[D66] Armageddon

[René Oudeweg]

nytimes.com
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/06/world/europe/biden-armageddon-nuclear-war-risk.html>



  Biden Says Risk of Nuclear ‘Armageddon’ Is Highest Since 1962 Crisis

Katie Rogers, David E. Sanger
4-5 minutes
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Europe <https://www.nytimes.com/section/world/europe>|Biden calls the
‘prospect of Armageddon’ the highest since the Cuban missile crisis.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/06/world/europe/biden-armageddon-nuclear-war-risk.html


    Biden calls the ‘prospect of Armageddon’ the highest since the Cuban
    missile crisis.

President Biden boarding Marine One in New York City on Thursday night.
“We are trying to figure out: What is Putin’s off ramp?” he said at a
fund-raiser there.
Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

  * Oct. 6, 2022

President Biden delivered a striking warning on Thursday night that
recent threats from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could devolve
into a nuclear conflict, telling supporters at a fund-raiser in New York
City that the risk of atomic war had not been so high since the 1962
Cuban Missile Crisis.

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the
Cuban Missile Crisis,” Mr. Biden told a crowd at the second of two
fund-raisers he attended on Thursday evening.

“We are trying to figure out: What is Putin’s off ramp?” Mr. Biden said,
adding: “Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself where
he does not only lose face but significant power?”

Mr. Biden’s references to Armageddon were highly unusual for any
American president. Since the Cuban Missile Crisis, 60 years ago this
month, occupants of the Oval Office have rarely spoken in such grim
tones about the possible use of nuclear weapons, much less talked openly
about “off ramps.”

The president’s warnings, delivered bluntly to a group of Democratic
donors rather than in a more formal setting, came as analysts in
Washington have been debating whether Mr. Putin might resort to tactical
nuclear weapons
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/politics/russia-tactical-nuclear-weapons.html>
to counter his mounting military losses in Ukraine.

In an angry and fiery speech last week, Mr. Putin raised the specter of
using nuclear weapons to hold on to his territorial gains, which
Ukraine’s powerful counteroffensives have begun to erode. Mr. Putin said
he would use “all available means” to defend Russian territory — which
he has declared now includes four provinces of eastern Ukraine that
Russia illegally annexed
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/05/world/europe/putin-annexation-ukraine-russia.html>
in recent days.

The atomic bombs the United States dropped on Japan in 1945, Mr. Putin
said in that speech, had “created a precedent.”

His remarks and others by top Russian leaders represent the first time
since 1962 that Moscow officials have made explicit nuclear threats.

Officials in Washington have been gaming out scenarios in which Mr.
Putin might decide to use a tactical nuclear weapon to make up for the
failings of Russian troops in Ukraine. In late February, Mr. Putin
called for his nuclear forces to go on alert
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/us/politics/putin-nuclear-alert-biden-deescalation.html>,
but there has been no evidence that they did so.

Contrary to Mr. Biden’s comparison, American officials say they do not
believe this moment is as fraught as the Cuban Missile Crisis, during
which Mr. Kennedy declared a quarantine of Cuba to stop the delivery of
nuclear weapons to the island. The chances of Mr. Putin using an atomic
weapon remain low, they have said.

But they are clearly worried that Russian military doctrine treats
tactical weapons as a potential element of conflict between ground
forces. And it was that doctrine that Mr. Biden indicated he is most
concerned about, because of the chances of rapid escalation.

Tactical weapons come in many sizes and varieties, most with a small
fraction of the destructive power of the bombs the United States dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. But they are hard to use and are
difficult to control. On Thursday, Mr. Biden said he did not think it
would be possible for Russia to use a tactical weapon and “not end up
with Armageddon.”

“We’ve got a guy I know fairly well,” Mr. Biden said of Mr. Putin at the
fund-raiser. “He’s 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.”

In late September, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan,
said that any nuclear weapon use would result in “catastrophic
consequences
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/25/us/politics/us-russia-nuclear.html>”
for Russia, adding that in private communications with Moscow, the
United States had “spelled out” how America and the world would react.
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