Who's Afraid of Vladimir Putin?

On taking threats seriously

On 13 September 2024 President Vladimir Putin was asked by Russian state media about the possibility that Ukraine would be allowed ‘to strike targets deep inside Russia using Western long-range weapons.’ Putin’s answer was typically belligerent. The issue, he noted, was not whether Ukraine would be able to hit Russian territory. It had been doing that for some time.  The vital point was that Ukrainians could not on their own use ‘cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West’ because they need ‘intelligence data from satellites’, and, even more important, ‘only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems.’

He continued:

‘If this decision is made, it will mean nothing short of direct involvement — it will mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine. This will mean their direct involvement in the conflict, and it will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict dramatically.’

‘This will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.’

This led to alarmed headlines about threats of nuclear escalation and earnest warnings about the need to take Putin’s threats seriously, including from Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat. Putin is after all leader of a nuclear power currently engaged in a desperate war. In such fraught circumstances ill-considered decisions could lead to disaster. On 21 September the nuclear message was underlined by a test firing of its newest ICBM, the RS-28 Sarmat, although the effect was diminished when the missile exploded in its silo, destroying the test site.

Putin’s warning was timed to influence a meeting the next day at the White House between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Keir Starmer, with some reports suggesting that a policy change might be forthcoming. As no decision on permitting Ukraine to strike deep into Russia was announced after this meeting, perhaps Putin’s threat had worked. This reinforced a long-standing complaint from supporters that Biden took the risks of a wider war with Russia far too seriously, with the paradoxical consequence of making one more likely. For if Ukraine loses its war because of Western timidity, goes the argument, then an emboldened Russia would soon turn against NATO countries.

Two individuals close to Donald Trump - the unlikely duo of Donald Trump Jr and Robert Kennedy Jr – wrote in The Hill to make the case for taking Putin’s warning very seriously indeed. A decision to allow ‘Ukraine to use NATO-provided long-range precision weapons against targets deep inside Russia’ would ‘put the world at greater risk of nuclear conflagration than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis.’ They accepted Putin’s claim that this would be interpreted as an ‘act of war’. Those who believe Putin is bluffing, noting the many red lines that have already passed, were dismissed as complacent about the dangers inherent in continually ‘goading the bear’, and ‘mistaking restraint for weakness’ (as if restraint has thus far been a feature of Putin’s war). They quoted President Kennedy  from 1963:

‘Nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.’

While the sceptics note the number of times that Putin has issued threats that led to nothing, Trump and Kennedy took each past utterance as an important signal. They made an astonishing claim:

‘This game of nuclear “chicken” has gone far enough. There is no remaining step between firing U.S. missiles deep into Russian territory and a nuclear exchange. We cannot get any closer to the brink than this.’

With no ‘vital American interest at stake’ and a claim that Russian war aims amount to no more than ‘Ukrainian neutrality and a halt to NATO’s eastward expansion’ they argued for ‘de-escalation’ and ‘finding a diplomatic off-ramp to a war that should never have been allowed to take place.’ They concluded:

‘Former President Donald Trump has vowed to end this war, but by the time he takes office, it might be too late. We need to demand, right now, that Harris and President Biden reverse their insane war agenda and open direct negotiations with Moscow.’

While the duo might have been reading what Putin says about escalation, they appeared to have ignored everything he says about negotiations, including his regular references to ‘new territorial realities’. At any rate with the Biden administration neither escalating nor negotiating the Juniors are left with an analysis that is currently looking a tad over-heated.

All this confirms what the Ukrainians already know – that however frustrated they might be with Biden that will be nothing compared to the trials that await them should Trump return to the White House. In the former president’s debate with Kamala Harris, when asked by moderator David Muir to  clarify his position (did he want Ukraine to win, yes or no), he replied:

‘I think it's in the U.S. best interest to get this war finished and just get it done. All right. Negotiate a deal. Because we have to stop all of these human lives from being destroyed.’

Which was at least succinct compared to the preceding jumble of words. Harris used her response to suggest that if Trump were president, ‘Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now’ adding that that this is why ‘our NATO allies are so thankful’ that he is not, and noting,

‘how quickly you would give up for the sake of favor and what you think is a friendship with what is known to be a dictator who would eat you for lunch.’

Just how much Trump might be prepared to give to Putin was illustrated a couple of days after the debate.