Biden must not risk Putin taking nuclear option
JOE BIDEN’S warning that the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is at its highest since the Cuban missile crisis was by anyone’s standards, a truly worrying, if not astonishing, statement.
As those looking on struggled to come to grips with what he’d just said, the US leader went even further, saying Vladimir Putin was “not joking” about using his arsenal of bombs.
Following a series of devastating setbacks in Russia’s war with Ukraine, Mad Vlad has made a series of thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons as he feels he has run out of options.
As the threats become seemingly more deranged, Biden felt it was his duty to warn of the seriousness of such menace, saying the risk of atomic war had not been as high since 1962.
“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Biden told a crowd of supporters at a Democratic Party fundraiser in New York.
“We are trying to figure out: What is Putin’s off-ramp?” he said, adding: “Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself where he does not only lose face but significant power?”
Biden’s doomsday threat reference was extremely unusual for any American president, and sparked understandable alarm among US allies.
Ever since the Cuban Missile Crisis, which took place 60 years ago this month, the White House has rarely spoken in such dark tones about the possible use of nuclear weapons.
Biden’s warning was designed to send an unvarnished message that no one should underestimate the extraordinary danger posed if Russia deploys tactical nuclear weapons.
His grim words rippled around the globe and appeared to edge beyond the boundaries of current US intelligence assessments.
It was an odd move on the president’s part but is not the first troublesome opinion Biden has expressed that caused unnecessary instability in Putin’s war.
In March, as he wrapped up a speech in Warsaw, Biden seemed to call for Putin’s ousting, saying: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power”, with people interpreting his words as suggesting the Russian leader needed taking out... permanently. Before Biden could even board Air Force One to begin the flight back to Washington, aides were rightly scrambling to clarify he wasn’t calling for an immediate change in government in Moscow.
But with Putin now backed into a corner by Ukraine’s battlefield successes, and appearing emotionally unstable, the last thing the conflict needs is to be made even more precarious by careless words.
Such use of nuclear weapons to protect illegally annexed portions of eastern Ukraine and deter direct Western military intervention is unthinkable.
The death and destruction from any such deployment would be widespread and undoubtedly lead to a much greater escalation.
But the very existence of nuclear weapons has extended the war in Ukraine indefinitely.
The only way to eliminate such a risk is to get rid of nuclear weapons.
The 2017 UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons provides a safe, verifiable way for all nations to achieve this goal. Rather than fuel the fire, Biden should lead by example by joining the treaty to avoid more Ukraine situations in the future.
At present, the world is one misunderstanding or miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.
Words have consequences. Biden would do better to watch his.
We are trying to figure out: What is Putin’s off-ramp?
Joe Biden