets in Russian territory (even though facilities supporting the Russian war effort there would be legitimate military targets under the Hague and Geneva conventions).Īfter Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin declared on 24 April that Russia needs to be weakened to the point that it could not bully its neighbours, President Joe Biden wrote in the New York Times that the US would not use the war to inflict more damage on Russia than was necessary to halt the invasion.
#Foreign policy article on 4 minutes nuclear time series
The Biden administration has restricted the range of ammunition it provides to Ukraine with the M-142 HIMARS multiple rocket launcher to 80km (the M-30 series of munition), withholding longer-ranged MGM-140 ATACMS. This was true in March and will remain true.Ĭurrent Western efforts to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons are just enough to keep it in the fight And such support will not cause NATO to stumble into a third world war. Slovakia now plans to donate its Mig-29s to Ukraine.
None of this triggered nuclear escalation or threats from the US in response. In contrast, the Soviet Union supplied fighter jets in large quantities to North Korea and Vietnam when each country was at war with the US, and to Egypt and Syria when they were at war with Israel. The US and other NATO countries appear to have been restrained by fear of a direct confrontation with Russia. For instance, Poland and the United States agreed in March 2022 not to deliver Polish Mig-29 fighter jets to Ukraine.
Moscow has been particularly successful in this: not only has NATO refrained from direct intervention – such as by setting up a no-fly zone – but Western nations have avoided forms of military assistance for Ukraine that fall within their rights as third parties in the conflict. The Kremlin aims to not only deter the West from directly interfering in its attempts to conquer Ukraine but also to limit Western political, economic, and military support for the country. Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has conducted an intense campaign of nuclear signalling and threats designed to provide it with a strategic advantage.
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